New computer - is this the correct way to go?

Briar Rabbit

Line Up and Wait
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Rob
I need to update my 10 year old computer that has an operating system no longer supported. So did some research and decided to purchase a Dell Optiplex 3050 with 5i, 8gb Ram& 1TB hard drive plus current new software. I want to hook up two Dell monitors which I already own that I like. They have VGA ports and power cords. The computer arrives and no VGA ports. Instead has one HDMI port and one DP port which I understand is short for Display Port. I can locally purchase a HDMI to VGA adapter for $39 but my wife thinks the adapter is not great. I looked on Amazon and can buy a cord with VGA on one end and HDMI on the other end for $19. I can not find an adapter for the VGA / DP combination locally but can order one for $49 but there is also a cord with the appropriate ends again for about $19.

The “Geek” at Best Buy told me I could hook up the monitor to the computer using 3.0 USB ports. I called Dell’s tech support line and of course I get some gal I can’t understand in the Phillipines. So then she transfers me to someone else, easier to understand but clueless. But she puts me on hold for 15 minutes and then finally comes back on and says no I can not hook the monitors to the computer using the USB ports on the monitor and computer, they are for touch screen functions.

I am not a tech savvy 66 year old so opinions please? Do I order two new cables from Amazon. I live in a rural community - 1 1/2 hour drive to the nearest WalMart or I would go there. Hate to wait for Amazon but thinking that is the best option?
 
Monitors are cheap. I would not spend $40 on an adapter to keep an old lower quality monitor alive. Just buy a couple of HDMI (or at least DVI) monitors.
Two new Dell LED monitors of the same quality would be $350 to $400. The two $19 cords seem the better buy? And I think you are correct on not buying the adapters but look forward to comments or suggestions.
 
This is the company that I've now bought two computers from. Although they specialize in workstations, especially Linux boxes, I'm pretty sure they will configure a low-end Windows machine for you if you like - at any rate you can ask them. I bought my most recent computer from them in 2013, a dual-boot Linux/Windows machine. I've never had any difficulty getting help with any question I've had. They are immigrants (from Taiwan I think) but you deal with the tech people themselves, never offshore tier 1 "support" (I use the term loosely).

And I agree with @John221us : don't let old VGA monitors guide your decision. Much better HDMI monitors are available today at reasonably cheap prices.
 
Two new Dell LED monitors of the same quality would be $350 to $400.

I doubt that. $350-$400 buys you a pretty nice 4k resolution monitor, maybe even 8k. The practical limit for VGA is 2048x1536 without an adapter. With a cheap adapter inline, I'm guessing you'll probably hit 1080p or perhaps 1920x1200 before ghosting becomes an issue.
 
Go to monoprice.com. Plenty of adapters for what you need in the $5 range. Customer service is good, too.
 
Going from Analog to digital isn't going to give great picture quality. I'd probably recommend a new monitor
 
Monitors are cheap. I would not spend $40 on an adapter to keep an old lower quality monitor alive. Just buy a couple of HDMI (or at least DVI) monitors.
The LED monitors I already own that are about 2 - 4 years old also have DVI ports in addition to the VGA ports. Are DVI better than VGA?
 
The LED monitors I already own that are about 2 - 4 years old also have DVI ports in addition to the VGA ports. Are DVI better than VGA?
DVI is digital. An HDMI to DVI adapter is just a few bucks. That is a lot different from what you said before (VGA - analog)
 
New monitors would be my preferred route if I were in your situation. Barring that, DVI to VGA and HDMI to VGA adapters are not a big deal. If you want to keep your monitors, buy a couple of cables and hook 'em up. But remember that Amazon will sell you a nice Dell P2417H monitor for under $190, and they're pretty nice. Two of those suckers and you'll be a happy guy.

Oops. I checked again, they do everything but DVI. Other models will have HDMI & DVI for around the same price though.
 
Good that is encouraging. Then when I had them hooked up to the older computer using the VGA ports I was not utilizing the monitors potential?
 
New monitors would be my preferred route if I were in your situation. Barring that, DVI to VGA and HDMI to VGA adapters are not a big deal. If you want to keep your monitors, buy a couple of cables and hook 'em up. But remember that Amazon will sell you a nice Dell P2417H monitor for under $190, and they're pretty nice. Two of those suckers and you'll be a happy guy.
What I will need then is one cord with DVI to HDMI and a second cord with DVI to DP. Having already spent about a grand on the computer, software and Geek fees to load it I really hate to spend another $400 on new monitors. Maybe down the road a couple of years.
 
I'd be pretty annoyed if I unboxed a new desktop and found it had no VGA or DVI ports on it. Display port is supposed to be a multi-use way to connect all sorts of things in a small form factor but for god sakes to not throw in the dongle for a standard monitor connection is pretty crappy IMHO. HDMI is becoming more common but VGA/DVI are still the standard way to connect a monitor.

