Computers

Algo Computers

Every computer I have owned from 386s and up was custom built by me. If you are considering a custom computer or you already own a premanufactured computer, then ask yourself the following questions:

Do you want a soundcard that games have trouble working with?

Do you want a modem that hangs up on you or locks up?

Do you want a video card that won't do more than 256 colors in 1024 x 768?

Do you want special peripheral jacks that force you to get replacements from one expensive source?

Do you want a noisy hard drive that will most likely give out just as the warranty on your computer ends?

Do you want less RAM than necessary to run what it is you need to run?

If you answered no to any of these then you probably should not buy a premanufactured computer. The sad truth is that, in order to increase profits and offer better deals, most computer companies cut corners everywhere they can. The worst of these I have seen is Packard Bell. The best ones I Know of are Dell and Hewlett Packard (NOT to be confused with Packard Bell, though there are those who say Packard Bell was so named to capitalize off the good name of Hewlett Packard) In any case, even Dell and HP can give you problems when you want to upgrade some component of your computer which happens to be an integral part of the motherboard.

The Solution?

The solution is simple. Buy all your components seperately to ensure that you are getting only high quality computer parts, each with it's own individual warranty and let me put them together for you for 10% of their total price.

Things to keep in mind

It is important to buy the very best you can afford, believe me, buying a $60 modem that you can't connect at 28.8K with, that keeps failing to come up on plug and play giving Windows 95 the false impression that it is in use or doesn't exist forcing you to go into modem properties, delete the modem, search for new hardware and reinstall the modem every 3 out of 5 times you start your computer IS NOT a better deal than spending $300 on a top of the line US Robotics modem that you can upgrade to X² technology when it becomes available allowing you to download at ISDN speeds, that gets detected properly every single time you start your computer.

Sound cards are VERY important! Most of the games out there are pointless without them. The only way to go (In my opinion) is with a Soundblaster 16 pnp or better. Not a soundblaster compatible, mind you, but a Sound Blaster.. by Creative Labs. That way you are not forced to have to deal with soundblaster compatibility mode in the games that do not support your specific card. Every game out there supports Soundblaster. It is the industry standard, and far be it from me to want to help corporate greed but the simple fact is, if you want trouble free sound, get a soundblaster.

Video cards... the unsung heros! I've dealt with a wide range of video cards, from Hercules Monochrome to Matrox Mystique (Don't buy a Matrox Mystique!) the best cards I've had were Diamond Stealth 64s or they had the s3 Trio chipset. But the Video Card industry is changing right now... it's heading towards 3D cards, and while I have a Matrox Mystique in my computer right now and am perfectly happy with it, it does not support Anti-aliasing, filtering or fogging which makes it less than complete. I look forward to the new redesigned Matrox 3D card that will incorporate these features.

Mother Boards are VERY important, I once bought a VLB motherboard and a 486 DX 133 chip, I had to take it back because the motherboard had compatibility problemswith the chip, I had to disable the write back cache on the chip in order to get the floppy drives to boot. I took it back and bought a PCI motherboard, after that I had no problems. The computer I'm typing at you from right now has a Tyn Tomcat PCI motherboard with dual Pentium capability. I've been VERY happy with it, it supports mode 4 hard drives (But then again, what motherboard doesn't these days?) has 4 ISA slots and 4 PCI slots.

Mice and keyboards, that is always the last thing I buy when I build a computer, keyboards are not that important to me, since I eat as I type I usually end up ruining my keyboards before long so I try and buy the cheapest ones available. Mice are different, I usually just try to buy the best rolling mouse I can afford. IMSI makes great mice, I've been very happy with them. Microsoft's $60 mouse is VERY nice but a bit too expensive. Hey, as long as it rolls smoothly you've got a good mouse.

CD Drives are a must these days, I've got 8 of them in my computer! Well, not really, two of them but they each hold 4 CDs. I've got a couple of Nakamichi CD Changers which I must admit are VERY annoying when starting up windows as windows needs to check EVERY SINGLE DRIVE before it starts up, so my CD changers are sitting there clicking away going through every single CD slot. Then when you open up any file folder with the toolbar Windows has to read through each CD. Grrrr!! Well I don't plan on using this computer for my own personal use anymore, I'm going to turn it into a Bulletin Board so I can take advantage of the 8 CD capability by having many online CDs for my users to download from.

Hard drives! I love hard drives! MY first hard drive was a 20 meg MFM drive mounted on it's own controller card that sat in a Zenith XT that a friend let me borrow. I had a 1200 baud modem that my Electronics teacher let me borrow and I started calling local bulletin boards! It's amazing to me how the numbers change but the proportions remain the same. These days however, 20 Megs won't even hold your operating system! When you buy a hard drive there are a few things to keep in mind. DOS has a 2.1 Gig limit on partitions, so if you buy a 2.5 Gig hard drive, in order to get all 2.5 gigs out of it you're going to have to partition it into two or more smaller drives. I have a 2.5 Gig HD at work which I partitioned into 3 drives to get the most out of it (The smaller the partition the lesser the block size) And the one I have at home is partitioned into 2 drives. Aside from size considerations, you should consider random seek time and transfer rates. Make sure your Hard drive supports Mode 4, it speeds things up considerably.

Floppy Drives. Are they still around? Gawd! they're so useless!, that is unless you don't mind swapping 21+ disks.. It kind of makes me wish the world would switch over to ZIP disks which can hold 100 MB each. But they're too expensive. Oh well, in order to swap disks with people I suppose you should get a floppy drive, 3.5 inch of course, not those archaic 5.25"s which they probably don't even sell anymore

Monitors are another component you should not skimp on. Get the best monitor you can afford! Things to look for are dot pitch (.28 or smaller is good) resolution (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024) non-interlaced and high refresh rates. Also look for clarity and brightness, if the screen seems dark to you at it's brightest DON'T BUY IT! You will kick yourself when you try to play a 1st person perspective DOS game.

And of course a case to hold it all together. I tend to buy cases mainly for how many bays they have depending on what type of computer I'm building. So far all of my own computers have needed nothing more than a mini tower case.

Software is going to be the most expensive thing you get for your computer when you compare to premanufactured computers. Computer companies sell millions of computers and are able to strike a deal with the software manufacturers to the point that it's almost free! You however will have to pay full price at your local software store. UNLESS I build your computer for you, being a computer reseller I can get price breaks on software when I buy them 3 or more at a time from any one of a number of OEM distributers. With Windows 95, a modem and internet access you can pretty much get any other type of software from the thousands of shareware sites out there. And when you do buy a piece of software, it won't be a desperate purchase hoping the software has what you need, it will be an informed decision based on the shareware version. Modems are wonderful, I was once stuck at a house with nothing but a computer, windows 95 and a modem, I used hyperterminal to log on to a local bulletin board I had an account on and downloaded a small FTP program, then I configured windows 95's dialup networking to access my ISP, then I downloaded a web broswer with the ftp program, used the web browser to download a mail client, news reader and a chat client. Before you know it that computer looked like I had spent thousands of $$ in software alone. Man, I love computers!

If you would like me to build a computer for you, fill out the form below and submit it, I'll give you an estimate based on the current prices of hardware.

Name:

e-mail:

Phone:

Have it your way!

CPU & Motherboard:

Sound Card:

Keyboard:

Case:

Modem:

Video Card:

CD-ROM:

Operating System: EDO:

Hard Drive:

Mouse:

Floppy Drive: Y: N:

Monitor: