New build for a relative

[speedlever]

If you're gonna ask us to build/list a PC for you or seek advice about a build, please answer all of the following questions:
This system is for a relative and to replace an aging Dell Dimension 5150.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
General home use, medical transcription, photos, web browsing, skype, iTunes.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Not that tight. $1000, +/-.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US. NC.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Case, psu, mobo, cpu, ram, fans, SSD and/or HD, have a couple of 300 GB sata drives, media reader, dual optical drives, lots of USB 2 and some USB 3 ports for future use, Win 7/64 HP.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I think the only things usable off the old Dell will be the old 300 GB sata HDs, and possibly the optical drives, but am figuring on replacing the optical drives. I might be able to use the media reader as well, but will plan to replace that too, just in case. Oh and the 2007FP display and wireless USB keyboard and mouse.

6) Will you be overclocking?
No.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Dell 2007FP. 20 inches - 1600x1200.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next 2 to 4 weeks.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
Onboard video should be fine as provided by HD Graphics 2000 or 3000. Sata 3Gb/s for sure, it might be nice to have some Sata 6 Gb/s for the future. No raid or FW needed. Lots of rear USB 2 and some 3 ports, minimum of 6 total for starters.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Current system is using OEM XP/home as provided on the Dell Dimension. I plan to get a Windows7/HP upgrade.
******************************************
My current thoughts are as follows:
Case: Corsair Carbide series 400R or maybe 500R or other case that meets the below specs. It doesn't have to be fancy, and no lights or side panel windows. I don't like how the P183V covers up the external drives. And the top mounted controls on the Corsair could be problematic.

The case sits on top of a crowded desk, and the top of the case generally holds the router and a cordless phone base, so top exhaust fans and top mounted controls may pose a problem. It's not uncommon for heavy dust to build up which may impede cooling... until I notice it and vacuum it.

Externally, I would like to see dual 5.25 inch and a single 3.5 inch drive bays for the optical drives and media drive. Also, multiple front USB 2.0 and possibly 3.0 ports. Front audio connectons are not needed.

Internally, I expect a possible SSD, a Sata 3.0 1TB or 2TB HD plus a Sata 2.0 2TB backup drive and maybe 2 existing Sata 2.0 smaller HDs.

PSU: I'm thinking SeaSonic X650Gold or Corsair HX650, either in the $130 range. I want a modular PSU.

Mobo: Although not an Asus fanboy, I like Asus because that comprises the majority of mobo's I've had, other than OEM mobos and one ASRock (which is fine.) I just built a P8Z68V Pro system, and lean to that one for familiarity, UEFI, all the ports I think needed. But Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock would also be fine if they provide the connectivity needed. I don't believe Esata will be a requirement on this build.

CPU and cooler: I'm thinking core i5-2400. No OC. Just reliable and at least a 5 year service life. (the old Dell is over 5 years old.) For the HSF I'm thinking CM Hyper 212+ plus additional Blademaster 120mm fan for a dual fan arrangement.

Graphics: I suspect HD Graphics 2000 will suffice.

Ram: 4x4Gb DDR3.

Storage: SSD? I have an X25-M and really like it. While I know that SSDs are not immune to failure, I moved to an SSD after having two conventional OS HD failures in 12 months. How about an Intel C320 or 510? The problem is that the user(s) will not care or think to store routine stuff on a separate HD and keep the SSD(C:\) for OS and programs (as much as can be.) Plus, too many programs hardcode the storage place and don't give the option.

Or maybe a compromise might be appropriate here. Get a 64Gb SSD and use it with Intel's RST and a fast TB HD. ???

And regarding storage, what the heck has happened to HD prices? I bought a Sammy HD204UI 2TB drive a few months ago for $80 and now they're going for $230. ???

Considering the compromise setup:
What 64Gb SSD? Crucial C300 or M4 or Samsung 830 series?
Hard drive in conjunction with small SSD:
WD 1 TB SATA3.0 drive
Backup drive:
Samsung 1 TB SATA 2.0

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions.

