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

[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.

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).

Update

[babysimon]

Oops, sorry.

[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.

[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...