Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: -ammo- on October 08, 2001, 02:38:00 AM
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Enlight EN-7237 ATX Mid Tower 300W 4x5.25 3x3.5 $54.00
Creative Labs Blaster CD 52X IDE CD-ROM $31.00
Cooler Master DP5-6I31C Socket A/Athlon4/FCPGA upto 1.733GHz $19.00
WD Caviar WD200BB 20GB U/ATA100 8.9ms/2MB/7200rpm $90.00
SONY 1.44MB 3 1/2 inch Floppy Drive $17.00 $17.00
ASUS A7A266 ALiR-M1647 Socket A UDMA100 2DDR 3DIM 5PCI $129.00
Micron 256MB 184pins PC2100 DDR SDRAM DIMM $36.00
Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 PCI CT4815 Bulk $19.00
Inno3D Tornado GeForce2 GTS Pro 64MB DDR SGRAM AGP4X $118.00
AMD Athlon Thunderbird Socket A 1.4GHz FSB266 $124.00
so are these good choices?
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They look good to me!
I don't see anything there that you should have any troubles with.
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Hiya's,
Creative Labs Blaster CD 52X IDE CD-ROM $31.00 :Noooooooooooooooo it's a POS trust me
I have the A7a266 : No get the ABIT KG7 Raid (or even the "light" none raid) or wait for a new revision ;)
Though the A7a is stable and great for a upgrade without additional ram required (uses pc133 etc or DDR, Not at sametime though ! lol)
A KG7 runs rings around it from bios/stability (irq probs) and future proofing (pali support) for not too much more $$'s
If you want a better CD-Rom i can suggest some, Though what i am doing is ditching my CD-Rom for a DVD as these keep up with a CDRW better :)
My opinion about Creative may seem harsh but i have had the same 52x twice, Just last week i got yet another refund and vowed never again to buy Creative Cwap unless it had S-Blaster etched on it and it fitted a pci slot :d
Have Fun
Def
btw i had a inno banshee and she's still going after almost 4yrs abuse
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Ammo, you might want to think about kicking up the power supply some, 1.4's and gforce draw a lot of power and any upgrade will probably overstress a 300w
Shamus
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At that price buy 512mb of ram!
SKurj
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Shamus is right.
350W power supply should be enough to feed mobo,vid-card, fans and couple hard-disks if needed.
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Roger on the 350W PS.
Antec (SX 1030, I believe) makes a good case with the 350W, but the 7237 is a nice case also.
Also Ammo, I got a MSI GeForce 2 PRO 64M for $139, but I believe Newegg has them now for $124.
Oooppppss! 1 more thing. Crucial has great RAM and they are presently having FREE shipping. Check out their Website. I believe 256M DDR PC-2100 RAM is $34.
Good Luck and keep us updated!! :)
[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Swager ]
[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Swager ]
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I'd spend a few bucks more on the video card. Get a GeForce3 Ti200 for about $185.
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I would avoid the WD hard drive at all costs. They are highly inconsistent in quality. IBM's IDE drivers are a bit better.
But then, I am a SCSI kind of guy and prefer a Seagate Cheetah.
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Antec SX-1030 has 300 watts. SX-1040 is 400 watts.
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Since you are making the DDR memory jump get away from the A7A board and get the A7V266 that just came out from ASUS. So far so good and very stable as well. I got mine this morning and have it up and running now with a 512MB Micron DDR stick and a 1.4GHz T-bird. Make sure you get a power supply that is higher than 300W though.
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OKJ great info guys.
Why a A7V board as opposed to a A7A board?
Also, I know what it is like to have a crappy CDrom, I have replaced 2 toshiba's. So what is a decent CDrom at a reasonable price? I am just buying a straight CDrOM, no DVD or R/W now, to save money.
As far as Case/powersupply I will look at the other ones mentioned here. I had no idea it made that much of a difference. Any other guys that have products they can reccomend from experience?
On the hard drive, I though WD was the way to go, again educate me :) What is the advantage to a SCSI HD? I currently have one in my machine now, controlled by a Promise Ultra card. Recomendations please.
Thx fellas, this is kind of exciting.
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is this a good HD? http://www.bunta.com/products/prodspec.asp?item=HDIBIC740 (http://www.bunta.com/products/prodspec.asp?item=HDIBIC740)
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Yep, that IBM is a pretty good one.
Well,... I like SCSI stuff as I can put in my HD, CD, and Scanner on one interrupt and not suffer any performance loss.
The Seagate Cheetah drives are some of the fastest HD's around. Very reliable too.
