Help! I need a new computer!

[Grasshopper27]

I need your collective help here...

I need a new computer, mine is just getting sick, the hardware is acting up and I'm sick of fixing it...

I don't want to spend too much, and I can use some of the stuff from my current box.

Here's what I've got to use for the new system:

80GB hard drive
GeForce 4 video card
CD-ROM drive
Floppy drive
SoundBlaster Live card
Network Card
My case is probably fine too

I guess what I need is:

motherboard
CPU
RAM
new power supply (mine's old)

I have not kept up with developments in computer stuff in awhile... My current motherboard uses SDRAM and I've got an AMD Athlon CPU.

I think my motherboard is kinda crappy, and I'm not sure but the power supply is going out.

I'd like to get something faster to go with my nice new video card I bought for myself a few months ago, and maybe go to DDR if that will help.

Suggestions on motherboard/CPU/RAM/PS?

Thanks gang!

BTW, if I don't want to reinstall Windows XP, what do I need to do when I install the new motherboard? In the past I used to reinstall, but I haven't the energy or desire to do that this time, plus I've got a reasonably clean install right now.

Grasshopper

 

[Markfw]

Whats your budget ? Without that, it is pretty hard. Also, what speed is your Athlon now ? If you don't get a good update in speed, you will be disappointed. Myself, I would go with an XP2700 or 2800 Athlon, a KT400 chipset (ASUS), and an Antec 430 watt PSU with good quality CAS2 PC 2700 memory. That would be about $800, but I won't check furthur until you respond with the answers above.

 

[Grasshopper27]

I've got an Antec case now, so I'm happy with that brand of power supply (this is just a few years old and the fan in it makes noise).

My current Athlon is the 1600+ CPU. I would consider keeping it, but I'm not sure I haven't damaged it cause I've had the CPU fan fail a few times and the system rebooted by itself when it does that, sometimes it just locks up. I also need a good CPU fan that is, above all else, reliable and quiet. I don't like to hear the fan.

I was thinking about maybe an Athlon 2000+, but I'd consider Intel too, I'm not married to either one.

I'm not prepared to spend $800. $300 is about my budget for this project.

Motherboards I have no idea about, last motherboard I bought was a VIA KT133A. None of the numbers look the same anymore

Thanks for the help!

Grasshopper

 

[ericboo]

On your budget, why not get a KT400 MB as suggested, some DDR ram, good PS, and keep your 1600XP until you can save for a fast Athlon XP?

Leaves room for the future...

 

[Markfw]

Well, at that price range, you have a problem in that from your current setup, you will not see much improvement for the $300 limitation. You have to go DDR almost, and if you don't go with at leat a XP2400, you won;t really see the improvement. You could try a ECSK7S5A ($56) mb and stay with your memory for now (upgrade to DDR later) and get an XP2400 retail ($197) and get an Antec 330 watt ($56). This is $9 over you budget, but the best compromise I could think of. I think the new CPU will give you more of a boost than the memory/MB suggested and is still in your price range.

 

[foofoo]

hi,
imho, friends dont let friends buy ecs k7s5a mbs. my friends and i have had nothing but problems with them.

how about a mb bundle from mwave?
a7n8x deluxe, xp2100+, 256 ddr pc2100 for $292.59
sell the sound card, nic, kick in a few 10s of dollars and get a reasonable $40 ps.

if you can find the epox 8rda+ and use it instead of the asus, you can pay for the ps too.

just my 0.02.

good luck

 

[Markfw]

Excuse me foofoo !!! I have two of those MB's. If you have a good PSU, and upgraded bios, they are completely stable ! There are enough threads to support me on this, but I don't feel like searching. The different between a 2100 and a 2400 is great, and he already has memory. The DDR will buy him 6%-10% speed, but the CPU will but him 15-20% more than a 2100. And the 2400 runs cooler.

 

[Grasshopper27]

Thanks all for the advice...

Allow me to clarify, I'm not really looking for a huge speed boost, I'm more trying to get rid of my hardware troubles, which I think are largely related to my CPU/motherboard/powersupply.

If I didn't suspect the CPU might be bad, I'd keep it, but I have a feeling something might be wrong with it. That is why I was thinking of the XP 2000+, it is half the price of the 2400+.

I'll get an Antec power supply, so the only question left is what motherboard and RAM to buy... I don't need fancy, just reliable.

Thanks,

Grasshopper

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Excuse me foofoo !!! I have two of those MB's. If you have a good PSU, and upgraded bios, they are completely stable ! There are enough threads to support me on this, but I don't feel like searching. The different between a 2100 and a 2400 is great, and he already has memory. The DDR will buy him 6%-10% speed, but the CPU will but him 15-20% more than a 2100. And the 2400 runs cooler.

