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ubuntu has a lot of re spins and specialty distros. its a great distro that serves almost every need a user may want. my only complaint with it is you must choose one with long term support or you risk losing software sources from ever changing repositories.
Pinguy is ubuntu based but the greatest thing about it is not much tweaking is needed for a great system from the start and they have a superb support community
typically with a lot of linux distros if you want to play a commercial dvd you have to download the css files and packages and install them and hope they work.
 
If you have the space and a monitor I would highly recommend you build yourself a desktop PC. Its pretty simple stuff, you can build a decent workstation for not a lot of money.

Apple is overpriced hipster garbage imo, their OS is quite nice but if you have been using Windows in the past you probably know your way around it. Extremely anti consumer with all their -------- propriety connectors. Could you imagine the uproar if one manufacturer decided to make sockets that only fit on their own special patress?
 
If you have the space and a monitor I would highly recommend you build yourself a desktop PC. Its pretty simple stuff, you can build a decent workstation for not a lot of money.

Apple is overpriced hipster garbage imo, their OS is quite nice but if you have been using Windows in the past you probably know your way around it. Extremely anti consumer with all their ******** propriety connectors. Could you imagine the uproar if one manufacturer decided to make sockets that only fit on their own special patress?

exactly and its easy to customize a desktop for special purposes whether its workstation, server, gaming system, or multimedia production
 
Update.

Not experienced the bsod again, but this morning, the hinge on the lid decided to crack open.
Can’t shut it, or open it further... at least it’s stuck at a usable angle.
Try and move it and the plastic around the bottom left of the screen starts to distort and separate.
New laptop time.

So the next question is, where can I get good spec/ low price.?
The off the shelf garbage from curry’s is too expensive. I don’t need all the bundled software, and surely I can get a machine without an OS and use win10 key from my old busted laptop?

Good graphics would be a bonus as I use it for games as well as office stuff.
Budget £500, but will see what search comes up with.

Is there any sellers that do deals for business customers? Ie laptop plus free tablet etc?

I’ll add in my current specs when I get home because I would want something better than what I have.
 
I'd +1 the desktop idea unless you really need the portability of a laptop. They're easily serviceable, you can put it together with exactly what you want, and upgrading later is often really cheap with second hand parts. They're also easily cleaned - laptops much less so, especially if you're going to be running games on it (more load = higher fan speed = more airflow = more dust buildup.)

My decade old desktop is still going strong as a media PC after whacking an SSD and second hand upgraded CPU in it - that's the only upgrade it's had from new; cost me just north of £60 for both parts (and it was a budget machine when it was put together!)

"Gaming laptops" (basically meaning they have dedicated graphics) will also usually blow your £500 budget out the water.

That said, whatever machine you're after (laptop or desktop):

- Don't accept anything less than an SSD these days, ignore "HDD" or "hybrid" drives off the bat - and I'd be looking at a 256GB drive;
- Preferably 8GB RAM, minimum 4GB;
- Look out for an optical drive if you still need it - many machines these days come without;
- CPU spec is generally less important than people tend to think these days, but with a budget of £500 I'd be shooting for an i5.
- If battery life is important to you, check it before buying (many forget this bit!)

Ebuyer is a good place to look generally for these things - they're often among, if not the cheapest and I've never had any issues with them.

Quickly pulling one out that's around your budget and meets the above specs: Lenovo V130 Laptop - Laptops at ebuyer - https://www.ebuyer.com/874325-lenovo-v130-laptop-81hn00nguk
 
I'd +1 the desktop idea unless you really need the portability of a laptop. They're easily serviceable, you can put it together with exactly what you want, and upgrading later is often really cheap with second hand parts. They're also easily cleaned - laptops much less so, especially if you're going to be running games on it (more load = higher fan speed = more airflow = more dust buildup.)

My decade old desktop is still going strong as a media PC after whacking an SSD and second hand upgraded CPU in it - that's the only upgrade it's had from new; cost me just north of £60 for both parts (and it was a budget machine when it was put together!)

"Gaming laptops" (basically meaning they have dedicated graphics) will also usually blow your £500 budget out the water.

