Picking up an inexpensive PC

Chamber005

Chamber005

Carbonite Member
Hey all -- so I'm just nabbing up a PC to edit SD footage on, and I was wondering if any of you had any thoughts about buying refurbished PCs on ebay.

For instance:

http://cgi.ebay.com/FAST-DELL-SFF-P...s=66:2|65:15|39:1|240:1309|301:1|293:1|294:50

My query is, how can a 5 year old 3,000 dollar PC got for 30 or 50 bucks with free shipping? Seems to me the friggin RAM is worth more than that! And there are hundreds and hundreds of these things for sale.

I'm not a tech guy, so what would be the concern about buying one of these PCs on ebay? I mean, they're Dells, right? I find it bizarre to think that somehow a mass amount of people have Dell shells and are filling them up with electronics that don't jive with the specs listed in their ads.

Or is it just that technology is just that ridiculous that the price of something can truly drop that dramatically in just 5 years?

Let me know what you think, please?

THANKS!!
 
I needed a cheap PC to run a CNC millling machine. I bought an IBM desktop on ebay for something like $70 shipped and that was about a year ago. I've notice the prices have fallen even more. The one I got was a P4, 3ghz, and 512mb ram. I upgraded the ram to 1ghz after I got it. I looked at the one on ebay and the only thing that I would be concerned is the seller's feedback rating. Once a seller is at 98% or below, I will not buy from them. This one is at 98.6%. Plus there is still 18 hours left in the auction. This thing could go up quite a bit from the $20 it is at now.

It appears to have Win XP Pro preinstalled. You probably are not getting the reinstall CD, but you can most likely get one from Dell.

Other than the seller's sort of iffy feedback rating, I would say this is a good deal if you can get it for $50-$60.

Mike
 
JordansRoomProductions said:
I needed a cheap PC to run a CNC millling machine. I bought an IBM desktop on ebay for something like $70 shipped and that was about a year ago. I've notice the prices have fallen even more. The one I got was a P4, 3ghz, and 512mb ram. I upgraded the ram to 1ghz after I got it. I looked at the one on ebay and the only thing that I would be concerned is the seller's feedback rating. Once a seller is at 98% or below, I will not buy from them. This one is at 98.6%. Plus there is still 18 hours left in the auction. This thing could go up quite a bit from the $20 it is at now.

It appears to have Win XP Pro preinstalled. You probably are not getting the reinstall CD, but you can most likely get one from Dell.

Other than the seller's sort of iffy feedback rating, I would say this is a good deal if you can get it for $50-$60.

Mike
Click to expand...

Thanks -- and yeah, I'm not dead set on THIS particular seller or PC. Just an example of how cheap things seem right now. Wanted to make sure these kinds of prices are accurate and don't scream rip-off.

And after I mentioned it to my girl she said pretty much any computers that are primarily used by businesses are going to get tossed every other year. All those machines have to end up somewhere -- and anyone going to a store to buy a PC isnt going to buy a model 3 or 5 years past its prime.

It's just crazy, though, the consumerism here in the US.

But that's a whole other subject!

THANKS!!
 
Nothing wrong with old computers, but yeah, they go cheap...it's just the nature of the business:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SAMBA845V-24-4-R&cat=SYS

I have one of these and use it as a system for playing videos, music, and stuff like that on my TV. I've played with the thought of getting another for occasional P2 ingestion.

My laptop I use in the field for P2 ingestion is an older used one...I got it for a pretty good price on E-bay. Dell Precision M60. 1900x1200 screen 2.1 Ghz Pentium M 2 gigs DDR 60gig drive, and has a PCMCIA slot

The screen was the big seller for me....

buy used..I do, and I love it....of course if you can it's always good to have a system with more bells and whistles to do the chunk of you're editing on...It's just ALOT more convenient to have your encoding times be low, and to view some complex bits in real time.
 
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