My desktop, New Rigel, has finally bit the dust. it seems like every time we move into a new house, one of my computers breaks a few months later. Okay, I only have two data sets for this and both machines were already pretty old before moving them around several times. But I had just sunk a little over $100 into upgrading the memory because it was giving me some performance issues when I tried to work with remote Citrix for my contract gig.
I ordered a new computer desk in November. It took two weeks to arrive via some crappy Amazon issues. I actually had to reorder it but got a $40 credit for my troubles.
As I had to start work, I borrowed Nightingale's laptop and was able to find most of my URLs through the power of Chrome. This has been a decent short-term solution but Nightingale really wants her laptop back.
I did some troubleshooting and found that if I removed the ATX CPU cable, the computer would power on, but of course, nothing would boot up. The next thing to try was the Power Supply. I ordered one off eBay and there was drama with that because I had my old address in my account and didn't notice until I hit Purchase. eBay has no mechanism to change an address after an order has been placed, and the seller was less than helpful.
The new Power Supply didn't make a difference so now the best, and really the only course of action is to get a new computer. I'm not ready to purchase my next Forever Computer so I'm looking for a cheap but serviceable one. My current gig goes until January 28th and I don't know when the next gig comes along.
My dead desktop was pretty robust and it had built-in WiFi. The cheapies I'm looking at on Woot either don't have WiFi or come with a USB dongle, which isn't ideal but I'm warming up to it.
I considered buying an exact version of my old desktop off eBay so I would just swap out hard drives and reuse the RAM I just bought. But as Nightingale pointed out, why would I want an 8-year-old computer? And as some friends on Facebook pointed out when I bragged about upping the RAM, solid-state drives are where it's at, man!
There are some cheap refurbished desktops on Woot but many of them do not come with built-in WiFi or optical drives. Some do not say how much RAM They support. I think I have found two that might suffice, but I'm torn between going cheap or going for the long haul.
Note: I know these links may disappear but I've basically shown them with max price options on Woot.
The major difference is the processor and each comes with different SSD size options. Basically, I either buy the i5 with the half-terabyte SSD or I get the i7 with the 1 TB SSD. none of the options in between are worth it. I'm hoping that I can reuse my optical drive from New Rigel.
I'm leaning toward the cheaper option. If it fails, i won't feel as bad knowing that I save $200 which can be used to buy the next desktop, a gaming machine perhaps.
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