Advice On Buying A New Computer Please

Bopper said:
No-one has mentioned a very important part in all of this:

Doesn't matter what system you use, how much you spend or what software you have got. If you want to use the internet this day and age you need a good reliable and fast internet supplier. The old copper non enhanced BT telephone lines are useless and if you live in a area not covered by Fibre optic cable or Openreach high speed trickery your computer will run slow and give you massive hangups and problems with download speed. Get a free download/upload speed check on your Telephone line first.
Click to expand...

im running linux on copper wire ,can watch movies etc,so rubbish to above
 
another form of paypall then wint.
most people dont use there pc for more than the net ,email ,facebook ,ebay,etc.
a lot of people i have spoke to dont even know what operating sys there on,never mind all the gobilygook.
 
mark61 said:
Got just over 5 using that link. Tried 3 other sites and got 18, 33 and a 48.

With Virgin cable, should be up to 60 Mb/s lol
Click to expand...

I just measured 13 on the same link. Tried another and it was 3.5!
Oh well, so long as I'm connected I'm happy.
John
 
I will not answer the know all but reply to Wints, didn't know of any other sort of cable, interesting that. I was told at my old address that the old copper wires were the worst by the BT engineer, he said that BT were due to replace these cables over the next couple of years (3 years ago). When I moved here they gave me a download of 5mg and as soon as I went to watch a lengthy Utube vid I got the whirlygig and the "buffering" message every 30 secs or so. They told me it was because I was a distance from the exchange but would improve if I waited, however, they also said I could have a bit of BT called infinity installed and that would immediately solve my problem, it did! It also cost me £20 odd a month. Conned again by BT. I asked the engineer what the box was and he said that it simulates fibre optic speeds by amplifying the line.

So in my opinion I am not talking rubbish at all. Your internet experience is only as good as your line connection speed and it is a good idea to check your speeds before buying new kit. Be careful of which speed checker you use because some will fool you into buying something or other to improve it. (they give a false lower speed in order to convince you).
 
I use speedtest.net which give me an accurate reading of 10mb download speed
 
Bopper said:
I will not answer the know all but reply to Wints, didn't know of any other sort of cable, interesting that. I was told at my old address that the old copper wires were the worst by the BT engineer, he said that BT were due to replace these cables over the next couple of years (3 years ago). When I moved here they gave me a download of 5mg and as soon as I went to watch a lengthy Utube vid I got the whirlygig and the "buffering" message every 30 secs or so. They told me it was because I was a distance from the exchange but would improve if I waited, however, they also said I could have a bit of BT called infinity installed and that would immediately solve my problem, it did! It also cost me £20 odd a month. Conned again by BT. I asked the engineer what the box was and he said that it simulates fibre optic speeds by amplifying the line.

So in my opinion I am not talking rubbish at all. Your internet experience is only as good as your line connection speed and it is a good idea to check your speeds before buying new kit. Be careful of which speed checker you use because some will fool you into buying something or other to improve it. (they give a false lower speed in order to convince you).
Click to expand...

i hope you were not refering to me ,yes i see your point but most people i know care not for films utube etc ,,they only use pc for ebay ,mail ,web ets,maybe we are a bit behind here,counting sheep more important.
 
Use linux Mint,ive been using Linux for ten years now,nowadays its so easy to use,easy to install and virtually virus free,for a virus to get in it has to enter the main kernel and you have to allow it in,so why would you do that ? Have a look on the Distrowatch site that will give you lots of information and what distros are the tops ! And download links,most English servers are university based,all are iso based ,you can download to a usb and boot off that, ive wiped windows off my 2 month old laptop and put Mint on after a denial of service virus wouldnt let me log on to my desktop, my laptop is happy now,it flys along,has very quick updates,and access to thousands of virus free programs at no cost ! And it works great on my Virgin mobile dongle,im writing this in my Iveco camper in the middle of Surrey near Weybridge ! With a hot cup of tea :drive:
 
for anyone who doesnt know their ram from their rom and has a slow windows computer its possibly worth speculating a couple of quid on fleabay for a puppy linux cd., or you can download and burn one yourself for nowt if youve got some idea of what youre doing..
puppy linux runs from the cd without having to be installed on the harddrive and is probably the easiest verson of linux to set up and use. mostly it does it itself.
if you eject the cd and restart the puter your back with whatever version of windows you had on yer harddrive.
the only mildly technical bit is you might on an older computer have to reset the order in which your puter reads the drives on startup . when you turn on you should see a message flash up that says hit fx (f1, or f2 etc) to enter bios, do that and just rearrange the start menu so it reads cd then harddrive. so it will boot from the puppy cd if its there or if it aint it goes to windows on the harddrive as the second choice.

it must be 3 or 4 years since i downloaded puppy and i have rarely used windows since. im using an old acer laptop thats probably ten years old with no problems. i started looking at linux cos xp with internet explorer 6 was beyond a joke trying to list used books on amazon... youd literally be able to make a cup of tea whilst waiting for listings to load, whereas with linux and thunderbird the process was instant. and ebay never freezes either.
 
anjou said:
Use linux Mint,ive been using Linux for ten years now,nowadays its so easy to use,easy to install and virtually virus free,for a virus to get in it has to enter the main kernel and you have to allow it in,so why would you do that ? Have a look on the Distrowatch site that will give you lots of information and what distros are the tops ! And download links,most English servers are university based,all are iso based ,you can download to a usb and boot off that, ive wiped windows off my 2 month old laptop and put Mint on after a denial of service virus wouldnt let me log on to my desktop, my laptop is happy now,it flys along,has very quick updates,and access to thousands of virus free programs at no cost ! And it works great on my Virgin mobile dongle,im writing this in my Iveco camper in the middle of Surrey near Weybridge ! With a hot cup of tea :drive:
Click to expand...

