roll your own

[flipdoubt]

Do I dare build a machine? We have this 3-year old PII running Windows2000, that doesn't really seem all that bad off, but what if I were to harvest its shell and replace its insides with brand spankin' PIV and DDR and Video out the wazoo?

Has anyone built his or her own PC? Have any good sources? Tips? Warnings?

[Still Shady]

Here's a Tip... just make sure you RTFM (Read The Freakin Manual), specially with the motherboard. The jumpers are very important (specially when disabling built in components such as video controller or modem on some motherboards).

Building PC's these days is like a breeze specially when you use PNP OS's...

Windows 2000 Ownz j00!

[TeeJay]

If you are going to keep everything except the motherboard/cpu/mem I guess it's ok depending on what you want to use it for and how much you are willing to spend. Installation is easy. You can probably do it in less than an hour. The previous two installs I've done was with an ASUS board and the install manual is very user friendly. Unfortunately I didn't build my latest unit. It had a Gigabyte board. I sometimes look for reviews at Toms Hardware. If you have a digital camera, I suggest taking a snapshot before disconnecting any cables. But that's being overly careful. BTW, For an extra $50 I'd get a new 300 watt case.
For your information in my area this is how much it would cost (that's in Canadian eh ).
MB (Gigabyte): $125-$190
All-in-One MB: $89-$110
Athlon CPU 1800: $179
Intel P4 1.6: $209
DDR 256mb: $65

[EHG]

I have been building my own for many years. Fortunately I live near a very large electronic store that has always had latest goodies at the best prices - called Fry's electronics.

Course that is in California and your in Michigan - well few months ago they opened up their online store and most of the prices are comparable to the store price.

EXAMPLE:
BUILT THIS SYSTEM 2 MONTHS AGO

ATHLON 1900 XP+ BOXED CPU AND
SOYO K7 DRAGON PLUS MOTHERBOARD $200.00

512MB DDR PC2100 DRAM $ 89.00

NVIDIA GFORCE2 MX400 AGP
VIDEO CARD W/64MB SDRAM $ 49.00

MAXTOR 60GIG 7200 DMA 100 HD $ 99.00

DVD/ROM 16X $ 29.00

REAL SYNC 19 FLAT SCR MONITOR $210.00


Therprices reflect these mail in rebates:
$30.00 mail in rebate on the DVD
$15.00 mail in on motherboard
$20.00 mail in on the video card

You will most likely have to upgrade your memory from pc100 or 133 sdram to DDR

I used case I already had and floppy and cdrw keyboard speakers etc.

One very important thing you should be aware of is the bios your motherboard comes with this soyo comes with the latest of the Award Bios and as far as I'm concerned Award is the best - As far as jumpers on the motherboards they are almost non-existent nowdays everything on mine is set in bios w 2 excep if your going to use the spdif audio one jumper needs to be in the on position and if you are going to use IDE 3 and 4 one jumper setting on is the default.

The Soyo Motherboard comes with CMEDIA 6 ch sound build in incl spdif adapt for digital audio in/out and complete audio rack software and it also comes with 3 UDMA 100 IDE cables and 1 floppy - MOST OTHERS GIVE 1 IDE It also comes with a 3.5" module that has 2 front usb connects and smart card reader fit in either a 3.5 or 5 slot

SOYO DRAGON BD has promise ide raid on board or you can use up to 8 ide devices instead of 4 and with the dragon bds you get a complete documentation in a printed manual 190+ pages allot of mb's are very skimpy on documentation.. + NIC CARD BUILD IN
The cpu is boxed meaning it comes with the fan and warranty is longer then oem


Anway here is the url for frys online:

FRY'S ELECTRONICS OUTPOST.COM

The trick with getting the best deal from them is to buy when they have what you want as advertised specials and they change them all the time and the price differences between what is normal and what is sale can be huge. ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE MOTHERBOARD AND CPU COMBO'S THAT THEY ADVERTISE IF YOU BUY THE CPU AND MB SEPERATE IT IS MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE - IF THEY DON'T HAVE WHAT YOU WANT THIS WEEK THEY WILL NEXT!!!

here is another store where i often purchase stuff as I'm a couple of blocks away but their prices are also good ESPECIALLY CASES.

PC CLUB ONLINE

here is one more that i have never dealt with but seems to have prices comparable to frys

mwave online computer store

Building them is easy it all snaps together Be sure when you are going to handle anything with chips in them to ground yourself first - that just means touch any part of the bare metal of the case to discharge any possibility of static electricity - that is sufficent you don't need a grounding strap. next when you mount the mother board be sure you don't ground it to the case use the proper insulators and screws - In the case of the soyo mb it won't boot if the cpu fan is not pluged in which is good but NEVER run your puter without the proper cooling!

Anyway as you can see one can build a monster puter for a reasonable price at the moment frys has the SOYO Dragon ultra platinum SUPPORTS ultra dma 133 drives pc2700 ddr - nic build in - raid 0 , 1 , 0+1 6 ch cmedia sound - usb 2.0 and an athlon xp 2000+ boxed cpu for $279

TeeJay is right I just purchased a new case charcoal w 300 w athlon xp and p4 ready power supply w front usb and audio jacks for $39.00 from pc club course shipping would prob be another dime or so - if you go to the P4 processor YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY A NEW CASE WITH A P4 READY POWER SUPPLY

[flipdoubt]

Wow. Thanks.