Avoid Making This PC Mistake
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- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
- Avoid Making This PC Mistake
Today we take a look at "Refurbished PC Buying Guide" this guide will help you understand what the risks are when buying a old office Dell OptiPlex PC, HP office PC or Lenovo Office PC. Any model and any brand, all have there own issues to look at for like proprietary parts, no upgrade path, end of life looming, low watts on power supply, no airflow and much more.
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My advice would be, Don't buy a unit, Build one, there's a wealth of info out there on how to, but beware its addictive.
I think build one is the way to go
I build my own and upgrade the standard size towers from oems.
Something like this is good for basic computing or retro gaming. You may do some meager upgrades - more RAM, SSD and low power graphics card (e.g., Nvidia GT 730), but if you want more power, look elsewhere or build your own.
Brian's mention of price important, too. The price of the computer plus upgrades have to make sense, whether it's used office PCs, used DIY PCs, or even new PCs. Its common sense, along with "don't forget to factor in shipping" and "don't buy what you can't afford", or even "should you be buying this or can you get by with what you have?"
I personally build my own but there are a lot of people out there who don't want to be bothered. These kinds of machines are perfect for people like that so long as you understand what you are getting into and do some research.
Koenigsegg
Slightly older HP workstations are the bargain of the century. I bought a Z210 years ago for $200, upgraded it a bit and used it for years. Great computer!
i run 2 hp thin clients, 1 running linux mint and the other primeos (x86 ported android). both do the job very well and economically.
Bloody good video , couple of years ago i bought a dell something or other for £15 and i was amazed at how this thing just came apart , it was so well designed so the technical guys could come along to the office and without tools just replace stuff , BUT then i looked into upgrading stuff on it and boy oh boy thats when it got impossible to find replacement , it was fine for what i wanted but damn its such a pity you cant replace and upgrade on Dell stuff , well i loved it so much that when i bought my current "modern" pc my old dell was consigned to the loft as a pfsense server , where it sits now happily chugging away
Well quite. It's £15. I think the confusion is that people think they can turn these things into beast gaming rigs, you sort of can with a low power card like an RX 6400, but it wont be a beast. But if you use it for your case then i think for £15, you can't go wrong, irrespective of its upgrade ability.
Thank you Brian for all these warnings and advice. It’s of course good for the environment to try to give a second life to products. However, all these small workshops proposing refurbished electronics, including computers, displays and even phones just hide the dust under the carpet and they just try to attract you with a “low price” but even at this price it is not worth the money and you are not sure at all about components used, warranty is just a kind of bet. Either you wish a good pc that you can upgrade and you must be aware that it’s more expensive but for sure worth the price or you just wish to browse on the internet, print text and send / receive emails so a Chromebook’s pc or a minipc is the kind of stuff you should consider purchasing. Agree?
0:11 _COUGHCOUGH_ TOASTYBROS _COUGHCOUGH_
One of the first things I noticed about the MB was the condition of the CMOS battery. It was not silver in color and had what looked like a smoke stain.
Another great guide. Thank you Brian!
My pleasure!
They are fantastic value for non gamers and my Dell Optiplex runs Tetris just fine!.
They are OK for some people, but making them gaming systems, no.
I'd go for either building your own or getting a workstation as workstations tend to be the same price or lower and have less proprietary parts, cheaper and more ram expansion, and they have better airflow and more powerful PSUs standard. I bought my grandfather a GTX 1060 because his workstation PSU only had one 6 pin connector but that's still better than the majority of these desktops in my experience. Btw my grandfather is a huge fan of your channel he's always showing me your videos and you help him a lot lol thanks for that
You need to change the tittle of this video to "Avoid Making This GAMING PC Mistake". This little baby makes a great Plex server/NAS/web surfer, etc.
My last two PC's are refurbished office PC's. I don't want a gaming PC just one that allows me to surf the net, use email and stream media but they won't stream ITVX which I'm not bothered about.
They were both i5, one a 3450 and the other a 4670 they cost a total of £245 with 256 Gb SSD's. For just general use they are worth it but if you want a gaming PC steer well clear of these PC's.
One way is to build your own ATX case out of wood, and just frankensteiny the front panel into it that takes in these special motherboards.
My advice is buy it if you know what you’re getting into. I find them to be easier to work with when it comes to triple booting. I also like to work with cases from Sandybridge to Haswell.
