I'm way out of touch on the hardware side of things, and although it 
probably wouldn't take long to bring myself up to date, I'm considering a 
prebuilt (all my previous systems are home built). I never seem to get the 
noise:temperature ratio quite right with the fans, and really, I'm not a 
hardcore gamer and so long as I could play the odd fairly new game (and, 
say, Everquest 2) occasionally, I'm happy! Plus it would be quite neat to 
actually get an OS and warranty for once!

I've read a tonne of reports of different places, and to be honest I'm 
considering a Dell. Are they actually any good for home systems? The 
Inspiron 531 DT - 
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&kc=D4XENT03&l=en&oc=D08517b&rbc=D08517b&s=dhs&~ck=expbuy3 - 
looks reasonable, but as I say I'm out of touch. Anyone have any thoughts or 
experiences to share? Would be greatly appreciated!

"Ten Minutes"  wrote in message 
news:13d0s4uprev7s58@corp.supernews.com...
> I'm way out of touch on the hardware side of things, and although it 
> probably wouldn't take long to bring myself up to date, I'm considering a 
> prebuilt (all my previous systems are home built). I never seem to get the 
> noise:temperature ratio quite right with the fans, and really, I'm not a 
> hardcore gamer and so long as I could play the odd fairly new game (and, 
> say, Everquest 2) occasionally, I'm happy! Plus it would be quite neat to 
> actually get an OS and warranty for once!
>
> I've read a tonne of reports of different places, and to be honest I'm 
> considering a Dell. Are they actually any good for home systems? The 
> Inspiron 531 DT - 
> http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&kc=D4XENT03&l=en&oc=D08517b&rbc=D08517b&s=dhs&~ck=expbuy3 - 
> looks reasonable, but as I say I'm out of touch. Anyone have any thoughts 
> or experiences to share? Would be greatly appreciated!
>

I practically gave up building machines bascially because dell do just fine 
machines pretty cheaply -
the difference between sourcing your own parts and buying a dell is now so 
small its hardly worth the bother.

I even use one myself now and wouldn't hesitate to get another.

They are reliable and very quiet machines generally.

Support if you need it is horrendous - indian call centre staff with scripts 
and bad english.

Easy to upgrade.

I would go for it if I were you.

g.

A copy of the review that I posted onto alt.sys.pc-clone.dell recently:

DELL Inspiron 530 desktop review

My 8 week delayed Inspiron 531 replacement arrived yesterday in the form of
a Inspiron 530 desktop with Intel E6550, 2Gb DDR2 667Mhz, 320Gb HDD, DVD
writer and Intel integrated graphics.

Upon unpacking it I realised that it is a lot lighter and smaller than its
Dimension predecessor, though rather attractive in silver and white.  No
supporting structure that you can use to lift it though.  The media card
reader, audio and USB sockets are neatly hidden away behind a sliding front
cover.

Installing Windows Vista Home Premium was no problem.  The BIOS set-up is
back to the AMI/Phoenix style which doesn't seem to be as informative.  The
Intel SATA RAID Bios still does not support RAID 0 Stripe just RAID 1
Mirror.

The system certainly seemed very responsive and benchmarked well.  My older
version of Sisoft Sandra failed to reveal the exact chipset but as the FSB
was shown to be 1,328MHz and with Intel integrated graphics I suspect a G33
variant.  The memory bandwidth was the fastest I'd ever seen at over
5,500Mb/s.  The single Western Digital hard disk also did well at 67Mb/s
bandwidth.

Opening the case by undoing the two screws (!) to remove the flimsy side
panel reveals a few surprises. First there is not a single piece of green
plastic to be seen in this ATX format case.  Yes we are back to retaining
screws and ATX awkwardness and airflows.  There are two large 90mm fans one
on the CPU and the other fitted closely to it exhausting to the rear.  The
system seems whisper quiet though, so DELL design engineers have done a good
job here.  The hard drive is mounted with four screws horizontally on its
edge with room for another to be placed next to it.  There is also room for
an extra optical drive.

