Need help to complete Skybuck's 2005 (dream) PC design ;)

Hi,

My mother and other family members are starting to become PC savy :) and they are starting to hate me for playing on "their" PC lol. Today I wanted to go over there and play Dungeon Siege 2 but nope. Not allowed to play there. So I was stuck to my old PIII 450 mhz with GeForce FX 5200 and bad crackling sound etc because of buggy/damaged asus p3v4x/via chipset, not at all an enjoyable experience compared to the fast good sounding PC ;)

So instead of playing Dungeon Siege 2 I again looked at my 2005 (dream) pc design for me.

It hasn't changed much (Only crt monitor selected quickly) . Though today I decided to calculate how much it would cost. To my surprise not that much. It falls well within my 5000 euro budget ;)

What I need help with is determining which motherboard is best suited for the list/design. Also what case to get. Also are there any other components missing ? like screws or mounting devices or controllers etc or things like usb, ps/2 ports or maybe that s integrated into the case ;) and what about power supply ?

Here is the list, all prices are in euro's.

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Toledo 4800+, Socket 939, Boxed Price: 919

Videocard1: nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX (Gigabyte GV-NX78X256V-B 256 MB, PCI Express x16 ) Price: 540

(Second videocard 2 optional/expansion: )

Videocard2: nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX (Gigabyte GV-NX78X256V-B 256 MB, PCI Express x16 ) Price: 540

Motherboard: no idea (asus seems to be bad quality, many problems, maybe giga-byte is much better

Yes, If I am going to buy such a card it will be this one:

Since it has this nice rack just like the creative audigy 4 with a headphone output ;)

I am probably going to set the pc on the ground so a build in front end panel is unhandy for me, the rack is much more handy and nice since it can be placed on the desk providing easy access to all the nice rotary controls =D

I already read about the X-Fi but forgot about it... it also looked expensive at the time like 500 bucks, now maybe like 380 bucks for the elite/pro version still a lot but what the f*ck lol. I rather have quality than something shitty =D

Thanks for reminding me though. Just one or two more months before I can get one hopefully. I can wait that long an use onboard audio or so ;) That excludes asus deluxe sli boards lol

wanted

bad

pc

today

much.

for

about

(PX-230A/T3)

have

probably

lol)

motherboard's

having

and

This

and

new

150

phoning

be

too

above

heatsink

factory

explains

vice

?

the

have

Wow! That new data encoding design of yours is really paying off!

-- Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

"Skybuck Flying" schreef in bericht news:del03o$dif$ snipped-for-privacy@news2.zwoll.ov.home.nl...

(snip)

(snip)

1080? just for graphics, cool! But if you really want to make a dream PC ... and it seems you have enough money :-) ... , I would go for a 512MB model. The game industry is moving fast and 256MB isn't considered as top-notch anymore even now.

regards, Marcel

I highly recommend the Logitech wireless mice. I have the MX700 (which is pretty old) and I have no lag at all in games. And batteries are rechargeable.

Right now, network cards are most likely PCI.

A bad bios flash shouldn't be a problem anymore. Check the motherboard's features, but it should have something to compensate for a screwed up bios flash. Some boards have dual-bioses and others have a non-modifiable boot area which lets you flash a new bios even if the existing one is hosed.

Existing boards should have plenty of USB ports.

2 PS/2 ports should be available on your board.

These will probably not be available depending on the motherboard you buy.

A boxed CPU comes with a heatsink/fan and some thermal paste or thermal tape. You have to install it yourself anyway. An OEM or tray CPU will be just the CPU itself and nothing more. If you buy a motherboard with it, the seller might install the CPU in the motherboard, but it depends.

The gigabit ethernet cards are backward-compatible with 10 and 100 megabit cards. That includes the cable modem too.

It's possibly for future PCI-Express expansion cards.

Don't do it. I assume you mean the connectors that connect the front/back usb/firewire sockets to the motherboard. Be careful with them and don't mix them up.

Make sure to get a brand name power supply. 500-600W should be fine.

Pins and voltages don't match. If you mix up the connectors, it's possible you could cause a short between +12V or +5V and ground through the motherboard and burn out some part of it. Not good. Be careful with the USB/firewire connectors. Also make sure that the pins of the connectors match up with the motherboard pinout.

