New Computer Advice Thread

[Vyacheslav]

None of those PCs are as decent as the CyberPower one I sent you... lol @ 512mb video RAM. Is this 2006?

[Slayr]

So if the set up I was going to have would be a normal desk and chair scenario I would buy something like this:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=2318
An if I was going to sit back from the monitor/TV I would buy something like this:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=3774

[smartalco]

So if the set up I was going to have would be a normal desk and chair scenario I would buy something like this:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=2318

Spend a bit more and get up to 1080p: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=4420

[Slayr]

I won't be getting a monitor as soon as I get the computer. I'm moving in a couple months and will decide on how to set up my computer/monitor then. Until then I will use the TV in the basement, it doesn't have the res I would like but it'll do for now.

[SlappyMcGee]

Can I just say that you guys should not buy monitors over the internet? Resolution and size are incredibly important, but that's about all you can learn about these monitors on the web, barring reading objective reviews of pictophiles. I would recommend going to a store and looking at the monitors themselves, to understand color quality, vibrancy, framerate, etc. Plus it is a lot easier to go to Best Buy and return the thing when it has a dead pixel than it is to go through the hassle of mailing it back in.

[Vyacheslav]

Can I just say that you guys should not buy monitors over the internet? Resolution and size are incredibly important, but that's about all you can learn about these monitors on the web, barring reading objective reviews of pictophiles. I would recommend going to a store and looking at the monitors themselves, to understand color quality, vibrancy, framerate, etc. Plus it is a lot easier to go to Best Buy and return the thing when it has a dead pixel than it is to go through the hassle of mailing it back in.

lol @ the idea of buying from Best Buy. I like going to Best Buy to check out whatever I'm interested in purchasing, but I'd never buy from them cause they usually have everything overpriced. Example: Yesterday I saw an NVIDIA 8400GS (an older card by today's standards, and a low-end one at its time regardless), on sale for $50. In October 2008, I bought the same card for $30 on newegg.

[Kablizzy]

Can I just say that you guys should not buy monitors over the internet? Resolution and size are incredibly important, but that's about all you can learn about these monitors on the web, barring reading objective reviews of pictophiles. I would recommend going to a store and looking at the monitors themselves, to understand color quality, vibrancy, framerate, etc. Plus it is a lot easier to go to Best Buy and return the thing when it has a dead pixel than it is to go through the hassle of mailing it back in.

lol @ the idea of buying from Best Buy. I like going to Best Buy to check out whatever I'm interested in purchasing, but I'd never buy from them cause they usually have everything overpriced. Example: Yesterday I saw an NVIDIA 8400GS (an older card by today's standards, and a low-end one at its time regardless), on sale for $50. In October 2008, I bought the same card for $30 on newegg.

Aye. We would charge $25 for a 12' Ethernet cable. Employee cost was about $1.25 for us. Which means cost to produce was in the child-labor range. Same with almost all accessories. Still, though - The employees almost always have good insight and are taught specifically to not bullshit you. Monitors aren't priced badly, especially if you can find one that's gone EOL (We had a 23" LED monitor last year that we just happened to find a stack of in the Warehouse, priced at $99. Suffice to say, the employees snatched up most of them, but still).

[SlappyMcGee]

The video card example was kind of weak anyway because video cards suck balls on the retail market. Of course you are going to have trouble going into a store and buying a video card for cheap, because PC consumers made the decision a long time ago to go exclusively net-based.

Which is a bubble I maybe don't understand. Newegg (and their like) seem to have constant stock and deals. Now, this makes sense to me because the manufactory process is incredibly cheap for making a video card. But then, the constant shift towards the future where old cards become nigh unsaleable in 2 years makes me wonder what they are doing with their stock and who is taking the loss; video card makers who undersell their product in the hopes of branding aware of the pending obsoletion, or Newegg (and their like) who buy the cards for a good price but end up with dead stock in two years.

[Slayr]

Which of these three monitors has the best specs for the price? I will go in the store tomorrow probably and look at them there to better see what they are capable of though.
http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/compare-r ... 3,10166975

[Vyacheslav]

I'd get the Samsung.

[smartalco]

Looks like you would about get what you pay for. The cheaper ViewSonic isn't spec'ed as nice, while the other two are pretty dang close. I' probably actually go with the other ViewSonic if it wasn't for the low number of ratings. I'd try to watch when you go in and see if they are 16.2 or 16.7 million colors and get the 16.7 if they are different. (16.2 is actually 262,000 with dithering, 16.7 will actually be 16.7, this is a pretty big difference)

[Apakenua]

Hello. I purchased a Windows XP computer running Windows Vista yesterday. Everything was fine and running smoothly. This morning, however, I tried to open a word document, nothing would happen. I tried clicking on my desktop shortcut to Microsoft Office Word Starter to see. Nothing happened. I tried troubleshooting the program; nothing happened. It just.Wont.Open.

