Vista-friendly builds: details, please

T

ToolPackinMama

Please post details here if you have assembled a Vista-friendly PC. I'm
particularly interested in budget systems that are Vista-friendly.

Thank you.

Laura
 
M

Mike T.

ToolPackinMama said:
Please post details here if you have assembled a Vista-friendly PC. I'm
particularly interested in budget systems that are Vista-friendly.

Thank you.

Laura

Simple, really. Just remember two things as you are choosing your
components:

1) You need a Geforce 6200 -or later- graphics card with video RAM of 256MB
or more ON the video card.* Be careful here, because some video cards which
might otherwise be VERY vista capable are designed to use UP TO a certain
amount of RAM, meaning that they steal RAM from the system. You need to
make sure that the video card you choose has at least 256MB of RAM ON the
video card.

2) For RAM, you need 1.5GB - 2GB (no less, no more), and speed doesn't
matter. In this case, quantity is more important than speed. But as
always, it is in your best interest to buy a good name brand of RAM.* That
is, if you want your budget build to be stable and reliable.

Other components you don't really need to worry about, other than the usual
"what is a good budget choice?". For example, CPU . . . You'll need
something clocked around 1.5GHz or faster*. But, as long as you stick to
the usual AMD or Intel, and buy something that is still widely available in
the usual retail channels, you'll be fine. Same with hard drive. You will
want about 60GB or more of space, depending on what you want to do with the
system. But finding hard drives smaller than that is getting tougher.
There are some 40GB drives still available, but the cheap drives seem to
start around 80GB now, at roughly the same price as the 40GB drives. And so
on.

Building budget-friendly for Vista is like any other budget build, but you
just have to give a little more consideration to the video card you choose,
and make sure you end up with 1.5-2.0GB of system RAM. OH, but do NOT skimp
on the power supply. Depending on what other components you choose, newegg
carries an AMS Mercury 460W which is very high quality at a reasonable
price, if it will work with whatever you decide to build. Or at least they
did, last I checked.

Post here when you think you've got a good list of components, and you will
get plenty of helpful advice. If you want someone to choose the whole thing
for you (every component), there are people in this ng who will be happy to
do that, also. :) -Dave

* Yes, the "system requirements" listed on the vista web site and retail
packages are slightly different, but I'm going by real-world experience, not
some fantasy written by a marketing team at Microsoft.
 
J

JAD

ToolPackinMama said:
Please post details here if you have assembled a Vista-friendly PC. I'm particularly
interested in budget systems that are Vista-friendly.

Thank you.

Laura

no such thing...........one big swoop and bye bye PIII's ,old P4's and 512 ram systems for
simple web surfing..... poof!
I wonder how much money shitsta has sparked in the computer parts/building arena so
far...........
Vista is UN Necessary---made me download the latest .......LINUX Distro.....YEAH that's
right... LINUX and I... looking to reconcile.
 
T

ToolPackinMama

Mike said:
Building budget-friendly for Vista is like any other budget build

Thank you, but have you actually recently built one? Post specs, please.
 
T

ToolPackinMama

DaveW said:
Vista will NOT run properly in a true "budget-system".

I'm not asking for opinions or advice, I'm asking for specs of systems
that are proven Vista-friendly.
 
G

Gert Elstermann

ToolPackinMama said:
I'm not asking for opinions or advice, I'm asking for specs of systems
that are proven Vista-friendly.

- Asus P4V800D-X, P4 2,4C 800 HT, 2 x 512 MB TwinMOS PC3200, Asus
GeForce 6200 AGP 128 MB, Seagate 120 GB S-ATA, Chieftech 350 W

- Asus K8N-E Deluxe, Athlon 64 3000+, 1024 MB MDT PC4300, Sapphire
Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128 MB, Hitachi 160 GB S-ATA, BeQuiet 350 W

These eigen builds run with XP SP2 and Vista Ultimate - and are 'true
budget-systems' nowadays;-)

roy
 
T

ToolPackinMama

Gert said:
ToolPackinMama wrote:
- Asus P4V800D-X, P4 2,4C 800 HT, 2 x 512 MB TwinMOS PC3200, Asus
GeForce 6200 AGP 128 MB, Seagate 120 GB S-ATA, Chieftech 350 W

- Asus K8N-E Deluxe, Athlon 64 3000+, 1024 MB MDT PC4300, Sapphire
Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128 MB, Hitachi 160 GB S-ATA, BeQuiet 350 W

These eigen builds run with XP SP2 and Vista Ultimate - and are 'true
budget-systems' nowadays;-)

roy

Thanks, Roy. Have you assembled these into full systems? Please specify.
 
T

ToolPackinMama

Thanks, Roy. Have you assembled these into full systems? Please specify.

Duh! I meant, thanks very much!

You gave much more info than others here have done.
 
P

philo

ToolPackinMama said:
Please post details here if you have assembled a Vista-friendly PC. I'm
particularly interested in budget systems that are Vista-friendly.




There is really no such thing as a budget ,Vista-friendly machine...

You will need a very high end video card and a lot of RAM.
Fast CPU ...dual core a good idea.

XP will run quite well on a "budget" PC
 
D

Dave

There is really no such thing as a budget ,Vista-friendly machine...

You will need a very high end video card and a lot of RAM.
Fast CPU ...dual core a good idea.

