Well my streaming live video of baseballs games sure is nice on the new computer.

Been playing with the sidebar and getting extra gadgets for it, lots of them out there. 

One thing that I have not been doing with the new computer is turning it off, or turning it on either, been putting it in sleep mode.  I wonder if I can extend the life of the computer that way?

no., infact, some times it will even get worst.., you will find your self with problems liek your system wont wake up after sleeping mode...., it is better to use it less hours (that's good for your wallet $$$..) or just dont turn it off., i've heard that a always On PC will leave even more than a daily turn On-Off...

I've never had any problems waking it back up and I did away with hibernation. I have read of problems with that but with laptops mostly.

I am not sure this way would you  extend its life or not. Just place it at dust free space and don't let it get too hot. And for warranty period at least you can be tension free. So enjoy and do your work on it. Did you recovered all your files from your old hdd.

Turning a computer off will prolong its life.

Oh yes....

Do as I say, not as I do....

That's a cunning fact... but it's well caught.

hehehe

First off, sorry to hear about your pc! And a huge congrats on your new machine! That's great!

you did nothing wrong jojo....and you're a good contributor round here....just chill mate....

sry you lost the system, however I hope you learned something about the PSU. the FIRST thing I would do after your warranty expires is upgrade the PSU in the new system. I'm sure the 400w is fine for now, the problem is proprieters like HP, Dell etc... are only going to spend as much on a PSU as they HAVE to in order to get it through the warranty period. Basically, they will use the cheapest PSU they can. if not a good quality PSU it too may die and die young. protect yourself and get a good brand name 400-500W from someone like PC Power & Cooling when that warranty expires.

honestly Philly, I am sure you are happy with the computer, it does have pretty nice specs especially for someone who does not game.

However I have to agree with jojo for my personal preference. I have never owned a proprietary system, I got tired of dealing with my sisters HP's problems years ago and decided that when I bought computers they would be custom built by me. No offense intended but I cannot understand why anyone buys pre-built systems for several reasons. Though in the end it comes down to either they are not interested in building their own, which is understandable personal preference, or they just don't think they can learn how which is false, anyone can build with a little direction.

they are simple to build

everything is under warranty from the manufacturer, most components for 3-5yrs, and a lot of video card manufacturers are going to lifetime or even double lifetime warranties.

you can configure EXACTLY as you want, not being limited to what the proprieter offers.

not having to worry about opening the case and voiding a warranty, unlike propietary systems where the slightest problem means off to the nearest authorized dealer to avoid voiding the warranty or even shipping the computer back to the manufacturer which in itself can cause damage if not properly packaged and damage caused during shipping is not covered under warranty leaving you to file a claim with the shipper, which means insuring the package for what it would cost to replace it. 

among other various benifits of building your own

and the number one reason I personally won't buy pre-built...

the proprieters get the same warranty from the manufacturer that you do if you purchased the components and built yourself, Yet all they give you for a default warranty is 1 year, they charge you extra for "extended warranties" of 2+ years. So they are charging you for something they get for free. Not on my dime thanks, I can easily RMA and replace a faulty component for MUCH less that $100+ for an extended warranty.

do the upgrade jojo you won't be sorry

I finally went 64bit on my moms laptop and my laptop this last winter. much more responsive.

most apps today are either 64bit compatible or run fine in 32bit mode on a 64bit system.

I would suggest though that before you upgrade just check to see if your favorite apps are 64bit compatible or if it is known how well they run in 32bit mode on 64bit OS. Adobe for example, Photoshop is 64 compatible along with a couple other apps, but Adobe has not yet officially labled all apps as 64bit compatible, they will run but may have a few bugs at times. the difference being that Adobe will not offer support for those apps not labled as 64bit compatible, you are left to find your own solution until they are official 64bit. I have CS3 web premium and so far have had no problems on 64bit. 

program files in 64bit is a little different too, you usually have 2 programs files folders. one program files and one program files x86, 64 bit apps installed in the first and 32bit app installed in the x86 folder.

well i hope to be able to get a new comp next year tax time, went and bought a ps3 with all the bells and whistles and games...ended up paying about 900.00 for it all...but im such a computer freak i wish i had just bought a new rig now.....i never play the damn ps3 cause im on the comp all the time and i know i could have bought a bad ass rig for 900.00. all i needed was a tower...i have evrything else i needed and i was gonna hook this piece of crap onto my 42 in plasma but my vid card is such a piece of crap(nVidia 6150 LE) that ii couldnt even set the resolution to the 1920x1080 that the tv is....blllllaaaahhhhhhh...oh well next year  will be getting a new core i7 machine with at the very least 12gb of ram and a 1gb vid card...so i can really use that bad ass plasma tv i just got too

yes and no, Personally I leave mine on with only an occasional shut down. this topic has been argued to death and both sides have valid facts.

here are the BASIC facts

no - in the sence that electrical items in use will age due to heat and of course eventually that aging will lead to death.

yes - in the sence that, when putting electrial components through power up and power down, essentially the components are going through a heat up and cool down, with this in mind a simple FACT of heating and cooling results in expansion and contraction of metallic parts.

thus with constant expansion and contraction of a daily power down and power up eventually metallic parts will crack and break connection. such as the copper traces on motherboards that carry the frequency for data processing. besides the fact that copper is the best overall metalic conductor,  this is also one reason soft metals (gold is also used) are used for traces and they are less vuneralble to cracking.

my personal preference for a system that is used alot is to leave them on. if a system is only used occationally it is probably best to shut it down.

You left out the bit about mechanical damage to moving parts, which is by far the most common cause for computer failure. Fans and harddrives are the first things to fail in most systems. The power supply is also fairly common, since it takes most of the hit by inrush current at power on. The risk of actually wearing out the CPU or motherboard, or any other non mechanical component before the computer is 100% obsolete is pretty much negligible. In all the years I've worked with computers, I've never seen that happen.

It's a really good linux computer.

Well i am finally having a diagnostic done on the XP system that died, been just a little busy getting the new one set up and getting things downloaded.  It will be interesting to see what may be left that can be salvaged besides the DVD and CD drives.  Hope the HDD drive is still okay.  I just might use it as a back up removeable drive.

And they still won't work...lol!!!     

Ok fine, won't make any more suites, but now I have a whole lot of time on my hands, guess I just watch some baseball.

Would you believe that after a diagnostic that yes the power supply is bad and I need a new cmos battery, motherboard and HD are okay.  The video card though either took a hit when the power supply went of just decided to go at the same time.  The video card was a dual monitor of the original card that came with the computer, I still have the original card.  So for the cost of the diagnostic, power supply and battery ( just over $80) I have my computer back

Now I live in the world of two computers, a XP system and a Vista system.  Oh my, do now run a dual boot on the Vista system with Win7 

How every did I wind in this situation?

Now everytime you break wind in this situation?