I know it's off topic but there's more people in here...
I recently started-up a computer upgrade and repair service as a means of earning some extra money. I'm only 17 and I'm still at school studying A-Level Chemistry, Biology, German, Business and Economics.
Because of my new found business venture, many old computer components are finding themselves in my possesion. Only a week ago, I turned a 486DX2/66 into a rather attractive keyring.
My question is this... specifically aimed at warhorse: What could I do if I had a crappy little P100 attatched to my computer in some way? What purpose could it serve? What does your P75@100 computer do?
I just get the feeling that a ****ty computer could be a dedicated "something" to a better computer. I have heard about firwalls but as I only use a 56k dial-up and I live in England, British Telecom tells us nothing!
I have the space and wall sockets to run another computer next to this one and I even have the parts to build most of another computer! I just want to know what I could do with it once I've built it!
I've done 3 computers so far.
Made £250 which I'm using to buy a new scanner coz my UMAX 610p is over 3 years old now! I've also bought a new HDD and some new speakers... look at my sig.
I'm also £135 closer to my Asus A7V + T'bird 1.1gig system which I'm aiming to get at the end of February.
I've had loads of luck with my new found business thanx for asking
So far, I haven't bothered advertising because like I said, I've already done 3 computers. I've also got 6 people waiting so I don't need to advertise until I need the trade!
I'm not bothering with a website because I don't know **** about HTML and I'm not paying anyone to do it for me!
I'll just make a few posters and business cards in Publisher. Mostly it's just word of mouth. My dad tells his friends who tell their friends who tell their friends etc...
It is amazing how many people out there know absolutly nothing about computers and tell me things like: "A friend of mine just got a $1500 Gatway and it runs most games really jumpy or not at all, but your machine cooks through everything"... THen I sell them on a new machine. The problem is most people want a $600 computer and you cant build much in that range and make money, but when you get them into the $800-1200, things are much better.
I built 2 machines in that $600 range and it was basically a waste of time. Neither one made me more than about $75. I can make double that for the same amount of work and fall way short of a retail system and perform much fasteer.
Supprisingly the Voodoo3 is the #1 chioce of graphics card for the systems I've built (9 so far). Even when I tell them the GeForce2 MX only costs about $25 more and will perform about 40% faster, they don't care. Sound Blaster Live though seems to be the choice sound. Everybody wants good sound (not integrated). Nobody gets DVD and everybody wants a CD-R/W but cant afford it right now (but wants one some time).
Most of my systems are sold lte fall (christms time) or right after the shop I work at gives out 1 of their 2 yearly bonuses. But I do quite a few upgrades (normally it is to dump in some new memory and Windows 98 and a new modem on a P166 or P233MMX). A few hard drive and quite a few dead CD ROMs.
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The COMPUTER is your FRIEND!
Happiness is manditory.
AMD Phenom II x4 945 3Ghz | ASUS M4A77TD | 2X WD 1TB SATA 2 hard drive | 2x2GB Corsair XMS3 | nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS | ATI TV Wonder Theater Pro 550 | Antec P-160 case | Antec 650w Earth Watts | LG Blu-ray Super Drive | LG DVD RW | Windows 7 Pro
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