Building a P4 1.6a machine and need advice

[Simmion]

Hello

I plan on building my first PC in the near future and would like some advice on the parts I selected (good/bad). I do plan on overclocking, however, which I believe is occomplished by increasing the bus speed from 100 mhz to 133 mhz in the bios (please correct me if i am wrong). Note that all prices are from www.newegg.com.

Motherboard - Asus P4B266-C Intel 845D chipset ATX Motherboard-OEM Model#: P4B266-C (uses DDR memory) ($117.00)

Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda IV 60GB 7200RPM ST360021A Hard Drive Model#: ST360021A ($113.00)

CPU - Intel Pentium 4 1.6A GHz 512K Socket 478 Processor 400MHz Processor Bus- RETAIL Model#: BX80532PC1600D ($148.00)

Case - ANTEC Mini Tower ATX Case Model SX635 with 350 Watt Power Supply For Pentium 4. Model#: SX635 ($79.00)

Sound Card - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Xgamer Model#: SB0090X ($84.00)

CD Writer - PLEXTOR PX-W2410TA/SW 24x10x40 CD-RW - RETAIL Model#: PX-W2410TA ($138.00)

CD Reader - TOSHIBA INTERNAL DVD ROM, 16X DVD, 48X CD ROM Model#: SD-M1612 ($50.00)

Video Card - ATI RADEON 8500 LE 64MB DDR - OEM/White Box ($166.00)

Thank you for taking the time to read my message.

Simmion

 

[tornadobox]

that looks like a great setup and you're going to LOVE that Antec case

for overclocking the ASUS P4B266-C just make sure you're not using a Microsoft USB mouse, because for some reason many people have had problems using their Microsoft USB mice and getting the ASUS board to post at 133FSB (other usb mice and devices work fine though for some reason)

look here for info about that problem.

what RAM are you going with? many have had good success with Crucial and Samsung chips, I personally like Mushkin myself

 

[Mavrick007]

Sounds like a nice machine for around $900(without ram). Any reason you're going with the Seagate hd? Is it because of sound?
What kind of ram are you going to get?

 

[Challenger]

Looks good to me only thing I would change is go for a Lite-On 24x(you can get one for about$50 less)

 

[Simmion]

Hello

I would like to thank you all for taking the time to read my message and answer my questions. I would like to respond to the following:

1) What RAM are you going with?

I plan on going with 2 sticks of Crucial 2100 DDR memory. I do not know what the differences are between the different brand types (Crucial, Samsung, Muskin, etc.) but it seems that most people have been going with Crucial (from my research). Anyways, if it's good enough for people who know what they are doing then it's good enough for me.

2) Any reason you're going with the Seagate hd?

I did some research and from what I saw it seems that Seagate is the Cadallic of the Hard Drive industry. Also, alot of threads I read contained nothing but compliments about Seagate hard drives. Now I'm sure there are some bad eggs out there somewhere, but from the majority of what I read it seems that Seagate is the way to go.

Thank you again.

Simmion

 

[teckguy1]

I just built two such systems last week for a client using the asus board and cpu you have selected. They worked well and have been bug free through the installation of W2P, Office 2000 pro and a variety of other banking software. I called Asus directly in NJ and their tecks recommended Crucial memory so your choice conforms with their recommendations. We actually used kingston on this order and crucual on last. Both worked fine.

Also got a plex 16x and a yamaha 24x burner. Surprising the plex is more sensitive to my current collection of disks burned on an old Teac R55s burner at 4x and will not read them. The yamaha will read all. Although the yamaha is rated higher the plex runs faster burn speed. no question of that after several disks and their is a big difference in burn speeds. I still like the yamaha but it isn't as fast as the review sites would have you believe. 480mb took 7 minutes. many of the review sites claimed speeds closer to 4 minutes on a 640mb full disk burn. no way.

Power is a big issue. For years I have been buying PC power and cooling silencer 275 or 400 PS. Always costly but top quality. Have moved to enermax 300 and 365 quiet models on this order after much research and testing. Very affordable and very similar power output on all rails. For a loaded system maybe 365 is better but noisier. many over clocker guys don't care about noise. I do as do most of my banking clients. 400w is to noisy in most cases, 365 ok 300 are relatively quiet. I used 300 quiet model for now and will try 365 quiet model on next order of 6 systems this week. Note you have to specify quiet models or vendors give you regular ones. See enermax site for actual model numbers. Of course it goes w/o saying your end environment has total true grounding on outlets you use and you have good ups such as APC 500 office available for about $60 at Sams Club and other discount outlets when available.

I used radeon SE 32mb card with KDS 15 RAd 5 flat screen. Very clear and worked fine. Banks don't need high end stuff.

Have used WDC drives for years and recently Max 20gb 7200 ata 100 drives and WCD 200BB. Max is co that developed the ATA 133 standard for what its worth. In 15 years I can count on one hand number of drives that have failed. Have bought 100's.

Key is clean power, good grounding so as to never subject system to static shock or bad power. Definitely extends life although systems become tech obsolete far sooner than functionally obsolete, have lots of old systems for which new drivers are not avail for new os. Clients upgrade not from choice but due to lack of support on old equipment. They tend to be cheap and think pc should last 20 years like a typewriter.

You have made good choices.