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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 08:08 AM   #21
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

http://www.dellscripts.com/index.html

This is a multi step process...

You install Proxomitron, which acts as a local proxy server and scripting/filtration tool. Pretty handy in and of itself, as it lets you set filters and screens for all sorts of internet content coming into your machine.

You load a script: the guy keeps two, one is a zero delay script and the other a 2 second delay script.

Tailor the script to suit your needs; the guide on the web site gives a decent tutorial.

Point your web browser to the proxomitron proxy so internet stuff flows through the proxomitron.

Open dells web site and get into the clearance section inventory list, pick the specs you like and do a search.

Go to proxomitron and activate the script.

Click on "refresh" in the browser.

The proxomitron dellscript will keep clicking 'refresh' for you, scraping the results page for systems you want within the price range of the script. When it sees something that meets your pricing criteria, it will add as many systems as are on the first results page to your shopping cart. Then it DING's you and you have to see whats in your 'net'.

Last time i checked Dell put in some thingy that makes you key in a four digit number to verify dropping the systems into your basket...I believe the scripters overcame that.

I used it in December and nailed a refurb E1705 17" laptop for my MIL with a decent speed core duo, 120GB hard drive, 1GB ram, dvd burner and a bunch of other decent goodies for $629, and a 3 year warranty for IIRC $68. At the time, the same box would have run about $1150 full retail and the three year warranty on the new box was a couple of hundred bucks. I also saw a few e1705's with 80GB drives and cd burners down in the low 500's...thats a STEAL.

When we received it, except for a 'refurb' sticker on the box and one on the bottom of the laptop, I couldnt discern any difference between it and a brand new unit. I checked the repair history on the service tag and it had been bought, owned a few weeks and returned, refurbed and sent to me.

Couple of notes from 4 month old recollection: the zero delay script always gave me an error from the dell web site that I was being a bad boy and overloading their server. The two second delayscript is too long. I cut the delay down (it lets you adjust in microseconds or milliseconds or something like that) down to about 4/10ths of a second, and that never gave me the error and was fast enough to scrape me enough "good stuff" ahead of the competition.

This is better to do at night than during the day...most of the hackers arent sitting there at their machine in the wee hours of the night, so pickings were better at 10-12pm pacific time than at 2 in the afternoon. Weekends are blitzed.
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 08:10 AM   #22
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Quote:
Originally Posted by figner
Throwing out another option for transferring your files between the two machines:
once you've got the new hardware/OS set up, just plug in a crossover ethernet cable between the two systems and copy files over the network. Or if you already have a switch/router, just plug 'em both in there. At 100Mbps, shouldn't take too long, and a crossover cable should only cost a few bucks.

I used to build my own systems as well, but agree that lately it's not cost effective. My latest system is a dell.
sounds interesting....i do have a router....wireless, and i have thernet connections...so i guess i could figure it out! i like this idea...i can essentially keep my old pc 'alive' witht he hard drive and such intact...for whatever reason....
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 08:31 AM   #23
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
http://www.dellscripts.com/index.html

This is a multi step process...

You install Proxomitron, which acts as a local proxy server and scripting/filtration tool. Pretty handy in and of itself, as it lets you set filters and screens for all sorts of internet content coming into your machine.

You load a script: the guy keeps two, one is a zero delay script and the other a 2 second delay script.

Tailor the script to suit your needs; the guide on the web site gives a decent tutorial.

Point your web browser to the proxomitron proxy so internet stuff flows through the proxomitron.

Open dells web site and get into the clearance section inventory list, pick the specs you like and do a search.

Go to proxomitron and activate the script.

Click on "refresh" in the browser.

The proxomitron dellscript will keep clicking 'refresh' for you, scraping the results page for systems you want within the price range of the script. When it sees something that meets your pricing criteria, it will add as many systems as are on the first results page to your shopping cart. Then it DING's you and you have to see whats in your 'net'.

Last time i checked Dell put in some thingy that makes you key in a four digit number to verify dropping the systems into your basket...I believe the scripters overcame that.

I used it in December and nailed a refurb E1705 17" laptop for my MIL with a decent speed core duo, 120GB hard drive, 1GB ram, dvd burner and a bunch of other decent goodies for $629, and a 3 year warranty for IIRC $68. At the time, the same box would have run about $1150 full retail and the three year warranty on the new box was a couple of hundred bucks. I also saw a few e1705's with 80GB drives and cd burners down in the low 500's...thats a STEAL.

When we received it, except for a 'refurb' sticker on the box and one on the bottom of the laptop, I couldnt discern any difference between it and a brand new unit. I checked the repair history on the service tag and it had been bought, owned a few weeks and returned, refurbed and sent to me.

