Build a Computer, need help for parts

**whack_amol** · Apr 19th, 2002, 05:02 PM

Whats up, i want to build my own pc and want good one at that too, i wanted an aplle cause their cooler and more safe than a windows pc, but they are expensive for a good one, so i want a pc, Dell and all the other companies are garbage, and premade ones in Best Buy alway leave out stuff, so ive chosen to either build or customize one. Can you guys give me a list of parts that fit in my budget. I have a budget of $2000 give or take a couple hundred. for my needs i want an AMD athlon xp 2100 or MP 2000. MOtherbords are tricky for me, but i want one that holds ddr ram and with atleast 4 usb ports i dont really want audio or video on it cause im buiying the cards, atleast 512MB ddr ram, atleast 80 gb hard drive preferably 7200 rpm idont know if there are faster/better ones. A DVDRW drive, and CDRom A real good vid card, and pretty good sound card doesnt have to be the best, then a case, doesnt matter what speakers, Power supply cooling fan/s, Mouse, keyboard, network card, and 56k modem, Windows XP home, office XP pro, THats it please list any essential parts i may have left out. Oh yeah the cheapest i found a similar computer for was $2300, but if im building it should be lower, Thanks

**JungleMan** · Apr 19th, 2002, 05:03 PM

Tell me your budget, your purposes, and your tolerance for noise, if you will be OCing, and any other details...

Meanwhile I'm gonna go eat but I'll be back in a few to help you out.

scoutt · Apr 19th, 2002, 05:25 PM

justin he did tell you all that

so you should beable to build somethign like that for about $1000 no prblem. but you forgot the monitor.

**JungleMan** · Apr 19th, 2002, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by scoutt
justin he did tell you all that

I skimmed over it briefly, I hate when people write long posts in one paragraph

**JungleMan** · Apr 19th, 2002, 05:42 PM

I'd check out www.newegg.com

Go with Epox 8k3a+...Samsung DDR333...Thermalright AX-7 cooler and an XP1900.Those are just the basics.

Browse around for some other stuff and tell me the list

They also sell software, which is the non-retail versions you must purchase them with hardware but you save quite a bit

PS no matter what scoutt tells you an orb is a **** cooler

**markman** · Apr 19th, 2002, 06:46 PM

hey amol (this is Ross)
where did you get the $2000? And you said you wanted a dvdrw: just remember that every dvdr you buy is about $4. that add up to quite a bit; but if I had the money Id get one

**Guv** · Apr 21st, 2002, 07:40 AM

Go to your local clone maker. He can advise you and sell you all that you need. You might do a bit better on price if you shop around, use mail order, and/or shop via internet.

Every time I check my clone maker's prices, I discover that I do not save much by buying elsewhere.

His advice will be good, and I like to buy locally so that if anything goes wrong, within warranty, I can get a new part quick.

**Guv** · Apr 21st, 2002, 08:00 AM

With your budget, you should be able to build one damn good system.

I recommend one of the ASUS motherboards which support up to 8 IDE devices. There are a lot of good reasons for having three hard disks instead of one big one. It is a bit more expensive for the same amoutn of space, but well within your budget.

I run a system with three 40GB disks. OS & major applicaitons on first disk, all data on second, Swap file and backup files on third. This organization mimimizes head movement, which cuts down on wear & tear. The disks last longer before having problems. The system runs a bit faster, but you will not notice without a sophisticated benchmark program.

Also make a lot of partitions. I have 13. Several are used for applications which normally run off a CD, but can run without a CD if you copy the CD to a hard disk (not all CD applications allow this).

I use PowerQuest Partition Magic, which can create, delete, move and/or resize partitions. It will resize and/or move without losing data. I also use PowerQuest Drive Image to make backupup copies of my two major partitons. PM will allow you to run more than one OS if you like that.

I consider PM & DI to be part of my hardware budget (about $40 to $60 each, depending on where you buy them).

I have a major partition on first disk imaged to the second & third. The major partition on the second disk is imaged to the first & third. I could lose two out of three disks and restore the OS, data, and major applications from the third disk.

Every time I do something major to the system, I make new images in case something goes wrong. I keep the last three or four sets of images, and a log file so I know what the system will look like after being restored.