My approach for any boards after Haswell would be to mount one screw then mount your GPU. Afterwards mark the remaining future standoffs with a marker. Your PCI-e lanes may or may not line up. I haven’t had a chance to try repurposing a Dell or HP motherboard to address the front I/O.
The only GPU i would fit into any of these enterprise machines would be something like an Intel Arc A310 (no power cord runs off pcie power). CPU would need to be 10th gen intel or newer but it can makes for a pretty nice small machine. VERY light gaming but great for general web browsing or streaming/transcoding. For any other use, you're probably going to save yourself a headache by building your own machine.
You can upgrade the case in some of these office computers, but then it just might beep you with error messages at boot, but you can just usually press F1 to continue.
You mostlikely need those adaptors to be able to upgrade into ATX psu, and proper CPU cooler, i was able anyway, you need some skill and be familiar with the components.
As mentioned in the video
Bri paints a doom and gloom picture of this, but think about it. £15 for a computer? That's a few pints these days down the pub. Throw in a 500gb SATA SSD which i've seen on ebay for around £20 and for that you can browse the internet, youtube, computing tasks etc and it will do this all day and they have proven reliability. I challenge anybody to do better for this price. People always say, just spend a bit more money, but what if that's all you have to devote to a PC?
£15 for a computer? no computers are £15 on eBay and like I said at the end, still worth it if you are using for general use, not gaming. Watch the whole video before accusing people
@@Britec09 Eh?
Surprised to see the first one is actually Dell tested and supported for Windows 11.
Hi Brian, thanks for the video. Yes, you have to be careful if you buy a computer like this, so I completely agree with you, Brian. I personally think it's better to build a computer yourself, as another user suggested. You can build a low-budget computer, but you choose the parts yourself, and later when you have more money, you can buy better parts. But you get a computer that you can upgrade, so personally, I also think that you should stay away from computers like this if you want to play games. Brian, I know you have uploaded PC builds before, but maybe a new video series where you could do budget PC builds and maybe later a bit more advanced PC builds. It's good because even if you build a Budget computer, you get a better computer than many of these refurbished computers take care Brian and have a lovely sunday.
Thanks, you to
A few years ago it wasn't bad advice to buy an old Sandy Bridge or later i5 or i7 system for peanuts and then add a GPU like a 1060 and possibly more RAM. There were still the same pitfalls like proprietary motherboard connectors and dodgy PSU's, but if you knew what you were doing you could circumnavigate those pitfalls and end up with a decent cheap gaming rig. Those days are gone though and if you want a decent gaming rig today you're better off building new. But there are still people out there today giving advice that is no longer viable and they need to stop.
These SFF units are only good as a work station, stand alone or possibly as a Linux system. They are not worth it to attempt to upgrade, even if you are able to replace MB you still have limitations with the power supply.
Besides most will not be able to run 11, so it's either an offline system or a Linux system. It could still be used just not the way one may like. The number one drawback is the power supply.
PSU is a major problem for these machines
You are right - before buy check what you can upgrade. So I have HP Elitedesk 800 G1 SSF (i5-4670) upgraded with 4x4GB ram, 240GB ssd, 1050Ti LP it runs perfectly for me - Doom Eternal, Elden Ring, Last Epoch and more... Using it in my room. Recently got HP 705 G4 DM (Ryzen5PRO 2400G) for media center and console emulation in living room. And I think I did good deals with both.
Maybe a small blower fan graphics card will do the trick.
Well Brian there is no way anyone can buy one of these machines and expect it to perform like a modern computer. I have worked on a few of these units for friends and frankly they have all been a nightmare to do anything with. There should be a law against selling crap like this and stop people wasting their hard earned cash and end up with somehting that is just not going to work as they want and then have to buy or build a decent machine.
Yep, that''s why my first questions to a customer looking for a "new" computer are, "What are you going to use it for?" followed by "What is your budget?"
good cheap linux box for the back room that acts as a server or a means to remote in if you need work / home files while on the go.
Linux runs great on these systems
All office motherboards are not like you present this one, some can be swapped into ATX.
Like I said in video, you got to know what ones can be swapped, most can't.
136 quid for the power supply and if u want it on credit the interest rate is 19.2%
Rip off Britain...and 20 Silk Cut is 17 pounds 50
We live in a country full of con artists
I bought 4 over a few months and had to return every one which turned out to be junk!
That's the risk with these
Are these pc , no good just for office work & web browsing, , as they ment to use for
These systems were never meant for gaming. They are great for everyday tasks tho. Web browsing, emails, documents, day to day use. Something good for a parent or grandparent that just need something basic to get online and do what they need to do. With regards to windows 11. Linux typically runs fine on these and is a reasonable os again for the basics of everyday use. Definitely not for games but a good choice for a daily driver to get the basics done.