Couple of notes from 4 month old recollection: the zero delay script always gave me an error from the dell web site that I was being a bad boy and overloading their server. The two second delayscript is too long. I cut the delay down (it lets you adjust in microseconds or milliseconds or something like that) down to about 4/10ths of a second, and that never gave me the error and was fast enough to scrape me enough "good stuff" ahead of the competition.

This is better to do at night than during the day...most of the hackers arent sitting there at their machine in the wee hours of the night, so pickings were better at 10-12pm pacific time than at 2 in the afternoon. Weekends are blitzed.
o geez...i think you opened a can of worms here...im tying to get this going and am having a hard time...you might get some pm's soon! lol
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 08:39 AM   #24
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

i put in my specs and within 1 second had 15 items in my cart meeting my specs (although they werent cheap enough)_



cool program!!
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 08:59 AM   #25
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

now ive got it setup to my specs, very cool...we'll see how it goes
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 09:08 AM   #26
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Very sorry for the loss of your personal lives and most of your free cash.

If you want something specific, keep at it and like I said, try it on a weeknight or for a few free hours during a holiday.

529 for the 17" laptop and $399 for a decent E1505 15"er was the cheapest I've seen. Never looked for a desktop so I cant set any benchmarks there.

Script is pretty configurable once you learn the 'language'. I ended up using proxomitron for a while in a general way to filter out some ad sites and whatnot, but I "lost" it when I reloaded my desktop and never got around to reinstalling it.

Theres a 'cost' filter in the script that you can tweak, or use the cost limits on the dell search page to cut off the expensive stuff.

What I did was pick my search with the proxomitron script turned off, clicked on 'price' on the dell web site to organize price ascending, then engaged the script. It holds the sort parameter, so results come up cheapest first.

Look real close at the detail on the systems that land in your cart. Some of them have goodies like 3 years virus protection included, faster ram, a better graphics chip, faster hard drives, etc. Some, like the one I nabbed for my MIL, are really nicely loaded.
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 09:20 AM   #27
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

yep, i already edited the 'cost' part of the script. now i wish i new more about processors so i can discern a good deal from a bad. im leaning toward dual core AMD...are the intel dual cores AS good? i always remember amd being the cat's ass a few years back...
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 09:38 AM   #28
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

The new intel dual cores are FAR better than the AMD dual cores. Dont do a pentium-D or a celeron-D. Core Solos and Pentium-M single cores are pretty good; core duos are two pentium-M's 'glued together'. Core 2 duos are two core solos on the same slice.

AMD's lost a lot of ground to intel in the last 2 years. The core/core2 duos use less power, generate more processing speed per watt and dollar, and run cooler and more quietly.

Any core duo will be a pretty good machine unless you're doing heavy video conversion or the one or two top Shooters that want a $500-800 graphics card.

Core 2 duo is about 15-20% faster and slightly lower power draw/heat throw.

The slowest core 2 duo desktop processor runs about twice the horsepower of the very fastest single core "extreme edition" pentium-D of just a couple of years ago...

I'm running an E6300 1.8GHz core2duo on my desktop and a 2GHz core2duo in the laptop. Only thing that stresses them is video format conversion from RAW AVI format to windows media. My old 2.4GHz pentium 4 took 40 minutes to an hour to process a large video file; the E6300 takes nine minutes.
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 10:18 AM   #29
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

wow...i didnt know the amd lost ground. i thought intel still had a leg up in laptops, not desktops...but a quick review of the intel duo vs amd x2 shows the intels are def more expensive

example deal i just found using the script

AMD 64 x2 2.0 ghz, 2 GB RAM, 250 SATA hard drive, dvd, cd r/w, 13-1 card reader, windows vista, integrated graphics,

379...seems fair to me...but im going for better....and
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 08:51 PM   #30
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Like I said...you might pay a bit more up front, but you'll get it back in lower electric bills...
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-07-2007, 11:13 PM   #31
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
If you're building your own, a lot of people shortchange on the power supply and motherboard. Dont do it.
Ok, CFB, I missed the real reasoning of why you led off with the discussion on the power supply, now I understand. Your description of a system happened to hit, just as I experienced a melt down on one of my core Linux boxes (mobo/hd failure not sure which failed first, but oh well), and I thought, hey now's a chance to upgrade for some "serious gas" performance, and reuse the old parts, which were good in their own right.
Bought the recommended parts (mobo, CPU, SATA drive, and was in the middle of final reassembly when I realized that my old ATX high end power supply wouldn't work. Need one with SATA drive connectors and a new 2x12 connector for the mobo. Crap! back to the store tomorrow for more stuff - turns out I also need a longer IDE cable, since the mobo put the IDE connector (for the CD and DVD drives) on the other side of the board, and now my old cable is 6 inches too short. I could have put that off, but the power supply effectively killed progress till next day. Anxious to see the performance under 64 bit Linux. Should be a screamer. May even turn virtualization on now, if it's fast enough.
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-08-2007, 07:02 AM   #32
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Good power supplies make a huge difference, although if you get a good one, you wont notice its there.