**Sastraxi** · Apr 21st, 2002, 10:28 AM

If you buy a DVD-RW disc it's about $20 I believe. They are good for 1000 erases and rewrites, so every DVD endeavour you go out on, you can check if it works, erase it, and burn it again. Although, you may be better off if you buy the DVD-RW next year, because they will be dropping prices, and raising burning speeds.

**whack_amol** · Apr 21st, 2002, 12:24 PM

Thanks guys, i pretty much figured out the parts i need and the price is similar to a companies that lets you customize and they build, they just charge a couple hundred more than it costs me to build, and they have a warrenty

Thanks, ill keep looking around to see if ic an find cheaper parts though

**Ambivalentiowa** · Apr 21st, 2002, 03:34 PM

For the video card i reccomend the
GeForce 4 ti 5600

I reccomend buying the RAM first as the prices seem to be on the rise again.

You might have trouble getting a motherboard with 4 usb ports, but you can buy pci cards that have 2 or 4 usb slots in them.

That's all the advice i have for you.

One question: Why buy DVDRW and CD-ROM?

**whack_amol** · Apr 21st, 2002, 06:52 PM

A dvdrw and cdrom together make it a whole lot easier to burn stuff, you can do direct rips without sending studd to the computer

**JungleMan** · Apr 21st, 2002, 07:01 PM

Originally posted by whack_amol
A dvdrw and cdrom together make it a whole lot easier to burn stuff, you can do direct rips without sending studd to the computer

One of teh biggest myths of computing..

Nope, a lot of times the CDROM can't keep up with the DVDRW. If the two operate on teh same channel, only one at a time is accessible. So you run into a buffer underrun.

And also it only takes a couple of mins to copy a CDROM to your HDD.

**Guv** · Apr 21st, 2002, 07:09 PM

JPB Tennisman: One of the nice features of the ASUS motherborads with 4 IDE ports, is having a separate port for the CD-R & the CD-RW.

I agree that even with separate ports, it is probably better to copy the CD to a hard disk partition and burn from the hard disk.

**JungleMan** · Apr 21st, 2002, 07:17 PM

Originally posted by Guv
JPB Tennisman: One of the nice features of the ASUS motherborads with 4 IDE ports, is having a separate port for the CD-R & the CD-RW.

You sure you aren't talking about a RAID board with 2 IDE channels and 2 RAID channels?

If so...Asus has them..but so do many other manufacturers. And in that case it would be possible to throw the hard drives on the RAID controllers (which can be used as ATA controllers) and the optical drives on the primary/secondary IDE.

I've honestly never seen a board with 4 non-RAID IDE channels...prove me wrong

**Guv** · Apr 21st, 2002, 08:21 PM

JPB Tennisman: The boards I have in mind have RAID capabilites, which I would not touch with a 3.048cm pole.

I always thought of them as having 4 IDE ports with RAID supported by the BIOS if you wanted to use it. As far as I know RAID is a bad idea for most users.

**HarryW** · Apr 21st, 2002, 08:21 PM

When ATA-33 was the standard and the new ATA-66 controllers were coming out, many motherboards had 2 ATA-33 controllers plus 2 ATA-66 controllers. Likewise for ATA-100 when that was released. Never seen more than 2 of the same type on a motherboard.

I am pretty sure you can get extra controllers on PCI cards if it's really important.

Still, I don't think it's something specific to Asus.

Many motherboards come with 4 USB ports now - 2 on the motherboard and 2 (or 4 even) on an extension that fits into a backplate and plugs into the board.

**JungleMan** · Apr 21st, 2002, 08:27 PM

Originally posted by Guv
[B]I always thought of them as having 4 IDE ports with RAID supported by the BIOS if you wanted to use it. As far as I know RAID is a bad idea for most users.

True, don't think you can use CDROMs and CDRWs on the RAID controllers though, but you can throw the HDDs on there

As Harry said, it's not anything specific to Asus.

I sorta agree with you on RAID. Unless you are working with large files it's a waste.

**JoshT** · Apr 22nd, 2002, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by jpbtennisman

I've honestly never seen a board with 4 non-RAID IDE channels...prove me wrong

I have an ASUS at home that has this - the MB had two ata66 channels, and there's and optional Promise ATA100 controller that adds two more.

