Buying a computer

[ciphergoth]

My desktop isn't fast enough to play DVDs. I think I want to buy a computer. Whole. I'll dual boot between XP and Linux; I guess I want about half a gig of memory and a nice big hard drive (120Gb or more). It doesn't have to be fast, you can't buy one that isn't way fast enough these days. I don't need a monitor; I already owe conflux £50 for a very nice one (or did I ever pay you? If not, are you at Bisexual Underground tomorrow?)

Who do you prefer to buy from? Recommendations so far include

http://www.scan.co.uk/
and of course http://www.dell.co.uk/ (but they insist on throwing in a monitor and speakers and suchlike)

UPDATE: Two people so far have suggested I buy an Apple. No further discussion of this possibility is needed. Thank you. Update to the update - the same goes for PS2s, thanks...

(PS I didn't do what I said I'd do - I went to Alternator. Blame goth peer pressure. Had a damn fine night though!)

Comments

[skx.livejournal.com]

http://www.novatech.co.uk/

[adjectivegail]

I bought myself enough parts to put together a working computer in 2001; my brother dictated to me everything I'd need and he made me get it all from scan.co.uk as in his opinion they were the best place to go. I had no problem with them, and was very happy with the results. But personally, I've no idea :)

[silverclear.livejournal.com]

I've just bought from Dell, am waiting for delivery - so this isn't a recommendation as such - but I bought without any peripherals by using the warehouse/outlet thing. PCs that have been built to an order but not sold, there's nothing wrong with them.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Well poo on you for going to Alternator and not coming to Popstarz! Glad you had a good time, though.

[ex-purplekaz150.livejournal.com]

I was at Alternator too, but I didn't see you. Left about 1.30 though, and we were on the metal floor most of the time.

[keirf.livejournal.com]

I once recommended Scan, but since then I've received several defective parts from them, as have a couple of people I know...

[djm4]

We went through a phase at Sibelius of custom-building stuff from Scan. It mostly worked, but they were very poor on the occasions when it didn't - quibbling like mad and refusing to replace stuff that didn't work claiming that we must have broken it when we put it together. And the computers just don't seem to last as well as anything we've got from Dell.

I'd regard this as 'anecdotal' rather than 'significant data', though.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

out of interest, how fast does a machine have to be to play DVDs?

[grumpy-sysadmin.livejournal.com]

Who do you prefer to buy from?

Well, for my next whole-computer purchase, I'll probably be going here (http://www.dealmac.com/). ("Look ma, it's Unix now." Also, "Plays well with Sony Ericsson phones.")

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Don't know. Faster than a 400MHz AMD K6-III - FWIW the quality of playback suggested it was only a bit underpowered. I doubt you can buy a machine so slow it won't play DVDs well these days, but it'd be good to hear that confirmed by someone more knowledgeable.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

http://www.apple.com have some very nice computers.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

Nice Hardware.
Shame about the Prices,
And the policy of keeping drivers secret crippling Linux's ability to use some of the nice hardware.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Stop right there. I really don't want a discussion of the pros and cons of buying Apple - I want to know where to buy a PC that runs Windows.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

I have a 1ghz athlon machine that's getting on for about 3 years old; it used to play dvds pretty well before I upgraded it to win2k. A current machine will probably be at least 2ghz, and probably more, so I doubt you'll have any trouble performance-wise with dvds.

[babysimon]

Of course these play DVDs if that's all you care about. Plus you can sprawl on the sofa while gaming.

These days I am very down on the idea of building your own PC. I built my current workstation and it really doesn't work well. The CD burner only makes coasters, and occasionally won't read CDs either. The HD intermittently causes ext3 to corrupt itself. And I don't know how to fix it - new motherboard? Drives? IDE cables? Who knows?

If I were buying for myself I'd definitely buy a brand name PC.

[babysimon]

Where is this warehouse/outlet thing?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I do not recommend Scan. Their attitude when returning anything broken is poor, their after-sales service is lacking, and when you return something they do not actually give you the money back on your credit card.

Locally, I would buy from World of Computers, but I don't know if they'll deal with London. They are honest, competent, and their stuff works.

PS2

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

Yep. That's what we bought to watch DVDs on. Or rather, I bought it for someone else to play games on, and for me to watch DVDs on (and to just now and then kick his ass playing DOA. and maybe to play DDR if I can prove I could be just a little less sucky than I was doing it in the arcade).

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Not tried 'em, but given that HP's business machines are offered in both Linux and XP flavours, they might be worth a look.

Update

[babysimon]

Oops, sorry.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I believe Aria sell complete machines - the company is good value, decent service and conflux gets trade prices. Worth a look.

Have heard bad things about Dell when things go wrong, but not necessarily any more than any other large company.

[countess-sophia.livejournal.com]

That's strange, as my my old K6 would play them OK. Mind you, I do have a really funky DVD drive (which writes and acts as a DVD ram too) so perhaps that made a difference.

