Building new machine from scratch please Help :)

[fugazi]

It has been 5 years since i last built a pc for myself so I need some help.. I want a Athlon 900-1000. The problems i have are follow..
1. What case should i get? I dont want to overclock since cpus are so cheap not worth it. But I am concerned about heat.
2. What MB to buy I heard about Abit and Asus but which one is better?
3. Should I get a MB that supports Ata 100? Is it worth it? Toms report on this was a little confusing it sounded like ata 66 was good enough.
4. What Memory to buy pc133? and what type generic brand speed?
5. Where to buy it I am looking for reliable more than price since it cost $$$ to return items.
6. What HD to get looking 30-40 gigs 7500 or more
7. Has anyone used these new mice that uses the finger(not thumb) how are they?

Thank you I am looking to buy in about 2 weeks or so

 

[mpjesse]

OK, real simple.

1. Asus and Abit are both good boards- either one will work fine.
2. It's hard to find boards w/o ATA-100 now, so just get it.
3. Get an Alpha PAL6035 or GlobalWinFOP38 HSF- their good.
4. Get PC133 CAS2 memory from Crucial.com
5. Get your crap from www.pricewatch.com
6. Get a 40 gig HD that is ATA100 and is 7200 RPM (might be hard to find)
7. Don't [-peep-] it up.

-MP Jesse

 

[broggiemonster]

Cooling. Buy a case with metal sides and top. Hire a tankcutter from tool hire shop, cut holes in case to suit fans (buy fans obviously). Use hi powered powersupply with enough connectors to power your devices and fans.
Use arctic silver thermal transfer compound on cpu.

The world is your oyster.

Ray.

 

[Guest]

You don't say where you're located, but I can give you a couple of really good places (as least for me) in the US.

<A HREF="http://www.pcnut.com" target="_new">http://www.pcnut.com</A>

<A HREF="http://www.outsideloop.com" target="_new">http://www.outsideloop.com</A>

Both are small mom and pop shops. Support is email or a toll call during business hours. Prices are on the higher side.

However, both places have always treated me as a valued customer and have gone out of their way to provide little extras. I've traded emails with both at various oddball hours. Both sell quality items and stand behind what they sell. They both know their stuff. They also sell various combos you might be interested in, although most of these are overclocked.

My personal preference if I'm building a system from scratch is to buy as much as possible from the same vendor. Part of this is convenience, as shipping is always a pain for me...everything must go to my work address. Others may disagree, but I'd at least buy the motherboard, RAM and CPU from the same place. It makes troubleshooting much, much easier if there's a problem.

I'll cut and paste my resellerratings line:

You could also look at <A HREF="http://www.resellerratings.com" target="_new">http://www.resellerratings.com</A> and find a place with a lot of good ratings. This site seems to be fairly accurate if you find a place with a fair amount of ratings/reviews. Even if a site has a good rating, I read the reviews. Occasionally I'll come accross a vendor that has a pretty good rating, but when I read the reviews, it still seems that there are a fair amount of problems.

Mike