I use an Adaptec SCSI card, as that is where I used to work and helped design them. Heck, wrote all the UNIX drivers for Adaptec, so it is aproduct I know very well.
Another reason I like SCSI is for all the OS's I need to run. Under and UNIX, a good SCSI adapter will just kick IDE drives all over the place in performance.
Plus, if I need to have 4 or 5 hard drives in a system, a CD-ROM and tape, SCSI is the way to go.
Nothing particularly wrong with IDE, it just has some limitations I cannot live with.
It is cheaper than SCSI, and under Windows, it does okay for performance. I just have not found an IDE drive that is as durable as many of the SCSI drives I use.
My environment is a bit different from most though. My systems stay up 24/7, which helps alleviate a lot of problems with the power cycling of hard drives, so my hard drives tend to last longer than most peoples.
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I can vouch for the Antec SX-1030b (B=Black in color), which has 300 watt ps, or the SX-1040 with 400 watt ps. They are the same except for color and ps.
The Antec SX-1030B is about 98 bucks I think. You would never regret buying this Mid Tower case. Its big. It's heavy, top quality, has a great latching door that comes of in .05 seconds, and on the same way, securely. GREAT airflow...Four 80mm fans... 2 sucking in front, 2 blowing out the back, plus the ps blowing out. And this case is upgrade proof for a long time, at least for me. Plenty of room.
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Originally posted by Skuzzy:
I would avoid the WD hard drive at all costs. They are highly inconsistent in quality. IBM's IDE drivers are a bit better.
But then, I am a SCSI kind of guy and prefer a Seagate Cheetah.
..never had even a glitch with 4 WDs. Seagate is the ONLY HD I've ever had die.
Tumor
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Originally posted by Defiance:
Hiya's,
Creative Labs Blaster CD 52X IDE CD-ROM $31.00 :Noooooooooooooooo it's a POS trust me
Yep...Creative is good at SOUND!!...and thats it.
Tumor
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Originally posted by Tumor:
..never had even a glitch with 4 WDs. Seagate is the ONLY HD I've ever had die.
Tumor
Bet is an IDE Seagate too, not a SCSI Cheetah. I would not use Seagate IDE drives.
IBM seem to be ok, at least the latest generation of the drives are. WD is really inconsistent. Most of the mags I get concur as well. I know where WD sprang from, having to deal with them for many years, and they cannot help but be inconsistent. This does not mean you cannot get a good one. You can get a bad or good drive from anyone.
The Seagate Cheetah/Barracuda line sprang from the CDC line of hard drives, whereas the Seagate IDE drives are derived from the original Seagate designs. Very different if you ever set them side by side.
The WD line of drives sprang from the Tandon line of drives. Tandon had a horrible reputation for drive quality. WD has improved on that over the years, but WD still has consistency problems. Mostly due to the platters, which they buy from other manufacturers. It is not unusual for the WD drives to have a high amount of oxide deposits on the inside of the case, from normal usage. These deposits are not a problem until the drive is shocked, then they may fall loose and cause damage to a surface as the deposits wedge between the head and media. It is rare these deposits will come loose be themselves, but can happen. This has been WDs' sore spot and is what contributes to the inconsistency of the product.
If you have one die, open it up. You will see copious amounts of oxide deposits on the side walls of the case.
[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Skuzzy ]
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update!
Ok I havent bought anything yet, but this is the corrections I have made. As before please if you see something amiss or I left out tell me I am screwing up and let me know how I should fix it.
Video cards—
·VISIONTEK XTASY 6564 AGP 64MB NVIDIA GEFORCE3 TI 200 $180
Motherboard—
·ASUS A7A266 ALiR-M1647 Socket A UDMA100 2DDR 3DIM 5PCI $129
CPU—
·AMD Athlon Thunderbird Socket A 1.4GHz FSB266 OEM $121
Memory—
·Micron 256MB 184pins PC2100 DDR SDRAM DIMM $36
Case—
·ANTEC SX1040B 400W power supply $?
Hard drive
·IBM Deskstar 60GXP IC35L040AVER07 41.17GB U/ATA100 7200rpm $113
CDROM
·SONY CDU5211 52X IDE CD-ROM Bulk $45
Floppy drive
·SONY 1.44MB 3 1/2 inch Floppy Drive $18
I need advice on heat sink and fan for the processor and what works, what doesnt, where to buy...etc
Saw a demo for winXP home today, that looks like a really nice OS. Got me woindering whether I should try it. I just got a copy of Win2K and i love it. What do you think about that?
