I’ve been seeing a fair amount of computer questions in GQ lately, and it has made me wonder… Where did you get your computer? If you bought it pre-built where did you buy it? If you built it yourself, where did you get most of your parts? Or did you get your computer as a gift? And if so from whom?
The laptop (Inspiron 1100) I bought from Dell online. I assembled my home computer from parts mostly ordered from NewEgg, with a few odds and ends from other stores (Circuit City for the hard drive, Office Depot for the floppy, as I recall).
My most recent PC (as I keep gloating to everyone, it’s an Athlon 64 3500+, 1Gb RAM and a nice Radeon 9800 256Mb video card) was purchased from Computer Alliance. They’re pretty good guys, and the price was right.
Prior to that, I bought parts only and assembled my own systems. I bought from a variety of places, usually my (then) employer, but sometimes a cheap gaming-oriented place, Gamedude.
Max.
I have a Dell 2400 that I bought online about two months ago.
My computer is a hybrid. It still uses the A: and C: drives from when it was an HP Pavilion (Win95, 233 MHz, Pentium 0) in the early '90s. The sound card is about 4 years old. The video capture card and the CDRW drive are nearing a couple of years old, the DVDRW and E: drives are about a year. The rest is a couple of months old, shipped as a barebones system from valexpc.com. I will never spend $1500 on a brand name package, ever again (Sony VAIO minitower, 266 MHz P1). It’ll cost me less than a third of that for any new boxes I may need in the future.
Anybody want my $369 4x CD writer?
Both G4 Macs: eBay. Used Dell PC: eBay. Custom made PC: local shop. I had a lot of fun picking the parts for it. (Not that I really understand what all the parts do, completely, but I have a vague clue. And I had a PC-savvy friend give me advice.)
The tower that I’m currently using, I bought in 1998. At my laundromat. (They also sold Chinese porn VCDs and children’s clothing from Taiwan. They’d also wash, dry, press, and fold a dropped-off load of laundry for only a dollar more than it cost to do it yourself. They were awesome.)
I paid about half market value for it.
Since then, I’ve upgraded it to the limitations of the MB, with components from ATIC computer, which is the cheapest outlet in the city, and positively surreal in its disregard for the usual axioms of customer service. I’ve seen the owner turn bright red screaming at people over service issues, observed several fist-fights, and been present when they locked everyone inside because they judged someone was standing too near the door with a boxed printer. The price is right, though.
Next month I’m putting together a new system. I’m not sure whether I’ll make the trip up to ATIC or pay a bit more at a place that’s near my house, very amiable, and almost as cheap as ATIC. 
My computer ‘matured’ over the years. The case is a clear blue plastic light weight case I got years ago (to help me lighten my load when moving it to LAN parties). Purchased at a small, now closed, computer store.
I picked up the following at www.canadacomputers.com:
Magic-Pro K7N Ultra-S mainboard
AMD 3000 XP
1 Gig Kingmax PC3200 DDR RAM
Thermaltake Silent PurePower 480 watt PS
160 gig SATA HD (Seagate)
80 gig Hitachi Deskstar
100 gig Maxtor
LG 4082b DVD/RW/R/W/+/- CDRW
SB Live Plat.
And I got my BFG 6800 GTOC videocard from, of all places, Compusmart for a killer price of $599 CAN when it first came out (probably a mistake but I didn’t argue!).
I built mine on the cheap with most of the parts I didn’t salvage coming from Tiger Direct.
My brother and I built my first computer outta cheap parts we got from one of those fly-by-night strip mall type stores. Never did work all that great - installing Windows was a massive pain and this was pre-Linux so there wasn’t much of a choice. Finally, I said “screw it” and bought a cheap Dell set something like eight years ago. It works great and I’m still using it. ('course I’m not a gamer and I don’t download or store massive files so my computing needs are fairly minimal.)