Wow. I just did a quick run through: $1400 thus far. May have to trim that a bit.
Case: $160
PSU: $133
Mobo: $210
CPU: $190
Cooler: $43
RAM: $96
SSD: $115
HD1: $205
HD2: $80
Media reader: $27
Optical drives: $40
Win7/hp upgrade: $110

 

[Dangman]

$190 - Intel Core i5-2400 CPU
$120 - Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$90 - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series F3-10666CL9Q-16GBRL 4 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$115 - Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SSD
$156 - Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D HDS721010DLE630 1TB SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$22 - Samsung SH-222AB SATA DVD Burner
$100 - SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W Modular PSU
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Case
$100 - Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit OEM
---
Total: $993 plus tax and shipping.

And regarding storage, what the heck has happened to HD prices? I bought a Sammy HD204UI 2TB drive a few months ago for $80 and now they're going for $230. ???

Floods in Thailand:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221409/Hard_drive_shortage_expected_to_hurt_consumers_most
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-thai-disrupting-hard.html

It'll be quite a long long time before we see 2TB drives for $80 again. Some people are saying that drive prices will increase even higher too.

Oh and the Hitachi drive above outperforms that WD and Samsung 1TB drives you listed. .

 

[engiNURD]

You mention that it's a crowded desk. How about a mATX shoebox build instead? Something like a Sugo case...

$75 - SilverStone Sugo SG02B-F ABS/SECC Steel MicroATX
$115 - Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Micro ATX

 

[speedlever]

$190 - Intel Core i5-2400 CPU
$120 - Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$90 - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series F3-10666CL9Q-16GBRL 4 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$115 - Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SSD
$156 - Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D HDS721010DLE630 1TB SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$22 - Samsung SH-222AB SATA DVD Burner
$100 - SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W Modular PSU
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Case
$100 - Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit OEM
---
Total: $993 plus tax and shipping.


Floods in Thailand:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221409/Hard_drive_shortage_expected_to_hurt_consumers_most
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-thai-disrupting-hard.html

It'll be quite a long long time before we see 2TB drives for $80 again. Some people are saying that drive prices will increase even higher too.

Oh and the Hitachi drive above outperforms that WD and Samsung 1TB drives you listed. .

You mention that it's a crowded desk. How about a mATX shoebox build instead? Something like a Sugo case...

$75 - SilverStone Sugo SG02B-F ABS/SECC Steel MicroATX
$115 - Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Micro ATX

To be honest, I can't warm up to the shoebox build. And there's more vertical room available than there is lateral. The clutter I mention because some of the cases (P183V2) appear to have a front cover to open to access the external drives. However, an upper partial length door could work. And I'm partial to case fans in front for extra HD cooling... like the Antec Solo and Corsair carbide 400r and 500r series. Just don't need the lights and bling.

Nice find on the ram. Will it fit in slot 1 under the CM Hyper 212+? It's mighty tight on my P8Z68V-Pro, but I'm using slots 2 and 4 right now (and have 2x2GB DDR3 ram coming for slots 1 and 3.)

I can't find but 4 fan headers on that mobo. If I get that Corsair carbide 500r, I'll need at least 6 fan headers: dual 120mm front fans, single 200mm side fan, single 120mm rear fan, and the cpu cooler fan + fan for a dual config. Otherwise the 6 rear USB ports and DVI meet the minimum required. Sure would be nice if they would post the number of fan headers in the details.

I found a combo with the i5-2400 and P8Z68V for $342:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.762987

I count 6 fan headers on that mobo. The Corsair cases have 5.25 inch external drive bays and I see no included adapter for a 3.5 inch media reader. How could that be accommodated?

I'm looking for dual burners, so double that price to $44.

On the SSD, I couldn't see the difference between the C300 and the M4 that you suggest, but same price, regardless.

Nice find on that SeaSonic PSU. And that Carbide 400R could work. I'm still not sure how to work a 3.5" external media drive there. Some cases offer a 3.5" adapter.

On the Win7 OS, I prefer the upgrade version because the OEM version specifies: ..."cannot be transferred to another computer once it is installed."

That Hitachi Deskstar is also a nice find. The Sammy 1TB has gone up $60 since I started looking today. I wanted a 2nd 1TB drive for backup and figured a Sata 2.0 drive would be fine for that. Also, I don't expect to have more than 2 Sata 3.0 ports unless I up the mobo specs. I expect to need 2 Sata 3.0 ports for the SSD and the Sata 3.0 drive, 4 or 5 more Sata 2.0 ports for the dual burners, the backup Sata 2.0 drive, and possibly 2 more smaller Sata 2.0 drives. But I might connect those externally, if need be for file transfer purposes.

