Guest JaseP Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 My hard drive, and possibly other components on my system burned up today. I was wondering if anyone had recommendations regarding the Microtel systems from Walmart. I've got to get a new machine and I don't know what parts I can salvage from the existing machine (including data). If anyone has suggestions for a Linux-ready machine I'd appreciate it. I need: 2GHz processor (I'm Intel/AMD agnostic) 512 MB RAM CD-Burner (I'm backing up this time) AGP slot Motherboard that works with Mandrake 100% Ability to put in my own soundcard (soo 100% disable-able sound and video if integrated already) I think all my peripherals are ok. I might be able to salvage my RAM (512 MB of DDR 266) I might be able to salvage my video (nVidia GeForce2 400MX AGP 64MB) I might be able to salvage one of the hard drives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
static Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 I can recommend telling walmart to go to hell... They are the retailer equivalent to M$. Asus boards work. Plus there's a new one with a 400MHz fsb, 8x AGP, integrated digital 5.1 surround sound, but not sure if the sound works in linux yet. Go AMD Athalon 3200+ (400MHz fsb). I'm running intel, but go AMD. DDR400Mhz RAM/fsb baby! As I said, get the matching 400MHz RAM for the board and CPU. Or use your RAM, which will bottleneck the FSB to 266 until you're ready to just replace the RAM, then your MB+CPU is ready to go lightspeed. If you can't afford a dvd burner, LG burners are good and affordable. But sony has a DVD burner that also writes cds... nVidia 128MB DDR Video card TI4600 NOT MX GeForce 4 if you're in the market... SCSI 15000rpm HDD with a SCSI controller. We're talkin' FAST. I personally don't need more than like 60GB, but if you have cash two of these in RAID!!! mmmmm, scsi raid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ab2ms Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 my asus a7v333-x works great, you can't go wrong with the good name brand boards like asus gigabyte, abit. The raid support is sometimes an issue, but unless it's a brand new line of boards you should be able to find out. Static, with those dreams you may want to start selling those CD's :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 Walmart computers are cheap for a reason.. they are made with cheap components. If I were you, I will go to your local computer store. It's easy to make a 2ghz barebone system for under 500 dollars. (I actually just built one for a friend last month). Here is an example: 550 dollars for a P4 2.4 GHz system with all the stats you are looking for plus DVD player and 60 gb hd. http://www.softwareandstuff.com/dsk_p4mfp533p24.html Anyway, you can shop around for better deal, or you can make them yourself. If you have a Fry's Electronics near you, you can always get a mb/2ghz cpu combo for around 100 dollars. That should alleviate some of the expenses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 Look for computer shows in your area where they sell computers. You can transfer pieces from your old box to the new and save cash. E.g. My bud got a snazzy box/motherboard with 2.4 ghzt, and a video board for 360 bucks. He installed the motherboard himself, transfered hard drive, cd drives, dvd and keyboard/mouse and was up and running.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 Thanks for the suggestions. I thought I'd probably shop around for components, but I really shouldget a new case/power supply combo in addition to just MoBo and CPU. The Power supply might have caused the whole problem. I don't even know if my existing CPU is fried or not. I don't even get a post-code beep when I power the unit on. The hard drive had a scorch mark on one of the IC's (that's what flashed and went poof,... with smoke and all). The CPU fan doesn't even come on anymore. I have no way of running a diagnostic, by doing some part switching, as my other system at that location is mothballed, and is only an AMD K6-2 400MHz. My third machine is my Dell laptop from work (the one I'm using to write this). I'm just hoping I did'nt catch a spike across the whole system and fried everything. I'd really like to be able to salvage the video card, the Sounblaster 5.1 card, the 512MB stick of DDR266 RAM, and the secondary HD (40 GB Maxtor). It was a 60 GB Maxtor that "burned up". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 Don't know if this will help you out, but if you're looking for just parts, check out http://www.ebccomputers.com They're headquartered in Utah, but they will ship pretty much anywhere. I haven't found too many places that sell stuff cheaper. You could probably get everything you need for pretty cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 5, 2003 Report Share Posted June 5, 2003 I chose Epox recently because it is good quality for a better price than Abit. Gigabyte is usually priced well on out of date product. Asus is a good board, but never a good buy. Best prices on parts in the past 60 days is this place. I like AMD, and 350-400 watt power supplies. Also, you really must replace your case/power supply, given what you are describing. If you have a shop locally, it pays to purchase cases with power supplies there because the shippng weight will remove any savings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
