New Dell Desktop Inspiron 3847

My long in the tooth Dell Dimension 8400 running XP (sp3) was not up to an
upgrade without some significant upgrades. Though it was serving me well,
it was becoming slower and slower. And, several vendors (Garmin, Microsoft,
....) have abandoned support for it. So, I took a look at some of the
Employee discount options for a new Dell. I found a couple reasonable
options, and completed some additional research. I also looked at the Dell
Refurb options. For me, the new Inspiron 3847 with 4th gen i5-4440, 12 gig
DDR3, and 1TB 7200 SATA drive from the Employee Discount page was a good
fit.

I was tentative about the Win 8.1, but decided to give it a try before
making a judgment. Coincidently, MS released the 8.1 Update while I was
waiting for shipment. I booted the new PC up with an old 19" LCD monitor I
had in my strategic reserves along with the wired keyboard and mouse that
came with the computer. I ended up on the Metro screen, but with an easy
option to get to the desktop. As part of the start-up, Win 8.1 searched and
found the Update, loaded it and completed installation. I had to restart,
and now the PC senses the lack of touch screen and starts on the desktop.
Took me a while to re-install all my apps, but I am now very happy with the
new PC and new Windows. My system is a newer/faster version of my old
system. Which is just what I wanted.

No question, no problem, just sharing satisfied customer experience.

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:28:52 PM UTC-5, JCMc wrote:
My long in the tooth Dell Dimension 8400 running XP (sp3) was not up to an

upgrade without some significant upgrades. Though it was serving me well,

it was becoming slower and slower.

I have an 8400 (a friend gave me)...it does a great job with Win7 32-bit, but it does have 3 Gb of RAM that it came with!

Thanks for sharing...even though you may be somewhat biased (being and employee or relative)! ;^)

"Bob_Villa" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:28:52 PM UTC-5, JCMc wrote:
My long in the tooth Dell Dimension 8400 running XP (sp3) was not up to
an

upgrade without some significant upgrades. Though it was serving me
well,

it was becoming slower and slower.

I have an 8400 (a friend gave me)...it does a great job with Win7 32-bit,
but it does have 3 Gb of RAM that it came with!

Thanks for sharing...even though you may be somewhat biased (being and
employee or relative)! ;^)

You just need to be an employee of a large company that buys Dell. I get it
with my company and when it was merged with another company that uses HP, I
can get the discount with them also. Same happened with AT&T Wireless
(formerly Cingular) with the old company and Verizon with the new company. I
get $23 a month off my AT&T bill and could get a similar discount from
Verizon. Strange thing is that I haven't seen a new Dell in the company
since the merger five years ago but still am eligible for the "epp"
discount.
So when my daughter wanted a new laptop for college this year, she chose a
brand new...........Sony Vaio :-/

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 4:50:41 PM UTC-4, Rich wrote:
"Bob_Villa" wrote in message

...

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:28:52 PM UTC-5, JCMc wrote:

My long in the tooth Dell Dimension 8400 running XP (sp3) was not up to

an



upgrade without some significant upgrades. Though it was serving me

well,



it was becoming slower and slower.



I have an 8400 (a friend gave me)...it does a great job with Win7 32-bit,

but it does have 3 Gb of RAM that it came with!



Thanks for sharing...even though you may be somewhat biased (being and

employee or relative)! ;^)



You just need to be an employee of a large company that buys Dell. I get it

with my company and when it was merged with another company that uses HP, I

can get the discount with them also. Same happened with AT&T Wireless

(formerly Cingular) with the old company and Verizon with the new company.. I

get $23 a month off my AT&T bill and could get a similar discount from

Verizon. Strange thing is that I haven't seen a new Dell in the company

since the merger five years ago but still am eligible for the "epp"

discount.

So when my daughter wanted a new laptop for college this year, she chose a

brand new...........Sony Vaio :-/

You never let sons or daughters pick out what they want in a computer, if you are buying. Invariably they pick out the hottest or prettiest from the shelves of Best Buy, Frys or Staples, with no regard whatsoever to the quality of design, construction and workmanship. Sadly, Sony has been in decline for the longest time, and then recently dumped its personal computer products.

My family uses black Lenovo Thinkpads, and black goes well with any accessories. Thinkpads are also well made, reliable and maintainable, like many Dell Latitudes. Well, to be true, my youngest son bought a MacBook when he had enough money to do so... Ben Myers

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:28:52 AM UTC-6, JCMc wrote:
My long in the tooth Dell Dimension 8400 running XP (sp3) was not up to an

upgrade without some significant upgrades. Though it was serving me well,

it was becoming slower and slower. And, several vendors (Garmin, Microsoft,

...) have abandoned support for it. So, I took a look at some of the

Employee discount options for a new Dell. I found a couple reasonable

options, and completed some additional research. I also looked at the Dell

Refurb options. For me, the new Inspiron 3847 with 4th gen i5-4440, 12 gig

DDR3, and 1TB 7200 SATA drive from the Employee Discount page was a good

fit.