That said, whatever machine you're after (laptop or desktop):

- Don't accept anything less than an SSD these days, ignore "HDD" or "hybrid" drives off the bat - and I'd be looking at a 256GB drive;
- Preferably 8GB RAM, minimum 4GB;
- Look out for an optical drive if you still need it - many machines these days come without;
- CPU spec is generally less important than people tend to think these days, but with a budget of £500 I'd be shooting for an i5.
- If battery life is important to you, check it before buying (many forget this bit!)

Ebuyer is a good place to look generally for these things - they're often among, if not the cheapest and I've never had any issues with them.

Quickly pulling one out that's around your budget and meets the above specs: Lenovo V130 Laptop - Laptops at ebuyer - https://www.ebuyer.com/874325-lenovo-v130-laptop-81hn00nguk

This has 2gb graphics
 
I’d second the desktops advice. Even I’ve built a couple. Something to keep you occupied, whilst having no access to sparky.net.
Scan computers have an easy use self build thing. They do pre-assembled ones as well. Happy geeking.
 
if all else fails..........

The dreaded BSOD! (blue screen of death) 1560681164609 - EletriciansForums.net
 
Having been following Louis Rossman on YouTube, there seem to be some serious issues with newer MacBooks such as the display connector being too short, so as you open/close the lid it can become disconnected. In another model the heat exhausts right next to a glued in part on the hinge, again making it a failure point as you open/close it.

I'm a former Mac fan at this point, and once my 2010 Mac Mini dies I'll be going to PC. It seems to be running well for a decade old machine with a spinning HDD.
 
I always buy laptops second hand. I have a few which I use for the kids and other things. I build desktops quite extensively as the charity I and a couple of friends started started some thirty years ago has as part of it's remit I used to (my pet project) give computers to people who can't afford them. We get donated a whole office full of computers and so on which I deal with including erasing reformatting and installing systems on them. Most people are happy with linux. I think Lenovo which is the rebadge of IBM are pretty solid machines. I still have an original IBM 286 computer with 4mb hard drive and windows 3 that still works. Which is the forerunner of Lenovo so that says something. You can pick up a pretty stonking machine for £500. My experience with SSD drives has been poor as two have gone kaput on me. It seems to be little known that SSD drives cannot have scandisk or such utilities used on them. As for static well I am very sceptical of that after all the circuitry in a chip is encased in stone so...anyway I have never never had any problem with static. Hard drives, problems aplenty. I am not convinced a brand new computer can offer anything over a second hand computer, it is pure hype you are buying into. The average person (like the brain) uses about 5-10% of a computers abilities the fact that the latest chip can perform 0.001s faster is not appreciable to the human eye or brain.
 
Over the last week or so my laptop has crashed on me a few times and giving me the BSOD.
Its a few years old now, but wouldn't say it was ancient.
The error code it gives is UNEXPECTED STORE EXCEPTION

When I google that, it says that it can be caused by a few things, one being a hard disk on the way out.
It also told me to try sfc /scannow, but that hasn't found any problems.

Is there anything else that can cause this?

I do everything on this machine.... emails, invoices, even browsing on this forum.... so it hardly ever gets turned off. If it is the disk, i'm going to have to start backing up everything soon.

The laptop specs:
HP Compaq
Intel Celeron 2.16 GHz
8.00GB RAM
64-bit processor
Running win10 Home.

Get a copy of FREE Acronis drive monitor
Within 5 seconds of running it you will know if your disk is bad or not?

Could be memory?

What you need to do is take teh BSOD error code and plug it into Msfot's error database it will pinpoint what is at fault or if you want to be really techie you can use the bsod log error file

 
This is an old thread. And reading #25 I bust the hinge as well, which has in turn severed the cable to the Wi-fi antennae around the screen.
I’ve bought a new laptop since then, just for work. But the old one still works with a hardwire network connection and some tape to hold the screen up.
 
This is an old thread. And reading #25 I bust the hinge as well, which has in turn severed the cable to the Wi-fi antennae around the screen.
I’ve bought a new laptop since then, just for work. But the old one still works with a hardwire network connection and some tape to hold the screen up.

Wow didnt notice there arent many people on the IT forums lol
Always go hardwired better for speed, reliability and security.
No IT guys I know use Wifi unless they are war driving or hacking the neighbours wifi lol
Not that I would do such a thing!
 

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