I dont want to sound like a crybaby but Im a little dissappointed in Dell. I bought one of the cheaper computers on sale for the sole purpose of cruising the net but was a bit suprised to find no floppy, no agp slot and a very noisy fan. I realize I should have read the fine print but Ive always had a high opinion of Dell and assumed they would include the basics. Shame on me. I just wanted to post this to warn potential buyers to make sure you dont take anything for granted, even with Dell. p.s. This was a 3000. Total cost with xppro was about $600.
there was a time when $600 bought you a CD drive! Nothing else. Look at it from a manufacturer's point of view.
But the service is good. I don't know of any other computer vendor that offers next business day at-home service for hardware issues.
When I am around people who really know computers..especially young people, the drift I get is many who use to praise Dell now can't stand them...they are turned off by poor customer service to Dell trying to go in so many different directions ( TV's etc) that the one thing that made them what they are, the number one direct sellers of personal computers, has suffered.
Floppies are going away, USB drives are to be used in their place; You can boot from them now so there really is no need for floppies anymore, USB drives are much quicker/hold much more. If you want to give someone some data (and let them keep the media) then burn a CD. You should have known that it didnt have an AGP slot before you bought it. When I typed "dell dimension 3000" into google the very first hit was a review that stated in the summary section "No AGP/PCI-E Expansion Slot". If you are the kind of person that would be interested in installing an aftermarket graphic card (which can easily cost half the price of your system) then knowing the expansion options before you buy is just common sense. Minus one for you. There is no excuse for a noisy fan; Noise is subjective but assuming that you are comparing it to similar desktop machines then Dell is at fault and I agree with you. Perhaps your specific machine has an issue that can be fixed. You also may want to find out if there is software available that will throttle the fan speed based on the onboard temperature sensors (e.g. run the fans slower when heat isnt a problem) Slowing down the fans will help with noise a lot.
they also offer free DVD upgrade to CD-RW, but what they really mean is you switch DVD for CD-RW, no more watching DVD on your brand new machine