John Crichton
First Post
Is there something really bad about Vista for a new PC that I need to know about? I understand it's not all the different from XP and most of the driver issues have been worked out.
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[Help Given] Buying New Deskop - Now Updated!
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John Crichton
First Post
That's what I thought. I read around and the only issues that came up were videocard driver problems which were solved over a month ago. 
TwistedBishop
First Post
Just curious, if you're not into PC gaming why get such a powerful PC? Do you work in the video or graphical field?
John Crichton
First Post
TB -
I do some PC gaming. It is too powerful for what I do now, but possibly not what I'll be playing a year or so from now. Civ IV certainly benefited from me having a pretty good system at the time. And I have been not buying a few other games because my old rig was so unstable. It wasn't bad at all (256MB videocard, 1GB RAM, P4 3.2ghz) but it still chugged at times when I had a bunch of programs open. And rather than try and fix it myself (again!) I figured that I use it enough to get something a bit better than I normally build.
Aside from that, I do freelance graphic design work (using mostly Adobe progs). I haven't taken active work for about 4 years. As of about a month ago, I'm going to take a few jobs and work with a programmer friend of mine and see where it goes. That and I know I'll want a new videocam soon and will want to do some editing. This machine should have me covered for at least the length of the extended warranty and then some without *having* to upgrade. I've spend so much over the years replacing dead hardware, upgrading the machine that I just snapped.
I guess the bottom line is that I want it to do whatever I want, when I want and not have to even think of upgrades for years down the line.
I do some PC gaming. It is too powerful for what I do now, but possibly not what I'll be playing a year or so from now. Civ IV certainly benefited from me having a pretty good system at the time. And I have been not buying a few other games because my old rig was so unstable. It wasn't bad at all (256MB videocard, 1GB RAM, P4 3.2ghz) but it still chugged at times when I had a bunch of programs open. And rather than try and fix it myself (again!) I figured that I use it enough to get something a bit better than I normally build.
Aside from that, I do freelance graphic design work (using mostly Adobe progs). I haven't taken active work for about 4 years. As of about a month ago, I'm going to take a few jobs and work with a programmer friend of mine and see where it goes. That and I know I'll want a new videocam soon and will want to do some editing. This machine should have me covered for at least the length of the extended warranty and then some without *having* to upgrade. I've spend so much over the years replacing dead hardware, upgrading the machine that I just snapped.
I guess the bottom line is that I want it to do whatever I want, when I want and not have to even think of upgrades for years down the line.
Jeremy
Explorer
That looks very similar to the 7500 I just bought from Alienware. Bottom line I had the thing for about 6 days total and had to ask for a refund. Be it the beta video drivers for the 8800 video card or just plain Vista, it blue screened on my constantly. I spent the first 3 days trying to fix it myself, the next 2 days doing everything every tech they had suggested til they asked me to send it back. Sent it back, got it back again in about 2 weeks, not the same problems, but just as many different ones. I just wanted to play World of Warcraft and Dawn of War on it and I never got to do that for more than 21 minutes before crashing. Not willing to dump another 70 hours troubleshooting it again I told them to take it back as they had assured me it would be fixed when I got it back and it wasn't.
I was, and am, very upset. I'm out the shipping both ways, I'm out 15% of the cost to "restocking fees", and I'm back with my old computer. Which is a 6 year old Alienware that I have never had any problems with it's just it's 6 years old and I want more fire power.
I wish you much better luck with yours than I had.
I was, and am, very upset. I'm out the shipping both ways, I'm out 15% of the cost to "restocking fees", and I'm back with my old computer. Which is a 6 year old Alienware that I have never had any problems with it's just it's 6 years old and I want more fire power.
I wish you much better luck with yours than I had.
John Crichton
First Post
OMG
I hope that is one of those horror stories of everything going wrong.
And I am sorry to hear that you got screwed, Jeremy.
I hope that is one of those horror stories of everything going wrong.
And I am sorry to hear that you got screwed, Jeremy.
Jeremy
Explorer
Yeah, our Vista test box works passably but it's bare minimum specs. I have to guess this was a hardware issue because rather than just send it back initially the second time I formatted it and installed a copy of XP off one of our dead laptops. Still couldn't install or run WoW. I was crushed.
Especially because the 21 minutes I got WoW to run in Vista in compatibility mode were so breathtaking. It's my personal opinion that whoever Alienware has outsourced all their system building and tech support to are not the same caliber as the ones I originally bought my older system from.
I hope your experience is the opposite end of the spectrum, and given the extremely good performance of my last Alienware machine and all their glowing reviews I have to believe that this box was the exception and not the rule.
Especially because the 21 minutes I got WoW to run in Vista in compatibility mode were so breathtaking. It's my personal opinion that whoever Alienware has outsourced all their system building and tech support to are not the same caliber as the ones I originally bought my older system from.
I hope your experience is the opposite end of the spectrum, and given the extremely good performance of my last Alienware machine and all their glowing reviews I have to believe that this box was the exception and not the rule.
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