I had an HP Pavillion h8-1234 that I purchased on 9/2/2012. I had purchased a four-year maintenance agreement and of course my computer crashed about three weeks later. Best Buy and Office Depot told me that it would cost about $350 to fix my computer that cost $1,100 or $1,200. A third person who fixes computers looked at my computer and said "Within the computer lies your Central Processing Unit or CPU. On top of this chip lies a thermal solution to keep the chip cool, after a few years of use the thermal paste on top of the chip will dry, resulting in struggle from your Computer, as well as excess and unwanted heat that can in turn fry the computer. Rather than the button being our main focus, we should be worried about the CPU as well as an updated and clean operating system. As of right now, this computer is more scrap than useful." It has been about 10 days since my computer crashed and I still haven't bought a new one. I wanted to be careful with what I bought. Finally someone said something so I decided I wanted to buy a gaming computer since it has two fans even though I absolutely do not do gaming. I obviously thought that 2 fans would help with the problem I had on my old PC. Then a friend asked an interesting question about whether the second fan would even turn on if I was not playing a game! Can you answer that please? Then I did some more research on the web and found that size matters: I saw a post for someone who had two fans but they did not move enough air so there's another problem that I know nothing about. And I saw someone else who had two quiet fans but they did not move enough air either. And obviously some of the quiet fans weren't even quiet. It looks like I need 120mm or bigger fans but it looks like manufacturers (pre-made) do not even show what kind of fans the PCs have. So that makes me leery of buying anything if I can't know what kind and size of fans they have. Based on what happened with my last computer, if I am on the computer a lot, I would think that having more than one fan would be very important. I do genealogy research and sometimes I have had a ton of tabs open in any browser that I am in plus three or four programs at the same time and sometimes I spend a lot of time on the computer when I am home. I would like to know what are the most important things for me to look for in a new desktop PC based on my usage. I know not to get a cheap computer but I'm not sure I want to pay $2,000 for one. Do I, indeed, need a gaming computer because of the extra fan? Is 2 enough? Does placement matter and how would I know? Will the extra fan even come on if I am not gaming? Does memory and hard drive matter? I was going to get a computer that had 8 mg memory and 1 TB hard drive, if those are even the proper terms. I was going to get more memory but somebody told me I didn't need it because of the extra RAM that the gaming computers have. I read that "faster memory also improves overall performance and lets you keep your CPU more stable if you decide to overclock it." -- whatever that means).
I just do not want to make a mistake buying a new computer and want to take into account how much it will be used. I know not to get a small case. But how do I make sure that a desktop PC I buy is not cramped inside? Any help would be very much appreciated. Finally, what am I forgetting to ask that is important? Thank you so much.
I just do not want to make a mistake buying a new computer and want to take into account how much it will be used. I know not to get a small case. But how do I make sure that a desktop PC I buy is not cramped inside? Any help would be very much appreciated. Finally, what am I forgetting to ask that is important? Thank you so much.