Help, My steam powered computor is running out of steam I need some help, All I use it for is internet, Email storeing a few word documents and photo's off the camera. Also use 1mb broadband. In simple speak what do i need to look for in a new system. Is it better to go to large chain ie pc world or small shop, have one at end of my road. If somebody could give a list of bits i should properbly need i would be greatfull. Is

Help, My steam powered computor is running out of steam I need some help, All I use it for is internet, Email storeing a few word documents and photo's off the camera. Also use 1mb broadband. In simple speak what do i need to look for in a new system. Is it better to go to large chain ie pc world or small shop, have one at end of my road. If somebody could give a list of bits i should properbly need i would be greatfull. Is

I tend not to use the likes of PC World... Have faith in the little shops that are dotted around.

For

Hi

Assuming you're a consumer, rather than a PC expert, don't buy any system off the shelf which does not provide each and every recovery disc in case anything goes wrong. Unfortunately, I don't want to mention Dell in this same sentence, since their computers have a partitioning method which is not accessible to your friendly PC expert - so you definitely take your chances in the event of a crash.

"Shelf" OEM's should have some support that isn't at

Get one already put together Mike. The pc fairs held around the area can be a good sourse of cheap systems.

I would shop around to see if anyone would build this spec :-

128Mb graphics card, 512MB RAM ( MIN pref 1GB), 80GB Hard drive( Min, pref 160GB with 7200rmp spin speed) and 2.8GHz Pentium 4 or similar. Windows XP is a must, along with a way of rebuilding if there is a major problem.

Should have at least 2 USB 2 ports, dont forget it should have the same connection type from the PC to the Net.

Re use your screen , Keyboard and rodent.

Just my 2p worth of info.

I own a small IT consultancy and deal mainly with corporates, but put the odd home system together for peeps. Don't worry, I am NOT touting for business

If your not into the "latest" 3d Games, or wanting to play them with all detail levels maxed out then

micro direct all the way, i think you get a discount if you work in the public sector or are a student. They offer good advice and have a build service so will put the pc together for you as well. Your not a hardcore user so i'd say 500 quid all built is ok, expect to get dvd writer, 1gb ram, should be able to get an amd 64bit processor for that kind of cash as well. Keep the monitor from the old pc if its any good and spend the extra on the pc.

http://www.novatech.co.uk get the best computer in your budget or start with a barebones system and add your own components

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html

We use Dell desktops a lot for business customers' date=' personally I would not have one at home as build quality is variable, for eg, we sold 47 into a training company in Manchester and they where the same batch number, all where optiplex G60's, but across the 47 we had 2 different mainboards / graphics cards, 3 different network cards.

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not sure why that happened. The last company I worked for used to order tones of dells, 100's at a time and we always got the exact same spec. If you have an account with them you can get it set up so that you always get the same spec. What that means is, if you order a gx280 for example then it will be the same parts as the gx280 you ordered 6 months ago.

http://www.novatech.co.uk get the best computer in your budget or start with a barebones system and add your own components

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html

Personally after living round the corner from them and seeing many of their machines I wouldnt recommend buying a pre-built pc from them. they are ok for getting parts from.

I don't know about their ready-built PCs, but following Octygone's previous recommendation a couple of months ago, I assembled a PC out of components from Novatech. It was dead easy to build, and worked first time

I don't know about their ready-built PCs, but following Octygone's previous recommendation a couple of months ago, I assembled a PC out of components from Novatech. It was dead easy to build, and worked first time

Thats the way to do it. Definitely good for buying components from. Have bought many things from them in the past. I think you were wise to go do it yourself. Nothing better then building your own pc. You know whats in it and you know how well the job has been done.

I'm not sure why someone using a PC for email, word and storing camera images would need some of the things that have been mentioned above such as 128MB graphics cards. I would put money into memory - 512MB or 1GB, and disk, if you have a lot of images. Try for an 80GB drive.

If you're not confident building your own, don't be persuaded by the techies who've done it many times before, unless you have a tame expert to help. It can be a frustrating business.