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Thread: What type desk top PCs are good these days?

  1. #26
    Man of repute progmatist's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    What are the odds that Dell did the smart thing on my machine and loaded W10 onto the SSD, and not the HDD?
    My guess is pretty good. SSDs are far more robust than any mechanical drive, so it's only logical to use them as the main drive.

    Quote Originally Posted by markwoll View Post
    The dual drive thing sounds a bit better than I found it to work out.
    Most of the time they give you a fairly small SSD boot drive ( 128-320GB ) and a big 'D' drive.
    The benefit is a quick boot up from the SSD, and the small SSD's are pretty cheap these days.
    Windows likes to install applications on the c: drive, and most applications default to using the c: drive ( or where your login profile resides ) to store data and temp files.
    The d: drive is where you would save videos, photos, documents, etc. But you have to choose an alternate file save location to make this happen for most applications.
    To be fair, most applications will allow you to choose an alternate installation location ( d:\Program Files for example ).
    Windows will still use the C: for temp files and the 'library' locations ( My Documents, Videos, Music, Downloads, etc )

    If the computer is used for basic surfing , not a problem.
    It gets to be a small issue when you use it for more intensive stuff, Photo, Video, or Music editing.
    The big 'd' drive is very slow in comparison to the SSD and installing the applications there slows things down.
    The media editing programs tend to be fairly large in disc footprint so a smaller SSD can get filled by the application and swap/working files of the application.
    I ended up tossing the 128gb ssd and getting a 1tb. The price on these now is less than 200$. Then I can use the c drive for applications and swap and just use the d drive for storage.

    Since you will be getting Windows 10 in all of its "We Know What Is Best For You" glory, Microsoft has announced a 'smart disc usage' upgrade in an upcoming release.
    This upgrade is supposed to try and keep your local drive 'cleaner', in part by strongly encouraging you to use One Drive ( AKA 'The Cloud') to store your files.
    They will also, thoughtfully, delete redundant files from you local storage if a copy exists in One Drive.

    So anyway. Long story short. For casual use the dual small fast SSD boot drive, slow big D setup is ok.
    For more intensive use I prefer a large SSD, larger slow D ( with additional external drives for backup. (no cloud, thanks )
    SSDs are particularly great for laptops. Standard laptop drives are 5400rpm, so they're sluggish. SSDs are substantially faster...my laptops boot much faster than with the mechanical drives I replaced. Not to mention, I can drop my laptops without crashing the SSD. I've had a much different experience with a mechanical drive.
    "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama

  2. #27
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    The new PC got here Wednesday and other than a hiccup with the sign-in/Microsuck passwords, everything is working fine. I see there are some weird bugs in Windows Media Player that weren't there before and someone over in Redmond got a little insane with screwing up genre classifications. Get this, Genesis and several other prog acts now classify as "indie/alternative". Wilco is "Contemporary Country". And Muddy Waters is "Traditional American". What the fuck, did they let someone from Prog Archives get loose in the halls of Microsoft HQ?

    Windows was indeed already in the SSD and it was a piece of cake to point the music, video, and text files to the HDD.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  3. #28
    Member hippypants's Avatar
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    Since you will be getting Windows 10 in all of its "We Know What Is Best For You" glory, Microsoft has announced a 'smart disc usage' upgrade in an upcoming release.
    This upgrade is supposed to try and keep your local drive 'cleaner', in part by strongly encouraging you to use One Drive ( AKA 'The Cloud') to store your files.
    They will also, thoughtfully, delete redundant files from you local storage if a copy exists in One Drive.


    So is the thought on keeping the drive 'cleaner' supposed to be better for the machine? In other words if I'm keeping a bunch of music, pictures, etc. on my machine, I can do that, but the more volume I have on it, it will drag the machine down, or cause slow performance? And if that's true, why do machines have such a big drive now? Sometimes I think computers have a certain lifespan and either parts will wear out and need replacing or you'll need to upgrade to a newer computer.

  4. #29
    Man of repute progmatist's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    I see there are some weird bugs in Windows Media Player that weren't there before and someone over in Redmond got a little insane with screwing up genre classifications. Get this, Genesis and several other prog acts now classify as "indie/alternative". Wilco is "Contemporary Country". And Muddy Waters is "Traditional American".
    In my experience, that's more a function of whatever CD database is being looked up, ie: CDDB or Gracenote. These databases rely on user input for their info. If an album has a weird genre classification, it's due to the moron who submitted the info to said database.
    "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama

  5. #30
    Outraged bystander markwoll's Avatar
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    The "cleaner" part has more to do with Microsofts desire for you to use OneDrive to store your files in the cloud.
    Everybody wants backups, right? We handle that for you. Don't forget to ensure that your subscription is up to data
    [tin foil hat time] If We have to authenticate to Microsoft when ever we start our computer they ( Microsoft) have a much better handle on your usage patterns.
    The default settings of many of the new helper programs, ( Cortana, and the inking applications ( even if you do not have a touch screen )) keep track of your key strokes, microphone inputs, and mouse movements in order to 'improve handwriting recognition, predictive suggestions' and in general your user experience.
    Last week I was at Ignite, the Microsoft's yearly conference , where they bragged at receiving over 1 Trillion end user telemetry data points Per Day that they analyze for various reasons ( security, performance, error reports, web surfing ( SmartScreen data ).
    The demonstrations of data analytics available to users, employers, third party developers, and Microsoft were impressively creepy.
    [/tin foil hat time]
    "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
    -- Aristotle
    Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
    “A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain

  6. #31
    Member hippypants's Avatar
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    Yeah, I have a problem with the idea of OneDrive, I think Apple has something similar. I've never used either so far. I didn't know you had to pay for them. I got my tin foil hat on, but it just seems another way to intrude on what you have stored in there. I'm getting pretty sick of all the ads pasted all over the screen as well. I need to see if Windows 10 has some add-on app or something that might help in blocking all that junk out. What an annoyance.

