Do you have a tech store nearby? Maybe it would be a good time for us to donate to ETS...

I know you said you are fed up with Dell, but the Dell Outlet has some options at decent prices. I have purchased a few systems through the outlet and have been satisfied. Also, Vista isn't that bad once you get used to and will likely come on any system you purchase, you can always wipe it and install XP when you get the system though assuming you have the XP software.

http://www.dell.com/content/segmenter.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfo

Good Lord, Doug, I wish I was there to lend a hand, or a shoulder, or my Super Redhawk with 300 grain JHPs as a "final solution".

Any company makes bad and good models, don't dismiss one company just becase of a bad model.
If your really relying on your computer then look at the business models rather then the home models, those have better supoort and less "free" stuff loaded on them.

it is a "small business" model, had the great warranty that wasn't worth much in the end. The big issue has been the poor quality Dell support, not so much the computer.

The small business ends up being a greay area, some of those models are the home pc's and some are the business pc's so you tend to get random support centers. If it was an inspiron for example even though it may show up in the small business menu it still gets the home support call center. Any other brand does the same thing.
Though your problems sounds more like a windows than a computer problem. If you really don't want to buy a new computer and don't want to format the drive thas in there spend $50 on a new drive and stick it in then reinstall. Then if its stable buy a $20 usb enclosure and stick your old drive in it then copy the data over. I do that myself and the old drive becomes the backup and after I'm back and running normally then it gets the data copied to it and goes in the gun safe.

...is the right answer.

You still have to do the 1.5 weeks of effort to set it all up. If you'd started yesterday you'd be one day closer.

A

And as you do it put all your cd's and dvd's in order and put them in a nice binder, remember blasts binder, do that but along with your important papers put all your software. Even better copy as much as you can on to one dvd to consolidate it and have it all in one place. Then if/when you do need to rebuild everything should be right in place. If you rely on computers for anything then this is as important as keeping your first aid or water or food rotated and fresh. I have a nice document listing everything important to me as well as any software I've installed. Now this is a little easier for me since I just have the os restore cd that came with my netbook, linux distro that I use, one with the garmin software I've bought and one more with openoffice, firefox, thunderbird etc. In a survival situation like NOLA you may be forced to rebuild your system since it could be lost to fire/flood/theft/etc and you need to have everything available as well as have practice rebuilding it. This is one reason I swap in a new drive every couple years just to make sure my docs are up to date and that I can recover.

Doug,

I'll chime in here with the sad news that a 4 year old computer is actually OLD and you need to get ready to say goodbye.

Unless you're running really advanced video editing stuff, you actually don't need a lot of processor power. RAM is the magic, and if you want a lot of RAM you need a modern OS that can talk to all of it well - like Windows 7 or - dare I say it - Mac OS X..

But the real issue here sounds mostly like a hardware durability issue, and in that area, we're quite happy with HP hardware these days. I run a system at work that's used for high-end data visualization and we've got some kind of fancy Nvidia card, 2 drive RAID and 4GB of ram in there and it's on 24/7 crunching numbers and no problems at all.

We also - like others have suggested - build our own systems from time to time. Decent motherboards, RAM and especially a solid cooling system is all a good idea.

But have a look at the HP stuff, you might find a system you'll be happy with.

I'm with Mike_m on this one, Dell Outlet has some unbeatable deals on systems (defn: I can't build an equivalent PC for less $ from newegg or fry's). Its a bit late but I recommend you purchase a service option for your next PC, while it may double your outlay a. it will still cost less than a Mac :-) and b. if your PC goes on the fritz Dell sends a local tech to your home to triage, replace or repair. My disclaimer: I've never bought the service option myself but it has worked well for one distant aunt who reads email but can't deal with the innards of a PC. Nor do we expect her to.