New computer

[Covenant]

I need to get my son a decent computer for his second year at uni. Nothing special required except it must be cheap! Looking to spend in the region of £300-£400 for the computer itself. Dont need a monitor or other bits. Like most kids of his age gaming is a big thing but he mainly uses a PS3 for that.
A decent amount of storage is a must.
Any makes or special buys that you recommend?

[Tim]

I take it you are after some sort of tower or desktop PC Jerry? Have you considered building one yourself, it's really not that tricky, all the parts fit one way and there are loads of books and websites to help. The biggest thing about building your own is that you learn how to fix it too :)

[Covenant]

Yep, a tower I think. I dont think I have the time to learn about PC building and mistakes can be expensive.
Is Ebay ok or should I go to Mesh or one of the other wesites?

[Tim]

MESH are a pretty good company with a good track record too. I would personally avoid buying a second-hand one from eBay, too many possible pitfalls unless you are adept at fixing them, or can buy it locally and callect it yourself.

Can't really recommend much more, as apart from laptops I have built every PC I've owned and lost count at how many that is now :o
I'm sure there will be some more help coming? If you do change your mind about building one, I can recommend a few websites for parts.

[Covenant]

I just Googled MESH and found out they have gone into administration!

[keiths]

MESH are a pretty good company with a good track record too.

Worth bearing in mind that MESH went into administration last month and are now under new ownership -

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/06/01/mesh_administration_buyout/

I've always been happy with Power Computing - http://www.powerc.com

[Tim]

I just Googled MESH and found out they have gone into administration!
Another good one bites the dust - with companies like DELL, HP and Lenovo, it's a tough time for the smaller guys :(

[StanleyB]

I need to get my son a decent computer for his second year at uni. Nothing special required except it must be cheap! Looking to spend in the region of £300-£400 for the computer itself. For that sort of money you can get a Dell laptop with up to 17" screen. My vote goes to THIS (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-DELL-STUDIO-17-1745-DUAL-CORE-3GB-320GB-ATI-17-WRT-/260789595276?pt=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item3cb8456c8c) one if your son wants to use it for gaming from time to time.

My son, who is at uni as well, finds the larger screen far handier when doing research etc., especially when using Excel. Put Windows7 X64 Ultimate on it and you'll have a very fast and portable machine that he can take to lectures as well. The latter point is very important for some courses.

[Thing Fish]

I bought a dell inspiron laptop 5 years ago for £330.00 as a stop gap. Its been my main computer for that whole time. Often downloading for months at a time without a break day or night. It has never missed a beat. It has taken all that I throw at it. Great machine.

[Batty]

My wife has a DEll inspiron too, good value.

[WAD62]

As Tim stated earlier building your own tower is pretty easy...just one big leggo set.

And you can do it a lot cheaper/better than off the shelf

These guys are pretty good for components;

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/

...although there are plenty of other options, they just happen to be close to me :)

The main thing is to decide on which CPU architecture you want, then find an appropriate good quality mother board with the right slot types etc...

[spendorman]

I use to buy a lot of brand new "bare bones" units. These were case with power supply, motherboard, processor, RAM and CD/DVD drive ready installed and tested. All that was to do was put in the hard drive.

Prices were very good, none of these computers hardware has ever failed. In fact using one at this moment (about 4 years old now). The Company I got them from was called AUT Direct, but I think have closed. There is another company at the same address doing similar, but they price differently, will supply all the parts, or assemble the Pc for something like £15.

This may be the company:

http://www.playgadgets.co.uk/acatalog/BareBone_Systems.html

[Tim]

Just been having a flick through some magazines and I have no personal knowledge of this company myself, but they had a Best Buy review in Computer Shopper for a Tower unit for £350.00. The machine was an OP3 Mars and the website is www.op3.co.uk (http://www.op3.co.uk).

As I say, can't vouch for them but may be worth a look?

[Mark Grant]

If it's for your Son to take to university probably buy one ready made, less hassle in the long run.
If you build it you will be 24 hour technical support for ever.:)

A quick google finds this at PC world for £399
Decent processor and large hard drive.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/acer-m3920-desktop-pc-09885838-pdt.html

lower price at £329, slower processor and smaller hard drive
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/acer-aspire-m3910-2-black-08647605-pdt.html

Might be easier to get one repaired at a local to the University PC world branch rather than mail order if anything goes wrong etc.

Thousands of others available of course.

[Covenant]

He's thinking he'll probably go for this one - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VIBOX-GA-FAST-AMD-DUAL-CORE-3-0GHz-DESKTOP-GAMING-PC-/220679382361?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item3361842559

Thoughts?

[Tim]

That actually looks pretty good Jerry. The spec is fine, with a half decent graphics card too. I'm a fan of AMD having had 3 or 4 of their CPU's, very good value. I'm not sure if I could build that myself for that price :scratch:

EDIT: Just priced that with my normal supplier and it comes out at £225.00 without a PSU as it's not listed on the advert. A budget 500W would set you back another £15 ~ £20.00 for example, so the price is certainly about right. I would perhaps query the PSU they are supplying, as that's often overlooked by many people when building a budget PC, but it's actually the one component I would never scrimp on, as so many issues can be caused by a cheap and unreliable PSU. Can be costly too if they fail, as they rarely die alone!

If you could ask what they supply and maybe upgrade that part, spending a few extra quid would pay dividends in the long run, but on the face of it that doesn't look a bad system for the money.

[Mark Grant]

No operating system, and that's where the time goes with all the windows updates etc.

Good price for the parts though.

[StanleyB]

Take note that it doesn't come with an OS so you'll have to pencil in the cost of that as well.

My son says that if it is for uni course work your son is making a big mistake by not going for a laptop. So consider the exact purpose of the machine's main function.

[Tim]

Ignore me if you know this already, but as your son is a Student he can get Windows 7 Pro for 40 quid here http://www.software4students.co.uk/Windows_7-software.aspx

It is an upgrade product however?

[Covenant]

Ignore me if you know this already, but as your son is a Student he can get Windows 7 Pro for 40 quid here http://www.software4students.co.uk/Windows_7-software.aspx

It is an upgrade product however?

He is a student-he has a torrented copy! He does want to get a legal copy because its a lot less hassle. thanks anyway.

[Covenant]

Take note that it doesn't come with an OS so you'll have to pencil in the cost of that as well.

My son says that if it is for uni course work your son is making a big mistake by not going for a laptop. So consider the exact purpose of the machine's main function.

I doubt if he will do much more work in his second year than he did in his first Stan. He is a lazy and does the bare minimum to pass.:scratch:

[Tim]

He is a student-he has a torrented copy! He does want to get a legal copy because its a lot less hassle. thanks anyway.
Interesting view of making an effort to comply with the law.... "it's a lot less hassle" :scratch:

[Covenant]

Interesting view of making an effort to comply with the law.... "it's a lot less hassle" :scratch:

Problems trying to get updates for an illegal copy.

[Tim]

:lolsign: I was more referring to that fact that complying with the law is just considered an inconvenience these days. I must be getting old!

[Covenant]

I wonder how many students are totally legit?

[slate]

I wonder how many students are totally legit?

totally... none; back in my days it was all copies. When you have no cash you turn to copies.
Now 17 years later most of my SW is paided for... or free; Actually the price of SW today is the same as back then; probably because the market is so much larger.