(Vaguely Techie) Pauper pooter purchase

[Benny J. Fish]

Okay, I don't normally make horrible timewastey threads like this, but I'm poor as shit, and am looking for a computer to sit in my student hovel.

I've saved £230, and was wondering what you'd reccomend as specs for new and secondhand at this sort of price. Cheers bods!

[Dr David V]

Well I don't know where you study Benny, but at our college you can get some reasonable second hand computers for around £230, so it might be worth looking at your college/university for offers, if they do that sort of thing. I'd guess you could get a Pentium 2 or perhaps 3 with a bog-standard graphics card, 17" monitor and some Office software to boot. I wouldn't bet on getting a CD writer drive though, if you're interested in that sort of thing. Hope that helps.

[Bill Oddie]

What do you want it for? Just interwebbing and word processing, or more intensive stuff?

[Incredible Monkey Doctor]

Are you hardcore enough to build one yourself, and do you have any 'leftovers' from a previous (or current) PC?

You can probably do pretty well for £230, look at Novatech fro motherboard bundles - cheapest is £95 and has 256MB, Athlon XP1900.

[Benny J. Fish]

What do you want it for? Just interwebbing and word processing, or more intensive stuff?

Maybe a bit of Champ Manager and getting fireworks to run faster that 2 mm an hour as well.

I wouldn't be able to handle computer building. Too thick and impractical. Though Novatech looks good otherwise too

[Bill Oddie]

Maybe a bit of Champ Manager and getting fireworks to run faster that 2 mm an hour as well.

I wouldn't be able to handle computer building. Too thick and impractical. Though Novatech looks good otherwise too

Your best bet would be to find out where your nearest computer fair is, you can get some real bargains there (monitors for £20 and the like), chances are you'll pick up a complete system second hand that'll run Champ Man etc well enough.

[Incredible Monkey Doctor]

I wouldn't be able to handle computer building. Too thick and impractical. Though Novatech looks good otherwise too

Shame, it's a good way to get a lot more PC for your money, esp if you can harvest parts from your old machine. Have a read of this guide to building your own PC and see if you're still scared afterwards. If you get a bundle from Novatech, that's the potentially computer breaking bits taken care of, really.

I honestly cannot reccomend them high enough though, i've bought loads of stuff from them, sent bits back, never had any probelms at all.

[Benny J. Fish]

I honestly cannot reccomend them high enough though, i've bought loads of stuff from them, sent bits back, never had any probelms at all.

This is probably a good point to confess I'm slightly dyspraxic isn't it! Thanks loads, but I'm a menace around anything like that! I might see if my Dad's up for a weekend of headfuck fun though! Does sound easier than I imagined though