Buying a PC for my Parents

Plates

Hi all,

My parents PC has given up the ghost (looks like hard drive has failed). I've been shopping round for replacements for them but I'm a bit out of practice. Does Dell still give good value for money - or are there other sites I should be looking at (e.g. - Komplett)?

Budget is around €650 - for PC only (have monitor).

Any advice would be appreciated.

U_Fig

Plates wrote: »

Hi all,

My parents PC has given up the ghost (looks like hard drive has failed). I've been shopping round for replacements for them but I'm a bit out of practice. Does Dell still give good value for money - or are there other sites I should be looking at (e.g. - Komplett)?

Budget is around €650 - for PC only (have monitor).

Any advice would be appreciated.

If the pc is perfectly good and there's just a hard drive issue why not just replace the harddrive it's really easy and here are tutorials around for doing everything. From what I'd imagine it's used for Internet emails ect if the old one works then put a plaster on it maybe.. But if you want a new one the I've used dell for years had very few problems with them.. (You'll have the option to ger an extended warranty)Apart from the call centre can never understand me. You could get a very good machine for 650 shop around look for deals and shop to your needs..

There is a thread here of places To look in be wary of shipping costs
click here

If you post what the comp will be used for then we can get a better of idea what

Tea_Bag

I'd mostly agree with the above. why not replace the HDD. the fresh windows install will also bring a breath of life back into it.

if you're still interested in a new PC, call over with a new thread to the PC building and upgrading forum with the answers to the questions in my signature.
I can pretty much guarantee that you wont need to spend near €650 anyway :P

edd012

The above posts make sense. Post the PC hardware specs and its operating system and you might get more specific answers.

Bear in mind if getting a new hard drive that older machines have IDE (PATA) interfaced hard drives and newer ones have SATA. If you get a SATA hard drive and the computer only supports PATA, you won't be able to connect it. Find out which it is.

Plates

Thanks for the feedback so far guys.

I'm only guessing that it's the hard drive that's the issue - based on the fact that it was spinning a lot over the past few weeks - and now it doesn't want to boot up. It's a 6 year old Dell XPS, Vista, 512mb RAM, 60G Hard Drive (can't remember processor speed). It powers up, connects to the keyboard and mouse but there's no display on the monitor (I've tested the monitor on a laptop and the display is working fine). Hard drive light on the tower is on but I can't hear it spinning / engaging.

My only concern about replacing the hard drive is that if it turns our that's not the problem - I'll have shelled out €100 or so and might still need a new PC.

Tea_Bag

Plates wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback so far guys.

I'm only guessing that it's the hard drive that's the issue - based on the fact that it was spinning a lot over the past few weeks - and now it doesn't want to boot up. It's a 6 year old Dell XPS, Vista, 512mb RAM, 60G Hard Drive (can't remember processor speed). It powers up, connects to the keyboard and mouse but there's no display on the monitor (I've tested the monitor on a laptop and the display is working fine). Hard drive light on the tower is on but I can't hear it spinning / engaging.

My only concern about replacing the hard drive is that if it turns our that's not the problem - I'll have shelled out €100 or so and might still need a new PC.

have you tested a different GPU? that would be my first guess. HDD wont spin up until the BIOS calls for it, and it might be stalling because of the GPU is fried, explaining the black screen.

a PC will still boot up without the HDD, it just wont go past the BIOS screen,.

Torqay

Vista on 512 MB RAM? Now if I were that PC, I'd have given up the ghost long time ago!

A 2006 XPS should have a C2D processor which is still perfectly OK for general use but it would also require a good memory upgrade. Doesn't sound like a faulty hard drive to me though, open the case, blow out the dust, reseat the graphics card and memory modules and try again.

unkel

Torqay wrote: »

Vista on 512 MB RAM?

I think OP has a few things mixed up. Vista wasn't launched until 2007 so either the PC is newer than 6 years, or it runs XP

I'd hazard a guess it is the latter. And 512MB on a light use machine with XP is grand

Torqay wrote: »

Now if I were that PC, I'd have given up the ghost long time ago!

Torqay

unkel wrote: »

I think OP has a few things mixed up. Vista wasn't launched until 2007

OEMs (such as Dell) were indeed selling Vista systems from Nov 2006, twas the retail version that hit the shelves in Jan 2007.

Plates

Torqay wrote: »

A 2006 XPS should have a C2D processor which is still perfectly OK for general use but it would also require a good memory upgrade. Doesn't sound like a faulty hard drive to me though, open the case, blow out the dust, reseat the graphics card and memory modules and try again.

I'll try this first - thanks for the tip.

With regard to the OS - it's definitely Vista. Either it came with Vista or I upgraded it.

If I do go down the route of changing the graphics card to test if that's the issue (and I apologise in advance if this is a stupid question) - how do I install the driver for it if I don't have a display?

Torqay

Plates wrote: »

how do I install the driver for it if I don't have a display?

You will be installing the driver in "VGA mode", Windows will boot alright, just not in the correct resolution, the card will be listed as Standard VGA Adapter in the device manager until you install the driver.

PrzemoF

Drop in a linux livecd to test it. If it works just click "Install to hard disk". Your parents might not even notice that something has changed if they used firefox for browsing.

You might also try to remove the hard disk and boot form livecd to test the PC.

Tea_Bag

windows will use default VGA drivers, so it'll be big blocks but you can still find everything.

riclad

It,ll come up as 800x600 resolution vga mode ,You can buy a pci graphics card .maplins,30 euro approx, eg pci ,not pci-e express card.
YOU could buy a pc unit ,no monitor pentium 4 or intel dual core 2.0ghz 1gig ram dvd/cdrw winxp or vista os 80gig ram on adverts.ie .THEN just plug it in to monitor ,mouse ,keyboard ,use the ones you have now.See
here for example http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/dell-optiplex-745-2-x-3-0-ghz-dualcore/1480464
,its fine for casual use ,webrowsing etc.just test any pc ,play a cd ,music,mp3, before you buy it.SPEAKERS plug in to green,line out,audio socket.PLAY A DVD to test the drive .
MOST pcs have 2 empty pci slots, eg white expansion interface slots.

pci express cards grahics are designed for 3d design ,or gaming use.
A NEW card may have a vga driver install cd in the box.
1 or 2gig ram is fine for a casual user .
TURN on pc , put in music cd ,or a boot cd,ie winxp, if drive does not spin up,acess light come on, the pc motherboard is probably dead.

IF 40GIG is too small ,you could always buy a 500gig drive ,put it in a drive 2 ,drive d .

ScumLord

Plates wrote: »

Does Dell still give good value for money

I don't really think so, shop around if your going to buy a new PC.