What do I get?
It must be a windows machine. Probably XP Pro.
Will start with 512MB RAM, probably add some more later.
Want to get a Pentium 4, but there are all different types yes? The latest is Prescott and is sposed to be gooder yes? The price varies wildly on processor speed. How important is processor speed, in the scheme of things? I have no idea about mother boards. Is there a good better best in mother boards? It is NOT a games machine. Its a websurfing and programming/database machine which doesnt really NEED such high spec, but would be nice to have.

In the meantime I am working on this Compaq Deskpro EP500 (it says on the label) its a Celeron 500 processor, which I have upgraded the ram to 128MB and Win98 (was 95). I just cant get the bloody screen resolution better than 16 colours @ 680 x 400. Its a PITA! The graphics card (and sound) seems to built onto the motherboard otherwise I would have swapped it with the dead pentiums. I can do without sound but I cant see images. I've searched for drivers with no luck. Tried installing drivers for similar compaq numbers but it dont like it, so it's got whatever microsoft update says it can have. It does have the OEM monitor driver from LG so that aint it. Fix it for me please.

dont buy a built machine buy the parts and either get the shop to assemble it for you or assemble it yourself its not hard......

i recomend u buy an AMD athlon 2500+XP chip which uses the barton core architecture of not the latest but second latest AMD chips and can be bought for rather cheap now and is a quick CPU.

base this on a Soltek FRN Nforce2 powered mainboard

seeing as u dont want super graphics for what u are doing u could get away with a pretty crappy graphics card such as an MX400 geforce 2 card.....though it is worth getting something half decent so i think a radeon 9200 128MB card.

get 512MB of DDR 400 ram....(in 2 sticks of 256 so u can use the dual channel capabilitys of the MB) it doesnt really matter to much what brand u get .....but probobly the best brand is "Corsair" however this stuff is mega expensive.

depending on how much space u think u will need......get a Seagate Barracuda (comes in 40, 60, 80, 120 and possibly larger) make sure u get an 8mb cache hard disc not an older 2MB cache

modems are a dime a dozen just get a generic 56K u are looking at 40 bucks

the mainboards have in built 6 channel sound (though u can only use this if u buy the raiser card damn money hungry bitches) but u can still use the one sound port on the board so u dont need a soundcard

get a Lite-on 52*32*52 burner.....they are only about 70 bucks or just use your old drives from your other computer

if u want a lan card get a Netcomm 10/100 card for about 15 bucks

get a generic A: drive

if u want a DVD rom or burner u can get a Lite-on DVD rom for about 65 i think mine was a couple of months ago and a burner will set u back 300 bucks

other than that just hook it up in a standard ATX case with a power supply of at least 300 watts or so and u are away

dont be tempted towards LCD moniters the quality of fast moving images is so poor that if u want to play any games or watch movies u just get so pissed off and they are too expensive anyway.......get a decent CRT moniter to your liking and a new keyboard, mouse and speakers .........bobs your mums brother

Nick












:P

as for your drivers problem.....go to http://www.driverguide.com.....the  user name is "drivers" and the password is "all" ......if it aint there then u arent gonna find it

There is a computer fair here tomorrow. If I can beg borrow steal some money I may go and pick out some toys. If not I can go window shopping. The local shop will do assembly for $79. Not sure if that is good or not, but cheap insurance. My luck lately isnt going too well. Dont know how my first attempts at playing inside the box went without a hitch but now the shit blows up when it sees me coming with the screwdriver.

Can I use my NVidia 32 MB graphics card? (think that is what it is)

What is dual channel capabilitys of the MB?

My current 12GB hard drive is only using 3.3GB although that would probably stretch out to 6 if I could get Oracle to work. It is 5 yrs old though.

I have an external modem because I hate the inbuilt on a card thingos. The one I used to have in the now dead PC used to drop out all the time. The one in my sisters XP box did the same when I had it last week. Could be my ISP?? I dunno but I wont have another internal shitbox. Decided a year ago that I would go ADSL anyway. Just need to pull the finger out.

