Your first PC!

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 9:12 pm

My first PC that I got to use was my sister's university PC that stayed at our house probably about a year. It was a 486DX2 @ 66Mhz, 8MB of ram, 512MB disk space. It even had one of those old big floppy drives and as well as a smaller one.

When she left with it, that was it. So we did not have a computer for quite a few years until we bought a top of the line Pentium 3 @ 450Mhz, a whooping 10GB hard drive and super duper 128MB SDRAM, it even had a 8X burner, just the fact of being able to "make CDs" was just incredible!

That must of been about 4-5 years ago I guess. It's with that PC that I learned alot about computers, and I ended up getting back my sister's old PC which was now doomed and I brought it back to life. That's when I learned the specs of it, since when I actually used it all I knew how to do was use paint and solitaire.

Now I have a AMD Athlon XP 1.7Ghz, 512MB of ram and 60GB of disk space. Man things change fast lol.

I can get almost double that now.

But I'm satisfied with this speed. If I could get another PC I'd probably go with about the same speed or a bit higher. The 3GHz chips are nice and all but if I can save tons of money I'll stay with similar specs. If I do build another one I'll probably use the current as local server and as well as backup. I don't even have any backups of my drive.

Nothing to backup on. Well not the whole thing anyway!

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Chris Vogel · Post by **Chris Vogel** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 10:21 pm

My first PC is the one I have now...

When I get a job, I want to build another one as my workstation (running Linux) and then a cheap one for a server (running FreeBSD).

Of course... With car payments and college saving, I may not have as much as I want to have....

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 10:25 pm

My first was a Celeron, the 2nd was PIII 733. Now I have a P4 2.53, 512MB RAM with a 40G hdd. I was surprised at the price difference between a 3 GHz processor, the 2.53 was about 300.00 less!

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Chris Vogel · Post by **Chris Vogel** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 11:14 pm

Wren wrote: My first was a Celeron, the 2nd was PIII 733. Now I have a P4 2.53, 512MB RAM with a 40G hdd. I was surprised at the price difference between a 3 GHz processor, the 2.53 was about 300.00 less!

Did you build them yourself?

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 11:26 pm

No, I thought about it but I know my limitations.

Memory and video card is all I've ever installed.

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Chris Vogel · Post by **Chris Vogel** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 11:28 pm

Wren wrote: No, I thought about it but I know my limitations. Memory and video card is all I've ever installed.

That's cool. Memory is all I have installed. I got really nervous when I had to push down! I thought I was going to break it!

I am a bit scared, but I am going to try to build a PC anyway. I may build the cheap one first.

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 11:37 pm

It made me nervous trying to push that stick down. Had to have help though, there were wires laying across the memory slot. I held the wires up and my husband pushed the stick down into the slot. I couldn't get enough pressure on it to make it snap into place. It's awkward to hold the wires out of the way, push the module in and keep yourself grounded, all at the same time.

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Chris Vogel · Post by **Chris Vogel** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 11:41 pm

Wren wrote: It made me nervous trying to push that stick down. Had to have help though, there were wires laying across the memory slot. I held the wires up and my husband pushed the stick down into the slot. I couldn't get enough pressure on it to make it snap into place. It's awkward to hold the wires out of the way, push the module in and keep yourself grounded, all at the same time.

I had to have help too. My mother held the wires out of the way while I pushed it in. She was all concerned. She thought I was going to ruin the computer or something.

My father thought it would be best if a "professional" did it. That's a waste of money in my opinion.

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 12:05 am

Yes, if you have a pc you will be well advised to learn how to do some things on your own. I learned how to reinstall my OS after it cost me $90.00. I was told I had a virus that was jumping around!

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 12:23 am

Yep it's expensive to get stuff "proffessionally" done. I don't charge that much though, I don't see the point. Pushing ram in can be ackward though, I'm always scared that my hand buges out of place and it snaps it or something. I usually just unplug any wires in the way, but if you don't know where they go, it's not something I would recomend anyone to do.

