Author Topic: Building for wife  (Read 481 times)

Offline DREDIOCK

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Building for wife
« on: December 18, 2004, 01:41:34 PM »
ok now keep in mind all my wife does is surf the net,pay bills online, and mess with her digital camera uploadig pictures to her family.

so she's not exactly a gamer

And this is an upgrade from an old  packard bell that barely meets the min requirements to us a cable modem.

Heres the parts I got

AMD sempron 1.7 ghz CPU

Asus A7V400-mx Motherboard

512 MB Kingston KVR333X64C25/512 Ram

40 Gig Western digital HD

CD/RW-DVD combo Drive

FlashGeni USB 2.0 6-1 card reader/writer (internal

FX5200 128 meg vieo card

TLA436 casEdge Case with a 400 watt power supply/w fan +1 case fan

Price $300

Plus I gotta get the OS

I know I coulda gotten some of the parts cheaper online but  I didnt want to risk not having it delivered in time for me to build

How good did I do?
or how bad did I FU?
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Offline eagl

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Building for wife
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2004, 01:51:36 PM »
Only problem I see is hard drive space.  More storage is never a bad thing.  With only a 40 gig drive, if she needs more you'll either have to migrate to a new drive or attempt to teach her how to use the D: drive which will probably just confuse and irritate her.  You'd have been better off going with a 200 gig drive (seagates are quiet) and being done with it.  You mentioned she uses her digital camera and if she gets into making albums or expands her camera use at all, or even just upgrades to a higher resolution camera in the future, you'll fill that drive up really quickly.

On that note, a DVD burner would let her archive the photos in big batches instead of one cd at a time, but then again it's easy to put one "album" per cd and organize it that way so a cd burner isn't really a bad choice.

The mobo has built in graphics so you probably didn't need a separate video card.

Other than that, nothing jumps out as being bad.  I'd personally always buy a "real" cpu instead of the value ones like the celeron and sempron since the price difference is typically only $30 or so, but if you're going for absolute cheapest then $30 here and there really adds up.

If you need a display, get a 17" LCD.  They're getting cheaper and take up tons less desk space.

For the OS, you would be fine just getting winXP home OEM for $80 or whatever.  You usually need to get it with hardware though...
« Last Edit: December 18, 2004, 02:20:44 PM by eagl »
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Offline DREDIOCK

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Building for wife
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2004, 02:27:27 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by eagl
Only problem I see is hard drive space.  More storage is never a bad thing.  With only a 40 gig drive, if she needs more you'll either have to migrate to a new drive or attempt to teach her how to use the D: drive which will probably just confuse and irritate her.  You'd have been better off going with a 200 gig drive (seagates are quiet) and being done with it.

Other than that, nothing jumps out as being bad.  I'd personally always buy a "real" cpu instead of the value ones like the celeron and sempron since the price difference is typically only $30 or so, but if you're going for absolute cheapest then $30 here and there really adds up.

If you need a display, get a 17" LCD.  They're getting cheaper and take up tons less desk space.

For the OS, you would be fine just getting winXP home OEM for $80 or whatever.  You usually need to get it with hardware though...


I figure for what she does its gonna take her a while to fill up a 40 Gig. Hell thats what I have and after a year its still only a little more then half full

yea for another 30 I could have gotten a 2.0 Ghz but I figured she isnt going to notice that much of a difference from 1.7.
And money definately was a consideration. Thats what enabled me to get the Card reader which was something I really wanted it to have.

She already has a brand new keyboard, & optical mouse

Also had picked her a up this monitor for mothers day last year.

Actually for the $79 after rebate its a damn nice monitor
Liked it so much that a couple months ago when I was in a pinch for a monitor for my system I picked one up for myself.

Beleive it or not Im really quite pleased with it


17" MAG
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Offline Ghosth

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« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2004, 09:09:06 AM »
As long as you remember once every 6 months to a year  or so to burn a few CD's/dvd's & clean up the HD she'll be fine with 40.

My wife has had 80 G for 2 years and still has not reached 20G of stuff stored.

Otherwise looks like a good system.

Offline maddog

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Building for wife
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2004, 10:41:42 AM »
In same boat..... But networked.... Her PST files and "images" are on all four systems just in case...... If she loses them its naturally my fault as I am home sys admin...  just got 200 gig at Fry's for $49... No reason not to go bigger....

Offline humble

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« Reply #5 on: December 20, 2004, 05:34:15 PM »
posted on other thread...but duplicated here...XPhome..$48 US

http://www.hitechoutlets.com/xcart/customer/product.php?productid=2170

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Offline StarOfAfrica2

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« Reply #6 on: December 20, 2004, 11:02:59 PM »
Sounds almost identical, except for brands, to the one I just built for my brother and his kids.