I have a Soundblaster 16 card? any good to me?
Got DVD ROM already.
Got CD burner already
Got a couple of network cards, a thousand A drives, 3 power supplies. Are all cases created equal? Can I use the old one?
Have brand new LG monitor cos old one died of old age. Love LCD but out of my league at the moment. The new PCs at uni dont have A drives anymore. They all have CD burners, but I think they want us to use USB memory sticks. Zip drives didnt last too long did they!

.........bobs your mums brother
yes he is!!! how did you know??

One more thing, a mate has a removable hard drive bay. Just swaps and changes between operating systems at will. Is there anything bad about these setups? Thinking that they could come in handy to let other family members have there own HD's as insurance against losing some important stuff. Even though networking and dual boot might be just as effective.

And one more thing. Is there a Net Nanny type thing that I can tell it to only let my daughter have access to say barbie.com, abckids.com.au, and nothing else, yet still let me into sites like BigBustyBabesInVeeDubBuses.com ?

well if it isnt at driver guide i dont think u are gonna find it mate.......dual channel is where the board draws from 2 sticks and linking into 1 kinda (as far as i know ) which incresases the speed kinda......yes u can use the 32mb graphics card.....and forget about the sound card a 16 is wayyyy outa date......if youre old case is an ATX case and not an older style AT case then u can use the old one........and i have a removable bay......its tip top.......about that net nanny thing......i really dont know.....ive never looked into stuff like that but someone else should know such as vanderaj perhaps.......good luck with your purchase feel free to U2U me if u need to ask a question

hmm

I would go with a


P4 2.6+ 2.8's seem cheap
512mb ram DDR400
a 64mb card, Radeon 9200's are about $75
a New case with 350W Power supply
and a Samsung Flatscreen 17" CRT ($190)


as for installing, $79 sounds good, with expensive pc's it certainly is cheap insurance.

i would never pay $79, even if insurance....do it myself!! he he...I learnt alot doing my brothers computer without stuffing up...and i have done things with mine by myself, but i do things as cheap as i can being a uni student! Computers are pretty easy to work with...hmmm problem i have is cars still got to get my head around all that happens in that engine bay?!

i asseble all my computers and service pretty much everything.....im always tinkering....its not really that difficult

Oh I agree, If you can build thats awesome, but Still those cpu's are fiddly

MMMM computer fairs. Caaaandy.

AMD Athlon 2800: $195 ish
PIV 2.8 533 FSB = $200ish
PIV 2.8 1M FSB = $250ish

Never saw any FRN boards??? The were heaps of gigabyte boards but none with FRN. $125, $145
ASUS P4C800 was rare only 2 people had them. $265 and $270. plenty of P4P800S and P4P800E, what are they?

Plenty of different types of Radeon 9200's with different suffixes. One I saw with 128MB $125, another $145, but didnt take too much notice to others because I didnt know which one.

Didnt buy anything though. Not even a sausage sandwich.

the FRN boards are made by Soltek which is a reputable brand and i highly recomend them .......i dont have much to do with pentiums anymore so i cant tell u about the P4 boards......however unless u get a 64bit AMD (which u wont cause they are too expensive and over kill for what u want) then the best AMD chipset is the Nforce2 chipset.....gigabyte is also a decent brand that i would buy.....ive never owned an asus board before but i know that all of their components come underclocked meaning that they are running slightly under spec to try to prolong the life.......dont get fooled into buying an older VIA 266,333,400 chipseted board cause they are well out of date.......i wouldnt even buy a VIA KT600 or 800 board.........in case u arent following the chipset is made up of 2 chips on the board the north bridge and the south bridge which controll ram and cpu etc. they are not brands of boards.....for instance the Soltek FRN mainboard series use the Nforce2 chip set. all of these chipsets i have mentioned are for AMD processors i dont know squat about pentium stuff cause ive been an AMD man for quite some time........god i sound like a nerd .....i hope i havent just rambled on and not given u anything u can actually use:P

Chris,

if the budget's limited, definitely go AMD. Better performance for your $$$.

If you're after pre-packaged...

I always point my relatives and friends who've had a PC before to:

http://www.dell.com.au 

Dell are very good value for OEM systems, and I will definitely buy from them again.

