Techs Home PCs

I still have my first original PC. Of course I have upgraded so many time is not the same anymore. It started as a 486 Mhz and 4 Meg of memory. Thru the years I have upgrade with CD-Rom, sound card. Then I new motherboard with a 350 Mhz AMD, then a 400 and last a 500 Mhz. That is how far the motherboard will go. But upgraded the CD-rom to a Kenword multi bean (7) added a TDK burner, a Creative Sound Card with front inputs, 512 Meg of memory and NVidia Gforce 256. Still use it for internet, games, and my wife accounting job for a private company.

I just bought my wife a new laptop, a HP Windows Media 17" screen. My old HP printer die. Bought a new USB Cannon printer which the old computer had problem working with the USB so decided to buy the laptop.

My daughter had a old Compaq 266 Mhz the my wife boss gave it to me because it was broken. Repair it and my daughter use it for a couple of years until it had a fit with her IPod. So I bought her a new Apple laptop, but the old Compaq still works , just don't know what to do with it.

BTW, my computer is home made with an AMD 2000+ chip, a Sony DVD burner, a Nvidia 6600GT video card and 768 Meg a memory. The only problem I have is a want to upgrade to the latest, so I am waiting for Windows Vista, Quad chip from AMD, and the latest Nvidia video card.

So I can not get rid of my old PC's but I also want to have the latest in PC. I have Windows 3.1, Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP pro and XP Media Center and Apple OS X Panther. I use them old for new and old games. So...which category does that put me in?

is definitely worth a surf. I'll be checking it out in more detail.

Quite an active thread! The working title of the post I'm replying to is what appeals to me the most.

I have a Celeron 2.2GHz system which I've had for about 3 years with 512MB RAM, an nVidia FX5200 display card, 2x40GB HDDs, an 8x DVD-RW, and a DVB-T Tuner card. The display card I was given just a few days ago, though not really necessary as my entertainment side of using my PC boils down to just watching TV or playing Baldur's Gate (somewhat old game now but still gives hours of enjoyment for a long time yet to come, even through all the hardware advancements on the market so far).

I used to own a Sun 3/60. Would've liked to have kept it, but with the frequency of moving house, it just wasn't practical as it was so heavy. I still use Solaris 10 (x86) from time to time on the 2nd 40GB HDD, the pretension of it feeling like a big iron machine is good enough for me. My main PC usage is in Windows XP.

I support a small network of computers at a Church that have Windows98SE and/or WindowsXP, with a Debian Linux server. Most of the hardware and software was donated (believe it or not Microsoft donated the licenses for the Windows OS's - not so evil as many people think are they?). The hardware is quite varied.

Having said all that, I can say there are three things that prevent me from religiously recommending a certain hardware configuration: personal preference, money, and practicality. It does help to be an all-round IT support person because of these three reasons. Not everyone can afford bleeding edge hardware, not everyone feels the need to compete with their friends and their hardware either. I think there are just as many people in one camp as there are in the other. Personally, I'd rather 'support' others than compete with them. If you want to be paid to be an IT support person and you have some rather stubborn opinions about what people should or shouldn't be using, then you may just be losing out on potential support jobs.

Whatever works. Indeed!

I've decided to buy myself one of those for christmas. I was going to build an itx, but I keep getting asked how to do things on a mac. So now I'm curious and want to find out for myself (Macs are fairly rare in the UK where I come from). I'm also very into graphics which I'm told they're very good for.

I kind of the same way to busy with everybody elses computer to worry about mine although i did recently build a new one this last year pretty spiffy, but the one before that was well over 5 years so once in 5 every 5 years not exactly keeping up with the Jones.

(I apologize if this post is misplaced. Don't have the lay of the
land yet.)

I have a Sony PCG-N505VX (128MB, 6GB) that has become
somewhat unfriendly (strange WiFi behaviour, etc.). I think the
time has come for a fresh OS - either reinstall Win98SE or XP. (I
have XP Pro licenses available.) I use the machine for Word/
Office+web at meetings a dozen hours a week. Networking -
WiFi and wired - with my home network a priority (these days it
is sneaker-net, and it has only ever been willing to talk to
exactly one particular USB memory stick).

I'm thinking XP, FAT32, but I don't know if the installation is
likely to work. I guess I'll redo 98SE if needed, but I'm
concerned about no longer getting MS patches for all the
security holes.

I notice adeal is running a couple of these machines. Someone
else might have suggestions.

Thanks very much.

-David

I have a Carlos Fandango bleeding edge kind of PC at home.

