glendower wrote:Oh, come on, throw a decent video card in there and this is a fine machine for gaming. Most games (not all, please don't read "all" in this and say "It couldn't run Bioshock very well" because I never said it would) are limited by the GPU, anyway. Saying that this is a good "basic" machine is kind of silly. 3Ghz P4 is way overkill for word processing if you want to talk about it being ceiling limited by an office suite.

The problem is that it's a compaq. I would wipe it and put XP or 2K on it and get rid of any crap aps that Compaq wasted the hard drive space with... I might keep a PSU handy just in case.

It's not a HORRIBLE deal... but only decent if you need a second computer (we're on woot, so you probably have one) or you are running a P2 or something. A good rig for the kids (pop in a video card), etc.

Yeah, I'm looking to replace a P4 1400 MHz Compaq I use at work, not looking to play games or anything else. I'm surprised by all the dissin' going on about Compaq-it's not the greatest computer I ever owned, but for work it's been faithful and true for four or five years now, so it's time to replace it. And I disagree with all the folks who say you can find this at the same proce on the web. Heck, sales tax alone is going to save me over twenty bucks, and $5.00 shipping-forget about it.

I think I'm going to go for it, once I remember what my work Woot account is named.

jimba wrote:Compaq is and always will be "junk".
VISTA makes it junkier!

Compaq was at the top of the heap not that long ago. Strong, stable products are why compaq still has a name worth selling. I don't know if they'll ever get back to heady days of the early 90s, but who knows? Compaq servers are still quite good (well, I don't know if there are still compaq branded servers now that HP has absorbed them).

majekman76 wrote:Yeah, I'm looking to replace a P4 1400 MHz Compaq I use at work, not looking to play games or anything else. I'm surprised by all the dissin' going on about Compaq-it's not the greatest computer I ever owned, but for work it's been faithful and true for four or five years now, so it's time to replace it. And I disagree with all the folks who say you can find this at the same proce on the web. Heck, sales tax alone is going to save me over twenty bucks, and $5.00 shipping-forget about it.

I think I'm going to go for it, once I remember what my work Woot account is named.

I forgot that P4 1.4s even existed I think P3 1Ghz procs outperform them. Heh. This will be a great upgrade I'm sure!

Talk about phoning in the podcast today....

glendower wrote:I forgot that P4 1.4s even existed I think P3 1Ghz procs outperform them. Heh. This will be a great upgrade I'm sure!

Yeah, can you believe it's still running? Time to take the plunge, for $300.00 I could probably build a better one, but then what does all the time and aggravation end up costing me?

shrapnel wrote:You're kidding, right? Slow? Only basic internet browsing? A 1.5GHz PC from 2000 could handle that without breaking a sweat, and it'll continue to handle it for the forseeable future.

Hardware these days has vastly outpaced software. This ought to handle anything short of intense 3D gaming (integrated video) or possibly running Vista. You might want to wipe it and install XP or Linux.

I have a 1Ghz P3 that I used for streaming media, playing DVDs over a network, some gaming, surfing, etc. for a while. The only reason that it got bumped from its duty is because I upgraded my main system to a C2D and moved my old Athlon XP components to that media system. If a P4 3ghz is choking while doing surfing, emailing, word processing, and the like then there is something wrong with that PC (spyware, viruses, fragmentation).

Mikeanike wrote:Ya it might be a "getto computer" but hey i just bought one for my brother who just had a kid and has hardly any money so it works out great so to all you snobs you can bite me

Hear here!
This is a greatly priced PC for the money, refurb (rox0rz!) or not. Doesn't matter. Has no failure rate any different than a new one or a different brand! You take a small change with any PC.
Good features for a reasonable price.

I dare to venture that all you so called "experts" are nothing more than self-righteous geek wanna-be's who have a dinosaur PC that you are using right now., and to be truthful, this thing blows your current junk right out of the water!

I have been around a long time. No one is an expert, NO ONE. I have years of experience with PCs, and also with so called experts, and all that experience tells me that I hold these truths to be self evident. These so called "experts", "expert brother-in-law, expert friend of a friends" -everyone has one- are the single biggest "real" PC repairman's promotional tool. I can't tell you how many really screwed up PCs I have ended up repairing because someone's "expert" tried to fix it and made it worse.

