Dell Computers

[shadroch]

In the next few days,Im most likely getting a Dell. Dimension. Anyone use these? Any horror stories you'd like to share? Are you hapy with them? An software you reccomend? THNX

[deathlok]

[OldSchoolTerry]

, but I haven't heard any bad things about their products from people I know that have them. I know at my old job we had both Dell PC's and Dell servers, and did not have any problems with them.

[PovertyRow]

In the next few days,Im most likely getting a Dell. Dimension. Anyone use these? Any horror stories you'd like to share? Are you hapy with them? An software you reccomend? THNX

 

Hey! You forgot the OT dagnabbit!

 

There are a lot of Dells where I work. There HAVE been hard drive problems with both laptops and desktops. Hopefully they got that cleared up.

 

Now you ask about software but for doing what?

 

Also - you might want to look ito the kind of graphics acrd they have (usually built-in) and make sure you can add another (more powerful) one should the need arise. Be sure it has an 8x AGP port to all,ow for graphic card expansion.

 

Also - check the kind of memory. Inexpensive systems can use slower emmory to save dollars.

 

Hope this isn;t too much. I mean, sounds like you just want a computer.

[Steve_HOCP]

In the next few days,Im most likely getting a Dell. Dimension. Anyone use these? Any horror stories you'd like to share? Are you hapy with them? An software you reccomend? THNX

 

I am a computer guru of sorts ( see www.hardocp.com / www.hypothermia.us ) and I have built everything from water cooled PC's and the worlds first and only water cooled X-box, to the first super cooled PC to hit 4.44GHz last year. I built every box I use...I write for Maximum PC, CPU Magazine and have four articles currently published in the current PC Modder Magazine.

 

...having said that, I recommend Dell to people who are not tech savvy and not big time gamers. If you need a rig to get the job done, good service and support...Dell is the way to go. You can get an impressive rig for well under $1000 and you get a warranty to back it up. You can always add your own graphics card to spice it up.

 

The downside to Dell is the tech support coming from India, and no retail store to bring your PC into for repairs or service.

 

If you just want a good PC with reliability...go to Best Buy / CompUSA or some such...buy what your budget can afford and get a warranty. That way...if it breaks you can walk it right in and have it fixed.

 

I hope that helps.

 

All else fails, build your own...there is nothing like it.

[sckao]

In the next few days,Im most likely getting a Dell. Dimension. Anyone use these? Any horror stories you'd like to share? Are you hapy with them? An software you reccomend? THNX

 

 

It really depends on what you're using it for. They been having some problems with their outsourced tech support, but I think they've canceled their Indian tech support as of November 2003.

 

Dell computers are 85% business use (Corporate customers) and only 15% by consumers.

 

If you're using it as a game machine primarily, you might want to go elsewhere.

 

(I'd recommend it for college kids or anyone who abuses their computers since the warranty seems to be worth it in those cases.)

[shadroch]

I duuna know. I kind of figured that calling the thread"Dell Computers' would kind of make the point this wasn't about comics.

 

I'm just looking for a cheap,easy to use,lo-maintinence computer and Dell is having a pretty god sale right now.

Free all-in- one printer,free shipping,3 year in home service and no sales tax. No interest for a few months,and six months free AOL. Seems like a good deal.

[texasknight]

Just make sure you get them to put a fair amount of memory into your computer...

I didn't and before my first day with the new Dell had passed, I realized

I should have spent the extra $$ so that my computer would run faster...

[shadroch]

One I'm looking at has 256MB SharedDDR SDRAM. Is that enuff?

Heck,here are all the stats-let me know if its a good deal,please.

Intel Pentium4 at 2.66GHz

WindowsXP

256MB shared

80GB hard drive

software package includingWordperfect and microsoft Money

all-in-onee printer(A920),3 yr.limited warranty,and in home service.

