have we all had it with lousy offshore phone tech support, or what????

$116 is way overpriced... Ben Myers

On 29 May 2005 09:59:45 -0700, wrote:

That reminds me. I am running XP Home on 512 meg of mem. Will an
additional 512 give me the added performance to justify the $116
crucial price for a 512 stick of DDR PC2100?

Thanks... NIK

*** Email Address is a spam trap... Do Not Use ***



Ben Myers wrote:
I still have 90% of my hair even though I can't persuade people from buying the
cheap junk sold in stores and elsewhere. I build no more than a half dozen
white boxes a year. The money is to be made cleaning up messes made by other
people, either the manufacturers or the computer owners themselves with poor
decisions.

Small networks are not as plug-and-play as everyone pretends they are. Wifi has
its tricky elements. People need Cat 5 runs between office cubes and patch
panels. Hard drives crash, and I replace them even under warranty, because
clients quickly learn to value their data. Adware, spyware and other varmints
regularly inhabit computers. Stores and name brand mfrs (e.g. Dell) regularly
sell low-ball computer setups. This past week, I sold and installed 5 memory
upgrades to P4 XP systems which had been delivered with only 256MB. My clients
considered me a miracle worker for figuring out how to speed up their systems so
much.

I can get white boxes assembled from my local distributor for $25 over the price
of the individual parts, but everyone in my area is so enamored by Dell or the
latest sale at Circuit City, that the selling cycle is not worth the time to
sell a white box. My cardiologist has eMachines garbage running his office,
less reliable than my ticker and circulatory system. Go figure. I go with the
flow... Ben Myers

On Sat, 28 May 2005 22:53:29 -0400, Shooter fhasfdjh@AlkjdaF@com wrote:

On Sat, 28 May 2005 21:34:44 GMT, ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net
(Ben Myers) wrote:

That's what I've seen in the last year or so of fixing or refurbing these
beasts... Ben Myers

I don't see how you keep from pulling your hair out Ben. BTW, I
assume you offer quality built, locally supported White Boxes to your
community. Got a business web site for us to see your work?

Regards,

On 29 May 2005 09:59:45 -0700, wrote:

That reminds me. I am running XP Home on 512 meg of mem. Will an
additional 512 give me the added performance to justify the $116
crucial price for a 512 stick of DDR PC2100?

Thanks... NIK


Where you getting the $116 for 512MB stick?

Crucial is selling in US 512MB sticks of DDR2100 for between $53 and
$68

go to http://www.crucial.com/

and check prices, $116 sounds extortionate

Cheers

My Mistake. I have too many numbers down here on my pad and wrote the
wrong one down. The 512 stick I looked at at Crucial was $52.99.
Again, do you think the extra performance, if any at all, going from
512 to 1024 will justify the $53 expenditure.

Thanks.... NIK



Justin Thompson wrote:
On 29 May 2005 09:59:45 -0700, wrote:

That reminds me. I am running XP Home on 512 meg of mem. Will an
additional 512 give me the added performance to justify the $116
crucial price for a 512 stick of DDR PC2100?

Thanks... NIK


Where you getting the $116 for 512MB stick?

Crucial is selling in US 512MB sticks of DDR2100 for between $53 and
$68

go to http://www.crucial.com/

and check prices, $116 sounds extortionate

Cheers

It probably does depending how much stuff you got running in the
background. I have NAV 2005, Zone Alarm Pro and some of Nero's auto
detect utilities running in the background. And any of you NAV haters
out there, I hear you and sympathize with you but I have never had any
problems with it and like it so forget trying to convert me for now.
Maybe later....

NIK


Shooter wrote:
On 29 May 2005 09:59:45 -0700, wrote:

That reminds me. I am running XP Home on 512 meg of mem. Will an
additional 512 give me the added performance to justify the $116
crucial price for a 512 stick of DDR PC2100?

I went to 1024 from 512 and didn't really see all that much difference
on my XPHome setup. I may be wrong but doesn't it really depend on
how and what stuff you got going on your system such as stuff running
in the background all the time?

Regards,

Only if you are experiencing paging otherwise you're wasting your money.

wrote in message
oups.com...
My Mistake. I have too many numbers down here on my pad and wrote the
wrong one down. The 512 stick I looked at at Crucial was $52.99.
Again, do you think the extra performance, if any at all, going from
512 to 1024 will justify the $53 expenditure.

Thanks.... NIK



Justin Thompson wrote:
On 29 May 2005 09:59:45 -0700, wrote:

That reminds me. I am running XP Home on 512 meg of mem. Will an
additional 512 give me the added performance to justify the $116
crucial price for a 512 stick of DDR PC2100?

Thanks... NIK


Where you getting the $116 for 512MB stick?

