[SOLVED twice] Shopping for refurbished Win 10 PC mini Tower

I built my first computer in 1995 and have built many since. I moved solely to "all in ones" "iMacs" and laptops for convenience and form factor at least 10 years ago. Was just having a discussion with my old guitar player yesterday about using Reaper with Windows and Mac. And as he was explaining how he can't get his U-Phoria audio to work on his latest PC and all the hoops he had gone through...not real techy but enough to get himself through things usually, I was reminded of the torture of getting through setting up audio in windows and ASIO drivers and drivers for all the hardware needing to be updated and then drivers that are incompatible or corrupt...blah blah blah.. But with Apple bringing in new compatible interfaces has been pretty simple. It took me many years to embrace Apple and the quirks and differences in how one goes about getting to things and installing things. It still bugs or confuses me sometimes..I have to say for Audio recording the iMac is a pretty solid and easy unit to use. Of course there is always the limitations of what will run on Mac but since early on the big time professional studios have been more Mac than PC so if they can get by with it I guess I sure can...Protools pfffft!
 
I'm confused. Were we not talking about what windows PC to buy - and now we've moved to a chromebook as an addition, not replacement? So you've dumped windows for something not able to do what a PC or Mac does? I can't quite understand how it's a like for like? Presumably you don't run things other than browsing and that kind of need? I assumed wrongly, I think, you wanted to record on it?
 
There are computers to be had in the range that are sufficient for recording. I was looking on the local Craigslist, and I saw a refurb 6th Gen I5 laptop with 8gb and a 128gb SSD for $230, a Dell 4th gen I7 laptop with 16GB and SSD for $350 and even a used 2018 Mac Mini for $500.

Years ago, my friends and I would go to Hamfest and Computerfest in Dayton Oh. You could buy all kinds of parts for super good prices. A factory build would run you $1500 to $2000. We could build the same computer for $500 or so. Today, a good home build will cost you about the same as buying a Lenovo or Dell on sale. The I5 Lenovo that I use for recording cost me $450 at Staples a few years ago. I've since upgraded it with a 500GB SSD for $80 and a 2 TB HD for $60. I spent that much building up my TI99/4A system in the 80s!

I gave up on building computers I could still do it, but it's not worth the hassle anymore.
 
Will a Chromebook run windows programs? Looking at all my computers and there are quite a few across the two locations I work from, the macs and the windows PCs all run the same things - so cubase, native stuff my NAS, lighting software, spifire audio apps and various stand alone audio apps are on them all plus word, excel and my adobe subscription. Will a chromebook replace any of my computers?

When windows 11 appears I'll migrate because my apps certainly will.

I'm confused. Were we not talking about what windows PC to buy - and now we've moved to a chromebook as an addition, not replacement? So you've dumped windows for something not able to do what a PC or Mac does? I can't quite understand how it's a like for like? Presumably you don't run things other than browsing and that kind of need? I assumed wrongly, I think, you wanted to record on it?
We were definitely talking about which Windows 10 PC to buy.. initially. I apologize for not laying out my reasons for wanting the Windows 10 PC in the beginning.

I wasn't interested in the Windows OS, just a platform I was familiar with. I won't be running programs - no "work" will be done with this machine.

I'm keeping my original Win 10 desktop tower to run all my programs.. mainly music with Reaper, and will be kept offline.

I have no business or professional use for the new Chromebook, it's strictly for internet connectivity and personal data storage. Anything I get online which may be needed on my Win 10 desktop can be downloaded and transferred offline - such as regular Reaper updates.

For someone such as yourself who may be heavily vested in the major platforms, this Chromebook will not do at all.

Except for the fact that my smartphone's network connectivity has all but disappeared (within my apartment), I would most likely have purchased a PC with Linux. But my needs morphed into requiring a semi-mobile device with dependable internet connectivity. That's why I went with the Chromebook.
 
This new Windows 11 being forced on us in October will reject my current Win 10 PC (a 2013 i3 processor and a 1.0 TPM won't cut it).
Do note that Windows 10 won't be sunset until October of 2025, not 2021. There's another 4+ years left before needing to migrate away from Win10.
 
Do note that Windows 10 won't be sunset until October of 2025, not 2021. There's another 4+ years left before needing to migrate away from Win10.
True :-) .. and I don't have exact figures, but the Chromebook will eventually run dry some 6-8 years after it's processor's inception. I gather that from the little I've read on the subject, so far.
 
The Chromebook has been up and running on ethernet for several days now. It's providing all I expected, and more.