Intel 3.2GHz Clocked to 3.4 but goes up to 3.8.
1.5 GB Ram
over 500GB of HDD space
Dual Flat Panel Monitors
Powerful MSI Graphics card (cant remember what model)
Magneto Optical Drive
DVD Reader and DVD-RW Drives

Its got 9 Fans in it to ensure its cool and no dust settles

It does everything i want and more. But Damn it makes a lot of noise with all them fans in it.

looking into getting a RAID and more RAM.. Maybe knock it up to 4GB.. lol

I have a Coolermaster Jet 7 on my Barton... the cpu temperature dropped from 56C to 42C when I put it on.

With a drop in core temperature like that I'll definately be looking at the upgraded version for my next cpu upgrade. Apart from that it looks pretty good too.

Well I built this system about 3 years ago so it has a Barton 2500+ cpu with a CoolerMaster Jet 7 heatsink and fan.

It original Had WinGlobal heatsink and fan but was running at about 56C at rest, so I tried the Jet 7 which reduced it to 42C. Even underload it rarely goes above 45C, so I'll be looking to see if i can use the updated version for my next upgrade.

It blows air across the whole of the die so you don't get the dead area in the centre as you would with a conventional fan.

Personally I prefer AMD's so I'll probably have a good look at the Arctic-Cooling Silencer 64 Ultra TC (SKT 754/939/940) and the Arctic-Cooling Freezer 64 Pro (SKT 754/939/940) when I upgrade.

Hence the large number of fans.

The problem i have is that the Base Unit is Tucked away between a Wall and a Desk so not much Air-Flow.

I recently changed everything around so i can be more comfortable while working on my computers... I've been known to sit here for days... lol

My second desktop is tucked in the trolley-desk behind the chair and the surge protector, all the plugs and the central base unit are on the righthand side so I can reach them easily. which means I have plent of air circulation and it's easy to vacumn round and keep the dust at bay.

The desk you can just see on the right I use for building on as it's got a nice non-conductive surface. But it's covered in junk right now... lol... my messy area. :)

It's nice having a room entirely dedicated to my pcs, and since it has it's own outside entry that's even better if I do decide to work for myself.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v391/lawli56/office.jpg

I'm incredibly paranoid about not sealing something correctly and frying every with some stray liquid..

I have a room fan pointed directly into my computer, running 3.06ghz/2gb ram/512mb Vid and it rarely gets above 41C.
Of course I manually hit the power level of the fan based on what I'm doing... general use 1 (low), higher end use (large photoshop images etc) 2 (medium), high end games and other heat generating tasks go on 3 (High).
Its only a temporary solution until I have the time and money to invest in a better cooling solution (will involve a new case, better heatsinks and many fans plus a controller unit).

Though on the flipside, my PC's interior is immaculate, everything looks brand new, not a speck of dust in there. Its been sitting there like that for six months now.

As for noise, I barely hear it as the speakers are between the Fan and I.

Needless to say, all drinks go on the other side of the desk (that liquid paranoia again!).

... which was very nice - had a 1.8 Athlon running at 3GHz. Biggest problem there was condensation, if you don't seal absolutely everything perfectly. Of course, these days I am much more environmentally friendly hence the water (although there is something about seeing your CPU temperature at -30 that brings a tear to the eye).

Cely, you are absolutely correct though - never mix water with electronics unless you are absolutely certain of what you are doing, or you don't mind getting it wrong & losing some money (& gear) - that's how I found out about condensation, video card go buh-bye...

Most reliable firewall ever!

(Does this put me in the other set here?)

I'm actually seriously interested in phase-change cooling rather than water cooling and more specifically the Asetek Vapochill Extreme Edition II Case or the Asetek Vapochill Lightspeed , but I'd have to be seriously overclocking a much more powerful cpu than I have at the moment and with the ?500+ price tags it's a project for the future when I'm a very well paid Systems Administrator. Until then I'll just have to dream of the OC'ing possibilities... LOL

Foulere,

Just a quick update.

Your observation "You don't seem to like anything that's fun about this line of business!" is only partially correct. I'm primarily a programmer/analyst who grew up on big iron and who remembers coding basic programs on paper tape and connections through a 200 baud acoustic couplers. So that probably qualifies me as 'old fart'. For me desktop hardware is a blessing and a curse - I now have more computing power on my desktop than I had in a roomfull of computers way back when... However, I'd rather not have to deal with hardware (it belongs in the back room.) Give me a business problem to solve or a program to write and I have a great time.

Anyway, I finally bit the bullet and picked up a flat panel monitor, all in one 'printer' and new dual processor machine. Everything works like a charm right out of the box. Now I have to get everything I use loaded on it, grrrrrr. With luck it will last me another 8-10 years.

What it comes down to is that what I do at work isn't what I want to do at home - for me life means more than techology and my daily workdose is enough - my home PC is a necessary evil.