Bring back dead on minimal budget

Machine of mine died. I'm pretty sure it's either motherboard, processor, video card or memory as those components are about 4 years old, and the power supply is only about 6 months old.

Rather than troubleshoot, I'm taking the lazy way out and just going to buy those 4 components (like I said vid card, mobo, cpu, and mem are 4 yrs old anyway) and build a new machine on a tight budget (250-350). This is what I've come up thus far:

Budget Build

Case, hard drives, CD/DVD drive and power supply will be transplanted from ailing machine.

Looking for thoughts and input along the lines of perhaps a better way to spend the same amount of cash ($250 - 350) or just opinions in general on the parts.

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what was nearly state of that art 4 yrs ago was a 2.4 Ghz cpu and motherboards for the Pentium 4.

for just about the same money u have u can get a state of the art windows pc at this site:

u should be able to use ur old monitor and maybe ur old optical drives.

http://www.ascendtech.us/customkit [...] A64X238256

That ole psu u have may not have the 1.x variable voltage that is needed for todays cpu's.

Reply to PC_Side_Line

you could upgrade to the 7600GT and save a couple bucks after rebate.

Reply to Neuman

You'd be much better off with AM2 rather than 939, the latter is last generation. Also, if not doing serious overclocking, the cooler that comes with the retail CPU will work fine. You'd also want to upgrade the RAM to at DDR2 667 and preferably to DDR2 800 Check out the AM2 boards and CPUs at newegg to the an idea of the cost. You should be able to get something within your budget

Reply to g-paw

Quote :

Machine of mine died. I'm pretty sure it's either motherboard, processor, video card or memory as those components are about 4 years old, and the power supply is only about 6 months old.

Rather than troubleshoot, I'm taking the lazy way out and just going to buy those 4 components (like I said vid card, mobo, cpu, and mem are 4 yrs old anyway) and build a new machine on a tight budget (250-350). This is what I've come up thus far:

Budget Build

Case, hard drives, CD/DVD drive and power supply will be transplanted from ailing machine.

Looking for thoughts and input along the lines of perhaps a better way to spend the same amount of cash ($250 - 350) or just opinions in general on the parts.

Are you totally dead? Buttons pushed, no response? Or will it not post? Did you clear CMOS to see if that's the prob? What PSU did you recently get?

Reply to RJ

Quote :

what was nearly state of that art 4 yrs ago was a 2.4 Ghz cpu and motherboards for the Pentium 4.

for just about the same money u have u can get a state of the art windows pc at this site:

u should be able to use ur old monitor and maybe ur old optical drives.

http://www.ascendtech.us/customkit [...] A64X238256

That ole psu u have may not have the 1.x variable voltage that is needed for todays cpu's.

Lol...State of the art....256mb ram 40gb hard drive....At least my machine didn't get a state of the art virus by visiting that link....

Reply to bb1ood

here is what I came up with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227082

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813138036

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103639

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130075

total came to 335.76 after shipping

this will not only give you a much newer computer than you were looking at but it will also be much easier to upgrade it when the time comes.

Reply to thexder1

Quote :

Are you totally dead? Buttons pushed, no response? Or will it not post? Did you clear CMOS to see if that's the prob? What PSU did you recently get?

When you turn on, case & cpu fans start up for about 5 seconds, nothing makes it to the screen and then the machine shuts off so no POST. No error beep codes either. No onboard video either so I'd have to buy a vid card to troubleshoot that (my other newer machine that works fine is PCI-E and this dead machine is AGP so couldn't try swapping).

Reply to sh1ft3d

Quote :

You'd be much better off with AM2 rather than 939, the latter is last generation. Also, if not doing serious overclocking, the cooler that comes with the retail CPU will work fine. You'd also want to upgrade the RAM to at DDR2 667 and preferably to DDR2 800 Check out the AM2 boards and CPUs at newegg to the an idea of the cost. You should be able to get something within your budget

Couldn't agree more with going for an AM2 machine, but in this case budget is top priority (250-350, and would prefer to stay as close to 250 as possible). I highly doubt this machine that I'm putting together will be upgraded, which is why I'm leaning towards the cheaper (and out-of-date) s939 technology.

Although, components that thexd put together is cheaper than i would've thought an AM2 machine would be... food for thought. Anyway, found the answers I was looking for in this thread so now just need to make a decision - thanks!

Reply to sh1ft3d

Hey bblood: our brother here with thee orig post needs to know that if he gets ur BIOSTAR board from newegg, that he may need to change the bios to recognize the evga card u are recommending.

