Understand that 95% of the use that the M90 gets is for SolidWorks projects. I say that so that you will know that this is not a case of a malware, spyware or a virus laden computer. I run virus protection continually and scan for malware at least once a week. Web browsing is seldom done on this machine and it is rarely even connected to the home network. But during the exams I had one case where I got the never ending hourglass icon that slow me down to the point where I finally had to do the 3 finger salute (ctrl-alt-delete) to get out of SolidWorks and restart it. Another time on another segment of the test SolidWorks crashed to the desktop! Luckily I had just saved the files I was working on. Is it possible that this was a software issue? I don’t think so since at work we use the same operating system, same version of SolidWorks doing a whole lot more complicated parts and we very seldom have any issues.
So the bottom line is that it is time to buy or build another workstation. As I considered this I thought about the Dells we have at work and how they have been real workhorses since 2008. About a year ago we installed Windows 7 64 bit and doubled the RAM to 8GB. SolidWorks 2011 runs better than SW2010 on Windows XP ever did. So I’m thinking…can I afford a Dell Workstation? I got a quick answer to that question when I visited the Dell website, not no but hell NO!
I just don’t get enough side work to justify the cost of a new Dell Workstation. I started looking at the Dell auction site. They always have some Precision T3400 workstations up for bid. This is the same machines we have at work so I thought that this was a good option. The computers are off-lease machines that have been inspected and refurbished to be functionally as new. There might be some cosmetic issues only. So I finally got the nerve to bid on a machine last Saturday. I’m not one of those guys that watch the auction constantly bidding another $1 every time someone tops my bid. I decided what the max I was willing to pay for the machine was and entered my bid of $301. The bid was at $251 when I placed my bid. I won the auction at $271, great, and what did I get?
Dell Precision T340
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz (I’ve learned that this chip is easily over clocked to over 3GHz)
4 GB RAM
160 GB SATA 300 Hard Drive
Nvidia Quadro FX570 Video Card
Keyboard & Mouse
What I didn’t get was an Operating System.
This will be a very capable machine for I generally have to do at home in SolidWorks. The only question now is what to do with the M90 laptop?