Q: I have a 3yr old Dell Dimension 3000 Desktop and a 1 1/2 yr old Acer Laptop. I'm not sure which one I should use for everyday use. The laptop seems to get hot since I have it on 20hrs a day. Performance wise they seem to be about equal. I will describe the specs of each. Dell Dimension 3000 has a Pentium 4 with 2GB of Ram. It has 1 CD Drive and 1 DVD Drive, Huge Hard Drive space (over 200GB) split between 2 HD - 1 came with it and 1 I added for more storage internal. It only has PCI so those ports are full with a GeForce5300fx graphics card, the connection to the 2nd HD, and a wireless internet card. I do have a 3D sound card which is not connected due to space problem. It has XP SP2. The ACER Laptop has XP SP2 MC 1GB of RAM & 100GB HD. It's a AMD Turion 64 non dual core. Graphics is ATI Radeon1100.I use it with an external keyboard, monitor, and mouse so physically no different from desktop. I can't decide because i'm concerned with the daily heat coming from the laptop.
A: I think that you should use the desktop for everyday use. Desktops are alot more durable then laptops and more reliable. For example, on a laptops HD things like bad clusters can appear especially if you leave it on for a long time a day (like you do for 20 h) and at first you'll notice that your laptop is frozen and the HD light is on but you aren't able to click on anything. Eventually it will get so bad that one day you'll try to start up windows and you'll get the blue screen of death. You will have to go out and buy a new HD for the laptop. Also, you said you had cooling problems which is not good. If something overheats alot, you will blow a fuse and you will have to pay for a repair and that repair isn't cheap. So I think you should go with the desktop.