48xcdrom drive,and48xcd burner

17in moniter

free shipping,no sales tax-$699

[texasknight]

My personal suggestions (I'm no computer geek)

Upgrade from CD burner to DVD burner (then find the program DVD X-COPY that will allow you to burn most commercial dvd's)

Kick that memory up to 512

[wrcomics]

I would recommend Dells. I have an older Dell Dimension 8200 that's a steady performer and I just recently bought a Dell 4600(?) for my fiancee who shares her 'puter with her 3 kids. She uses it for her master's research and the kids use it for everything from games to listening to online music to chatting with their friends. It's set up similar to the one you're looking at but I'd recommend a few upgrades (just my own preferences of course) to ramp it up a bit:

 

swap out for a flat panel monitor- great space saver and just as good a picture

 

upgrade to a dedicated video card- shared video memory can really bog down system, although shared audio memory isn't too bad and the chipsets they use these days are pretty sweet.

 

dump the all-in-one printer- from what I hear it's made by Lexmark for Dell and is not all that great. Might be better buying it separately.

 

 

OH and almost forgot...

 

[comicwiz]

One I'm looking at has 256MB SharedDDR SDRAM. Is that enuff?

Heck,here are all the stats-let me know if its a good deal,please.

Intel Pentium4 at 2.66GHz

WindowsXP

256MB shared

80GB hard drive

software package includingWordperfect and microsoft Money

all-in-onee printer(A920),3 yr.limited warranty,and in home service.

48xcdrom drive,and48xcd burner

17in moniter

free shipping,no sales tax-$699

 

Tough to really give a fair tech analysis from specs alone shadroch. For instance, if its an integrated board, then it will be tough to make improvements on your processor in the future (not impossible, but not for the faint of heart either). But if its value your chasing, then an integrated board doesn't mean much. The only problem is that as technology changes, so does a person's needs (or wants).

 

Otherwise, form what I can see, I'd say $699 is a great deal

 

BTW: Is that 17" a flat panel display? My personal opinion is to not bother making any media adjustments because if your needs change in the future, and you want to be able to burn DVD's, then that's one thing -- you can always go external. But to buy a DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW drive for the sake of saying you own the technology, or ripping movies doesn't make sense IMO. There currently aren't any decent software solutions or bundles out there for the PC (Mac's DVD Pro is awesome, but doesn't ship free with their multi-function drive -- its an extra US $1000!)

 

The bump to 512 MB of RAM isn't a bad idea either, but isn't necessary if your just going to be running XP Pro, Office and use it for the internet and email..

 

BTW: I own five Dell's (Dimensions, Latitude's and Inspiron's) in my computer lab, and they are by far the most reliable of the lot.

[comicwiz]

BTW: If you haven't already purchased it, I hear that haggling goes a long way when you call instead of buying from their web site... I've heard this from more than just a few people.

[Shield]

In the next few days,Im most likely getting a Dell. Dimension. Anyone use these? Any horror stories you'd like to share? Are you hapy with them? An software you reccomend? THNX

 

I am a computer guru of sorts ( see www.hardocp.com / www.hypothermia.us ) and I have built everything from water cooled PC's and the worlds first and only water cooled X-box, to the first super cooled PC to hit 4.44GHz last year. I built every box I use...I write for Maximum PC, CPU Magazine and have four articles currently published in the current PC Modder Magazine.

 

...having said that, I recommend Dell to people who are not tech savvy and not big time gamers. If you need a rig to get the job done, good service and support...Dell is the way to go. You can get an impressive rig for well under $1000 and you get a warranty to back it up. You can always add your own graphics card to spice it up.

 

The downside to Dell is the tech support coming from India, and no retail store to bring your PC into for repairs or service.

 

If you just want a good PC with reliability...go to Best Buy / CompUSA or some such...buy what your budget can afford and get a warranty. That way...if it breaks you can walk it right in and have it fixed.

 

I hope that helps.

 

All else fails, build your own...there is nothing like it.

 

 

Allow me to weigh in with my .02. Steve, first of all, I love HardOCP, and have visited the site and read hardware reviews for quite some time. You guys are top-notch!

