Good Place to Buy Barebones

[news.eternal-september.org]

I'd like to buy a barebones (PSU, CPU, single Disk, graphics card, etc), for
a linux box. Can someone suggest a good place to buy good HW?

 

[philo]

I'd like to buy a barebones (PSU, CPU, single Disk, graphics card, etc),
for a linux box. Can someone suggest a good place to buy good HW?

Tigerdirect seems to have one of the largest selections

I normally order stuff fromj New Egg.

Even though I think New Egg is a better company
I have ordered plenty of stuff from Tigerdirect with generally no problems

 

[Don Phillipson]

I'd like to buy a barebones (PSU, CPU, single Disk, graphics card, etc),
for a linux box. Can someone suggest a good place to buy good HW?

For this purpose (as for WinXP) I would choose a refurbished IBM 8113,
now widely available (from www.auctiondepot.com for approx. $50 plus
shipping, from www.factorydirect.ca for $119 just now.) They are usually
3 or 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 CPU with 1 Gb RAM (but may be less.)

 

[terryc]

I'd like to buy a barebones (PSU, CPU, single Disk, graphics card, etc), for
a linux box. Can someone suggest a good place to buy good HW?

One of my five local computer shops is very good for this. Looks for the
parts list and prices near the door way for a hint. Otherwise, web
search for a few and you should fine thousands of online sellers.

 

[news.eternal-september.org]

One of my five local computer shops is very good for this. Looks for the
parts list and prices near the door way for a hint. Otherwise, web search
for a few and you should fine thousands of online sellers.

Do you think eBay sellers are legit?

 

[Paul]

Do you think eBay sellers are legit?

Can't you find a better source ? There are certain items on
Ebay, where you're just asking for trouble. (These
are things I've read, not experienced first hand.)
They include

1) High capacity USB flash drives (most all are faked capacity)
2) Laptops (they make excellent fishing bait, many scams possible)
3) Operating system software (that "original copy" of WinXP you always wanted)

I'm sure there are others that are deadly deals as well.

Barebones aren't necessarily a good deal. You really need
to examine the component list, and comparison shop. In some
cases, the motherboard might be inferior, in which case,
a low price goes hand in hand with the $39 motherboard you
got with the deal.

Newegg has reviews for components which are popular, so if you
have any doubts about that $39 motherboard, check the Newegg
reviews. And if Newegg doesn't list it, try Amazon.

If you're going to build your own computer, you should be
reading reviews for everything. That way, there are fewer
surprises later, and fewer "returns" to the retailer.

The only thing a barebones does for you, is bundle a bunch
of hardware together in a cardboard box for you. There is
no value added. There have even been cases, where bundled
components are not compatible with one another. So idiotic
things can happen. As a consumer, your eyes must be "wide open".

A lot of those bundles, will include power supplies I wouldn't
touch with a barge pole. And if the make and model number of
the supply is not stated, you can't read the reviews.

Paul

 

[news.eternal-september.org]

Can't you find a better source ? There are certain items on
Ebay, where you're just asking for trouble. (These
are things I've read, not experienced first hand.)
They include

1) High capacity USB flash drives (most all are faked capacity)
2) Laptops (they make excellent fishing bait, many scams possible)
3) Operating system software (that "original copy" of WinXP you always
wanted)

I'm sure there are others that are deadly deals as well.

Barebones aren't necessarily a good deal. You really need
to examine the component list, and comparison shop. In some
cases, the motherboard might be inferior, in which case,
a low price goes hand in hand with the $39 motherboard you
got with the deal.

Newegg has reviews for components which are popular, so if you
have any doubts about that $39 motherboard, check the Newegg
reviews. And if Newegg doesn't list it, try Amazon.

If you're going to build your own computer, you should be
reading reviews for everything. That way, there are fewer
surprises later, and fewer "returns" to the retailer.

The only thing a barebones does for you, is bundle a bunch
of hardware together in a cardboard box for you. There is
no value added. There have even been cases, where bundled
components are not compatible with one another. So idiotic
things can happen. As a consumer, your eyes must be "wide open".

A lot of those bundles, will include power supplies I wouldn't
touch with a barge pole. And if the make and model number of
the supply is not stated, you can't read the reviews.

Paul

Understood. I just don't want to pay for a Windows OS, just to turn around
and install Linux on it. I wish they'd sell decent HW, but without OS.
Seems a bit of a scam.

 

[news.eternal-september.org]

For instance, does this seem like a reasonable deal?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1409689&Sku=B69-1373

 

[Paul]

For instance, does this seem like a reasonable deal?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1409689&Sku=B69-1373

Well, to prevent me from doing any real work ( ),
let's look at the power supply.

Tigerdirect uses a ThermalTake case, they pull out the 450W
supply and install a Diablotek PSDA600 600W in its place.
Now, the picture on the Tigerdirect page looks kinda purdy.

If we go to Newegg, and look up that part number (PSDA600), the
supply I found, isn't exactly the same. A couple of the
specs are slightly different. And the color scheme is a plain
gray.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817822013&Tpk=PSDA600

The unit costs $29.99 .

Some of the comments in the Newegg review.

"this psu will not support more than a 300watt pc"

"Only worked for three days"

"Works for a while, and then just doesn't."

This is one of the problems I have with bundles. If only one
item of the N items is a "dog", it kinda spoils the deal. I'm
a bit picky about power supplies. I don't necessarily need
"expensive" ones, but I do need ones that aren't of
the "only worked for three days" variety.

I wouldn't give up on the deal just yet, but would have to
correct the project cost by the cost of the additional
power supply I'd have to buy.

That's why I favor computer cases with no power supply. I'm not
forced to toss the power supply into the garbage, and can search
for something with a decent reputation. The last cheap power
supply I bought, cost me $45, and the main reason for buying it,
was the approval rating was around 83% instead of 20%. That
doesn't guarantee the supply will last forever, but I won't
have regrets on the first day of usage.

*******

For the motherboard, I couldn't find a Newegg review. And there
were no reviews on the Amazon entry. I did find this, and the
board is a cheap version of a Z68 based board.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/10/11/gigabyte-ga-z68ap-d3-review/1

I could kinda tell that, from the three-jack audio tree.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/7169mlomGyL._AA1500_.jpg

The parallel and serial ports, are a mixed bag. I've actually
used those ports here. I have a programmer adapter that uses
the parallel port, and I occasionally connect computers with
the serial port (while working in Linux and needing a console).
So while I can find uses for them, some people absolutely
hate to see legacy connectors. Things I could do without,
are stuff like SPDIF or TOSLink (as I've never had a receiver
with that on it).

*******

As for whether it's a deal or not, you're going to have to
dig up prices for everything. If all the items are worthwhile,
then it might possibly be a deal. But if any items are iffy
after analysis, that puts the damper on things.

*******

I suppose one way of looking at this bundle, is considering
the rising cost of hard drives. Maybe the hard drive they're
giving you, is actually a high point in the deal

Paul

 

[Larry]

Do you think eBay sellers are legit?

PC Magazine recently had an article about building your own Linux
desktop for $500 and under.

Check here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392163,00.asp (Build a Better
Sub-$200 Linux PC)

and here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394153,00.asp (Build a Gaming
PC for $500 )

Larry

 

[Anssi Saari]

PC Magazine recently had an article about building your own Linux
desktop for $500 and under.

Tomshardware also had an interesting build some time ago (Feb 2010). Not
specifically for Linux, but decent performance with a Core i5 and less
than 25W idle power.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/25w-performance-pc,2551.html

Well, undervolting might be a problem in Linux? But if low power isn't a
focus here, then it's something to think about.