Crucial is selling in US 512MB sticks of DDR2100 for between $53 and
$68

go to http://www.crucial.com/

and check prices, $116 sounds extortionate

Cheers

On 29 May 2005 19:14:38 -0700, wrote:

And any of you NAV haters
out there, I hear you and sympathize with you but I have never had any
problems with it and like it so forget trying to convert me for now.

I'm still running the 2003 version and lover it but I would never
upgrade to any of their versions after 2003. I consider the 2003
version the last one that was worth a spit. I assume they will stop
supporting 2003 at some point to force hold outs like me to shell out
for a new version at which time I will be heading to another brand
that doesn't support that godless activation scheme old Pud Nucker
Bill Gates and his horde of clones came up with.

Regards,

Time to play devil's advocate. Sometimes it helps to look at things from a
sheep's (consumer's) point of view too. $399 systems are disposable.

Even if a system has a lifespan of just one year before any one major
component does a nosedive, where's the incentive to repair or even upgrade
when you can purchase a new system for $399? And while the components may
not be cutting edge in performance (not to mention the quality aspect),
these disposables more or less keep up with the trends in terms of
requirements to run software, peripheral connectivity, etc.

In this respect, computers have joined the electronic fray. 20 years ago, it
might have been economical to repair a motherboard or component device. I
knew plenty of people who re-aligned floppy drive heads (rather than replace
a then costly floppy drive). Since that time, it's been more economical to
replace parts on a component level rather than fix the component.

As much as you or I might loathe these systems, they have mass market
appeal. In economic terms, that's all that matters. It's completely
conceivable within the next 10 years these disposable units will completely
dominate the marketplace. Video, sound, and network functionallity are
already commonly integrated into the motherboards and it will make little
sense to replace motherboards, CPUs, and dare I say eventually even Hard
drives on these systems, without seriously considering purchase of a new
system.

I'm sure there will always be a niche market for quality, customizable white
box units. But simple economics will separate the purists from the sheep,
and when all is said and done, even some who consider themselves purists
will be tempted to join the flock.

On Mon, 30 May 2005 05:42:03 -0500, "pengulin"
wrote:

Time to play devil's advocate. Sometimes it helps to look at things from a
sheep's (consumer's) point of view too. $399 systems are disposable.

Without quoting all that you said..... I must say that I agree with
everything you said. There will always be a market for the cheap
throw-a-way end of the spectrum.

And that's sad in a way even though we see it in all product lines,
some more than others. Look at it this way. It took time and
resources to manufacture and assemble everything to make the product.
That's the use of earth's resources and man's resources (time and
labor, cheap as that may be). Then, at some time in the product's
"SHORT" life, it is thrown into a land fill along with all the energy
and resources that went into it, gone forever. They call that built
in obsolescence.

The whole world has become a throw-a-way species. Of all species, man
is the only one that seems to do it. Now who is the smartest species
on earth I might ask? Without getting into a political debate here,
let me add that we have also gotten to a point where we even
throw-a-way our unborn.

I'm not a bible thumper for one or economist for the other by any such
means but such waste must have some cosmic repercussions of some sort
down the road. That's way I guess I still got and old IBM 8088 with 5
1/4 drives around here somewhere....

In closing though and a final thought.... You will find that these
Taiwanese boxes, built for GW, Dell, Compaq, EMachine, etc. are highly
proprietary and not conducive to upgrades by readily available parts
on the market. On the other hand, my white box can be upgraded for
some time to come or until they change stuff so drastically that it
will not fit or is not compatible. By that, I still think that I get
by cheaper in the long run keeping up with technology than those that
have to throw away and buy new. In other words, John doe is forced to
throw his $399 piece of Taiwanese junk away and buy a new $399 piece
of Taiwanese junk in order to upgrade this, that or the other.
Usually, all I have to do is replace the specific part needing to be
upgraded.

I still stand behind the saying that... going for quality may cost a
bit more in the short run but be cheaper in the long run. But then,
I'm also a pack rat.... Having nothing to do with computers but a way
of mind set.... I still own and drive the 1968 Camaro I bought my
first year in the military.

Regards,

In article .com,
says...
The sale of ****ty computers is a multiple-faceted problem, and to
blame Gateway alone is inaccurate.

Yes, multi-faceted problem. Let me just throw one more facet into the
mix:

Early this year I finally had enough of trusty Win98SE and decided to
upgrade to XP. My options were, buy a copy of XP for a hundred-and-
something dollars (don't remember the exact cost at the time) and go
through the hassle of installing it myself -- or buy a new eMachines
with XP preloaded for $299. Guess which one I did?

Sorry but I don't understand. Please explain "Paging".

Thanks,

NIK

*** My email is a spam trap... do not use ***



snert wrote:
Only if you are experiencing paging otherwise you're wasting your money.