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IIRC the original IBM PC keyboards were left-over designs from another IBM product. The team designing the PC was told by management they had to use that keyboard, probably to save time and development costs. The original PC was thrown together at the last minute, which is why they went with...

I bought three Microsoft "Natural" keyboards something like 25 years ago. I think they were $12 each on closeout at a computer surplus store in Santa Clara CA. While one is in use I can clean the grime off the other two. They have a PS/2 connector but the adapters to USB are still made and...

Flash devices have dropped in price just over the past year. I just bought a 512 GB NVMe SSD for $29 shipped off of Amazon. At the beginning of 2022 it would have been more like $50.

I presume the SSD is an NVMe drive, not the older SATA SSD spec. The NVMe drives are at least 3 times faster than SATA.

I like their gear but Canon is crappy about keeping drivers updated. I had to buy a new multifunction printer since my old one wouldn't work with Win 7 back then. (Big change in design from XP to Win 7.) With Win 10 they posted a few mickey-mouse drivers that would stop working after monthly...

The power supply should have a Dell part number on it. Get it and do a search on eBay for "Dell #". Lots of new or open box PS there. EDIT eBay is the place to buy surplus Dell computer parts. There are several 300W power supplies used in the Inspiron 3847: numbers G9MTY, K43JV, 5VOJP...

Heck I bought qty. three PCs for $200 a couple of weeks ago (another eBay auction fiasco). That's $67 each. All are up and running Win 11 22H2 at present. And of course I've updated to the most recent version of BIOS. Dell Optiplex 3060 Micros that came with i3-8100T and 8GB memory. All...

I have Office 2007 up and running on Win 11 22H2. My disc copy had a license for up to three PCs, and can be transferred to a new PC IF you uninstall (not just delete) a copy from your old machine. Of course for personal use LibreOffice is freeware. And it's constantly being updated. IIUC...

OK I see you can get an XPS 8940 with i5, 16GB memory, 512 GB NVMe SSD, Win 11 Pro, and a regular factory warranty for $748 shipped. Refurbed in-house by Dell. Go to Dell, click on Deals, drill down to Dell Outlet, select Home, then select Shop XPS.

Neither of those two have an SSD, although Dell's manuals state they accept NVMe SSDs. If you order from Dell directly you can configure with a system NVMe SSD. With either of those you cited you pay a lot for a fast processor that's held back by a mechanical HDD. A PC with an i5 and SSD may...

You probably would need the "2.5 inch" SATA package SSD. Spot prices now are $50 for half terabyte and $90 for one terabyte. Robert, what exactly is the make and specific model of your old PC? They may vary in how many disks and what type you can stick into them.

You have to do the "upgrade" first to maintain the license. Then you could perform a "clean install" of Win 10 later on. I'd upgrade on your present HDD first, do a backup, then install the SSD and do a clean install on the SSD, then restore from your backup. SSDs from Western Digital and...

You running Win 8.1 right now, with a proper license, right? If so you can upgrade to Win 10 FOR FREE!!!! :dance: At the launch of Win 10, MS originally stated that licensed users of Win 7/8/8.1 could upgrade free to Win 10 of the same version (e.g. home to home, pro to pro) for the first...

This PC arrived today in very good order. After a few hours of test and configuration I installed a spare 3.5 inch 500Gb HDD for backup, and upgraded to Windows 11. This has to be the cheapest purchase price of a Win 11 capable PC anywhere. I'll let my friend pay the $25 to install a second 8GB...

Another reason to get an M.2 NVMe SSD for the boot drive ..... www.techradar.com/news/is-microsoft-about-to-kill-off-the-hdd-once-and-for-all Microsoft is pushing to mandate using an SSD for a boot drive.

Your present monitor does HDMI, right? :confused:

I was glad two of my recent used Dells came with 1 8GB DIMM, meaning I only had to add a second DIMM to get to 16GB. I tried posting a direct link to a Dell system last week but it also defaulted to a "major" page. That's dumb - you want people to make suggestions to relatives and friends...

Cheap used PCs are still available on eBay. I just won an auction for an Optiplex 3060 SFF with i5-8400, 8GB ram, DVD R/W drive, and 256GB M.2 SSD for $113.50. Win 10 Pro license. Original ship date 19 March 2019. I'll clean it up and give it to a friend who wants a Win 11 Pro system. I'll...

And the leasing company sells them as used to cheap people like me.

Dell has multiple "quality levels". The Inspirons are made to a price and are intended for cheap home use. The OptiPlexs are less price sensitive, use better parts, and are intended for commercial/business use where downtime costs money. Naturally Dell doesn't talk like this on their website.

A comment on prebuilt vs. custom built PCs. Years ago I put my own computers together from misc. parts available in Silicon Valley. I stopped doing that for various reasons. The cost savings weren't there anymore, and long-term logistics support such as drivers became more of a chore. Buying...

My grandmother had fine china that wasn't dishwasher safe (gold leaf trim). When she died in 1980, my dad put it in his basement. When he died in 2004, I ended up with it in boxes in my garage. I don't think it's been used in half a century.

A tip: the plastic key in Type A USB 3 varieties is generally blue so you can simply inspect the ports to determine their version. E.g. see the photo in the post immediately above. Robert may do better with a slower i5 processor but with more ram and a larger ssd. That OptiPlex 5000 comes...

I bought a pair of used Dell Optiplex 3060s the past few months. The last one ($250) came with a dog-slow WD "Green" 1TB HDD. It was shocking how big the improvement was when I swapped in a WD Blue SN570 NVMe SSD (500GB now at $45).

I find my 32" 1080P monitor just about right. My laptops were only suitable for "emergency use". Although I have considered a 40" 4K monitor for replacement....

And the newer NVMe SSDs are maybe 4 times faster than the old SATA SSDs. And with simplified packaging, they are currently even cheaper.

I'm writing this post on a desktop 3060 with an eye-friendly 32" monitor and a "natural" split keyboard, the latter of which is more comfortable for typing than the keyboards of any laptops I've tried. I think Robert is learning the important lesson of never asking advice from computer nerds.

My beef with that comes when I go to recycle PCs. With a Pro version I can wipe the disk and do a fresh anonymous install before taking it down to the computer recyclers. I can't do that with a Home version without leaving my account info on the machine, so I just wipe the disk and turn it in...

Win 11 Home requires you to set up with a "Microsoft account" so they can keep tabs on you. Win 11 Pro permits you to set up without such things, you can be "anonymous". How much is your privacy worth?

OK nobody has made any targeted suggestions to Robert. He wants Win 11 Pro, but the recent i3/i5/i7 choices? A micro chassis or a tower of some kind? What brand for long-life logistics support? My bias: an i5 is a good choice and I prefer towers since they are easier to work on and have...