Need help picking out parts for a new rig

Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
4,793
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UPDATE!:



Ok, I've found parts. Here we go.

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz Hyper-Threading Socket 478 Prescott (from old computer)
Graphic Card: Asus Nvidia GeForceFX 5200 V9520/TD/128M (from old computer)
Motherboard: ASRock P4i65G $44.99
Memory: G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR-400 $179.99
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) 250GB SATA 3.0GB/s HDD $79.99
Case/Power Supply: Aspire X-Qpack + 420W PSU $85.00
DVD Burner: Samsung Black DVD Burner with LightScribe $32.99
Processor HSF: Zalman CNPS8000 $38.99

Floppy/Memory Card Reader/Speakers/Keyboard/Monitor all from old computer.

TOTAL: $461.95


Well whaddya think?


Old post:
Summary: Her current comp is getting too slow for her and it's dying, I think becuase it's been under a desk collecting dust (and I mean DUST) for 2 years. It's time to get an upgrade.

P4 3.0Ghz HyperThreading socket 478 Prescott (yeah it's a freaky chip, I always thought prescotts only came on 775 but I guess they made a some on 478)

512MB DDR-400 3-3-3-8 Ram (this is an HP comp and 512MB ram is the limit I tried 2x512, and 2x1GB but it refused to post, oh and btw there's only 2 ram slots, the other two look like they were removed, you can see the solder points for them)

160GB WD 7200RPm HDD 8MB cache (it's slowly dying, making wierd noises, corrupting files, etc. Don't worry I backed up all her stuff onto my comp already)

Asus Nvidia GeforceFX 5200 AGP (eww, geforceFX. She doesn't do any 3d work though so GPU doesn't really matter)

Asus MATX mobo modded by HP (what can I say, Hp made it so it sucks even more than defualt)

250W no-name PSU
(yeah...)

MATX HP Case, DVD burner, CD drive, Floppy, Memory card reader blah blah.

So yeah it's getting too slow and it's time to upgrade, and I'm gonna build it for her, but I need some advice on what to get.

Requirements: We've got about a $700 budget, the less it costs, the happier my dad will be, and the more it costs (well at least the faster it is), the happier my mom will be. She mainly uses the comp for e-mailing (she gets TONS of emails), websurfing, photo editing (tons of that, using microsoft Picture-it), photo printing etc. really the problem is that the comp refuses to start first time around, she has to restart it about 2-3 times to get it to actually log in, and when it does log in it takes forever. Opening up even an e-mail takes forever (and it's the computer because it doesn't do it on the other computers in the house). And no a reformat would not fix the problem, she is using just about 700MB of page file space while booting up, and she is limited to 512MB of ram in this comp. She has about 9 gigs of photos on it, and I'm sure that number will be going up if she gets a faster one. She won't need a monitor (she has a SyncMaster 730B), keyboard (she has an Hp one and she says anything else feels wierd), mouse (she has an MX510), or speakers (I'm giving her my Logitech X-530's because 1. rear speakers are in the way now that I've rearranged my room, and 2. I prefer gaming with headphones anyway). SOOooo on to...




Parts:



Case: She Loves the look of the Thermaltake Circle and I don't think she'll settle for too much less.

GPU: She doesn't do any 3d stuff at ALL so I think the EVGA Geforce 6200LE should be enough.

Mobo: The only reason I'm not geting a mobo with integrated graphics is becasue I think we can fit a Conroe E6300 into the budget, so I was originally going to go with the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, hoever, for just a bit more, I could go with the ABIT AW8D which is a 975X board. Can't decide which one. I do plan on overclocking this for her, just enough so it's rock solid stable (so she won't be calling me all the time about problems), but enough so that we get more for our money.

CPU: Core 2 Duo E6300.

RAM: Gskill 2x1GB DDR2-800.

Hard Drive(s): She says she'd like a raid 1 array (well that's not Excactly what she asked me if a thing existed where she could have 2 hard drives so that if one dies she'd still have her information), and now that I've told her such a thing exists, she's all over the idea. I could probably convince her otherwise but it isn't a bad idea, especially since she has ALL the family photos on her comp. So I was originally thinking a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB hdd, but I might need some reccomendations for a Raid 1 setup, as I've never attempted RAID before.

PSU: Need some suggestions on what would be enough, I was thinking Fortron 450W, but i'm not sure if that would be enough.












Well that certainly was a painfully long post wasn't it, just want to get you all informed about everything because I hate it when people come on and say "help me design a computer", and that's it, no info or anything. So thanks in advance. I'm looking forward to seeing your suggestions. :D

 

Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Sounds more like you need to do some work cleaning up the system, reducing unneeded programs running, making sure odd stuff you aren't aware of isn't running, things like that. A 3GHz machine shouldn't be too slow even with 512MB memory (although photo editing would eat a lot of memory if she was editing very high resolution photos, and a lot of them). If she's doing the same things she was before it was slow, then obviously something changed and should be fixed. It is not normal for a system to need 700MB of pagefile space on boot, as well as the 512MB of system memory (though you can't really go by what Windows says it's using for pagefile space).