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manadren_it · Post by **manadren_it** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 9:17 am

My first compy was a 486SX - I forget what the clock speed was, maybe 66Mhz. It has 2mb of EDO ram, 5.5 and 3.25 floppy drives, and a 100mb hard drive. Upgraded it ourselves later with an 8bit sound blaster and 2more mb of memory. I think my sister did the card, but I put in the ram myself. (wee!)

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Chris Vogel · Post by **Chris Vogel** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 10:55 am

manadren wrote: My first compy was a 486SX - I forget what the clock speed was, maybe 66Mhz. It has 2mb of EDO ram, 5.5 and 3.25 floppy drives, and a 100mb hard drive. Upgraded it ourselves later with an 8bit sound blaster and 2more mb of memory. I think my sister did the card, but I put in the ram myself. (wee!)

Wow...

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jryan · Post by **jryan** » Sat Aug 09, 2003 10:36 pm

My first comp was a 386SX, about 4 years ago, then a 486DX 33Mhz from my mom's office that year, then a P233 the next year then my Compaq Presario (AMD Duron 900MhZ)(When I started to learn about comps) and then my old, used P75 laptop and subsequently this January my new comp AMD 1700+ with 512MB DDR, 40GB HD, Burner and DVD as well as a few extras.

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wldkos · Post by **wldkos** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 2:55 am

A compaq something or other. I barely went on the net, so I will consider this my first computer... a 667 (devil)mhz 64mb ram. Upgrades to 10/100 ethernet 128mb more ram, 40x12x40cd-rw, window on the side of the case, another fan, home-made rounded IDE cables and 80 gig drive. That's how you learn about computers.... Oh and a 4 port firewire.

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 11:17 am

Ok, I'm learning too...what's firewire?

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 7:04 pm

It's a heating device in your wires, because with all the fans, the wires get cold inside the case.

J/K It's a special connection for video. I never actually used it though. But I think it's more than just video. Sort of like USB, but faster.

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 8:55 pm

Oh well, doesn't sound like anything I need.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 9:10 pm

Probably not. I have it but don't need it. It's nice to have though, as I might want to use it in the future. Some video cameras use that so I could use that instead of the composites. (better quality, too)

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Chris Vogel · Post by **Chris Vogel** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 9:13 pm

Wren wrote: Oh well, doesn't sound like anything I need.

Me neither, but I want it...

When I build my own computer, I will make sure to include it and USB 2.0 support.

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 9:17 pm

Is that the USB 2.0?

There's a frontside USB on my machine but I don't have anything that will fit that connection.

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Chris Vogel · Post by **Chris Vogel** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 9:31 pm

Wren wrote: Is that the USB 2.0? :unsure: There's a frontside USB on my machine but I don't have anything that will fit that connection.

USB 2.0 is a faster version of USB 1.1 (Which is the most common version of USB at the moment).

USB 2.0 ports will still accept USB 1.1 devices.

My all-in-one uses USB, but that's all... I am sure I will be using more slots in the future.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 9:33 pm

No firewire is not USB. USB 2.0 comes with most motherboards now. I have 6 of them on mine, but I think only 4 are 2.0's. Or is it two? not sure lol. I would avoid as much as possible to use that much usb devices though. I find the more you have the more problems it causes. I find most of the computers with mega problems happen to have a camera, a printer, a scanner, a web cam and some other devices on it.

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Wren · Post by **Wren** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 9:37 pm

I just thought the front side would be convenient for my camera but nothing I have will fit into it.

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jryan · Post by **jryan** » Sun Aug 10, 2003 10:01 pm

USB 2.0 is faster, so I've heard but haven't seen. As for FireWire, it's quite useful when doing higher-end editing and having to deal with Digital8 or MiniDV camcorders instead of transfering from an S-VIDEO signal... I've had some experience with it. It also works like USB when it comes to external devices and can sort of be considered Apple's version of USB, though they do have USB support on Mac.

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