Community poll forum: How old is your current main computer?

My main computer is a new HP Pavilion laptop...AMD Turion 64 x2...1GB RAM...120GB HDD...running Windows Vista...I wanted to buy a new computer a few months earlier...but decided to wait for Vista...It's like being on a shakedown cruise...waiting for something bad to happen...But so far no show stoppers...I'm very pleased with this computers performance so far.

I believe in building my own as then I get to pick and choose what quality of parts are in the box. This time I selected an AMD Athlon X2 4800 dual core cpu and a Biostar T-Force 6100 motherboard. Threw in 2 gigs of DDR dual channel ram and an Nvida gforce 7300 with 512 megs of ram. I like the Biostar as it can be overclocked and in my case I am running both cores at 3.1 mghz each. To eliminate the heat I threw in all this stuff into a Qpack Aspire aluminium case with a 120mm fan. When I built it (July 2006) intel was pushing its new dual core cpu at double the price of what I paid for my AMD. Today my AMD will blow the doors of of any Intel X2 so I am happy. The rest of my PC consists of a Seagate 320gig SATA 2 hard drive and a Philips DVD dual burner.
Neat stuff, I love my 'puter' to death. Long live AMD.

I bought this Dell E510 for $576 online (9 months ago)...3-day delivery, 19" digital LCD, Pentium D dual core 2.8/2.8, 80GB HD, DVD-CD read/burn drive. Nice one. I went online and bought the package they were offering, NO extras from Dell...and I had a coupon code that I guess I got wrong. Anyway--they gave me a HUGE 'employee discount' by mistake, and the other 10% coupon as well. Added some big Maxtor Ext. HDs, Canon Pixma printer/scan./copy, 2-Altec Lansing cheapo (for a desktop array--they are great!) speaker sets for 5.1 SurroundSound from eBay and Newegg. I have also a 6-yr old Compaq Armada notebook, OLD Toshiba (1998) Satellite 465 laptop...P-1, 166-Mhz (with massive 2.1GB HD)--and last but not least--a pristine Apple II-c computer-like device. Sadly, I got rid of the Commodore VIC-20.
I never use games and Thank God I have T-1 cable speed--once you have it, you can never go back!

I really admire those who can construct their own computers. You must have to know a HUGE amount about them to do it. And, I bet you only get that skill by trial and error. And, of course, a calm personality that doesn't hurl projectiles when frustrated.

I had a background in electronics and some experience in fixing and upgrading computers before building my first PC. I would recommend being familiar with the inside of your current PC before building your own, but you really don't need to know a "HUGE" amount about computers. I did a lot of research before picking out parts and putting it all together, but I believe just about anyone who is willing can build a good system. My first build went so smoothly that I can't wait to build my next system!

I just build a killer system. I put in EVGA nForce 680i SLI MB with a BFG gForce 8800 GTS, 4 gig Corsair ram, Sound Blaster X-Fi in a Mozart Tx entertainment center. I am running XP and Vista Premium. Vista has two WD 10k SATA drives (74 & 150)and the XP is using a WD 7400 300 gig. I plan to replace the 7400 with two 150's. With the Mozart Tx doors, I just switch the power/hd's for which system I want to use. In the front, I have two fan speed controller's that address extra air flow for the INTEL 2.44 dual core CPU, a PRO-28U reader, a HP dvd/cd writer and an a floppy. The only real problem I had was the EVGA board had the chipset problem. So for the short term, I put in an INTEL D975X8X2... I just got the new EVGA board and will replace the Intel very soon...I was using a laptop for the past 4 yrs, but wanted a desktop...mouse and keyboard are wireless Logitech..

lkbeta

I have a Macron gaming case (8X3.5 bays and 5X5.25 bays). I have an Intel D965WHMKR mobo. 9 hard drives (and one more being delivered) - 2X750Gb, 2X500Gb, 1X400Gb, 3X250Gb and 2X200Gb. 6 of them are SATA and 4 IDE on a PCI card. I have a 7600GT dual DVI graphics card and two Samsung LCD monitors (19" and 22" Widescreen). I practically built it myself. I decided against Vista and am happily running XP Pro on 2Gb of RAM. No floppy - just an internal card reader. 9 USB ports (internal).

As you have concluded - I like hard drives, most were bought off eBay.

My old system has 1X200Gb and 3X80Gb in another Macron case on a D865PERL mobo.

I upgraded becasue I wanted to as there was nothing wrong with my old system from which I transfered 5 of the hard drives.

I think my new system is HOT (not "kewl").

