Fair Labor Price

[shanpooter]

I'm curious to know where most of you guys get your computer hardware and software.  I want to build my next computer myself and am curious where to go for the best prices and quality products.  I am pretty good with computers, have upgraded and maintained all of my previous computers myself and know I can build my own.  But I don't know where to get the stuff.  I have bought parts from newegg and tigerdirect in the past, as they seem to have lower prices than any chain store around.  Are there any other places I can look to find good prices?

[Marvin Kosh]

If you're shopping on the web, you'll find there are sites that compare prices for computer parts.  This can save you from being ripped off, but more importantly it means that online shops have to price competitively anyway.

[witch]

I keep hearing newegg(sp?) being mentioned as a good site for prices.

[RainbowTigress]

Check out Pricewatch.com

[Twibil]

Dells are ripoffs.  They use substandard, bare-minimum parts, often lacking in upgrade options. They charge outlandish prices, the cases are ugly and bloated, wasting immense amounts of deskspace because they tend not to stack well, not being properly blocky, and funny-colored to boot. And they COST TOO DAMN MUCH considering how many corners are cut in the parts, and they have weak cooling systems and are thus prone to overheating....or would be, if it weren't for the fact that their parts are so lousy that they can't actually put out any heat because you can't *DO* anything with them.

My husband bought me a Dell Laptop for my B-day last year.  I haven't had any problems with it. 
I like my Dell Laptop.

**hangs head in shame**

[witch]

Every tool has it's place, if the tool you use is fit for the use and you haven't had any problems... then you're one up on the universe.

[RainbowTigress]

I am going to tell my brother-in-law what Pescado said about Dells, even though he has no idea who Pescado is.  I know he'll get a kick out of it. 

[Tgdrysix]

The other "site" I'm looking at for parts is ....www.xoxide.com....not a large site but has very reasonable case prices....good luck to you too.....wish I had the know-how and the nerve to attempt this myself.....I know my weaknesses and I'm not afraid to show it.... ....tgdrysix

[Tgdrysix]

"My husband bought me a Dell Laptop for my B-day last year.  I haven't had any problems with it.
I like my Dell Laptop"

Don't feel bad I have 4....2 laptops and 2 desktops.....never really had issues with them other than I need more "gaming power" for my sims than my desktop has and it would be almost as expensive to up grade than to start from scratch....besides I want my desktop for personal computer stuff and my gaming computer for gaming stuff only.....so if I have an issue with one it won't effect the other.... ....tgdrysix

[Tgdrysix]

I am going to tell my brother-in-law what Pescado said about Dells, even though he has no idea who Pescado is.  I know he'll get a kick out of it. 

Tattle Tail..... ....Tgdrysix

[RainbowTigress]

With laptop/notebook computers, you really don't have a choice but to buy a name brand computer since AFAIK you can't build these yourself yet, so you are stuck paying their prices.  Laptops also tend to be behind desktops as far as techology, and the parts cost more than their desktop counterparts because they have to fit into a smaller form factor.

[witch]

and you can't get spare parts for as long as you can for desktop models - again the special design for that particular form factor.

I've been told Sony is best but priciest, Toshiba is very good and not so pricey. I'm going for a toshiba when I've paid for the camera and the car... sigh.

[RainbowTigress]

I have an old Toshiba laptop my ex-husband picked up used.  I was using it to surf the web and stuff as a secondary computer even though it was very slow because of the older processor and small amount of memory.  But the battery was getting bad because it would not hold a charge.  I mainly just used it plugged into the electricity though, but one day it would not boot up at all.  I figure the battery must have just given out although I had it plugged into the electricity and I tried using an unfolded paper clip to press the reset switch.  I looked up replacement batteries online, and it seems that they run about $50.  But I can't figure out how to get to the battery, or else I'd see if I could replace it.  Any ideas on what to do with it?  My grandma is interested in buying it from me to play games.

[witch]

They usually just unclip from the bottom of the case somewhere. My old laptop battery doesn't work but it does still go when it's plugged into the mains. Are you sure it's the battery?

[RainbowTigress]

Not 100%, but it was going out, and that's all I could think of that it could be.

[witch]

You might need to look inside, check everything is connected & seated, one of the things that go in laptops are the plugs along the back & sides, things are swopped in and out much more frequently than with a desktop PC.

It does sound like a power thing. Though if the mainboard is dead you wouldn't even get a startup type beep. Were you experiencing any weirdness in performance before it stopped booting? Hanging or freezing or weird graphics or anything?

[RainbowTigress]

Not that I remember.  I will get it out sometime and try it and see what happens.  I don't remember a beep or anything when I turned on the power switch.

[witch]

I mean when the board starts up, when you push the power button to make the laptop start. If the laptop has power but the board is dead it won't beep. But if you're not sure about whether it's getting power, I don't know. You said it had no lights too, I think.

Sometimes wiggling my connections seems to work.    I'm just learning the technical side, you probably need to ask someone to look at it. Do you have a pet techie?

[RainbowTigress]

My bro-in-law is the one I usually go to with PC questions, but he doesn't know a lot about laptops.  I pulled it out of the closet and plugged it up to see what happened.  I was surprised when it actually booted up.  It said Resume failure, which I wasn't really surprised about.  It said to hit any key, which I did, and it loaded Windows and wanted to do scandisk, so that's what it's doing now.  I'm not sure what happened. 

