Computing Equipment

While I lived in Edinburgh, I largely stuck with local PC component sellers such as Ideal Computing or Silicon Group for my PC building needs. My move south to Macclesfield changed that and it is only recently that I found a counterpart to these in the shape of MicroDirect, a short train ride away. In between times, I made a lot of use of online retailers though that has lessened following that local discovery. The problem with buying online is what it always has been: delivery. Not wanting to annoy neighbours or go traipsing around the country chasing goods at couriers, I try to stick to Saturday or evening delivery when I can or keep the items small if daytime delivery is unavoidable. All in all, a goodly number of experiences have headed my way over the years  and it is from these that I compiled this list.

DABS

My first purchase from these people many moons ago was a graphics card that I struggled to get working and eventually retired. Since then, orders of software and other items (iPod Nano included) seem to come to mind from this Bolton-based survivor in the reseller arena.

CCL Computers

It seems that PC Pro readers like this company a lot and I once had a work colleague who swore by them. I once ordered something from them a good while back and had no complaints about the service either though it escapes me what it was that I bought.

Ideal Computing

This was literally minutes away from me when I lived in Edinburgh so it was a regular haunt. After I moved to England, I veered towards online emporia and more local establishments but that’s not to say that I have stopped doing business there completely. For instance, I brought away a noisy Optiarc SATA DVD drive from the place while on a Christmas shopping excursion late last year. though the thought has crossed my mind. While I still was up north, I built the PC that was a key weapon during my campaign to enter the world of work using various components acquired here; the heart of the machine was an AMD K6 400 MHz CPU, 64 MB of RAM and several tens of gigabytes of hard drive space, more than acceptable at the time. Many of those purchases have been superseded with the passage of time but there are some that remain in use like the computer case from that first self-built PC. It is now over 12 years old now yet still doing what I ask of it, having outlasted a few PSU’s along the way; thrift is good.

microdirect.co.uk

Their range looks extensive on the web and, with sales desks in Heaton Chapel (straight across the road from the McVitie’s factory near Stockport and more like an annex to a warehouse than anything else) and Manchester, they are not so far away from me either. It almost makes me wonder why I have looked further afield for so long. That situation has been set to rights with the purchase of an Octigen Hard Drive enclosure, for less than £20 in fact. While it proved to be a great help in making available hard disks from a poorly PC, I can see a further use for the thing: transferring files as part of  hard drive update. I have been in the habit of simply adding more disks but looking at things now, I am inclined to think that replacement cannot avoided when I next to augment my computer file storage supply. A more recent success has been an ASRock mother board that allowed the use of components bought earlier in the year for the rebuilding of my main PC (the original replacement motherboard turned out to be a duff example).

Mighty Micro

This bunch have a branch near me in Macclesfield and they are also in Manchester. An HP inkjet printer and a hard drive have been among the more notable acquisitions from them.

Misco

Formerly known as Simply, I had them supply me with a 1 TB Western Digital hard drive at the start of the year and there’s a lot more than that sort of thing that they have in stock.

Novatech

I bought my first ever piece of RAM from these people (16 MB for a Dell XPS 133, if you are interested) and it proved to be a satisfactory purchase. After that, my patronage has been occasional rather than regular, the most biggest purchase from them being a bare bones PC set up that ended my home PC disorder. Seeing that Saturday delivery is available, even for a premium, I may be giving them more custom. Prior to the new box, the more mundane acquisition of a 2 GB USB drive was also something that I put their way but a memory upgrade was aborted due to incompatibility; the return was handled without toil. Recently, I got an 8 GB USB drive from them for backup purposes.

PC World

Every retail sector has had its pervasive names and here’s one for the PC sector though they have encroached on other complimentary areas as well these days. Expensive delivery charges mean that I have dealt with them through their bricks and mortar stores rather than online and the list of what I have purchased from their Edinburgh, Stockport and Manchester stores rather does shock me but I have had dealings with them for more than a decade. Thinking about now, items bought there have included a Toshiba laptop bought in a January sale, an Epson printer and a now retired Canon scanner. Evening opening has ensured that an actual store can become a source of emergency purchases and that’s how it has been with PC World on a number of occasions like when a power supply has failed.

Saverstore

Formerly Watford Electronics until that company collapsed, these are the people to whom I tend to turn when my HP LaserJet 1018 needs toner. Otherwise, various items like a still in use Guillemot Maxi Sound Muse sound card and Iiyama Pro Lite E431S 17″ LCD screen have come from there.

Silicon Group (Alloa Shop)

Silicon Edinburgh

Another reseller that was a short hop from my erstwhile home in Edinburgh and one that I have not revisited since, they have supplied me with a now dead modem (an electric storm saw to that) that got me onto the Internet at home for the first time and a 6.4 GB hard drive that served me well on the move from university to work remains in storage under the stairs these days.

Technikk

I seem to keep passing this Macclesfield town centre store without actually going inside. Now that I have had a look at their website, that may change given an opportunity.

Tim’s Megastore

One more Macclesfield purveyor of computer goods and services, this one didn’t see my footfall until recently and purchases an internal IDE DVD writer and an external USB DVD writer became successes for me, proving that products from less well-known manufacturers have a place in the world too.

As with many of these lists, it may well grow over time and, given the times in which we are finding ourselves, some emporia may expire and go on to be replaced by others.