COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

[Hasbeen]

Ok, I want to learn computers quickly, so I build my own! After six months I finally quite upgrading and decide to boot it up and wala, it works! Did I save any money? (NO) Did I leard a lot? (YES) Would I recomend doing this to others? (ONLY IF YOU ARE WANTING AN EDUCATION!) Was it worth it? (YES)!! $1000.00 later!(just for the computer)<br /><br />So everything is going great, best computer I ever had!! All of a sudden it wont dial up to the internet! First thing I do is plug a phone into the same connection to see if it is the phone plug, It works fine, then I check the cable, Its fine, I then spend every available hour messing with it, getting info off the internet here at the shop then going home and trouble shooting! Nothing I do works! Then Last night I decide to run a long phone cord into another room to check the connection again and wala!! It works! I find out the wall plug twhich was the very first thing I checked is at falt, works on the phone but not on the computer! How does a wall plug go bad just sitting there???<br /><br />Frustration!! <br /><br />Hasbeen

 

[roscoe]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

Cheap wall plugs and cheap cord plugs don't always line up right.<br /><br />It took you 6 months to slap that baby together?<br />Why so long?<br />I spent a few weeks reading, a few hours on ebay, and a day assembling and installing.<br /><br />If you use a dial up modem, get a spare.<br />I have had terrible luck with them over the last ten years. Spend $20 on a spare and put it in the desk till you need it.

 

[Hasbeen]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

Why six months?? Well I bought the case , then changed my mind, sold it then bought an aluminum case, bought a motherboard, decided to upgrade to another one! Bought CPU, Then decided to get a better one! Get the Picture?? I wasnt in a hurry as I already had one! (A computer) Then when I finally put it together I had a faulty Mother board! Just messed around and bought parts as I could afford them! Once i had all the parts together It went quick like you said!<br /><br />Hasbeen

 

[Link]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

BTDT! Built my first 4 or 5 PC's and after just<br />bought a PC in a can! Kept it from 97 to last year<br />then up graded everything in the case.. <br />dial up modems... yea I remember them to..<br />first one was a 300 baud with a commie-door<br />VIC-20 back in the early 80's..times have changed!<br />

 

[Homerr]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

I'll always build my own PC from now on. I'll never buy one from a store again.<br /><br />It may cost me a few bucks more, But I know darn well what's inside. Besides, I love to do it. It's fun piecing and parting things together.<br /><br />You can put a PC together in about an hour or so. <br /><br />Getting the software to talk with all the hardware....Now that's another story!<br /><br />H.

 

[Link]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

Man I've been there

 

[wikelam]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

I wont build it from scratch, but will add or delete parts as neccesary. Have a buddy that will build them for me for his cost.

 

[roscoe]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

Hasbeen, I wasn't trying to pick on you, just curious. I figured somethin mighty important might have distracted you from the task. You know, like hookin up with a new woman or buying a new boat.<br /><br />My latest computer was a barebones internet purchase, because i needed a new power supply and a larger case. Then I added a network card, 2 ata133 harddrives, cdrom, burner, 2 more fans, zip drive, and 640mb ddr333 ram. Its a real stable combination of the right components, but I'd dump it all for a new Mac, if only my satellite isp would support Macs.

 

[vidar]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

just run virtual pc on mac....then it thinks its a pc...(makes it stupid)....

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

check the polarity of the phone jack you first tried - likely reversed - that may be why phone works but modem does not. You can swap the wires and try it or pickup a polarity checker at a place like RadioShack.<br /><br />I've been in the compueter industry since the early 80s - on TRS80 days. Built tons of machinces. Tons. In this day and age, I would never bother building one from scratch when you can get a great machine from Dell ready to go out of the box for a fraction of the price and zero time investment.<br /><br />Problem with building your own, unless you are buying quality compenents sealed in the original box you never know what you are gettting. Could have defects that don't show up all the time or right away. You spend a lifetime chasing ghosts and wrongly cursing Microsoft.<br /><br />If you build your own or upgarde only trust memory from Crucial or Dell. Just about everything else is junk that fails randomly. Independent tests show that most of the cheap ram out there is junk.

