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What about this system for the wife?

Started by Mark H, August 13, 2003, 20:06 hrs

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Mark H

Since I am getting a monster PC for my digital photography, I didn't feel right with my wife using the old PC (PII, 300 Mhz). This one should smoke the old one for a decent price. I will use the monitor and speakers from the old PC.

Let me know what you think? Here is the link:

http://secure.newegg.com/app/WishR.asp?ID=389112
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

query

#1
Looks good.   A couple of suggestions:

Substitute a Samsung or LG CD-RW for the Lite-On (or get an extended warranty) -- Lite-on is very good at making drives that seem to last about 13-15 months (we've had a lot of them die;  fortunately we've got all Dells with 3-year warranties so the replacements are free).  If you are considering Sony, realize that their CD-RWs all come from Lite-On.

Upgrade and get PC3200 RAM - that way you are set if you upgrade the CPU (or for that matter, for now - you can run at 400 MHz on memory even with a 333 CPU on this board - that is what I'm typing this on).

You'll need a copy of Windows for the system as well.  Cheapest way to buy it is with the hardware.

One other thing - get the JB version of the WD drive -- besides the advantage of the larger cache (8 vs. 2 meg), the warranty is 3 years instead of 1.


Neon

very nice. A couple of points:
1) does she like beige? You can get equivalent cases from Chieftec or Chenming in various colors, but you would need to purchase the power supply separately.
2) On the Antec SmartFans, I have the similar Vantec ThermoFlow, and the thermal sensor is located near the fan hub on the intake side. This means that it measures the temperature of incoming air. Therefore, you would want to use them only on fans oriented to blow out (typically the rear case fans, but not the front).
Area 64 project|Asus SK8N|nForce3 Pro 150 chipset|AMD Athlon 64 FX-51|2x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200R|eVGA GeForce 6800GT|WD Caviar SE 1200JD SATA|Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD+R|Plextor PX-116A 16x DVD-ROM|Lian Li PC-60H1S|Antec TruePower 430W ATX|WinXP x64 edition

Mark H

#3
Thanks! I will replace the CD writer with another brand. As for the operating system, I will use Windows 2000 pro which I am running on this old system. For the color, my wife specifically picked beige, because it matches our current monitor. She is not one for flashy looking PCs. The fans will be on the intake, but I will run them at full power with the exaust fans connected to the mobo. I just wanted the fans I chose for the ball bearings.

I will upgrade the RAM to PC3200. When the AMD 3200+ price drops, I may get it so the RAM upgrade makes sense.
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

seiferoth10

what does she do on it?!?!

that system is a lot better than mine and im a medium-core gamer...

you can replace the vid card for a radeon 9200 64mb for 70...

Carskick

That system would do practicly anything she wanted to do on it. Looks good to me. BTW, I only saw 1 CD drive meaning you can't burn on the fly. If you don't burn often, it's ok, but i always like having atleast 2 CD drives. Also so you don't have to switch CD as often when using programs that require them. A standard CD-ROM would probably cost $30-$40 to add on. Or you could make it DVD. All depends what she's gonn use it for, and how much you want to spend. And you can of course always add the latest medium technology later instead of getting an extra drive now. Just a thought. Good Luck!! ;)
Athlon64 X2 3800+ Machester@2.45Ghz, 4x1GB A-DATA PC3200@204(2.5-3-3-6), XFX 8800GT, ASUS A8N5X NF4, Antec 300 case, Antec EarthWatts 650w, 640GB 16MB and 200GB 8MB 7200RPM SATA WD HDDs, NEC3540, NEC3550, Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate<br />Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Carskick

Neon

The Radeon 8500LE 128mb is $82 at Newegg and is better than a Radeon 9200
Area 64 project|Asus SK8N|nForce3 Pro 150 chipset|AMD Athlon 64 FX-51|2x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200R|eVGA GeForce 6800GT|WD Caviar SE 1200JD SATA|Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD+R|Plextor PX-116A 16x DVD-ROM|Lian Li PC-60H1S|Antec TruePower 430W ATX|WinXP x64 edition

iansl

What about a 60 GB HDD? 40 is pretty much low-end now. Of course, 512 MB of RAM wouldn't hurt.
Dell Inspiron e1505, Core Duo T2050, 1 GB DDR2-533, 160GB WD Scorpio 5400RPM HDD, 8x DVD+\-\DL burner, GMA 950, WXGA panel, Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2K7 Pro (thx M$)

iMac Aluminum 2.4GHz 20" w\4GB RAM, LP1965 LCD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro
Macbook Air 1.6GHz 80GB HDD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro, SuperDrive addon

