Shopping PC's: what brands/ models?

Shopping new PC, desktop mini-tower. What brand or model recommended or what to stay away from?

Anticipate something autocad but not full blown version. No gaming but may at some point. 

Had two HP's that were okay. Last three were Dell, had good luck w/ them except when they got old. Present Dell XPS 8500 is eight years old and had corrupt registry six months ago which was partitioned off and was okay. Log in failed  (maybe registry) so time for new. It ran fine w/ Win 10 upgrade but updates were beginning to be too troublesome.

Dell can get a bad rap but online PC reviews are still  favorable so I may stick w/ XPS or Inspirion models in the $800 +/- range. 

Local PC repair shop can build similar machine to my XPS for around  $750 w/ lifetime free repair and upgrade locally. I can't build my own at this point.

Still looking but hampered by phone search. 

Any recommendations to brand/ model ? Local PC shop built okay?

Local build is ok.  I'd probably recommend onboard graphics for something like that... right now graphics cards prices are silly due to crypto mining.

If you want a decent graphics card, buying a machine from a pc vendor will probably get you a better deal at the moment.

In reply to fasted58 :

I’d go with the local guys.  Lifetime?  That’s a long time

In reply to fasted58 :

Your Windows 10 problems weren’t Dell related, BTW.

Buy a new drive, reinstall Windows on that drive and pull your data from the old and keep on rocking.

All of the vendors have a very short life expectancy for their systems and almost all are built as inexpensively as possible.  So buy based on specs and warranty.

I don't think the new entry level 1050 video cards are too expensive yet are they? It seems like there are some decent PCs on Amazon,  ibuypower or something like that? 

I just picked up an Intel NUC for my mom: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc.html

It will be used in what I consider a hostile environment: my Mom's house. She likes to chain smoke and browse the internet. Her last three computers all died of smoke inhalation. Now I'm going all solid state. I snagged a 120GB SSD to boost storage space. No idea how it will do running CAD, but I thought it was a neat little box.

I'd support a local guy.  Or off lease if there isn't one. Most PC's seem to stay alive well past their usefulness in my experience.  9 out of 10 get retired fully functional..  The most common issue I find with people is their cooling fans fail, then things over heat.

On graphics, the mid range models are still not badly price if you consider what you are getting.  Actually It's amazing what they can do for under 200.  My son has a off lease dell and a 1050ti and a 2nd larger HDD, under 750 total.  It runs most of the newer games fine.

Anything up to an Nvidia GTX 1050ti or AMD RX 560 is still reasonable, but above that prices are all gonzo.  If you're vigilant, you might pick up a GTX 1060 3GB for decent coin still.  

If you want a better video card, keep an eye on reddit.com/r/buildapcsales. 

They also post pre-built systems that are decent values.  Looks like there's at least one still active.

I at least have the tools to attempt recovering your files from the current drive, if the local shop doesn't want to. 

Microcenter and Nvidia both decided over the weekend gamers can pay regular price for their video cards, miners can pay more. I'm not in the market so not sure how that announcement affects prices, but should help relieve some stress if you go that far. 

I'll probably going to be building a system like you're after this summer for in my office, I know a few months away isn't the timeline you're looking for, but I could just as easily build 2 of them. 

What happened with your attempts to reset the password?

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/win-10-log-in-fail-incorrect-password-fustercluck/136443/page1/

Buying a new computer because your OS login doesn't work is exactly like buying a new car because of a problem with the ignition key cylinder.

I like to get kits or fresh builds from somewhere local or Newegg/TigerDirect.

The last desktop I had was a build-yourself kit from Fry's electronics.  Jeez I miss living near those stores.  They were seriously WalMart sized Radio Shacks.

The thing that always gets me with buying a pre-built unit is that you are at the mercy of their options.  I needed one with a great processor, memory, and video card, but didn't need much in the way of HD or sound card.  But if you shop for towers they often increase all of those components together.  By the time I picked a processor I needed, they only came in towers with massive HDs and expensive sound cards and cost $1000.  Then, they were built on a lowest-bidder motherboard and filled with bloatware.

This way I was able to pick the components I wanted: Asus MB, NVidia graphics, Kingston HD and RAM, and I saved a ton.  I paired it with a Salvation Army keyboard, mouse, and a $139 32" HDTV from Target and it was perfect.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I tried resetting PW from my MS account but it wasn't linked to my PC. In the end MS tech told me to download all files and  reinstall Win 10 from disc (store paid version) or lose my files. Or, take it to repair shop.

Repair shop reset it and saved files w/in 24 hours... a rarity for shops here. Will pick up tomorrow as they are closed today. 

