Thread: Please help me Im at my wits end!!

sucks when it happens, but I;ve just recently helped a couple of guys setup dual monitors via USB-hdmi out of those its all in the monitor computers from office works, they use them for doing some photo work but thats not my forte.

I advise staying away from Dell and look at asus.

It almost sounds to me like the power supply is on the way out/failed or has gotten noisey. it might still be a cheap fix if you know someone nearby thats a jet with computers.

I'm only really passing comment as thats how my server computer went down. all the symptoms of a dead motherboard that got replaced and then died and then got a new powersuply and the dead motherboard came back to life.... swapped in the original motherboard and it was fine as well. the tech offered me a keep what I paid for or get a refund -30 mins labour and power supply cost.

I cant remember now either the power supply was checked as working perfect or it was changed completely by the guys that fixed the computer 12mths ago.
So why stay away from Dell? Because i have read a lot of reviews and there appears to be some very happy customers using the xps 8900

And some have commented how their model before were years old like 8yrs etc and they still have it just wanting to upgrade etc.

Originally Posted by dullbird

I cant remember now either the power supply was checked as working perfect or it was changed completely by the guys that fixed the computer 12mths ago.
So why stay away from Dell? Because i have read a lot of reviews and there appears to be some very happy customers using the xps 8900

And some have commented how their model before were years old like 8yrs etc and they still have it just wanting to upgrade etc.

as for the powersupply, checked with a multimeter, the power coming out was good, run up on a multi channel oscillisope and plugged into the board... yeah, no, nice try fail on the 5v+

Dell (at the ad hoc low end level I deal with them) do a lot of proprietry stuff that can make life interesting if your trying to do stuff with drivers and odd bod software, getting things (like an image) if the drive fails completely has been known to be entertaining, I havent had the same hassles with ASUS.

Some random thoughts of a photography tinkerer and novice lightroom user.

Any half decent desktop these days should cope with your requirements, provided it has enough RAM (16gb is fine) and a good graphics card. I'm running Lightroom 6 on a 2007 vintage 2.4ghz quad core with 8gb RAM and an ATI 5850 graphics card that drives dual monitors (27" main and 17" sub). Its getting a bit slow but will do me another year or so.

Historically I've gone the self build route, using brand name components, as it offers the ability to upgrade individual parts as needed. Dell are good quality but as Dave comments they do have some unique components (power supplies from memory) which makes upgrading tricky. We use Lenovo at work, but I'm not impressed with their quality and have had 2 laptops die on me in the last 6 months. Asus, HP and Acer are other reasonable manufacturers and if you wanted to go to the dark side there is also Apple and set up a dual OS boot.

If you are upgrading then I'd make the jump to Windows 10. We are all going to be pushed that way soon whether we like it or not so get it out of the way. Lightroom etc will have no problems with it.

Cheers

Steve

No dark side for me

G'day Lou,

Rok_Dr has good random thoughts . Any half decent current desktop with a bit of ram and reasonable video card should run what you need. I'm not sure how large your lightroom catalogue is, but unless its enormous, the specs he suggested should do fine.

I've got a high end Macbook pro that I use at work with a myriad of HP desktops, laptops and servers, yet I still keep a self built desktop for my photo stuff and general web surfing at home. ( yeh , Yeh I'm stuck in my ways a little.... )

Buying a proprietary desktop as others have pointed out can make future upgrades changes a bit more tricky - for some that's an issue - for others it doesn't matter a stuff.

If you go the self build route, I'd strongly suggest buy a good quality power supply and main board. I've seen too many reasonable PC builds compromised by cost cutting on these two really key components.

Flick me a PM if you think I might be able to help Lou, is it worth trying again to salvage what you have?

There's is a certain queensland computer guy that I hear you can trust that might give you some great advice too. (If you can get him away from his new D7000)

Im not willing to salvage this computer its cursed.

Starting from scratch to save my sanity is whats needed.

I have just got a quote from a local computer repair shop that build a tirade of comps from home office to serious gamers.

Its $200 cheaper than the dell and these are the specs

Custom-built Intel Performance PC
? Intel Core i7 3.4Ghz Skylake Processor
? ASUS Motherboard
? 16GB Kingston DDR4 RAM
? 250GB Samsung 850 SATA III Solid State Drive
? 3TB Western Digital SATA III Hard Drive
? DVD-RW Drive
? Integrated HD Audio
? Integrated Intel HD Video
? Gigabit On-board LAN
? Corsair 650w Power Supply Unit
? nVidia Geforce GTX 950 2GB Graphics Card
o Dual-Link DVI, HDMI, and 3x Display Port
? Microsoft Windows 10 Home 64bit
? Corsair ATX Tower
? Front mounted card reader
? In-Store Setup ? Testing of hardware, installation and configuration of
Windows, drivers and relevant software.

This is what he came up with when i told him what i was doing with it.

He said that they source parts that have good warranty.

This machine including labor will be about 2g

That looks a pretty tasty spec with quality brand name parts.

I like it.

Cheers

Steve