Low budget system -- your advice please?

[John Blaustein]

iwwwp,

"Cheap" may not be the operative word. It's more like "inexpensive," and
inline with the use the PC will get. I think I'm just going to add RAM to
the PII/400 box that's sitting in my closet, do a fresh install of 98SE, and
leave it at that.

John

 

[Paul]

Paul,

Thanks for your comments. My mom's use will continue to be Quicken, word
processing, and maybe the Internet at some point. The PII/400 should be
fine, particularly if I add a little more RAM (it has only 128 now).

I'll do a fresh install of Windows 98SE on the PII/400 box -- I don't need
to buy another copy of XP.

Good idea about the power supply. Are power supplies "universal?" That is,
can I look on eBay for any PSU? I assume 300-350w is sufficient.

As for the "hot new machine," I already did that! I just built a P4P800-E
Dlx, P4/3.0, 2GB RAM in a very handsome Antec SLK3700-BQE case. In fact,
over the past month, I've asked a number of questions here and you have been
extremely helpful to me as I've been learning the ins and outs of this
stuff. I've owned PCs since the days of CP/M and the original IBM PC, but
this is the first time I've built my own system. With help from you and
others, I ended up with a system that worked perfectly from the moment I
first booted up and continues to work like a charm.

John

PSUs are rather strange. I mean, there are some old 200W or 250W
power supplies that are going to run forever. There are newer 350W
supplies that won't last a week. Stay away from Ebay, for your PSU
purchase, and get something with a brand name on it. Avoid stuff
like Q-Tec (any company that cannot list their output ratings on
their web site is one to be avoided). Fortron-Sparkle are supposed
to be good. Enermax is OK. Antec is OK. In terms of the PSUs you
already own, see if you hear a significant fan speed change, when
driving the CPU to 100%. I changed out one PSU simply based on the
fact that the fan speed change had become more significant over
the months, implying the PSU was getting "tired" (sagging +12V).
All I'm suggesting is, try to stick with something with a track
record, either a supply that has worked well for you long enough
to know it won't die in a week, or a new supply whose brand name
and "died" doesn't show up a lot in Google.

Stuff on Ebay is being sold for a reason, and the reason may
not be a good one.

And my reference to the "hot new machine" was about how some
of us cannot stop building new computers )) The only
limit is the space to store them.

Paul

 

[John Blaustein]

Thanks, Paul... I'll make note of those PSU brands.

John

 

[Tim]

Sorry, I have no idea of what MIL may have returned. I meant Mother In Law.

Was that correct?

- Tim

 

[_chris_]

Umm

2.4Ghz for Quicken and NO Net... seems like a little over kill?

 

[John Blaustein]

Tim...

I figured out what you meant. I use acronymfinder.com frequently for all
the shortcuts used in newsgroups, etc. Handy.

John


MIL Military
MIL Mother-In-Law
MIL One Thousandth of An Inch
MIL Machine Intelligence Laboratory
MIL Machine Interface Layer
MIL Magnetic Indicator Loop
MIL Malfunction Indicator Light
MIL Management Information Library
MIL Man-in-the-Loop
MIL Marine Industries Ltd.
MIL Master Inventory List
MIL Matrox Imaging Library
MIL Maui Interscholastic League (Hawaii)
MIL Meat Import Law
MIL Member of the Institute of Linguists
MIL Module Interconnection Language
MIL Multipoint Indication - Loop

 

[John Blaustein]

_chris_

I've come to the same conclusion and will give my mother an old PII/400 I
have sitting here. With some extra RAM added and a fresh install of 98SE,
it should be fine.

This all started because I have an extra, brand new, Antec SLK3700-BQE case
and some other extra hardware, and I thought it would be fun to build
another system (I just built my first do-it-yourself system).

John

 

[Arthur]

http://www.amptron.com/

mobo is the K7-810LM made by PCChips.
Amptron is the importer.
Look around their sites.
I'm not connected, just a satisfied user.

I used one mobo as a replacement for a dead
old Epox 4dx mobo for $100 and change.
This machine has no USB camera problems
unlike my A7V from supportless Asus. Asus
does excel in the blame control department.

I also assembled a compete 810 system with
850 Duron, 128mb ram, WD 7.2k rpm hdd,
RW-CD, FDD, case, kbd, mouse, for under
$400 at a computer show a couple of years ago.

These are NOT high fps game machines but are
workhorses. Installing Win98SE required supplied
drivers and can be a pita as I think I had to do it
twice after getting updated drivers from their
download page. At the time the Sis chipset was
not supported by the Linux kernel which is not
a problem unless one wants to run Linux. Anyway
the 810 mobo has long been replaced by newer.

arthur
--

 

[John Blaustein]

Arthur,

Stuff all looks good. Too bad they don't quote prices on their site.

John

 

[Arthur]

I avoid buying a mobo mail order and go with what's available from
local sources. If I was forced to buy mail order I would use Copernic
(.com) to search for what I wanted. I was talked into my first 810
Amptron/PCChips mobo as a replacement at a computer show, liked it so
later assembled a complete system for a grandson. We also have 2
Amptron 17in monitors which were good value. If I was looking for top
of the line I would probably go for an ABit. The first decision
should always be which chipset. I will avoid VIA because of the USB
1.1 problems they never fixed for cameras, cams, and such. It is
pretty bad when one has to rely on independent people like USBMAN for
help with OEM hardware.

Which brings us to your statement. Mobo are made for volume sales and
not retail. Think about it. How many people assemble their own
putters vs a brand or maybe a 'white box'?

arthur