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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 12:10 pm
by TheCatt
I'm not buying it, it just happens to be on the machine that we're buying. Not like you can build a laptop from scratch.
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:04 pm
by GORDON
TheCatt wrote:I'm not buying it, it just happens to be on the machine that we're buying. Not like you can build a laptop from scratch.
Heh, and that means it was free?
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 1:45 pm
by TheCatt
GORDON wrote:TheCatt wrote:I'm not buying it, it just happens to be on the machine that we're buying. Not like you can build a laptop from scratch.
Heh, and that means it was free?
Pretty much. They had a similar PC with MCE 2005, but it had a smaller HD than this one. Otherwise, would have gotten it.
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 2:07 pm
by GORDON
Gotcha.
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:49 pm
by TheCatt
First impressions:
WOW!
I mean, "Eh."
We have our network SSID hidden. That took 5 minutes to connect using Windows. It kept telling me that the network didn't exist. And buried the way to get to hidden SSID networks. Thanks, Bill.
It's pretty.
It takes 600MB of RAM just to boot. (This does include a pre-installed McAfee subscription, but other stuff removed by the PC Decrapifier).
It's pretty.
It has more default folders, like a downloads folder for stuff you download.
It's pretty.
It took me a minute to find the Restart option, since it's hidden, and only standby is exposed.
Overall: Eh.
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 7:34 am
by TheCatt
Oh yeah, and it comes with IE 7. BAH
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:54 am
by Leisher
I've been running it on my second PC in my office and, so far, I haven't hated it, but it's not blowing my doors off either.
The first problem I encountered with it was that right out of the box it already was giving me driver incompatibility errors. It seems the pre-installed software Dell stuck on it, in this case, Roxio, didn't have drivers for Vista. Prompting me to wonder why Dell would even stick them on.
Now my home PC is acting up after an update from Microsoft, and I'm seriously considering going to Vista. It appears they're going to force this turd on the planet, so I might as well start learning it so I can help my friends and family who will be calling me. Plus, I'll still have Server 2003 on XP Pro on other machines in my house.
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 11:45 am
by TheCatt
Roxio's on this one too, but we haven't tried to use it.
The settings/transfer software took more than an hour to install on the old XP machine. I haven't starte dusing it yet, but am about to
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 12:09 pm
by GORDON
TheCatt wrote:The settings/transfer software took more than an hour to install on the old XP machine. I haven't starte dusing it yet, but am about to
You talking about the "file transfer wizard?"
What is it exactly, and how does it work?
Wife's getting my 64 bit hardware when I go dual core... would be nice if I could transfer her sims2 stuff between machines.
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:50 pm
by GORDON
Has anyone read anything about Vista not installing properly on a dual-boot system?
Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:20 pm
by TheCatt
Well, you tell it to transfer files. It goes out and get all user accounts setting/documents/etc and even documents in random directories (like some I had hanging off the c:\ drive), and is moving them over.
It's like 6GB... so it's taking a while. Right now it's in the "move to the new machine" step. took about 30 minutes to back up from the old machine, 80 minutes to xfer the file across 2 wireless machines, now I'm guessing about an hour to uncompress and put them in places.
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 5:24 pm
by GORDON
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:10 pm
by TheCatt
So it finally did it, and pretty much worked for installing the settings/etc.
Two annoyances:
1) Apparently my wife used Outlook Express a long time ago, and every time the machine starts, it appears to import those emails, again, and again, and again.
2) I don't broadcast my SSID. Despite telling Windows this, and to connect anyway, it doesn't. And there is NO CLEAR WAY to say "use that profile I gave you earlier, you stupid piece of fucking shit."
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:25 pm
by GORDON
Yeah, I'm gonna make a dual-boot system. One partition with Vista so I can play DX10 games, and the other partition with WinXP32 so I can do everything else.
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:17 pm
by TheCatt
So true.
Not really funny so much as sad.
Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:43 pm
by GORDON
Shit, I just realized I'll have to get a DX10 video card. I bet they're still really expensive.
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 7:20 am
by TheCatt
I was reading somewhere that $150-$250 cards are coming out soonish.
April - Nvidia will release their midrange cards. ATI cards will start rolling out this month and into next month.
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 7:24 am
by TheCatt
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 7:47 am
by TheCatt
Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:11 am
by Leisher
The 8800GTX is $600, so I'd say that $229 is a good price for the 8800GTS.