I purchased the Dell Dimension 8100 series desktop in June of 2001. (They are now front-marketing their 8200 series). I am quite satisfied with the new computer and I feel that Dell has a far superior customer service support than any of the other machines.

Before making my purchase, I consulted with friends of mine who work in the IT business and they all admitted that Dell has the best customer service machines out there. I also learned that many of the leading schools, including Columbia U. and MIT promote Dell among the students. THESE BIASED ME TO STICK TO THE DELL BRAND FIRST and THEN TO DECIDE WHAT SPECS I NEEDED MY COMPUTER TO HAVE.

I went with the 1.7Ghz CPU processor (Intel Pentium 4), 128MB of RAM, CDR-RW drive, an NVIDIA card, separate harman/kardon speakers, and a 19" monitor. The Operating System is Windows 2000.

I couldn't be happier.
Out of the box, my initial problem was that an error message appeared on startup, saying my fan was not installed properly. After consulting with Dell customer support, it turned out that the processor was working so quickly that it could not detect the fan, b/c the fan was slower than the quick processor! This problem was quickly fixed with a new BIOS they emailed me.

The CD-RW works terrificly, although the bundled software, served by Adaptec, is somewhat glitchly and crashed the machine several times. This is an Adaptec-specific problem and the way to get around it is to use another software or to run Adaptec with few applications running and at the speed of 8x rewriting.

There are 3 USB ports, I believe, allowing me to connect my scanner, printer and MP3 player. You can attach a USB hub if you needed to run more machines at once.

This computer is perfect for all types of use. The sound card and video card are good for gamers, but I believe I didn't concentrate on these cards too much since gaming wasn't my first concern.

In terms of bundled software, stay away from anything "Windows Works" and go with Windows Words/ Windows Office. I personally prefer Windows 2000 (the next generation of NT 4.0) over Windows ME (which is intended for the home user). Most games and software are compatible with Win 2000.

One final thought-- when purchasing from Dell, try to take advantage of one of their free promotions (i.e. Free shipping or free CD-RW drive.) Through their catalogs or online, they are constantly promoting freebies to encourage your purchase. And don't worry if you miss one of their deadlines, there'll be another free promotion right after it!

Good luck on your new purchase.





Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 2000.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40