static Posted June 6, 2003 Report Share Posted June 6, 2003 I know I sound a little "techni-colour" dreamy, but trust me - if you do it right, you won't have to upgrade to 2-3x longer. At least make sure if you get a new board/cpu, they handle a fsb of 400. Then, like I said, you just buy new RAM in a year or two. The rest was just because, you know, mmmmmmmmmmmmm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 6, 2003 Report Share Posted June 6, 2003 Hey, by all means, if you have the money, Asus with scsi raid is hot hot hot!! When I dream, I always look at those builds, but when the money comes, I have to get the best bang for the buck. Wife, kids, cats......you know the drill. :mystismiles: They just don't understand about computer parts!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted June 6, 2003 Report Share Posted June 6, 2003 Well.. if I can give an opinion regarding ths, it actually really depends on what you want to do with your computer. If you want stable, economical, with no frills / overclocking stuffs, it's a whole lot better to buy a lesser known motherboard, such as shuttle, FIC, and biostar (but never ECS.. I said stable remember). If you want an overclocker's dream or everything plus the kitchen sink is included kind of motherboard, abit and asus are good examples. Epox seems to be in between.. good overclocking capability, good price, good features, a bit problematic in stability but when it runs, it runs for days. For cpu, I think thoroughbred B would be the best deal, because of its overclockability. A 1700+ ($50) or a 2100+ ($80) can be overclocked to 400 FSB pretty easily with a good NForce2 MB and RAM. If you don't like to overclock, lower end Barton is a good deal since you can get a 2500+ Baron for under 100 dollars. Then there is the P4, I think you should wait until the Springdale becomes more common. From what I see.. Springdale could be the IT motherboard for P4. Anyway, those are my opinions right now. Another good place to buy computer parts are http://www.newegg.com http://www.googlegear.com and http://www.monarchcomputer.com Another thing, before you buy the parts from any online store, check its rating from http://www.resellerratings.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted June 6, 2003 Report Share Posted June 6, 2003 Try stay away from the FIC. I just had quite a bit of trouble with them. Sent me two bad MB in a row and both times new what the problem probobly was as soon as I called on it. Both times it was a manufacturers problem, not mine. I ended up with an asus. Worked first time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 6, 2003 Report Share Posted June 6, 2003 Unless you have cash to burn (in which case I can help) shouldn't you find out whats still working. You didn't say what CPU/Mobo you have. Personally I like to stay away from any built in stuff because sometimes it can just be a pain to get it working and then a bigger pain to actually disable it. (My exception is a shuttle cause its so cute) Your K6-2 400 sounds like a perfect file/backup server. :-) Anyway, if I were you i'd invest in a cheap multimeter (like 15$) and good for so many things.... Strip out everything exept CPU/mem (incl. graphics.) have you got an internal speaker, if so couple it up if not already. You should at least get the POST message for video not found. Then add your video and check the memory is counting etc. If its your PSU its difficult to check, thereas a power-good line (but memory fails although I still remember where it was on the old AT boxes.) The point of doing this is if something is shorted (like the drive) it won't start up. If you just have your mobo, cpu and memory and it doesn't startits likely your CPU. Anyway, between the two machines (processor/memory you might end up with a decent second machine you can use for testing new distros....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted June 7, 2003 Report Share Posted June 7, 2003 Well,... I bit the bullet and got the following system: Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Intel D845GEBV2 Motherboard nVidia Geforce4 MX 440 128MB DDR RAM AGP (temporarily replaced with a GeForce2 because Mandy 8.2 doesn't recognize GeForce4's) 512 MB DDR 333 RAM 80 Western Digital HD Benq (say what!?!?) CD-RW; 52x24x52 speed I'm salvaging the following parts from my old system(s): floppy a Seagate 10GB drive my SoundBlaster Live 5.1 The vid card from the defunct Athlon system, a GeForce2 MX AGP w/ 64 MB RAM (which I'm temporarily using) Now, the problem is that I have to completely reconfigure my video (my screen is scewed to the right, and I'm losing about a 1/8 inch of the desktop), I lost 2 hard drives in the flame-out (both Maxtors and less than 1 yr old, a 60 GB and a 40 GB). I have to re-create all my data since November when I got the Athlon system (nothing critcal, thank God). And I have to make sure the system Boots up smooth. Currently I'm getting an error on start-up that appears to be due to the onboard video resulting in a resource conflict with the GeForce card. I stil have to track that down... Eventually the system will be configured to work (I hope) with 2 hard drives (one entirely for back-up) a CD-RW for backup, and unlike my old system, no removeable Hard Drive trays (a possible source of over-heating). The new box has a total of 4 fans currently (Power Suply, Case, CPU and GPU). So over-heating will be minimal. Oh, and someone asked about the old system: Athlon XP 2100+ DFI K7 DDR Motherboard (KT333 chipset) 512 MB DDR266 RAM SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 GeForce2 MX 400 64MB RAM AGP 2 MAXTOR HDs: 60 GB (Linux), and 40 GB (Windoze) The 2 HDs were fried,... can't tell about the RAM or MoBo, or CPU. I haven't been able to get sound out of the SoundBlaster yet, but haven't tried either. I don't know what I'm pissed more about; 1- having to reconfigure everything, 2- having lost what I had in terms of Data or 3- Having to buy a new system having just done so a few months ago. If anyone can offer confuguration help about the Intel D845GEBV2 MotherBoard, I'd be appreciative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
static Posted June 9, 2003 Report Share Posted June 9, 2003 Why do you have to reconfigure all this stuff (and worry about mdk 8.2 with your G4) if the harddrives are fried anyway? If you have to reinstall, go 9.1 and solve all the problems in a 25 minute install, no? Be sure your burner is master secondary, hard drive master primary, other cdrom slave primary, other hdd slave secondary. Be sure your bios settings are set to have a 333 FSB and P'n'P bios OFF. Other than that, happy flying! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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