The man, the mac user, the cell phone

Mark H

Good suggestion since volume is cheap now in days. The 40 was selected because no video or graphics was going to be saved to this machine - just OS, MS Office, and a couple other programs. My second new machine will house all the large volumes of information. Even so, I will look into a 60 or 80 gig drive.

Mark
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

pat

#9
I just bought one of the Maxtor 120g hard drives, the 8 meg model with 3 year warranty, it cost 112.50 that's just over 90 cents a gig. Amazing when you think about what hard drives cost just a few short years ago.
I?m really not so sure how they stack up against the Western Digital, but it is virtually silent, I have to get down next to the box to even here it.

The only other thing is, if you are going to buy Crucial anyway, perhaps you might consider using the link over to the left there. You would most likely qualify for free 2nd day shipping, the warranty is great and a small percentage of the sale helps support this site.  ;)
SeaSonic S12 550W, Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Asus M2N SLI-Deluxe, nvidia 9600 GSO, 2x2 gig Crucial Ballistix, LG DVD/RW, 2x Western Digital Black Edition 640gb,  SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22", Canon PIXMA MP600,  Logitech X-230 speakers, Logitech Comfort Duo keyboard & Mouse, Windows 7 64 Home Premium & Vista 64

scuzzy

#10
Thanks for plugging our "Crucial Tech" link. It's true that a small percentage of the sale helps support Poasters.com.

We've been reluctant to bring back banner ads to this site, and opted for the low-tech approach of a link instead. Although it keeps the eye-clutter down, it doesn't bring in much revenue. Of course, that means more out-of-pocket expenses. The fact is, we are always in the hole. We have never made a profit from Poasters.

Some day the banner ads may return. But if they do, they will be kept to a minimum. The longer we can go without the ads, the better.

So how does Poasters survive? It is 100% staffed by volunteers, who are computer knowledgeable, selfless, and dedicated to helping others.
Antec Performance TX640B Case | WinXP Pro SP3 & Win7 64-bit | Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R | Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale LGA 775 3.16GHz Dual-Core | 8GB (4x2GB) PC6400 G-Skill RAM | eVGA 7600GT 256MB PCI-E | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 16MB Cache | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 8MB Cache | 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 16MB Cache | External 640GB WD Caviar SATA 32MB Cache | Sony DRU-V200S DVD/RW | PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W | Samsung SyncMaster 2494 (24") LCD Monitor | LG Flatron W2361V (23") LCD Monitor

iansl

Is there a network card on the computer you're buying...er...making? Unless you're doing wireless, you'll need it if you don't want to lug your camera or a CD over to your computer every time you want to put some information onto the other PC. If you're networked, a 60 GB HDD should be all that computer will ever need.
Dell Inspiron e1505, Core Duo T2050, 1 GB DDR2-533, 160GB WD Scorpio 5400RPM HDD, 8x DVD+\-\DL burner, GMA 950, WXGA panel, Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2K7 Pro (thx M$)

iMac Aluminum 2.4GHz 20" w\4GB RAM, LP1965 LCD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro
Macbook Air 1.6GHz 80GB HDD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro, SuperDrive addon

The man, the mac user, the cell phone

Mark H

A network port is on the motherboard and I am getting an 80 gig drive for 101 dollars. Best volume/dollar ratio I have seen.
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

scuzzy

#13
Quote from: mwhals on August 15, 2003, 19:43 hrs
A network port is on the motherboard and I am getting an 80 gig drive for 101 dollars. Best volume/dollar ratio I have seen.

