Desktop Dead, New One Needed..

[Nomar]

My desktop died yesterday (about 5 years old)...anyway RIP old PC.

I dont think I am getting a new monitor, I am going to keep my 23' Samsung. I normally play 2-4 games at once, run poker tracker and poker ace hud. So I guess I need plenty of memory, a big cache (?), a decent vid card.

I really wont be using this for much other than poker and surfing the web. Possibly watching movies/ playing music from the CD drive (while playing poker).

I dont know where to begin my search.

A friend recommended a levevio (sp?), my current PC is a Sony...

What are some of the mandatory spec's I need ?
What name brand is recommended ?

I dont want to spend a million on this but want something reliable.

[Computerb]

What do you mean when you say it died? Hard drive go? Power supply give up the ghost? If you system was serving your needs, there may be an easy fix.

[kerowo]

If all you're going to do is play poker and surf go to any of the big box stores; Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. and get a machine there. You can probably avoid the top of the line name brand and get the 2nd best one. If you want to be a little future proof you can look at the "gaming" machines, which are going to be more expensive but will probably come with a video card that will let you dual monitor out of the box.

You will pay more than if you get a Dell, but you'll get it immediatly and the differences probably aren't going to be enough to make up for the increase in the hassle factor of ordering it online. However you end up getting one make sure it has 2 gigs of memory.

[Nomar]

[ QUOTE ]
What do you mean when you say it died? Hard drive go? Power supply give up the ghost? If you system was serving your needs, there may be an easy fix.

[/ QUOTE ]

Being 5 years old there were numerous probs with it. The CD drive hasnt worked in a long time. It was incredible slow, when I defraged, it would say something like "normally we need 15% of disk space you only have 2% would you still like to defrag." So I tried to fix some of these problems and started deleting "stuff." Then poof, no more workie !!

[CORed]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What do you mean when you say it died? Hard drive go? Power supply give up the ghost? If you system was serving your needs, there may be an easy fix.

[/ QUOTE ]

Being 5 years old there were numerous probs with it. The CD drive hasnt worked in a long time. It was incredible slow, when I defraged, it would say something like "normally we need 15% of disk space you only have 2% would you still like to defrag." So I tried to fix some of these problems and started deleting "stuff." Then poof, no more workie !!

[/ QUOTE ]

Buying a bigger hard drive and reinstalling Windows and your software might be an option. I would guess that some of the "stuff" you deleted was critical OS files. OTOH, if you can afford it, considering that your PC is 5 years old and had several problems, buying a new one is not a bad idea.

[funkyworms]

You should also learn how to properly maintain a computer or the new one will soon be running just as slow as your old one.

[Nomar]

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You should also learn how to properly maintain a computer or the new one will soon be running just as slow as your old one.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok, can you teach me ? links ?

[kerowo]

Mostly it's a matter of deleting old stuff off your machine every once and a while instead of waiting for it to slow down. The new machine is going to be better at it regardless because the OS will be newer.