 

I'm an IT Manager, and support about 20 servers and 75-80 workstations and laptops for 2 companies. Primary company A, which pays my bills, often has me do work for company B, which is company A's insurance agent. So, Company B has a Dell Poweredge 2600 with a PERC 4/Di Raid controller. This machine has end of next business day support, and even though I'd never seen this in 10 + years of working on servers and building my own machines, the onboard ethernet card in the server died. This machine was their only domain controller, ran DNS, DHCP, and the Active Directory schema had been extended (by yours truly) to support Exchange 2003, which I loaded on another Compaq server. I brought down a 10/100 NIC, disabled the failed onboard, reset TCP/IP config and brought everything back up.

The failure was at 3:00 P.M. on Monday of this week. The "technical" person at company B took my advice and place a service call to Dell so a Dell technician had to be onsite with the replacement 2600 motherboard by 5:00 P.M. Tuesday. I initially agreed to assist on the call, just to make sure Dell didn't screw anything up. The Dell tech, who worked for an outsourced company (Unisys in this case) called Tuesday morning and said the part was in and he'd be onsite that day. We specifically requested that he not show up until as near to 5:00 P.M. as possible so the company wouldn't experience a mid-day outage, and my replacement NIC had the server fully functional. 4:45 the Unisys tech calls, and states he'd be there shortly. 6:00 his "supervisor" calls us, and tells us he won't be available until 7:00 A.M. Wednesday. I tell company "B"'s technical person that this should be an easy motherboard swap out, and to call me if they had any concerns. I had to go back to company "A" for work Wednesday.

 

Wednesday morning: Frantic call from Company B's technical contact. The server will not boot, and something about "Raid One" was on the screen. Now, I'm a very technical person and could probably teach an advanced class on disk drive/Raid technologies, but any insufficiently_thoughtful_person replacing a motherboard should've realized that the old configuration was a 3 disk Raid 5 and not a mirror.

I rushed down to company B, and realized the motherboard Dell had sent out FOR THEIR SERVER was refurbished, and not only that, the original RAID configuration from whomever last used that board HAD NOT BEEN CLEARED! The Raid config listed 2 RAID One mirrors on each "channel" of the controller. Now, the Poweredge 2600 is capable of utilizing a split backplane (for improved throughput and/or RAID 1+0, 1+5 configs) with an add-on daughtercard. This card never had existed.

 

Side note (I know this is a long technical rant, but I'll feel better after I tell this story)

 

Normally RAID controllers store NVRam information in two places. In the controller, and on the disks. If this information matches, the array is fine. If not, you'll basically have to enter the controller's BIOS and "pick" who wins. Company B hadn't had an actual drive failure, so had I been there I'd have picked the config on the drives.

 

THE DELL "Service Provider" PICKED THE ONE ON THE REFURBISHED REPLACEMENT Motherboard! This invalid "Raid One" config OVERWROTE their valid RAID 5 stripe! That's when I was called, and told him to immediately stop whatever he was doing. The Dell guy placed a call into Dell, and must've gotten someone in from Optiplex support, because they were telling him about ACTIVE PARTITIONS and "Formatting the C Drive". YIKES!

 

I told Dell over the phone I'd call them back (yeah right). I put in the Win2k server Cd, loaded the Raid driver, and the Primary C partition was listed as "Damaged or Unformatted". I spent the rest of the day Wednesday and 12 hours yesterday restoring from tape their SQL configuration, Active Directory, etc.

 

So, long story longer, I don't really feel comfortable letting Dell or their service providers work on any of their equipment unless it's a desktop.

 

Steve, by the way, I just bought a ATI 9800XT, and it's going on my AMD 64 system with Windows XP 64 bit. I'll let you know how it goes!

