Thanks all for the replies!
Interesting reading the troubles seen even with some of the larger units. As with anything it is sort of luck of the draw even among like models when you buy anything.
The fellow at the store also showed me a mini tower model there he thought might be a better choice over the netbook but the caveat with it being it was not really expandable if I wanted to add anything (PCI cards) in the future. I have had the thought of adding a lightning detector and the web cam idea that I have spoke about many times but never done yet is still rolling around in a corner somewhere too.
Originally when I bought this Acer 5610 (Intel Core Solo T1300 /1.6 GHz) I'm typing on I had thoughts of making it the weather PC when the old computer died and just getting a new more powerful laptop to serve the rest of my needs. It does not generate a lot of heat plus I would have longer up time during power failures provided I continue to keep the DSL modem/router on battery backup.
Still though, the little netbooks and mini computers like Tinplate is using sure are tempting me.
BTW, Took the cover off my old computer, blew out the dust, reset all the memory cards, motherboard connectors, and card the processor is on into their sockets. Also swapped out an external 4-port USB hub that had a number of years of 24/7 operation on it, reinstalled the programs that had thrown an error, chk disk and defrag. So far it has run now little over 5 days with no reboot and no problems. (Knocking on wood.
) So either I fixed it or I torqued a hairline connection crack that will return to haunt me again on it's own time. One or the other.