hardware questions.

[sirius]

I bet youre all sick of me by now, lol. but........

......yes, again, I price up PC components!


Im thinking of just buying a box of components and self assembling. Im not sure what Im doing with my current PC, maybe Ill pass it onto my dad, but if not, I would like to use some of the devices out of it. Therefore I have some questions!

Firstly, I want a really quiet system, plus one that looks good. Not a beige monstrosity and rattley panels! Im looking at about 40-55 quid max though....if its possible. I was looking at the Antec Sontana for quietness, however its a tad expensive and doesnt have good reviews as far as assembly is concerned. Also, if I do mix and match components, a case with a front slide or lock panel to conceal the devices could be good, although it would have to allow for a Soundblaster LiveDrive knobs. I could stretch a bit higher on price butit depends on the rest of the system.

Secondly, Im looking at a AMD Athlon64 300+ 64Bit 2000mhz CPU speed 3000mhz FSB 400 Socket A 512 level cache CPU chip (or an Athlon XP3200 400mhz barton), 1.0GB DDR 333 PC700 Ram. This is not definate yet, and although expensive, could be the right balance to what Im looking for. What I was wondering is if I can fit my existing 512 Ram Chip in too, or get a cheaper 512 DDR RAM and add them both - a 512DDR and a regular 512 that I already use now, or whetherits easier to just get the 1gb ddr and forget about adding, or just just opt for a cheaper method of using what I have now and a nother 512 board. The ratings are confusing - 333 PC2700 or 333 PC33 or whatever it is. . how does this affect which Mainboard I choose?
I was looking at (for the XP chip) a Gigabyte GAK8NNXP NForce3 mainboard....however it is "Socket 754" - can i fit the chip to the board?





The pricing startegy is very annoying for computer parts, for example a 40gb hard disk is only like 15 quid different to a 120gb disk!!!!! and the difference between RAM is also similar. The price of all the bits I have jotted down so far exceed £975, and although this is probably affordable becuse I ave held off buying one in the last few months, every bit knocked off helps, but Id feel a mug paying 15 quid less than a 120gb for a measly 40gb, and same for other components.

Im looking allover the net at reviews of Cases, however theres not many rate the quietness. Also case fans and CPU fans need to be quiet too. lol.


Dont ask for much, do I?

Thanks again

Sirius.

[sirius]

Nah..........forget it, lol.


I'm thinking of going back to modifying a 'base unit' lol. Well, I suppose some of the questions are still valid.

see ya

Sirius.

[blue jammer]

I've got an Amiga A500 (6meg plus 2meg expansion in a 80meg Hard Drive) I can sell you?

Just a wee bit of advice about hard drives.

I would try and avoid Maxtor drives, certainly anything above 40gig, seem prone (to me anyway) to error, I replaced (4) 60 gig Maxtor drives, when 2 completely failed, making horrible crunching noises, and the other 2 started to not be found at boot up.

I took them back and got (4) 80gig Seagate drives, they are much better, a better build, and have been fine since.

Also, might be an idea to get (2) HDD's in there, 1 for the operating system, and the other for data, that way if you need to re-install at any point, you won't lose any data.

I'll leave other folks to answer the other points!

Best of luck with putting it together yourself, wear a baseball cap when you do it, just in case you start sweating a lot (especially when fitting the main chip!)

[sirius]

Ive allowed 4.99 in the budget for a Nike baseball cap....which MUST be worn back to front to keep the beaming UV rays from the spotlights of my neck whilst I curse at clipping the chip in.......lol.

Yeah, I think I wanted a seagate actually......Im tired, I think I looked at the wrong webpage, it was the same price which must have thrown me.

Im running 2 hard disks now, a dodgy 40GB thats in danger of flaking out, and nice Seagate 120gb with 8mb cache I baught last year. If I was robbing parts of this to put in my new one, I would therefore have about 240Gb!! - which is nice!.


Best forget this thread really, I've been pricing up all weekend, but then started looking at prebuilt/customised Pc's from the likes of Mesh......then again looking at building it myself......then looking at systems I can addd to.......then looking at components to build up myself......lol.

Wow, you got a killer machine there bluejammer . How it doesnt take off with that raw power I dont know!!!!

Putting the thing together doesnt frighten me, its getting the right parts that work together without conflicts, the right parts to be a killer system for three years no hassle running, and a quiet one which would lose me no sleep!!!! I mean total "is it switched on?" silence, but yet ice cool inside!!!!. lol.
Oh, and one I finally get around to purchasing

Sirius.

[blue jammer]

Part set systems/part custom builds cab be good, with the last machine I got, I looked at which processor I wanted and checked out the pre-build machines micro direct were doing at the time, I just added the bits I wanted, and told them to take out the shit I didn't need, and let them put it together, test it and whatnot, ok I paid £50 extra for them to build it, but hey, saved me the bother, as I just couldn't be mithered with it all, after fiddling around for weeks with a housemates PC trying to get a fix for the obscure graphics card he'd bought off ebay!