Buying computers....

So apparently my mum's computer has died, I can't easily check to see what's really up with it cos it's 60km away and I have no bloody car, but the stupid thing needed replacing anyway, over-priced piece of shit from a big retailer, I was mildly annoyed when I discovered they bought it without my input, but they learnt their lesson... Oh it's kinda old now too anyway.

Anyway so I've been charged with sorting out a new computer. I know what I'm doing pretty much, buuuut I thought it never hurts to get advice from the good folk on biggie.

I'm thinking shopping for components, will need a new case, mobo, ram, cpu, HD, power supply graphics card unless the onboard one is decent, all to a certain budget, not a very large one, but you can get decent bang for your buck with a modest budget anyway. But any other input is welcome.
It's wont be a heavily taxed computer in any way really.

Was gonna see if tardme had any decent complete systems cheap too but she's not keen on that, which is fine, I'd quite enjoy a little lego building project anyay.

Also, what's the deal with win7 upgrades at this point? I'd like to wait it out but meantime mum's without a computer which sucks.

Talk to either PB Tech or Playtech. They'll see ya right. TBH you're probably better off just grabbing a barebones system than assembling it, I often do that these days since the price difference is so minimal, even though I'm perfectly capable of building it myself.

If she's just doing office type stuff and web browsing, then don't bother with a video card, that's just adding cost for power she wont need.

Hell, for that kind of stuff, I'd be looking at a nettop style system.

Laptop?

and yeah what Kris said.

nah desktop...

yeah will check out the nettops, and look at PB & Playtech. Thanks

I just built a i7 rig through pricespy. Worked out heaps cheaper than buying a complete system.

$30 dpgrades for Win 7 at the moment that I kmow of

how big is the budget? I assume under a 1000?

I'd just buy a barebones system from somewhere like PBtech

Less hassle with regards to warranty etc

also, you can consider salvaging shit from the old system and building a new one.

I salvaged Case,PSU,Keyboard, Mouse etc from my old system,
so I build a pretty alright system for $500 (would have been $200 if I hadn't of upgraded the Monitor and HDD)

Fuck PBTech

EtcComputers have been, for years, my vendor of choice. Price is almost exactly the same but what differentiates is service... they have given me hours of after sales service for stuff that's my fault and charged me for only 1/10th of it.

yeah, actually agree on ETC

they're my retailer of choice too...

I've got stuff from ETC many times in the past. Have always had great service as well.

I've never had an issue with service at PB either.. Not even with a return..

Plus I get about a 10% discount there.

So incase anyone um.. cares (I dunno why you would but I like to provide closure...):

So I checked out every option given to me here and a few others. I wanted something a bit gruntier than the netbooks even if my mum wont push it. Something that really made a difference.
Was considering a shuttle cos I liked the idea of something fairly small that could sit on the desk but in the end I tried for a mix of value/bang.

Went to QMB for everything because they have everything needed in stock and I had yesterday to do it only and costing up different combos etc it usually added up to similar prices different bits cheaper at different places and bugger running around all over the place in AK traffic.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7850 AM2 cos Intel + mobo was quite expensive.
Asus M3A78-EM with integrated graphics
Corsair XMS 4GB (2GB x2) DDR2-1066 matched pair
Asus SATA DVD writer
Seagate Barracuda 500GB
Foxconn TLA-566 case with 350W cos it wasn't too ugly and the power and front USB ports were at the top and the PC is near the floor.

Just under $800.

I have a copy of Vista that I don't used any more, although... I partitioned the drive and stuck Win7 RC on the boot partition so um, come April....

Not sure what's wrong with the old PC btw.