That's way too expensive. You can buy a 120GB Western Digital 7200 rpm hard drive from NewEgg.com for a total of $96, with free delivery. Or, an 80GB for only $72, with free delivery.
Antec Performance TX640B Case | WinXP Pro SP3 & Win7 64-bit | Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R | Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale LGA 775 3.16GHz Dual-Core | 8GB (4x2GB) PC6400 G-Skill RAM | eVGA 7600GT 256MB PCI-E | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 16MB Cache | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 8MB Cache | 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 16MB Cache | External 640GB WD Caviar SATA 32MB Cache | Sony DRU-V200S DVD/RW | PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W | Samsung SyncMaster 2494 (24") LCD Monitor | LG Flatron W2361V (23") LCD Monitor

query

It's worth getting the 120JB for $101 vs. the 120BB at $96 -- even if the speed difference doesn't matter to you (8 MB cache on the JB, 2 on the BB), the warranty difference (3 years for the JB, 1 for the BB) is worth the small price premium.


Mark H

Quote from: Scuzzy on August 15, 2003, 19:46 hrs
Quote from: mwhals on August 15, 2003, 19:43 hrs
A network port is on the motherboard and I am getting an 80 gig drive for 101 dollars. Best volume/dollar ratio I have seen.

That's way too expensive. You can buy a 120GB Western Digital 7200 rpm hard drive from NewEgg.com for a total of $96, with free delivery. Or, an 80GB for only $72, with free delivery.

Oops! I meant a 120 gig WD drive for 101 dollars. This is the one that Query mentions in his posts (I guess he didn't catch my typo or knew what I meant).
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

Mark H

I have ordered the stuff from Newegg.com, except the Crucial RAM, which I ordered through this site's link.

Here is the rundown:

ANTEC| KSTN TOWER SX835II  ($80.00)
ASUS A7N8X DELUXE ($119.99)
AMD 2500/333 ATHLON XP BARTON Retail ($88.00)
ATI RADEON 9200 128M TV ($119.00)
Two 256 MB PC3200 Crucial RAM ($108)
WD 7200 RPM 120 GIG HD 8MB-CACHE  ($101.00)
PLEXTOR DVD ROM  ($33.99)
SAMSUNG CDRW 52x24x52 ($48.99)
ALPS Floppy disk ($7.00)
MS WINDOWS XP PRO w/SP1a ($143.00)

Total:  $848.97

It's a couple of hundred more than when I started, but I upgraded the video, hard drive,added a DVD ROM and went with Win XP rather than Win 2000, which we have on the current machine.

If I can't get Win XP to work with our scanner, I will install 2000 on the new machine and hold Win XP for my digital photography PC (next build)

I will use our 19" Hitachi monitor and Advent speakers from our current PC. My wife picked out the case (with my approval) and I picked out the rest.

Now for the hard part: Waiting.

Mark
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

scuzzy

Wow. Excellent choice. That system should smoke once completed. I'm looking forward to your review.
Antec Performance TX640B Case | WinXP Pro SP3 & Win7 64-bit | Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R | Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale LGA 775 3.16GHz Dual-Core | 8GB (4x2GB) PC6400 G-Skill RAM | eVGA 7600GT 256MB PCI-E | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 16MB Cache | 74GB WD Raptor SATA 8MB Cache | 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 16MB Cache | External 640GB WD Caviar SATA 32MB Cache | Sony DRU-V200S DVD/RW | PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W | Samsung SyncMaster 2494 (24") LCD Monitor | LG Flatron W2361V (23") LCD Monitor

pat

#18
Hey, nice system.
I think you?ll like that case, I sure like mine, (ok, so I like beige  ::)) the power supply runs very quiet. I haven?t used a real power supply tester, but the utility that came with my Board show consistent voltage readouts.
Thanks for using our link for the ram.
SeaSonic S12 550W, Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Asus M2N SLI-Deluxe, nvidia 9600 GSO, 2x2 gig Crucial Ballistix, LG DVD/RW, 2x Western Digital Black Edition 640gb,  SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22", Canon PIXMA MP600,  Logitech X-230 speakers, Logitech Comfort Duo keyboard & Mouse, Windows 7 64 Home Premium & Vista 64

Mark H

I got the parts yesterday and put them together yesterday evening. I put windows XP on it yesterday as well. It has been burning in for the last 12 hours.

Now I need to network it with my old PC box, so that I can pull some files over. Much easier than installing the old hard drive into the new PC temporarily.