A Fujitsu C2220 Lifebook (Yes, that’s a laptop), ordered through the local comptuer shop, though we picked it out online. Our other, older laptop is the same brand, but a different model. And the desktop at the business was also bought through the same store.
What’s a “LAN party”?
Jayn_Newell, I also have a Fujitsu Lifebook, though I’m not sure of the model number. I got it three years ago for $400, and after three years of being my only home computer it’s never given me a moment’s trouble.
Oh, and I got it at a place called DOG Micro here in town.
Straight from Dell. A few months ago, we maxed out the RAM memory with memory units from Dell. The memory installation was a surprisingly simple procedure, and it sped up everything. The printer was bought locally, though. Office Depot, or somesuch.
Got my desktop PC from Dell online, and my “main” computer, a laptop, from the local Apple Store. Just walked right in and said “I want a Powerbook” and bought it right then and there; that felt oddly satisfying.
I think I’m supposed to feel guilty somehow for being a programmer and not building my own PC. And yet I don’t. I can’t even say what processor speed I’ve got.
That’s when any number of gamers get together and bring their computers and routers together, and create a network so they can have gaming tournaments, over the Local Area Network.
Built mine from the ground up. Parts were sourced from all over the map, based on final price with shipping and tax (if any) - gotta love that Pricegrabber!
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- First one was in late 1998, an Acer Aspire. PII-350Mhz CPU. It had various problems running certain hardware and games due to the nearly-featureless BIOS on the mobo and the OEM videocard. It had a couple problems that really couldn’t be fixed, and that turned me away from off-the-shelf systems. It’s got some ATI 32-meg videocard and 320 megs of RAM and Fedora on it now, it’s the backup-internet PC.
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- Second one was built around (year) 2000, from various parts retailers online. I used mid-level parts at the time. It’s a 1.2Ghz t-bird, Asus A7A266 mobo with 512 megs DDR ram, two 80-gig HD’s, Antec SX830 case, and various other stuff in there. I don’t really have a problem with this computer except that it’s noisier than I’d like, and it will not play new games well–the mobo only has two DDR RAM slots, and the bus speed is slow by current standards.
. . . . . . . - Third one I just ordered today, parts cost about $2200. Athlon 3000-939, MSI K8T Neo-2-FIR mobo, 1GB DDR, Radeon X800XT videocard, triple SATA Raptor hard-drives (OS, swap and apps) and another 200GB SATA for general storage, dual Viewsonic 19 CRT monitors, XP Home, DVD-combo-RW drive, SB Audigy-2, assorted other bits. I have a generic case to test it in at first, but the “permanent” case I will mod/build myself: I want this computer quiet but still air-cooled, and think I can do better than the manufactured setups I’ve seen. I went with MWave, there wasn’t a lot of price differences in the main components I wanted (mobo bundle, Raptors, X800XT) and I like my mobo bundles assembled and tested before they are shipped. Not all places will do that.
- For as much time I spend on my computer, this is the first time I ever bought any part that was really “high-end”. And the justification is a bit frivolous–it’s really only so I can play games with all the effects turned on. For running regular programs, the old PII-350 Acer still does just fine, quite honestly.
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Yep, gods that sounds pretty geeky eh? My fiancee just doesn’t understand.
LANs use to be a bigger deal back when the best we had were 56K modems. Now with high speed cable pushing 5 Mbits they’re less common (but still damn fun playing co-op with people right beside you).
I built my machine, mostly from parts on newegg, but I did pick up the video card (Geforce 5900) for pretty cheap on ebay - only $120, and that was a couple months ago. Other parts are the Asus K8N motherboard & an Athlon 64 2800+ processor.
The one I use most I got when Lucent technologies went out of business. It’s a Dell OptiPlex GX110, with Intel parts. 850mhz, 124mb ram, 20gig HD. I have another one that I built; 1.7ghz Athlon, 512m, 30gig HD. I’ve got a few more that were given to me/built from old parts.