They probably mean the power button on the power supply. Some people advise to leave the power supply plugged in and turn it off when you are doing things inside the case. That way, your case is grounded and you can get rid of some of the static electricity by touching the metal parts of the case once in a while.

Power buttons on power supplies have I and O on them. When I is pressed that means ON. When O is pressed it means OFF.

The one in the back of the power supply, yes. The front power button will react differently based on the current state of the PC. If you are still in the BIOS, it will turn it off immediately. If your OS has booted already, pressing the front power button will initiate whatever shutdown procedures your OS requires. To shut the computer down immediately, you have to hold the power button for a few seconds.

Also, some bioses allow you to program the front power button so that it causes the computer to go into standby mode.

Yes, you can have only SATA drives. Make sure you get a motherboard with native SATA (or SATA integrated in the chipset instead of an addon chip). It will simplify the installation of your OS. Most of the newest motherboards have SATA in the chipset already. Some boards also have addon chips for SATA or IDE installed in addition to native SATA.

You can usually ignore that message. Most likely, it came from the addon chip. If you disable the addon chip, the message will go away. Of course if you connected something to the addon chip like a CDROM drive, then you'll just have to live with the message.

-- NoRemorse "Expect me when you see me."

I would prefer to get a 512 MB nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX but there aren't any for sale yet ?

Bye, Skybuck.

"Skybuck Flying" schreef in bericht news:den35r$3m4$ snipped-for-privacy@news4.zwoll.ov.home.nl...

PCI

PCI

enough

any

Ehm.. good point...

Marcel

Actually I just noticed something else.

This fatality motherboard does not have a parallel printer port ???

I am from an ancient era when they still used parallel printer ports I still have such a printer

an NEC P20 lol.

My parents have a modern printer though... I think it uses USB or something... needed special cable for it as well which probably wasn't develired with the printer... Can't remember though... I think I had to go buy it oh well.

The P20 nec printer sometimes produces some weird characters when drawing a diagram ;)

The damn thing never printed well in dos... specially not with chain paper lol... but with manual feeded lose papers and windows drivers it prints quite well for such an old shabby printer lol.

Though I should get a really cheap new printer just to print something in black once half a year or so ;) =D

Bye, Skybuck.

Blah. Forgot to delete it from the top. The silly thing added it automatically.

Uhm. My MX700 uses the same rechargeable batteries that came with it 2 years ago. I have never seen the mouse stop working because of low batteries (last few months my average uptime was above 12 hours). All I do is put the thing in a cradle when I power down my computer. I've ran it down to a battery warning a few times, but it never stopped working, so it's fine.

I would never touch a non-optical mouse anymore. They work with most surfaces and I bet you'd have to try really really hard to find a surface that it won't work on.

It works fine if you set it right.

That's very rare. A virus would have to be written to attack the motherboards of a specific manufacturer for this to work. I seriously doubt there's a standardized way to access the bios flash chip.

Flash memory will work several thousand times. If you have to flash the bios that often, something ain't right. Relax.

For someone to even get halfway to the write times limit of flash memory would take a long time. It's not likely.

Buy it from a reputable vendor and you won't have problems.

It shouldn't be a problem if you screw the card to the case like the other cards.

Heh. I build my computers usually on carpet flooring (totally against the common advice), never had a problem (probably just lucky, but oh well). I almost never touch any of the circuit boards. Whenever handling cards or motherboards, I just grab them by the corners or by one of the plastic slots.

Uhm. How about I = 1 = ON and O = 0 = OFF. For a programmer, a boolean state shouldn't be too bad.

The front power button is just a momentary switch. It doesn't have a state. The electronics on the motherboard interpret the presses and take appropriate actions.

Windows will detect drives connected to the native chipset IDE or SATA ports by itself. Drives connected to the addon controllers (also known as onboard controllers) sometimes require pressing F6 during WinXP setup. Pressing F6 allows you to install drivers for whatever RAID, IDE, or SATA controllers you are using.

"Me aint away of addon chips"??? What the hell does that mean?

The addon chips (sometimes called onboard) are hard wired into the PCI bus. Thus, they are limited to 133MB/sec. Often, you have to press F6 during WinXP setup to recognize drivers connected to those.

Yeah you can add PCI cards to control sata or ide drives.

