Technical Tidbits™

Posts Tagged ‘Maxtor hard drive’

It’s really quite a shame but I’ve been in the PC/Tech business for nearly 15 years and except in the earlier years, I have been the one with the crappiest computer!

Well, this one is on it’s last legs. I am on the PC more hours than I’m off and I give my machines a tough workout. In the early morning hours, I’m checking my Yahoo mail, my MySpace friends, and I play a few games. After the shower, it’s back on to my business and students e-mail, answering my class discussion area, handling other client requests, and maintaining several websites for myself personally and my clients. Then, there’s the writing of my courses for my company website, textbooks, eBooks, reports, my company blog, and the list goes on.

Needless to say, I’m on the darn thing for over 10 hours a day literally – breaks included!

My P4 is about on it’s way out. I’ve been having nothing but difficulties with it holding on to memory when using my graphic applications, and cutting me off FTP mid-stream. I reboot and everything is fine. But God forbid if I dare keep my Thunderbird e-mail open while doing anything else!

So, Friday evening, thanks to a client contract renewal, I was able to order my new PC! WHOO HOOO!

I was going to order this HP Pavilion a6317c Refurbished Intel Desktop PC.., but while I was out doing errands, my housemate called and said, “I found your new PC!”

It seems, that while I was gone, he received an e-mail from TigerDirect.com that had a barebones PC on sale for $199.00!

So, when I got home I checked it out and what a deal! WOW!

I ordered a PCChips A13G+ Barebone Kit . It contains:

• PowerUp Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side and 450-Watt Power Supply
• PCChips A13G+ (V3.0) Motherboard – NVIDIA GeForce 6100, Socket AM2, MicroATX, Audio, Video, PCI Express, 10/100 Ethernet LAN, USB 2.0, Serial ATA
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+2.30GHz OEM Processor ADO4400IAA5DO, Processor Speed: X2 4400+ / 2.30GHz and Cache Size: 1MB
• Maxtor 200GB Hard Drive – 7200, 8MB, ATA-100, PATA
• Lite-On LH-20A1S SuperAllwrite SATA OEM DVD Burner
• Crucial 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 Memory

Yes! All of that for $199.00!

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what the catch is, right?

There is none. The only thing you have to understand about barebones is that you need to put it together. And you need to read what isn’t included.

In the situation of this special, there is no Operating System and the CPU fan is not included, but Tiger gives you a recommendation on the ordering page and allows you to add it to your cart. I also chose to upgrade the memory by adding another 1 GB stick bringing me up to 2 GB. And I had to order the thermal paste to use on the CPU.

Since I’ll be wiping my current drive, I am free to use my Windows XP CD for the new PC hard drive. As long as it’s my PC and I’m only running one copy, I’m not in violation of the licensing agreement. However, I did order a copy of Vista Home Basic just so I can have it installed on a dual boot with my XP which then allows me to teach Vista. (Something I would really not like to do, but unfortunately, people are getting stuck with it, so they need to learn!)

So, you might be saying, “But Debbie, you’re a techie, you know how to put these things together! I don’t have a clue!”

Okay, so here’s the clincher! How about a video that shows you what you have to do to finish putting it together?

So if you go this page: PCChips A13G+ Barebone Kit -.. and scroll towards the bottom, you’ll see the Video Installation Guide link!

So you could actually do it yourself and save lots of bucks too!

I also wanted to mention that on the HP Pavilion I was going to buy, they only included a 250 Watt power supply. That is the bare minimum of power you should have and you need to add about 50 watts for every additional device you add to your PC.

If you don’t have enough power going to your devices, they get “starved” and fail sooner. So be careful of that when ordering any PC! I don’t understand why HP would even think of putting in such a low watt power supply anymore! But then again, they didn’t consult me!

By Monday, I’ll have my brand new dual core here! Now, to transfer everything! Sigh. A technicians work is never done! (Laughing)