I *hate* buying pc components...

[lnr]

Does this lot for approx 230 quid inc vat sound sensible?

• Abit UL8 939 5.1 Sound/LAN onboard
• AMD Athlon64 3000 Venice Retail Socket 939
• Kingston 512MB DDR PC3200 Non-ECC DIMM
• Microsoft Windows XP Home OEM SP2
• 80GB Maxtor DiamondMAX+10 133/7200
• 200GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 8MB

(My motherboard died, if I'm replacing it should do memory/cpu at same time, and I'd quite like a working Windows at not *too* expensive and am thinking of switching to Ubuntu to give it a try and don't have a huge amount of disk so....)

Edit: Perhaps bigger disk, brings price up a little to 250 quid, and at least one person recommends avoiding Maxtor.

NB: Windows is *not* going to be my day-to-day OS, this machine will be running either Debian or Ubuntu 95% of the time or more.

Comments

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

There's no case, so I presume that's intended to go into a pre-existing case; power supplies changed a lot when the P4 came out, so if the pre-existing case is from before 2001 I'd recommend getting a case.

The CPU fan comes in the AMD Athlon retail box.

Price seems quite reasonable, 200G disc probably sufficient, would it be sensible to spend another £30 to get DVD-writing capability for backups?

The reviews for this particular motherboard at Dabs are dreadful, and I'd be slightly wary about using a ULI chipset rather than the more usual nvidia; I'd be happier with something like Dabs'

ASRock Socket 939 GeForce 6100 PCI-E MATX A V L

[from the low-price range of the well-reputed Asus] at about a fiver more than the one you'd intended.

Before buying, I'd be tempted to check that there isn't an off-the-shelf box at Staples for comparable price after their discounts; I don't believe it's any longer always cheaper to build yourself.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

the ASRock has PCI Express if you want to fit a graphics card, and on-board graphics if you don't.

[lnr]

NB I've been looking at http://www.aria.co.uk/ simply because that was where Mobbsy started, they do seem very cheap in places, but there's quite a jump between their low-end socket 939 motherboards.

*sighs* I just want to get it bought and working to be honest, already tired of trying to make decisions.

[bonyandidle.livejournal.com]

Aria are quite good, though their service can be a bit random. I've used them for years now as their prices are usually about as good as you can get, and even when they cock things up they do sort it out in the end. Plus they once sent me an extra motherboard by accident, which I got 30 quid for, so I was happy.

[lnr]

Oh and Staples only have one desktop PC online at around 450 quid, so unless they usually have a lot of stuff in-store that's not online that's a non-starter.

[caramel-betty.livejournal.com]

A lot, I don't know, but they do have stuff in store that they don't have online. My experience is that it tends to be a bit cheaper than the stuff online.

[lnr]

That's worth knowing. Though I don't know if I want to risk buying a random machine which might not be linux compatible since Windows is not intended to be my main OS. I'd leave it off entirely if it wasn't occasionally useful and if buying new hardware like this is the only way to get a legit copy at a sensible price.