Needing a new desktop PC, suggestions?

[nonobaddog]

300 Mbps or 1 Gbps doesn't matter if the service is unreliable. In my old house I switched from Comcast to Uverse internet for that exact reason. Uverse couldn't provide the stupid megabit numbers of Comcast but it was rock solid reliable. Comcast was out at least a couple times/month before I switched and some of my neighbors who staid with Comcast would frequently ask if mine was out after I switched. I can count on one hand the number of times Uverse had an issue over about 8 years.

I now have AT&T fiber service and it is a massive improvement. If I ever have to go back to a copper provider I'm going to be very sad.

Unless you're in the middle of nowhere an LTE hotspot will make a great backup solution.

Are you thinking most of the problems were with in level 1? in the OSI model?

I still have copper here and I don't think fiber is even an option yet, but I will check into it.

 

[ghuns]

Another vote for used / off lease bushiness machines.
https://www.dellrefurbished.com/

That's my go-to for home stuff. I used to be a user of their Precision series desktops at work. Great machines, but there are better out there.

I picked up a scratch-N-dent Precision laptop on there for the wife and one for the boy to take to college 4 years ago. They both whined about them being heavy, bulky, bricks. They are both still running like champs. Daughter declined my offer to buy her one. She didn't want the brick. She bought a super skinny, super cute Dell at Best Buy. It's was a flaming turd.

Way overkill for most home users, but if you need high horsepower, I cannot recommend these guys enough...

https://www.xicomputer.com/

I've probably bought 20 PCs and 5 laptops over the last 15 years from them. Top notch systems and great service.

 

[jkaetz]

If the laptop already has a HDMI out, would the dock be a necessary addition to split the screen?

HDMI would certainly allow one external display but if he wants two a dock of some sort will be needed. A dock also makes it easy to connect a full keyboard & mouse.

Are you thinking most of the problems were with in level 1? in the OSI model?

I still have copper here and I don't think fiber is even an option yet, but I will check into it.

I would have to guess anywhere between 1 & 3. You know the cable companies don't give enough diagnostic to really find out as a customer. When I couldn't get beyond their default gateway I'd restart the modem which would usually result in no IP address. Call in and you'd get told they know there's a problem in the area.

I picked up a scratch-N-dent Precision laptop on there for the wife and one for the boy to take to college 4 years ago. They both whined about them being heavy, bulky, bricks. They are both still running like champs. Daughter declined my offer to buy her one. She didn't want the brick. She bought a super skinny, super cute Dell at Best Buy. It's was a flaming turd.

The XPS 13 is the only small laptop I'd recommend from Dell. Helped my wife purchase some systems for her work and that was by far the most impressive. I have typically gone for the precision 50xx systems with a dedicated GPU but will likely switch to the XPS 13 during the next work refresh.

 

[nonobaddog]

Way overkill for most home users, but if you need high horsepower, I cannot recommend these guys enough...

https://www.xicomputer.com/

I've probably bought 20 PCs and 5 laptops over the last 15 years from them. Top notch systems and great service.

Wow, looks like their base system is overclocked with liquid cooling. Most people can buy plenty of horsepower without going that route with the extra heat generated and the higher cooling requirements.

 

[ghuns]

Wow, looks like their base system is overclocked with liquid cooling. Most people can buy plenty of horsepower without going that route with the extra heat generated and the higher cooling requirements.

Most people.

There are three of us here that get shiny new workstations from them every couple of years. Our old ones get passed down the line.

At this point, even our receptionist is running an overclocked, water cooled system.

You should check out their high end stuff.

 

[IndyBeerman]

300 Mbps or 1 Gbps doesn't matter if the service is unreliable. In my old house I switched from Comcast to Uverse internet for that exact reason. Uverse couldn't provide the stupid megabit numbers of Comcast but it was rock solid reliable. Comcast was out at least a couple times/month before I switched and some of my neighbors who staid with Comcast would frequently ask if mine was out after I switched. I can count on one hand the number of times Uverse had an issue over about 8 years.

I now have AT&T fiber service and it is a massive improvement. If I ever have to go back to a copper provider I'm going to be very sad.

Unless you're in the middle of nowhere an LTE hotspot will make a great backup solution.

Comcast has hands down the WORST service. I used to have it when I lived in Mooresville, the joke was if a squirrel stopped to pee on the line while running across, you'd lose service. It took Mooresville threatening to kick them to the curb or upgrade the lines to get the problem fixed.

Where I live now was originally Brighthouse, (now since purchased by Spectrum) and my service is exceptional. I get reliable speeds and with the occasional issue of pole/line getting taken out by a car/tree I can count on two hands over 15 years where I had service interruptions. Plus still being a big online gamer my low ping rate and fabulous mbps download speeds make gaming and online video viewing very enjoyable. Plus with the fact that there is no throttling of speeds with high usage, which I also have my own backyard weather station reporting on the net.

In today's age of high speed internet, you should not be getting faster internet from your cell provider over a hard wire service.

 

[nonobaddog]

Most people.
There are three of us here that get shiny new workstations from them every couple of years. Our old ones get passed down the line.
At this point, even our receptionist is running an overclocked, water cooled system.

Overkill is good!

 

[Cameramonkey]

Carrier issues are neighborhood level typically. One person's service level is not necessarily an indication of overall service quality.

I have the exact opposite between Comcast and ATT. My Comcast is rock solid. my ATT couldnt deliver above 2mbits when they tried to deliver DSL to me. And it was down all the time.

