Dell sends out our PCs with 3 partitions on it. The first one (small in size) contains the diagnostic program for your system. You can run that at anytime when you are experiencing problems by pressing F12 on restart. The second partition is your C:\ drive as viewed in Windows. The last drive contains the restore image that can take your system back to "as shipped" status. These are why the usable size is smaller.
The less-than-perfect picture on your monitor is probably caused by the fact that it is a TN panel, with relatively poor vision angles. I bet that if you move farther away from the monitor, the "problem" becomes less and less visible, and it worsens if you move closer.
The Dimension E521 only has analog VGA output. A DVI converter won't change anything. If you want a true digital DVI connection, you will have to add a videocard with DVI output. I suggest the NVidia 8400GS, since you already have NVidia video drivers on your system. It will fit into the empty PCI-E slot on your motherboard. Here is a Gigabyte card I like because of its silent passive cooling:
As for the hard disk capacity, this is normal. The HD manufacturers have a semi-fraudulent way of listing capacities. For them, 1 MB is 1000 bytes, while in fact it is 1024 bytes. Read this for more info:
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
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56.9K Posts
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November 13th, 2007 00:00
Please post some pictures of this issue.
Dell sends out our PCs with 3 partitions on it. The first one (small in size) contains the diagnostic program for your system. You can run that at anytime when you are experiencing problems by pressing F12 on restart. The second partition is your C:\ drive as viewed in Windows. The last drive contains the restore image that can take your system back to "as shipped" status. These are why the usable size is smaller.
BernardPD
1 Rookie
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122 Posts
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November 16th, 2007 14:00