Sycamore's New Computer
 

Let's talk about this here.

Here's what I suggest, why, and prices.

Case - Enlight Model# EN-7150AP - Nice looking case, cheap, and will have enough PSU power for this system. $36

CD-ROM Drive - Lite On Model LTN-526 - Cheap, but good drives. No need for DVD-ROM drive since he wouldn't want to watch DVDs on his shitty computer monitor, I'm sure. $19

CPU - AMD Athlon XP 1700+ - the 2000+ isn't that much faster and costs a bit more. This is cheap, super fast (compared to what he's used to) and cheap. That's important. $42

CPU HSF - Thermaltake Volcano 5. Great quality, low price. $4.75

Hard drive - Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM Model # 6E040L0. What's he got now, like 2 gigs? What will he ever do with such a vast hard drive? 30 gig drives are a good $8 cheaper but hey, why not splurge? $60.

RAM - Crucial CT6464Z265 512MB PC2100 DDR stick. Duh. $61.99

Motherboard - Asus A7N266-VM AA. I've built two systems around these (and recommended it to Bryan as well). It's cheap, it's got built-in video that's good, built-in ethernet, built-in sound (that's also very good), fits in a small case... the bonuses are many. Great motherboard. Works flawlessly with RH9. $70.99

So there, without modem and including shipping, I've got a price of $317.73. That ain't too fuckin' bad, considering it's a pretty decent system. Tony's gonna throw in a CD-RW drive, I will throw in system build if so desired (that includes a super neat job of the cables with tie wraps and everything!) and I can probably dig up a modem. Great, huh?

What do you think, The Tone? I have a great idea.

You guys could come down one Saturday, and I've already got all the components. We eat Chipotle for breakfast, work on computer. Joe's for lunch, finish work on computer (dual boot RH9 and XP, maybe?). Eat <b>MOTHER FUCKIN' PAD GAI!</b> for dinner, and send you guys off. Oooooooh.

The lad has already specified that he wants to burn CDRs and is willing to pay for the additional capabilities, so we are free to go an additional $40 to get that done.

I was shooting for decent video in case he wants to do some gaming but I guess we need some guidance from the man.

I'm happy to show my face at a build party but please, only one meal.

I had the Enermax CS-501WW3 because I feel you need 350W PSes for the Athlons because they are power sinks. For a while AMD was only certifying 300 W units. Also, the CS-501WW3 is teh pimp as you would say:

http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage....124-047-02.JPG

What were you throwing in then? I thought it was a CD-RW drive. That's why I didn't include it.

The A7N266-VM includes a GF2MX video, which isn't great, but it's decent enough for some gaming. It's fine for workstation use.

Assuming the newer case (I agree, Athlons use a lot of power, but I still think 200watts would get it done - though just barely), we have $329.73, which is still pretty okay.

Anything else we need to consider?

I was just gonna throw in an old CDR so that there would be one in the box. I was also throwing in cables and I have about 20 spare keyboards, and I was assuming the modem from Syc's old system.

The mainboard I had in there was the MSI KVN2G-L @106. It was well-reviewed and has that 440MX. Syc needs to tell us what he really wants to do -- that's supposed to be the first step, but you know us, always too excited by the chance to buy and build.

I tell T-$ what to think. Trust me, this will do just fine. MWAHAHAHAHA!

I was aiming for three things: 1) low price, 2) small form factor (as to fit in a smaller, cheaper case) and 3) good motherboard all-around. I prefer Asus over other brands just because I've never had a problem with them (whereas I've had at least one problem with basically every other brand I've ever used and multiple problems with a few brands).

At the very least, we have made a good step in the right direction. He'll appreciate a fast CD-RW, so that's probably worth the extra money. He probably <b>does</b> have a modem from the old system, and again, if not, I can probably dig one up.

As I said, we've got a good step in the right direction. Upon further input from him, we can make some more decisions and perhaps get the ball rolling.

What we really oughta do is sell these $300 units for no money down and $19.95/month for two years with RH9 installed. Or develop an Internet House concept with wireless networking and a terminal in each room. Oh damn, I got ahead of myself.

Syc actually called me tonight to speed up the process since his system is dead. I told him to call back Sat afternoon and I'd have it worked out so we can move ahead real fast.

