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Building 3 PC's for Friend. Help Me Pick Parts.

L

l33t

Member
This guy does tombstone designs and asked me to build him 3 pc's.

From what I understand, he has several layouts and images that he uses as a reference to create custom tombstone designs. He creates the designs in photoshop, then prints them out (i dont know on what but i know it gets blown up), and he uses it as tracing paper sort of to carve out or somehow engrave the custom design on marble slabs and columns.

ATM he only has 1 computer that's shared with his 3 co-workers and he needs 3 new ones and wants me to build them for him.

Now you guys gotta give me a hand in picking parts 🙂

He has lost all his work from a computer crash so stability is a BIG must. He wants to keep them low cost but not at the sacrafice of stability due to hardware crash so that means NO overclocking is necessary.

Here's what I was thinking of ordering online all from one place from wherever is overall cheaper.

athlon xp 1600 ~ $55 (need stability, retail or oem+hsf?)
1x256mb ddr 2100 ~ $67
mobo ~ $100 (pref with onboard sound/lan/audio)
case/ps ~ $60 ( I like this one )
cheap cdrom ~ $20 ?
cheap floppy ~ $5 ?
video ~ onboard or get a decent with good 2d?
17"-19" monitor ~ $? no clue, i might have to buy these in town since shipping for 3 of these might be costly
3button+wheel optical mouse
vanilla 102 key keyboard
XP Prof or Win2000 Pro. ~ $145
20GB 7200rpm HDD ~ $65

I dont know photoshop. What would help more: faster cpu, better graphics card, more ram?

I'll have to check out his current computer to see how much space his designs use to maybe get them bigger drives but for now,i think 20 is good.

He wants to network them together so that's why im looking for onboard lan atm. I'm debating wether to get him wireless or not. On friday im going to his work to check out the building and ask him. He wants internet access for email which I think he does from home with dial up so I might get him a 4 port wireless router + access point and wireless nics (but still keep onboard lan for troubleshooting) in case later on he wants to get road runner at his work and split it out, he'll have the hardware already in place. I will get all Netgear wireless b/c of good reviews at tomshardware.

One last question. How much should I charge for building 3 pc's, installing all hardware/drivers including setting up XP and wireless networking? I've built comp's for friends and myself but never charged labor/troubleshooting/installation. NO clue here.
 
Since you've decided on AMD, go with the ASUS K7N266-VM board for $76. For the case, I like the EVERCASE E4252-ABV for $38 at Newegg because if you don't hook up the side fan it's exceptionally quiet. Much more so than the Enlight. Plus it's got front USB.
 
CPU - Athlon XP is an excellent choice for his purposes. You may be able to get a 1700 or 1800 for only a few dollars more. Go with retail. You get the warranty and the retail hsf works fine as long as you aren't overclocking.
OS - If you decide on Win XP, get 512 MB RAM. It uses a lot of memory and you will get a lot less paging to the hard drive.
Case - The Enlight is nice and has a good solid PSU. I don't know about the Evercase kgraeme suggested.
Video - Onboard would be fine for 2D work. Nforce 2 w/ video would work well for him. Or get a Radeon 8500 for under $100.
Monitor - Depends on what he is use to and what he wants to spend. 17 or 19 are best value.
HDD - Going up to a 40 or 60 gig wouldn't cost much more and may be worth it.
 
From Newegg:
Case - ANTEC SOLUTION SERIES MODEL SLK1600 (BEIGE) w/ANTEC SMART POWER 300W - $62.00
Motherboard - Asus A7N266-VM - $72.99
CPU - AMD Athlon 1600+ OEM - $55.99
RAM - KINGSTON KVR266X64C25/512 512MB DDR PC2100 - $127.00
FLOPPY - ALPS 3.5" BEIGE - $12.00
HARD DRIVE - IBM 40GB 7200RPM 120GXP - $77.00
MONITOR - Samsung CRT Monitor 765MB 17" Flat screen - $199.00
CD-ROM - AOPEN CD-952E 52x -$20
FAN - CPU FAN IGLOO 2320 (AMD/INTEL) RTL - $10.00
OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 1 (3 Pack) - $258.00

SUB - TOTAL: $635.98
x3:1907.94 + $258 (for windows)
Shipping: $27.00
TOTAL: $2192.94

Ok I choose the Antec case simply because it comes with free shipping and it includes a high quality power supply. Then I opted for 512MB of RAM as photoshop is pretty RAM intensive, and i took a 40GB hard drive since it is only a marginal price difference. And finally, Windows XP Home since he simply does not need any of the features that were added into the Pro version.

Edit: Changed Windows XP Home Edition to a 3 pack.
 
look no offense but if he has sensitive data then the CPU/mobo pick aren't going to be the main concern, it's going to be the storage device, i.e. HARD DRIVE. Get a RAID Card and setup a RAID 1 array, that will ensure data integrity and is a cheap alternative to a seperate external enclosure or the like. It'll automatically make a duplicate copy of the hard drive every time he writes to it so in the event of a hard drive failure he's always got a backup. If all he does is what you've said then get him a cheap but decent Vid card, a GF2 or a GF4 440 they're $50 or less and he'll be greatful in the long run a $100 vid card is not necessary for PSing, even for a pro if this is a budget system. As for your hard drive setup don't skimp, a cheezy 20GB hard drive is a bad choice IMO. Whatever drive you settle on, GET 2 7200rpm and a RAID card and set it up in RAID 1, it'll solve 99% of any future data loss problems.

