07-10-2011, 02:19 AM

So I've been a quite happy little Mac user for a bit now. Picked up my iMac in March and haven't looked back, well until yesterday. No it wasn't a moment of weakness at all (unless you consider that Daddy doesn't really want his darling little girls using his Mac).

Nope, "Sputnik" is for Daddy.

...but of course they need to get online too, and by "need", of course this means they're bored with television and want to surf Nick Jr's website or whatever it is that 7-year old girls do on the internet, which given I moderate the poo out of hat they can do online; isn't a lot. So I decided to build them a cheapie PC from parts laying around the house.

Found an old Asus board on the shelves, an AMD 2700+ processor mated to it, and before you can say archaic computer, I had a functioning PC! Sure its not top of the line, but it worked! Formatted the drives, fresh install of Windows XP and I went to update the OS...and it lagged. Really? Whats up, PC? You've got nothing installed. Checked and it was at 100% processor.

100% CPU usage on a fresh-as-fresh can be Windows install? Thank you for confirming my choice to go Mac.

07-10-2011, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by Phacade

So I've been a quite happy little Mac user for a bit now. Picked up my iMac in March and haven't looked back, well until yesterday. No it wasn't a moment of weakness at all (unless you consider that Daddy doesn't really want his darling little girls using his Mac).

Nope, "Sputnik" is for Daddy.

...but of course they need to get online too, and by "need", of course this means they're bored with television and want to surf Nick Jr's website or whatever it is that 7-year old girls do on the internet, which given I moderate the poo out of hat they can do online; isn't a lot. So I decided to build them a cheapie PC from parts laying around the house.

Found an old Asus board on the shelves, an AMD 2700+ processor mated to it, and before you can say archaic computer, I had a functioning PC! Sure its not top of the line, but it worked! Formatted the drives, fresh install of Windows XP and I went to update the OS...and it lagged. Really? Whats up, PC? You've got nothing installed. Checked and it was at 100% processor.

100% CPU usage on a fresh-as-fresh can be Windows install? Thank you for confirming my choice to go Mac.

A similar experience is what ultimately spawned my jump to Mac. I had a Gateway laptop that was taking forever from startup to Internet access over my network (20-30 seconds on a good day).
I know in the grand scheme of things that isn't all that much time, but patience has never been my strong suit. Anyway, I reformatted the HDD and did a fresh install of Windows XP and my access time dropped to 2 sec. Then, I began all of the security updates; by the time I was finished I was back over 20 sec, so I got mad and wiped again and installed Ubuntu Linux.
My access time dropped back to around 2 seconds and stayed there regardless of updates and patches. After 6 months of quick and reliable access (and 6 months fiddling with Linux) I was ready to take the plunge.

I have never regretted it, except I wish I had done it sooner.

Continue to enjoy the Mac, and I guess this means you are saving for a used or new Mac for the girls.

07-10-2011, 01:01 PM

Actually found one online yesterday. Used G5 iMac for $300! This would defintely work great for them.