Why does the 2400 run cooler than the 2100?

Also, what is a good, reliable, quiet CPU fan?

Grasshopper

 

[foofoo]

hi markfw900,

Excuse me foofoo !!! I have two of those MB's. If you have a good PSU, and upgraded bios, they are completely stable ! There are enough threads to support me on this, but I don't feel like searching.

there are plenty of threads that support the other conclusion as well. i am not faulting you or saying that your boards dont work. i'm simply relaying experience that i've had and plenty of others have had as well. that's why "imho" is there.

i was thinking more along the lines of future upgradeability. the asus and epox are new boards that have a much longer useful life (in terms of upgradibility and working at full speed with newer parts). in fact, i think that it would be best of all to upgrade the mb to an asus or epox, get the ram and keep the xp1600+ he has, wait a month or two and pick up the 2400 cheaper. if i were in his shoes and the $300 was a hard limit, that's what i'd do.

one of the nice things about these boards is that you can get a range of opinions and make up your own mind about what works best for you. cool huh?

 

[cmdrdredd]

i'd go with a Nforce 2 mobo and forget about using the NIC or soundblaster card as the nforce has better of both. Then I'd get an XP2400+ or something similar. You're all set then provided your PSU is ok.

 

[Markfw]

The 2400 is the next generation core, and does run cooler. Here is a link with some reading: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020821/athlonxp-04.html

 

[xSauronx]

i was thinkin the ecs board also, to keep your ram, tho i guess sdram would suck a little with a 2000+

the ONLY problem ive had with an ecs board (and ive used a few in the last couple years) was that the ones with amr slots almost exclusively work with amr modems, pci modems give me a problem on ecs boards for some reason, but amr's are cheap

other than that theyve all been very good for me

the xp 2100 is about 85 on pricewatch or 99 at newegg (2000+ is 90) , the 2200 is 140 or so @ econopc, ordered there before, no problems with em

anyway, a faster cpu seems like too much of a bite out of your budget

90 for a cpu
60+/- bucks for decent pc2700 ram in FS/T
80 bucks for a good mobo here or there (ecs is decent for a bit less, i have a epox...)
whatever for a psu and hs/f (i have a thermal take, too loud for you, but mine is in a cabinet

300 bucks shouldnt be a prob, got a epox 8k5a2+ for 100 bucks, think yo ucan get em for 80 now, good board (im oci'ng with it) i know the non plus is less, the 8k5a3 has another ddr slot and i forget what else...
raid, usb 2, lan, 6ch sound, 3ddr slots, supports fsb and voltage adjustments, 4x agp

 

[FishTankX]

I'd say that you should get an Nforce2 mobo, probably sell your soundcard (As the onboard sound kicks the soundblaster's butt)
Then get 256Megs DDR And a good quality powersupplky
Keep your CPU.
Really, your CPU is adaquate for the time being, and while it's not worth much right now,

Basicly just repeating everyone else's advice.

The Abit (Why you ask? read on to find out) Nforce2 board is really good and has firewire, USB2, integrated sound, integrated LAN (So you could probably ditch your sound and LAN0

I would be shot buying anything else than Crucial or Samsung, so it's your pick. Get some quality PC2700 if you wanna upgrade in the longrun, or get PC2100 if you're not intrested in upgrading in the future, or you want to replace your RAM later on down the road.

As for powersupplies, Antec truepower is a very good brand.

As for your CPU cooler (Does the Asus have holes? No. That's why ABit was my choice) the second revision of the Abit board has mounting holes. This can mount the huge 80MM Heatsink/Fan combos that you'd need to get your CPU fan nice and quiet. If you get an Alpha PAL8045 heatsink/fan or a thermalright AX-7, you would be able to use the panaflo fans which you'd have trouble hearing over your harddrive. They're that quiet.

The breakdown is this

Antec truepower 60$
256MB DDR 60$
Abit NF7-S 150$
Pal 8045 with Panaflo 40-50$


It's still within your budget. Anyone else care to backup that plan?

 

[FishTankX]

BTW, any budget overrun will be covered by the money that you can make selling your soundblaster

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
BTW, any budget overrun will be covered by the money that you can make selling your soundblaster

What's the soundblaster worth? $20? Hardly worth the trouble...

