ECN Forum Forums Technical Discussion Re: Computers and the Internet Anyone good with Dell PCs?

Vista is a huge honker. I was over looking at my son in law's machine that was running slow (3gz with a half gig of memory)
This thing gobbled up close to 400 meg of memory, just to boot to the desk top! That is a lot of overhead just to play solitaire and read your Email.

I believe that the "recommended" requirements are at least 1GB of RAM.

Hi,

I have a Vista PC at work and it is reasonably stable, possibly more than my XP system was. I have 2gb ram and I havve to admit, it could do with more but then I have this problem with never closing apps or rebooting the system.

There are lots of nice features in Vista, apart from the fact that it looks pretty. I think the visuals are just a gimmic. IE7 is better too with the tabbed browsing, helps keep things neater. I have a work related browser, a non-work browser and another for things that I dont leave open.

Hardware wise, I have never had a more reliable system than an IBM/Lenovo. They are built like tanks and are easy to upgrade. You also have the best technical resource for drivers, manuals etc on their website. Second to IBM/Lenovo would be HP/Compaq. They arent as well built but they too have an excellent website. As far as I am concerned, they are the only good PC manufacturers when we had our tests a few years ago. At the bottom of the list was Dell. Poor build quality, too plasticy and you can order 2 Dell PCs, same spec but they often have subtle differences like motherboard or graphics card which is fine if you have one but when you have 200 of them, it is a nightmare. Their website is a bit naff too.

Failing that, if you are a meddler, get one built up by your corner PC shop. Just make sure you know what is going in it and get all the boxes and drivers so you can do an easy rebuild later should you need to.

Failing that, build your own. It's not that difficult as long as you are methodical and organised but you are on your own when it goes wrong.

Good luck!

I built this machine. (AMD64 3400, 500mRAM). I have more memory on order.
Like all of my machines, it is in a wood case, cleverly disguised as furniture.

Scott,
Something doesn't add up here.
You mentioned that you never turn your computer off and that every time that you've had to for any length of time, it spits the dummy.
What I can't make out is why after an arbitrary power down period, the computer refuses to boot up again?.
I was thinking that it could be something temperature related on the motherboard itself, that has cooled down and is no longer making contact upon re-starting, the likes of a bad solder joint on a SMT device or what-not.
Just my $0.02 worth.

Open up the case and look closely at the motherboard. You will likely find buldged electrolytic capacitor cans. If there are and you are under warranty great, but most likely it is out of warranty.

If you are savy with a soldering iron and have a high grade soldering station which includes a desoldering vacuum (it had been awhile since I have done any of this and can not think of the proper terms) you can replace the capacitors.

I would recommend replacing ALL the electrolytic capacitors. It will run about $20 available at www.digikey.com and other component places.

When odering verify proper voltage (greater is acceptable but do not go less) and capacitance and that you observe polarity markings when you install. Somewhere at www.tomshardware.com they discuss this.

I just opened a Dell GX270 yesterday and found this problem.