There are USB vga adapters... I'd only even think about them as a last resort. Getting the DVI-HDMI and DVI-DP adapters is the way to go.
 
Good that is encouraging. Then when I had them hooked up to the older computer using the VGA ports I was not utilizing the monitors potential?
Yes. Ignore other comments about VGA and simply get the HDMI/DP to DVI adapters. DVI is digital. You will be fine.
 
You know you should have gone iMAC. ::)
 
Thoughts just in the order you brought them up or the order they come to mind...

This will help with video connector education.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/203...t-which-display-interface-reigns-supreme.html

HDMI being digital, you need an active device to convert it to analog VGA. Just look for good reviews on one on Amazon or NewEgg or similar and you’ll be fine. A cord will not work, but many adapters hide the electronics in one end or the other of the “cord”. Local stores will often mark these up over 200% so online shopping is often the way to go with these.

(Here’s looking at you, Best Buy...)

DisplayPort contains the analog video signal needed and cables with built in connectors or adapters are fine.

Both will suffer from the quality and resolution of the monitors being old but they’ll look as good as the monitors have ever looked. So no worries there.

Here’s the other thing with Amazon or most online places, they’ll usually take back anything that doesn’t work for you and issue a full refund, so it’s just an inconvenience to print the shipping label and send it back. At work whenever we have tried a few cheap adapters, we order three of various cheap brands and keep the good one and return the other two on someone’s Amazon Prime account. No shipping costs either direction.

Using USB ports to hook up monitors is generally a bad idea. Not recommended. The Geek at GeekSquad wants to do that because he has piles of the adapters sitting there instead of the correct adapters. They also make more profit on them.

As others have said, while it seems wasteful, start thinking about replacing the monitors. But not immediately necessary.

And... when shopping for monitors, if you want a matched pair, make sure the monitor has both types of input, HDMI and DisplayPort, in the same model number. Many don’t have both.

Okay enough about the monitors...

The PC itself... are you saying you already bought it, or just have the research done? Reason I ask...

The specs are fine for what they are, and if you’re sticking to Dell or another big brand for support and what not, I understand. Especially out in the boonies. Dell will even do in-home service after a remote troubleshooting session for warranty work, if you pay them a little extra, so I can’t fault them much for most folks.

I generally would go with their Inspiron series over their Optiplex brand for mini towers and we have tons of them in service at work.

http://deals.dell.com/productdetail/y8k

One downside to all the Dell offerings at that price point, is they won’t put solid state drives in them unless you’re a corporate customer buying a custom configuration. Nothing will make a typical modern home PC faster in a cheap upgrade than an SSD. If you don’t need a terabyte of data storage space, a smaller sized SSD in nearly anything will make a bigger difference in performance than any other upgrade.

They purposefully cripple their product offering on the low end a bit to get people to go higher. They just don’t have much profit margin on the $500 machines. So they get it back by using physical spinning hard drives.

It’ll still be faster than your old machine if it’s ten years old, but you’d be amazed when you see an SSD boot from cold shutdown in about ten seconds. It’s a huge difference.

I’m limping along machine’s from 2008 and 2011 just fine, just by adding an SSD to them and RAM. They’re not slow at all. Professor power isn’t the limiting factor anymore.

On that thought, what is your old machine, if you haven’t bought the Optiplex already? You might find that by having someone install a newer Operating System onto an SSD and transferring your data to an external hard disk (even your old one) in an external USB enclosure, and upping the RAM a bit, you get new life out of the old system that was never possible in the past.

Anyway, hope the video info above helps. Adapters and cables are fine, just get the right ones and go for ones with good reviews.
 
Oops. I checked again, they do everything but DVI. Other models will have HDMI & DVI for around the same price though.

Dell are being jerks on their monitors lately and will only do HDMI and drop DVI which is annoying since they’ll sell you a business class machine with both, and then you have to hunt their monitor lineup for the dual monitors to match a pair. We ran into this at work.
 
I am frequently at remote customer sites and often have to hook up a “second” monitor to my laptop. I carry an HDMI cable and a HDMI to DVI adapter and have used it numerous (100’s) of times with no issues. HDMI and DVI are both digital and you should have no problems. DP is also digital. Since your monitors are actually DVI (not just VGA), you are good to go.
 
Thoughts just in the order you brought them up or the order they come to mind...

This will help with video connector education.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/203...t-which-display-interface-reigns-supreme.html

HDMI being digital, you need an active device to convert it to analog VGA. Just look for good reviews on one on Amazon or NewEgg or similar and you’ll be fine. A cord will not work, but many adapters hide the electronics in one end or the other of the “cord”. Local stores will often mark these up over 200% so online shopping is often the way to go with these.

(Here’s looking at you, Best Buy...)

DisplayPort contains the analog video signal needed and cables with built in connectors or adapters are fine.

