Building a very cheap system for a co-worker

[human2k]

Originally posted by: Bonesdad
I second (or third??) the ECS K7S5A...I too am building a PC for a friend, our budget is better ($500), but I wanted to put more into a good PSU and video card. I got the ECS K7S5A with 256MD PC133 and a Duron 1.3 for $150! Throw in a cheapish case for $39, round it out with an Antec TruePower 330W ($45 shipped from TechDepot - coupon).

I really like the K7S5A for its upgradeability...start her with a Duron, in a few months she will be in an Athlon XP 2000+ for around $50. Start with PC133 RAM, in a while after RAM prices come down again, plop in some PC2700 DDR (the K7S5A has SDRAM and DDRRAM slots). Also the onboard sound, tho not great will get her by until more $ can be found...

Nice system

for $500 you got her duron with PC133? that must suck, i just built my friend a Athlon XP 2000, ECS k7S5A, 256MB crucial DDR266, Maxtop midtower chassis with 300W PSU, Radeon 8500LE 64mb, seagate 80gb cuda, and lite-on 52x cdrw for less than $500 out the door. All parts from newegg except for Liteon drive and hard drive. GIGABUYS.COM is absolute best place for drives...period.

 

[Pothead]

case with PSU for $30, cheack HD, nothing bad with the case:

http://pcinfinity.net/Merchant2/mer...=CASELCT400&Product_Count=0&Category_Code=CSE

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: gplracer
I have built about 10 computers with the ECS K7S5A motherboard with no problems at all. All have worked fine. It comes with built in sound (that can be easily disabled) and a network card. It also will take SDR or DDR memory but not both. The motherboard at Newegg is only $57.

I take that back yours with a built in geforce might be better

Got my ECS board for £10 <eg>

 

[sandorski]

The only problem, I imagine, with the ECS k75sa is that it doesn't have onboard video, so $30-40 would have to be added for adequate video. I'd go with an original NForce, it's only $20ish more and has decent gaming video capabilities.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: VBboy
Throw in $200 for the continuous tech support that you will have to provide, along with troubleshooting and repairs. The next worst thing is building a PC for your BOSS, who will fire you if the PC sucks or crashes...

I stopped building computers for friends and relatives because it's too much to deal with AFTER the sale.

Yeah, that's pretty accurate. If they need lots of tech support, they'll have to get a Dell or something like that, or else you will need to charge for your time. I can earn money teaching things I view as simple, like how to update virus definitions, how to watch out for spyware and how to remove it if it does find its way onto the PC, how to scan pictures, and some other basic tasks.

If you are still going to build this, maybe the guy wouldn't mind a PC of used components - if he doesn't mind, go to FS/T and buy components there. Almost everything in my PC's except maybe cables and fans is from the forum. Anything that the forums don't have, SVC or Bestbyte will have.

 

[snik]

Thank you for all the input. He wants a new system after all and he agreed to increase the budget. Right now we're at $350. Now there's definitely more breathing room. He's thinking about even better components and push it up to $400. I'm estimating that I will know of his final decision by the end of thsi week.

 

[lowtech1]

Originally posted by: snik
Thank you for all the input. He wants a new system after all and he agreed to increase the budget. Right now we're at $350. Now there's definitely more breathing room. He's thinking about even better components and push it up to $400. I'm estimating that I will know of his final decision by the end of thsi week.

Does it matter if the puter run Linux only?

Does he need a monitor with the system?

Below are some compleate system with no OS/Monitor for you to gauge your price by:

Duron 1.3ghz/256MB PC133/30GB hdd/onboard video/52X CDrom - $385.00CAD ($240.00USD)

AMD XP 1800+/512MB PC133/40GB hdd/GeForce 2 MX-400/48x48x16 CD Writer - $599.00CAD ($374.00USD)

AMD XP 2100+/512MB DDR/60GB hdd/Geforce 4 MX-440/48x48x16 CD Writer - $879.00CAD ($549.00USD)

 

[Macro2]

You'll be sorry you ever built a system for an el cheapo.
I built a nice system for a friend a couple years ago Good parts. State of the art at the time. My cost. Shortly after that prices dropped on some components and his wife wanted me to refund them the difference. To this day she thinks I ripped them off.

In the meantime some know it all will come along and says..."heck, I could build you a system for "such and such an amount"...always less of course.
Of course 2 years later it would be faster. Never mind the $80 case and PS he figured $35 for etc..
Then they think you ripped them off all over again.

Mac

PS...have them order a Compaq business machine (3 years tech support) for $450 or an e-machines for $399.

 

[Bonesdad]

So glad you felt the need to try to belittle my decisions...

