Urza9814 Posted May 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 wow...that tigerdirect place is cheap! Problem is: I don't need the OS, I don't need the hard drive, I don't need the keyboard, mouse, speakers, sound card, CD drives, soundcard, power supply, etc...If you can find me that kinda price where I could dump that stuff, I'd get it. Wow! A geforce2 brings it down to $206! can anyone suggest lower of other stuff? I'm thinking cutting the ram to just 256MB...that should be plenty... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 16, 2004 Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 I am guessing that you will need: motherboard. RAM, processor, video card, case with power supply. The stuff here does not have any os, since they are kits. If you just want to buy just the parts you need, then: http://www.noblepcs.com/ http://www.mwave.com/ http://www.geeks.com/ are all places that I use regularly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted May 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 (edited) $90! I might be able to afford that after my birthday! One question: Anyone got any good places I can sell my current comp, and anyone know if I'll do better selling it all in one piece, or each part separate? I wish I hadn't just got that RAM...my parents are gonna kill me ...unless I can sell this for over $90...and since the RAM was 70, I better be able to! Edited May 16, 2004 by Urza9814 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted May 16, 2004 Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 $90! I might be able to afford that after my birthday! One question: Anyone got any good places I can sell my current comp, and anyone know if I'll do better selling it all in one piece, or each part separate?I wish I hadn't just got that RAM...my parents are gonna kill me ...unless I can sell this for over $90...and since the RAM was 70, I better be able to! You won't get jack squat for your current computer, you would be better off keeping it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 16, 2004 Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 Reselling is not good like iphitus says but you might be able to say take your RAM and $20 and upgrade it to better RAM to go with a newer MOBO. The main thing is if your Case/PU will accespt a standard mobo. If it will then you could for instance just buy the GFORCE2 for now.... later change the mobo/processor and part exchange the memory. Usually youll get a better price for part exchange if you use it towards something else. The actual 2nd prioces are often not THAT cheap but if you get 50% of the cost covered then ity makes a difference! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted May 16, 2004 Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 Anyway, maybe updating that compaq is not such a hot idea after all.. Compaqs are notoriously slow.. My ex-boss Compaq Athlon 1.2 ghz is slower than my Athlon 900. The reasons are this: 1. All in one Motherboard.. especially built in video.. bad bad idea 2. Slow HD.. To cut costs, they usually use 5400 rpm hd. I mean.. nowadays, HD is the slowest component in the computer. Anyway, your Celery is not that bad of a computer.. You cannot do heavy computing with it of course.. but with a change of Videocard and Hard drive (get a 7200 rpm hd at least), it should have a little bit more life into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted May 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 take your RAM and $20 and upgrade it to better RAM to go with a newer MOBO. WHAT?? This RAM costs $30 more than the same amount of DDR! :P Aurgh...some ppl say get a new comp, some say get a new videocard and hard drive...some say switch out one part at a time if possible...this is confusing...but I'm thinking there's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to replace all this stuff for under $90, so I'm thinking 'get a new comp'...and I suppose I'll keep this if I can't sell it...though why is the question...no...I won't actually...because I'll be using the same monitor and keyboard and stuff...for that new comp doesn't come with any...so it'll be worthless to me...so, sell it in parts or together? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarissi Posted May 16, 2004 Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 If you are going to do it right, you will need mobo, cpu, ram, case, vid card, etc. You don't need to get an expensive Pentium 4, where the Athlon XP will do just fine. However, with Windows, the main things that will slow your computer down are: Failure to Defrag! Not having the swap file in a separate partition and of fixed size. (1 GB is fine for this). When you leave the swap file on drive C:, it is fragmented all over the drive, and the heads spend alot of time thrashing about. I wouldn't waste my time or money with an OEM system, unless it was a notebook. I find alot of good stuff on eBay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted May 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 (edited) Aurgh...this is a lot harder than I thought...I was looking at those barebones systems on tigerdirect...and realized they only mention the case, power supply, and motherboard. While a lot of the stuff (soundcard, ethernet card, drives, etc...) I can pull off this comp I suppose, what about the RAM, Processor, and graphics card??? I am starting to think one part at a time upgrading of this old comp is the only thing I can afford... edit: I FORGOT PRICEWATCH HAD OS-LESS SYSTEMS! I took this and threw on a GeForce4 MX420, 64MB. It uses SDRAM, so I can keep my old stuff, and I'm keeping my old drives and everything...and it's gonna cost me $136.60! Now...who's gonna tell me why this isn't gonna work? :P edit2: Ok, I was a little afraid that my mom wouldn't let me get this, but I figured out how to make it so she couldn't say no: Prove to her it'd cost over $1000 to get the same comp off dell.com. I'm going to dell right now to check with a custom comp, for that would be better, but if that isn't over $1000, I'll just use my own custom math which sets it at $1800. Windoze is $300, monitor is $200, etc..., and getting it off Dell.com I hear costs twice as much as building it yourself...so double it for that :D Edited May 16, 2004 by Urza9814 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted May 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 And the dell.com price is...*drum roll* $2516! Why's it so expenive? I put on windoze XP pro, and a lotta software and stuff. Why all the software? Linux comes with it for free, Windoze wouldn't, so if I bought the comp from dell, I'd need the software. I also included support, for that is free on Linux and hardware support is free on this board, and I included installation, for I will be doing that myself, but if I didn't, I'd have to pay for it! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urza9814 Posted May 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 I woulda edited this into my last post, but it's a different topic, so: I'm not a hardware person (obviously)...this thing's CPU says 'AMD Duron 1.1GHz 200Mhz'...why does it say both 1.1GHz and 200Mhz? What is the meaning of that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted May 17, 2004 Report Share Posted May 17, 2004 It's Duron 1.1 GHz, 200 MHz FSB version. Basically, what it says is the minimum required memory is a 100 MHz SDRAM (the 200 MHz is 100 MHz Double Data Rate). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sir_max Posted May 17, 2004 Report Share Posted May 17, 2004 (edited) i can advice you with the motherboard: ecs k7s5a-Pro supports SDRAM y DDR 266 (sound integrated) TUFSHOP.COM at just U$ 37.97 link: http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/k7s5a_pro.html plus AMD Duron 1.6GHz NEWEGG.COM at just U$ 38.00 nice looking case 430Watts NEWEGG.COM at just U$ 24.00 GForce 4 MX440 W/TVOUT AGP8X GAINWARD NEWEGG.COM at just U$ 46.50 for a total of U$ 146.47 keep everything else... and you are done... Greetings... Edited May 17, 2004 by sir_max Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pgk3734 Posted May 17, 2004 Report Share Posted May 17, 2004 To find out everything you ever wanted to know about your computer go to this site: http://www.aida32.com/ and download the aida32 program. I believe it is still available. It is like sisoftsandra but FREE. It's true that it is for win32 so you'll have to check these specs in windoze. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 17, 2004 Report Share Posted May 17, 2004 urza.... Its always confusing but I think everyones saying the same thing. Your present MOBO with shared mem for the graphics card sucks! You obviously dont have loadsa spare cash so the options .... As you point out the older RAM is more expenive but what do you care if you end up with a faster PC at the end ! If you change 1 thing then the graphics card is a good bet! The one sir_max suggests looks fine but $50 should find you plenty. Then the next step is the mobo. If you change it then you also need to change the RAM and CPU. If you can SWAP /part ex the RAM then the new mobo and CPU are about another $80. The difference is they are going to be upgradeable. But you need to check your compaq case has standard mobo fittings. And while your at it most compaq's use torx screws (*) so replace them as you put it back together :D if it does. Finally if the drive is a 5400 RPM dog then that could be next change ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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