I kinda suspect that corrupt registry yet and tired of berkeleying w/ an old computer if I can just go new and transfer my files . People say new every five or less.. is that correct? 

Maybe this XPS can be saved but something in the works been berkeleying w/ me and I'm tired of it. Win 10 updates suck, malware, registry, drive etc,  I dunno. Too many prollems.

fasted58 said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I tried resetting PW from my MS account but it wasn't linked to my PC. In the end MS tech told me to download all files and  reinstall Win 10 from disc (store paid version) or lose my files. Or, take it to repair shop.

Repair shop reset it and saved files w/in 24 hours... a rarity for shops here. Will pick up tomorrow as they are closed today. 

I kinda suspect that corrupt registry yet and tired of berkeleying w/ an old computer if I can just go new and transfer my files . People say new every five or less.. is that correct? 

Maybe this XPS can be saved but something in the works been berkeleying w/ me and I'm tired of it. Win 10 updates suck, malware, registry, drive etc,  I dunno. Too many prollems.

Unless your current computer has a hardware problem - which is possible - a new computer isn't necessarily going to fix any of the problems you've been having. It took some bad luck in the least to get a corrupted registry if it wasn't due to a hardware problem, but it could happen to any computer.

Your computer doesn't just "age out," you replace it when it can't run modern software or at least can't run it quickly enough. 5 years is probably the average age of my computer hardware! My laptop is 8 years old, my phone is 5, my gaming PC is 5 (wow feels like yesterday I put the new mobo in!), my home server is around 6 and my dedicated HTPC is at least 9!

Edit: That works out to an average age of 6.6 BTW!

I've built a few nuc systems.  I was amazed how 'regular' the performance is for the low wattage they have to work off of.  For something that has to run 24/7 like home automation or security cameras they are great.

slefain said:

I just picked up an Intel NUC for my mom: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc.html

 

It will be used in what I consider a hostile environment: my Mom's house. She likes to chain smoke and browse the internet. Her last three computers all died of smoke inhalation. Now I'm going all solid state. I snagged a 120GB SSD to boost storage space. No idea how it will do running CAD, but I thought it was a neat little box.

For CAD you want a powerful CPU and a decent graphics adapter, something that these little computers fall a bit short of. Also while SSDs are physically stronger, when they fail it's sudden, without warning, and unrecoverable, while hard drives usually give you some warning and can usually be recovered at home. For the average user who doesn't really do backups, that's a bad situation.

I hate, HATE PCs, but the last one that I had was the best of the bunch.  

This was assigned to me from my IT department and I was bummed because it was basic and black.  Not nearly as flashy or colorful as what I saw from Dell or HP.  Where are the speakers and LED lights and doo dads and gee gaws?  What I found was that the ThinkPad sacrificed bells and whistles for performance.  This thing was reliable as a brick (important for a road warrior) and had everything you actually needed and nothing that you didn't.  It was still hampered by having to run Windows, but for hardware it never let me down. 

I assume the same is true for their towers.  

fasted58 said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I tried resetting PW from my MS account but it wasn't linked to my PC. In the end MS tech told me to download all files and  reinstall Win 10 from disc (store paid version) or lose my files. Or, take it to repair shop.

Repair shop reset it and saved files w/in 24 hours... a rarity for shops here. Will pick up tomorrow as they are closed today. 

I kinda suspect that corrupt registry yet and tired of berkeleying w/ an old computer if I can just go new and transfer my files . People say new every five or less.. is that correct? 

Maybe this XPS can be saved but something in the works been berkeleying w/ me and I'm tired of it. Win 10 updates suck, malware, registry, drive etc,  I dunno. Too many prollems.

 

Running Windows and being connected to the internet means you're going to have malware and the like targeting you from the moment it comes online.  Fact of life.  Everything connected to the web should be considered a throwaway and critical info stored or backed up elsewhere.

Make sure you're connecting through a firewall on your network router and enable the firewall on the computer.  If you need help configuring these, post here and we'll pile on and give you a hand.  There are some basic guides available online as well.

Don't use Internet Explorer (or Edge) and use Frefox with Java script and Adblocking add-ons installed and enabled, or Chrome with similar solutions added. 

Do not install Oracle Java, Adobe Flash and Reader, unless you absolutely need them, they are terrible for open vulnerabilities.  There are other options available that can work as alternatives.

Do not install anything unnecessary and uninstall anything not needed to keep the system running.

Keep your system patched (set a calendar item for the second Tuesday of every month to remind you to patch and reboot your system at the end of your day), keep Firefox updated and the other products updated on a regular basis. 