I buy the mobo, CPU and memory from a local dealer who I have built a relationship with. It gives me and my clients peace of mind as they have a free parts replacement warranty. All the other components I got (60 GB WD drive, 48x16x48 Lite-on CDRW, 52x CD ROM drive, 56k US Robotics PCI modem, Adaptec Firewire Card, Intellimouse, keyboard etc) I either buy from local retailers if they have a good sale/rebate or online. Her budget was $500, we came in at a little over $450...and I have excellent shop warranty on a sometimes schizo mobo. Do you?

The original point of the thread was to find a system that was within this fellows budget. My point was to assure him that MOST K7S5A boards are rocksolid and upgradeable if he wanted to go super inexpensive and upgrade later.

 

[Macro2]

From Vbboy"
"Throw in $200 for the continuous tech support that you will have to provide, along with troubleshooting and repairs. The next worst thing is building a PC for your BOSS, who will fire you if the PC sucks or crashes...
I stopped building computers for friends and relatives because it's too much to deal with AFTER the sale"

From Bent Valve...
"I have a friend that keeps going to Goodwill and buying used 100mhz computers on their last leg then he brings them over to me and asks me to get them working. Umm this is a grown 50yo man with a decent job I am talking about here, and he want this garbage fixed.
Last time he came over I told him that I did not want to work on his computers anymore , we went to a local parts house and we priced out something for about $200 but this included a refurbished drive and an ECS motherboard that I would not use myself and we were cutting
corners that I would not cut.
He said it sounded good but then the next moring he shows up at my house with "Loook what I found!!" He brings in a $10 Goodwill computer.
To make a long story short I decided I would not even consider building him something unless I can choose the parts and he has to spend at least $350-$400

From somebody...
"Make him get a Lindows PC from Walmart and have the IT guy install the pirate OS not you -- saves you time and you can send him to Walmart and his IT buddy when he needs support. Price is around $200 pre-built with a warranty."

From Macro2...
"...have them order a Compaq business machine (3 years tech support) for $450+


Can you see a pattern here?


BTW, check here for the compaq business machine, it uses Athlon XP and the Asusu nforce1 board and comes with THREE warranty/support.

LINK1
You can subtract out the CDRW for a CD-ROM and save $59 and then add a CDRW later for $ from somewhere after rebate and have both.
Tell them your an HP shareholder and they will likely knock off more.

Or here for the Intel version

Link


Then again, it is a challenge to do it yourself. Good luck.

 

[styrafoam]

I just built a pc for a coworker of mine using parts similar to your original list: A7N266-vm, 256megs crucial, 80gig WD se, 40x lite-on, retail duron 1300, and a $45 case with power supply. Came out to about $380, he ordered all of it from newegg on his card and had it delivered to his house and brought it to me. I slapped it together and gave him a pc the next day. I usually discourage people from integrated components, but this comp went together smooth and ran great. If I were to give you any advice it would be to up the ram to at least 256megs and get a retail processor. Show him where the constraints of his budget place him and let him decide. Don't just tell him about it, show him the pricelist from wherever you are ordering from.

 

[DDad]

OK, so I'm going off the wall here.
Go on egay and see what buys you can scrounge up. I've had pretty fair luck finding M/B's and CPU's there at prices far below current retail. What I look for is something that is not "the latest and greatest"- I'd look for something along the lines of a 266 or 333 chipset. Last system I built for my self has a GA-7vrx mb I bought there for $35.
It's a option.

 

[magomago]

Um...you started talking how he wanted to play the occaisonal game. Listen, if he will work with 500 dollars to build a okay system then fine. But if he also wants to be able to play some games on that, toss him games from a few years ago...Literally

What he wants is near impossible, and if you do its going to be cheap and any problem that occurs they will come to YOU and blame you for what is wrong.

I've had it happen to me and if a friend wants me to build him a okay Pc I demand a 600-700 dollar budget, if they want a gaming pc I work with a 1000+ budget

Else I tell them to go to bestbuy and buy 1800+ on some generic motherboard with 128 megs of sdram...and a 5400rpm ata33 Harddrive....all for 400 dollars

Some have agreed to my terms and beautiful pcs came out and some went right to best buy and are happy with what they have.

But you have to learn where to draw the line.

That and you MUST inform that you will not help with tech afterwards. I know it sounds odd, but even just saying you'll help with occaisonal problems these people hound you for everything that happens, and then bring their friends pc over demanding that you solve (what comp repair guys charge 60 dollars an hour for) the problem for free

But then again that is why so many people that have come to me have gotten e-machines and now are somewhat mad because they thought I was being unrealistic.