If the friends or relatives are that way inclined, or have never used a computer before:

http://www.apple.com.au 

The iMac 17" is to die for, and MacOS X is so much better for newbies, power users and the aesthetically inclined (but not gamers... but then who plays games on a PC any more?

http://au.playstation.com/  <- still the best
http://www.xbox.com/en-au/  <- very good value right now
http://www.nintendo.com.au/  <- Gamecubes are cheap as, but also very few games. But they now have Mario Cart, and so all is forgiven

Andrew

I've been reading on PC forums that the prescott has some reliabilty/overheating/optimistic speeds so I will turn away from those.

I have been sprouting off numbers and codes that I dont have any idea about left right and centre. Its all good. I am slowly learning stuff. There was a time when I thought I was failry knowledgable about computer hardware. many moons ago.

Must act soon. I have to highlight most of the text on this PC so I can read it!

I've posted this on other forums to get a more diverse opinion> hope that doesnt upset ppl.


After my recent attempt to install some extra RAM in an aging P3 machine (nuked motherboard) I am in the market for a new system.

I was considering a prescott as recomended by a local shop but have read on this board and others that they may have some overheating issues and arent quite up to their rated speeds anyway.

The current local (aussie dollar) prices are:
Athlon 2800XP $195
P4 2.8 533FSB $210
P4 2.8 1GFSB $250

Are AMD MHz equivalent to Intel MHz? Do they use different methods of rating their processors? Am I right to settle with Northwoods if I go P4? How important is CPU speed in the scheme of things? Is it limited by bus speeds and other motherboard/RAM issues anyway?

I have no idea about mother boards. What has been suggested by friends is a Soltek FRN Nforce 2 for an AMD or ASUS P4C800 for the P4. Any suggestions welcomed.

My requirements:
It must be a windows machine. Probably XP Home.
Will start with 512MB RAM, probably add some more later.
The price varies wildly on processor speed. Is there a good better best in mother boards? It is NOT a games machine. Its a websurfing and programming/database machine (I am a uni student) which doesnt really NEED such high spec, but would be nice to have, if only for bragging purposes.

Just stick with something you can trust....INTEL motherboard and P4 processor are the go in my opinion. If you get one stick of 512 RAM the upgrade later on is easier as you just get another one and plug it in. If you wanna buy online you can't go past the DELL systems. Very good value. My old man just bought one and it is excellent. He ordered it on a Thursday and recieved it on the Monday morning,ready to go!! I've got a DELL laptop and the quality/reliability is faultless. My desktop is a P4/Intel m'board with 1gig ram. No overheating issues with it(live in the tropics). Only failure was an old hard drive died and lost 68 gigs of music videos. Get a new hard drive!!! Good luck!!

acually ive found that new Hard discs tend to fail and the older discs (though smaller) tend to hang around ....ive got an ancient 486DX under my bed with a perfect 640MB HDD in it and its goin strong :thumb ..........as for how AMD rate their processors.......no AMD use a lower clockspeed but still acheive a similar speed in their processors......it is to with level 1 and 2 cache and the arcitecture of the Processors.....basically although an AMD athlon 2800XP runs a significantly lower clock speed it will perform similarly (in the same leauge) as a 2.8GHZ pentium and so a 3000XP athlon to a 3GHZ pentium.....etc........AMD supported boards and AMD chips also run at slower front side bus speeds to pentiums.

If you want something that will work - no hassles ... go a Intel motherboard - they are solid performers very few problems - obviously Intel CPU too - whatever you can afford - in reality - everything on the market sounds like it will serve your purposes honourably !!

CPU's - AMD's marketers have decided that while their CPU's cannot keep up with Intel in numbers speed i.e. MHz they still seem to run as quick as the equivalent Intel CPU - for example a 2800XP AMD runs as fast as an Intel 2.8GHz ... depending which groupy you talk to they will tell you one is better than the other (its a Ford Vs Holden sort of thing) in reality - if you want fewer problems go the Intel.

Sound - Unless you are right into mixing etc. just use the onboard sound card ... no need for a separate one ... they are really good now days.

Video card - get a decent one - around the $100+ mark usually is good... if you really want to spend more - do it ...

The rest is really personal taste - i.e. monitor - keyboard, mouse etc ...