This is a good buy. Not the best you can buy, but then Woot isn't asking $1000+ for it either. Don't hesitate.

blacklint wrote:How much power do you think a home server would need? The bottleneck would almost always be the network. My personal server, which works just fine...

dannyb@dryer:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 8
model name : Pentium III (Coppermine)
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 646.673
cache size : 256 KB
...

Even a Ppro makes a decent file server. People have twisted senses of required power.

rriemersma wrote:Hear here!
This is a greatly priced PC for the money, refurb (rox0rz!) or not. Doesn't matter. Has no failure rate any different than a new one or a different brand! You take a small change with any PC.
Good features for a reasonable price.

I dare to venture that all you so called "experts" are nothing more than self-righteous geek wanna-be's who have a dinosaur PC that you are using right now., and to be truthful, this thing blows your current junk right out of the water!

I have been around a long time. No one is an expert, NO ONE. I have years of experience with PCs, and also with so called experts, and all that experience tells me that I hold these truths to be self evident. These so called "experts", "expert brother-in-law, expert friend of a friends" -everyone has one- are the single biggest "real" PC repairman's promotional tool. I can't tell you how many really screwed up PCs I have ended up repairing because someone's "expert" tried to fix it and made it worse.

This is a good buy. Not the best you can buy, but then Woot isn't asking $1000+ for it either. Don't hesitate.

Maybe a good buy if you want to risk getting a refurb (rox0rz!) I have nothing against Compaq (I have an HP) but there are better buys for a litlle maore money if your budget is set at $300 pull the trigger, but if you can send some more ($50-100) you can get a more modern computer (faster memory speed better processor)

No dual core? You gotta be kidding. It's HT which in benchmark testing isn't much slower and at 3ghz, your getting about the same horsepower as a dual core. One big big big plus is HT's run cooler then DC's so, I'll take my "Buick Grand National" anyday over your new off the showroom mustang cobra.. ;-)

My first big buy on a computer was a Compaq P266 with 128 megs of ram and a cd player, 3,200 dollars at Costco. Took it back about 6 months later and got my money back and went out and built my own. How can a Company stay in business for so long and prduce such crapola

If you kicked out the OEM cost of vista you could of sold it for $200. Then it MIGHT be a good deal!

If it does woot off at $50 it would be a good deal... probably.

glendower wrote:Compaq was at the top of the heap not that long ago. Strong, stable products are why compaq still has a name worth selling. I don't know if they'll ever get back to heady days of the early 90s, but who knows? Compaq servers are still quite good (well, I don't know if there are still compaq branded servers now that HP has absorbed them).

Really? I used to sell HP, Compaq, Emachines, and Sony when I worked at a B&M retailer between 1998 and 2001. We would get back 75% of the Compaqs we sold within a month of sale, because of parts issues. Either "we" (myself and two other guys certified to service their machines) or a team of contractors (the blue shirt people) would attempt to fix. 40% of those went out on the sales floor as open product. The rest went back as "Defective- Return to Vendor"

HP had better stats (pre-merger). E-machines we 90% crap. Sony (sold laptops only) never came back, but were $600-$1000 more expensive.

Hey anyone who isn't a total snob... Its a pretty decent deal. Get a new Case (the weakest link) and Its still worth the price for the parts (found all the individual parts would cost $300+ off of pricewatch.com) and the legal copy of Vista (eventually you may need it even if XP is still better at the moment) In the meantime.. there is nothing to stop you from installing XP or Linux in its place. If you need an entry level machine and aren't scared of doing some tweaking... This IS a Decent purchase.

Compaq computers run very well. They do come installed with alot of stuff, but that is only to help you get started. Their are many worse computers such as ALL Macs and most Dells.

A. It's a Compaq
B. It's refurbished (a broken, used computer which was fixed and had a new outer case put on it)
C. It doesn't come with system restore discs

Need I say more?

segalj wrote:Compaq computers run very well. They do come installed with alot of stuff, but that is only to help you get started. Their are many worse computers such as ALL Macs and most Dells.

lmao. Umm. as far as PC's go, Dells are the best factory made pc's you can buy, and Macs are the best all around pre-built systems you can buy..

You got mixed up I think.

would I buy it?.... not a chance, I only buy Macs. BUT MY GOD WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FOR $299???

segalj wrote:Compaq computers run very well. They do come installed with alot of stuff, but that is only to help you get started. Their are many worse computers such as ALL Macs and most Dells.