Dying hard drive is obviously an easy thing to fix, and may have something to do with her problems logging in, as well as performance problems.

Better to spend some time fixing problems with a computer that should continue to serve well enough for her needs, than spend up to 700 bucks for no reason.

Exactly what model is the HP machine? Being limited to 512MB of memory is very odd for so recent a system. Even the lesser and older chipsets should support at least 512MB modules. This might be some BIOS thing where they've locked out anything non-HP, but that's doubtful since it verges on illegal.
 

Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
4,793
1
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Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Sounds more like you need to do some work cleaning up the system, reducing unneeded programs running, making sure odd stuff you aren't aware of isn't running, things like that. A 3GHz machine shouldn't be too slow even with 512MB memory (although photo editing would eat a lot of memory if she was editing very high resolution photos, and a lot of them). If she's doing the same things she was before it was slow, then obviously something changed and should be fixed. It is not normal for a system to need 700MB of pagefile space on boot, as well as the 512MB of system memory (though you can't really go by what Windows says it's using for pagefile space).

Dying hard drive is obviously an easy thing to fix, and may have something to do with her problems logging in, as well as performance problems.

Better to spend some time fixing problems with a computer that should continue to serve well enough for her needs, than spend up to 700 bucks for no reason.

Exactly what model is the HP machine? Being limited to 512MB of memory is very odd for so recent a system. Even the lesser and older chipsets should support at least 512MB modules. This might be some BIOS thing where they've locked out anything non-HP, but that's doubtful since it verges on illegal.

Thanks for the reply.


Yes the system does need cleaned up, there is probably a bunch of stuff that needs cleaned up, hoever she is ediding a ton of very high res photos and yes it refuses to let me add more than 512MB Ram. I figure if I'm going to get a new mobo (to add more ram), I could as well bring the system up to date in the process, and anyway it's her birthday, so the comp is going to be her birthday present.
 

betasub

Platinum Member
Mar 22, 2006
2,677
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.... waiting for ashkayt to insist that you get her nothing less than an x1900xt .... ;)
 

willndowed

Junior Member
Jan 11, 2005
7
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The Asus P5W DH MoBo has a Silicon Image hardware RAID chip that makes the RAID pretty simple. no drivers, no software... just plug the drives into the SI SATA II ports.
 

Gautama2

Golden Member
Jun 13, 2006
1,461
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She'd be best off with a dell. Conroe is completely overkill for a momputer.

Sounds like she just needs to clean it out some (like someone mentioned above).

I have a 2 ghz P4 Northwood and 512mb notebook ram, and I run photoshop and other programs on integrated graphics with no problems.
My neighbors 3ghz p4 with 512mb generic ram runs at about 40% of the speed mine runs at, possibly slow. All due to horrible software management, thousands of spyware, and other unwanted programs.
 

Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
4,793
1
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Originally posted by: Gautama2
She'd be best off with a dell. Conroe is completely overkill for a momputer.

Sounds like she just needs to clean it out some (like someone mentioned above).

I have a 2 ghz P4 Northwood and 512mb notebook ram, and I run photoshop and other programs on integrated graphics with no problems.
My neighbors 3ghz p4 with 512mb generic ram runs at about 40% of the speed mine runs at, possibly slow. All due to horrible software management, thousands of spyware, and other unwanted programs.


kk then. How does this sound.


Thermaltake Circle
P4 3.0Ghz 478 (from original comp)
Nvidia GeforceFX 5200 (from original comp)
New Socket 478mobo that supports more ram and is ATX not MATX, and supports RAID.
2x smallish (~160GB) HDD's in Raid 1
New HSF (I don't trust the current one, after being clogged with dust for so long, fan looks like it might die)
Fortron 450W PSU (to replace cheaass 250W thing)
Lightscribe DVD burner (she wants that)
Same Floppy, memory card reader etc from original comp.
 

vhx

Golden Member
Jul 19, 2006
1,151
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The computer does definately need some new RAM at the very least. The setup you mentioned above should be good. Keeping the FX5200 is a good idea for now. In the future you might just get a budget DX10 card when Vista is released.
 

Crescent13

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
4,793
1
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Originally posted by: vhx
The computer does definately need some new RAM at the very least. The setup you mentioned above should be good. Keeping the FX5200 is a good idea for now. In the future you might just get a budget DX10 card when Vista is released.

Excactly my thoughts.

I guess great minds think alike :D