Refurbished IT Stuff

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bennyboy351
Posts: 332
Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2014 6:01 pm
Location: West Midlands, England.

Hi all,
Just a quick query if I may, regarding the pro's and cons of buying refurbished IT gear.

I want to change my PC (desktop) so that I can use a multi-Monitor setup. But I don't want to spend megga-Bucks! :) I'd be much obliged if members could give me their views/experiences on the above, when they have a minute.

If this topic has already been mentioned, my apologies. I had a look around but couldn't find any info.

All the best
George. :D
Hobsom
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 8:01 pm

There's nothing wrong with refurbished PC's as long as you get them from a reputable supplier and they come with a decent warranty, and Windows 10.
As long as the PC has at least 4Gb of RAM and a processor that's reasonably quick then BetAngel will run on it without any problems.
I'd recommend a Windows 10 based system as it would have to be reasonably newish to be packaged with the operating system. It's not advisable to buy a PC without an operating system unless you know where to get OEM versions and have no problems creating bootable CD's or flash drives.

If you want to run more than one BetAngel session at once then you'll need more processing power. I have a dual core system for automation testing that's a bit old but it still runs two simultaneous BetAngel sessions well enough, even on fast streaming refresh rates, although it does take up 60% to 80% of the resources of the PC and can't run anything else at the same time, or else it chugs like it's steam powered. I have a fast laptop for the real heavy lifting.

A lot of standard graphics cards have dual outputs, and they're very inexpensive, and some PC's come with them as standard. If you want to go for 3 or more screens you'd have to invest in a more expensive graphics card, but even a decent GPU is quite inexpensive these days.

Something like this will run 2 monitors without any problems: -
http://www.ebuyer.com/737926-msi-geforc ... 0-1gd3h-lp
One important thing to add is that dual output graphics cards usually have more than one type of connector (e.g. HDMI, DVI or VGA). It may be wise to make sure the monitors you use have multiple connector options. Additional cables on ebay are cheap enough, and you can get converters for HDMI & DVI if needed.

If you want to run more than one version of BetAngel at the same time and use Excel and t'interweb simultaneously then you'll need a decent processor with as many cores as you can get for your money.
I'd recommend a decent Intel i3 (AMD A6) processor as a basic starting point, an i5 (AMD A8 or A10) system would be my personal minimum if I were purchasing a new PC, and an i7 processor would be highly recommended, if budget allows.
Core 2 Duo systems and equivalents just can't cut it I'm afraid, so stay clear of these, and pentium and celeron processors too. They're just too slow.

If you need any further advice or assistance just PM me and I'll help as much as I can.

Hope this is useful.

Martin
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Niko
Posts: 282
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 9:36 am

Thanks Martin, helpful post👍
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Dublin_Flyer
Posts: 688
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:39 am

Agreed with Martin, however be cautious about getting refurbed HDD's, you never know how many hours has been on them, or if they have been properly wiped with a program before resale and still possibly glitchy.

Depending on use like if it's for trading alone, or gaming/video editing, family use, you could get a customised one built leaving out parts you won't need like an optical disk drive, super duper sound card, or wifi card if you plan to use a direct internet line or homeplugs. Not expensive parts granted, but they all add to the total cost and add nothing if they're not gonna be used.

Alternatively if you're not IT minded, you could use it as a project and build your own.
Do plenty of your own research before looking for "IT shop guy" opinions on what's best for you, there's thousands of youtube videos comparing similar range or priced CPUs, graphics cards, motherboards, the whole shebang. Granted 95% of them are 9 minutes of blabber and 1min 30 of talk to get the magical 10 min video (something to do with youtube ad placement or payment I think) you can find the range of hardware you like, narrow it down to 2 or 3, and repeat part by part.

When you have your choice list together you can try https://uk.pcpartpicker.com to check will all the pieces fit together on the motherboard or in the case. There's an issue with some large coolers which may be needed for graphic intensive usage, not fitting with high rise memory, not too common but does happen.

At present, if your PC is relatively medium to high end and you feel the graphics card is the bottleneck to your progress, a refurbed graphics card should be fine as long as it's from a good source. Plenty of gamers are bandwagon jumpers and will sell a perfectly fine graphics card way cheaper than new to offset the cost of their new just-on-the-market graphics card!

Long story short, depending on your current setup, you may be better off going for a whole new machine, or you may be better off just upgrading a few parts!
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ShaunWhite
Posts: 9731
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 3:42 am

Dublin_Flyer wrote:
Wed Jul 05, 2017 12:45 am
Agreed with Martin, however be cautious about getting refurbed HDD's, you never know how many hours has been on them, or if they have been properly wiped with a program before resale and still possibly glitchy.
SSDs are just as bad. Especially the newer MLC and TLC ones. For the sake of a few quid I'd always have new drives, especially as you won't need much space. Also, two smaller ones (0.5Tb ? ) are better than a big one cos you can do easier/safer/cheaper backups and restores.

Anything else can fail but lose a disk, esp with no backup, and it'll be a very bad day in the office.
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bennyboy351
Posts: 332
Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2014 6:01 pm
Location: West Midlands, England.

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the input.

My apologies for the delay in conveying my thanks. I was busy trading and making an easy fortune! LOL

What's that, a knock at the door? Ah yes, its those nice men in white coats come to take me back to the home......... :D
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