New computer

[Eddy Matthews]

Hi guys,

My computer has been getting more and more unreliable - Basically because it's past it's sell-by date! it's more than 4 years old now, and during that time it's only been turned off twice that I remember, and it's already had a hard drive replaced because that failed about a year ago, so it's had a hard life!

Anyway, a new machine was ordered from Dell about 2 weeks ago - Last week I got an email saying delivery would be about 45 days! I sent them a bit of a snotty email saying how unhappy I was, and low and behold, my new machine will now be delivered next tuesday/wednesday!

Compared to my old machine, the new one will have 6 times the amount of memory, 4 times the amount of video RAM, 3 times the processor speed, 7 times the hard drive capacity, etc etc.... So all singing all dancing, with a bit of luck!

The only thing I can't find at the moment is the driver disk for my cable modem - Something I must have before I can do the changeover Anyone got a driver for an NTL 250 cable modem?

Regards
Eddy

[Talisman]

Oh you might be in luck Eddy.
My Mum is on NTL i will ask her next time i'm round.
Kim

[Eddy Matthews]

Oh you might be in luck Eddy.
My Mum is on NTL i will ask her next time i'm round.
Kim

Thanks Kim,

Please just be aware that there are various NTL modems.....

On the top it will have cable modem on the left hand front, on the right it will say NTL:, and underneath will be a sticker that has NTL: 250 on it. There are also NTL: 100, NTL: 120 and NTL: 200 modems - Their drivers are different!

Regards
Eddy

[Talisman]

 Eddy, i have jotted down the details. Fingers crossed.
Regards,
Kim.

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's........ ...a new Dell will have Microsoft Windows 7....but also Microsoft XP Professional as an alternate boot up operating system  .........

This is industry power [Dell & HP] dictating to Microsoft [who wanted to withdraw final support for XP Pro mid 2010] ........that billions of PC consumers were not happy with VISTA

  ....with your Dell Eddy....I had a faultless 4 1/2 year Dell desk top....but my considered ram upgrade from 256 to 512 Mb was AUD $650.00 ...yes that is not a TYPO....Dell were using an INTEL ram chip manufactured only for Dell & was not economically viable to upgrade 

So I purchased an HP tower with 2Gb Ram for AUD $825.00....& yes it also had  all of the latest 'bells & whistles'component capacity  etc......Derek   

[Eddy Matthews]

I've managed to find the driver for my cable modem, so panic over....

Delivery of the new machine has just been confirmed for tuesday morning....

Regards
Eddy

[steamboatmodel]

Congratulations on buying a new computer. The last brand new computer I bought was a Packard Bell XT with a V20 chip (faster than the then standard 886). The sales man could not figure out why we wanted to spend extra money on a amber screen instead of the standard green one or the RGB colour one. He also thought that the 1200 baud modem was a waste most were using 300 or 600 baud, and as for the hard drive why we would never fill a 40 meg the standard was a 5 meg or for heavy users a 10 meg. that computer lasted through college for both my wife and me since then I have used second hand and off lease machines with no problems. Others in the family have all got new machines, but I still plug away on the older ones.
Regards,
Gerald.

[Eddy Matthews]

Gerald,

I started off with an old CP/M machine, before the PC was ever thought of, and even MS-Dos didn't exist, nevermind graphical interfaces! it had a 5Mb hard drive and a 12" floppy drive.

Since then I've gone through various machines, 8086, 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium 2, Pentium 4, and finally the new one will have Pentium quad core processors.

I remember on one occassion buying two 330Mb hard drives which cost me in excess of £1000 - I could buy a full top of the range machine for considerably less than that now! And on another occassion I bought a new modem that cost over £700!

Even today, I still do certain things using good old Dos rather than pointing and clicking with a mouse - In many circumstances it's quicker!! And it's surprising what can be achieved with batch files....

Sometimes newer isn't always better!!

Regards
Eddy

[steamboatmodel]

How right you are. My first computer used CP/M and loaded programs from cassette tape. Now have a good laugh it was a Coleco Adam that included computer functions with a game console. I payed $1000 for it. the main reason was it included a printer that used "daisy wheel" print units that matched the electronic typewriter that my Mom had.` At that time all the other computer printers were 9 pin and really poor quality the Adam allowed letter quality type and we could do mail merge. The bonus was the games that could be played on it.
Regards,
Gerald.

[Tug--Kenny]

Eddy, my modem has a NTL200 sticker on it. Is this a poorer relation of the 250  or just a different type?

Ken

[Eddy Matthews]

Eddy, my modem has a NTL200 sticker on it. Is this a poorer relation of the 250  or just a different type?

Ken

Thanks Ken, but I've already managed to find my driver disk, so no worries....

Regards
Eddy

[Misterbee]

Congratulations on the purchase of the new electronic whizbang computer Eddy.
I hope the old beast is being kept for posterity. Seems a shame to destine another steam driven item to the scrap heap.

Seasons greetings to ALL members for the festive season.

Misterbee.
Australia.

[Eddy Matthews]

Well it's taken the best part of the day to get everything sorted, but I'm now up and running on the new machine

My word, Windows 7 takes a bit of getting used to! Almsot everything works slightly differently, not just the operating system, but even prograams behave in a different manner..... Strange!! Nevermind, I'll get the hang of it all soon.

Regards
Eddy

[Eddy Matthews]

Amazing!!

I was sitting here thinking the new machine doesn't reall y seem a lot faster than my old one, and the old one wasn't archaic, it had a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 processor.....

So I decided to do a full backup of the Paddleducks website - Bear in mind that my broadband connection hasn't changed, the only difference is the new computer.....

A backup would normally take betwen 4-5 hours, depending on the time of day that I did it. But I've just done it in a grand total of 46 minutes!!! And I could still do whatever I wanted in another task.....

Nothing short of amazing!!!


Eddy

[derekwarner_decoy]

mmmmmmmm PD's........it's not the changing between screens because when we are WEB based it is the down load & upload speed limitation that influences so yes the true advance is multi tasking & when the additional task still appears to travel at the same speed

So from the detail; below your new processsor  is in the order of x 6 faster   

Eddy....do you compress or ZIP the backup?....& what do you back it up to?.......Derek