He'll need the above little tip if the default video controller on that BIOSTAR board prefers to be seen over the evga card.

If ur going to recommend hardware u should also recommend tips for the new builders.

Reply to PC_Side_Line

You mentioned that you were going to be reusing your case, but had a case in your budget build list. I would suggest clarifying.

If you do consider an AM2 set up, here is a decent sale on some DD2 ram:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820220088

Gets you up to up to PC2 6400 and saves you $10.

Reply to cattbert

Quote :

Hey bblood: our brother here with thee orig post needs to know that if he gets ur BIOSTAR board from newegg, that he may need to change the bios to recognize the evga card u are recommending.

He'll need the above little tip if the default video controller on that BIOSTAR board prefers to be seen over the evga card.

If ur going to recommend hardware u should also recommend tips for the new builders.

I think you meant to reply to thexder1 instead of bblood....But yeah...reuse your case and put that cash towards better hardware....

In reply to the hardware list supplied by thexder1:

Quote :

here is what I came up with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227082

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813138036

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103639

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130075

total came to 335.76 after shipping

That mobo has integrated graphics....you could skip the graphics card and save 75 bucks....unless you need the graphics for gaming, the 6100 integrated graphics is pretty good....

Reply to bb1ood

yeah I realized that the board has integrated video but was suggesting the video card just because it would stay within the budget and be decent for gaming.

and no I did not know about any problems with that video card and mobo I just threw the list together to show that it could be done with good parts

Reply to thexder1

Quote :

You mentioned that you were going to be reusing your case, but had a case in your budget build list. I would suggest clarifying.

That's a good point lol. That wish list is under a friend's newegg account; he must've thrown a case in there (the build is somewhat for him as I'm considering selling him the machine once I rebuild). Sorry for confusion.

Reply to sh1ft3d

Quote :

That mobo has integrated graphics....you could skip the graphics card and save 75 bucks....unless you need the graphics for gaming, the 6100 integrated graphics is pretty good....

I doubt there'll be much, if any, gaming so you could be onto something here although there will be a considerable deal of graphics editing (i.e. Photoshop, Fireworks) do you think the 6100 could handle that?

Reply to sh1ft3d

that kind of editing does not require much from the video mainly CPU and RAM. if you were doing some high end CAD that uses openGL then you would need a better video card but that mobo should be plenty for you.

Reply to thexder1

Quote :

here is what I came up with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227082

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813138036

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103639

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130075

total came to 335.76 after shipping

this will not only give you a much newer computer than you were looking at but it will also be much easier to upgrade it when the time comes.

And for only $40.00 more you can have a very good system by adding:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103036

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Reply to Sirfiroth

that is an OEM CPU which means you would need to get a HS/fan for it which is going to make it a little more but that would be a good suggestion since you can simply not get the video card and get that CPU and a HS/fan for it.

Reply to thexder1

bingo. That will give you a viable system for the next year or 2. you can upgrade the video and processor whenever you are ready.

_____________

Reality is for people who can't handle drugs.

Reply to Sirfiroth

BTW in case you were wondering the problem that you described earlier is either bad CPU or bad mobo it is not related to video or RAM. either video or RAM you would get a beep code. if the fans are spinning up then stopping there could also be a short somewhere but I would take a guess and say that the CPU is probably ok but the mobo is not. Not that it really matters since the components are so old that they should be replaced anyways.

Reply to thexder1

Quote :

BTW in case you were wondering the problem that you described earlier is either bad CPU or bad mobo it is not related to video or RAM. either video or RAM you would get a beep code. if the fans are spinning up then stopping there could also be a short somewhere but I would take a guess and say that the CPU is probably ok but the mobo is not. Not that it really matters since the components are so old that they should be replaced anyways.

That's kind of what I was thinking too. Some history to this machine is that it would randomly restart if you were sitting at the machine and would get up or when you're walking around in the room (didn't mention that up front because this topic wasn't about troubleshooting dead machine - was meant for advice on new parts). I know that sounds crazy, but that's what would happen - it never restarted if it no one was in the room. I long suspected some kind of static electricity problem. I unhooked the reset button just in case somehow, some way that was the issue, but machine still randomly reset. I wonder if the static electricity problem finally shorted/fried the mobo somewhere. In any case, the machine itself is old as George Burns anyway so a reincarnation seems the best route. May buy some really cheap parts to save the memory processor and vid card in that machine after I rebuild new machine out of the new memory, cpu, and mobo, but I don't know... probably wouldn't be worth it.

Reply to sh1ft3d

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