question for custom-making masters

[Ksandra]

so I love my comp...but he's about 7 years old now and my fiance is itching to get build me a new comp. Eventually bit by bit we're gonna start buying pieces to start building one. I have a curious question though.

I doubt it can be done, BUT is there a way to port the ABCD code from my Dell to a custom made comp?

I always thought it was a brilliant thing Dell did (I'm sure other comps use it too but I'm a computer-n00b so i'll say Dell is amazing), and makes it really easy to figure out whats wrong when things go bad.

I'm like 99% positive that you can't do it, but figured I'd ask in case it was in fact possible.

[Cephius]

Are you asking if you cab somehow apply the Dell service tag to your new PC? If so, the answer is no, definitely not.

[Jefe]

All bios have codes for diagnostics, I don't think you'll ever worry about it lol. Anyways, no.

[Shuemue]

FWIW, in almost every instance, buying parts over a period of time is a false economy. That $150 CPU will be $140 in a month or two when you finally buy the $200 GPU which will have dropped to $170 by the time you buy the HDD next month...

Much better to put the cash aside until you've saved up a decent budget and then buy everything together.

[Mojo]

You can build a good computer for pretty cheap, I recommend against buying a few pieces over time. What are you going to be using the PC for, and what do you plan on doing with your old PC?

[Spekkio]

listen to what shue and mojo said. buy it all at once, put it together all at once, and get USE out of it from day one. remember what weird al says in "it's all about the pentiums"

My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique
Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight

time spent in the box for electronics is money out of your pocket in most cases.

mojo also asked a very prudent question: what do you intend to DO with it? i keep hearing from this person or that person if they should buy a new computer with more jiggahertz because more is better, right? more querying results in finding that they use their computer for word and email. they do not need a 2500 dollar rig to do that though they seem to want it. on the other hand, if you want to play games but you try to go cheap and build something for 600-700 bucks, you may find it's useless for what you wanted to do and are out that money for no reason. tell us what you want to run on it. how long do you expect it to last? how much money do you have to spend, roughly, beyond "as little as possible"? by giving us a better idea of your needs, we can more effectively help you choose what you want.

[Ksandra]

well don't worry about the other stuff, like I said my fiance is good at building comps (his is freakin' sweet) so he knows what to get for everything else. I just liked having the light ABCD code over trying like mad to listen to the beeps to see if it said 1-4-2 or some shit. Fiance said it couldn't be switched over but I figured I'd try asking in case someone somewhere has done it before.

I explained to mojo on vent, now trying to show him how awesome my new comp will be when it's pink with hello kitty sitckers/glitter.

[Spekkio]

so you're asking if you can get your new PC to announce problems to you rather than have beep codes to determine if your system is having difficulty? if that's a major factor for you, many motherboards out there will actually speak error codes in a voice over your speakers rather than beep out the errors drastically reducing the difficulty in diagnosing board level problems. if you're asking if you can transfer that then no. it's tied to the motherboard.

[Ksandra]

so you're asking if you can get your new PC to announce problems to you rather than have beep codes to determine if your system is having difficulty? if that's a major factor for you, many motherboards out there will actually speak error codes in a voice over your speakers rather than beep out the errors drastically reducing the difficulty in diagnosing board level problems. if you're asking if you can transfer that then no. it's tied to the motherboard.

kkk thanks! I guess I need to find one of the voice ones then.