I took my Dell PC offline when the book was hooked up and have been downloading and saving stuff online and transferring to PC via an old 16GB USB stick I leave plugged into the book. That's working out nicely.

This afternoon, I installed a wi-fi router and that's working... now.

So I reconnected ethernet to the Dell PC, left the book on wi-fi, and something I hadn't intended... my phone can connect to my wi-fi network now, which is fed from my ISP's cable modem - an incredibly strong and stable internet connection. BYE-BYE to the crappy 3/4G phone network :spank::cursing:

I hadn't intended to go wi-fi but I needed to split the ethernet signal off my cable modem and my unmanaged switchbox wasn't enough - a router was required to assign the IP's to each connection. Winding up with a better internet via wi-fi has been a bonus.

I leave my phone's wi-fi OFF and use the Chromebook as I move from room to room. The router has a 1700 ft range, so I can use my phone to tap into it when I'm outside.
 
My cell phone service is sketchy inside the house, especially in the basement. I run all of my phone stuff through my internet connects when I'm at home. I also have a low $$ plan with only 2GB of internet through the phone. Since I'm mostly at home on wifi, I never get close to that.

I don't do much browsing on my phone anyway, The tiny screen sucks. Give me a keyboard, mouse and a big screen any day.
 
I'm finding some good prices on refurbished Dell Small Form (mini) towers. Trouble is, many are refurbished by third parties and not all state whether they're Microsoft Authorized. Of course those would be the units with the lowest prices. Dell Computer does not indicate third party refurbishing for their models and their's are roughly twice the price as the others.

I like Dell as I've had three desktops and have been satisfied with every one.

Configurations vary, but generally, these would be 4-8GB Ram; 120-500GB HDD or SSD; Win 10 Home or Pro; some version of i3-i7 processor @ 3.x GHz; 6-12 USB ports; Media Card Reader; VGA or DisplayPort (some both); HDMI; Multiple 3.5mm Audio Ins/Outs; CD/DVD is hit or miss. Price range $128-$399. Some offer free shipping, then others add shipping which, with tax, can boost the price another $60. No keyboard, mouse or monitor included.

None of these will be configurable, so if I got one with 32-bit Windows, I might want to upgrade. I'd try 32-bit for awhile and see how it goes since I won't be recording audio or video with it.

Here's some of what I'm looking at:

Dell Optiplex 3020 Refurbished Desktop PC 4th Gen Intel Core i5 4GB Memory 500GB Hard Drive Windows 10 Professional - Office Depot

Refurbished: Dell OptiPlex 5040 SFF Computer/Intel Core i3-6100 3.7Ghz / 4GB RAM / 500GB HDD/DVD/Windows 10 Pro (Renewed) - Newegg.com

Dell OptiPlex 3050 SFF | Dell Refurbished

Refurbished: Dell OptiPlex SFF Desktop Intel Core i7-3770 3.40GHz 4GB RAM 500 GB HD DVD-RW DVD-RW WiFi HDMI Windows 10 Pro - Newegg.com

Dell OptiPlex 3040 MFF | Dell Refurbished

If you want protools you better go with 64-bit windows. How much money are you saving anyway? It couldn't be much. I'm thinking about $4,000 for my next guitar amp. I guess I'm on the wrong forum, huh?
 
My cell phone service is sketchy inside the house, especially in the basement. I run all of my phone stuff through my internet connects when I'm at home. I also have a low $$ plan with only 2GB of internet through the phone. Since I'm mostly at home on wifi, I never get close to that.

I don't do much browsing on my phone anyway, The tiny screen sucks. Give me a keyboard, mouse and a big screen any day.
My phone is on an unlimited data plan. Now that I don't need all that data for it's internet network, I'm going to change to a low GB plan such as you mentioned, which will reduce my monthly bill by 70%. By this time next year, that should have paid for this Chromebook and wi-fi system.
 
My 7 month old Chromebook has been everything I wanted and has worked perfectly.. until yesterday.

All day it kept displaying white screens saying "Aw snap" unable to display this web page (random web pages). Then this morning, it worked fine for a couple hours then totally crashed.. BRICKED! The ChromebookOS got sucked into a black hole - I was unable to effect a recovery by any means. One recovery boot from an external thumb drive with a fresh OS looked like it was going to work as it began to lead me through all the initial setup procedures - then crashed before completed. When I attempted to download an earlier version, the external thumb drive cascaded into some 13 separate partitions and self-destructed - can't even reformat it, so it's trashed.

