Parts?

Undertoad · 08-27-2001, 10:52 PM

Does anyone have any preference at all in buying computer parts? I'm talking about stuff like motherboard combos, nice cases, etc. I don't want to have to wait for the damn computer show to come around again...

jaguar · 08-27-2001, 11:49 PM

As in companies? types? what exactly do you mean?

Undertoad · 08-28-2001, 09:04 AM

Yeah, vendors. I know about Pricewatch, but I don't know if I can stand just going and buying something from a random hole in the wall place. Back when I knew about such things, we'd get reports about one of the local vendors who would repackage bad boards and sell them again, things like that, that's all I want to avoid. I know there's no way around things like "restocking fees" and I'm willing to roll the dice that I get good parts, but...

As far as what parts, I'm looking at various mobo combos with Athlon 1.33s. That seems to be the best price/performance ratio right now.

I also want to swap out a p3-500 I have with the cheapest available Duron board, whatever that currently is. That box hardly needs to do anything (it does run G@H of course), but I need it to survive. Right now it is intermittently alarming, every few days, probably from some sort of fan failure or temperature problem.

I also need a new SCSI drive for the system that runs the Cellar. So um I guess I do need a pretty good number of parts.

jet_silver · 08-28-2001, 10:18 AM

Sometimes it's good to live in the Silicon Valley, but Ebay works pretty well. I have yet to be disappointed by an Ebay purchase. My SCSI chain is SCSI-II UW, but since U2W has largely taken over it's easy to get enormous SCSI-II drives for cheap ($88 for a new 18GB drive that's fast enough to give Pro/Engineer a crunchy feel). My DDS-3 tape drive is from Ebay, $175. For these prices you can afford to take a couple of chances.

Halted Specialties, known to many Silicon Valley development types, sells, well, junk. But the junk often works well enough to get things done. I buy a lot of odds and ends there.

If you have to send away for stuff you can do a lot worse than to check Reseller Ratings before you buy anything.

jaguar · 08-28-2001, 06:12 PM

well...with the athlons it depends if you want DDR or SD ram as much as anythign else, for DDR teh SiS chipset is damn godd, as well as the AMD 760, MSI make nice DDR boards, the only SiS chipset one i've seen here is Elite buthey, were a technological backwater.
Try Toms Hardware they are THE hardware review place.

lisa · 08-28-2001, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jet_silver
Sometimes it's good to live in the Silicon Valley... Halted Specialties, known to many Silicon Valley development types, sells, well, junk. But the junk often works well enough to get things done. I buy a lot of odds and ends there

Halted? Is that the place on Lawrence & Central?

alphageek31337 · 08-29-2001, 12:08 AM

A lot of my evil hacker friends and I build stuff from Tiger Direct parts....Only problem I've ever had is an internal modem which came crushed. The box was smashed, too, so I had a nice long talk with the delivery service and Tiger, and eventually got my money back. Other than that, no troubles at all

jaguar · 08-29-2001, 02:38 AM

That was the god of logic seeking revenge on you for buying an internal modem in the first place =P
jk

Is this for coloc machines or?
If its mission critical i'd get an MSI board for athlon, slower but far more reliable.

mbpark · 08-29-2001, 11:17 AM

Speaking as someone who just got a lot in,

For memory, I've been going to Coast To Coast Memory (they advertise on Pricewatch). I went to them initially to get a RAM module for my Compaq 486 laptop. They were the only people in the US who had the 24MB RAM module.

Hey, when you've got to do browser testing on a 486 to test out speed of Javascript execution, accept no substitutes.

I actually just got in a large amount of RAM from them this morning also. I have had no problem with them.

For parts, I turn to eBay a lot for specific ones I need, especially the specialized server parts.

I'll also go to Dirt Cheap Drives, since they WILL have parts in stock for darn near anything SCSI made.

However, eBay looks better and better each day

Mitch

Undertoad · 08-29-2001, 11:20 AM

It's not really for critical server use. Although my machines are on 24x7 anyway. Now having read up on the motherboards, I was thinking either Asus, Abit, or Iwill. I tend towards Asus because the Asus I used to build my personal machine 4 years ago has been phenomenal.

mbpark · 08-29-2001, 11:25 AM

Toad,

ASUS = Rock Solid for AMD and Intel.

