A decent PC and parts supplier.

[JCitron]

I'm not advertising for this guy. I happen to deal with him a few times for components and have had a great shopping experience. He is awesome to deal with, and has great prices and great selection of products.

http://www.compuvest.com/


They're not the latest products, but in some cases we don't want the latest, we just want to get the system up and running.

John

 

[Euphod]

Thanks for the recommendation. Sometimes suppliers like this are the only place to find certain parts that are proven and time tested.

 

[JCitron]

Thanks for the recommendation. Sometimes suppliers like this are the only place to find certain parts that are proven and time tested.

That's how I came across this one, Ed. The company I was working for wouldn't buy a new computer since they bought their computers new in 1999! I spent my time scrounging all over the net for parts, and this place turned into a goldmine.

John

 

[Euphod]

I was able to find a couple of the older Aluminum cases there. Just dreaming right now, but someday...

I don't care for many of the new cases, but my Tsunami Dream may not hold the next build.

Thanks again. Cooler heads will prevail...

 

[peghorse]

*Moans.... don't start me.
Lady friends who want dads/mums/whoevers pc's fixed ^^
Invariably a pentium 4 with 1.5 gb of ram and XP service pack 2

 

[JCitron]

*Moans.... don't start me.
Lady friends who want dads/mums/whoevers pc's fixed ^^
Invariably a pentium 4 with 1.5 gb of ram and XP service pack 2

Unfortunately this is the business I'm in. I support a company in-house, but invariably get the "call" to fix family-owned computers and coworker's personal machines (I work for cheese cake and cookies for these people).

In many cases these people cannot afford a new computer, and all they want is to get their machine up and running. Besides, many of these people don't use anything fancy anyway that would require super graphics and a really super-powered computer.

One computer I worked on, runs a RIP connected to an imagesetter. The output device along with the RIP-pc, which runs proprietary software, cost $55,000 in its day. The hard drive died along with the power supply. We thought we could upgrade the machine at the same time to something more modern. You'd think it was easy trying to setup the machine again in a newer box?

The interface card, which is a special SCSI card would not work. It required an older machine because the bus-speed in a newer computer is too fast, even with the ISA bus on that motherboard. The original motherboard was even older with EISA slots that require a special interrupt setup every time you add or change a card!

The network card is an old 3COM 3C509, which is the one with the thin-net cable connector. We tried a new Intel card, but the drivers built into the RIP program would not work. They use special drivers made by COPS for the device, and hard coded links to 3COM cards.

Once we figured out that hardware couldn't be replaced, we reinstalled the program from floppies on a newer hard drive, got it up and running, and the 20 year-old device is operational.

John

 

[jbanetman]

JCitron, in my case it was 'Buy me a pizza or a hamburger meal' LOL. Nice to be able to build/fix/upgrade your own pc, but invariably the family declares you the 'support tech' for the family. I'm training my cousin to work on pcs. My eyesight got too bad. I would even spend a few hours 'upgrading' my cousins Sims 3 game. She loves controlling her little people. What a nitemare that game is. 'This new expansion caused my game to quit!'. 'Oh, its out of order. These other 2 exp packs need to go in first, and patch the game again.'

 

[samuelsss]

Supplier

Such a supplier for pc parts is worth quite a bit when one can't locate those hard to find parts.

 

[JCitron]

JCitron, in my case it was 'Buy me a pizza or a hamburger meal' LOL. Nice to be able to build/fix/upgrade your own pc, but invariably the family declares you the 'support tech' for the family. I'm training my cousin to work on pcs. My eyesight got too bad. I would even spend a few hours 'upgrading' my cousins Sims 3 game. She loves controlling her little people. What a nitemare that game is. 'This new expansion caused my game to quit!'. 'Oh, its out of order. These other 2 exp packs need to go in first, and patch the game again.'

That title is oh, so familiar. I had the honors of reinstalling Windows XP on my sister's laptop this past weekend. She had some kind of system crash then a BSOD. Diags proved nothing, and neither did the event logs! The system then randomly BSOD'd on me, so the best cure was to wipe and reinstall. So far, knock wood, there have been no issues since.

The Sims can be a pain; been there with the program before. My other sister has it and I had to reinstall it too. Who in the world came up with this nitwit installation process?

John

 

[JCitron]

Such a supplier for pc parts is worth quite a bit when one can't locate those hard to find parts.

It sure is, Samuel.

John

 

[ScottPhillips]

OK... am I really looking at a SUN Microsystems Processor Upgrade Ultrasparc II 300MHz. Yes I am. I remember playing with on of these back in college and I thought it was really cool... I can not remember why.

Pretty neat that there is someone out there with this stuff available.