I sort of made up "addon chips", they are usually called onboard controllers or something like that. I only meant the controllers connected to the PCI bus as "addon chips"

Oh this reminds me. Somewhere in your post you mentioned raid controllers on your motherboard. The raid controllers that come with motherboards can usually be used as standard IDE controllers. That gives you extra ports for various devices if you are not using RAID.

--
NoRemorse
"Expect me when you see me."

I think your signature didn't work ;) unless it's supposed to be on the top :)

Update: at the end of your post is another signature ;)

May I suggest you disable your mail program's automatic signature since it's clearly not working lol =D Unless you like to have a top signature as well =D coooool hahahahaha.

I have seen this behaviour in outlook express so I am guessing you have outlook express =D

Try inserting it manually lol.

I had a whole discussion about this stuff once

It supposed to be dash dash space.

Though outlook makes it dash dash space space

Or maybe that's beside the point and outlook simply inserts it completely wrongly ;)

Apperently outlook express assumes people want to top post :)

Anyway back to the topic at hand:

wanted

bad

pc

today

much.

for

about

(PX-230A/T3)

have

probably

lol)

DENIED =D

I don't want any wireless shit. A mouse cable is not much of problem for me.

Granted if it's too short that s a bitch. And granted I do place my speaker into the mouse wire so the mouse wire doesnt pull the mouse away but still.

Just the idea of having to recharge batteries to make my mouse work lol.

Talk about major stupid downtime lol =D lolololol.

OOOOOOOOOHhhhhhhhh nnnnnnooooooooooooooo

Now I require TWO sets of batteries.

I can see the horror now lol:

OHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO

I forgot to reload the spare batteries OHHHHHHNOOOOOOOOOOO lol.

NONONONONONONO

I am a very very very very very heavy PC user.

And worse I am a programmer TOO.

I won some wireless equipment once and I used it... then I was programming and everything started to act weird... the keyboard started to stutter and hang and the mouse started to stutter and hang... during programming and during games.

That's really bad... Because then I think the program is at fault or the game is at fault.

Even more annoying another HP wireless keyboard started displaying a warning message during the god damn game: A big yellow sign with a battery almost empty warning.

OH MY GOD so f****ng annoying and furiating. It totally ruined the whole game experience.

My blood and hart started pumping with RAGE and finally I decided to do something about it AND KILL OFF THE GOD DAMN APPLICATION that was causing it ARRRGGHHHHHHHhhhhhhh so hatefull.

NOOOOONONONOnonononononono.

I have had anything wireless trouble and anger and fury to last a lifetime.

So I say: "NO to this kind of wireless stuff which could go empty blablablalbla BAD"

Some mouses even have an eye blinding power hungy laser ;) YIKES =D

I think some people even have problems with these laser mouses since they work only if the surface has texture... they need to determine how much it moved etc... so on some surfaces these mouses might not even work ;) bleh.

motherboard's

Ok, so this is the same PCI that was used like 3 to 5 years ago ?

I still have an old pentium 166 which I would also like to equiped with a faster network card maybe 100 or maybe even 1000... however the P166 might not be able to achieve this speed... at least not in windows 98 or so possibly... but maybe in dos where it has full power ;)

Though the motherboard of the P166 does have PCI slots... but hidden away in a weird way so that might not be possible... Maybe there are some ISA

100/1000 gigabit lan network cards ? ;)

My PIII 450 mhz should be able to handle these PCI 1000 gigabit lan network cards just fine :)

However some PCI slots dont work or are weird... so it might not work after all... maybe these newer PCI cards have slight changes or something... I dont know... but it's worth a try. It has two network cards in it already so hopefully those can be replaced with newer faster ones ;)

having

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Currently I am looking into this motherboard to see if it's the right one for me ;)

The A-BIT Fatal1ty AN8 SLI

I read the manual... but nowhere did it mention if it had some kind of fail safe support for the bios chip.

I dont believe in giga-byte's dual bios bullshit though ;)

Virus knocks out first bios, Virus knocks out second bios... bing, dinners served. :)

Anyway that last part about the non modifiable boot area sounds excellent and cool, I want one.

However flashing is like cd-rw's it will only work a few times ;) after that it's dead, dead, dead and dead :)

So flashing scares the shit out of me... I rather not do it at all ;)

Who knows who's been flashing my motherboard/bios already before I got it =D

Though I plan on getting everything as brand new as possible just to prevent this kind of shitty situations ;)

Yeah the fatality manual mentions 3 USB headers.