Soph x

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

BTW, if you're looking for decent DVD playback, you'll go a long way to find a PC that can equal a good DVD player. I can point you at some Home Cinema resources if you want to try, but the price starts to skyrocket. TV-Out functionality is a particular problem.

I assume you'll be watching DVDs on your monitor as a break from doing other stuff, though?

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Seconded. For me they've always been fast and efficient as well as cheap.

[lovingboth]

That's right - I had a AMD K6-III/450, and it could just do it.

When I wanted a new PC, I looked at Morgan (www.morgancomputers.co.uk) until they had something too good to miss. A P4/2G cost me £299+VAT just over a year ago. At the moment, it looks as if they only have HP/Compaqs which are a mixed blessing.

Building your own is dead simple of course.

[lovingboth]

Yes. Avoid Scan. If it works, it's cheap. If it doesn't, it's very expensive because they don't give a shit.

[lovingboth]

They have a habit of using non-standard components, so upgrading/fixing the things can be difficult. Plus their delivery charge is outrageous. I think they still want you to agree that the contract is subject to Irish law too.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Thanks. The unfortunate thing though is that it seems their configurator is a bit broken compared to Scan's or Dell's...

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I don't own a TV at all, but I have a rather big monitor.

[lovingboth]

The basic question is 'what's the budget?'

You can get very nice kit, for a price, but it'll be half the price in a year's time. I've always gone for what was state of the art about a year ago and stuffed more memory in.

Is second-hand a possibility for you?

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Damn.

Scan tend to be fine unless something needs to be returned, and then they get a bit crap. I've only dealt with the business arm of Dell, and they were a nightmare.

[conflux.livejournal.com]

I don't need a monitor; I already owe conflux £50 for a very nice one (or did I ever pay you? If not, are you at Bisexual Underground tomorrow?)

No you never did, thank you for reminding me. Yes I'll be at the BU tomorrow and will be happy to talk computers then or more fun things. I've always found that buying trade price computer bits and building my own machine to be the cheapest way to get a decent machine. I have had to send bits back that didn’t work on a couple of occasions though so check the returns policy. The time consuming bit is always installing all the software. aria.co.uk do some good prices but there are cheaper places although they may not be as good.

[conflux.livejournal.com]

So why didn't you talk to me about your PC problems? Hardware can fail and it is often the memory, which can impact everything else. When hardware is failing I use a simple diagnostic program to pin point any problems so that I can fix it.

The same thing can happen with off the shelf computers. In my last company we found DELL and Simply Computers to both be a PITA about fixing faulty systems.

[conflux.livejournal.com]

Yep that is DELL all over.

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

MKC are right next door to them too, and have cheaper prices on about half the stock, more expensive on the other half. Last time I built a machine I went to WOC, bought half the gear, then walked next door and bought the other half.

[babysimon]

I didn't think you'd be in a position to help.

If you are, I would really appreciate it. I don't believe the problem is in the memory - memory faults tend to lead to distinctive compile failures on linux boxes and I haven't had any of those.

If you're up for helping me, could you send me an email or talk to me when I see you? I'm sure Paul's getting pissed off enough with the O/T comments here...

Aria

[babysimon]

Aria are currently spamming me - please don't use them.

Re: Aria

[conflux.livejournal.com]

Now you mention it, they have been spamming me too. I assume I can turn it off in my account page (or by telling them I will never order again if they don't stop) but haven't tried yet.

[ex-meta.livejournal.com]

Build one. All the vendors I know of use crappy parts. You can build a machine yourself that's faster, cheaper, quieter, smaller or more expandable, and more Linux compatible, and you won't have to put up with DVD-ROM drives that fail or won't rip CDs, or hard drives that whine.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I thought Aria made guitars? *puzzled*

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Scan tend to be fine unless something needs to be returned, and then they get a bit crap.

This was what I popped in to leave a comment about - I've heard nothing but dire warnings about Scan due to their incredibly poor after-sales. They do tend to be cheap, but not cheap enough to justify the incredible hassle of trying to get them to exchange something, apparently.

[silverclear.livejournal.com]

that's a fine question. try asking secretsloth (with some reference to how you got his email!) because he's my computer guy and without him I am nothing ;)

[simm42.livejournal.com]

Build one or pay a friend to build one for you

Most geeks are happy to make you a PC and charge say £50 for their time.

For the same price you will normally end up with a far better PC - though I can understand if you dont want the hassel of building one yourself.

[his-angel.livejournal.com]

i don't know how uk dell differs from us dell but ..
i have a dell that i absolutely love. Took some time getting used to the XP though since i had 98 before. my S.O.'s brother has a dell and a friend of ours we see frequently has a dell also. i've never had a problem. And someone else mentioned shipping ... Here Dell offers "free shipping" from time to time. Worse comes to worse, it can't hurt to call and let them know what you want to do and what you want w/o all the speakers, monitors and such and see if you can get a workable price.

His ~angel~