I was tentative about the Win 8.1, but decided to give it a try before

making a judgment. Coincidently, MS released the 8.1 Update while I was

waiting for shipment. I booted the new PC up with an old 19" LCD monitor I

had in my strategic reserves along with the wired keyboard and mouse that

came with the computer. I ended up on the Metro screen, but with an easy

option to get to the desktop. As part of the start-up, Win 8.1 searched and

found the Update, loaded it and completed installation. I had to restart,

and now the PC senses the lack of touch screen and starts on the desktop.

Took me a while to re-install all my apps, but I am now very happy with the

new PC and new Windows. My system is a newer/faster version of my old

system. Which is just what I wanted.



No question, no problem, just sharing satisfied customer experience.

Those old Dell Dimensions were really great reliable and machines!

"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...

brand new...........Sony Vaio :-/

You never let sons or daughters pick out what they want in a computer, if
you are buying. Invariably they pick out the hottest or prettiest from
the shelves of Best Buy, Frys ...

You're a better man than I am if you can/would impose your computer acumen
on your 18 year old daughter! Even if I could, and she probably would have
yielded, everything that malfunctioned on my selection would have been my
fault.....forever! I did get on record that my selection would be a 15"
Dell.
As far as the Sony track record:
-Mouse pad broke within one month; Sony rapidly repaired.
-Computer just shut down while doing homework away at college. I couldn't
help her 100 miles away. She took it to the bookstore free student computer
repair service and they couldn't get it to restart consistently. She loaned
out a netbook from the library and sent the Vaio back to Sony again. Sony
repaired it rapidly but I could not glean from the work order how they did
it. They probably didn't want us to know.
-Next semester at school computer won't start one day. Local student repair
works on it for eight hours for eight hours and ends up replacing the hard
drive at no charge with the schools free Windows 8.1.

After a weekend trip home, I sent her back with our 2009 Dell 1011 Netbook
as a backup. It still runs like a charm though rarely used with the iPhone
and iPad in the home now.

I selected her first laptop in 2009, Dell Inspiron 17", runs like a clock. I
still use it while watching TV, mostly to access my home office desktop with
TeamViewer.
She repeatedly tells me now that she wishes that she had listened to
me.....a first!

Thanks,

Rich

On Friday, May 2, 2014 6:57:01 PM UTC-4, Rich wrote:
"Ben Myers" wrote in message

...



brand new...........Sony Vaio :-/



You never let sons or daughters pick out what they want in a computer, if

you are buying. Invariably they pick out the hottest or prettiest from

the shelves of Best Buy, Frys ...



You're a better man than I am if you can/would impose your computer acumen

on your 18 year old daughter! Even if I could, and she probably would have

yielded, everything that malfunctioned on my selection would have been my

fault.....forever! I did get on record that my selection would be a 15"

Dell.

As far as the Sony track record:

-Mouse pad broke within one month; Sony rapidly repaired.

-Computer just shut down while doing homework away at college. I couldn't

help her 100 miles away. She took it to the bookstore free student computer

repair service and they couldn't get it to restart consistently. She loaned

out a netbook from the library and sent the Vaio back to Sony again. Sony

repaired it rapidly but I could not glean from the work order how they did

it. They probably didn't want us to know.

-Next semester at school computer won't start one day. Local student repair

works on it for eight hours for eight hours and ends up replacing the hard

drive at no charge with the schools free Windows 8.1.



After a weekend trip home, I sent her back with our 2009 Dell 1011 Netbook

as a backup. It still runs like a charm though rarely used with the iPhone

and iPad in the home now.



I selected her first laptop in 2009, Dell Inspiron 17", runs like a clock.. I

still use it while watching TV, mostly to access my home office desktop with

TeamViewer.

She repeatedly tells me now that she wishes that she had listened to

me.....a first!



Thanks,



Rich

Our children live and learn, one way or the other. Must be different with boys. My number one son takes whatever Thinkpad I give him, takes care of it enough and uses it a lot. Number two son has had Macs for a while now and does a lot of basic repairs himself. So now I'm learning from his example, and doing strange things to Macs to get them going again or part them out or whatever. Got a big Mac (I don't eat big Macs!) aluminum PowerMac G5 tower for free this weekend, and I managed to install a PowerPC version of Ubuntu on it, learning about Mac chimes and obscure keystrokes used at odd times. Mac has it own brand of strangeness, like our 3-key Ctrl-Alt-Del chord and Alt-key combinations, etc. I decided to keep the PowerMac around, just for Mac tinkering, because its resale value is nil, and the electronic scrap boards inside are worth no more than a few bucks.

