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Building sff PC

D

dbuff

Junior Member
I want to build (rather than just buy - for fun and learning) a PC. I'm a newbie - heard about many options like Micro ATX, Mini, Nona & Pico ITX, Beagleboard, and many others. I have to admit that I am confused. It seems that Mini ITX would be my best option but this is just my gut feeling. Here's what I want:
1. I want my PC to be as small as possible. (I want to use an external DVD, bluetooth keyboard and mouse (strong preference), and of course monitor (VGA? USB? don 't know what will be cons and pros) and speakers/headphones - high quality not important as far as I can hear and see.
2. I would prefer to install FreeBSD on it - I want to make it my first FreeBSD machine to start learning about about this OS.
3. I want this to be a very basic, no thrills, cheap and fairly simple project (my first attempt at building a PC).


Would it be possible (please don't laugh) for under $200?

Many thanks.
 
Under $200? Probably not.

You might - MIGHT - be able to build a low-end AMD rig for that, if you get lucky on sale prices for cases, etc.

You can get a small nettop like a lower-end FoxConn NanoPC for only a little more than that, though, and it'd probably run FreeBSD alright. (Or maybe PC-BSD?) But you wouldn't have the joy of building it yourself.

Of the ones Newegg stocks, this one would probably be my preference. Keep in mind that it still needs RAM and a hard drive.

If you go with a prebuilt SFF machine, make sure it's not running a 2000-series Atom CPU though. The GPU won't work right with anything but 32-bit Win7.
 
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Thanks. Let me look into this, and I will most likely have more questions - like that you get the fun part!
 
dave_the_nerd said:
You might - MIGHT - be able to build a low-end AMD rig for that, if you get lucky on sale prices for cases, etc.
Click to expand...
How do I go about that? I understand I am looking for ITX AMD motherboard?
Would these be too expensive for my budget? (sorry no experience in regard to this)

  • ASUS AM1I-A AM1 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
  • AMD Athlon 5350 Kabini Quad-Core 2.05GHz Socket AM1 25W Desktop Processor AMD Radeon HD 8400 AD5350JAHMBOX


Would low voltage cpu be more expensive? Thanks
 
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dbuff said:
How do I go about that? I understand I am looking for ITX AMD motherboard?
Would these be too expensive for my budget? (sorry no experience in regard to this)

  • ASUS AM1I-A AM1 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
  • AMD Athlon 5350 Kabini Quad-Core 2.05GHz Socket AM1 25W Desktop Processor AMD Radeon HD 8400 AD5350JAHMBOX


Would low voltage cpu be more expensive? Thanks
Click to expand...

Those were similar to the stuff I was thinking of, yeah.

Those two parts at Newegg are $112, but you could go lower. Maybe this motherboard and this CPU.

Add another ~$70 for RAM/HDD and it's mostly a question of whether or not you can get a case and PSU you like for <$50. Plus the widgets and accessories (keyboard, mouse, Bugs Bunny mouse pad, "I &#9829; BSD" coffee mug, etc.)

Low voltage/wattage CPUs are sometimes more expensive, and sometimes not, depending on the market segment they're pointed at. If you just look on wikipedia at the ULV (ultra-low-voltage) Intel chips, you'll see some very high performance chips, and some very low-performance chips, and they're priced accordingly.

Minimizing power use isn't as important for a desktop build as it is for a laptop, but at the moment, the least expensive CPUs tend to be low wattage anyway.
 
dave_the_nerd said:
Add another ~$70 for RAM/HDD and it's mostly a question of whether or not you can get a case and PSU you like for <$50. Plus the widgets and accessories (keyboard, mouse, Bugs Bunny mouse pad, "I &#9829; BSD" coffee mug, etc.)
Click to expand...
Yeah, you got me thinking about that coffee mug. And how about a ramen bowl? Any suggestions for psu and case or a website to look for them? Many tnx
I noticed that SATA connectors look different on those mobos. I think I like yellow ones better😉
 