I can say that it is MUCH faster than my old 300 Mhz PII.

Mark
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

seiferoth10

how bout a cross over cable?
just make sure both pcs have NIC/ integrated LAN

iansl

Or why not just get a switch and network all three computers?
Dell Inspiron e1505, Core Duo T2050, 1 GB DDR2-533, 160GB WD Scorpio 5400RPM HDD, 8x DVD+\-\DL burner, GMA 950, WXGA panel, Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2K7 Pro (thx M$)

iMac Aluminum 2.4GHz 20" w\4GB RAM, LP1965 LCD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro
Macbook Air 1.6GHz 80GB HDD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro, SuperDrive addon

The man, the mac user, the cell phone

Mark H

I have a router, which seems to work. Now to configure the old PC for my mother-in-law.

Mark H

PS - Why can't I get the smilies to work on any PC I use (my old one, my new one, and my work PC)?
Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

pat

QuoteWhy can't I get the smilies to work on any PC I use (my old one, my new one, and my work PC)?

There is a problem with the code.
SeaSonic S12 550W, Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Asus M2N SLI-Deluxe, nvidia 9600 GSO, 2x2 gig Crucial Ballistix, LG DVD/RW, 2x Western Digital Black Edition 640gb,  SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22", Canon PIXMA MP600,  Logitech X-230 speakers, Logitech Comfort Duo keyboard & Mouse, Windows 7 64 Home Premium & Vista 64

Mark H

Enjoy the nature that is around you rather than destroying it.

iansl

Do you think you could configure the board to show the new posts on a thread since you left it? That would be useful...
Dell Inspiron e1505, Core Duo T2050, 1 GB DDR2-533, 160GB WD Scorpio 5400RPM HDD, 8x DVD+\-\DL burner, GMA 950, WXGA panel, Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2K7 Pro (thx M$)

iMac Aluminum 2.4GHz 20" w\4GB RAM, LP1965 LCD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro
Macbook Air 1.6GHz 80GB HDD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro, SuperDrive addon

The man, the mac user, the cell phone

Neon

you should see next to subjects that contain poasts that are new since your last forum visit.
Area 64 project|Asus SK8N|nForce3 Pro 150 chipset|AMD Athlon 64 FX-51|2x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200R|eVGA GeForce 6800GT|WD Caviar SE 1200JD SATA|Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD+R|Plextor PX-116A 16x DVD-ROM|Lian Li PC-60H1S|Antec TruePower 430W ATX|WinXP x64 edition

iansl

I see that, but I wish that on the thread posts which were new would be marked that way...if that's not a whole bunch of work...
Dell Inspiron e1505, Core Duo T2050, 1 GB DDR2-533, 160GB WD Scorpio 5400RPM HDD, 8x DVD+\-\DL burner, GMA 950, WXGA panel, Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2K7 Pro (thx M$)

iMac Aluminum 2.4GHz 20" w\4GB RAM, LP1965 LCD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro
Macbook Air 1.6GHz 80GB HDD, OS X 10.5.2 + WinXP Pro, SuperDrive addon

The man, the mac user, the cell phone

pat

They are timed and dated.
Just write down the time and date of your last visit and compare that to the current time.  ;D
SeaSonic S12 550W, Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Asus M2N SLI-Deluxe, nvidia 9600 GSO, 2x2 gig Crucial Ballistix, LG DVD/RW, 2x Western Digital Black Edition 640gb,  SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22", Canon PIXMA MP600,  Logitech X-230 speakers, Logitech Comfort Duo keyboard & Mouse, Windows 7 64 Home Premium & Vista 64

Neon

Quote from: iansl on August 27, 2003, 07:56 hrs
I see that, but I wish that on the thread posts which were new would be marked that way...if that's not a whole bunch of work...
I don't understand what you are saying.
Area 64 project|Asus SK8N|nForce3 Pro 150 chipset|AMD Athlon 64 FX-51|2x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200R|eVGA GeForce 6800GT|WD Caviar SE 1200JD SATA|Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD+R|Plextor PX-116A 16x DVD-ROM|Lian Li PC-60H1S|Antec TruePower 430W ATX|WinXP x64 edition