Building new system

[onesickcrx]

I'm thinking about buying a Biostar P4SXQ Socket 478 Motherboard with Celeron 2.4 Ghz Processor from tigerdirect
I was wondering what is the CNR Slot for? and also after I put it all together will it run if I use a hardrive that was used on my hp pavalion 6638 was running win 98 se and it was off a 200 mhz intel celeron tower?

 

[ClutchWorks]

The CNR (communications and network riser) slot is not generally used by home users. It is used to install special proprietary devices. Commonly used for cheap NIC's in large scale corporations etc. Good luck finding something to plug in there... not that you really would want to anyway. The hard drive will work but it will be painfully slow.

 

[endyen]

If you can not afford a P4, get an athlon. The new celleries are very bad.

 

[onesickcrx]

alright thanks for the info guys also you guys know anybody selling combos motherbord and cpu bundle together for cheap price? I'm trying to find something better than a celron.

 

[smitbret]

First I'm going to assume some things. The Biostar board requires DDR memory. I assume that you are not taking the memory from your old HP Pavilion and putting it into the new board (it won't fit). If you were, you'll need a board that takes SDRAM not DDR RAM. It looks like you also need integrated graphics, too. So, assuming that, here goes...

First, Tiger Direct is the devil incarnate. They sell crap and treat you like crap. You may not get immediately ripped off, but often you will end up waiting weeks (or even months) for your stuff to be restocked. They won't tell you it's out of stock unless you ask them directly. If you ask them when it will be in, they'll tell you about 5-7 days, but they're usually lying. Their shipping is exorbitant, too. I used them a few years ago, but after I realized there were better alternatives (pretty much anyone), I won't even consider them.

Secondly, the system. Here's what I would do if I had about $110 to build the foundation of a new computer. Try www.newegg.com.

Get an AMD AThlon XP 2100+ processor and make sure it is the retail box, not the OEM because you need the Heat Sink Fan. That's $72, no shipping charge.

Check the refurbished AMD motherboards. For you, I recommend the MSI K7N2G-L it's $59, again no shipping. Here I go with the refurb thing, but I've always had great luck and almost always get a full box with all the cables, manuals and everything and the components have always worked. If your budget is tight, refurbished items are a great way to go. You may get one that doesn't work, but NewEgg is great about the RMA thing, and you'll have a replacement in less than week (3 days if you do it right).

What you have is a computer that will eat the Celeron for dinner and it's done for $131, total. Better motherboard, too. The cost of shipping that Tiger Direct would have charged you would make it a wash. If you can dig up $20 more, get the retail packaged Athlon XP 2500+ Barton ($92).

The hard drive will work, but like the earlier poster said, it'll be a bottleneck. Hope this helps. Just sounded like you were on a really tight budget.

-Brett

 

[onesickcrx]

Yea I am LOL I'm was trying to find a good system my budget is only $150 I'll look into to the motherboard and cpu you suggested thanks agian.

 

[onesickcrx]

Also another thing I have a tower that is a Etower machine 400i3 their used to be a intel celron 400 mhz in their but it's all cleared out only think left is a cdrom,floppy disk, and a Ilssan power supply, I was wondering and hopeing will the xp motherboards fit in this tower???

also their are only 4 slots in the back

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by onesickcrx on 08/29/03 02:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[onesickcrx]

I'm trying to just get this etower I have up and running hopefully be able to sell it to a friend of mine then I can get the system I want but for now can you guys tell me if this will work for the tower I have (etower 400i3)

Intel Celeron (Pentium 4 based) 1.7GHz 128K 400MHz FSB mPGA 478 Pin Processor Retail Box Version
Specifications:
CPU:1.7 GHz
Type: Celeron
Cache: 128K
BUS: 400MHz
Socket: 478 (mPGA) Retail (Box with Heatsink and fan)

Intel P4 Motherboard D845GLLY For P4 (478) Processors
Specifications:
FSB: Intel 845GL
PC-133 SDRAM
ATX Form Factor
Socket: PGA 478
Intel Extreme Graphics VGA
Ports: AGP 4x, USB 2.0 4x PCI
Intregrated Audio:AC'97 (OEM, BAREBONE) Model#: BOXD845GLLY -OEM

 

[smitbret]

I looked up a picture of the 400i3. It would be hard to say without looking at the inside. It looks like a pretty small tower. I would doubt that a normal ATX board with a modern heatsink fan would fit into it. One indicator would be where the PSU is located. If it is at the top of the machine, that's better. If it is on the side, it won't work because you'll have no clearance for your Heatsink fan. Additionally, the Power Supply on an E400i3 is either a 120 Watt or a 200 Watt, it comes with either. Both are underpowered for current machines. If it is the 200 Watt, you could probably scrape by since you have a slower hard drive and no video card. The 120 Watt is next to useless for any kind of upgrade you'll want to do.
You've given me a $150 budget, let's see what kind of computer we can put together for that......

Mother board- MSI K7N2G-L $59 refurbished $0 s/h
Processor- AMD Athlon XP OEM $47 $0 s/h
HSF Fan- Speeze 5F263B1M3 $7 $5 s/h
Memory- 128mb Crucial 128MB 16x64 PC-2700 DDR
$34.99 $0 s/h
Case/PSU Codegen L-6042-1-S2F With 400W Power Supply
$29 $10 s/h
Total Price -$ @ www.newegg.com

That'll give you a reasonable system with room to upgrade as your cash flow allows it. It will run Windows 98 or 2000, but doesn't really have the memory for Windows XP. It has integrated nVidia graphics and it will actually be quite overclockable. The case should be pretty decent and I can vouch for Codegen PSUs, they're not Antec, but they're not bad. Your hard drive will definitely be the bottleneck. After you've upgraded the HDD, you can either add more memory or get a video card and have yourself a pretty decent box. If $191.99 is still too steep, trade the MSI motherboard in for the Biostar M7VIG (refurbished). It'll shave $30 off of the price at the cost of graphics quality and upgradability. I also can't vouch for the reliablilty of this board. To me, the extra $30 is worth about three times that much. If you're patient, order everything but the case and see if it fits (if the PSU is only 120 Watts, don't bother). If it doesn't, order the new case. The only cost is the week you've got to wait while having to look at a bunch of computer parts you can't use, yet. Good luck.
-Brett