Building myself a new system

Theophylact · April 14th, 2008, 12:24 PM

Well, just after I got my taxes printed out, my computer (an Athlon 2500+) died the ugly death.

I can't say I'm surprised; this is the one I had such problems with a year ago. I think at the very least one of the IDE controllers was banjaxed; even after the repair installation, everything ran slowly, and I could never attach a second drive to the IDE cable.

So I'm building a new one. Unfortunately the new motherboard has only two PCI slots. One will have to go for my SCSI card (until I spring for a new scanner), and the other for my dialup modem (because I have a really flaky DSL connection). That means my TV tuner card goes back into its box (perhaps I can use it in the Ubuntu machine), as does the adapter for a card reader (though I can probably get a new internal one that runs off a USB header).

I'm not going high-end on the processor; I'm getting the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane black box 65W, which should handle any work I'm likely to do. And I'm only getting 2GB of DDR2 800 RAM, because (1) the processor isn't that fast, (2) I'm not overclocking, and (3) I'm going to be running Win XP. I went for only a 320 GB SATA HDD because I have a 500 GB external as backup. If things get really cheap later on, my Antec Sonata case has room for 4 hard drives, and the motherboard has 5 SATA connections; right now, I'll be using the single IDE controller for my DVD burner and my Zip250 drive. I have bought a new power supply, partly because the one in the Sonata doesn't have SATA connectors (though adapters are really cheap), partly because I'm not sure it had a 24-pin power connector (the current board is a 20-pin one), and partly for future needs (if I'm ever crazy enough to buy a high-end processor and graphics card).

Anything I should know about, or change?

KarmaKiller · April 14th, 2008, 12:39 PM

Hmm.. You picked out a nice motherboard. So no complaints from me on that.
Of course, I always think people need a faster CPU, but your a smart guy, and if that's all you'll need, then I'll leave you alone on that.

Honestly it looks like a solid build. I really don't see a need to swap out any of the parts you have picked out.

nickslick74 · April 14th, 2008, 01:04 PM

Looks good Theo!

Theophylact · April 17th, 2008, 06:08 PM

Made one minor miscalculation: The Athlon 64X2 5000+ comes without a heatsink/fan. Any recommendations for a reliable, relatively quiet, not exorbitantly expensive HSF? As I said, I'm not overclocking this baby.

KarmaKiller · April 17th, 2008, 06:14 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103031
It works good, is almost silent, and the best part, it's cheap!

JPMiller · April 17th, 2008, 08:12 PM

I suggest THIS PSU instead...
It has higher rails, and is much cheaper even without rebate

With the $15 you save, you can opt for a full ATX board with enough PCI slots to use your TV Tuner

And I'd spend the other $5 for a 2 year longer warranty, and better speeds from a Seagate 320...

carl33p · April 17th, 2008, 09:09 PM

2 more dollars for the regular x2 5000+ with the stock HSF.

You proly are aware, 2GB Ram can be found 35$ if you dont want to deal with the rebate.

Get a different PSU. That one is way to expensive! IMO, Antec's failure rate is reason enough to stay away even if it costed half as much.

Theophylact · April 18th, 2008, 09:42 AM

Well, I've already received all the parts I mentioned above, so the only real issue is the HSF, though I'm probably going to get an SATA DVD burner to free up one of the IDE connections for the old HDD. I am thinking about one of these two HSFs; the comments on KarmaKiller's recommendation indicate that it's hard to install without damaging the board.

KarmaKiller · April 18th, 2008, 06:04 PM

Hi Theo.
Just some FYI, the coolermaster units are not hard at all to install. I've personally put 2 of these in systems I've built for friends, and I've never had a problem.
They have 4 push pins, line them up with the holes, and push down. It even comes with thermal paste on the HSF itself.
I'm not sure what the Newegg reviews are talking about. If there was a chance that you might break your board upon install, then I highly doubt they'd even release the product.
I just thought I'd add a little more info for ya!

But I have to say, the Arctic Freezer model you linked to looks good as well. I run a Arctic Freezer in my current system, and love it! It keeps the CPU nice and cool, and is near silent also.

Theophylact · April 18th, 2008, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KarmaKiller

Hi Theo.
Just some FYI, the coolermaster units are not hard at all to install. I've personally put 2 of these in systems I've built for friends, and I've never had a problem.
They have 4 push pins, line them up with the holes, and push down. It even comes with thermal paste on the HSF itself.
I'm not sure what the Newegg reviews are talking about. If there was a chance that you might break your board upon install, then I highly doubt they'd even release the product.
I just thought I'd add a little more info for ya!

But I have to say, the Arctic Freezer model you linked to looks good as well. I run a Arctic Freezer in my current system, and love it! It keeps the CPU nice and cool, and is near silent also.

I think it was a bit of misreading on my part. The Coolermaster was for an Intel board, which has a 4-pushpin mount. I wound up buying the Arctic Cooling Alpine 64, which fits the AM2 socket.