Building a new computer, opinions?

Defender · Post by **Defender** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 12:54 pm

I'm building my mother a new PC for her birthday, and here's what I got so far.
This is suppose to be a medium-speed machine used for office software, surfing, and pretty light gaming.

http://www.webinfractions.com/misc/comp_parts.jpg

Note I already bought the process, an AMD XP2000.
The rest is there.

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:22 pm

Ugh, XP Home...

That's about it for critique.

You could save a dollar or two getting a 5600rpm drive.
You could save a dollar or two with an ESS sound card instead of Creative. I have an ESS and it's twice as loud as the Creative's, and doesn't crackle.

Defender · Post by **Defender** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:25 pm

Yes, I ugh xp home too, but she's the kind of person xp home was made for.

Btw, what soundcard are you refering too?

Vindicator · Post by **Vindicator** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:31 pm

If its just a medium-speed machine, why not use the onboard sound?

Also, how much is shipping going to be for the whole thing? I noticed Newegg is charging a ton more for shipping now than they used to.

Warlock · Post by **Warlock** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:32 pm

u really dont need pro unless u have a domain or u do heavy word like cad and so on

good choice on the mem

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:37 pm

I'd let her have integrated video chipset and AC97 sound. She doesn't need a dedicated GFx card or a sound card. So the Motherboard needs to support that...

Defender · Post by **Defender** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:46 pm

This is a medium system mobi, not a POS that can't play anything made in the last 10 years.

My sister plays games, usually just the corny ones, so there needs to be something there.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:58 pm

Do not save money on 5400 RPM hard drives... get 7200, there is absolutely no excuse for getting a 5400 and trying to run XP off of it.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 3:32 pm

Krom wrote:Do not save money on 5400 RPM hard drives... get 7200, there is absolutely no excuse for getting a 5400 and trying to run XP off of it.

x2

Mobi STFU!!

Capm · Post by **Capm** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:33 pm

XP Home is crap. Get XP Pro and get SP2 and put on it before you hook it up to the net. I'd use an nForce board too, besides performing better, you can't beat their unified drivers. - And I'd split that 512 chip into two 256 chips unless you plan on adding another 512 chip sometime soon.

You can dump the Audigy and use the nforce onboard too, its pretty decent.

Don't forget to get an APC with Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR) <- very important!

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 6:58 pm

Out of random curiosity, what's so crappy about XP Home as opposed to Professional?

Vindicator · Post by **Vindicator** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:11 pm

Capm wrote:XP Home is crap. Get XP Pro and get SP2 and put on it before you hook it up to the net.

Yes, lets all suggest ways to spend more money on features that will never be used by Def's mom!

Defender · Post by **Defender** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 8:38 pm

Vindicator wrote:
Capm wrote:XP Home is crap. Get XP Pro and get SP2 and put on it before you hook it up to the net.
Yes, lets all suggest ways to spend more money on features that will never be used by Def's mom!

W3rd..

This thing isn't built for performance, it's built for her minor computer needs.

There is very little need for performance tweaks and stuff like that.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:04 pm

I would totally recommend the faster hard drives. About 80% of the time, when someone who's not a hard-core gamer complains to me that their computer is too slow, it's because of the hard drive (slow load times, slow cache reads, etc.) Gamers, of course, complain about inadequate RAM, video cards, processors, etc. but for most casual users the bottleneck they notice is the hard drive. Get the 7200 RPM drive at a minimum.

Just some random advice for when you have the computer in hand:

1) when you set up the computer and install the OS for the first time (whether you use home or pro), make sure you're not connected to the internet. Before you connect, turn on the internet connection firewall, and then when you connect, go immediately to Windows update and update as many times as necessary to get all the critical updates.

2) download zonealarm (from zonelabs.com ) and some antivirus software like AVG (from grisoft.com ) and install them both right away.

Defender · Post by **Defender** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 7:43 am

Ya, thats what I did when I built my computer lothar.
Though, this thing's only going to be connected via 56k, so I don't see a huge need for a firewall.

Not to mention windows update could take quite sometime.

Tetrad · Post by **Tetrad** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 8:58 am

Lothar wrote:About 80% of the time, when someone who's not a hard-core gamer complains to me that their computer is too slow, it's because of the hard drive (slow load times, slow cache reads, etc.)

Not that I'm disagreeing with you -- I have a f'n fast SCSI drive myself -- but if the user has enough ram they very rarely have to access the harddrive for most minor tasks. The thrashing that's making the computer slow usually seems to be from a lack of RAM, and the computer having to use virtual memory. Of course having a slow harddrive is only going to exacerbate the issue.