V/R
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Ammo very nice choices.
I havent tried the new Asus board, but I used the old A7V and it worked fine until it DIED. I just bought an KG7 and its working like a charm, very stable. People sweat by it.
As for you other choices, wtg, God seems to be on your side when it comes to choosing hardware ;)
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Ammo, using a Zalman cnps5000-plus here. T-Bird 1.4 @1.5 full load temps under 50c, plus a lot less noise than the delta fan equipped heatsinks. It bolts to the MB so you dont have to worry about it falling off and the bolts are spring loaded so it lines up nicely without a shim.
Shamus
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I would prefer you get a MB with the new VIA KT266A chipset rather than the ALI chipset. They should be similar in price. The A7V266 may or may not have the kt266a depending on how new it is. (kt266 is the original version, kt266a features improved memory performance.)
That Abit board is also good from what I've been hearing.
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I'm using Thermaltake Volcano Cu with shim plate between cpu and heatsink and silverpaste.
My CPU is 1,4GHz Athlon overclocked to 1,51GHz (144MHz bus) and temperatures are max 50-52Celsius. CPU runs quite cool and heatsink/fan are cheaper than some high-end cooling systems :)
http://www.thermaltake.com/ (http://www.thermaltake.com/)
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Originally posted by Skuzzy:
Bet is an IDE Seagate too, not a SCSI Cheetah. I would not use Seagate IDE drives.
IBM seem to be ok, at least the latest generation of the drives are. WD is really inconsistent. Most of the mags I get concur as well. I know where WD sprang from, having to deal with them for many years, and they cannot help but be inconsistent. This does not mean you cannot get a good one. You can get a bad or good drive from anyone.
The Seagate Cheetah/Barracuda line sprang from the CDC line of hard drives, whereas the Seagate IDE drives are derived from the original Seagate designs. Very different if you ever set them side by side.
The WD line of drives sprang from the Tandon line of drives. Tandon had a horrible reputation for drive quality. WD has improved on that over the years, but WD still has consistency problems. Mostly due to the platters, which they buy from other manufacturers. It is not unusual for the WD drives to have a high amount of oxide deposits on the inside of the case, from normal usage. These deposits are not a problem until the drive is shocked, then they may fall loose and cause damage to a surface as the deposits wedge between the head and media. It is rare these deposits will come loose be themselves, but can happen. This has been WDs' sore spot and is what contributes to the inconsistency of the product.
If you have one die, open it up. You will see copious amounts of oxide deposits on the side walls of the case.
[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Skuzzy ]
Yep...was a IDE Seagate that died, but still, I've had 4 WD's, 1.3g through 30gig and not one ever so much as burped. By the way...I've also had a Maxtor die on me. So, no matter what the mag's and pro's say, I'm a die-hard WD fan. WD has been very good to my hard earned bucks...no other has come close.
Tumor
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Skuzzy,
SCSI drives are nice, but in my opinon for a home system are extremely cost prohibitive.
Oh and I agree that the Cheetah/Baracuda line are my favorites too, I should in all honesty say that I did have a Baracuda die a horrible noisy death in my SGI UNIX workstation at my job, and lost a 3 week long pollution simulation run I was doing. :(
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Pretty true Verm. SCSI is not for everyone. I use it pretty much exclusively in all my systems,...but I am very comfortable with the interface.
I have only used a few Barracudas, and never had any troubles with them. All my servers use the Cheetah line (the 10K drives, not the 15K rpm drives) and I have never had a failure.
The oldest drives I currently have running are 2 Quantum 1GB drives. These pups have been running for 7 years. I dread the day I have to power them off, as they probably will never start up again :).
The oldest drive I have, that still works, but is not used for anything critical is a CDC Wren VII 1GB 5 1/4 drive. It is now 10 years old and still works.
Of course I do little things like put a HD cooler in with every drive, as heat is the primary cause of HD failures. The HD coolers even have washable air filters.
Anywho, glad you have good luck with the WD drives Tumor.
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Originally posted by bloom25:
I would prefer you get a MB with the new VIA KT266A chipset rather than the ALI chipset. They should be similar in price. The A7V266 may or may not have the kt266a depending on how new it is. (kt266 is the original version, kt266a features improved memory performance.)
That Abit board is also good from what I've been hearing.
Thx bloom, could you give manufacturer/model numbers of the boards that have that feature?
Thx-
ammo
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Well, as long as you buying new, why not get one of the new Athlon XPs instead of the regular Athlon 1.4? $135 for the Athlon XP 1600 (1.4GHz) versus $102 for the 1.4GHz. Same clock speed of 1.4GHz, but the XP should be approximately 5-6% faster.