So here's what I'm showing right now:
$342 i5-2400/P8Z68V (not pro) combo
$203 Corsair HX650/Carbide 400R combo. Add $25 for the 500R in place of the 400R in the combo.
$90 G.Skill 4x4Gb DDR3 ram
$115 Crucial M4 64 Gb SSD
$150 Hitachi Deskstar 1TB Sata 3.0 HD
$140 Samsung Spinpoint 1TB Sata 2.0 HD
$44 Dual DVD burners
$110 Windows 7 HP upgrade
$27 Media card reader
$43 CM Hyper 212+ plus extra Blademaster 120mm fan

Dang. $1264 plus shipping on some of it. No tax.

 

[Dangman]

Nice find on the ram. Will it fit in slot 1 under the CM Hyper 212+?

It should since it doesn't have RAM heatsinks.

I can't find but 4 fan headers on that mobo. If I get that Corsair carbide 500r, I'll need at least 6 fan headers: dual 120mm front fans, single 200mm side fan, single 120mm rear fan, and the cpu cooler fan + fan for a dual config.

Acutally no, you don't: Three of the fans on the Corsair Carbide 500R are directly connected to the case's onboard fan controller. Only the rear fan of that case needs to be connected to the motherboard. So you don't need six fan headers if you go with the Corsair Carbide 500R.

Sure would be nice if they would post the number of fan headers in the details.

They do: Go to the motherboard's manufacturer's website for that motherboard. In fact, there's a direct link to the motherboard's manufacturer's website for that motherboard on the Newegg page for that motherboard.

The Corsair cases have 5.25 inch external drive bays and I see no included adapter for a 3.5 inch media reader. How could that be accommodated?

Find a 3.5" to 5.25" bracket. There's tons of them on newegg and some 3.5' media readers comes with such a bracket.

On the SSD, I couldn't see the difference between the C300 and the M4 that you suggest, but same price, regardless.

Specs alone do not tell the whole story, especially when its outdated specs: The Crucial M4 is faster, newer, and a little more reliable than the C300

On the Win7 OS, I prefer the upgrade version because the OEM version specifies: ..."cannot be transferred to another computer once it is installed."

But the upgrade version requires a previous install of Windows on that PC technically.

That Hitachi Deskstar is also a nice find. The Sammy 1TB has gone up $60 since I started looking today. I wanted a 2nd 1TB drive for backup and figured a Sata 2.0 drive would be fine for that. Also, I don't expect to have more than 2 Sata 3.0 ports unless I up the mobo specs. I expect to need 2 Sata 3.0 ports for the SSD and the Sata 3.0 drive, 4 or 5 more Sata 2.0 ports for the dual burners, the backup Sata 2.0 drive, and possibly 2 more smaller Sata 2.0 drives. But I might connect those externally, if need be for file transfer purposes.

There's a few things wrong with this:
When it comes to mechanical hard drives, SATA 6.0Gb/s doesn't do anything besides providing another marketing point. In fact, that Hitachi drive still would have outperformed that Samsung whether the Hitachi was SATA 3.0Gb/s or the Samsung was 6.0Gb/s. As such, unless you need to save $10, the significantly higher performance of the Hitachi is well worth the extra $10. So whether a hard drive states SATA 6.0Gb/s or SATA 3.0Gb/s, none of that means anything in regards to performance.

Also having the second hard drive in the PC with the copy of the data does not make it backup at all. All it is another copy of the data, not a backup. Backup is a copy of data stored on different medium or device that is not connected to the main data source. So in other words, a copy of my photos on my brother's laptop is technically backup. But a copy of my photos stored on a different drive in my PC doesn't constitute backup since anything that happens to my PC can happen to that copied data. Get what I am saying? So what you are doing is not backup at all.

Dang. $1264 plus shipping on some of it.

Ok, time for you to be honest: Are you actually serious about keeping to that $1000 budget? If not and your actual budget is $1200 to $1300, let me know now so I don't keep wasting my time trying to save you money. Otherwise, if you are serious, you're gonna need to make some cuts like the second hard drive, HSF, downgrading the mobo, etc. Simple as that.