Ideally ALWAYS go for brand name stuff ... having worked in the industry for too long, you may get away with cheap no-name brands, but you may risk quality which in turn converts to downtime (not good)! I cannot stress this enough - after dealing with many angry cheap asses - do yourself and whoever you buy it off a favour and try and get the quality gear ... by the sounds of it anything on the market will be suitable.

If you are using databases I would suggest getting as much RAM as possible - the more ram you have the more the computer can 'write' at any one time ... in other words get at least 512Mb.

Oh, and one final point - get a good quality case - more precisley get a good quality power supply - and a good quality surge protector - DO NOT get sucked in by flashy, shiny cases - in reality - it's all about the power supply, a shit one will/may blow and you will be up for a new box - a cheap case is ~$50 a quality one is ~$100 ... spend the extra $50 bucks!!!

Hope this helps!!!

Intel's marketers are also going away from speed. The new P4 M's are not widely advertised in GHz, but they seriously wipe P4 desktop CPUs nearly twice their clock speed.

Clock speed is not everything. An Opteron 3200+ (64 bit AMD) running at 2 GHz is definitely faster in 32 bit mode than a 3.2 GHz P4, and once XP 64 bit is out the door (later this year - if you need it, I can get it), it will be faster again.

Read these two articles:

(Prescott 3.6 GHz)

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040322/index.html 

Athlon 64 - FX-53 (2.6 GHz)
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040318/index.html 

The AMD running some 1 GHz slower than Prescott is only about 5% slower in CPU intensive benchmarks, and about 20% faster at memory bandwidth (256 bit data path, borrowed from the Alpha EV8 architecture wins for obvious reasons). The AMD is 64 bit versus 32 bit, and has a better microarchitecture. Plus, it's cheaper.

Andrew

woohoo. nice to see you all in true 24 bit colour, 1024x768 resolution. No more horizontal scrolling and not every picture looks like a snow storm now. I got the IT guy at uni who I bought this $60 dunger from to find me a driver for it. There it was at Compaq web site. Now why they dont just call a EP500 Deskpro an EP500 Deskpro so we can all download our drivers I just dunno. But there was a happy ending, so I am happy abbout that. Makes it so much more liveable.

More questions....
I have noticed that I am getting ISP dropouts more often. Same modem. Is that just because when they tried to bill me last the account was overdrawn???

I've also noticed that a few times the modem has been working hard for no apparent reason. Scared I am being hacked so I kill the connection. Did a security scan at symantic website and my port 139 is open. Should I make a priority to learn how to close it?

Appears that I am having macromedia troubles. Some ads are flickering and sending me insane. Other than update shockwave (which I thought I already had done) is there anything else that could cause this?

If I can last another month with this computer (jeez its slow) things regarding the new purchase (time, money, research) will be a whole lot easier.

heee's baaaaack. with more Q's.

Well here I am all cashed up thanks to the mortgage redraw facility. Computer fair is in 2 weeks time. I have decided to go with Intel processor. Why? Umm probably the same reason we all choose PC over mac... cos we victims of superior marketing, and I had $30K available.

Found this website. http://www.motherboards.org/rank/Intel/total/motherboard-rank.html  The ASUS board stacks up pretty well.

So here goes with more questions. Please explain "chipset"

And what P4 do I get??? there are just so many P4's out there that all seem near enough alike. How do I know which P4's are northwoods and which are prescotts. There is a link to CPU's on the above website that totally boggles my mind. Do you choose speed over cache size or vice versa??? CPU speed over bus speed or vice versa. Its all just too hard.

From what I gather, dell only want to sell a complete system. Where as I only want a case, cpu, HD, graphics card. I have plenty of DVD's, CD burners, monitors, keyboards, meeces, 1000 a drives....

I think the uni has got a dodgy batch of dells over christmas though. in one lab the mice have gone dodgy (and they glue them shut so you cant clean them) which aint too bad, wouldnt happen here with my neutered one, but a lot of monitors have gone shakey. Good thing I dont have epilepsy. I really really like the sexy flat screen jobbies which one of the labs got though. Dell supplies all of the PC's at uni and I have never had complaints over the 5 years until now.

