...compaqs, hps, gateways, etc

[RayH]

I don't hate them. I just don't buy them. I recommend them. People who are really prone to them should buy them. Let their service dept. deal with people who won't learn to use a computer.

[John Prophet]

It just so happens that I have a nice new Compaq SR1010NX sitting here on my desk. I bought it to resell....to point out what I mean by "junk" software and icons...I will give a short list of what I see starting from the upper left corner, lol

iTunes
owner services
game channel
software repair wizard (I have no clue what any of this stuff is...lol)
Music and games for my Pc
America Online
Yahoo, best of the web
Hot deals on accesories and software
Easy internet sign-up
Protect my PC
Zone.com Deluxe games
Get High Speed Internet
Register with Compaq




Any Questions??


now this is BEFORE I have to go thru the ritual of going thru the startup folder and msconfig to try to turn off all the junk stuff that is slowing the comp down.....I went thru it and just took out the basic stuff I knew wasnt needed and I freed up 30mb of RAM.....now I have to go online and lookup some of these other apps to see what they are so I can make sure I turn off the xtra JUNK.......

Maybe compaq doesnt mind selling slow systems...but I do!! lol

JP

[ShawnD1]

I have some old Emachines celeron.
From 2 posts of mine in another thread:

When you buy a prebuilt computer, you don't just lose the ability to overclock.

-The CD for a prebuilt computer does NOT work in any other computer. If you want to put WinXP on other computers in your house, you have to go out and buy another copy from the store (which is still like $100).

-Many tweak and monitoring programs don't work with prebuilts because they have weird motherboards that nobody can figure out. For example, Sisoft Sandra and Motherboard Monitor don't work on prebuilt computers.

-Your computer is not upgradable. When I switched an Emachine from Win98 to WinXP, it sucked really bad. I checked the emachines website and there were no motherboard drivers for Windows XP, so now the integrated sound doesn't work at all and the AGP is severely underclocked because it doesn't have drivers supporting it! I put a PCI video card in it and the other PCI slot is ethernet. I would put a sound card in to have sound but THERE ARE ONLY 2 PCI SLOTS! GRRRR.

- Prebuilts don't save money. It will cost you 75% of what a good computer (made by you or a custom computer store) costs, but you have to buy a new one twice as often. How does that save money?

-The case is only big enough to hold 3 drives - 1 hdd, 2 CD. That's not enough!

-There are absolutely no case fans, just the PSU fan. I'm surprised the thing hasn't melted yet, because the heatsink is insanely hot to the touch. It's at least 70C.

-The PSU is only 120W. If I plugged in 2 hard drives, the POS would probably start on fire.

-When I hit the power button, it doesn't turn on. I have to hold the button then plug it in (yes I'm serious).

-When the computer shuts off, it reboots immediately.

-There is no AGP slot (only integrated video on the AGP bus)

-There is only 1 RAM slot

-The primary IDE bus only supports 1 drive (wtf?)

-The USB ports are really hit-or-miss. When trying to hotsync a palm pilot (connected to USB), sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.


I have another prebuilt which I bought just to have as a file server. It's a 350mhz P2 Packard Bell. It's a pretty good computer (3 ram slots, 2 working USB, 1 open AGP, 5 PCI slots). The only problem with that machine is that the PCI slots have to be used in a specific order. I can't remember the exact order but IIRC, it was 1, 3, 5, 2, 4 (1 is the bottom, 5 is the top).


Just stay away from prebuilts. The extra strain of owning one will give you a heart attack.