 

[engiNURD]

Nice find on the ram. Will it fit in slot 1 under the CM Hyper 212+?

If not, just mount the fan a bit higher and you'll be fine.

If the 400R is significantly cheaper than the 500R, go for that and save your cash. However, last I checked, the 500R was $120 shipped from amazon, and the 400R was $110.

 

[speedlever]

If not, just mount the fan a bit higher and you'll be fine.

If the 400R is significantly cheaper than the 500R, go for that and save your cash. However, last I checked, the 500R was $120 shipped from amazon, and the 400R was $110.

Good point. Optionally, I could dismount the fan, put the ram in, then remount the fan too. Yeah, the price diff is pretty negligible.

 

[speedlever]

It should since it doesn't have RAM heatsinks.

Hmm. Does heatsink = heat spreaders?

Acutally no, you don't: Three of the fans on the Corsair Carbide 500R are directly connected to the case's onboard fan controller. Only the rear fan of that case needs to be connected to the motherboard. So you don't need six fan headers if you go with the Corsair Carbide 500R.

How about on the 400R?

BTW, I went through the entire list of cases you suggested in another thread. My preference for fans in front of the HD cage really limits my choices. I am a fan of the Antec Solo case and was interested in the Solo II. But it only has provision for two 5.25 external drive bays. No place for dual optical drives and a media card reader.

OTOH, if we could do away with one of the optical drives, the Solo II would work. I'd just need an adapter for the 3.5" media drive to fit in one of the 5.25" external drive bays. And get a couple extra 120mm fans for the HD cooling. I like having the removable brace under the PSU and the two front USB 3.0 ports the Solo II offers over the original Solo.

They do: Go to the motherboard's manufacturer's website for that motherboard. In fact, there's a direct link to the motherboard's manufacturer's website for that motherboard on the Newegg page for that motherboard.

Good point. But I really was thinking it would be nice if they (NE) included that in the blurb on the detail page.

Find a 3.5" to 5.25" bracket. There's tons of them on newegg and some 3.5' media readers comes with such a bracket.

Ah. A universal fit. That should be easy then. Yep. $16.

Specs alone do not tell the whole story, especially when its outdated specs: The Crucial M4 is faster, newer, and a little more reliable than the C300

I see now. Good to know.

But the upgrade version requires a previous install of Windows on that PC technically.

I figured as much, although I looked and didn't find that differentiation in the sales info. Technically, I could install Win XP and then install the upgrade, but then again... . I don't want the limitation of not being able to move it to a different computer... however that may be defined.

There's a few things wrong with this:
When it comes to mechanical hard drives, SATA 6.0Gb/s doesn't do anything besides providing another marketing point. In fact, that Hitachi drive still would have outperformed that Samsung whether the Hitachi was SATA 3.0Gb/s or the Samsung was 6.0Gb/s. As such, unless you need to save $10, the significantly higher performance of the Hitachi is well worth the extra $10. So whether a hard drive states SATA 6.0Gb/s or SATA 3.0Gb/s, none of that means anything in regards to performance.

Also having the second hard drive in the PC with the copy of the data does not make it backup at all. All it is another copy of the data, not a backup. Backup is a copy of data stored on different medium or device that is not connected to the main data source. So in other words, a copy of my photos on my brother's laptop is technically backup. But a copy of my photos stored on a different drive in my PC doesn't constitute backup since anything that happens to my PC can happen to that copied data. Get what I am saying? So what you are doing is not backup at all.

Thanks for the Sata 3.0 vs Sata 2.0 info. It sounds like the Hitachi connected to the Sata 2.0 port won't perform any differently than when connected to the 3.0 port, but will outperform the Sammy in either case. When the Sammy was $70, I thought it made sense for my purpose. But with the current minimal priced diff, I agree. Get two of the HItachi drives.

Regarding the backup, I understand the difference. Technically, I should have said copy because what I really want to do is provide some measure of protection against HD failure. I use a program called Syncback SE to copy the data from one drive to another for this purpose. When we really start talking about backup, that's a whole 'nuther discussion.