Did I mention my sister's old NT Workstation? She was running a Celeron 433 with 128 MB (later 320 MB) RAM, NT Workstation Service Pack 5 (later 6a), based on an Asus P3B-F 440BX chipset motherboard and all generic parts? Oh yeah, and Office 97 and the other fun things that a college-age girl needs to function, such as ICQ, AOL IM, and the happy things.

She left it on an average of 4 months at a time. I kid not. I turned it off to upgrade parts and install Service Pack 6a.

I haven't seen a workstation YET take that type of abuse without seriously crashing.

Her new Athlon has an ASUS. Gee, I wonder why?

.

I've seen ASUS motherboards take abuse that would make any other manufacturer's die. Case in point was that Celeron.

Mitch

jet_silver · 08-29-2001, 11:47 AM

Halted? Is that the place on Lawrence & Central?

Yep.

Apropos of nothing, lisa, ever heard of General Lasertronics? Place I used to work.... <g>

serge · 08-29-2001, 07:09 PM

As far as resallers go, try here.

My personal favorite is Multiwave, even though they don't have the lowest prices around. I found their customer service to be above par. Once one of my mobos was fried (one of the wires from system fan came loose!) and it happend one day prior to it being a year since the day I placed an order with them. I called them and got a new mobo at no extra cost..

jaguar · 08-30-2001, 01:51 AM

Depends which ASUS board for AMD chips.
Whatever you do _do not_ couple an A7V with a SB LIve....the amount of problems this causes is truely incredible. The ASUS board based on the 760 chipset is nice, but the Ali-Magic chipset is aparantly having a few problems.

Ie been building 3 Rackmount boxs that are destined for SQL servers (Intel Chips) and ihave to say some of my faith has been restored. But avoid Promise controllers, pieces of shit if i ever saw any.

Undertoad · 08-30-2001, 09:11 AM

Thanks all around. Hey, serge, that Multiwave has ann odd web site, but they really have a nice approach for their mobo combo section. You pick the manufacturer you want, pick the board you want, pick the memory you want, pick the CPU you want... it's very nicely set up and I think I will wind up going with them. Thanks!

08-27-2001, 10:52 PM	#1
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Parts? Does anyone have any preference at all in buying computer parts? I'm talking about stuff like motherboard combos, nice cases, etc. I don't want to have to wait for the damn computer show to come around again...

08-27-2001, 11:49 PM	#2
jaguar whig Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 5,075	As in companies? types? what exactly do you mean? __________________ Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain

08-28-2001, 10:18 AM	#4
jet_silver wazmo medio Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: San Narciso, CA Posts: 53	Ebay and Halted Sometimes it's good to live in the Silicon Valley, but Ebay works pretty well. I have yet to be disappointed by an Ebay purchase. My SCSI chain is SCSI-II UW, but since U2W has largely taken over it's easy to get enormous SCSI-II drives for cheap ($88 for a new 18GB drive that's fast enough to give Pro/Engineer a crunchy feel). My DDS-3 tape drive is from Ebay, $175. For these prices you can afford to take a couple of chances. Halted Specialties, known to many Silicon Valley development types, sells, well, junk. But the junk often works well enough to get things done. I buy a lot of odds and ends there. If you have to send away for stuff you can do a lot worse than to check Reseller Ratings before you buy anything. __________________ "De lood van die Goevernement sal nou op julle smelt." -Thomas Pynchon

08-28-2001, 06:12 PM	#5
jaguar whig Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 5,075	well...with the athlons it depends if you want DDR or SD ram as much as anythign else, for DDR teh SiS chipset is damn godd, as well as the AMD 760, MSI make nice DDR boards, the only SiS chipset one i've seen here is Elite buthey, were a technological backwater. Try Toms Hardware they are THE hardware review place. __________________ Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain

08-29-2001, 02:38 AM	#8
jaguar whig Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 5,075	That was the god of logic seeking revenge on you for buying an internal modem in the first place =P jk Is this for coloc machines or? If its mission critical i'd get an MSI board for athlon, slower but far more reliable. __________________ Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain

08-28-2001, 09:04 AM	#3
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Yeah, vendors. I know about Pricewatch, but I don't know if I can stand just going and buying something from a random hole in the wall place. Back when I knew about such things, we'd get reports about one of the local vendors who would repackage bad boards and sell them again, things like that, that's all I want to avoid. I know there's no way around things like "restocking fees" and I'm willing to roll the dice that I get good parts, but... As far as what parts, I'm looking at various mobo combos with Athlon 1.33s. That seems to be the best price/performance ratio right now. I also want to swap out a p3-500 I have with the cheapest available Duron board, whatever that currently is. That box hardly needs to do anything (it does run G@H of course), but I need it to survive. Right now it is intermittently alarming, every few days, probably from some sort of fan failure or temperature problem. I also need a new SCSI drive for the system that runs the Cellar. So um I guess I do need a pretty good number of parts.