Bad/cheap ones can give you funny glitches, hangs, peripheral problems, and although all power supplies lose peak supply capacity over time, good ones dont drop as fast. Many cheap power supplies are down to half their rated steady state supply by 3-3.5 years.

Never buy a supply thats under $30. Never seen one at that price point that was worth spit. Pc power and cooling, fotron, seasonic, silverstone, sparkle, antec and enermax are all pretty good. Most of the boutique supplies made by the various hi-po memory overclocking type companies (corsair, ocz) are overpriced and not that great.

Look for a supply with an efficiency rating of 80% or higher. And dont feel like you need to go too nutty on the wattage. Unless you're running one of the very expensive 3d graphics cards that wants its own power supply connector and draws 100 watts on its own, some of the newer rigs are very light sippers on the power. Of course, if you've got an 8 drive raid array and 4GB of ram, and a Fozzaramma 98000 quad core dual SLI triple whammy video card...you oughta have a 750W supply...but then you already know that.

My E6300 core2duo desktop machine with a dual raid mirror sata setup, dvd burner, g965 chip set and the x3000 integrated graphics with a 108Mb/s wireless card pulls between 60 and 75 watts during normal operations and a little over 100 with everything going full tilt. Runs fine on a quality 300W supply.

The higher efficiency rating will usually lead to cooler operating temps, lower PS fan speeds, less noise, lower electric bills, and a quality unit will probably last you through a couple of upgrades. The Antec unit I bought 6 years ago still has more than 80% of its output and I'd still be using it if it had the connections I'd need for a modern motherboard...

AMD has some lower 'green' output boards and processors as well, but I feel the slim cost savings are outweighed by the need to buy and keep handy fire extinguishers. And I also hear they can bite unexpectedly and without provocation.

Ever notice that nobody that used to work for AMD is ER'ed?
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-08-2007, 11:03 PM   #33
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Hadn't heard of anyone that I know of from Intel either, though. Thought they all worked themselves to death, trying to keep up with Moore's promise.
Re power supply, yeah the one that I had already was a pretty stout one, just the connector problem. As it turns out, my friendly incompetent nearby Fry's had some adapters to provide the necessary conversions for the connectors. Hadn't shopped for that stuff in awhile, and there is apparently a lot of that same kind of problem, thus someone stepped in to fill the need. Since the new mobo (only 1 drive, and use the onboard video with the x3000 integrated graphics) I assumed that the load should be lighter then before. Don't do the heavy graphics on that box, that's why I have the Macs. I use the Linux boxes for number crunching, file serving, and data base sorting. Some experimentation as well with new software. Don't even do games, other then the occasional solitare or Reversi. So processor load and drive load should make up the bulk of my power consumption needs for that box. Come to think of it, maybe that's why the melt down occured in the first place.
Now on to finding the drivers for this 64 bit box.
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-08-2007, 11:06 PM   #34
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Quote:
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Hadn't heard of anyone that I know of from Intel either, though.
Theres two posting here, that I know of
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-09-2007, 11:32 AM   #35
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny
Theres two posting here, that I know of


SO, on here, INTEL refers to "INTELLIGENT enough to get out before my stock options go back underwater until God knows when"?
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-09-2007, 11:56 AM   #36
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Hell yes.

Although dissenters will say it was just coincidence or sheer luck.

I can tell you that based on what I know, that the ratio of people who had the stock weight to easily ER in late 99 or early 2000 that checked out vs those that hung in there to be very, very low. Really low.

I know dozens of people who had at least $7-12M around then, all of which knew for certain that I was a moron for selling every year and diversifying.

For 7 years they were right.

Then they were wrong. Really, really wrong.
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-27-2007, 10:42 AM   #37
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

vvs,

I am in the market for an inexpensive home computer and would be interested in your pointing out any good deals on Dell's outlet site. I am trying to stay under $500.

Thanks for your imput.

2soon
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-27-2007, 10:49 AM   #38
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Just saw this

http://www.dealhack.com/archives/200...esktop_pc.html
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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-27-2007, 05:21 PM   #39
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Quote:
Originally Posted by mickj
This one looks pretty good. For $50 more i'd get the dual core and extra ram.

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Re: Who has built their own computer?
Old 03-28-2007, 09:56 AM   #40
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Re: Who has built their own computer?

Thanks vvs and mickj for your replies.

Would you have any concerns about buying a "certified refurbished" computer from Dell's outlet? They say you receive the full warranty.

2soon
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