The next surprise was the clearly marked Foxconn motherboard.  The chipset
heat sink clearly show this.  Upgrading the memory to 3Gb practical limit
for any Windows 32-bit operating system was difficult as it seemed to
require more than usual pressure to get the 2x512Mb DIMMs to click into
place.

When I tried to insert my nVidia 8600GTS graphics card after removing and
replacing the screwed, rather fiddly, expansion slot retaining plate there
was another problem.  The 300W power supply does not have any four-pin Molex
power connectors at all!  So it is impossible to connect the extra
PCI-Express power supply to the card.  It does seem to run well enough
though on the slot power alone.  There are just two free PCI expansion
slots.

In conclusion, though I sure I will sell plenty of these stylish, silver
desktop systems, it will definitely be upgrade and repair these on the
workbench rather that on my knees under the desk.  The DELL Vostro 200 seems
to be exactly similar in a more attractive (to me) glossy black colour
scheme. And the equivalent configurations are cheaper too.

"Ten Minutes"  wrote in message 
news:13d0s4uprev7s58@corp.supernews.com...
> I'm way out of touch on the hardware side of things, and although it 
> probably wouldn't take long to bring myself up to date, I'm considering a 
> prebuilt (all my previous systems are home built). I never seem to get the 
> noise:temperature ratio quite right with the fans, and really, I'm not a 
> hardcore gamer and so long as I could play the odd fairly new game (and, 
> say, Everquest 2) occasionally, I'm happy! Plus it would be quite neat to 
> actually get an OS and warranty for once!
>
> I've read a tonne of reports of different places, and to be honest I'm 
> considering a Dell. Are they actually any good for home systems? The 
> Inspiron 531 DT - 
> http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&kc=D4XENT03&l=en&oc=D08517b&rbc=D08517b&s=dhs&~ck=expbuy3 - 
> looks reasonable, but as I say I'm out of touch. Anyone have any thoughts 
> or experiences to share? Would be greatly appreciated!
>

"Jonathan Eales"  wrote in message 
news:rZhAi.43257$sI3.33968@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...
>A copy of the review that I posted onto alt.sys.pc-clone.dell recently:
>
> DELL Inspiron 530 desktop review

<snip>

Thanks Jon, that looks really useful - the exact PC I'm now looking at, it 
seems! A couple of questions though - firstly, have you any idea how it 
would fare with games? Say, the new Tomb Raider or something. Also, do you 
just sell these on, or do you use one yourself? If so, how have you found it 
after using it for a while?

Cheers!

I generally sell them on, but not before I check each new model out first 
before I recommend them to my customers.

This particular one was to replace my own demo/test/games system in that I 
added an extra 1Gb memory and an nVidia 8600GTS graphics card.  It plays the 
new demanding Bioshock game quite well, not to the very highest levels of 
detail, anti-aliasing, special visual effects etc. at 1280x 1024, but the 
game works well all the same.

I'm sure that I will be able to live with it in the long term, it is just 
the suspicion that these are not as good as the model they replaced.  I 
trust that this all makes sense.


"Ten Minutes"  wrote in message 
news:13ddtl73ec978e5@corp.supernews.com...
> "Jonathan Eales"  wrote in message 
> news:rZhAi.43257$sI3.33968@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...
>>A copy of the review that I posted onto alt.sys.pc-clone.dell recently:
>>
>> DELL Inspiron 530 desktop review
>
> <snip>
>
> Thanks Jon, that looks really useful - the exact PC I'm now looking at, it 
> seems! A couple of questions though - firstly, have you any idea how it 
> would fare with games? Say, the new Tomb Raider or something. Also, do you 
> just sell these on, or do you use one yourself? If so, how have you found 
> it after using it for a while?
>
> Cheers!
>