Hacked off!

[annie0000]

It was my boy's birthday yesterday - we bought him a Tv that he can use as a computer screen and thanks to the lovely techie people on here, got that working for him and he is chuffed. We were linking it up to his little netbook so he could play on a big screen.

As he has some birthday money and some money left over from Christmas, he had about £100 to spend and wanted a PC tower so it would be a bit more powerful than his netbook.

We were in town and went into this computer store - we used them to clean our house PC last year and had no complaints with them so asked if they would do a refurb tower with enough capacity to play minecraft (a downloaded game that he is obsessed with) and told them our budget was £100 tops - two different guys said that should be there or thereabouts and that they would phone later once they had checked what they had in stock to build with. Anyhoo they didn't phone so after being nagged half the day, I called them today and the behind the scenes guy said that's no problem it'll be £250!!! He seemed a bit put out when he realised that I was a bit annoyed that that wasn't even in the ballpark. Why would you get a little boys hopes up like that??? If they'd said that he didn't have enough money at the time then it would have been a lot easier to deal with.

[sherrardk]

I would be hacked off too - he's not just a disappointed boy, he's your boy! I'm not a techie person but there must be a solution. Hope he had a nice birthday. x

[Mamyalynne]

That is bang out of order and no wonder you feel this way.

[annie0000]

He had a fab birthday sher - hope your young man did too. :o) He's a bit sad today though - I am sure we will pick up something - i'll ask some of the guys on here some better info on what I need and go trawling tomorrow. It looks to me looking at Ebay that his budget should be fine, i'd just prefer to get something more local or from a "real" shop in case we have a problem.

[karenmac60]

That's rubbish Annie - I hate seeing kids disappointed by thoughtless adults. What about the local paper? Or if you could add a wee bit for him, there's this

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/267867

[ChuckFickens]

Tough one on that budget....

http://www.morgancomp...core-2gb-160gb-Xppro/

Doesn't look too bad but is little over budget (£35)

[annie0000]

I know mamya - I was really taken aback - the best the guy could say was "i'm sorry for wasting your time" at the end of the day it's not about my time its about dealing with the emotions of a child.

[Mamyalynne]

He should train his staff better.

[Buenchico]

Chuck:
Would this do the job?
http://www.accomputer...b-ram-40gb-hdd-xp-pro
(I can personally recommend the company)

[annie0000]

are those both new karen and chuck? cos looks an excellent deal - I was just looking for something 2nd hand at that budget. I don't mind adding a wee bit and he got more cards/money in the post today, it was the fact that he wanted to buy it himself.

[Buenchico]

There might even be something cheaper in their lists which is suitable:
http://www.accomputer...efurbished-base-units

[welshlibranr]

they were trying to reign you in annie!.....don't have any of it!...........

[annie0000]

Thanks Chris that may be an option too. This is what spare ed told me I needed in terms of a spec on a thread earlier in the year:

CPU: 2.0+ GHz multi-core processor, 2.5+ GHz single-core processor
RAM/Memory: 2.0+ GB for Xp, 3.0+ GB for Vista/Win 7/Mac OS, 4.0+ GB for all 64-bit Operating Systems

Graphic Card: ATI/Nvidia independent card that support OpenGL 2.0 with 128+ MB of dedicated G-RAM

[Buenchico]

My links are to refurbished units but I've directed friends towards that company, where they've subsequently made purchases, and I've helped them to set up their computers. I've not been able to tell them from new. (The staff are also very helpful. I couldn't get the speakers to work on one PC. A quick phone call, which was promptly answered by a very helpful guy, was all that it took to resolve the problem. [Wrong socket!]).

[karenmac60]

The ebuyer one is new, but it's the base only (you have a monitor and you can get a keyboard and mouse for buttons). It's linux rather than windows though, so I'm not sure how that would go for gaming - although you could install windows.

[annie0000]

welsh, I was fully expecting them to come back and say £100 was a bit tight and say maybe £125 or something and i'd have done a wee bit of negotiating and chucked a few quid in myself, but not £250 - that figure came out of nowhere and I was really on the back foot during the call - think I will call them back again tomorrow.

[ChuckFickens]

the one I linked to is refurbished.. but morgan computers is a reputable company.

Karens is new, but doesn't have windows installed, it has linux (a cut down version at that!) and no CD drive at all, so installing windows would be tricky or require a USB CD drive.

Chris's one is a respectable computer for the price... but is a single core p4 (old) CPU and only 1GB of ram and a 40GB hard drive, which will quickly become not big enough these days.

None of them (including my link) are really suitable for gaming, but they will give much better performance on basic stuff like minecraft than a netbook.

[annie0000]

Thanks Chris - I'll have a good look and see what I can see.

Thanks Karen - not too sure what linux is - I hate being this thick when it comes to this kind of stuff - I just have a mental block!!

[Buenchico]

It's the graphics card which has got me worried, Annie. Both of the computers which Chuck and I have linked to have 'on-board' graphics. (i.e. displaying the graphics takes up part of the main processing power). Your information suggests that a separate, dedicated graphics card is needed. I'm no expert on graphic cards (or on gaming computers in general) but such a card tends to add quite a bit to the cost of a computer.

Perhaps Chuck can give some advice here?

[Buenchico]

I must learn to type faster!

[annie0000]

Thanks Chuck - he is only just turned 11 so I think he can wait a few years for a a fully fledged gaming PC if that's what he wants - tbh the boys already have a PS3, Wii and Dsis - but he is not that bothered with gaming as such with the exception of minecraft - he has simply transferred his lego obsession to minecraft and it happens to be on PC and not in any other format. Who knows what the next obsession will be!