Also look into where his computers are (environment) if it's heavy dust then u might want to get him some fan filters to prolong the life of the machine.
 
Um unless you want to be providing technical support for your friend, I would advise you to have him just buy a dell system.
 
I have both the enlight and the evercase. The enlight seems a bit more sturdy and well built, but I think I like the evercase more. The PSU in the evercase has no problem running my k7s5a, so I'm assuming it's not a bad PSU.
 
Originally posted by: RichieZZZZ
Um unless you want to be providing technical support for your friend, I would advise you to have him just buy a dell system.
Click to expand...
That's not a bad idea at all. I just configured a system on Dell's site for $908 (not including shipping and taxes). It looked like this:
17" Flat Monitor
2.4GHz P4
nVidia GF4 MX 64MB vid card
80GB Hard Drive
256MB of RAM
3 years of NBD On-site service

If you do build the system yourself, I'd also suggest the RAID 1 setup. This Adaptec controller on MWave's website is the cheapest I could find (Adaptec's a good quality as well) with RAID.
 
What's a good keyboard? I hate those with quiet keys that are generally reall crappy and hard to type with. (yeah I know he'll be PSing but still). I only have compaq keyboards and they have pretty good springy buttons, never sticky and take quiet a beating.
 
Originally posted by: l33t

One last question. How much should I charge for building 3 pc's, installing all hardware/drivers including setting up XP and wireless networking? I've built comp's for friends and myself but never charged labor/troubleshooting/installation. NO clue here.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that post-sales support is always more expensive to you than the build. Have you established whether you will be supporting the computers and network once it's all set up?

My recommendation is to either charge some AND charge for support, or not charge for the computers at all which puts you into a non-sales relationship which puts you into a better position to not support the computers. Not that they should have problems, but trust me on this.

If you do charge, then what price? Who's buying the parts? You or him? If you are going to support them, then you should probably buy everything and bill for the final product. Figure the cost for parts and tack on $20-50 each PC depending on what you think your skill is. Remember though, that if he's unhappy with anything after delivery, he may not pay you leaving you out for the price of 3 computers. Then you get to learn how to file a lien.
 
Originally posted by: l33t
What's a good keyboard? I hate those with quiet keys that are generally reall crappy and hard to type with. (yeah I know he'll be PSing but still). I only have compaq keyboards and they have pretty good springy buttons, never sticky and take quiet a beating.
Click to expand...

To you these may seem a little expensive but since I sit at a cmoputer a lot I like good keyboards.

Natural Style

The Standard Kind
 
I suggest that you go with the Thouroughbred AthlonXP 1700 instead of the 1600 its only 10 or 15 dollars more with fan. Definately go with Asus 220 AA board since it is cheap and very reliable. Also I suggest the 512 megs RAM since XP is very RAM hungry! That Enlight case is nice but I there are cheaper cases and that Asus board is matx so u can get cheaper matx cases.

As far as charging.....Hmmm I think you should go by hourly wage. Building three PC's doesnt always go smoothly. So I would take your time and decide a fair hourly wage. I wouldnt work for under 10!

I installed an Audigy sound card in a p2 machine. It didnt take me very long but the thing was so slow that it took forever to boot. So I spent a little over an hour. Which I had the card in 10 minutes by driver install and boot took well over 30 mins. I ended up with 40 dollars in my pocket! Not bad!
 
The Asus a7n266 vm board is very stable, but do remember to get high quality ram. Crucial works very well.

And harddrives should be reliable, and have a three year warranty. The WD400JB or 800JB are very nice. You could look at storagereviews reability database to find the right drive for you. And Raid 1 could be a nice thing. But off site backup is more important. So a ZIP drive or a CDRW would be a good thing.

You will need a quality case with a reliable psu. I have used Chieftech (Antec(?) in the us) for 20-30 computers from two years ago till now, and there havent been a single psu failure yet.

The hsf is also very important. The Igloo is not recomended! Although it is somewhat quiet, it is utter unreliable. I put up around 5 from january last year to august this year. And everyone have failed! The first one started to make terrible noice, and the temperature of the cpu went drasticly up. The second one stopped working from time to time, and made the computer shut down because of too high temperatures. The third one falled off the socket because of the extremely poor socket retention clip. It was so easy to bend! The last two would also stop spinning from time to time.

Im not sure if EKL hsf are possible to get in the us, but these are reliable and quiet.

It would also be nice to get an extra exhaust fan in the back of the case to keep the computer cool. The warmer it gets the shorter life it will have.

As for keyboards I personally like Logitech. They have been reliable and got a nice feel to it. Also the latest logitech mouses have been nice.

As for monitors you should also find some with 3 year warranty or more, and know that the rma will work. Here in norway the absolutely cheapest monitors are a real hassle to RMA, but just move alittle bit up in the price range and the monitors has 3 years on site warranty. It works great! I just phone the service company, and tells them whats wrong with the monitor, and they will ship a new one with a return postage paid. I have used it only with Hansol monitors, but lately I have started to use LG instead, and haven't had to return a single one yet.

And be sure that the power in the building is reliable. If it is shaky get some sort of surge protect or a UPS.

I hope that you will get something out from my message 🙂
 
I agree with others that you need to decide if you will be supporting the systems or not and if so, how much you will charge. Make sure you are both in agreement. As far as how much to charge, look around at what others are charging for system building and support.
The raid is a good suggestion, but adds complexity to the systems.
To avoid data loss again, he needs to have some kind of backup device. Whether it's a tape drive, or even just a cd-burner. Set something up and show him how to make daily backups of his work.
 
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