hi thats what i use mint mate d,t ,but it onley runs on pye chips ,older pcs might require xubuntu or pinguy,some folk me included have looked at others which have a desktop swither so you can make it look like window apple etc.
all thing work in mint always buy cams etc with sd card so i can remove them and put in pen drive and read that way.
 
anjou said:
Use linux Mint,ive been using Linux for ten years now,nowadays its so easy to use,easy to install ,im writing this in my Iveco camper in the middle of Surrey near Weybridge ! With a hot cup of tea :drive:
Click to expand...
Linux must be good, Windows can't make tea.

I think the OP (in his own words, 'computer knowledge is somewhat less than zero') isn't going to install Linux however easy it is, there are good offers for Laptops which will be ultra fast after his current PC, he can then use it in the van or with a monitor and keyboard/mouse at home if he wishes

I am with VM, I pay for 30mb and get 32.6mb download speed, 1.9mb upload so happy enough
 
Last edited:
ricc said:
for anyone who doesnt know their ram from their rom and has a slow windows computer its possibly worth speculating a couple of quid on fleabay for a puppy linux cd., or you can download and burn one yourself for nowt if youve got some idea of what youre doing..
puppy linux runs from the cd without having to be installed on the harddrive and is probably the easiest verson of linux to set up and use. mostly it does it itself.
if you eject the cd and restart the puter your back with whatever version of windows you had on yer harddrive.
the only mildly technical bit is you might on an older computer have to reset the order in which your puter reads the drives on startup . when you turn on you should see a message flash up that says hit fx (f1, or f2 etc) to enter bios, do that and just rearrange the start menu so it reads cd then harddrive. so it will boot from the puppy cd if its there or if it aint it goes to windows on the harddrive as the second choice.

it must be 3 or 4 years since i downloaded puppy and i have rarely used windows since. im using an old acer laptop thats probably ten years old with no problems. i started looking at linux cos xp with internet explorer 6 was beyond a joke trying to list used books on amazon... youd literally be able to make a cup of tea whilst waiting for listings to load, whereas with linux and thunderbird the process was instant. and ebay never freezes either.
Click to expand...
yes thats right i find puppy a bit geeky though,by the way you can run all distro in live boot,good post me lad,regards trev
 
Hi Trevor,yes you are right,most distros work on x86 architecture, and prefer Intel chips to Amd, but saying that most distros give lots of download options incl 32 and 64 bit , Pc Linux os is another well thought of one. Its always good to Google first to find out if it will work, or if you have had enough of the way Google is getting a bit nosey then use Duck Duck Go as your search engine like I do !its NOT nosey at all ! Nuff said !:idea-007:
 
I have an Acer laptop bought last year, and this was taken with us this summer. It has a good battery life and is very fast. HDMI output so your HD photos can be viewed on your huge telly.The speakers, however, are dreadful: weak and tinny, but they are very small I suppose. I thought it good value at £400 from Tesco.

My main point is that last year I bought an HP All-in-One as a Christmas present for a grand daughter. I got it from HP Direct - online. Wireless mouse and keyboard, 23" touch screen, 6Gb memory, 2 Tb drive, built in DTV tuner with remote control, Blue Ray DVD and Beats Audio Hifi Speakers.

hp.jpg

When I opened the box I quickly realised that it was far too good for a ten year old and I'm using it right now! And the price of this marvel? £435 delivered to my door, and with a one year collect to base warranty. Retail price was over £1000. The reason? HP were selling off their Windows 7 machines to make way for Windows 8 types. There are bargains out there: one just has to look harder.
John

HP TouchSmart 520-1240ea Desktop PC Product Specifications HP TouchSmart 520-1240ea Desktop PC | HP® Support
 
Last edited:
Puppy installs easily and runs quickly on from a 1 gig flash drive which you can carry around with you like a tiny PC. "Is that a computer in your pocket or are you glad to see me"
 
Sharon the Cat said:
Minefield, depends what you want to do with it. Will a refurbed one come with a guarantee?

One definite piece of advice, don't get one with the XP operating system. Microsoft will no longer be supporting it next year, it will be vulnerable to attack. Personally I'd also avoid Vista, purely 'cos I don't like it.

I don't currently use Windows 7 or 8 but I'm sure lots on here do.

Have fun.
Click to expand...

And how much has your computer been protected by Microsoft

Ignore this idea of don't use XP, most corporates are still running XP and will continue to run XP as there is no commercial gain to go to later versions and its expensive to upgrade.I know large companies still running 2000. If you want cheap and warranted see the link below, they have a full range from XP onwards

Don't go to windows 8 or 8.1 , 7 is good. Its XP like unlike 8

The advantage of 7 is that you can use the full power of a modern PC by using a 64 bit version which allows you to have over 4gb of memory. Warning, some of your old apps may not run on 7

have a look at Morgan Computers - for cheap computers, printers, digital cameras and accessories

Rich (Microsoft certified systems engineer)
 
Hard:drive: !Oh gord blimey ! all this has just blown my thick head!! I'm goin back into me cave, lite a fire and revert to smoke signals! :nospam::beer: :cheers::sleep-027: Myk :camper:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top