SiS 735 MOBO (stopped using it b/c it was AGP 4x and PC2100 RAM was the fastest it could use)

512 MB Kingston Value RAM PC2700

GeForce4 MX4000 128MB video card.

40 GB 7200 RPM HD

3com NIC

Athlon XP 1800+ 1.5 Ghz processor

USR 56k V90 modem as backup for his NIC.

WinXP Professional

Every part in it, including the case was either extras I had laying around or was scrounged for free except for the HD.  I bought that new.  Even the fancy copper heatsink I used on the CPU was one I had discarded as not good enough for my purposes, but would work fine for his.

Total cost $70 for the new HD, plus 55 bucks to ship it to Illinois.

Offline DREDIOCK

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Building for wife
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2004, 12:36:38 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Ghosth
As long as you remember once every 6 months to a year  or so to burn a few CD's/dvd's & clean up the HD she'll be fine with 40.

My wife has had 80 G for 2 years and still has not reached 20G of stuff stored.

Otherwise looks like a good system.


thanks I figure she's not a gamer at all so this should do her fine for a long while to come.
She probably doesnt even need as much ram or the Vid Card but I figure this way I can tell her.
"see now you have a system as good as mine (temporarily)
This will enable me to build a hotshot new system for me
Hopefully this spring or when work starts picking up again with only a minimal amount of her complaining about it.

I'll just teach her to burn em to CD right from the get.
I'll just drill it into her head that if the system crashes she'll loose everything.
She'll hate that thought :D
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Offline DREDIOCK

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Building for wife
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2004, 04:16:14 PM »
We have success!

Wasnt too bad for my first build.

Ended up getting some help fromt he place that sold me the MB as to how some of the wires hooked up. Was a bit dissapointed with the documentation that came with the MB and  the silkscreening on the MB itself isnt ment for 43 year old eyes. Recently diagnosed as being in need of bifocals.
Turned out I had the connectors all in the right places just some of the smaller ones facing the wrong way.
I had him tell me what to do as I did it rather then have him do it for me so I would know in the future.

Everything else was a peice of cake and worked wonderfully.

Ended up letting him talk me into and picking up Windows XP professional upgrade for the OS. $100. Not bad considering BestBuy wants $179 for it on sale from $199.

All I needed was a Windows CD from one of the earlier editions of windows to confirm I was a previous owner and badabing badaboom I was all set.


No regrets

Wife was tickled pink

Only problem now is I had so much fun building that one I now wanna build another.
Hmmm maybe I can talk one of my sister in laws into getting a new one:)
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Offline Roscoroo

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Building for wife
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2004, 04:36:34 PM »
what i do is split my hard drive in 2 partions  C:\    D:\    i use c for os , programs ,email  type stuff .

the D drive i put full installers for everything along with my doc's and anything important , I also put my C drive backup there  for restore purposes .

this way if the c drive crashes/catches too bad a bug ect... i'll i have to do is format c and reinstall os then run the back up .

I also have a 2nd hard drive that i keep everything on for all our pc's for emergencys  (such as a hd failer) this only gets hooked up for loading then its unhooked .

now a great time to go look for used pc's to tinker with ... ive learned tons by getting older pc's and rebuilding them for needy families,  i've given away 10 of them in the last couple of years .. no im not giving away gamers (do to the fact ive got $$$ in them ) but alot of them were 500mhz -1ghz stuff
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Offline eagl

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Building for wife
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2004, 06:24:02 PM »
When will you ever learn...

Make a token "upgrade" to your old system, and give to spouse.  Keep new-build hardware to yourself.  Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.
Everyone I know, goes away, in the end.

Offline DREDIOCK

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Building for wife
« Reply #11 on: December 26, 2004, 08:27:16 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by eagl
When will you ever learn...

Make a token "upgrade" to your old system, and give to spouse.  Keep new-build hardware to yourself.  Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.


I hear what your saying but at this time it was not financially possible for what I want to do

 It will however keep her silent when I do build a new monster system for myself:D
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Offline eagl

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« Reply #12 on: December 27, 2004, 03:08:23 PM »
I understand.  Even when a new system or major upgrade is needed, it's often tough to come up with the cashola.

Here's something for the future then:  Around $600 for a moderately built full system from tigerdirect...  ASUS mobo, socket 939, athlon64 3400, 512 meg memory, 60 gig HD, 802.11g, cheapo vid card, case, 350 watt power supply, etc.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=1683

Keep in mind their combo deals the next time you're looking for an upgrade.  This one isn't all that bad for someone on a budget.  Most of the money is on the cpu/mobo and you can upgrade everything else as necessary.
Everyone I know, goes away, in the end.