if your looking for a cheap second hand computer.. check out kijii.com

its kind of like craigslist as in a classified ads site.

Now, the specs on that pc are similar to what im running at the moment.. and you do NOT want to be running windows XP on that! runs like someone covered in molasses running thru the ocean. youre best bet would be Linux (possible one of the minimal distros.. as in Damn Small linux or Puppy linux) or windows 98..

Ubuntu's minimal requirement as of 7.04 is 256megs.. it will run, but nearly as quick as you'd hope unless you give it quite of bit of HD space for a swap.

If you dont mind getting an older pc thats been used.. its quite simple to slowly upgrade it by swapping out some parts (start with the Drives and work your way down to the board.. that way if theres a technology difference, you'd be somewhat able to avoid it..) .thats my situation at the moment.. just finished upgrading my ram for the second time in 2 months from 128 to 512. 40$ canadian off kijiji :D

good luck in your search:)

Yea that pc on ebay wont do much...rather save up more money to buy something that will last.

And what wrong with vista guys i have amd 5000+ and 3gigs ddr2 800 ram and vista runs as smooth as silk

Whats wrong is vista is simple.. its a fresh new OS that doesnt have the maturity of XP yet.. so people who are used to how "stable" (and im using that word lightly" and how the drivers are available for XP is, which vista isnt up to par yet.. but people dont realize. this has been going on every single time Microshaft updates their OS.. from 95 to 98 to ME to XP.. it doesnt matter what version it was.. people always complained about the upgrade..

I had vista RTM (before it hit the stores) installed on my laptop, all i is is a dual core 1.6 with a gig of pc4200 ram.. and vista couldnt have been running any smoother! all my hardware was working with it, including my wifi which didnt have the vista drivers for.. so i just used the XP ones.

all in all.. vista is a great OS for a microsoft os.. the rebuilt TCP/IP stack is much more stable and fast, the overall feel isnt too bad, i actually enjoyed the layout of the menus.. and what ppl dont realize is.. they can get vista running without having to have a monster system.. Vista Basic is XP with the vista kernel in the background.. but uses alot less power then lets say.. Ultimate.

Alright, thanks for all the input guys, getting a laptop now instead though, at least I can use it for college also.

It won't be used for too much games anyhow, mostly older ones like Diablo 2, Starcraft, Fallout 2 etc.

So far this is all I figured out a decent laptop needs

- 512 MB Ram
- 1 GHz Processor
- ~100 GB Hard Drive

anything else I should be looking for? are those even correct lol?

found a few dirt cheap, just wondering on your thoughts on it, there's a few like this, so not really interested on these exact ones necessarily, just wondering what you guys think on the price for its specs

abs gaming laptop 2gb,80gb,6600go,15.4,2ghz pentium m - (eBay item 280155633168 end time Sep-28-07 13:56:21 PDT) (http://cgi.ebay.com/abs-gaming-laptop-2gb-80gb-6600go-15-4-2ghz-pentium-m_W0QQitemZ280155633168QQcmdZViewItem?****=item280 155633168)

Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100 P4/15"/512M/DVD-CDRW 80GB!! - (eBay item 270170019832 end time Sep-30-07 10:56:36 PDT) (http://cgi.ebay.com/Toshiba-Satellite-Pro-6100-P4-15-512M-DVD-CDRW-80GB_W0QQitemZ270170019832QQcmdZViewItem?****=item 270170019832)

Aser for TPW US Army P4/2.0Ghz/512RAM/80GB/CDRW/15" - (eBay item 270171038581 end time Oct-01-07 07:59:57 PDT) (http://cgi.ebay.com/Aser-for-TPW-US-Army-P4-2-0Ghz-512RAM-80GB-CDRW-15_W0QQitemZ270171038581QQcmdZViewItem?****=item27 0171038581)

watch the army one, if you can get it for under $350, do so.

I also liked Vista. Despite the whole week of looking for drivers for the 64-bit Vista Ultimate. I never said one bad work about Vista. However after months of usage. It couldn't do mmbot. So I got Xp back. Kind of refreshing when you switch back.