XP will run quite well on a "budget" PC

Wrong. You don't need a fast CPU (by today's standards, anyway) or dual
core. The hardest part of building a "budget" machine to run Vista is
finding the 1.5-2GB of RAM at a decent price, without resorting to junk that
is likely to cause headaches later. Plenty of good deals to be found on a
budget video card (with good Vista aero capability). OP, Check out the
following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147010 (but
throw the included power supply away!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817101111 (about
the cheapest you'll find in a powerful, HIGH QUALITY power supply)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999965 (there are
cheaper fans, but you want something relatively quiet, and you'll need at
least one fan for that case which doesn't include one)

From newegg, a combo deal (don't know how to directly link it):
* BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M9 Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD
Motherboard - Retail
* AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Manchester 2.2GHz Socket 939 Processor Model
ADA3500DKA4CG - OEM
* Original price: $119.98
* Discount: -$10.00
* Combo Price: $109.98

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103166 (5 buck cpu
cooler, to round out the combo above)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609049 (lesser
known brand, but a good budget buy, and vista loves it)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609047 (this will
give you 1.5GB of RAM, and Vista will love that ...total of about $100 on
1.5GB of good quality RAM, which is not bad...)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822135106 (this is an
awesome deal, unless you want more storage space)*
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106045 (be CAREFUL
choosing a DVD burner . . . most burning software is NOT compatible with
Vista. I've *read* that nero 7 essentials is vista compatible, can't
confirm that personally, but this drive includes nero 7 essentials)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130052 (great
video card for a budget build for vista, but not a gaming card)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16821152005 (probably
need this to install the SATA drivers...or just borrow an old floppy drive
for a couple of hours to install the OS)

There ya go, about $500, including shipping.

OPTIONAL:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152022 (instead
of the hard drive above, ups the price about 25 bucks, for more storage
space)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102003 (one of the
cheapest sound cards that is definitely CONFIRMED vista compatible)

All of the above assumes that you are recycling a monitor, keyboard, mouse
and speakers.

Though I haven't built that specific system, I have used all these
components in various systems that are running Vista quite well. The two
unknowns in the above rig . . . I haven't personally tried the onboard audio
of that Biostar mainboard under Vista. I suspect it would work, but can't
confirm it, so I suggested a PCI format add-in card for sound. (and the
card I suggested works GREAT under Vista). The other unknown is the DVD
burner. I'm sure the burner itself works great, but I have not seen
software -included with a DVD burner- (yet) that would work with Vista.
I've *READ* that Nero 7 Essentials works, and that's one of the few DVD
burners that has Nero 7 Essentials included. So confirm that the software
that comes with the DVD burner will work on Vista before you order
nything. -Dave
 
C

Conor

Please post details here if you have assembled a Vista-friendly PC. I'm
particularly interested in budget systems that are Vista-friendly.

Thank you.
Asrock Dual 939 SATA2 motherboard. (Onboard NIC has no drivers yet)
Athlon 64 4800+
2GB Crucial DDR
Geforce 7800GT
Generic Realtek 8192 based PCI NIC
Creative Audigy 2ZS.
Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1300

Take out the graphics and the soundcard and replace the 7800GT with a
6200 and you've a good budget system.
 
T

ToolPackinMama

Dave said:
Wrong. You don't need a fast CPU (by today's standards, anyway) or dual
core. The hardest part of building a "budget" machine to run Vista is
finding the 1.5-2GB of RAM at a decent price

Thank you Dave, for a very useful post.
 
T

ToolPackinMama

Conor said:
Asrock Dual 939 SATA2 motherboard. (Onboard NIC has no drivers yet)
Athlon 64 4800+
2GB Crucial DDR
Geforce 7800GT
Generic Realtek 8192 based PCI NIC
Creative Audigy 2ZS.
Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1300

Take out the graphics and the soundcard and replace the 7800GT with a
6200 and you've a good budget system.

Thank you very much.
 
P

philo

Dave said:
Wrong. You don't need a fast CPU (by today's standards, anyway) or dual
core. The hardest part of building a "budget" machine to run Vista is
finding the 1.5-2GB of RAM at a decent price, without resorting to junk that
is likely to cause headaches later. Plenty of good deals to be found on a
budget video card (with good Vista aero capability). OP, Check out the
following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147010 (but
throw the included power supply away!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817101111 (about
the cheapest you'll find in a powerful, HIGH QUALITY power supply)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999965 (there are
cheaper fans, but you want something relatively quiet, and you'll need at
least one fan for that case which doesn't include one)


<snip>

You've just proven that a Vista machine cannot be a budget machine !
 
J

jrodriguez377

Please post details here if you have assembled a Vista-friendly PC. I'm
particularly interested in budget systems that are Vista-friendly.

Thank you.

Laura

Hey Laura im tito i like trying crazy stuff with computers and i look
at all system recomendations while i was looking at the recomendations
for vista i noticed i had a dell gx150 p3 1.13 ghz processor with 512
ram sitting in the corner. so i got a copy of vista and im talking to
you right now on that wvery same dell right now. my recomendation is
just keep the basic recomendations in mind when you are building your
system and get everything a little faster. this system runs fine but i
sugest you run a 2.00 ghz processor or better and at least a gig of
ram oh and you need a dvd player to install. thats it. if you wanna
talk more about it feel free to email me any time
(e-mail address removed).
 
J

JAD

ToolPackinMama said:
Please post details here if you have assembled a Vista-friendly PC. I'm particularly
interested in budget systems that are Vista-friendly.

Thank you.

Laura

no such thing...........one big swoop and bye bye PIII's ,old P4's and 512 ram systems for
simple web surfing..... poof!
I wonder how much money shitsta has sparked in the computer parts/building arena so
far...........
Vista is UN Necessary--- it made me download the latest .......LINUX Distro.....YEAH
that's
right... LINUX and I... looking to reconcile.


640 P4 3.2g - 2 gig multiwave ram -Asus p5L - x1300 Ati, it'll run shitsta, however it
will never see that video game of an OS.
 
M

m

You do not need 1.5GB RAM, it will run just fine on 1GB. People are
getting the look ahead RAM functionality of Vista and thinking it's taking
more memory than it actually needs.
 

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