A PC for Mom

R

rusty12

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 2, 2007
Messages
443
What’s up ladies and gents? I'm having some trouble here. My sweet mom wants a PC that the family can have out in the common area where it can be accessed for some research, used for MS Office, and general web browsing. (Nothing major and def. no gaming) So that’s the small itty bitty background to the dilemma.


Here is where it gets tricky for me. There are three different routes I can go in getting her this PC you could say I guess.
1) I have an old and I do mean old PC with AMD Athlon 1400MHz Thunderbird with I think like 300something megs of ram (I'll have to check to verify exactly how much), a 30gig HDD, and a trusty 32meg GeForce 2 MX, a 17'' NEC CRT monitor.

This PC runs and works great with the exception of a few things. Number one being that this PC was built and given to us by my sisters ex douche bag boyfriend and he gave us an illegal copy of XP. So I'd want to put a fresh new, legal copy of XP on it and that’s like ($100 approx.) and we want to get a new LCD monitor for it (that’s like $180)

2) My mom has seen in the circulars for the evil empires BB and CC sport brand new PC's for just under $500 that includes a printer, monitor, etc.
Example: Tomorrow BB is selling an ACER desktop for $479 which includes Athlon 64 4000+, with 17'' LCD, Vista Home Premium, 1gig DDR2 memory, 250gig HDD, CD/DVD Burner, and nVIDIA GeForce 6100 gfx...I could even upgrade to a 4200+ cpu, with 2gig memory, and a 400gig HDD for $50 bucks. ....This is pretty hard to beat IMO

3) My last option which I'd love to be able to pick is building a budget PC for her myself. Since I started building PC's I swore to myself that I'd never buy a PC from a big box store again. I have not paid any attention to budget type hardware in years so I have no idea what to look for. Every time I hop over to newegg and I end up putting a rig together that’s like $600+ ...If someone has any idea how to avoid BB and CC with building a budget PC for under $500 maybe even under $400 if possible, I'd love you long time.

To sum things up, I'd know which route I should take and what would make most financial sense. I'd love to hear advice and help.

Cheers!
 
Having built a computer for a relative before, I can tell you that Option 3 is a bad one... with the $400-$500 budget you have, it's way too easy to go over budget (especially when you have to factor in the costs of a monitor and other peripherals, not to mention shipping costs and/or the operating system). I don't think that you should give your mom your old rig. (Man, that is old....)

The real question now becomes whether or not you want to handle all of your mom's computer problems. If you're willing to play the role of tech support, I'd say let her buy a new system from CC/BB, as they include everything -- monitor, speakers, keyboard/mouse, and even a printer! -- with the tower. If you don't want that burden, I'd check out Dell, HP, and/or Gateway online and see which specials they have.

If you're looking for a new operating system, now's a good time to go Vista. For example, at NewEgg, you could buy the 32-bit and 64-bit version of Vista Home Premium for around $110. Windows XP Media Center is $115, while Windows XP Pro (32-bit/x86) costs $140.
 
I recommend option 2.

You can build a PC for your mom for $500, maybe $400 BUT you will probably have to use ultra-low quality parts. Why bother building a PC if it isn't any better than the OEM built PC for about the same price?

So unless you want to build your mom a better quality PC, without the restricted budget, then by all means, go ahead. If you're planning on building a PC for your mom for $500 with monitor, OS, and tower included, I recommend against it since, more than likely, you'll use low-quality parts which kind of kills the reason for building a PC in the first place.

And for $530, that Acer isn't a bad deal.
 
Thanks for the input guys. I've been thinking about it since I first posted and the more I think about it I realize that the Acer dosent sound so bad. I shiver at the thought about the idea of purchasing a PC like this from them, but then again I have to remind myself that this is just a barebones rig where the most intensive thing it'll be doing is creating a powerpoint slide or writing a word document.

You guys think for the extra $50 bucks its best to purchase the higher end of the two systems?
 
Acer is good. I have the Q6600 from BB. Very good deal for $549 before. As far as budget PC, I would look at the Acers at CC or Best Buy. They normally offer the best value than the others.
 
Yeah go for the pre-built.

I managed not to long ago to build a budget system ($400 budget) for my family. It uses AMD X2 4000+, 1 gig of ram, XP Home, Keyboard/Mouse, and a cheap gigabyte motherboard, 160gb hard drive.

