Some weeks back, I got a bit of a shock when an old workhorse machine, stony grey in colour and shouting “retire me” in a thin, high pitched whine from its power supply, finally decided to euthanase itself.
It had been putting in its final hours, working at night time, happily rendering a client project. I was rudely faced with options which were poorly timed; Finally get around to building that mythical machine which I had been planning as a pet project since november last, or selling my soul and going to PC World.
Such are the narrow options one is faced with on a tuesday morning, and a deadline approaching. A quick ring around to suppliers, and the only option was quickly becoming clear.
2 hours later, a Compaq Presario desktop is in place. Ugly as sin it may be, but down the years I have found Compaq gear to be dependable and robust. My presario laptop is thrilled.
I reckon the mythical machine I had planned will have to wait for that mythical weekend.
VIZ 601 
You have got to be kidding. You really like Compaq machines? I can’t think of anything much worse than anything from Compaq. I’ve seen a few of them that worked fine, but I would never purchase one. Most importantly the ones sold at wretched superstores are even worse since they come preloaded with so much crap that you want to throw the piece of crap away. I just hope you have a nice reinstall CD for the O/S without all that crap.
Next time go to the library while you finish your mythical machine.
John
http://www.emrandhipaa.com