He doesn't care about gaming, so we will go the ASUS route. He would like a combo DVD-CDRW if possible; I put one in my main desktop and it's OK. The egg has a Sumsung for $81 or there is a Plextor for $110.

Either one will probably be fine; we can probably get a CD-RW and a separate DVD drive for fewer dollars, but I'll leave that as an exercise for you to check out. It also gives him the option to do on-the-fly <strikethrough>illegal</strikethrough> copying, which is always cool. And if one drive dies, he's always got the other to read CDs.

Shipping will be a few days, but we could probably have most of the stuff here by Thursday; I could have it together and mostly ready to go by Friday, along with a Red Hat 9 install and whatnot. Or you can do it too and you guys don't even need to come down here. But I'm dead sexy and would love to hang with you studs.

Well the important thing is that we get the guy up and running. We can admire each other's supple, graceful bodies at some other time.

Could we meet in Amsterdam?;)

It occurs to me that I have a half-decent case that can be used, and it even has front-panel USB on it and a 300 W PS so that's OK. I will sell it to Syc for like $20.

And with a Lite On 16x DVD at $33, and an Asus 52x CDRW at $44, that's cheaper than the combo drive, and more functional.

Substituting 256 MB for that 512, then, brings the whole thing down to $297.17 plus shipping (not incl any software or the case).

Really, I had 256 MB in my main desktop for ages and it ran everything. Win2K and Photoshop + multiple Mozilla windows + Eudora + many folders and notepads and it ran fine and never swapped. I upgraded it to 768 MB, but I never noticed a difference. The only time I ever had a problem with less memory was when trying to edit about 40 huge images at the same time in Photoshop.

I think Syc is more limited by the video on this system. But his main use will be music. That argues for a larger hard drive, but that's very easy to expand later if need be.

I would put in the Lite On CD-RW. The price is probably the same, it will have similar looks as the DVD drive and it comes with Nero, the Pimp Daddy of All CD-RW Programs (except Roxio Toast on OS X, which, surprisingly, they did a hell of a job on).

Are we going to run the "T-$ tries Red Hat 9" experiment? I think it could work!

I already told you, I'll pick up the difference for 512. If you want, I'll paypal you the money.

I just picked up the Toshiba 15-inch Satellite 1135-S155 laptop.

Specifications

Intel® Celeron® Processor (2.00GHz)
512MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM (256MB x 2)
15" XGA Display (1024 x 768)
32MB internal integrated Intel® 852GM video memory
40GB HDD (4200 rpm)
DVD/CD-RW
Microsoft® Works¹53;
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
3-USB (2.0) ports
S-Video port
10/100 Ethernet
V.92/56K modemº
ECP Parallel port

$999 from Circuit City - $150 in rebates (already mailed in) = $850.

Is that a typo, or is the machine extremely slow? Maybe that's why you got it so cheap? :D

Most laptop hard drives are 4200 rpm, with the fastest being 5400 rpm. I don't think a notebook drive exists at 7200 rpm.

El sicomoro speaks
 

Thanks to UT and Dave for the cool system concept...it will whup ass!

As cool as it would be to hang out Dave, given that UT and I are only 40 miles apart, it's just easier and faster to have everything sent and built in Philadelphia. But we'll see you in 2 weeks for Plastic Forks, right?

Let's roll with 512MB RAM...might as well.

The modem from my dead computer can be pulled. It'll only be temporary anyway, since Rho and I will probably get DSL or cable modem in July now.

Man, Rho and I aren't going to know what to do with ourselves once the new 'puter is ready...we were so used to being incredibly limited on the dead system. This is going to rock. :)

Now that the new puter is up and running, let's talk about it for a bit. Whatever I forget, UT can fill in.

--Athlon 1700 Processor
--80GB HD
--256MB RAM (I actually told Tony to order 512, but he forgot, so Dave, if you're still offering to chip in for the extra 256, I'm all ears.)
--CD-RW drive
--DVD-ROM drive
--Windows XP (Yes...a real copy of it.)
--IBM Optical Mouse (I picked this up tonight b/c my old one was driving me nuts...it was the original.)
--Zoom V.92 modem (Had to buy this tonight as well, as my old modem was not compatible with XP. It was the cheapest one they had, and we're getting DSL as soon as the setup stuff comes from Earthlink.)
--Iiyama 17" monitor (I got that from Shepps about 6 months ago.)