Now I had it shipped for $400 - I didn't need a printer or a monitor. The reason I built it on my own is because it actually works quite well for what the intended purpose was.

I didn't buy a prebuilt because the cheapest dell I could find was $400, plus $50 shipping - so I'm paying $450 for just a tower and kb/mouse with maybe a bigger hard drive but only a sempron processor. Plus it would have came with vista.

Now my problem with vista is that I haven't used it, so I could offer no tech support or show them how to do anything, since I'm away at college. So I wanted to go with an XP machine, wanted to parts I know would work and it does work and it'll work for many years cause I got good quality parts for cheap.

Might force them buy vista when it becomes decent to use and is required... but right now XP works, they know how to use it, and I know how to use it.

That's my story, but I would go prebuilt in your situation since that is such a great deal.
 
Alright guys thanks for the input. Unless something better comes along it looks like I'll end up purchasing the Acer for her. Seems like a deal thats pretty hard to beat.

Cheers!
 
For that money, I would pick up a (Dell) Vostro:
Configure it with Vista or Xp, a E2160 and a 17 widescreen and get it for 499.00 and free shipping.
Wipe the HD when you get it (or askthem for JUST the os and drivers) and start fresh! No bloatware.
 
Go ahead and buy her a prebuilt PC or lappy. It's much simpler than trying to build a low end machine for the same cost.
 
It is hard to compete with the budget vendors, but I would like to put a word in for building your own... When you do it yourself, you know the quality of the parts you use. For instance, that vendor PC may not be AM2+, or may not support Wolfdales, or only has 2 RAM slots, or has a wimpy 300 watt PSU, etc. If it's staying in the family, who's to say you might not eventually swap out some parts from it, and put in other parts that you come across? Doing it yourself ensures more flexibiliy, and that can save money. If you're like me, then you might have a spare motherboard just laying around, or some ram. You could use that to save money. If that ain't your cup of tea, then the vendor pc is the way to go.

Edit: Not to mention overclocking... those E21xx procs are OC beasts, and cost between $50 and $100. Some people might ask why you might OC your mom's rig. I have three reasons:

1) The Core2's BEG to be OCed at stock volts.. why NOT?
2) With a better computer, your mom may decide to get into, I dunno, something that requires more cpu power than word processing. A better PC breeds more intensive use.
3) I'd rather have an OCed 3ghz proc two years from now than a 1.8ghz proc two years from now, even for word processing.

Let the flaming begin. *ducks*
 
ordovician said:
It is hard to compete with the budget vendors, but I would like to put a word in for building your own...

[snip]

Let the flaming begin. *ducks*
Click to expand...

Again, the issue is not with finding quality parts for just the computer tower, but in getting a computer tower, keyboard and mouse, a monitor, and extras (like speakers and a printer) within the $400-$500 budget mentioned in the OP. With a budget that low, you're cutting corners anyways... what we're suggesting (though I'm really speaking for myself here) is that the OP shouldn't put in more effort than he has to.
 
I'd get a dell. Check http://www.gotapex.com/ for good dell deals. You can usually find a decent system for under $500, including monitor. There's a quadcore system for $650 right now, including 20" LCD!
A huge $470 instant discount takes the price of this $1119 Dell Vostro 400 down to just $649 with FREE shipping. It includes a 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor ($300 value), 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800Mhz ($70 value), 160GB hard drive, 16x DVD+/-RW double layer burner ($30 value), 128MB nVidia GeForce 8300GS, Windows XP Home or Vista Basic, a 1 year warranty, plus a 20" widescreen Dell E207WFP LCD monitor ($249 value). Upgrading to a 22" widescreen is just $40. Expires 3/5/08.
Click to expand...
 
tiraides said:
Again, the issue is not with finding quality parts for just the computer tower, but in getting a computer tower, keyboard and mouse, a monitor, and extras (like speakers and a printer) within the $400-$500 budget mentioned in the OP. With a budget that low, you're cutting corners anyways... what we're suggesting (though I'm really speaking for myself here) is that the OP shouldn't put in more effort than he has to.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it just depends on the situation. I personally could have a Sempron 64 3000+ system up right now, with all the spare parts I have laying around.. all I'd have to buy is a pci-e video card. I dont think the total cost would be more than $175. I do think there is something to be said for avoiding proprietary hardware. I'm speaking for myself, though. I exchange parts with my parent's computer quite often. I'll give them new procs and mobos, etc, that I don't use anymore.
 
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