Build me a computer

How about one of these?

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/f...s=19&l=en&s=dhs

 

This is a difficult question to answer. There are lots of available parts to build a computer with, and a little bit of overhead in your budget to make some things better, but not all things. If you tell us what you plan on using the computer for, we might be able to give you better advice.

Without that advice, I'm with Wayne. Have you considered a Dell?

Since you want space for two drive bays, will you be buying both drives with part of your budget?

Do you need lots of storage?

Will you be using your PC to watch movies? Capture / convert / encode movies?

Will you be using your PC for games? Computer games add a LOT of requirements.

 

You're going to get a warranty on a do-it-yourself? Adding cards and hard drives won't invalidate your warranty. Oh well, at least you can use them as a value comparison.

What interfaces do your existing hard drives use?

 

Yep, there are lots of interfaces now. Let's rephrase the question -- tell us what your existing system is, so we can know better how much of it can be carried forward. What speed, processor, etc.

 

dont get a Dell. they are lame. sure cheap...cant build one yourself for what they charge. but they are built to reduce support costs and maintain their rep for stability which translates to LAME.

whats worse is that they are set up so you cant really unlame them.

 

Yes, but if you tell us what you have we can guesstimate the interfaces to the hard drives and other components... You want to still run them, no?

Is your scanner SCSI or parallel? Doubt it's USB or Firewire...

Printers networked? Or parallel or serial? Again, doubting much higher tech...

 

Looks don't matter. I don't need see-through plexi with internal neon. [/quote]




h34r:

 

:lol:

sorry...



Welp, from what I read/understand so far, I would suggest only three general things (and it falls well within your price range):

1. An Athlon 64 bit processor series,
2. An ASUS motherboard
3. Some sort of wireless device card/ possibly built into the mobo. (this sort of depends upon where you live, but also wireless networks and peripherals are popping up everywhere, and it gives you flexibility should someone else in your house want to share your internet connection, or you want to add some wireless peripheral in the future. On top of that, if it already isn't, it is the future)

As was mentioned before, it really depends upon your usage. Since you don't seem to play games anymore, you don't need anything fancy like my dual video-card set up... B)

Oh yeah, I concur with newegg, most of my PC parts were bought from them.

 

You have to understand you have asked us to design a computer that can accommodate several old components, but you aren't giving us a lot of information about those old components.

From what I've heard, I think you have a system that's on par with an Intel Pentium II 450MHz with a 66MHz bus, so you probably have an ATA-66 hard drive/CD bus and some PCI slots. These are important to know so we can support your existing hard drives and television cable card.

Most new motherboards should still be able to support the old PS2 mouse & keyboard interfaces, which is what I'm sure you have.

Your scanner is USB, so you'll need at least 1 USB slot for that.

I didn't understand your printer reference, but let's assume you are talking about two old-fashioned 9-pin serial ports. Ugh.

I'm assuming your external modem/speaker phone also uses a 9-pin serial port. That's three ports, which makes me wonder if my assumption about your printer(s) is true. Three is slightly unusual. I would hope with this new setup you'd go broadband, and jettison the external modem/speaker phone, which means you will need Ethernet.

Hopefully, your monitor won't limit your resolution, but if it does, you can replace it later.

I'd say start with what Mystery Squid suggested, making sure it can accommodate all the legacy stuff you want to bring along.

Or, you could just jettison the old stuff and go all new (like a cheap off-the-shelf system). Of course that might have a pretty big cost impact too.

P.S. -- 'Squid, love that cool tower...

 

BUY A SYSTEM:
The Best Cheap PCs . . . under $500 (November 2005)
Be sure to click on the “comparison table.â€
<a href=\'http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1880390,00.asp\' target=\'_blank\'>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1880390,00.asp</a>

The winner:
Compaq Presario SR1620NX Desktop PC
<a href=\'http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?cc=us&docname=c00472092&lc=en\' target=\'_blank\'>http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/generic...c00472092&lc=en</a>

 

Ok just a few things:
You will get a warranty on your DIY comp, as a matter of fact you will get a separate warranty for each part.
Don't get a Dell, they use proprietary components (and sizes) to make you upgrade at a massively inflated price from them. They also have incredibly bad system cooling
If you are moving your HDDs, you'll have to be careful, because Windows might not like such a huge hardware swap all at once. You'll either have to run a program called SysPrep (not easy to learn) or do a format/reinstall on your windows drive.

That being said, here is a rig I've put together using your specs:

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $113
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16813136152

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice) 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor $201
>Includes HS & Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16819103533

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Kit $113.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16820145450

Throw it all into an
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Computer Case $94.99
>Includes 450W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16811129155

And it comes to $522.98

I didn't include shipping or Mail-in-rebates, so hopefully those will cancel out

You didn't mention video cards, besides your TV card, so you might need one of those as well. You'd probably be OK with one of these:
SAPPHIRE Radeon X700 121SR Video Card - Retail $104
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814102591

but that puts everything over your limit. I included a pretty high-end MOBO for you since you sound like you know something about overclocking, and that board will definitely be able to handle it. If you don't feel like OCing, you can probably change that to an ASUS board with a few less features and be just fine. Make sure to check the available ports on the board to make sure they have something for your external modem, if you're going to keep using that.

This setup is probably more than you need right now, but I feel like it never hurts to go a bit overboard and have something that's a bit more future-proof

I'll be glad to answer any question's/comments

 

The new interface that many HDDs are moving to is SATA. The connectors and cables are very different (something like this, although not quite):


You definitely have drives that will use an IDE cable, which is fine. I haven't seen any motherboards yet that don't support IDE still

 

Ok I will try.. cheap.. down and dirty..

I have this mb and have had no problems:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16813136147
Now this does not have the new fancy pants PCI-E just a plan old AGP 4x-8x but the cards can be had cheep.
New video just in case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814133151
have this card (I paid on sale with rebate 129 from Frys) should have done newegg.

Memory:
http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/confi...tor_search.html (put in your MB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16820145440
I would get 1Gb for Windows XP's

Processor (I like the AMD 64) :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16819103424 full retail and three year want. Get the fastest you can afford.. you will want it with Windows XP

Case is users choice.. I like antec, they seem to have good power sply.

without case I think this well under 500... I did not keep up with the cost.. sorry..

Have fun...

 

I would DEFINITELY get a PCI-E compatible MOBO. AGP is a rapidly aging dinosaur, and you'll probably have real issues upgrading down the line without replacing the whole MOBO/Vid Card combo (that's the spot I'm in right now, actually). Also, socket 754 seems to be on the way out as well, so once again you'd have upgrade issues

The MOBO pjm linked to is essentially the one I posted above, just AGP instead of PCI-E and the different socket.

The Value Select memory would probably work fine for your purposes, so that would help a bit on the cost. I agree that you should get at least 1 GB of memory