[mediate]

Check the event viewer. See what background errors you're getting. You can find it in control panel -> administrative tools -> event viewer. You specifically need the system and application logs. See the ones with big fat red !'s on them Those are the important ones. One of them should be referencing winword.exe or something similar. Send us what those contain. You *may* have a lot of em.
EDIT: @ pavel, He said starter. That pretty much eliminates all but 2 options there. As well, he said vista. So ... I'm guessing office 2007?

[Vyacheslav]

What version of Word? 95, 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010, etc.

[Apakenua]

Check the event viewer. See what background errors you're getting. You can find it in control panel -> administrative tools -> event viewer. You specifically need the system and application logs. See the ones with big fat red !'s on them Those are the important ones. One of them should be referencing winword.exe or something similar. Send us what those contain. You *may* have a lot of em.
EDIT: @ pavel, He said starter. That pretty much eliminates all but 2 options there. As well, he said vista. So ... I'm guessing office 2007?

The computer began having start up issues, so we returned it.
I am now running a new one with Windows 7.
Still starter, but it's word '11.

[mediate]

I hope it runs well from now on. From the sound of it your returned computer was due for a reformat. So ... I hope the new one gives you no problems.

[jasdanu]

hey UZ the laptop i use i think is amazing.

its an ASUS k-series Model U46E. 14'' screen. working 6.89 GB RAM with 850 GB hard drive. weighs 4.49 pounds. Its battery life on full charge with the power saver option is 7 hours. with the balanced power option it is 5-6 hours. it is Windows 7 has a DDR3 graphics card (2 GB). 3 MP integrated webcam. and it cost me a total of $846 US dollars. fuckin amazing in my opinion. oh and its an Intel Turbo Boost 2.57 GHz i7 processor with the ability to create temporary core's when processing goes over for a brief time.

[Universezero]

I gotta say, that's pretty damn nice for $846.

[jasdanu]

its amazing. when i play skyrim on here (even though its just a 14'' screen) shit is hella smooth. soo glad i bought this. i think this is the link for it (and just checked this can get up to 8 hours of battery life on full charge).

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Lapt ... Id=4566459

[Tanner]

oh and its an Intel Turbo Boost 2.57 GHz i7 processor with the ability to create temporary core's when processing goes over for a brief time.

How many motherboards does it have?

[jasdanu]

oh and its an Intel Turbo Boost 2.57 GHz i7 processor with the ability to create temporary core's when processing goes over for a brief time.

How many motherboards does it have?

that im not too sure. Most likely one. It just has the ability to create hyper-kinetic cores that are are temporary (very temporary) to allow the main cores to cool down (its literally like from 1-10 seconds)

[jasdanu]

some of the stuff is off in my first description. I wrote it all off of memory. Got about 3 things wrong. 0.3 MP webcam not 3.0, UMA Graphics, 8GB DDR3 memory, 4.9 pounds not 4.49, and its only 1.1 inches thick.

[Tanner]

oh and its an Intel Turbo Boost 2.57 GHz i7 processor with the ability to create temporary core's when processing goes over for a brief time.

How many motherboards does it have?

that im not too sure. Most likely one. It just has the ability to create hyper-kinetic cores that are are temporary (very temporary) to allow the main cores to cool down (its literally like from 1-10 seconds)

Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with those. The thing about the hyper-kinetic cores, though, is that they tend to run on a much higher frequency than the rest of your CPU. Which basically means that you lose a lot of "computational momentum" when you switch between the two so it's really not that much of a benefit. If you overclock your motherboard to 3.6Ghz, you will probably see a big difference especially when you're online gaming with a full IP.

[jasdanu]

@Duchess of Awesome (sick name btw)
yea i know what you mean. But I rarely switch between both. It usually only happens when I turn my Laptop on or when i open up Skyrim. Otherwise everything runs on the normal cores.

[edolce]

If I were in your position, I would be waiting for the new Ivy Bridge processors that are to come out in the next couple of months. Though not the marginal performance boost that Sandy Bridge actually boasts off, the less power consumption will work to your advantage and gives you a more quiet run through the whole thing.

I guess it would still be up to you though how you are to make things keep up. just my two cents worth on the whole idea.