Computer experts please chime in!

2+2

Well gents, presuming I will NOT be upgrading the CPU, I went and bought an Acer desk top. Important specs are: X2 4200+, 1gig 3200 RAM, 250 SATA, Dual layer DVD, XP media w/Vista Premium mail in upgrade. The price? $600 -150 rebate -40 coupon = $410 after I get the rebate which takes forever. Tax put it about $440 total. I couldnt find any better value..at least not now. I got the last one in my local area. I am a bit nervous about Acer as it is not a popular brand....I am continuously runnning to see if there is any problems so I can return it if there is...

The price is low because it is older in that it's the 939 socket and not the AM2 but since I wont be "upgrading", it should not matter much. The memory is slower. However, one online testing report showed no appreciable system difference between 939 and AM2 4200+ systems, and in fact, in the article I read, 939 4200+ was actually faster...go figure.

Strange things I noticed abut the computer are:
1. There is NO case fan...just a big perforation on the side of the case behind the cpu fan. Actually pretty nice since it is quiet. X2 also runs cool so I dont think I will add another fan unless I notice high temps...
2. The 250 SATA has been partitioned down the middle with half being NTxx format and other half being FAT32. Does anyone know why they do this and how I can undo it?

Thx..

MillerLiteScott

I have had an Acer Laptop for a year now and I have not had any problems with it. It was cheaper than the other laptops. It had less of the garbage programs installed on it than all the other laptops. The battery does not last much longer than 2 hours now but that is understandable and not an actual indication of the computer.

My thought was if it is good enough for Ferrari it is good enough for me.

2+2

MillerLiteScott wrote:

It had less of the garbage programs installed on it than all the other laptops.

Yes...I also noticed this...there were very few programs loaded on the system which I consider to be a positive...I think I only need to unload about 2 programs...PC friendly and Norton...

ledhed

The only way to get it all as one accessible NTFS is a format. Though, if you have an operating system you can install, you will probably get better performance if you did format. I know I always see gains after a fresh install and saw a HUGE leap when I formatted and got rid of everything HP had on my machine.

nadams

The FAT32 partition is likely a DOS accessable recovery partition. Did they provide any disks with the system, or is the only way to restore it to go through the recovery partition?

If you've got disks for it, and you haven't gotten too far into customizing it to your liking, fdisk that thing and get rid of the recovery partition. Another alternative if you don't want to fdisk it and lose everything, is to buy PartitionMagic, which can delete the old and resize the existing, without changing anything.

2+2

Thanks for the info....No...they didnt provide any disks which I found strange too that I forgot to mention...but I guess a lot of vendors are doing that now to save that extra $1. Upon boot, they instructed me to burn a couple dvds as backup...

Right now, the system shows C: and drives, C being NTFS and D being FAT 32. Can I just run fdisk on the D partition? What is the downside to having these two different partition drives? What happens when I reach 125gigs on the C drive? This is where my "green-ness" shows through.....

Otherwise, maybe Vista will allow me to do that upon its install. As noted, not much to delete on this thing....that partition thing is really strange...

disneyjoe7

Fdisk as I know it is disk wide, doing this would wipe everything clean, I don't think this would be a good idea IMHO.

nadams

you can use fdisk to delete the FAT32 partition, but it won't automatically resize the NTFS partition to fit. For that, you'll need Partition Magic. A handy program to have, at any rate.

What I've found strange about some manufacturers, is they'll even go so far as to include the blank CDs... but you still have to go through the media creation process on first boot. I can't imagine it saves them _that_ much money in the long run, when we're talking about the mass production of tens of thousands of CDs

ben62670

which part is fat32 the OS or D drive?
if you right click my computer and select manage, then storage, then disk management(local) locate your d drive then right click and properties.
Remeber your restore data may be on this partition.
some computers don't come with restore disk, and they want you to create them. Make sure you have restore disks before you delete this partition.
Ben

2+2

thanks for the comments...fat32 is the D drive named Acerdata...and its empty. OS is in C drive named Acer....strange indeed....114gb partition and 13.9Mb used which is probably the format...I dont think that is enough for a restore data...

disneyjoe7

I bet is not empty but the files are hidden.