Tips on Buying Refurbished Tower

[artbuc]

Hi, have not been here in a while. Getting ready to move into a 55+ community. Long over due as I am close to 70. My faithful HP a1600n is almost as old as I am. Seems like every year or so I come here to get advice on a replacement but never get around to it. Seems like I am doing most stuff on my iPad but still like to do my banking and document printing from my PC.

Was looking at refurbished units on a Newegg. How do you go about selecting the right one? Was thinking definitely Dell or HP with Win 10 and i5 or i7 processor. Definitely want a HMDI output. Would I be better off getting a business unit, eg Optiplex with Win10 Pro?

I am willing to pay a little more for a brand new tower if that is a better path. If I were a little younger I would build my own, but just do not have the interest to do that now.

I am a light user but I want a fast robust tower. Thanks for any tips.

[Ajfer03]

If you go with Dell, they have some really good financing options. Heck, I got a gaming desktop that has reasonable good specs for under 30 dollars a month for 4 years. I doubt that you would be getting a 1500 dollar gaming computer, so you would be looking at a decent computer at around 600 dollars, and if the financing is right, you could get a monitor with it for like 20 dollars a month for 4 years, or even less if you feel like making bigger payments. I had a really low interest rate on mine, so I'm sure you would too. HDMI is almost standard on computers nowadays, so I wouldn't be that much of an issue. On top of that, it would come with a warranty and tech support.

Here is one that I would recommend: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/inspiron-3670-desktop/ddcw3670v519p2h

Hope you find a decent computer that fits your needs!
Anthony

[Lisa_maree]

Hi

Your idea of buying a Dell Optiplex is a great with Windows 10 pro. I would get one with a Solid State Drive and differently intel.

Looking at what Newegg and yes I know this is new not used.

 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1VK-0001-100W5

It has HDMI in and out sockets, lots of usb ports some 3.1 standard
23" - LED - 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) so screen has large easy to read writing
SSD 256 GB - PCI Express - M.2  this is a fast hard drive
Includes Limited warranty - 3 years - response time: next business day

Or used
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAHZN84V1621&Description=9020&cm_re=9020-_-9SIAHZN84V1621-_-Product

Or a desktop or maybe i should say a tiny pc
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883998512&Description=lenovo&cm_re=lenovo-_-83-998-512-_-Product

It is more common to get Display ports on used business computers.
You could use  a Display port to HDMI cable. If you are happy to do this would give you more options of refurbished computers.

I recommend you  buy the first Dell all in one i linked.

[artbuc]

Ajfer, that is the exact New Dell I selected last night. Lisa, why are you getting i3 units? Should t I be getting at least a late generation i5? Great tips from both of you, thanks!

[camerongray]

Lots of different options floating around here, probably worth thinking about what sort of form factor you'd want - desktop tower vs all in one, also worth considering if a laptop may be a more suitable option.  For refurbs (or any machine to be honest), I'd always go down the route of the business oriented machines such as the Dell Optiplex line over the more consumer focused options such as Inspirons - I find they tend to be better made and often easier to get replacement parts for.

I'd definitely second Lisa's advice about an SSD, easily the biggest performance boost you'll see for day to day use.  For general office type tasks, a lower end CPU paired with an SSD will feel hugely more responsive than a top of the line i7 machine running from a conventional hard drive. Nowadays I'd never buy a machine without an SSD boot drive.

[artbuc]

Nowadays I'd never buy a machine without an SSD boot drive.

Cameron, I am looking at an Inspiron with dual storage, 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD. I would boot up on the SSD and keep larger, used less often files on the HDD, right?

I hear you re the business models, but the consumer line will likely outlast me.

Also, I now keep my backup images on an external HD. With dual storage, I would keep backup images on the internal HD, right?

[artbuc]

I am now wondering about the remaining life of the SSD on an off-lease PC. For a few bucks I may install an SSD on my old HP just to see how it affects performance.

[Ajfer03]

Yeah, It couldn't hurt to try. It probably would speed things up quite a bit as well. However, you would always be better off just buying a new one. With that older one that you have, you could be looking at busted capacitors, bad RAM, and all sorts of things. Every little thing that happens would cost you money to fix, and how long until you equal up to what you would have paid for the new computer? Plus, I just looked up that computer, and I do have to say, that computer does look old!  Yeah, you would probably be better off buying a new one. It doesn't have to be the one I said, but keep in mind that Dell has some good financing options!

[artbuc]

LOL, yeah 12 years old. Have replaced HD at least 2 times and optical drive at least 3 times. Also replaced and maxed out RAM. My main concern is someday MB or PS will go poof. Can get a new PS but not MB. If I upgrade to SSD, I can also transfer it to new PC if/when my old one goes down.

[Ajfer03]

Yeah, that's true. I'm assuming that it only uses the IDE standard for drive so you would also be looking at purchasing an IDE to SATA adapter, so that will also bring up your cost a bit. You could also just wait for it do die and then buy one of those IDE HDD to USB adapters.  Honestly, it's all up to you. If it was me I think I would wait for it to die, and then I would use one of those USB hard drive adapters to transfer my useful files to the new computer.

Cheers!

[camerongray]

To be honest, given the age of the machine I'd just go all out and replace it. An SSD would help although the machine's SATA controller will be too slow to get the full speed out of a modern SSD and the CPU and RAM is likely too limited to handle a modern version of Windows at a reasonable speed.

As for your comment about the machine with two drives, you'd generally store the OS and applications on the SSD and then large files such as video and photos on the hard drive.  You'd still always want to back both drives up onto an external drive - if you were to get some sort of malware (such as ransomware) or have some sort of power supply failure that fries your drives, the only safe option is to have your backup on an external drive that is physically disconnected most of the time.