I agree
But who knows if it has really been refurbished.
Refurbished usually means they wiped it. With a cloth. IF you're lucky.
proprietary nonsense should be banned. atx is 30 years old--which in itself is hard to believe
Im with you, but these were never designed for the consumer market. They're supposed to run spreadsheets all day then thrown in the skip. Im thankful people can still find use for them, rather than in landfill.
no, refurbished is not viable versus online. If modern speed & functionality is your thing forget it. Build your own, I did in 95... read a lot built a optical fibre audio recording system, still does better than most new recording systems due my optical fibre set up with TDAT & Creamware... still works great. 200mhz... imagine, it was the first & fastest in my country for the day; cousin in the business... I researched chip sets as that was crucial... but matched, as I said it's functionality is still as good today as then, of course the ridiculous audio file heights are modern things, but I can record 48 & 96khz 24bit fine for my ears, audio is my thing. Keeping an old computer running on 95, then upgraded to 98... you just ONLY do what you need, skin the computer of all programs but what's needed, runs like a Swiss watch... if it was smooth optical... My rule then was to buy the fastest & best I could afford... just a musician very poor, I saved for a couple of years while I learned what to buy... all that research paid off: my recorder is still better than most on offer today. BUT it can only do the old stuff... I wouldn't bother bringing it on line, I doubt it could connect. Old systems are only good to run old programs on.
How about a Sliverstone tx700?
500w is good if you can get it to fit, heat will be an issue for powerful GPU
Nowadays 2024 does Windows 11 need any 3rd party antivirus or not ???
No
Ten years ago yes but nowadays no.
Hate proprietary stuff. Have my i3 13100f running in a 20 YO case. Everything works, with proprietary stuff you can't do what i have done.
Had my 10100f in a case that used to house a P4 from the days of Shop NBC. I moved the platform to an Inspiron 620 case.
Dell sucks. They've gone Gateway 2000, and is going die off due to their stupid proprietary crap. I stopped buying Dell ever since I realized how crappy this company became, back in 2010. I started building my own PCs and have never looked back.
Dells are notorious for their proprietary hardware, and their lack of support for problems with third party software not working on their systems! I would just STAY AWAY! HP has been around since black and white telly; I would stick with them, if you want something that should work, and not be a splinter under your fingernail!
I think you're missing the point. Its a £15 used machine. It was designed to run spreadsheets in an office then thrown in the skip at the end of its life or contract. The fact that people are finding use beyond it's "useful life" has merit and is resourceful.
@@leerobinson8709 sorry, but I don't think I am! You can't change hardware, or upgrade them without using dells proprietary hardware!... That's pretty much enough for me, and probably anyone else! Never mind their lack of support! For better or worse, I worked in the electronics department of the world's biggest retailer 🙀😿😾😸, for 12 years, or so... Maybe a bit longer! I did a good bit of research, since they did not provide ANY kind of training, or information, and the customers just REALLY WANTED TO KNOW!!!!!!! So, I stand by my statement!... And it doesn't matter if you like it or not, it's still true, just like gravity and inertia!!! They work whether you believe it or not!!!
@@leerobinson8709 No lol there's no reason to do any of this, Dell just wants to force their customers to upgrade sooner rather than later. They make shitty products but still have the audacity to charge premium for it. People shouldn't have to find use beyond its "useful life" that should just be something that is blatantly obvious it's a PC not a fuckin console dude
If all you are going to do, is browsing the Net, and reading your email, then go ahead! But run it with Linux; then at least it will work for a couple of years. If you are into gaming; forget it!!
I agree
100%
These machines are fine as long as you don't want to run Windows 11
They are fine for general use like I said.
What’s preventing them to run windows 11? As long they support eight gen Intel or first gen AMD Ryzen they will run win 11 absolutely fine.
its GREAT to know how many NON-GAMERS there are in this world. Those who use them as...TOOLS, no "game toys". Up to you, kids :-) I love TOOLS that work for ME !! Down the Road, we'll just keep up with the ever-changing tech-of-the-moment. no biggie! Yooo,,,how about quit "throwing stones" and, instead...put some HIGH VALUE PCs how-to for 2024-going on, for the zillions of we NON-GAMERS. I use my Dell 7040 SSF for architectural planwork, my $$$-maker, and that's just fine :-)))
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