08-29-2001, 12:08 AM	#7
alphageek31337 Enemy Combatant/Evildoer Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 263	A lot of my evil hacker friends and I build stuff from Tiger Direct parts....Only problem I've ever had is an internal modem which came crushed. The box was smashed, too, so I had a nice long talk with the delivery service and Tiger, and eventually got my money back. Other than that, no troubles at all

08-29-2001, 11:17 AM	#9
mbpark Lecturer Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Carmel, Indiana Posts: 761	Parts and all that Speaking as someone who just got a lot in, For memory, I've been going to Coast To Coast Memory (they advertise on Pricewatch). I went to them initially to get a RAM module for my Compaq 486 laptop. They were the only people in the US who had the 24MB RAM module. Hey, when you've got to do browser testing on a 486 to test out speed of Javascript execution, accept no substitutes. I actually just got in a large amount of RAM from them this morning also. I have had no problem with them. For parts, I turn to eBay a lot for specific ones I need, especially the specialized server parts. I'll also go to Dirt Cheap Drives, since they WILL have parts in stock for darn near anything SCSI made. However, eBay looks better and better each day Mitch

08-29-2001, 11:20 AM	#10
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	It's not really for critical server use. Although my machines are on 24x7 anyway. Now having read up on the motherboards, I was thinking either Asus, Abit, or Iwill. I tend towards Asus because the Asus I used to build my personal machine 4 years ago has been phenomenal.

08-29-2001, 11:25 AM	#11
mbpark Lecturer Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Carmel, Indiana Posts: 761	Asus Toad, ASUS = Rock Solid for AMD and Intel. Did I mention my sister's old NT Workstation? She was running a Celeron 433 with 128 MB (later 320 MB) RAM, NT Workstation Service Pack 5 (later 6a), based on an Asus P3B-F 440BX chipset motherboard and all generic parts? Oh yeah, and Office 97 and the other fun things that a college-age girl needs to function, such as ICQ, AOL IM, and the happy things. She left it on an average of 4 months at a time. I kid not. I turned it off to upgrade parts and install Service Pack 6a. I haven't seen a workstation YET take that type of abuse without seriously crashing. Her new Athlon has an ASUS. Gee, I wonder why? . I've seen ASUS motherboards take abuse that would make any other manufacturer's die. Case in point was that Celeron. Mitch

08-29-2001, 11:47 AM	#12
jet_silver wazmo medio Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: San Narciso, CA Posts: 53	Halted? Is that the place on Lawrence & Central? Yep. Apropos of nothing, lisa, ever heard of General Lasertronics? Place I used to work.... <g> __________________ "De lood van die Goevernement sal nou op julle smelt." -Thomas Pynchon

08-29-2001, 07:09 PM	#13
serge * Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 85	As far as resallers go, try here. My personal favorite is Multiwave, even though they don't have the lowest prices around. I found their customer service to be above par. Once one of my mobos was fried (one of the wires from system fan came loose!) and it happend one day prior to it being a year since the day I placed an order with them. I called them and got a new mobo at no extra cost.. __________________ Patriotism is for Losers

08-30-2001, 01:51 AM	#14
jaguar whig Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 5,075	Depends which ASUS board for AMD chips. Whatever you do _do not_ couple an A7V with a SB LIve....the amount of problems this causes is truely incredible. The ASUS board based on the 760 chipset is nice, but the Ali-Magic chipset is aparantly having a few problems. Ie been building 3 Rackmount boxs that are destined for SQL servers (Intel Chips) and ihave to say some of my faith has been restored. But avoid Promise controllers, pieces of shit if i ever saw any. __________________ Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain

08-30-2001, 09:11 AM	#15
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Thanks all around. Hey, serge, that Multiwave has ann odd web site, but they really have a nice approach for their mobo combo section. You pick the manufacturer you want, pick the board you want, pick the memory you want, pick the CPU you want... it's very nicely set up and I think I will wind up going with them. Thanks!

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