This is it:
http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v/overview.htm

I think these came out at the same time as ATA100 did - it might've been a quick way for ASUS to market the MB as "ATA100".

scoutt · Apr 22nd, 2002, 11:46 AM

thats the board I have Josh, excellent board too.

scoutt · Apr 22nd, 2002, 11:55 AM

Originally posted by Guv
JPB Tennisman: One of the nice features of the ASUS motherborads with 4 IDE ports, is having a separate port for the CD-R & the CD-RW.

I agree that even with separate ports, it is probably better to copy the CD to a hard disk partition and burn from the hard disk.

on the boards that have 4 ide ports (one ata100 & one ata66) you can only use the primary for the harddrive and the secondary for the cdrom etc. you can't put the hard drinves on teeh ata100 and the cdrom on the primary of the ata66. one defaults the other out. so there is no advantage to having 4 ide's on the same board as you can only use 2.

PS no matter what scoutt tells you an orb is a **** cooler

it was good in it's day

**Guv** · Apr 22nd, 2002, 04:32 PM

Scoutt: The ASUS motherboard I have allows use of all IDE ports. Furthermore, all are ATA100 ports.

As far as I know, the only difference between the two pairs of ports is that one pair has RAID 0 capability, which I never intended to use.

I have three 40GB hard disks on the primary pair of ports: Master & Slave on the primary & a stand alone on the secondary. I have a stand alone CD-R on the third port and a CD-RW on the fourth.

As far as I know, I could run 8 IDE devices. The only restriction I am aware of is that there are problems if CD devices are ahead of Hard Disks. Id est: The first port must be used for a hard disk.

**JungleMan** · Apr 22nd, 2002, 04:39 PM

<-- Epox fan

great OCers boards at reasonable prices..no BS onboard either!

Anyways...had an Epox 8k7a+...had a RAID controller. Functioned as an ATA/100 at least with my hard disk, didn't try any CDRWs/DVDs on it.

The only restriction I am aware of is that there are problems if CD devices are ahead of Hard Disks. Id est: The first port must be used for a hard disk.

Do you mean if the CDROM is master and the HDD is slave? If so that's wrong, I'm running my CDRW as Secondary Master and a hard drive as Secondary Slave right now.

scoutt · Apr 22nd, 2002, 05:38 PM

Originally posted by Guv
Scoutt: The ASUS motherboard I have allows use of all IDE ports. Furthermore, all are ATA100 ports.

As far as I know, the only difference between the two pairs of ports is that one pair has RAID 0 capability, which I never intended to use.

I have three 40GB hard disks on the primary pair of ports: Master & Slave on the primary & a stand alone on the secondary. I have a stand alone CD-R on the third port and a CD-RW on the fourth.

As far as I know, I could run 8 IDE devices. The only restriction I am aware of is that there are problems if CD devices are ahead of Hard Disks. Id est: The first port must be used for a hard disk.

what version do you have? my says right in the manual that you can't do that, but I don't have raid on mine either.

Do you mean if the CDROM is master and the HDD is slave? If so that's wrong, I'm running my CDRW as Secondary Master and a hard drive as Secondary Slave right now

no Justin he is talking about having a cd rom on the primary master, which you can't. you have it on the secondary master, which is ok.

**kalicki** · Apr 22nd, 2002, 06:52 PM

Justin:

The new Asus board with no Legacy on it has like a gazillion on there.... I can't find a linky for it right now though....

**JungleMan** · Apr 22nd, 2002, 06:59 PM

Originally posted by kalicki
Justin:

The new Asus board with no Legacy on it has like a gazillion on there.... I can't find a linky for it right now though....

It's an Abit and it sucks because it has no legacy (HELLO? I still have 2 serial devices) and only 3 PCI

And it's overpriced just like every other board Abit makes

**kalicki** · Apr 22nd, 2002, 07:05 PM

Whatever... It still has like a gazillion IDE ports.... Not like I said it was a good board...

**JungleMan** · Apr 22nd, 2002, 07:09 PM

Originally posted by kalicki
Whatever... It still has like a gazillion IDE ports.... Not like I said it was a good board...

it has 2 IDE and 4 RAID actually

the HPT-374 is a new Highpoint chip, EVERYONE will have it soon

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