Macintosh computers are Gods gift to humanity for hassle free computing

I have a degree, a network admin, and do a lot of service on the side. The lady that lives next door has a Compaq similar to this. I absolutely dread it when she asks me to come over and work on it. In my view, Compaq is very poor quality and a pain to maintain....hey, "pain"...."maintain"....maybe I should be a rapper or something.......Yeeeeaaaahh Boooooyyy!

segalj wrote:Compaq computers run very well. They do come installed with alot of stuff, but that is only to help you get started. Their are many worse computers such as ALL Macs and most Dells.

wow you let the mac's in wow..... im a window guy, but you opend the gates of hell when you said mac's. hate to be you. i smell flames...lulz

Looking at this woot made me get a dell. The price of the base dell Inspiron 531s totaled around 427$(shipping+taxes included) WITH a 19' monitor. Plus it was a amd dual core 3800+. Same specs minus lightscribe, better warranty.

Wow this is a great woot. My PC was like $600 and has 512MB ram and a 4GB hard drive. Wish I had 300 bucks on me right now.

Dell i530 for $100 more.
Way better proc
2GB ddr2
250gb hd
16x dvd burner (sata)
if it's like the xps line (have the 410 for my kid) the audio has optical out

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=19&kc=111&oc=DDDEEB2&x=4&y=6

unsure if i'm allowed to do that or not... first time poster. Had to chime in.

My girlfriend has a similar Compaq, sluggish as can be, but it's fine for her.

As for Vista, those who hate it just don't grasp the concept that it takes more power to enjoy Vista. I liked XP Pro, but got bored with it after 6 years.

I'd pass on this deal and get the Dell. I have 2 Dells and 3 homemade pc's... only thing I hated about Dell was not being able to OC my CPU/Memory - so I built my own. I slapped a 7900GT card in my kid's XPS410, she hits over 100 fps on HL2 (source) with high settings on a 22" widescreen. Not bad for an e6300 proc in a Dell.

zyodei wrote:Is anyone else sad about how hard it is to buy new consumer level PCs that DON'T come loaded with Vista? Vista is bloatware garbage, they took a perfectly good thing and screwed it up.

XP was relatively stable, easy to use, and powerful. After spending about ten hours using Vista on various computers, I have found NOTHING to like about it, and it kills the performance of most PCs. 1GB is barely enough.

doody, I would rather just get a computer with nothing at all on it and just put Linux on it myself. As such, the idea that any of that $300 is going to M$ for their lousy efforts is a deal breaker for me. Which may well mean that I am going to have to stick with used PCs for the near future.

Way to screw over the whole PC industry, Microsoft.

Maybe it's time to try a local, smaller pc store/repair shop.They can still build with XP if you ask. Support the little guy fighting the fight against big box.
Have the computer made to your needs.
Vista: I have run it beta and beyond.I agree, slow and bloated.I am much happier with XP myself. "The OS that won't Die"...:-)

Yes,very Sad that MS is sticking this down everyones throat.
The really sad thing is there is more to come and in less time then it took them to get vista out.....that's how they make their$$$$$$

every brand of computer is a risk. don't computer manufacturers just assemble parts from other manufacturers anyway? i bought a top of the line toshiba qosmio laptop a few years back. it had a problem with the screen so i took it into bestbuy for repair (luckily i had purchased the in store warrenty [it was purchased for work at a family owned farm which means it was tax free and the extra money was spent on the warrenty]. anyway, without my knowing the computer was recalled and sent to california and i never saw it again. in return i was given a $2000 gift card. i broke off $500 of it and give it to my brother in return for a fairly new sony vaio lapper and spent the rest on an hp dv8000 laptop. the hp was dead on arrival, but was taken back and replaced. the sony died about 4 months later and is now a paper weight. the repalcement hp has been nothing short of a trooper. it has survived a full glass of wine dumped over its keyboard (stay away from drunk computing, kids) and a three foot fall from the back of an suv as i was getting my bags after being dropped off at an airport (contents may shift during transport). in other words, every brand is a risk. in this case hp has gone from my least favorite to a trusted brand in my opinion.