Fast forward 10 years and we have fiber at the pedestal in the back yard. ATT's contractors DESTROYED my yard multiple times during the install and refused to fix it properly. 2 years later I still have bare patches and ruts, and my neighbor has old wires sticking up out of the ground that the contractors dug up and didnt do anything with. We each also need about a full size pickup truck load of dirt to fill in the ruts and pits they didnt properly backfill after digging in our yards. I already filled in three pilot holes they left when they opened them up with a water jet to verify the underground lines' location. Apparently after striking multiple utility lines (sending one guy to the hospital) they started boring holes with a water jet to keep from hitting them. And the spots they did backfill, they did so with a crappy gravel/soil mix that several neighbors are finding nearly impossible to grow grass in.

And I considered trying ATT, but they have a non refundable $250 hookup fee. So if I didnt like it, they'd refund my first 30 days of service but not the install. No thanks, not worth the risk. /rant

 

[CHCRandy]

Do you mean DSL as a fall-back option when cable goes down or as a primary provider?

I am talking about when cable goes down. A poster said earlier there is a way to get DSL when cable goes down, I have Xfinity now but would be nice to have internet when cable goes down.

 

[CHCRandy]

DSL, seriously, please wait a second because I have to clean my monitor from the Diet Coke I just spewed.

Danville depending on exact area will be either Spectrum, Xfinity with the worst choice of ATT Uverse.
I live outside of Plainfield and have Spectrum with the Ultra Internet package and I get 300+mbps speeds routinely, standard internet will get you speeds faster than dsl (3-7 mbps)

All you need to do is go to one of the web sites and enter your address for specials and it'll let you know if they can be a provider for you.

If you can get Spectrum, they are a NO contract provider and can drop without penalty.

I also have their telephone package ( VOIP) for 19.99 a month for the whole 9 yards.

Thanks, I have Xfinity....I am talking about back up when Xfinity goes down.

 

[CHCRandy]

My used unit that I bought locally for 125, it is i7 quad core, 8g, 1TB hard drive, video card and has a HDMI and wifi. I feel good knowing that I will get any support I might ever need.

You mind forwarding me the info on who you bought from in Avon? I may just have a unit built like I want it. Thank You!

 

[nonobaddog]

I am talking about when cable goes down. A poster said earlier there is a way to get DSL when cable goes down, I have Xfinity now but would be nice to have internet when cable goes down.

Good plan. Just wanted to make sure you weren't considering DSL as a primary provider - too slow.

 

[jkaetz]

Carrier issues are neighborhood level typically. One person's service level is not necessarily an indication of overall service quality.

I have the exact opposite between Comcast and ATT. My Comcast is rock solid. my ATT couldnt deliver above 2mbits when they tried to deliver DSL to me. And it was down all the time.

Fast forward 10 years and we have fiber at the pedestal in the back yard. ATT's contractors DESTROYED my yard multiple times during the install and refused to fix it properly. 2 years later I still have bare patches and ruts, and my neighbor has old wires sticking up out of the ground that the contractors dug up and didnt do anything with. We each also need about a full size pickup truck load of dirt to fill in the ruts and pits they didnt properly backfill after digging in our yards. I already filled in three pilot holes they left when they opened them up with a water jet to verify the underground lines' location. Apparently after striking multiple utility lines (sending one guy to the hospital) they started boring holes with a water jet to keep from hitting them. And the spots they did backfill, they did so with a crappy gravel/soil mix that several neighbors are finding nearly impossible to grow grass in.

And I considered trying ATT, but they have a non refundable $250 hookup fee. So if I didnt like it, they'd refund my first 30 days of service but not the install. No thanks, not worth the risk. /rant

Never heard of a hookup fee. Neither my Uverse or Fiber service had a connection fee. The best thing about fiber is you get your rated upload as well as download speed. The < 10 Mbps upload speeds of other providers was killing me.

 

[nonobaddog]

We have connection fees here with Charter/Spectrum.
If I was going to be gone for a month or more I looked into disconnecting and reconnecting when I got back to save paying for something I wasn't using. The reconnecting fees made it not worth it.

 

[Sheriff Dave]

You mind forwarding me the info on who you bought from in Avon? I may just have a unit built like I want it. Thank You!

Sure thing. He has another one right now. I'm not a gamer, but I have tried to push this unit and so far it has not had any issues. And again he was easy to deal with and even offered to look at some of my older units with problems at no charge. I will PM the info.

 

[Sheriff Dave]

Heck I can't send a figgen PM, don't have 50 post... Oh Boy.. Send me one maybe I can reply to it.

 

[churchmouse]

Heck I can't send a figgen PM, don't have 50 post... Oh Boy.. Send me one maybe I can reply to it.

Send it to me. You can send to staff. I will forward it to CH.

Here to help.

 

[rkwhyte2]

The OP could buy what CM just got and then get a dock. The laptop is rock solid and the addition of the dock would likely give you a pair of displayport outputs. Add a couple of 23" monitors and you are in business.

Just looked and the dock has a displayport and a DVI output.

Here is the laptop.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6761612&Sku=

Here is an better dock than the first one I found.
https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Port-Ad...73264428&sprefix=dell+7470+doc,aps,250&sr=8-4

 

[Sheriff Dave]

Send it to me. You can send to staff. I will forward it to CH.

Here to help.

Sent Thank you.

 

[churchmouse]

Sent Thank you.

Sent to CH.

Thanks.