Total cost--approximately $400. Well worth every dollar. Paid for by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania--they finally mailed out my unemployment checks last week that I had been waiting for for almost a month.

Life is good. :)

Well apparently that Thermaltake is keeping the CPU nice and cool: 40 degrees after the system's been running a while. With no thermal grease. A fine call dave. What a good deal that is.

That's Celsius, for those wondering but not sure.

Thermaltakes are great; they're relatively inexpensive and work extremely well (I'm guessing you used the thermal pad at least).

For my dual Athlon, I actually bought Thermalright SK6's, which are expensive but basically the best you can buy for Athlons. Idle I'm at about 36ºC, so... that will show you the difference between them (i.e., not much). Mine were about $30 each versus the $5 or $6 the Thermaltake was.

Tony, what type of RAM did you put in there? I'll hook up the tard with another 256.

I believe it's Crucial SDRAM, but I can't find the invoice here...

Oh, I forgot that I also have a new keyboard as well, courtesy of Señor Shepps...an MS internet keyboard. Nice.

I downloaded Mozilla last night...man, I love it!

And I have to admit, I really like XP. Perhaps that will change in a while, but it's a nice system. A little confusing to start off with, but I'm getting the hang of it.

Let Tony answer the computer questions. :)

Ah shaddap!

It was in fact Crucial PC2100.

And yes, I did use the thermal pad. In fact I had some grease ready, but I figured it was safer for me not to use it on T's system for the first time, since I've never done it before. I just didn't want to screw anything up.

Yeah, it seemed to go smoothly overall. Any little issues (which connector goes where, the OS, the HD, me w/the modem) were solved pretty quickly.

Syc, don't miss all the great Preferences in Moz! Turn on Internet Keywords, turn on all the tabbed browsing boxes, set Google to be your internet search engine, and play with all those features. Good stuff!

One question about Moz--how do I set up ng's on it?

Hit ctrl-2 and then go to Edit | Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings.

Ah! Okay...you have to set up a new "account" for ng's. That's kind of cool, actually.

Aggh. $400 + cost of a cocktail-table arcade cabinet + cost of the adaptors and parts to integrate MAME into the cabinet's innards == a 3000-in-1 arcade machine in table format for a FAR too reasonable end cost. Don't tempt me like this!

<b>and you could do it for even cheaper!</b>

See, ya dumb bastard - The Shepps knows. "Crucial SDRAM" is far too generic, and I'd actually prefer a model number over "Crucial PC2100 DDR", but at least with that I know that he didn't stick you with one of those shitty boards that does both.

What mobo did you get him, Tony?

It is in fact that Asus A7N266-VM AA.

*WARNING: THREADJACKING IN PROGRESS*

Yep. A MAME cabinet wouldn't require much in the way of a video card or processor, since it doesn't involve anything in the way of 3D rendering or major polygon counts. Moderate RAM and a (by today's standards) small HD would do nicely. If I bought a cabinet that already had a decent mounted display (which most used cabinets do), I could use AdvanceMame to avoid buying a new monitor.

On the flip side, if I went with the monitor approach instead, it'd be easier to run _other_ emulators in the cabinet as well. Picture a batch file producing a startup menu like this:

1) MAME
2) NES
3) SNES
4) TurboGrafx/16 - PC-Engine
5) Vectrex
6) Atari 2600
7) DAPHNE (Dragon's Lair and other laserdisc games)
8) Visual Pinball
(etc.)

What's holding me up is the control panel and associated physical/electrical tinkering, which could easily end up costing more than the computer and cabinet combined.

Even the pre-packaged alternatives (like <a href="http://www.x-arcade.com/pc.shtml">the X-Arcade Two Player</a> model) are around $150, would need to be physically mounted on the face of the cabinet (making it unworkable for cocktail cabinets), and would miss out on many common game control schemes (trac-ball, Tempest spinner, Ikari Warriors rotary joystick, Tron/Gorf-style joystick w/trigger, steering wheel/lo-hi gearshift/analog pedals in some combination).

