Hacked off!

[annie0000]

It was my boy's birthday yesterday - we bought him a Tv that he can use as a computer screen and thanks to the lovely techie people on here, got that working for him and he is chuffed. We were linking it up to his little netbook so he could play on a big screen.

As he has some birthday money and some money left over from Christmas, he had about £100 to spend and wanted a PC tower so it would be a bit more powerful than his netbook.

We were in town and went into this computer store - we used them to clean our house PC last year and had no complaints with them so asked if they would do a refurb tower with enough capacity to play minecraft (a downloaded game that he is obsessed with) and told them our budget was £100 tops - two different guys said that should be there or thereabouts and that they would phone later once they had checked what they had in stock to build with. Anyhoo they didn't phone so after being nagged half the day, I called them today and the behind the scenes guy said that's no problem it'll be £250!!! He seemed a bit put out when he realised that I was a bit annoyed that that wasn't even in the ballpark. Why would you get a little boys hopes up like that??? If they'd said that he didn't have enough money at the time then it would have been a lot easier to deal with.

[karenmac60]

Linux is similar to Windows - but obviously, different :) You would need to check the boxes for his games to see if they are compatible with linux, but if they are not then you might have a windows disk (that maybe came with your computer?) which you can run and install on it.

[annie0000]

lol Chris - we had a problem getting it to run on our old desk top, but he can get it to run on his little Acer Aspire netbook - it is just a little "laggy" according to him - though strangley he said it seems to be better on the bigger screen - no idea why, so whilst it does seem to need a better graphics card, it does seem to work without it too.

[ChuckFickens]

The one I linked to (and I suspect the one Chris linked to) are both able to have a extra graphics card fitter at a later date to improve things a little (cost about £30 for a better graphics card.... less from places like ebay)

out of the three I'd go for the one I linked to first (not just because it was my suggestion) then Chris's then Karens..... careful watching of ebay may find something better, but obviously that requires some knowledge of what to look for.

[annie0000]

that's the problem Karen - there is no box - this is a downloaded game that is actually still in development, they seem to play on shared servers though he said that wasn't working and he'd need to get hold of a different IP address of a new one (??) God knows what he is actually doing - I have parental controls switched on and virus protection, so I'm sure he is not looking at porn and i'm fairly sure he isn't hacking mobile phones, but the rest is a mystery to me!!!

[annie0000]

True chuck and a little knowledge is a bit more than I have!!! I'll have a look at your link and see what we can do - he has offered to give his netbook to his brother if he gets a desktop so I think I could "buy" the netbook from him and then it would still be his money he'd be spending.

[annie0000]

Chuck/Chris - what do you think about this one?

http://www.bigpockets...DD+-+DVD-ROM+-+XP+Pro

Again it doesn't say what graphics card is installed, but from googling it seems that this model was offered with a choice of cards that seem better than the norm (I think)

[annie0000]

Hmmm also realised that i'm not sure if any of these have wireless broadband capability - getting too tired now - will trawl through again in the morning - thanks everyone :o)