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www.coolerguys.com (http://www.coolerguys.com)
for fans.
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I don't know the exact model ammo, but I do know that Anandtech's brand new Athlon XP article was done on a kt266a board. They listed the model and manufacturer somewhere in the article. :) www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com) or find my Athlon XP post just a couple days ago and click on the anandtech link.
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yup-- I need this :) however it seems it will be a short period of time before its released..and when it is how much will it cost??
This week's favorite motherboard: "8KHA+"
This AMD, DDR super over-clocking planar will definitely blow away most competition of its class. 8KHA+ will be one of the most reviewed and talked about motherboards from Epox International and probably in the computer industry. This KT266A N.B chipset planar supports up to 1.5 Gig of DDR memories, supports 266 MHz FSB and of course, Morgan and Palomino tested. It is loaded with 1 AGP 4X slot, 6 PCI slots, ATA 100, supports up to 6 USB connectors, a Full-On Debugger Card for easy recognition. Combining with the Epox International’s award winning (TSD) Tech-Support Department. Due to recent tragic events and typhoons in Eastern Asia, this planar has been delayed until Oct 4th for distribution.
image and specs,EP-8KHA+ (http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8kha+.asp)
[ 10-10-2001: Message edited by: -ammo- ]
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ammo,
for good cpu cooling, get the Alpha PAL8045. You can get it at Pcnut.com (great site, the owner is a great dude) its is bar none THE best Socket A cooler at the moment.
You can go to www.hardocp.com (http://www.hardocp.com) www.sharkyextreme.com (http://www.sharkyextreme.com) and www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com) and look for reviews.
There is no better Socket A cooler right now, not even close.
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To cool your AMD chip get a Vantec 6035 Copper.. probably one of the best if not the best cooler you can get for decent price. I Have one on mine.
(http://www.innercite.com/~lsterling/elitesig4.jpg)
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I have had my components for a new computer since 17 August. It is still not running. I haven't even got it to boot. I am on my second 1.33Ghz CPU and my second EPOX 8k7A. Still no joy. A friend is going to look at it while I am gone for a week. He has a 300W PS and will hook that to it. Hopefully he can get it running.
I believe it may be my PS (300W). I have an Antec SX830.
If he has no joy, I will RMA the board again and request the Epox 8KHA+.
Ah! Such is life!! :)
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Damn Swagger... I use the Antec 1030 with 300w PS and its been problem free with an ASUS board. Heeeeyyy have u put other systems together in the past? +)
Good luck
SKurj
Oh guess I should plug the Antec Case: I run it with 4 case fans (only comes with 2 but has brackets for the other 2), a blue orb(cooler) on GF2 MX, 2 HDDs, CDRW, WBK38 cooler(60+cfm fan) all told 8 fans, and an average # of devices and have not had a problem with the thing whatsoever. Prolly the smartest purchase I've made in a loong time +) cept they didn't have the black one in stock +(
[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: SKurj ]
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Originally posted by bloom25:
I don't know the exact model ammo, but I do know that Anandtech's brand new Athlon XP article was done on a kt266a board. They listed the model and manufacturer somewhere in the article. :) www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com) or find my Athlon XP post just a couple days ago and click on the anandtech link.
Bloom, is there another make model of motherboard than the epox i mentioned that utilizes the VIA KT266A chipset?
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VIA KT266/KT266A mobos (http://www.via.com.tw/jsp/en/products/apollo/ddrmobo.jsp)
The ASUS KT266A boards aren't mentioned on their website yet..
SKurj
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Ammo, Epox,MSI(Microstar), and Shuttle have Via 266A boards out now. You can find them on www.pricewatch.com. (http://www.pricewatch.com.) You can buy the Epox at http://www.goroyalpc.com/ (http://www.goroyalpc.com/) or http://www.pcdynamic.com/ (http://www.pcdynamic.com/) for $137. They went up $10 in the past few hours.
I've about settled on the Epox board though. Gigabyte will have one out, and so will Asus and no doubt others.
Between the MSI and the Shuttle, I prefer the MSI which has more features, and it will support a Palomino out of the box (as will Epox). (it has a RED pcb, too, thats gotta count for somethin' ;)
[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: Gunthr ]
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Don't forget to get the TM Cougar HOTAS :D
I just pre-ordered mine.
Gonna keep my CH Pro USB rudder pedals for now until I see what the "new" TM pedals that plug into the Cougar are like.