Posted by eric lee on November 27, 2006 at 11:26 AM
I'm told that the hard drive in my (not very) old PC is about to check out, and that it's so volatile now that I should only ever open anything to make backups. Damn. So now I'm assembling a new PC out of, well, this'n that....
& the geek down the street says something about new grahics cards, and my wife says something about there are different kinds of short-term memory, and I killed the old hard drive, robust numbers and all, with too many Tiff documents. What kind of graphics card(s) should I get? And what about hard drives, other than the general principle that bigger numbers are better?
Meanwhile thousands and thousands of slides are blithely unaffected by all this drama.....my God, what happens if one's done digital capture and something like this happens?
Posted by Mark Hudon on November 27, 2006 at 11:52 AM
The hard drive that had my "Top Select" photo folder on it, died the day before I got a new computer. It cost me two hundred bucks and about ten hours to get them back.
Put it this way, if there is a fan, the s--t will hit it.
Posted by Rick Lamb on November 27, 2006 at 1:24 PM
I would add that there is ALWAYS a fan for the S**T to hit and sooner or later it does just that. I'm a systems admin for a large global aerospace entity up here in Seattle. As such I am a hopeless paranoid when it comes to backups. I have written my own scripts that use a free copy tool (robocopy) from Microsoft. I also make DVD's that get stored offsite from our home/business.
As far as graphics cards we use nVidia's GeForce 7900 GS in our Dell XPS 600's. We are totally pleased with both the video cards and the Dell PC's. If you are going the Microsoft way for your next PC I can't say enough good things about Dell. I do recommend holding back on going to Vista until the rest of the hardware world catches up with drivers ready for Vista.
Eric if you want send me an email and I'll be glad to share my phone number and talk this over the phone.
Posted by Erik Lundh on November 27, 2006 at 9:54 PM
I always double and sometimes triple backup my files and images. I learned the hard way when I lost everything about four years ago. As for a computer, I just hate to get pre-made desktops. They are usually hard to upgrade because of a lack of expansion slots. I buy my own components which are best for what the computer will be used for. It's usually less expensive and not very difficult.
I'm in the market for a new computer as well, and was looking at the Dell's. Erik, do you have recommendations for customizing a computer? The Dell I'm looking at is $1999 complete setup. How sure are you that I can buy parts separately for less? In the past I wasn't able to beat their prics when comparing apples to apples (not Apple).
Kevin
Posted by Erik Lundh on November 29, 2006 at 10:36 AM
Well,
I just helped a friend set up his new D. He wanted his old hard drive placed in his new computer for a secondary storage drive. There wasn't a slot to put another hard drive. I had to disconnect his dvd drive and plug that cable into his old hard drive So I could transfer the files to his new drive. The cables almost didn't reach. His motherboard seemed pretty barebones. There was only two slots for ram. Come to think I don't think there was a slot to put a graphics card. It had onboard graphics. I think he paid around $899 for it. I guess the good thing about a dell or say a Compaq is the come with an OS and other software. If you put together your own system, you know exactly what your getting.
Posted by Rick Lamb on November 29, 2006 at 1:10 PM
As far as Dell goes it depends on which model one buys from them. The Higher end Dell XPS PC's are loaded to the gills with expandability. We have two Dell XPS 600's and I couldn't be happier with them. The bummer is Dell doesn't offer the XPS 600's anymore so my advice would be to go with the XPS 700.
The Dell Dimension PC's are more plain jane PC's. I recommend staying away from those if you want to be able to add RAM, a video card, and/or hard drives going forward.
Posted by Bryan Swan on November 30, 2006 at 3:20 AM
FWIW, I've never had good dealings with Dells. Haven't dealt with their XPS series, but my Dad has had two Dell machines that crapped out on him due to faulty hardware (bad mobo on one, power supply failed which resulted in the RAM buses failing in the other), so I finally built one for him. I work tech at Staples and approximately 80% of all the repair work we do is on Dells.
I have not seen them change their practices of using power supplies that aren't designed for ANY expandability (the Dimension series usually comes with a 250-300w unit at the very most), and they continue to use 3rd party licensed hardware that is designed with proprietary mountings so you can't easily change the mobo or cards around. And then there's the whole shady partnership with Lexmark that makes me hate them on principal alone. Stay away from Dell, find a reputable local place and you'll get a MUCH more stable machine (I'd recommend Computer Stop in the Seattle area).
Discussion
7 replies& the geek down the street says something about new grahics cards, and my wife says something about there are different kinds of short-term memory, and I killed the old hard drive, robust numbers and all, with too many Tiff documents. What kind of graphics card(s) should I get? And what about hard drives, other than the general principle that bigger numbers are better?
Meanwhile thousands and thousands of slides are blithely unaffected by all this drama.....my God, what happens if one's done digital capture and something like this happens?
Put it this way, if there is a fan, the s--t will hit it.
As far as graphics cards we use nVidia's GeForce 7900 GS in our Dell XPS 600's. We are totally pleased with both the video cards and the Dell PC's. If you are going the Microsoft way for your next PC I can't say enough good things about Dell. I do recommend holding back on going to Vista until the rest of the hardware world catches up with drivers ready for Vista.
Eric if you want send me an email and I'll be glad to share my phone number and talk this over the phone.
I'm in the market for a new computer as well, and was looking at the Dell's. Erik, do you have recommendations for customizing a computer? The Dell I'm looking at is $1999 complete setup. How sure are you that I can buy parts separately for less? In the past I wasn't able to beat their prics when comparing apples to apples (not Apple).
Kevin
I just helped a friend set up his new D. He wanted his old hard drive placed in his new computer for a secondary storage drive. There wasn't a slot to put another hard drive. I had to disconnect his dvd drive and plug that cable into his old hard drive So I could transfer the files to his new drive. The cables almost didn't reach. His motherboard seemed pretty barebones. There was only two slots for ram. Come to think I don't think there was a slot to put a graphics card. It had onboard graphics. I think he paid around $899 for it. I guess the good thing about a dell or say a Compaq is the come with an OS and other software. If you put together your own system, you know exactly what your getting.
The Dell Dimension PC's are more plain jane PC's. I recommend staying away from those if you want to be able to add RAM, a video card, and/or hard drives going forward.
I have not seen them change their practices of using power supplies that aren't designed for ANY expandability (the Dimension series usually comes with a 250-300w unit at the very most), and they continue to use 3rd party licensed hardware that is designed with proprietary mountings so you can't easily change the mobo or cards around. And then there's the whole shady partnership with Lexmark that makes me hate them on principal alone. Stay away from Dell, find a reputable local place and you'll get a MUCH more stable machine (I'd recommend Computer Stop in the Seattle area).