Most importantly, back the system up to an external drive and back that up to the cloud or another system.  This way, if someone does screw up your system or there's a hardware failure, you can rebuild it or buy a new box, plug in your external drive or grab the backups from the web, etc.

GameboyRMH said:

For CAD you want a powerful CPU and a decent graphics adapter, something that these little computers fall a bit short of

Depends on the CAD.  Autocad/basic 2D stuff?  You can run that great on almost anything.  3D cad work usually benefits from a good graphics card, but if you want the most out of it, you probably want a workstation card (Quadro) not a gaming card (GeForce).

I'll see the repair guy tomorrow and see if it's worth fixing my XPS for the duration vs building one there vs new Dell. I love my XPS but I don't care for the bloatware of new tho. I asked about components in their builds already, foreign is all I know now. Quality vs big brand built, I dunno. I'll ask per info posted here.

Kinda like an old car, keep patching E36 M3 up till you're berkeleying tired of it then buy new when you finally burn out on all  that E36 M3.

I have good security w/ firewall etc. I'll definitely run backup now on anything, meant to run external backup  before now but didn't. Lesson learned.

The original Win 10 install went great w/ no problems at all, after later automatic updates things started going downhill.

Sorry I can't respond to more comments, posting from a phone sucks. I want my PC back.

Thanks for the info guys!

pinchvalve said:

I hate, HATE PCs, but the last one that I had was the best of the bunch.  

This was assigned to me from my IT department and I was bummed because it was basic and black.  Not nearly as flashy or colorful as what I saw from Dell or HP.  Where are the speakers and LED lights and doo dads and gee gaws?  What I found was that the ThinkPad sacrificed bells and whistles for performance.  This thing was reliable as a brick (important for a road warrior) and had everything you actually needed and nothing that you didn't.  It was still hampered by having to run Windows, but for hardware it never let me down. 

I assume the same is true for their towers.  

The same is not true for their all-in-ones.  We outfitted with all new ThinkCenter all-in-ones and they are abysmal.  Slow, glitchy, and the memory is so unstable.  Random dumps and shutdowns, overheating processors, and awful displays that make you either squint or you have to set the resolution to "elderly" to see anything.

I actually reverted to my old 32-bit Dell tower with 4gb memory running Vista because it was lightyears ahead.

GameboyRMH said:

slefain said:

I just picked up an Intel NUC for my mom: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc.html

 

It will be used in what I consider a hostile environment: my Mom's house. She likes to chain smoke and browse the internet. Her last three computers all died of smoke inhalation. Now I'm going all solid state. I snagged a 120GB SSD to boost storage space. No idea how it will do running CAD, but I thought it was a neat little box.

For CAD you want a powerful CPU and a decent graphics adapter, something that these little computers fall a bit short of. Also while SSDs are physically stronger, when they fail it's sudden, without warning, and unrecoverable, while hard drives usually give you some warning and can usually be recovered at home. For the average user who doesn't really do backups, that's a bad situation.

Excellent point on SSD failure. I have Mom's credit card, so I'm going to add an external backup to her shopping cart. My main reason to go all solid state is to try and give the poor computer a fighting chance against the smoke. I'll strip it down as far as I can, lock it down hard, and hope for the best.

RE: failures & backups & whatnot...

The average user generates very little data that needs to be backed up.  Just sync a folder with dropbox or google drive or <insert service here>.  The only thing that might generate a lot of data is photos/video.  If they are using that heavily, back it up on a HD or get a service to back them up online.

I generate far more data than the average PC user and its all synced with google drive.  My photos & videos from my phone are backed up because I have Project Fi.  The only thing I really need to use any effort to backup is my SLR photos and Rallycross videos... which I just dump onto my network hard drive periodically.

What's more ideal for heavy data storage:

NAS vs In-Tower Drives (that back eachother up). 

I've been thinking of building a small form factor computer with dual 1TB drives and a SSD for the OS, rather than using a NAS. Any downsides to this?

pheller said:

What's more ideal for heavy data storage:

NAS vs In-Tower Drives (that back eachother up). 

I've been thinking of building a small form factor computer with dual 1TB drives and a SSD for the OS, rather than using a NAS. Any downsides to this?

In-tower drives that back each other up are much safer than a NAS with RAID. One of those drives should be external (for protection against power surges, ransomware, or disk-formatting malware). You could use a trayless drive rack for plugging bare drives into the computer externally.

Can you suggest a trayless drive rack?

I've always liked the idea of a SFFPC with a two-drive external stack that I occasionally plug into the computer to backup data on, and the two drives on that copy one another versus using RAID.