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dbuff said:
I want to build (rather than just buy - for fun and learning) a PC. I'm a newbie - heard about many options like Micro ATX, Mini, Nona & Pico ITX, Beagleboard, and many others. I have to admit that I am confused. It seems that Mini ITX would be my best option but this is just my gut feeling. Here's what I want:
1. I want my PC to be as small as possible. (I want to use an external DVD, bluetooth keyboard and mouse (strong preference), and of course monitor (VGA? USB? don 't know what will be cons and pros) and speakers/headphones - high quality not important as far as I can hear and see.
2. I would prefer to install FreeBSD on it - I want to make it my first FreeBSD machine to start learning about about this OS.
3. I want this to be a very basic, no thrills, cheap and fairly simple project (my first attempt at building a PC).


Would it be possible (please don't laugh) for under $200?
Click to expand...
Very possible for less than $100... Raspberry Pi model B
 
There's an Intel NUC going for $150. Add in the required mSATA SSD (or boot from the free 2GB thumbdrive) and 2GB of RAM and it should be near or slightly above $200. Its not much to call it a project since you only need to slot in the SSD and RAM but it does fit your description of a smallest possible, FreeBSD capable, simple and close to the $200 budget.

Bear in mind that YMMV in terms of performance with something this cheap. You got what you paid for.
 
I think I will go with Asus mini ITX motherboard. I need to find case, PSU, RAM, and HDD (SDD?). If anyone has any suggestion I will be very grateful. Thanks.
 
I have another idea (please don't laugh). Is it possible to have one separate universal PSU (like a module) that could be used with different systems, and possibly with many systems at the same time? Just a crazy idea. Thanks
 
dbuff said:
I have another idea (please don't laugh). Is it possible to have one separate universal PSU (like a module) that could be used with different systems, and possibly with many systems at the same time? Just a crazy idea. Thanks
Click to expand...

Depends on the PSU.

Most ATX-style PSUs (built into a computer) incorporate some circuitry that will only deal with 1 motherboard at a time.

Laptop-style power adapters just provide DC current at a specified voltage. So, if you have a big enough power adapter (in terms of wattage), and your systems used an external power brick (see: PicoPSU) you could certainly wire/chain a couple of systems off of the same power supply.
 
dbuff said:
Yeah, you got me thinking about that coffee mug. And how about a ramen bowl? Any suggestions for psu and case or a website to look for them? Many tnx
I noticed that SATA connectors look different on those mobos. I think I like yellow ones better😉
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/MI-008-Tower-B.../dp/B001H0BA24

Pretty much the cheapest case I've seen that

1) includes a PSU
2) Can accept full-size desktop parts (HDD, Optical, full height PCI-E card, etc.)

So you don't need to worry about a PSU, and you might be able to recycle some old bits from a previous computer.
 
Now, after all that trouble trying to find something suitable for FreeBSD, I realized that I may change my approach, and install FreeBSD on another machine, so now there is another question - what would be the best OS? Thanks you so much.
 
dbuff said:
Now, after all that trouble trying to find something suitable for FreeBSD, I realized that I may change my approach, and install FreeBSD on another machine, so now there is another question - what would be the best OS? Thanks you so much.
Click to expand...

What is the best OS for what? (What do you want to use the computer for?)

Probably Windows. But options abound.
 
what would be the best OS? Thanks you so much.
Click to expand...

Depends, what are you trying to DO 🙂

You can get BSDs, various Linuxes, Windows of all flavors, even Mac OS X working on commodity x86 hardware if you're so inclined (the latter probably only if you're willing to choose your hardware carefully).

If you're just tinkering, a linux distro might be a good choice since they're free software (although it would be very neighborly to make a donation to whichever distro you choose!).

If the system is particularly low powered, Lubuntu or Puppy Linux or another lightweight distro might be a good choice.
 
dave_the_nerd said:
What is the best OS for what? .
Click to expand...
For very small, functional (Netflix, Evernote, some Python/PHP, etc., no serious gaming), very cheap PC. Mostly as an emergency/secondary PC (as for example when I'm working on the other PC that has to be turned off).
Thanks
 
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