 

 

[texasknight]

But to buy a DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW drive for the sake of saying you own the technology, or ripping movies doesn't make sense IMO. There currently aren't any decent software solutions or bundles out there for the PC

 

DVD X-COPY works just fine for PC... I currently have over 45 dvd's burned from commercial DVD's ...

A DVD burner and a subscription to NetFlix works just GREAT !

[Shield]

But to buy a DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW drive for the sake of saying you own the technology, or ripping movies doesn't make sense IMO. There currently aren't any decent software solutions or bundles out there for the PC

 

 

?? Uhm, I rip and burn DVD's on my PC with a few points and clicks. Ever hear of DVD-X-Press or DVD-X-Copy? Works beautifully.

[OldGuy]

I'm in the IT field and build servers and workstations regularly. I'm also in charge of buying pre-built machine and I use nothing but Dell. I have also literally recommended Dell to my own mother and she bought one and loves it.

 

IMO what puts Dell above all others is their support. It's second to none. Enjoy your new Dell!

[OldGuy]

But to buy a DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW drive for the sake of saying you own the technology, or ripping movies doesn't make sense IMO. There currently aren't any decent software solutions or bundles out there for the PC

 

All due respect, but you're wrong. DVDShrink is the smallest, easiest to use DVD ripping software there is, and it's free. My daughter (14) copies DVD's with it. Not only is it easy to use, it can fully reauther a DVD (frame by frame). You could cut out a scene you don't like if you felt like it. Or you can just make a full backup. There are about 5 other programs out there that can do the same thing, just not as well, for free and as easily.

[comicwiz]

?? Uhm, I rip and burn DVD's on my PC with a few points and clicks. Ever hear of DVD-X-Press or DVD-X-Copy? Works beautifully.

 

I can't really put my finger on why I'm adverse to the PC DVD software bundles. All I know is that I had a really tough go with Roxio a little while ago, using the Pioneer mechanism. I even tried a La Cie external drive (which was powered by the Pioneer), and used DVD X-Press and DVD-X-Copy, but they didn't offer the kind of versatility I needed to produce home movies, and other robust media applications.

 

Mind you, my preferences aren't going to be the same as everyone else, but because of my media requirements, I find post-producing my work with applications like Final Cut Pro and DVD Pro on the Mac require less time and energy. Its kind of odd because outside of doing web-dev QC, and some media stuff, I hardly ever use my Mac.

 

I think it might also have something to do with the fact that when I first started using PC solutions, XP was just released, and many of the software vendors developing DVD software solutions web sites were replete with patches to fix errors users were experiencing in XP.

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

I bought a Dell Dimension 4550 last year. While the system itself is decent, the service was anything but "award-winning":

 

1). I bought a system in early March 2003 and it arrived within two weeks, only problem was that it was dead in the box.

 

2). After four hours with customer support, they had me go through all of their standard checks to see if the unit could be salvaged (loose cards, loose memory modules, etc.), despite the fact that I had done all this myself (I've worked with computers for years). Eventually they came to the same conclusion that I had, and told me to return it.

 

3). A replacement computer was sent out in about two weeks....except it wasn't the same system, and actually had inferior components (processor and video card) then the system I had paid for. For some reason, it took two hours to convince the Customer Service rep that I should be delivered a unit with components that I actually ordered. So, this one was going back too.

 

4). About three weeks later, a new computer arrived, the one I am using now, in perfect working order. The fact that I had to wait nearly two months to actually have a working system is not my beef with Dell, its the complete lack of customer service from the Dell Financial Service company. I basically asked for an extension of the grace period on my Dell Account, because I was accruing interest on my balance (for a computer I didn't have) while they were building the third system. Their response was "Dell and Dell Financial are seperate companies. They screwed up, not us, and you owe us; I can't help you"

 

That sealed it. After 6-7 hours of misc phone calls, getting lost in their crappy automated system, being transferred from one incompetent to another, having to wait 7 weeks for a new computer, and being brushed off by the Financial Services company, I decided I would never deal with the company again.

 

I certainly hope your experience with them is a lot smoother then mine.