No surprise to you then, that Sony is dumping its PC business to another Japanese company? It's about time. They never could make them well, always something oddball about the construction or the parts, and no parts or service manuals available ever. The rest of Sony is not so hot. You heard it he Sell your Sony stock. But I imagine that others have said it before me... Ben

snip


I selected her first laptop in 2009, Dell Inspiron 17", runs like a
clock. I

still use it while watching TV, mostly to access my home office desktop
with

TeamViewer.

She repeatedly tells me now that she wishes that she had listened to

me.....a first!



Thanks,



Rich

Our children live and learn, one way or the other. Must be different with
boys. My number one son takes whatever Thinkpad I give him, takes care of
it enough and uses it a lot. Number two son has had Macs for a while now
and does a lot of basic repairs himself. So now I'm learning from his
example, and doing strange things to Macs to get them going again or part
them out or whatever. Got a big Mac (I don't eat big Macs!) aluminum
PowerMac G5 tower for free this weekend, and I managed to install a
PowerPC version of Ubuntu on it, learning about Mac chimes and obscure
keystrokes used at odd times. Mac has it own brand of strangeness, like
our 3-key Ctrl-Alt-Del chord and Alt-key combinations, etc. I decided to
keep the PowerMac around, just for Mac tinkering, because its resale value
is nil, and the electronic scrap boards inside are worth no more than a
few bucks.

No surprise to you then, that Sony is dumping its PC business to another
Japanese company? It's about time. They never could make them well,
always something oddball about the construction or the parts, and no parts
or service manuals available ever. The rest of Sony is not so hot. You
heard it he Sell your Sony stock. But I imagine that others have said
it before me... Ben

My son is a junior in high school. I was required to purchase a Lenovo
Thinkpad (4 years of digital textbooks included) when he was Freshman. After
2 & 1/2 years of him kicking the s*** out of it and about two feet of
electrical tape holding it together, it still runs fine. When new, including
the optional slice second battery, it held a charge for the entire school
day & commute. My only minor complaint is the screen pivot for tablet mode
(which the boys never use) quickly loosened and the screen rubs on the base
leaving a scuffed lower 2 inches of the screen.
I agree about boys. My son would accept whatever I recommended, as long as
it can run League of Legends at a high FPS.

Rich

Thanks, sorry, I didn't make myself as clear as I could have. My wife and
son both work at companies that offer their employees discounts on Dell PC.
The two discounts were identical on the Dell hardware. I may or may not be
biased, but it is not based on the Employee relationship.

This old Dimension 8400 also has 3gb Ram, and for the time being will
continue to run XP SP3 till I have confidence all old s/w is functioning.
Then, I believe I'll pick up a free Unix of one flavor or another and
experiment.

Regards

"Bob_Villa" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:28:52 PM UTC-5, JCMc wrote:
My long in the tooth Dell Dimension 8400 running XP (sp3) was not up to
an

upgrade without some significant upgrades. Though it was serving me
well,

it was becoming slower and slower.

I have an 8400 (a friend gave me)...it does a great job with Win7 32-bit,
but it does have 3 Gb of RAM that it came with!

Thanks for sharing...even though you may be somewhat biased (being and
employee or relative)! ;^)

On Wednesday, May 7, 2014 11:50:51 AM UTC-4, JCMc wrote:
Thanks, sorry, I didn't make myself as clear as I could have. My wife and

son both work at companies that offer their employees discounts on Dell PC.

The two discounts were identical on the Dell hardware. I may or may not be

biased, but it is not based on the Employee relationship.



This old Dimension 8400 also has 3gb Ram, and for the time being will

continue to run XP SP3 till I have confidence all old s/w is functioning.

Then, I believe I'll pick up a free Unix of one flavor or another and

experiment.



Regards



"Bob_Villa" wrote in message

...

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 12:28:52 PM UTC-5, JCMc wrote:

My long in the tooth Dell Dimension 8400 running XP (sp3) was not up to

an



upgrade without some significant upgrades. Though it was serving me

well,



it was becoming slower and slower.



I have an 8400 (a friend gave me)...it does a great job with Win7 32-bit,

but it does have 3 Gb of RAM that it came with!



Thanks for sharing...even though you may be somewhat biased (being and

employee or relative)! ;^)

Now that DDR2 memory is dirt cheap, if you can score a matched pair of 1GB sticks. Going from 3GB to 4GB adds a bit of oomph, even tho the 32-bit OS cannot use all of it... Ben Myers