Ok, time for you to be honest: Are you actually serious about keeping to that $1000 budget? If not and your actual budget is $1200 to $1300, let me know now so I don't keep wasting my time trying to save you money. Otherwise, if you are serious, you're gonna need to make some cuts like the second hard drive, HSF, downgrading the mobo, etc. Simple as that.

True. I hope to get with the relative today or tomorrow and finalize the details. The $1000 was my initial guess based on putting a few components together. I just found it amazing how quickly it all added up. My recent upgrade was about $500. But the addition of case, psu, etc. really adds up. And this is all without any video cards either.

The SSD plus 2 HDs add $427 to the cost alone. CPU/mobo combo is $300-350 any way you slice it. And for a system built to last at least the next 5 years, I don't want to compromise too much on some of these components. Let's see what they say....

 

[Dangman]

Hmm. Does heatsink = heat spreaders?

Yes.

How about on the 400R?

Ok fair point there: You would need five fan headers in your case.

BTW, I went through the entire list of cases you suggested in another thread. My preference for fans in front of the HD cage really limits my choices.

I too have a preference for fans in fron the HDD cage. Hence why a majority of the cases in my list either have fans in front of the HDD cage or at least a fan mount or two in front of the HDD cage.

I am a fan of the Antec Solo case and was interested in the Solo II. But it only has provision for two 5.25 external drive bays. No place for dual optical drives and a media card reader.

OTOH, if we could do away with one of the optical drives, the Solo II would work. I'd just need an adapter for the 3.5" media drive to fit in one of the 5.25" external drive bays. And get a couple extra 120mm fans for the HD cooling. I like having the removable brace under the PSU and the two front USB 3.0 ports the Solo II offers over the original Solo.

In general, I would not recommend the Anec Solo II case since it seems overpriced to me. Maybe if it was $90 to $100 but not at $130. There are better quality and cooling cases at that $130 price range.

True. I hope to get with the relative today or tomorrow and finalize the details.
....
Let's see what they say....

All right then. I'll wait until real budget is posted before commenting any further.

 

[speedlever]

I too have a preference for fans in fron the HDD cage. Hence why a majority of the cases in my list either have fans in front of the HDD cage or at least a fan mount or two in front of the HDD cage.

I did not know that. I must not have looked closely enough to be able to tell which ones offered that option and which ones did not. If I can find that thread again, I'll relook at them.

 

[speedlever]

One point of clarification: you mentioned the ram did not have heatsinks. But in the pic I posted (of the suggested ram) it clearly has heat spreaders. Did you realize the pic I posted was of the ram you suggested? Just clarifying here.

 

[speedlever]

snip

All right then. I'll wait until real budget is posted before commenting any further.

Well. Here's the deal. There is no budget. This is a build completely at my discretion. They just want it to be a system that they can rely on for the next 5 years or so. Even the case is at my discretion. Oh, and a single DVD burner is fine.

No need to go crazy. But seriously, what would you change from this:

$342 i5-2400/P8Z68V (not pro) combo
$203 Corsair HX650/Carbide 400R combo. Add $25 for the 500R in place of the 400R in the combo.
$90 G.Skill 4x4Gb DDR3 ram
$115 Crucial M4 64 Gb SSD
$156 Hitachi Deskstar 1TB Sata 3.0 HD
$156 Hitachi Deskstar 1TB Sata 3.0 HD
$25 DVD burner
$110 Windows 7 HP upgrade
$27 Media card reader
$43 CM Hyper 212+ plus extra Blademaster 120mm fan
$16 5.25 to 3.5 converter

$1283 +/- in case I missed some shipping. Figured with the Carbide 400R case.

I want to look at the cases again and any other suggestions offered. If possible, I'd like to place the order tomorrow.

 

[engiNURD]

... I figured as much, although I looked and didn't find that differentiation in the sales info. Technically, I could install Win XP and then install the upgrade, but then again... . I don't want the limitation of not being able to move it to a different computer... however that may be defined. ...

• Full Retail licenses are transferable.
• Upgrade Retail licenses are transferable if the system being transferred to has an existing, eligible OS license.
• Full OEM licenses are not transferable from system to system.
• Upgrade OEM licenses are not transferable from system to system.
• OEM licenses are technically tied down to the original system they came with. If it was a DIY build, it is tied to the original system it was first activated on. To allow for hardware failures, you can call MS to re-activate if online activation denies you and you're still re-activating the original system.
• You can perform a clean install with upgrade media.

