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From: Douglas Mayne on 12 Jan 2010 11:39
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:21:08 +0000, rm wrote:

> Yep, that's us. The Dell xps 420 exploded.
<snip>
> We are speaking from a secondary machine now, patiently waiting for the
> stores to open, so we can go out and buy a new motherboard/hard drive
> combo.
>
> Anybody have any suggestions?
>
I guess it depends on your budget, but personally I would go with a
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard with an Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo CPU. Add
DDR2 RAM according to budget. 2G is sufficient for a single purpose
workstation, but add more for virtualization, etc. YMMV. For storage, a
dual 1 TB (for a RAID 1 array) will set you back about $200. Slashdot
recently featured an article about nVidia's sweet spot $100 graphic
adapter; I'd look for something in that class- I am not a gamer. You'll
probably need a new box and power supply to hold the above- say 400 to
500W. IMO, that alone precludes reusing the Dell box. To get the best
deal, I'd look online. At least here, there are fewer and fewer local
retail options because all of the bankruptcies have left a lot of empty
big box stores. One caveat: building your own box is fun, but it can be a
little bit tricky. I sometimes sweat a bit when installing the CPU and
fan.
>
> We are going to split the new hard drive into two partitions and do a
> dual boot. Unfortunately we lost our pirated windoze 7 so we will have
> to download another. The other side of the drive will be slack 13.0.
>
External drives make an excellent backup medium to hold dated backup
snapshots. As external drives get cheaper and bigger ($100/TB is an
unbelievable value), there really isn't a reason to "lose" things
anymore. Unless that is your strategy for starting over ;-)
>
> Everything simple. That's the best way to do it.
>
The "simplest" solution would be to accept whatever "hot" box that is
offered at retail and pay the asking price. That is much simpler than
building the box for yourself. You can get down to some real work right
away. It will most probably come with W7 Home, etc., and it will have
everything included. It is expected that the end user will never touch
the "internals" at all; let alone repartition the hard drive. That might
"void your warranty." To keep things simple, you could opt for an addon
service contract for future "tune ups" and AV scans. Antivirus infection
is the gift that keep giving at computer retail. How else are you going
to justify $70 OS reinstalls/AV scans? Then there is this sales gem:
"Wouldn't you just rather have this new and shiny box, instead of dealing
with that virus-infected tangled mess?"

So, I guess it depends on a lot of things, including your definition of
simple. I like to keep Windows locked up in VMs. IME, most people find
the "shine" coming off pretty quickly with Windows. YMMV.
<snip>
>
> cordially, as always,
>
> rm
>
Note: comments inline.

Here is my opinion on what hardware to get, even though your post is a
bit off topic for aols. At least it was mostly cordial ;-)

--
Douglas Mayne
From: D Herring on 13 Jan 2010 00:45
Douglas Mayne wrote:
> Slashdot recently featured an article about nVidia's sweet spot $100 graphic
> adapter; I'd look for something in that class- I am not a gamer.

For non-gamers, I've found today's integrated graphics solutions to be
more than adequate (i.e. decent gaming is possible). For example, the
M3N78-VM I bought my parents a few months ago supports DX10 with its
GeForce 8200.

Spend the extra cash to get 4GB of ram and a wacom tablet or better
speakers or DNS registration.

- Daniel
From: barnabyh on 13 Jan 2010 07:40
On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:46:14 -0000
"Martha Adams" <mhada(a)verizon.net> wrote:

> ===================================================
> > Anybody have any suggestions?
>
> Yes. Mine is, make up your new machine with one or two adapters
> for removable HDs. If someday you must permanently depart
> your premises almost instantly, you surely cannot carry the
> whole machine with you but you probably can grab out the HD.
> If you made the machine that way.
>
> Titeotwawki -- mha [2010 Jan 13]
>
>

Good advice. But really, why would that be?

--
The general public is a bunch of morons who destroy the fun and life in
everything it collectively touches. Disney is what the public wants.
NASCAR is what the public wants. Windows is what the public wants.
(Comment on Slashdot, Monday March 28 2005, @11:02AM, Gnome
Removed From Slackware.)

From: Loki Harfagr on 13 Jan 2010 08:03
Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:40:35 +0000, barnabyh did cat :

> On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:46:14 -0000
> "Martha Adams" <mhada(a)verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> ===================================================
>> > Anybody have any suggestions?
>>
>> Yes. Mine is, make up your new machine with one or two adapters for
>> removable HDs. If someday you must permanently depart your premises
>> almost instantly, you surely cannot carry the whole machine with you
>> but you probably can grab out the HD. If you made the machine that way.
>>
>> Titeotwawki -- mha [2010 Jan 13]
>>
>>
>>
> Good advice. But really, why would that be?

too many to count, fire, flood, riot, war, locusts, eruption, salesmen storms...
From: rm on 13 Jan 2010 19:09
Martha Adams <mhada(a)verizon.net> wrote:

> Yes. Mine is, make up your new machine with one or two adapters
> for removable HDs. If someday you must permanently depart
> your premises almost instantly, you surely cannot carry the
> whole machine with you but you probably can grab out the HD.
> If you made the machine that way.

Pretty paranoid, eh, Martha? Got a little crop goin' in the closet?

Wouldn't want to lose that customer base to the wrong hands, eh?

But we hear you. In fact, the Dell has two easily removable disk
cavities in the side and since we never leave the sides up...

Thanks to all for the advice.

cordially, as always,

rm
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