 

[Scoop]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

I build my own also. I know I get quality parts. I don't save money, but I do get a long lasting computer with no problems.<br /><br />Good memory is essential. Watch when you are upgrading though. The last computer I troubleshot, htye put in 3 DIMMS, all the same size, all the same size matrix. Two were 4 chip, then other was 8 chip and it created intermittent failures. I have seen that before.<br /><br />I have also seen memory that has counterfeit chips on it. The chips were sanded down, then remarked (I keep an example in my desk at work). Find a good place to buy your components that is trustworthy. Saving a few bucks now just to send your part in for reapir and then the company goes out of business costs more than the few bucks saved.<br /><br />Quality components.<br />- Asus motherboards (Chaintech are also very good but not too many companies carry them.<br />- Crucial memory<br />- Western Digital Caviar Hard Drives(Not their consumer brand, Good deals can be had at the Western Digital website.<br />- ATI, NVidea video cards. Some like Asus<br />- TDK CD-Rs, Lite on work well especially if you need to make backup copies of your game CDS<br />- Pioneer DVD Writers<br />- Toshiba DVD drives work very well<br />- PC Power and Cooling Power supplies and extra fans. A good power supply is essential. Don't skimp here<br />- PC Power and cooling carries a good value case. Not fancy, but has everything where it is needed lots of space and no sharp edges.<br />- You also should find a place to buy your operating system as an OEM instead of full retail. When building a new computer, you can get $100 off the retail for a real not counterfeit copy of XP pro. You do have to buy at least one component (Cheap $2 mouse) to get the OEM pricing. BCD2000 on the web, or get LINUX and stay away from the man. <br /><br />Some of you may disagree especially on the hard drives. Every company has made good and bad hard drives, but sticking with one that is either rated to be on all the time (Costs $) or one that has a 3 year warranty is good. Western Digital stands behind their drives also. No hassels. No matter what, stay away from Fuji right now.

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

On the subject of computers. I am getting cable today and they will have to put in some kind of card to hook to as my puter don't have one.<br />What do they do to do this?<br /><br />Do they take the puter apart or what?

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

SBN - sounds like they need to put a NIC (network interface card) AKA Ethernet card in - your computer communicates with the Cable Modem via ethernet. They need to open the case, insert the card into a free bus slot on the mother board and install the drivers (software that tell the computer how to use the card).<br /><br />How old is your computer? All new ones are sold with NICS already installed and usually integrated right on the motherboard. Do you have a jack on the back that looks like a phone jack but has a phone with a line through it and/or LEDs near the jack? If so, you already have a NIC.<br /><br />If you have a laptop 99% chance it has an integarted NIC, otherwise, you need to install a PCMCIA card (little credit card sized card) that slides into the side of the computer.

 

[pjc]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

check out computer geeks--on line order house---<br />great prices---real good cust. service in my experience- web page

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

hot dog, i'm moving now.<br />man this is fast

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

Woo Hoo - SBN speeding around the Internet!<br /><br />Re the Computer Geeks:<br />Although I may again buy from the Geeks again, I have had more problem orders with them than should be expected. Bad motherboards, bad CD-R, Bad floppy drive, and missing compnents from a label printer I just bought. They are pretty good about replacement/return though. They just aren't my first choice for anything any more.

 

[pjc]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

congrats on the tune up SBN--i'm stuck w/ dial up in my neck of woods--no cable or dsl available- -cable company are not interested in wiring the town--most folks on dtv--crummy virizon (phone)won,t-don't offer dsl--i could go the sat route, too pricey imo-- <br /><br />at work have broadband wow--speed city--can download few meg files in meer seconds-- <br /><br />anyone use mcaffees "internet speedometer"??--do a search in goggle "internet speed" to find a link. best i can get dialup is 40 or so.<br /><br />Ralph, i never had problem w/ geek stuff, cases, boards, etc. just lucky i guess.<br /><br />(edit)-- speedo link

 

[Ralph 123]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

Na Pat, I think I've just been unlucky <br /><br />I just bought one of those casio label printers from them and they sent it w/o the tape They did send a replacement though.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

SBN,<br />Glad to hear you now have a high speed connection! You might really want to consider picking up a Hard Firewall (router) . They are cheap and offer protection by making it harder for the bad guys to hack your computer. Linksys and D-Link have cheap routers with built-in firewalls for this purpose. The up side of having a router is that you can connect more than one computer to it and those computers will share the high speed connection.

 

[Tacklewasher]

Re: COMPUTERS, LOVE HATE

Ditto to Xcusme.<br /><br />With Cable you have a pretty fixed computer address (IP address) and even when it does change (you won't know or care) it is still in a certain range. Scumbags out there keep looking for computers within the address range and if they find one, will then hack into your system.<br /><br />A cable router is the best protection and is cheap. D-Link or Linksys are fine as are others. Should be under $100.