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Date:	Tue, 21 Mar 2006 07:30:01 PST8
From:	Zdenek Jizba <jizba@verizon.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: buyng a new PC

Content Type: text/plain

Colin Campbell wrote:

> Zdenek Jizba wrote:
>
>> I will be shopping for a new PC. Any suggestions
>> as to brand, store, prices etc will be welcome.
>> The PC will be for eCS exclusively unless it comes
>> with a built in Window OS. I would also prefer
>> to have a built in 3.5" diskette slot. Speed and
>> memory as well as hard disks are subject to
>> debate, although I am inclined to get a removable
>> HD.
>>
> Having seen Gary's response, I'll speak up for the other side. I
> bought a Dell Dimension 8400 in January, 2005. Dell was offering a
> free 19" flat panel monitor at the time, and I think I got a very
> powerful PC at a very good price.
>
> I got the on board sound to work with Uniaud. I believe I could get
> the on board NIC (a Broadcom chipset) to work, but I decided to make
> sure, by buying an Intel PRO/1000 NIC. I ordered a floppy drive. I
> got both a CD burner and a DVD burner - overkill, and the source of my
> worst problem. The machine ran very slowly under eCS, and I had to
> contact Daniela Engert to get her help to figure out what to do. I
> ended up swapping the two burners in their bays, and everything was
> fine after that. I added a second 120GB hard drive to put eCS on,
> leaving the WinXP Home on drive 1 alone, but I believe DFSee can now
> help resize an NTFS partition, to get free space for eCS.
>
> Dell has discontinued the 8400; now they have a 9000 series as the
> second most powerful PC in the Dimension line. (XPS is the most
> expensive and powerful in the line; I think it is for gamers.)
>
> I think the efforts that have been expended to make eCS install and
> run on modern hardware have been pretty successful, and that you could
> buy Dell, HP / Compaq, or other lines of commercial PCs with the
> expectation that eCS would run on them.
>
> Of course, all of them will come with Windows (as far as I know). It
> is possible to clean Windows from the PC, and return Windows XP for a
> refund, but I've never tried to do so, so I don't know how easy that
> really is, nor what the refund amounts to.
>
> I have found that once in a while, it is necessary or at least useful
> to have Windows available to watch the latest comical / horrifying /
> amazing video, processing the occasional MS Office file, or the like.
> Buying a commercial PC will mean that the work of installing Windows
> is done for you, although perhaps not in exactly the way you'd like
> (such as partitioning a hard drive).
>
> People say you can build for about the same price as buying; some say
> building is cheaper, and others say buying saves money. My last three
> PCs were (1) built by Simply Intelligent (a short lived OS/2 supplier
> in Austin), (2) built by Indelible Blue (now known as Prism Data Works
> I think), and (3) customized by Dell. All have been satisfactory for
> the time when I bought them, both in terms of price and performance.
>
> Happy shopping!
> Colin
>
> =====================================================
>
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> =====================================================
>
Thanks for that information. My current PC came from Inedible Blue.
It has worked fine but lately the problems have started to multiply.
I had to install eCS on a "new" 20G hard drive but with a "freespace
wasted" and unable to fix it with dfsee. The main CD reader no longer
works and had to be disconnected. I have problems with the printer
and cannot boot from the partitions with eCS 1.0 and 1.1

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