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
I'd say that you should get an Nforce2 mobo, probably sell your soundcard (As the onboard sound kicks the soundblaster's butt)
Then get 256Megs DDR And a good quality powersupplky
Keep your CPU.
Really, your CPU is adaquate for the time being, and while it's not worth much right now

If I've got a KT133A motherboard now, would it be easier/harder/the same to upgrade to the NForce2 without reinstalling Windows?

That is another concern, I don't wanna reinstall...

$150 for a motherboard? Yuck...

Grasshopper

 

[FishTankX]

Well I was worried that you were stuck on 300$. With the Alpha cooler it might have been 320 or 330, which would have overshot the limit. But whatever. That's my advice.

This board will give you headroom all the way up to the 2800+ next year. That should be plenty. But remember, you only get headroom up to the 2400+ if you use vanilla PC2100 RAM.

 

[FishTankX]

Oh, and grashopper, think about it this way.

For the 150$ motherboard think about what you're getting

Firewire 25$ value
SB-live or TBSC level or better level sound integrated into the board 40$ value
*2* NIC"s 20$ value (more if you realize that one of the NIC's is 3com)

When you look at it this way, does it still seem so expensive?

 

[FishTankX]

From what I know, just uninstall all of the VIA drivers, shut down, put in the board, reboot, install all of the Nvidia drivers and you should be good to go.

BTW, you are one heck of a posting demon. Is this your first time in general hardware? I mostly see you in OT.

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
Well I was worried that you were stuck on 300$. With the Alpha cooler it might have been 320 or 330, which would have overshot the limit. But whatever. That's my advice.

This board will give you headroom all the way up to the 2800+ next year. That should be plenty. But remember, you only get headroom up to the 2400+ if you use vanilla PC2100 RAM.

I only buy Crucial memory... A bit more expensive, but worth it... Too many years of using cheap junk RAM then wondering why my system had problems.

It's gonna suck going from 512MB of SDRAM to 256MB of DDR however.

Yes, I'll get the PC2700. What about PC3200?

Grasshopper

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
Oh, and grashopper, think about it this way.

For the 150$ motherboard think about what you're getting

Firewire 25$ value
SB-live or TBSC level or better level sound integrated into the board 40$ value
*2* NIC"s 20$ value (more if you realize that one of the NIC's is 3com)

When you look at it this way, does it still seem so expensive?

Don't care about firewire
Already have a good sound card
Already have two NICs...



Is there really no better option for like $100 or so?



Grasshopper

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
From what I know, just uninstall all of the VIA drivers, shut down, put in the board, reboot, install all of the Nvidia drivers and you should be good to go.

BTW, you are one heck of a posting demon. Is this your first time in general hardware? I mostly see you in OT.

I hope it is that easy (knock on wood)

I didn't post this here, I posted it in OT, the mods moved it here for me.

Grasshopper

 

[FishTankX]

PC3200 is probably irrelevant to the Athlon. Maybe the last barton's will use them, but maybe not. It's not sure for now. That's up to the engineering. Frankly I don't like VIA much to I suggested the NForce2 platform, it *is* faster, more stable (Although probably not tangibly more stable. more like that "X videocard is faster than Y videocard by 5FPS so it must be faster" type thing.) and it has a whole bunch of extra goodies thrown in. If you wanna stick with VIA, there are lots of cheap KT400 boards probably sub 100$ that you could pick up. But if you wanna go with VIA, it's your choice.

That being said, if you wanna go with the Alpha or Thermalright coolers, just Make sure the boards you buy have mounting holes as AMD took that out of the must have standard a while back. It really sucks. :|

Anyways, KT400, Nforce, your pick. But the Nforce, I would say, is nearly as stable as intel. Then again, if you're happy with the stability of your current sollution, and it's "Bug freeness", then go ahead and buy the KT400. I will give this to VIA though, they have come a long way from the KT133/133A and are much more stable with the KT400 than they've been with their older chipsets, to the point where stabilitiy issues have become a non issue for most users out there. I would feel safer with Nvidia though.

BTW, I have no expertise with the KT400 boards, but you can check out the Anandtech roundup (If they have one yet. I think they do) or other sites... and pick one out for yourself. But there have been some good suggestions for KT400 boards in this thread anyways.

 

[FishTankX]

P.S. If you can sell your SDRAM (I.E. It's crucial, so it should be easy to sell) you can probably afford 512MB with the KT400 platform, or you could go withthe Nforce2 platform, sell your SB-Live! and your old Mobo (Should fetch about 35 or 40$ or so) and get enough cash gathered to buy 512MB DDR. That was just a suggestion for a baseline system. If you want 512MB, you have the means necescescary to get it.