The Chromebook is now sitting in the "to be destroyed" pile for dumpster disposal. I have ordered a "real" laptop with a Win 11 Home i3 11th Gen processor. I do not need all the included crap and bloatware, but this is what it takes to get a reliable device, I reckon.

Live and learn.. Live and learn..

No data or any files of importance have been lost - that was the whole purpose of the Chromebook, merely to use online and transfer downloaded items to my PC. Not for storage.

More than a coincidence, I think.. after the big crash, when I fired up my PC to get a new recovery OS, my wi-fi network router had evidently also succumbed to the ChrimebookOS crashing as it had been disabled in the process. I had to create a whole new authorization for login complete with new security codes. So I lost a Chromebook, a thumb drive and my wi-fi network - though the later was fully recovered. That's some nasty stuff that unstable ChromebookOS. I'll never touch another Chromebook or similar device again - ever.

My new laptop should be here in a couple of days and I will have fun configuring and learning again.
 
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Wow! 7 months for the Chromebook to go belly up is insane. I have a Asus with a 2nd gen I3 and it's still running. I've added an extra 4GB and upped the hard drive to 500G from the original 120GB one. I just hate throwing away a computer that's running without a problem.
 
Yeah.. it's corrupted OS.. I suspect the hardware is perfectly fine, and that's a shame.

This Chromebook is an Acer, whose products I have every confidence in. The hardware is excellent. I would buy Acer again (not this time around), I'm still using a 20 yr old Acer monitor which is going to be replaced with a hi-res unit soon.

I ordered a 2022 Lenovo Ideapad, 15.6" HD Touchscreen (2.6" larger than the crapbook), 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 Processor, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB PCIe NVMe SSD, HDMI, Webcam, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth, Windows 11 Home. There was no mention of a backlit keyboard, which I will miss as I use it in low light areas - BUT! - it does have a numeric keypad which I sorely missed with the crapbook.. so.. a decent trade-off, I think.

The wording for the Lenovo says it's a newer 2022 model, then there's a notice about factory seals being broken-resealed due to the possibility of it being fully updated with new SSD drive, OS. etc. - at least they're up-front with an explanation - that's cool as long as it's a dependable device.

I had to be careful because many of the laptops listed were showing Windows 11 S - which seems to be restricted to some degree, no Google Chrome browsing, restricted to Edge, and only allows apps from the Microsoft Store. I think all that can be reconfigured, but I didn't want to mess with it. I think it may come with one or more third-party AV programs I will remove. I like Windows Defender.
 
I don't think I've ever had a USB drive that I couldn't recover unless it was physically bad. Does the Chromebook have an SSD? It could have some defective memory spots. If it can be reformatted and remapped, it would lock out bad addresses.
 
The Chromebook has a 64GB eMMC Flash Memory Card. I can't be sure, but I think the problem is confined to the bad OS. After some brief research, I see this has been a problem with some OS versions in the past. Downloading the same update version to my USB drive for recovery just corrupted the drive. I have found and downloaded an earlier version but don't have another cheapie drive I can afford to sacrifice in another attempt. I'll pick one up and give it another try for the hell of it. Either way, I'm burned on Chromebooks. If the recovery does work I'll sell it to recover my losses.
 
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Well.. with my (only 3 yrs old) current desktop PC (probably) not able to install the upcoming Windows 11 upgrade, I've had to take a step back and make a new plan. This Windows 11 version leaving who-knows-how-many users unable to install is the last straw for me as far as Windows goes.

I've decided to move to Linux Mint for the second PC - for everything other than Reaper/Music stuff. I'll keep my current PC running Win 10 for the next few years then OFFLINE only when support is dropped.

So now I'm re-researching new desktop PCs and thinkpenguin.com looks like a good beginning where I can configure nicely with Linux Mint installed.

The search continues...
I built my own PC in 2013, and I was able to upgrade it to Win 11. Took a little doing, but that was months ago and it’s running fine ever since.
 
I got out of building in 1978 after a buddy asked me to help him build an Altair 8800 from scratch - not a kit, from raw materials. I have since eschewed all forms of computer construction, aside from plugging in USB devices :p

It's ironic.. I was trying like hell to NOT get into Windows 11, and that's exactly where I wound up :spank:
 
I've thought about taking the drive out of the old ASUS and putting in an SSD, then doing the install of Win11, just to a) prove it can be done, and b) fool around with Win 11. My first experience with it wasn't really enjoyable.
 
I keep reading Win 11 is still mostly just Win 10 with the added security enhancements and some new looks. I barely scratch the surface with my usage so I probably won't notice much difference - just guessing.
 
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