One thing I noticed, I was trying to make sure the fan wasn't blocked when I set it down, but I couldn't tell any air was coming out.  I looked closer, and the fan is not moving.  I'm not sure I remember it ever moving.  I never looked that closely before.  I did think it was odd that I never felt any air coming out, but I thought maybe it was just so small because it was a laptop.  I wonder if that has anything to do with it?  I don't really want to put much money in it if it's not worth it.  But if I sell it to my grandma, I want to make sure it's going to work ok.

[witch]

I know one of the things my techie ex-partner used to do was literally clean out machines. They can collect a lot of dust over the years, a hairdryer on cold would probably be OK. I've seen him use a vacuum cleaner on blow, but don't know if I'd be that brave. 

Then you could see if the fan is moving or not.

[RainbowTigress]

My bro-in-law recommends doing this once a month.  He cleaned out mine really good once, even took apart the front panel.  He has an air compressor, though.  He says it's cheaper than buying cans of compressed air, which is what I've been using.  But I don't have the money or space for one right now...so I'll keep using the compressed air unless I can manage to get him to do it when he has a rare spare moment.    He has it in his garage, and it is horribly loud, but it sure gets the dust out.

EDIT:  I just checked on the laptop, and it is still running scandisk.    It's not even gotten very far.  But the fan is moving now, where before it definitely was not.  I can feel air coming out.  The underside is very warm, but I read a while back that it is a known fact that these laptops get warm near the power supply when plugged into the electricity.  I just try to be very careful.  It is too warm to sit on your lap for long.

[witch]

My old laptop is a 300Mhtz and also is too hot to sit on my lap. Good for surfing, typing, emails and kids games for the holidays.

PS If it won't complete the scandisk, you may have hard drive problems. There's something in scandisk that allows you to ignore sectors with errors, I had to do that on my old one, luckily the errors don't seem to have cascaded out of the blocked area, it's been like that for several years now.

[Ellatrue]

WELL YEA !!!! .....that's why I'm having one built....  .....so does he seems soooo expensive now?......tgdrysix

Because he thinks you're stupid and is trying to rip you off. Just order the parts and assemble everything yourself. It's not really hard, everything goes in a specific labelled slot and can't really go anywhere else.

Just order the parts and assemble everything yourself  Okay come clean you just want to point and laugh at me!!!! .....I don't care if the dang slots were color coded and had specific instructions like "put this here you blundering idiot".....I don't think I would even attempt this....ordering the part myself ..... well I'll probably wind up doing that.....that I could possible handle......the other just go ahead and have a good laugh.....tgdrysix

Don't be afraid of it, I built one with my dad when I was ten- people freak out when they look inside computers, and think it is some kind of rocket science, but it really isn't. It's just plugging together a few parts that can't fit in any other way, and if you screw up, the worst that can happen is that it won't work when you start it up right away, and you have to move something. Dealing with software is hard, hardware is easy.

[RainbowTigress]

Dealing with software is hard, hardware is easy.

I've always found the opposite to be true for me.  I could handle software great, but the hardware was a bit of a challenge for me.  I'm learning more about hardware though, now.  Mostly because I'm forced to since my ex-husband used to deal with all the hardware stuff when we were together.  My bro-in-law helps me but he's not there 24/7, but he does like to talk and he could talk about computers forever.  So I have learned a lot from him in the last couple of years.  Plus, Google is our friend.    There is so much more information out there now than there used to be, and it's helpful to have another PC where you can get online and look stuff up when your other PC is laying on the desk with its guts spread out. 

You do indeed learn the best by doing things yourself.  The most important thing to be aware of, though, is ESD (electrostatic discharge).  Static electricity is your PC's worst enemy.  So always power down your PC (duh!) before working inside, and disconnect from the power supply.  My brother-in-law even told me the other day to press and hold the power button after disconnecting from the power to totally discharge the electricity that is held inside the motherboard.  I had a memory stick go bad, and he said they are the lowest voltage component at only 3v, so they are very sensitive to any kind of static discharge.  Always make sure you discharge any static electricity you may be carrying by touching the metal frame of the case before touching any of the components inside.

[J. M. Pescado]

I've been told Sony is best but priciest, Toshiba is very good and not so pricey. I'm going for a toshiba when I've paid for the camera and the car... sigh.

Whoever told you that lied. Sony makes shit laptops. The AC adapters are intentionally designed with a mean-time-to-failure that happens to be just slightly longer than the warranty will last. Don't buy those. Secondary RAM jack is also made in a similar manner.

Really, laptops are very very expensive, and if you want to get a good one, you basically have to custom order them. They'll run you about $25K, but mine will survive being submerged to a depth of 2500 feet, being dropped from a height of 4 floors, and can be used as a bulletproof riot shield and withstand a direct hit from an AK-47 at 100 meters and still be unscathed. Mild drawbacks include being the "incredibly portable 42 pounds" (actually more like 50), and of course, as with all laptops, the impressive battery life of one half of ten minutes. Fortunately, mine has two battery ports which thus enable the battery to be hotswapped, so you can carry the extras you need on a bandolier.