I got vista and it runs fine but its just resource intensive. If your going to run a cheap computer vista will bog it down so much it will be almost unusable. Even XP on my old machine runs slow but Ubuntu is lightning fast and is compatible with almost anything from any os. And you just dont get viruses that way.

laptop wize you dont seem to need anything too intense.. specially if your just going to play older games on it.. then a Intel chipset with the intel video adapter would be fun..

depending on your method of payment and the amount your willing to spend, did you think of checking a newer system.. alot of the brand name OEM builders have some really good deals for laptops recently.. personally i'd try for gateway/acer or lenovo as my choices.. although toshiba and dell arent too bad... Dell always have deals going on for their systems.. even to the point where they offer linux pre-installed on one of their laptop series:D

oh and by the way, look for the battery and wifi (if your going to use it at college, most college's offer wifi at this time)

The battery you should look for 9cells.. they last about 2hours with a decent load on them.. where as 6cell's will only last about an hour or so.

Well, it looks like I'll look into the laptop Dan suggested, paying under $350 seems good for me. Hope you guys think it's a good deal as well, a computer like that should be able to handle everything except all the latest games and such right?

Acer for TPW P4/2.0Ghz/512RAM/80GB/CDRW/15"/2.5hBattery - (eBay item 270171038581 end time Oct-01-07 07:59:57 PDT) (http://cgi.ebay.com/Aser-for-TPW-US-Army-P4-2-0Ghz-512RAM-80GB-CDRW-15_W0QQitemZ270171038581QQcmdZViewItem?****=item27 0171038581)




Intel Pentium 4, 2.0GHz TO 2.4 GHz and UP
512KB internal L2
RAM: 1 GB
Hard Drive:80-60GB HDD
Monitor: 15" TFT
DVD/CDRW
ROM: Built in
Modem: Built in
Graphics: Built in
Sound: Built in
Floppy:1.44 MB
Software:Microsoft Windows XPPRO
Norton Antivirus

laptop wize you dont seem to need anything too intense.. specially if your just going to play older games on it.. then a Intel chipset with the intel video adapter would be fun..

depending on your method of payment and the amount your willing to spend, did you think of checking a newer system.. alot of the brand name OEM builders have some really good deals for laptops recently.. personally i'd try for gateway/acer or lenovo as my choices.. although toshiba and dell arent too bad... Dell always have deals going on for their systems.. even to the point where they offer linux pre-installed on one of their laptop series:D

oh and by the way, look for the battery and wifi (if your going to use it at college, most college's offer wifi at this time)

The battery you should look for 9cells.. they last about 2hours with a decent load on them.. where as 6cell's will only last about an hour or so.

The wifi part I don't understand, you want me to ask the college if they offer wifi, or ask the laptop owner if it comes with wifi? I thought all laptops came equip with it. If it doesn't, can it be bought separately and added on?

that laptop "should" run most games. the catch will be the video card.. since its built in and most use Intel gfx chips.. they are good, but not great..

The wifi i was talking about is on the laptop itself.. not every laptop comes with them.. only the more recent ones.. although you could by a pc card adapter or usb.. which would work fine either way.

Laptop graphics cards is the biggest problem and i would always sacrifice some cpu speed or speed a little extra for the most ram i could get as that determines ultimately how fast your pc will really be.

I got Vista 64bit ultimate when it came out and it was a real problem but they have already released alot of fixes for it.

Vista will be like xp as first everyone stuck to windows 98 SE because xp was so shit... but eventually came Sp1 and Sp2 days and it became a stable OS

I asked the seller about the wifi and graphics card and this was his response, I hope they're decent.

There Broadcom WiFi, and onboard 32mb shared Graphics. Thank you.

broadcom, great wifi maker.. and the video card i wasnt expecting anything more then that.. if it wont be for extensive gaming, i say go for it.. seems like a nice unit altogether

trust me, for d2 and similar games, it will be fine. I was running d2 on a p3 750mhz laptop with 512mb ram, and it ran just fine.

Alright, well I'm pretty decided on which one I'm getting, unless someone else has a reason why this isn't a good buy. Gonna get it maybe tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm just happy it's wide screen and looks decent :p

eBay.ca: IBM ThinkPad A31 P4 2.0 GHZ, 15.1", 512MB WiFi, XPpro (item 160164247591 end time 09-Oct-07 11:54:48 EDT) (http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=160164247591&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=006)

Heh. Its an okay laptop. Mines pretty top of the line, and it still boots vista slow. -_-

watch it, that lappy doesn't have a touchpad, unless you use a mouse, you have to use the center ball thingy, which always finds a way to piss me off.

i like it.. he would be using a mouse.. ever tried playing D2 with it????

Yes I have, I play most games better with a touchpad because I used one for so long, AoE2 i am a pro with touchpad, same with D2.

I tried playing sacred with a touchpad.. that lasted a whole week until i got sck of it and bought a mouse!