 

[speedlever]

After suffering two HD failures last year ( Jan and Dec, both failed drives were my OS drives,) I moved to an SSD. The first HD was running Vista/64 when it failed and I bought an upgrade copy of Win7 and installed it as a clean install on the replacement drive. When the 2nd drive failed in Dec, I replaced it with an SSD and again installed Win7/64 as a clean install. No special tricks required.

Thanks for the info.

 

[engiNURD]

... I bought an upgrade copy of Win7 and installed it as a clean install on the replacement drive. When the 2nd drive failed in Dec, I replaced it with an SSD and again installed Win7/64 as a clean install. No special tricks required. ...

Yah, the only discs I've encountered that required some tricks for a clean install were from the Win7 Family Pack Retail. Was your upgrade copy retail or OEM?

 

[speedlever]

I bought my upgrade copy at Costco... so I think that makes it retail.

 

[Dangman]

$203 Corsair HX650/Carbide 400R combo. Add $25 for the 500R in place of the 400R in the combo.

Once you factor in shipping, that 400R case come out to about $120 shipped. IMO, that makes it a poor buy considering that the you can get 500R for $2 more from Amazon.com with Free Shipping:
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Carbi...83JW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320373608&sr=8-1

 

[speedlever]

Actually, the combo with the HX650 psu comes out to just under $210 shipped, plus another $25 in rebates.

Danny, thank you very much for your input and suggestions. Most helpful!

Reading on the Z68 thread, there seem to be some questions as to psu's being up to the task to power the instant requirements of SSDs. Guess we'll see.

Regarding the Carbide 500R... I like that case, in some ways better than the 400R. But looking at the top of the case, there's a recessed area right where they keep a cordless phone base on the current case. The 400R case looks like the platform is large enough to allow that to continue. And since there are no video cards to cool, I wasn't sure of the value of that 200mm fan on the 500R.

I'll post a final component list when I finish it up.

 

[speedlever]

One minor dilemma. NE won't let me buy but one of the Hitachi 1TB drives. Any alternate suggestions?

I would like to see the Hitachi return rates improve:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/831-6/components-returns-rates.html

 

[speedlever]

Ok. Here are the order details:

Add $33 and some change for shipping for a total of $1285.xx

 

[Dangman]

Looks a tad pricey for the usage scenario but decent build overall.

 

[speedlever]

Yes, but overall, not too bad. The recent surge in HD pricing didn't help. And the media reader I decided to go with was a bit pricey too. I was just glad to not add in a monitor, KB and mouse.

They've honestly had pretty good service out of the old Dell. I recently had to replace the psu in it (was sorta surpised it lasted 5+ years,) and early on, had a HD failure or two. So I jury-rigged up a spare 80mm fan to help circulate the air by the HD cage and had no more trouble... other than routine issues incurred by non-techie users.

 

[speedlever]

• Full Retail licenses are transferable.
• Upgrade Retail licenses are transferable if the system being transferred to has an existing, eligible OS license.
• Full OEM licenses are not transferable from system to system.
• Upgrade OEM licenses are not transferable from system to system.
• OEM licenses are technically tied down to the original system they came with. If it was a DIY build, it is tied to the original system it was first activated on. To allow for hardware failures, you can call MS to re-activate if online activation denies you and you're still re-activating the original system.
• You can perform a clean install with upgrade media.

It was interesting that you posted this.

In point of fact, I had to jump through some hoops to install Win7/64HP clean on the new machine. It would not accept my key.

So I had to do a 2nd install... the upgrade install (option 3 on PT's site)... and this time it took my registration key. Son of a gun.

 

[engiNURD]

It was interesting that you posted this.

In point of fact, I had to jump through some hoops to install Win7/64HP clean on the new machine. It would not accept my key.

So I had to do a 2nd install... the upgrade install (option 3 on PT's site)... and this time it took my registration key. Son of a gun.

I actually never input the key during installation (ever since Vista and XP SP3). I always add it after, when it's time to activate online.

 

[speedlever]

Yep. I shoulda learned from my last Vista installation. Or more to the point, I'd forgotten that. It's been too long.