If anything, there should be hardware that runs under WinXP that it not recognized by Win98 because of how new that hardware is. I think the fact the system works with 98 but fails under XP is the strangest part.

As Ron lists, there are definite advantages to building your own. There are also advantages to purchasing a computer from a company. The main advantage is you call one place for all the hardware in the computer. The second most important, in my mind at least, is that all the hardware has the same warranty (unless you add something to the system later).

Whether you build your own or buy from a company the choice is, in the end, entirely up to you and your preferences. Myself, I like to know exactly what components are used, so I build my own, but there are definitely times were I see advange is having a company like Dell do the building for me.


Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

I feel the same way Larry, but all that matters to me right now is my hubby is happy, cause when he did not have a PC he would constantly rib me saying come on miss pc tech. But he is happy now so I am happy. And Larry I have owned 2 dells and no offence but I would never buy another one, they really give me a head ache. I swear my IBM, I own two so far and they have not giving me trouble at all, and I have owned the notebook for over 2 years and the desktop over a year. And both my dells gave me grief within 6 months, ugh.

As for building my own, I dont havethe patients for that, which I discovered while taking the A+ technical specialist course, I found it really hard to enjoy what I was doing, and I love being on my PC and playing with it so I was really shocked it gave me now pleasure. Told me that is not what I should do for my career.

Thanks to both of you for helping me, hubby and I have decided to send the dell to the grave yard, we may take the proccessor out of it one day, but I was unable to get the power supply box off to get near the PCU, ugh.

Well Ribs, if you really want I could build it for you lol. Travel would be the only issue since Canada is a rather large piece of land lol. I'm sure there's someone you know that's closer to you that could do it. Though with new parts it tends not to be such a tedious process, since, in general, all the parts should work. There's always the bad luck part of getting a bunk stick of ram or something of the like, but most of the time it goes well with new hardware.

Whatever your route, don't forget that someone's always around here to help.

Thanks Ron, I am SK BTW. LOL

Lol I used to live closer but now I'd be looking at a 7 or 8 day thumb ride.

Used to be in Sudbury ON now in Windsor and now I practically live in the states, which kinda makes me happy since Sandusky Ohio is the home of my favorite amusement park in the world.

Well thast not so far, I figured you would be in BC or NS, which are the furthest away.

Hmm, NS I can see but I think that BC may actually be closer as far as travel (not straight linear) distance thanks to our great lakes. However, northern Ontario makes up almost a quarter of the total width of canada...ok maybe a fifth but it's a long trip outta here.