I need a new computer...

Toothy

Ok, so first off, my laptop died. I don't know what's wrong with it, and I don't know shit about hardware. So if anyone can help me with fixing it, that'd be appreciated. Otherwise I need a new computer. I do have a friend who can help me build it from the ground up, if need be. He doesn't do anything except digital painting, so I don't really know how to take his comments for what I need in a comp.

The problem with my laptop is, it doesn't turn on. The little power button light turns on, but I can't hear anything gearing up in the background. Not even the fans. The disk drive will spin if I open and close it. The BIOS doesn't even come up. The screen is completely blank. I tried connecting it to a monitor, but it didn't do anything. I'm reluctant to take it to Best Buy or anything like that because they're just gonna charge an arm and a leg to tell me it's broke. If it helps, it's an Alienware laptop my parents got me for a gift when I went to Iraq. Uh, if nobody knows what could be wrong with it, I'll just have to buy another computer.

Ok, so for the new one I was hoping you guys could give me advice for what specs I'd actually need to be able to run some decent games over the next couple years. I'm mostly looking at MMOs or RPGs. Other than that, I'm not going to use it for much other than holding music and my writing.

My current plan for buying it was getting a cheap-o Dell, and then just buying upgrades somewhere else. So, anyone have any thoughts?

archonwarp

Check and see if it's still under warranty, which you probably already did. After you find out, check and see what alienware will charge to repair it. It could be a bad motherboard, considering you don't have any fan noise or hard drive noise. The fact that your disc drive has power means that something isn't totally fried. Either way, it sounds like it needs actual computer repair from a factory, so consider that.

As for building a pc, it's pretty simple. Now adays, everything fits together very easily. Most of the slots are specifically sized to only allow the correct component to go in. Processors can be 'dropped in' and they're good to go. The cost mostly comes down to what you want. I recommend building your own, as it's possible to continuously upgrade it, and you can be sure how to fix anything that goes wrong. If that's not for you, this would probably work:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6&l=en&oc=brdw4af

just upgrade to the 8600 GTS and you'll be able to run pretty much any game at reasonably high settings. Comes with a 19" LCD (make sure you get widescreen, it's the shit).

Also, if you can wait around a while, a better deal from Dell will come along. I've seen them with Quad Core 6600s for the same price. Not to mention, this isn't the best you can get for the money compared to building. Someone will probably give you a list of stuff to buy.

Toothy

Well thanks for the speed reply. So essentially, to play any relatively new games, those specs are decent enough? The only thing really attracting me to Dell is the customer support. Where exactly should I start if I were to build my own? I heard that Vista is moderately expensive by itself.

Oh yeah, and my laptop is out of warranty. I got brushed off by an Indian gentleman over the phone when I asked how I was supposed to access their forums without paying the money to get regular service anyway. So screw Alienware. I'm gonna boycott.

Well, I'm gonna look up some tutorials on how to build one. I'll try to figure out what parts I need.

archonwarp

Those specs would be good for 3 years or so. If you build your own and want to go really high end, buy a Core 2 Duo 6850 (Just shy of 300 bucks) or a Quad Core 6600 (around the same price, make sure it has 'G0' stepping [makes it more efficient?]), 2 gigs of ram (4 if you can afford it), Geforce 8600 (best performance for price, 8800 if you want to go highest end, but I would wait a few months until 8900 series was released. Maybe buy a 7600 on the cheap for now then upgrade?), a good motherboard (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc), a GOOD POWERSUPPLY (go by reviews and brand names, not wattage, which is essentially a 'garbage number' that any manufacturer can 'make up', so to speak [there's no defined standard of what calculates wattage.], and a case.

Nova_C

Depending on what you want, you can save money on the video card.

For example, the GeForce 7600 GT is very similar in performance to the 8600 GS, only difference being that the 7000 series is DX9, the 8000 series is DX10. If you want to squeeze some extra performance out of the card, eVGA offers their factory overclocked (They call it 'superclocked') cards. I'm using an 8800 GTS that's been overclocked and it's fantastic.

As far as motherboards go, my experience with Gigabyte and MSI has been uniformly bad. And I've seen a lot of Gigabyte boards. Asus is good. I'm running the M2N SLI Deluxe (For my AMD X2 6000+ CPU) and it's solid. Lots of features.

Power supplies that I recommend are Enermax or Corsair. I'm sure there are many other good ones, but those two are the only two that I have direct experience with that were good. I especially liked the Corsair one.

As far as the cost of an OS is, if people are charging a lot more than XP for Vista, they're grifting you (Unless XP is heavily discounted). I got Vista for $10 more than XP ($115 CDN).

KVW

Twice and Future Computer Thread - updated regularly and has a huge OP with the best computer specs for all differnt price ranges.

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=8387

Its ont he front page and everything.