The D-I-Y approach can produce results <a href="http://www.oscarcontrols.com/controlpanels.htm">much</a><a href="http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade_brian.html"> cooler</a> than the basic two-joysticks-and-buttons config, but few are insane enough to put in the time and effort to build such a beast and then sell it to someone else...

Still... I look at projects like <a href="http://www.x-arcade.com/htm/cabinet.shtml">this</a>, and I can't help thinking that beating that price point _can't_ be that hard (especially since no TV or monitor is included for your $999).

As much as I think Malda is a turd, he did a nice job with this: http://cmdrtaco.net/jubei/

Aw, c'mon -- he's got a <a href="http://cmdrtaco.net/jubei/assembly.shtml">Jack-Bot</a> pinball machine. He can't be ALL bad...

The one <a href="http://www.onzin.nl/fufme/index.shtml.htm"> peripheral</a> SYC left off his computer.

DSL is now ordered.

Your next assignment--I need an ethernet card.

No you don't, it's built in.

Really?

Sweet!

Apparently the tard can't read. :(

Dude, I told you... we fuckin' take care of dat shit man. Ethernet was mentioned in the first fuckin' post of this thread. :)

I was limited mostly to hit-and-run reading/posting last week. But if you'd like to throw in Hooked On Phonics along with the extra RAM, feel free to do so.

DSL kit came today.

But Rho wasn't home to sign for it...

DAMNIT!

You will have to beat her.

I know...her and her stoopid doctor's appointments...the nerve of her! :)

Added a couple items to cielo yesterday.

The first was speakers. UT and I were on the phone while I was at Best Buy, trying to figure out what type of sound card was in the computer (thereby what type of speakers to buy). I went with a Creative 3-piece setup (one subwoofer, two satellites) for $50. Very nice...beats the hell out of any other stereo setup I have in the house.

The second was a microphone--I went with a Plantronics Stereo PC Headset. I must not know how to work it right though--the mic doesn't work unless I have it right up to my mouth, and the headphones don't work at all. I'm going to play with it for a few more days, and if I can't figure it out, it's going back.

Okay, so I figured out the problem with the mic. That's solved. But I can't get the headphones figured out yet.

What was the solution? Or is that too embarrassing.:)

Nah, I have no problem admitting computer ignorance.

There is a separate volume control for the microphone...I don't recall this on Win95, though I suspect it might be the newer soundcard.

See, you're not as retarded as Dave would have us believe. :)

It is the soundcard driver, not the OS, that determines what volume controls are available.

He just does that shit to make himself feel better about his pisspoor self-esteem.

I've learned a lot about computers just by being on the Cellar. And anytime I hang with UT, I always ask a bunch of computer questions.

Watching this computer being built was a real learning experience for me. Even if I didn't quite understand everything about it, it was cool just seeing what all goes into building one.

Hey, question... I'm considering going ahead with the computer upgrade thing... and thought I'd start with these as good parts for a cheap computer. (I had an ASRock mobo with case, PS, and XP2100 processor for $106 shipped from a place that sells thru ebay.... They are now in chapter 7 bankruptcy and I'm one of their creditors since they processed my payment & didn't send the computer yet! :eek: )

Anyhoo, a question... the Enlight case specified has a 200W powersupply.. I would have thought of going for a bigger ps.. what is the standard?

At least 300w, sorry. The modern CPUs are very big power soaks.

Not buying from Newegg like we told you and you pay the price.

That sucks man. Sorry to hear that. Hope they're giving you an option to recoup your losses.

That's pretty shady though, taking money without having shipped the product.

Yeah yeah, I know, I know. But... it was a bit of an impulse purchase, and they had good ebay feedback at the time I won the bid. (It dropped like a rock immediately after.)

As far as getting some recompense, I'm one of their creditors in bankruptcy court, and I've filed a claim against the charge with my credit card company. So I expect to get something back, tho I don't expect it to happen quickly. (Or maybe I'm wrong--the last time I paid money to a company that disappeared, I got a pretty quick refund from the credit card company. But that was a clear case of "packing up and leaving in the middle of the night." Since this case is actually in bankruptcy court, that may complicate things because I suspect they probably also owe some money to whatever bank does their credit card processing.)