Buying newish computer advice

Hi,
I've had my current computer for a while +- 6 years,Nvida motherboard and now I have zero sound (besides the Bluetooth??that works,but not my speakers)after trying to upgrade drivers etc.my battery is completely flat.
So if I want a newish second hand computer,just for home use,what should I look for,like instead of Pata plugs newer one's Sata. Ram & hard drives size is unimportant
I'm looking for something that does not go so wrong.
They are not called third generation computers,anybody give me a clue please?I need a major UPGRADE :major

 

Everything goes wrong at some point. Are you looking for laptop or desktop and what is your budget?

 

Im looking for a desktop and will buy something second hand on Ebay,so will not mention a budget.
I just need a couple of keywords that indicate its a newish generation of computer

 

Solution................

since I have just upgraded this computer,my solution is to dump my speakers and only use the bluetooth and keep this current computer

 

People like myself are moving over to a total mobile type platform in their homes (laptops/netbooks/tablets), and either selling good desktops that still have life, or donating them. I figured it was cheaper to donate a still good P4 3gb to my church, than send it to my brother to place in stock, who does mom & pop computer work.

What is your price range and what do you plan on doing with that machine? If wanting to go with a laptop, you can find them right now for under $350.

This is what we got our son http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=2000043566 for Internet use, college work, watching videos. Will take 16gb RAM, and when we got it on Black Friday, it actually was $50 less, but still a decent laptop. He does not do PC gaming since he has a PS3, but the computer will do anything that we can throw at it.

I was barely stressing it, when doing some heavy file moving and some other things at the same time. Looked at the Task manager, and it was at 50% CPU use, and 2gb RAM out of 16GB, so I know this machine will last him a long time.

Without you stating what you are planning on using the computer for, price range, it is hard to suggest what to go with.

 

Personally. I prefer notebooks, but since my current one has had a few issues lately I wanted to have a simple desktop around that hopefully was reliable and easily fixable. Essentially a back-up to the notebook.

The last desktop I bought was a Compaq pre-loaded with win/ME if that gives you any idea how long it's been.

It's been a real learning experience this past month or two. I tried buying a refurbished desktop (pretty cheap) but found it couldn't be upgraded because it's power supply was too proprietary.

Some desktop refurbs are really cheap now. Just be sure they can at least handle a couple upgrades you might want to do (the psu is important).

In the end I decided to try building a barebones kit. It probably wasn't as cheap as you could get a used notebook or desktop for but I kind of wanted to put one together. It seemed like having something upgradable for years might be good to have.

Actually. That Toshiba refurb of brownizs looks very interesting (except the win8 part). They now come with 4gb ram. Oh well. (it's now $350 till Dec 17).

The longer you can wait the more, and cheaper, choices there seem to be.

Good luck.

 

That is not a Refurb I linked, that is a new machine from the factory. As for a desktop, there are plenty of good i5 & i7 systems out there that will scream with Win 7 or Win 8. It is just getting past metro, which can be done with a click once it comes up, to go into Desktop.

Ctrl-Alt-Del still brings up the same screen as Win 7 does, so no change there. We have Lenovo ThinkCentre desktops at work, and comparing them to a i5, they will run circles around them. They are more power than we need for what we do at work with WinXP SP3. The price is not bad for what you are getting, for just Internet browsing, watching Netflix, photo editing, etc.

Personally I would go for the laptop, since you can take it around the house, and not tethered to a desk with a bulky box, if just wanting for home or traveling use.

 

Whilst I agree in priciple (and I have done a similar activity) you may want to consider that Laptops dont generally game as well as desktops. Additionally you may want to consider some sort of NAS storage to act as file server.

 

I have to admit that I went with building a modest desktop system not only for a backup to my notebook, but also for potential gameplay usage.

Not that I have any games that actually need a stronger machine...but at least I'll have something that a game has a decent chance of working on. I really don't look for any games anymore because I know they probably won't work on whichever refurbished notebook I own at the time.

If your not looking to play middle aged or newer games on your notebook they really don't need replacing for years.

I suppose it boils down to what you already are using and what you want to spend.