i agree with whoever said that a clean install of your os is a must. my same brother gave me a 5 year old sony desktop that i reinstalled windows, cleaned the junk, and now use it as a lightnening fast computer to handle my recording studio (which has only 516 ram but does not require any video processing). so a computer like this could be specialized to handle a similar situation and do it well. having said that, sure, i would probably (if i had the windows disc) instead look for an older used computer that i could find on the cheapy cheap (such as a give-away from someone who makes a lot more money than you, as in my case).

dur

Well bottom line is, whether you like the deal or not...whether you hate Vista or not...The sign is a bounce'n...so somebody must be jumping on this deal! : )

PeteyMac wrote:Well bottom line is, whether you like the deal or not...whether you hate Vista or not...The sign is a bounce'n...so somebody must be jumping on this deal! : )

Just because I would not buy one does not mean it is not a good deal. I just would not want Vista on anything.

jplonmars wrote:it is POS....I am sorry....but windows XP was working fine.....

IF IT AIN'T BROKEN, DON'T TRY TO FIX IT UP.

That's the rule # 1 in trouble shooting guide.

No, it's not POS. I'm guessing you actually have USED Vista and your not just going off everyone else's comments...

I agree.. if it ain't broken...I didn't have any problems with XP and comparing the two OS, so far I like Vista better. Maybe part of it is the new computer, maybe it's just the new features of Vista. The only complaint I have is that it is not compatible with the majority of software available. But that's just a temporary problem. I don't mind people complaining about Vista, provided they have first hand experience using the system.

worth 175.00 tops, i run a computer business trust me i know computer value (or lack there of)

not a bad pc for my kids who are 7 & 9. should handle the many visits to wikipedia... and an upgrade from their 6 yr old dell that i have already had to rebuild twice.. for $300 it is worth the risk!

OnFire34 wrote:

I love checking woot every day to see if i can get a nice deal on something. It's fun. I've been doing it for about a year now and have only bought once, though. Do some of you guys enjoy waiting for the next item just so you can hate on it? Seems that way.

Same here. I had been watching for several months before I even created an account. Only within the last month have I bought anything. The majority of the time I'm not interested in the woot for the day. I just go on about my business. Some people log on just to leave a negative message. If you don't like the woot for the day and you're not going to buy it, why take the time to log on and leave a message? Why not just go on about your day?

justmemel wrote:...for $300 it is worth the risk!

I said the same thing about some cute little Thai girl I met once in San Diego.

Man was I ever wrong.





I kid, I kid. Just waiting up for the next WOOT!

1. Compaq has always been crap.
2. HP should only make printers
3. Dell makes crappy laptops. I own one and it sucks balls and has a crappy battery life.
4. DON'T BUY THIS YOU WILL REGRET IT

jsado wrote:Macintosh computers are Gods gift to humanity for hassle free computing

You are an silly goose. Nothing wrong with backing Mac, just don't worship it like there is no tomorrow.

kwelles wrote:A. It's a Compaq
B. It's refurbished (a broken, used computer which was fixed and had a new outer case put on it)
C. It doesn't come with system restore discs

Need I say more?

Restore disk must be made, it'll cost you two DVD disk. The box and hardware is worth it alone. Install a OEM XP (or Linux) o/s, partition the hard drive, upgrade the p/s, install a PCI Express card, and you're ready to go.

I wish I had waited

Check this one out:
http://www.frys.com/product/5355458

Twice the harddrive, Vista Home Premium ... $49 extra.

Not sure about the warranty tho.

Ignatius wrote:Maybe back in 2004... Vista is terrible. See y'all tomorrow.

But will xp work on this compter??

I meant "early 90s" when I said "early 90s." Compaqs back then came in strong, metal, amazingly accessible cases. I can't remember what the old lines were called, but the 486 mid towers I used to sell were tanks and unstoppable. Their laptops were among the most desirable at the time and, again, sturdy machines. With the intro of Win95 and pentium procs, the market for cheap, crap machines really opened up and the quality of compaqs (except servers) dropped like a rock. I think I first saw then when a friend of mine upgraded to a Compaq P 133.. garbage. Utter garbage.

Again, their servers retained their initial quality and they offered great support (where I did IT, we only bought Compaq servers). It's the garbage they started to sell that did them in.

any ideas as to when this thing will ship? My first few woots shipped reasonably quickly. Ever since the introduction of smart post, my woots are often annoyingly late.