  7. #32
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    Well, there are plenty tales of Apple's cloud replacing the music you have with what is in your library - say you have an album version of a song or a live track, they replace it with the hit single that's in their vault. That's the stuff of nightmare for music freaks. I just don't like relinquishing control. I'm in a very rural area and we do get outages. I don't trust it, whether it's Google, OneDrive, Apple, or whoever.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  8. #33
    Man of repute progmatist's Avatar
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    Here's another Microsoft quirk: if you were to type "www.google.com" in the URL bar of Edge or recent versions of IE, instead of going directly to Google, it'll return Bing search results for Google. Same thing for Mozilla.org while attempting to download Firefox.
    "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama

  9. #34
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    I'm setting up a new laptop for my son now. I can't believe how invasive Windows 10 seems - and it's gotten worse since the last Windows 10 one I set up. I friggin hate Cortana, and Bing.

  10. #35
    Outraged bystander markwoll's Avatar
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    They keep changing and adding settings with each 'version update'.
    They are essentially downloading a new windows 10 image to your computer and migrating your stuff over.
    This list has a number of privacy apps that simplify the task of searching through the settings tabs to change and verify privacy settings.
    https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tools-...vacy-settings/
    "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
    -- Aristotle
    Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
    “A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain

  11. #36
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markwoll View Post
    They keep changing and adding settings with each 'version update'.
    They are essentially downloading a new windows 10 image to your computer and migrating your stuff over.
    This list has a number of privacy apps that simplify the task of searching through the settings tabs to change and verify privacy settings.
    https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tools-...vacy-settings/
    Thank you! I was hoping there were such tools!

  12. #37
    Member rapidfirerob's Avatar
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    I bought a Dell a few years back on Black Friday. I really like it and find 10 to be all right. I ignore Tiles, Edge and Cortana. I bought an external hard drive immediately
    for back up.
    My daughter's Macbook Pro's mother board, or whatever Apple calls it, died a month ago. She's all about Apple products, so we had to replace that
    expensive piece of hardware.

  13. #38
    Man of repute progmatist's Avatar
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    ^^ Even with a PC laptop, the chances of finding any replacement motherboard are slim to none. Laptop hardware has always been proprietary to the nth degree, even from one model to the next from the same manufacturer. It's nothing like desktop hardware where any motherboard fits any case, et cetera, et cetera. About the only interchangeable laptop hardware would be hard and/or CD/DVD drives, or memory sticks. I know this from my experience as an IT specialist in a previous life.
    "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama

  14. #39
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    I'm loving the new PC but I note that while Windows Media Player handles my myriad of files best and does the cover art right, it skips on some FLAC files. But I believe that is corrected if you convert the file to WAV and I have no problems with that. Wow, the SSD boots up Windows 10 at lightning speed.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  15. #40
    Outraged bystander markwoll's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    I'm loving the new PC but I note that while Windows Media Player handles my myriad of files best and does the cover art right, it skips on some FLAC files. But I believe that is corrected if you convert the file to WAV and I have no problems with that. Wow, the SSD boots up Windows 10 at lightning speed.
    VLC player is a free media player that plays FLAC all day, and WAV WMA MP3 what have you.
    https://www.videolan.org
    Converting from one format to another, not needed with the right tools.
    "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
    -- Aristotle
    Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
    “A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain

  16. #41
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    I will give VLC a try, thanks Mark. I tried other players like JRiver, MediaMonkey, etc and the format is either ugly or they screw up the tags. And all my ROIOs they are hopeless.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  17. #42
    Member rapidfirerob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by progmatist View Post
    ^^ Even with a PC laptop, the chances of finding any replacement motherboard are slim to none. Laptop hardware has always been proprietary to the nth degree, even from one model to the next from the same manufacturer. It's nothing like desktop hardware where any motherboard fits any case, et cetera, et cetera. About the only interchangeable laptop hardware would be hard and/or CD/DVD drives, or memory sticks. I know this from my experience as an IT specialist in a previous life.
    I meant we bought her a new Macbook, to clarify. These things are crazy expensive. She won't go with a Windows laptop. The thing was five years old, certainly not new, but it seems crazy the motherboard would die at this point. Apple said they could fix it for $450 to $500. Didn't seem wise. We did get an out of the box one from Best Buy and further discount due to her boyfriend's brother working there, but it still was $1,000. Oh Well as Peter Green once said.

  18. #43
    Man of repute progmatist's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markwoll View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    I'm loving the new PC but I note that while Windows Media Player handles my myriad of files best and does the cover art right, it skips on some FLAC files. But I believe that is corrected if you convert the file to WAV and I have no problems with that. Wow, the SSD boots up Windows 10 at lightning speed.
    VLC player is a free media player that plays FLAC all day, and WAV WMA MP3 what have you.
    https://www.videolan.org
    Converting from one format to another, not needed with the right tools.
    I prefer Foobar2000 for playing audio only. It's more streamlined than VLC, and it's gap-less when playing a series of FLAC/WAV files. I only use VLC for playing video files.
    "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama

  19. #44
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    I tried messing with VLC, Foobar, and Winamp. They're effective but have hideous aesthetics and do a poor job on any tracks that don't have precise tags. I've at least got a neater look with WMP and it recognizes a fair amount of those old bootlegs (or at least gives me an opportunity to correct the info).
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

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