I dunno how this thing zapped. I did all the right things. unlucky I guess.

if the CPU is the brain of the computer then the Chipset is the nervous system of the computer........it is usually 2 chips north bridge and a south bridge on some newer boards it is all done by one chip......the chipset regulates front side bus speed and PCI speed etc. as well as transfering data from ram and graphics etc to the processor to be sorter out.


as for dell.......although they are a great company u are correct they wont sell u an incomplete computer.........go to sites like http://www.thediscshop.com.au  and http://www.gamedude.com.au  to get a feel for prices.......if u want to go Intel then i cant help u on chipset choice etc because ive been an AMD man for some time and dont know whats good in Intel these days..........frenzix is right sometimes u just cant help frying components.....it just happens its one of those things.

in my honest opinion, for best performance vs $ spent, id go the MAC!!
sorry, im biased, im in love with them at the moment.

seeing its not a games machine, it doesnt really matter what processor you get, but if you would like to play games on it at any time, i suggest going the AMD (and yes im biased because apart from being a mac girl, im also an AMD girl) not only that, but AMD's are cheaper and run just as well as any intel.

if you really want to splurge, i suggest going SATA (serial ATA) for your HDD/s, and get raid, in combination, they are AMAZING! the only problem i have found with using raid is that its VERY sensetive to power fluctuations, so if your place is prone to brown-outs or weird power flutters, either dont use raid, or get a UPS. While a UPS is a bit $$, its worth it if you leave your computer on all the time or have lots of important stuff on there that you cant afford to lose if your place is in a blackout and it kills your HDD...

RAM prices seem to be on the rise again, so i would get as much of it as you can afford before it gets too expensive. you can pick up a decent graphics card for quite cheap these days so no problems there.

if you do go AMD, get an asus motherboard, they seem to be the best, use arctic silver thermal compound on your processor for cooling, and the Thermaltake Volcano 12 is the BEST CPU fan you can get, its around $60, has fanspeed control and a VERY serious copper heatsink.

i built my friend a great games machine a month ago for $1800 (then he got himself a perfect 2nd-hand 21" trinitron monitor for $400!) but it was mostly top-of-the-line hardware, so im sure you could build yourself a complete system for that price or less depending on where u buy your hardware from and what specs you need. Seeing youve got most of the other bits and pieces that go into making up up system, im thinking your total cost is going to be alot alot less.

keep us posted on what you come up with!

Quote:

Originally posted by Starbuggy in my honest opinion, for best performance vs $ spent, id go the MAC!!

aftermarket CPU coolers are somehting u wont have to worry about.......i have one which keeps my AMD thoughoubred at below 30 degrees (Spire FalconRock 2) .....but for someone who isnt overclocking or into performance and games and things like that that can make your processor very warm, its over kill.........i have a modded case with a window and cold cathode neon and LED fans, Rheobus ETC.....alot of my mods are to do with cooling and performance and not looks but i sharnt get into that........i agree macs shit me to tears and i wouldnt even consider spending money on one........i would buy the parts and put the thing together yourself if i were u ....it will be cheaper (u will lose money if u sell your old stuff and buy a dell) and u will have a learning experience and a sense of satisfaction afterwards

anthiron- i understand what you mean about aftermarket cooling as overkill, but im of the midset that the cooler you can keep your cpu the better performance and longer life you will get from it. Ive also found the heatsinks/fans that come with the CPU to be too small/pissy to overcome the effects of ambient temperature and arent too good at keeping the cpu at a decent temperature in summer, even if you arent doing stuff that is CPU intensive.

dont sell your old hardware amazer, its not worth the time and effort, and its better if you use them anyways.

my spire falconrock2 does indeed keep my CPU rather cool .....however my stock AMD cooler kept my chip well below the 80 or so degrees it can safly operate at even in summer on the sunshine coast......you are right a cooler computer is a more reliable computer..but if the stock cooler is pretty good.......and ive heard the new P4 coolers are pretty good then i wouldnt worry about it

OK If anyone should have any doubts about this marriage speak now or forever hold their peace.

I have a pocket full of money and a shiny new VISA card. Tomorrow is the day.

Pentium 4 2.8/800 $276
ASUS P4C800 MB $265
512MB DDR 400 PC3200 RAM kingston $160
ASUS 9200SE ATI Radeon graphics $90
80GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm 8MB HD $115
Some kinda box to put it all in. $80~100

Don't forget yer sound card!!!