My dell died on me the other day, so I'm now in the market for a new desk top. Not looking for anything too fancy. Trying to keep the price around or below $500. Anyone know where I can find a good deal either at a store or online? I dont like Macs so no need to try and persuade me to buy one. Just need a new desk top mainly for papers, internet and light gaming. I looked on ebay, but I really dont want to buy a second hand computer.

I found a Compaq at best buy for $300. Looks like a nice unit, not so sure about vista but its here and XP will be gone soon.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?...d=1173577986795
I dont know a whole lot about computers so let me know what you think.

I dont really need to hear how bad microsoft or vista is. I just want to know where my dollar will go the furthest. Thanks.

Take a look at TigerDirect www.tigerdirect.com I have had very good luck with their Systemax PCs and they are priced well for what you get. Like any other PC company, you can go nutzo when you custom build one (you could easily take a $500 PC to well over $2000). They also sell some without an OS. That would save you some money as well. One more good thing...they ship out of Chicago...so you should have your new pc the next day.

Just curious...what happened to your Dell? I would be willing to take a look at it (since we live fairly close together). Drop me a PM if interested.

My Dell had been acting up for over a year. If I put a DVD in the DVD-rom it would crash, the pc would randomly tell me I had no HD, CD-rom or DVD-rom. The key board would randomly stop working as did the mouse. It wouldnt update windows, but the monitor worked flawlessly. My dad looked at it and was stumped (he works for Hewlet Packard). I talked to dell they told me it was a bad hard drive and that I was trying to play a game on a non-gaming computer. Its a 2005 Windows Media Edition computer and the computer surpassed all the requirements for the game. Being my frugal self, I opted not to buy the extended warranty for $60, now I'm kicking myself for that. I'm sick of the thing, I'm never buying a Dell again.

I don't blame you for not buying another dell...I had nothing but trouble with anything dell. Laptops as well as PC's. Systemax is not a well known name, but I've had good luck with them. My everyday PC is a Systemax.

I'd be happy to take that P.O.S. off your hands (even though it's a Dell). I love tinkering with PC's.

I bought both of my desktops from here

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

Buying new you're going to be stuck with Vista. Personally I don't like it because of lack of compatibility.

Anyway, try to avoid celeron and sempron processors... they're everywhere in the cheap models, but you can find something better than those for less than $500.

Also with vista, you'll want at least 1GB (or 1000MB) of RAM.

The site I recommend still offers both vista and XP.

ive heard nothing good with vista at all, people that i know with it hate it, id try to get something with xp on it till at least another year till they work the bugs out of vista

http://www.cmicomputer.com/pcsys.htm

this is the company i work for. i can custom build anything youd want. I have Vista, but mainly sell XP still.
check it out and let me know if i can help ya.

I went to circuit city over the weekend and bought the computer I have a link for. Best Buy had it for $300 and CC beat it by 10%. Not a bad computer. Thanks for the help though.

I havent had any problems with vista yet. Only been using it for a few days. I have it set on classic mode so its pretty much the same as using XP. My dad has been running Vista since it was in Beta, he hasnt had any problems with it.

That's a really good price, even for a desktop. Hope you enjoy it!

brown, I think you are the one whose dad works for hp right?

If you ever have a problem with that pc, keep me in mind. I can't get you a discount or anything, but I can make sure you get the best options for a repair, and make sure your order goes ok.

Thanks for looking out UM!

Yeah my dad works for HP. He tells me about how many of the employees complain about the lack of quality in the EEP store. I get the same discount the HP employees get, and I work for FedEx.

I bought the 2 year extended warranty from CC so I'm not sure where they would be sending the computer should something go wrong.

Ok I didn't realize the warranty was through CC not HP. I think they prefer that you take it to CC and then CC will try to fix it or mail it to us.

prebuilts suck

custom builds FTW!

customs are good if you have the knowledge and time to do it AND troubleshoot it when things go wrong.

prebuilts are great if you lack the knowledge or time to buy things, or if you want a little more piece of mind around warranties.

I've built my last 3, and that's what I plan on for now. But lots of people prefer prebuilt and that's cool too.

The site I recommend is custom built with warrentee service.

My dell was a "custom" built computer. I chose the processor, HD, memory, video card and so on. Personally, I dont see the big advantage in building one, but if thats your thing thats cool. For what I do on a computer, I dont need anything to spectacular. Just need the internet, word processing and be able to do light gaming.

Often times it comes down to if you already have an O/S to install on the computer. Its extremely hard to build a custom PC including full version of windows with a price that rival's a big brand.