Both will suffer from the quality and resolution of the monitors being old but they’ll look as good as the monitors have ever looked. So no worries there.

Here’s the other thing with Amazon or most online places, they’ll usually take back anything that doesn’t work for you and issue a full refund, so it’s just an inconvenience to print the shipping label and send it back. At work whenever we have tried a few cheap adapters, we order three of various cheap brands and keep the good one and return the other two on someone’s Amazon Prime account. No shipping costs either direction.

Using USB ports to hook up monitors is generally a bad idea. Not recommended. The Geek at GeekSquad wants to do that because he has piles of the adapters sitting there instead of the correct adapters. They also make more profit on them.

As others have said, while it seems wasteful, start thinking about replacing the monitors. But not immediately necessary.

And... when shopping for monitors, if you want a matched pair, make sure the monitor has both types of input, HDMI and DisplayPort, in the same model number. Many don’t have both.

Okay enough about the monitors...

The PC itself... are you saying you already bought it, or just have the research done? Reason I ask...

The specs are fine for what they are, and if you’re sticking to Dell or another big brand for support and what not, I understand. Especially out in the boonies. Dell will even do in-home service after a remote troubleshooting session for warranty work, if you pay them a little extra, so I can’t fault them much for most folks.

I generally would go with their Inspiron series over their Optiplex brand for mini towers and we have tons of them in service at work.

http://deals.dell.com/productdetail/y8k

One downside to all the Dell offerings at that price point, is they won’t put solid state drives in them unless you’re a corporate customer buying a custom configuration. Nothing will make a typical modern home PC faster in a cheap upgrade than an SSD. If you don’t need a terabyte of data storage space, a smaller sized SSD in nearly anything will make a bigger difference in performance than any other upgrade.

They purposefully cripple their product offering on the low end a bit to get people to go higher. They just don’t have much profit margin on the $500 machines. So they get it back by using physical spinning hard drives.

It’ll still be faster than your old machine if it’s ten years old, but you’d be amazed when you see an SSD boot from cold shutdown in about ten seconds. It’s a huge difference.

I’m limping along machine’s from 2008 and 2011 just fine, just by adding an SSD to them and RAM. They’re not slow at all. Professor power isn’t the limiting factor anymore.

On that thought, what is your old machine, if you haven’t bought the Optiplex already? You might find that by having someone install a newer Operating System onto an SSD and transferring your data to an external hard disk (even your old one) in an external USB enclosure, and upping the RAM a bit, you get new life out of the old system that was never possible in the past.

Anyway, hope the video info above helps. Adapters and cables are fine, just get the right ones and go for ones with good reviews.
Yes I have already purchased the Dell Optiplex unit and paid them to move all my files over to it. I considered the solid state drive but on the Dell they were only 200 gig storage devices and I am currently using slightly more than that on the old hard drive so did not think it would be enough. Dell steered me towards the optiplex over the Inspiron suggesting it will be a better unit in the long run??? My old machine is an Inspiron that has a Vista operating system, it has been a good unit. And I am not thrilled about this challenge with the monitors.

I greatly appreciate all the suggestions and help!
 
Yes I have already purchased the Dell Optiplex unit and paid them to move all my files over to it. I considered the solid state drive but on the Dell they were only 200 gig storage devices and I am currently using slightly more than that on the old hard drive so did not think it would be enough. Dell steered me towards the optiplex over the Inspiron suggesting it will be a better unit in the long run??? My old machine is an Inspiron that has a Vista operating system, it has been a good unit. And I am not thrilled about this challenge with the monitors.

I greatly appreciate all the suggestions and help!

Sounds like you’re good then. No worries.

You may want to save up a few bucks and have a competent place do an SSD upgrade later on. You’ll be impressed at the speed difference. Might as well wait and see how you like the new machine first though, no rush. They can move everything including the OS over to it.

Honestly it’s one of those things you can do yourself too, if you’re careful about having solid backups in case anything goes wrong.

The Samsung EVO series SSDs have been excellent for me. They make them in all sizes. Dell saying they max out at 200 GB is part of their little low end scam. Kinda annoying.

Probably better off not paying Dell prices for an SSD anyway. :)

Can keep the 1TB drive after having the OS moved over to the SSD as a second drive, keep backups on it, whatever you like. It’s still good for bulk storage of stuff that runs slower than the SSD.

Anyway see how you like it as is. Many people won’t notice the speed increases from going to solid state for storage but it is a big jump if the machine ever feels slow, don’t hesitate to make the jump. Storage speed is often the slowest part of a machine with a traditional hard drive these days.
 
I received the two cords to utilize the DVI ports on the back of the monitors today. These two cords together cost about $15. So now I am taking $100+ worth of adapters back to Best Buy :). And in addition to saving money I am sure the digital performance of the monitors are far superior to the analog VGA system Best Buy was promoting. They look great to me! Thanks again for the help.
 
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