My Computer is here!!!!

[ballaratdragons]

WOW!!!!

This thing is fast! :D (well it is to me, especially compared to my old 700mhz!)

This is what I ended up with:
2.4ghz Celeron
512M Ram
80gig HD
XP Pro
Nero Startsmart DVD/CD Burner
Cyberlink PowerDVD
Realtek AV Rack
56k Modem
and a heap of doo-hickies I haven't worked out yet

Cost: $495 (all new) :thumbsup:

Running Mozilla Firefox to see if I like it.

I also bought a Micro$oft Optical Mouse. (fed up cleaning the ball-rollers)

Comments welcome (especially on the price)

[[1ponders]]

Smokin' Ken. :cool: Great price too. :cool2: (save up for more Ram if you use PS :D ) :P

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks Paul.

But what's PS?

[asimov]

Only one comment: I WANT ONEEE!:scared2: :thumbsup:

[ballaratdragons]

Come over and get one John.

[[1ponders]]

PhotoShop. Once you get your Dob EQ mounted you'll need it to process all those astrophotos you'll start taking :lol:

[ballaratdragons]

OK :thumbsup:

PaintShop worked good in the 1.2 Athlon the pooter guy lent me. This new pooter of mine is twice as big and twice as fast. Wouldn't that be enough?

This one does everything FAST except load pages in the IceInSpace site! Strange!! :confused:

[[1ponders]]

Oh yes it will be fast enough to run Photoshop. Unfortunately PS is pretty memory hungry when your working with multiple 36meg images, as any program probably would be, so working with big images the more ram the better. I used to have 512 in my old computer, my new one has 1 gig and PS just hummmmmmms along :D

[asimov]

possibly the server Ken.

[ballaratdragons]

The Server? Is that the Firefox bit?

Everything else works fine, it's just this site that is slow.

[[1ponders]]

If you're on dial up Ken then yep it will be slow. I noticed that the page load rate is slower even on broadband

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks Paul.

I checked into IIS before I dowloaded Firefox and the difference is huge. Exploder loaded each page fast but Firefox is taking up to 1 minute on most pages. 30-40 seconds on a few.

Could it be Firefox slowing it? or something I need to close down in the background?

[cahullian]

nice pooter mate with a 56k modem it will be your dial up ken.have a chat to you isp and upgrade to adsl its no dearer than dial up these days.

[ballaratdragons]

Is 'ADSL' broadband? If it is, we don't have it yet!

[asimov]

Well now, that opens up a can of worms for me....I'm on dial-up, & as slow as Kens, if not slower, but the other night on was on here, & it was slow as ever. Then at exactly 2.30 am it was like someone threw a switch...& all of a sudden it was downloading pages at least 3 times as fast!

[elusiver]

Photoshop would be alright for what BD uses it for.. and that's for putting little annotations on pictures :D :)

as to price.. heres roughly the costs of the items.. i'm not at work.. and it's late and I can't be bothered trying to remember.

2.4ghz Celeron - $106
Motherboard - $60
512M Ram - $52
80gig HD - $68
Case - $30(give or take)
XP Pro - Depends.. ;) :P
Nero Startsmart DVD/CD Burner - Combo Drive - $45
Cyberlink PowerDVD(software - comes with teh combo drive)
Realtek AV Rack(onboard sound card - comes with the motherboard)
56k Modem - $19

Which totals up to $380. So the price you got was decent. Considering you live in the country. Remembering that that's roughly city prices, extra transport cost maybe add $20-$30 or so. So the bloke u got it off made about $100.. which i'd say is fair and on par. If his markup was less than that I'd be worried. It's his livelyhood, and if he's not making any money i'd be worried about the level of after sales service you'd get. So BD, a big :thumbsup: on the deal is what i say. Also, as a note if he's put it in writing that you were getting win xp pro, keep the letter/quote. If he stuffs u around on warranty, resellers are alot more afraid of microsoft than they are of VCAT. I know first hand of people that have lost businesses, houses and more.

el :)

[asimov]

It's a scam to make you go broadband.

