Opinion/comparison on 2 different computers?

[ram57ta]

Hopefully I could get an opinion from TxRedneck on this one.

Buddy of mine who is just hell bent on downloading as much CRAP as possible on youtube and elsewhere had me build him a fairly nice tower a few months back but is once again infected with viruses and malware and I am sick of working on his shit once every 2 months. The tower is a nice looking ATX cooler Master. It has an Asus M2N SLI MB. Processor is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core at 3.0ghz. It has an EVGA nVidia Geforce 210 1gb DVI/HDMI video card, 4gb of ram, 200gb SATA HDD, Samsung sata DL DVD/rw, Coolmax 600 watt power supply, and a Dlink A,B,G,N pci wireless card. Its running Win Vista Home Premium 32 bit. It runs fantastic when its not infected with viruses and malware. I have him talked into selling his desktop and buying a brand new Mac Mini (under warranty so I won't have to fuck with it). He wants me to sell his tower,KB, and monitor...but I know I won't get shit for it used which has me thinking about another option.

My mother is using a 4 yr old Dell E1705 Inspiron (17" widescreen laptop) as a desktop (separate KB, mouse, and 22" LCD panel) with Windows XP...its got a core 2 Duo at 1.8ghz, 80gb HDD and 2gb ram, dvd burner, and the high end graphics chip. It was her husbands before he passed away.

I'm thinking I could prolly sell her E1705 for more than this desktop I built and instead give her this desktop that would run MUCH faster than her Dell laptop (she checks email and does very basic stuff on her computer and has never gotten a virus that I could find).

So what Im asking is...which would be better: keep the desktop for my mother and sell off the 4 yr old crap laptop...or does anyone here think I could sell the desktop mentioned above for anything more than that laptop?

Discuss pls.

[Tx Redneck]

I have a simpler solution for you. Why don't you put him on a limited user account so that he has no ROOT permissions and cannot infect his current setup? At the same time that's done, install Team Viewer, delete the old Admin acct and recreate a new one that only you have the password for. If he needs some software installed that needs root permissions, you remote in and do your thing from the comfort of your home pc/Android device/iPhail device.

As to your original question, I don't think you'll get much more than $100 on a good day for Moms old lappy considering it's age. Plus if you put both of them in new , unfamiliar environments, you'll likely be supporting both of them rather frequently 'till they're comfortable w/ how everything operates.

[clevelandkid]

How much for the virus infested tower?

[ram57ta]

How much for the virus infested tower?

I wiped it clean last night and did a fresh install of Vista Home Premium, malwarebytes, microsoft security essentials, Nero, Open-Office, PowerDVD, and did all the updates to get it current. Dont laugh...my buddy wants 250 for the tower or 300 with a keyboard and 19" LCD monitor. In all fairness if your not planning to run the latest premium games on it..it is a fairly modern and fast little computer.

[jakesford]

As mentioned lock it down, that should fix a majority of the issues. Also while you have it with a fresh install make an image of the boot disk so it is an easy restore if he fucks it up.

[hunt4m3x]

Why vista?

[ram57ta]

Why vista?

Because I already have a COA on the tower that works with my Dell laptop disc. Windows 7 would cost me money that I dont have. Why is Vista a problem? It runs fine when the computer has sufficient memory and processor.

[Tx Redneck]

I have not one problem w/ Vista SP2 on my F@H rig. It has an E6700 @3.15, 2gigs ddr2 667, a single 500gig hdd, a 9800gt and gtx+. It runs very well for the meager hardware.

[ram57ta]

I have a simpler solution for you. Why don't you put him on a limited user account so that he has no ROOT permissions and cannot infect his current setup? At the same time that's done, install Team Viewer, delete the old Admin acct and recreate a new one that only you have the password for. If he needs some software installed that needs root permissions, you remote in and do your thing from the comfort of your home pc/Android device/iPhail device.

As to your original question, I don't think you'll get much more than $100 on a good day for Moms old lappy considering it's age. Plus if you put both of them in new , unfamiliar environments, you'll likely be supporting both of them rather frequently 'till they're comfortable w/ how everything operates.

While that would probably help in some ways......it would create other issues. I want him to quit thinking I'm his computer guy and learn to do some things for himself or take it to Geek Squad. I don't want to have to remote in.....I want him to quit askin me to fix it. If he gets a new Mac...then he will most likely have much less problems regarding malware and viruses (and yes I know Macs can get them...but are FAR less likely to than Windows ANYTHING), its to the point where the only times he calls me is to fix his shit and then he doesn't want to pay me shit. As for him working in an unfamiliar environment...nada...he already has an Intel Macbook that he uses so he is familiar with Mac. My mother informed me today that she has been using Vista at work so she is already familiar with it. This desktop blows away that Dell laptop she's been using. Guess I prolly shoulda cleared that up at first.