The 22" monitor is marvellous for programming on....

Enjoy life and if that means upgrading - do it.

I'm using a OLD emachine computer that I bought on ebay about 4 years ago for $15.00. I took parts from 3 other computers to get it going. I upgraded from Windows 95 to 98se and it still works great!

My Main computer, right now, is a Toshiba A105 laptop I purchase about 11 months ago when I "took my talent on the road" as a truck driver. Consists of Celeron-M 390 CPU (1.7 GHz) 60 GB SATA HDD, 256MB DDR2 PC4200 ram (I upgraded it to 512MB PC4200) ATi Radeon Xpress 200M on-board graphics (I have been VERY happy with this on-board chipset) decent RealTek High-Def Audio. For a bag-o-bones computer, I have high praise for this beastly machine. It has done pretty much everything I have asked of it (including very graphic intensive gaming) and all with nary a yawn.
Overall, even with all the horror stories being told out there, I am giving Toshiba very high marks for a great, easy to use and economical laptop.

Roughly 2 year old Dell Dimension 8400 with 1Gbyte DRAM, DVD Read, DVD R/W, and a floppy A-Drive. (The A-drive is to read old data disks).

My rig is about 2 - 2 yrs old now. Built it myself from high end gear available at the time:

Intel 875PBZLK Mobo
P4 3.0 GHz
512Mb DDR 400
GeForce 3 Ti 200
80Gb and 40Gb HDDs...

...and some bits from my old 1.1GHz Celeron:

GeForce 3 Ti 200,
Floppy and CD ROM/ DVD drives.

It has evolved somewhat over time. It now boast 1.5Gb of RAM in dual channel mode, the 40Gb Fujitsu hard drive died (never was a class action lawsuit for the UK when they had that faulty batch of controller chips). The 80Gb became my secondary and I added a 160Gb SATA as the main. Sticking with Seagate now; they seem a lot more reliable, and carry a far longer warranty. Admittedly something killed my 160 Gb HDD and caused a mass of bad sectors, but it has been fine since I repaired it with the Seatools suite. Then the ultimate upgrade (at the time) Geforce 6800 Ultra (overclocked).
This rig still has plenty of poke for up to date games, just a little disappointing that I am starting to have to go for some settings on medium instead of high, but it's still up there with the big boys. I am able to run 2 Folding at Home cores without much impact on performance, even when gaming.
I am contemplating a new rig in readiness for Crysis, and will be building a Core 2 Duo/ Quad rig in due time, packing full DX10, Vista, and HD support. Maybe even throw in RAID for data security. Until then, I'm happy with what I got!

I have a Dell Dimension 8250 2.8 thats about 4-5 years old. Originally it had 512mb of memory, but I doubled it, and I replaced the power supply from 250w to 600w for the ATI X800XT Video Card.
Finding memory for it wasn't easy, but I found the last two sticks they had at Fry's.

I have a 6 year old Medion PC. This is the first computer I've bought since my old, old, old Compaq Presario 9546 - *Made by Compaq, NOT HP!* It's been a fine system, ran into a couple of problems over the years with it, but none insurmountable as needing a new PC to replace it....Till NOW, WinXP was a good lil O/S But this is NOT only a new Age in computing needs, but a WHOLE fresh new Operating System with MS Windows Vista! The most basic of computing these days require your PC to have dual processors, a min of at LEAST 1 gig of RAM, a video card with atleast 256 megs of RAM on it. and this old baby can't handle those new needs. Actually it barely made the min requirements for WinXP when I first purchased it.

I built my own about 18 months ago using the Cnet online course and its terrific. As suggested I didn't use the absolute top spec components but made it up from near top level and proven performers in all areas. I learnt a lot on the way and I'm definitely happy to upgrade any bits as needed, rather than buying completely new.

Paul

Last november I bought a HP M7580.
3.4ghz dual core, 1gb ddr2 and 250+300gb are some of the most important specs. I bought it after looking at all kinds of machines, looking at specs, but I didn't want to build one myself.
It has XP media edition and I find it quite useful, however i've had some trouble recently with the software and going to reformat my pc today after it suddenly wouldn't start up windows any more.
No safe mode, no normal mode and no startup after replacing all the most important files.
Luckily I run all my documents from an 'external' hard drive (made a shortcut to it using tweakxp). Otherwise I would have lost all my data, photographs and work.
I am very happy with the pc, because it runs what I want at some of the highest levels. I am always running multiple heavy programs simultaneously so I really needed the specs. However on second thought, I would have liked an extra gb of ram.