Too Cheap

Dell builds good, cheap desktop computers. The Dell Dimension 4550 that we bought in 2003 is still chugging along. After I doubled its RAM to a now-paltry maximum of 1GB [per manufacturer’s specs, though others say it can be pushed to 2 GB], the Dimension is too slow to play the newer videogames and edit movies but is fine for web-surfing. The older members of the household find it to be perfectly adequate for most of their ossified needs.

The Dell Vostro 400 acquired in 2007 is significantly faster at 2.2 Ghz. Complaints about its speed by the gameplayers in the household were studiously ignored. Eventually the gameplayers sprung for a graphics card that seemed to do the trick.

One thing bugs me about the newer computer, though, that makes me reluctant to buy another Dell. The company no longer provides CDs or DVDs of the pre-loaded software. Instead, there’s a recovery section on the hard disk that the user supposedly can access by pressing cntrl F11.

There’s enough crud (of the electronic kind) that accumulates on the hard disk and causes the machine to slow noticeably over time, as well as freeze and crash. I’ve found over the years that, if I take the time to delete the entire disk and re-install the programs and data, the computer runs much faster. Last year I spent hours trying to access the recovery partition in order to do a clean re-install. No luck, and phone calls and e-mails to Dell didn’t do the trick.

Last week Windows XP became corrupted and the Vostro wouldn’t boot up. I won’t bore you, dear reader, with my false starts and amateurish workaround attempts. Eventually I sprung for a fresh copy of XP from Amazon, and after about eight hours the computer was up and running like new. I would have saved days and dollars if Dell had sent me backup disks. Yes, Dell builds good, cheap desktop computers, but there’s such a thing as being too cheap.