Local system builders? preferably North York or Thornhill

[Digimer]

On 10-06-17 01:07 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:
>    Any custom system-builders in the North York / Thornhill area?
>
>    As I mentioned in another thread, I may be having hardware problems
> with a machine.  This could be my excuse to get a real 64-bit system.
> My first reaction was to look at Dell's website.  The problem is, when
> you get to 8 gigabytes, they only offer 2 consumer systems.  And those
> are loaded with mandatory crud like a 23 or 24 inch monitor, and a
> super-duper ATI Radeon video card.  Paying extra is one thing; but I
> draw the line at cutting corners on the basics in order to get extra
> stuff I don't want/need.
>
>    I'm looking at getting a machine with 8 gigs of RAM and integrated
> ethernet/GPU/sound and not much in the way of bells/whistles.  I already
> have a monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers, thank you.  Of course, linux
> compatability is required.  With the exception of the outsourced Poulsbo
> fiasco, Intel has been pretty good recently with linux compatability.
> I'd rather their integrated GPU than ATI or nVidia.
>
>    Due to seizures years ago, I don't have a driver's licence.  I live
> near the corner of Dufferin+Steeles, so I can take either TTC or YRT
> buses.  That's the reason for my preference for North York or Thornhill,
> but I'd consider further away.  I have a neighbour in our condo building
> who'll occasionally drive me to out-of-the-way places, and I let his
> relatives use my empty parking spot when they visit him, but I don't
> want to impose too much.

I'm not in the business myself any more, but I'd like to recommend 
looking at online ordering the bare parts and assembling it yourself. 
I've purchased from Amazon.ca, and I've heard good things about 
Newegg.ca. There is also a CanadaComputers not too far from your area 
and they also do online-ordering.

This would let you get exactly the parts you want and not have to worry 
about travel at all.

Some parts/makers I'd recommend from past experience (others may offer 
different suggestions):
- ASUS or Tyan for the mainboard. In either case, get one with an 
integrated video. This usually means ATI, but I've had no problem in 
Linux with those on-board ATIs.
- Antec or Silverstone for the chassis/PSU.
- Kingston or Crucial for the RAM (get DDR3, it's going down in price 
where DDR2 is going up).
- AMD for the CPU. Better 32b support and you can get some nice 
low-power multi-core CPUs.
- Seagate for the HDD

-- 
Digimer
E-Mail:         linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org
AN!Whitepapers: http://alteeve.com
Node Assassin:  http://nodeassassin.org
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists