Very good value, quick and quiet, microdream answered my questions quickly so impressed all round. I bought the 8gb i5 with 250gbHDD as I wanted a bit more cpu than my current 4gb i3 machine. I have 2x SSDs in my PC which is why I bought the 250gbHDD one as I intended replacing with the SSDs, I will use the microdream supplied HDD in my old machine as it looks and sounds new, a WD Blue HDD, better than expected quality. I guess refurbishing a PC involves checking for faults, ensuring fans not noisy, replace HDD as a mechanical part so would be worn, also optical drive if not ok. These days optical drives not used much in business so HDD is the only part at risk of wear ?
If you don't want to mess about changing to an SSD then I would suggest buying one from microdream with one already fitted. They say to ask if you want a larger SSD, 160 or 240gb is a good size.
This has USB3 ports front and rear so if you need HDD type storage just buy something like a 'my passport' usb3 external HDD and leave it plugged in at the back.
Only issue I had (windows related) was USB3 drives not recognised, solved by going to Devices then 'USB3 root hub'. Disable then enable it and drive is now found. Once done reboot the PC and now recognises drives ok.
When you start for the first time Win10 will take a dog's age to start, then does updates etc etc etc, as it does. Once all is set up though the PC starts and boots quickly, also very quiet almost inaudible even when sitting next to it, the WD HDD can hardly be heard.
This has 'displayports' which I had never heard of so if you want HDMI you will need an adapter, standard VGA analog connector can be used.
What more can I say, very good for home pc where you want to do some resource hungry work, I do some small bits of video editing and cad design (just for myself so nothing tricky) and this will do just fine. Also good to see something being reused and not scrapped as this has a lot of life in it yet.
Just ordered another for my wife as she liked it so much, half the size of current PCs, and she also wants to switch to Win10.
One last thing is there are two HDD power supplies on this model, so to fit two SSDs in place of the HDD all you need is a main board sata connecting cable. PC had 3 sata ports and 3 power supply sockets, optical drive and 2 near the HDD.
| Brand | Dell |
|---|---|
| Package Dimensions | 44 x 44 x 18 cm; 6.72 kg |
| Item model number | 25123-25123-25123 |
| Manufacturer | Dell |
| Colour | black |
| Form Factor | Small Form Factor |
| Processor Brand | Intel |
| Processor Type | Core i5 3470 |
| Processor Speed | 3.2 GHz |
| Processor Socket | LGA 1155 |
| Processor Count | 1 |
| RAM Size | 8 GB |
| Memory Technology | DDR3 |
| Computer Memory Type | DDR3 SDRAM |
| Maximum Memory Supported | 8 GB |
| Hard Disk Description | HDD |
| Graphics Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 6.72 kg |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
