Today has been a excellent day!

[Keith Heitmann]

...To paraphrase Bill and Ted. ;D

My new Dell XPS computer arrived today! It weighs a ton. Lots of gear inside. Still moving stuff off the old PC here so I can't switch just yet as I need the monitor.

Also, my replacement floppy drive came for my old system.

Plus, my 5 DVDs fom Best Buy arrived today.

Be excellent to each other...

[Redbirdy]

Hehe...well I won't mention that it all arrived on Friday the 13th. OOooops too late. Hope everything works as advertised

-J

[Keith Heitmann]

Yes, everything is running smooth as silk. I'm still transferring files. I uploaded a lot of files via email to myself since at the time my floppy and zip drives weren't functional and I'm downloading them as I go each day.

I did manage to ge my old PC fired up and running after the main crash event. Turns out it was something with one of the driver files. It seemed to want to become corrupted easily no matter how many times I reinstalled it. Since it was only the driver for my zip drive I just disabled the driver when the zip drive wasn't needed and after rebuilding the device registry with scandisk /fix I got the system stable enough to keep again.

Turns out the floppy disk I ordered was not in the box I got. It was something else when I opened it. Turns out they cancelled the floppy drive replacement order on their end, guess they didn't have the item in stock any longer.

I just hooked up the XPS 3 days ago and had a few problems with a program that wasn't compatible with WinNT/XP and the uninstall left a file in the startup group that kept causing the System32 folder to popup every time I booted the computer. I also had a problem with the keyboard briefly where my control and alt keys were not functioning correctly due to some unknown event that must have changed their assignment. So I made a quick call to Dell, used my express service code and had a tech on line in two minutes and we had the problems figured out in about 10 mins. Unplugging the keyboard and back in again fixed the one problem and simply unchecking the box in the startup group on the problem file left behind by the incompatible program uninstall cured the other.

I opted for the 3.06Ghz processor instead of the 2.8Ghz. The computer is blazingly fast. Exmple, on my my old P2/450Mhz, the Seti@Home program I run in the background all the time for UCLA Berkely used to take anywhere to from 12hours to 42hours to complete one workunit of data. I would have to set the processor program to low CPU priority while I worked on the computer and set it to normal or high when I went to bed. The new computer does 1 work unit in about 1-2 hours. I used to do about 4 work units in a week, I've already done 9 since Tuesday night! And I haven't had the program running all the time.

Just reinstalled all my old Sierra citybuilder games and patches without a hitch. I've also been playing a new game from Vivendi Universal Entertainment called Jurassic Park Operation Genesis. It wouldn't run on my old PC at all.

JPOG is amazing. You have to build a Jurassic Park and stock with dinosaurs, and all the things that make the park work. Once you start producing dinosaurs you just sit back and watch them go about there lives in the with fascination. They eat, deficate, run, walk, drink water, chase each other around, and the velociraptors and T-rex stalk and hunt smaller prey for food. If you zoom into close the "camera" eye view shakes when you get close to a walking bracchiosaurus or T-rex or any other large dino. They moan, growl, roar, and call out. The whole thing is really entertaining to watch. You have to periodically hatch a new one as they have limited lifespans and don't reproduce themselves.

The weather changes from sunny to rain, to thunderstorms with lightning, and the occasional tornado which damages your park and sucks up your exhibits, dinos, and people that it catches.

You can kill a couple of hours on this game and not even realize it. There is so much to keep you busy. In a way it is very similar to the citybuilders I play.

[Galland]

Congratulations on your new PC. The Big Blue Tower really stands out in ads and TV spots. I'm not sure if my next PC will be Dell. I'm just a beige traditionalist at heart. My XPS-T600 was zapped by lightning last week. It'll start up, but just as the hard drive starts to spin, everything shuts down.

I think (hope?) just the power supply is blown out. I'm not 100% sure that is the case, but my RAM works in a spare PC I borrowed from my mom, so I'm hoping that the motherboard and periphrials were spared. The Hard drives are also intact and working well.

I've been meaning to save up for a new PC anyway, but I might just buy a new P/S and wait till next year- PC Express ports and some other nifty stuff is supposedly going to debut in the first two financial quarters of 2004. We shall see. I might buy from this outfit: www.monarchcomputer.com .


Galland

[Keith Heitmann]

The power company in my area isn't all that reliable when the weather gets rough. My system takes hits constantly when the power goes off and then back on again when it gets too windy, etc. I usually power down in thunderstorms though, of course.

My Dell did a great job for 5 years so I went with another one. I paid for a three year extended warranty and on-site service and got the fourth year free. Worth it when you need on the spot tech support with hardware and don't want to deal with it oneself. I just don't want to bother with things like that myself anylonger even though I could if I had to. I also got the express priority service plan. If I need help I get bumped to the head of the line on phone support. I even paid a little extra for another plan where they will help me solve any tech problems I have with any software I want to use on my computer.

I got a few deals such as a free upgrade to from 533MB to 1GB RAM and a free upgrade from a 48xCD-R/RW burner in the 2nd bay to a 4x DVD/CD+R/RW drive. If I had gone through the website to order I would have missed some of these upgrades. It pays to talk to a a real human when buying.

It justa amazes me to watch thing zip through things that used to take several minute on my old Win98 setup. This P4 Hyper Threading is the greatest. I can run multiple applications and the computer doesn't even breath hard or slow down.

I had read many horror stories about XP problems with games on the various boards so I was dreading the change. XP Pro has had no problems installing and running any of my games so far. XP Pro is the way to go if you are going with a Windows system.

I also see people knocking ATI graphics cards and drivers. My Radeon 9800 Pro has no problems with anything I want to run.

I suspect most XP and ATI problems are on older systems that are being upgraded with a new OS to XP and a new video card.

I'd highly recommend a XPS with the same setup to anyone that needs a fast computer for gaming.