I think with headers they mean a kind of slot ;)

Yup it is on the fatality.

Nope not available no the fatality.

Parallel ports also not available...

be

too

above

heatsink

factory

the

Ok, when I order my stuff I hope the supplier doesnt think I want him to assemble my computer components etc.

I think/hope I can make a little note like:

"I want all components delivered seperately and in their original packaging un-opened !!!!" ;) =D

explains

Okdokie.

Sounds not to stable ;)

Expansion card for future architectures/technologies whoping around in the case ? ;)

vice

mix

Ok I will ;)

Okdokie.

?

Okdokie.

the

advise

rid

I am not sure about this.

I live in appertment... with a kind of plastic like floor or something.

When I go to the supermarkt and when I touched a metal casing to get a product sometimes I get these big static electricities shocks. YIKES.

Dont know why I am getting so much statical eletricity build up... Maybe it's from my own plastic like floor or maybe from the bathroom floor mat or something.... orrrrrrrr it could be from the hallway which has a fabric... like cloth etc... the rubber from my shoes probably robs over it producing the static electricity ?

Or maybe it s just normal for human beings to build up static eletricity no matter what.

The best thing I can do is probably touch the heating device which some other people recommended.

I always think it's good to keep my hands running under the water of the sink etc...

Since the water goes down the building into the earth etc...

Doesn't that mean the water stream is grounded ??? and able to get rid of the static eletricity ???

that

Ok I have a nice way of remembering this. Donkey-bridge we call it ;)

O is pussy. Pussy says: "nonononono get away from me"

Hmm not too good... that could mean it's on power...

No this one is better:

I is dick. Dick is stiff = on baby =D

Ok I have a better one.

O is big tit.

Most of the time girls dont want people to grab their t*ts.

O means get off me.

I means I am on baby :P

Though I wonder if this is really true...

Maybe it depends on how the system started the last time etc...

Maybe both signs can be on or off... oh well.

Since I can remember flipping these kinds of switches many times lol.

And it never worked as I expected lol.

But I will pay some attention to it next time ;)

in

Exactly so a power button with signs I/O doesnt make much sense... ;)

Which could explain the wacky observed behaviour above... but that was for a free 80486 DX 66 mhz from college's junk yard. :)

have

It

SATA

Ok, this is the first time I have heard of this story.

Why will it simplify the installation of the OS ?

I think it probably have something to do with missing SATA drivers in Windows XP 32 bit Gold Edition ?

I wonder what the situation is with the Fatality motherboard.... ? ;)

I'll have to look into this issue in the general way and for this motherboard in specific.

Any extra details information or links are welcome :D

if

No idea what this is all about... Me aint away of addon chips... ;)

What's the difference between Integrated SATA and addon chips ?

Do you mean addon chips are something which I as a user could add myself ? probably not ?

Or do you mean the motherboard manufacturer used some kind of addon chip ???

Aren't all chips on the motherboard addon chips ?

Sounds a bit weird to me :D

Oh there is your signature again lol =D

Probably manually inserted ;)

Bye, Skybuck =D

stop thinking the worst of people! if a vendor opens a box, they may do so to get a serial number to ensure you get a warrantee. if youcan get 1 vendor tosupply the mobo,cpu, cooler & ram and gaurantee the mobo, cpu, and ram work together. IE get them to check the bios version if it mat need it and upgrade it for you so you don't - consequence is open mobo box & possibly CPU...

It is the *warantee* the vendor *will* honour that is important - not if the box has been opened. Pick the vendor based on reputation. most vendors are far too busy to open boxes without need.

To may also replace it with a damaged one. That's probably how I ended up with my current bad motherboard ;)

Though it was from a local store.

There is absolutely no reason to trust anyone or in this case the supplier.

Either he delivers the goods intact or he doesn't ;)

the

A very good reason to make sure the latest motherboards that leave the manufacturer have a recent bios before they are packaged.

the

I rather not go through that painfull process of "RMA" ;)

Bye, Skybuck.

I am presently filling a RMA to ATI because the Rage 2 is not vga-compatible. For example, Commander Keen does not display like on other cards.

mihai

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