[elusiver]

how can they make u go broadband when broadband isn't available :P ;)

el :)

[rumples riot]

Nice Rig Ken, BTW Ice in Space does load slower than it once did. I have a 2Gig Broadband connection and this site is almost as slow as cloudynights. These are the two slowest sites I visit. The software you loaded may be causing some of the hold up.

[asimov]

because el...they give you a crappy dialup connection for a coupla years...then send out flyers with the question on it...'please answer yes or no, if your area would like broadband' wadda ya gonna say? its not gonna be no, is it.:D ;)

[ballaratdragons]

Ellex,

They are almost the same prices he quoted me. The case (with Power Supply) was $60 though.(fancy Black one with extra USB and other ports in the front as well as spares in the back)

He quoted $50 for the assembly and he added some petrol cost as he is a looooong way away.

So it actually works out about the same. He said he charged 'cost price' for the items but had to charge for the assembly and petrol.

When he said he is only making $50 out of it, I beleive him.

[asimov]

Yeah, I did notice a dramatic loss of speed when this site was up-graded...almost to the extend of not bothering to come here anymore, but I'm addicted, lol.

[elusiver]

could've been a caching issue asimov. also.. all the smileys :P don't help with the page load times :D :P

el :)

[ballaratdragons]

John,

I'm hoping it is just a bad night for my ISP. It's happened before. Everything slowed down heaps, then a couple of hours later went back to normal.

[janoskiss]

You got a great deal Ken! You couldn't have done any better in Melbourne! Forget forking out the big bucks for Photoshop and get yourself a copy of the GIMP (http://www.gimp.org). It's free and does pretty much everything PS does. Sent you a PM.

[xstream]

Glad to hear you've got that new pooter Ken.
I have ADSL here and since the forum upgrade I've found it's been heaps slower to load aswell.

[slice of heaven]

Congrats Ken :thumbsup:

But wheres all your new pics :shrug:

The new layout is slower for sure, I've dropped the number of posts per page back to 20 to speed it up.

[asimov]

Hi. I'm at the public library typing this (cos' the wife is on the puter at home) They got the latest wizz-bang computer with all the trimmings. To get around in this forum is no quicker than on my 700 MHZ at home. So there we have it.

[ving]

PSP should work fine :)

remember, the web is still going to be slow regardless of the puter, cause you are still on 56k :)

looks like a sweet deal :)

[Nightshift]

Then at exactly 2.30 am it was like someone threw a switch...& all of a sudden it was downloading pages at least 3 times as fast!

Your ISP still has to back up his server, just like the rest of us, this backup is usually to tape (LTO or DLT) which will dramatically slow down most servers, especially while files are open. My ISP starts their backup at 12:02am every night (boy I can tell) and I am guessing yours does too, the backup will continue until done, anything from 1 hour to 6 hours is normal, 2 and half hours is probably right on the money. So at 2:30am....voila, instant speed.

[Nightshift]

I have just placed an order for 90 new computers here at work, geeeeez I want one at home, they are dual Intel D 3.2Ghz processors, 4 Gb 667mhz RAM, 160GB HDD, 20" top of the line LCD's, 256 bit Nvidia 1400 Video cards with Firewire. These things were spec'd by me specifically for Photoshop delivery and they fly with the biggest multi layered PS pics we could find they still zoom in and out faster than we can roll the scroll mouse wheel. Now that's the kinda horsepower I'm talkin' about. BTW, the bigger the number is not always the best with IT equipment, the 3.7Ghz D processors were actually slower than the 3.2 in Photoshop because the rest of the hardware couldnt cope with the faster processor cycle, a better balanced machine won the race, and the quotation.

[ballaratdragons]

Hey Slick,

I'm getting there. I want to learn all about this pooter first, then it's play time :D

[ballaratdragons]

May I take this opportunity to thank those that helped in my selection of PC and also to all of you that have PM'd me since with offers of programs to help me get going with PhotoShop, Gimp, and others.

A very BIG thanks to Houghy for his suprise package that turned up.

A great community, and I hope I can return the help in the future.

Here's to you guys, you know who you all are! :cheers:

THANK YOU

:thumbsup: