Computer Build Guide

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 8:09 pm

I am wondering if there is anyone to who knows of good websites that have detailed, desciptive guides of how-to build a computer. I saw one once at a website mostly dedicated to gaming intrests. Anyone with ideas, please post them here so I can get started! Thanks...

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 8:20 pm

No idea but we can make one with posts, what do u need to know how to do?

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 9:33 pm

I am somewhat knowledgable about the hardware of a computer and am going to make one for my parents. I am just wondering about the specifics of it. Things such as what cables/wires/etc that I need to buy seperate of everything else. Also, I am trying to find the answers to certain questions that I have. Here goes:

What is the difference from regular, AT and ATX cases?

What are the differences between the types of CPU (e.g. SECC, FCPGA, and flip-top?

Do I have to get something to add USB, serial, parallel, and other ports? or are those built into the mother board?

What are the difference between IDE and SCSI?

And, like I said, do I need to buy more wires/cables to connect the HD, motherboard, CD, etc? or do they come with all those?

Any guides people can give me would be great!! Also, I need some advice on what kind of case to get. I'll need a mid/full size that is VERY accessable and good for upgrades.

Thanks for all your help!!!

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 10:00 pm

Ok...

AT cases are older cases, most cases today are ATX, u would want an atx mobo and case(atx meaning the holes on the board match the case so it fits)

CPUs: i dont use those terms, socket a is for AMD Durons and tbirds and newr chips as well, Socket 370 is for celerons fcpga is also celerons and pentium 3s i belive, grrrr i should know this lol, someone can give u better info, i could too but i'm too lazy to look, but I am right on the AMD chips, which u should look into if ur building a PC cuz they're much faster.

USB Serial and Parallel ports are on motherboards

IDE on teh Hard drive, cdrom connector type found on the motherboard, scsi connectors have to be added, and are used for a scsi hardrive or cdrom(they would hard drives and cdroms are made for a specific connection)

And yes u may need to buy the cables, by motherboard came with a floppy cable and 1 IDE cable, so i was ok, just needed a second ide cable for my 4 devices(hard drive, 3 cd roms)

any thign else?

freckmoto · Post by **freckmoto** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 10:17 pm

SECC is the SLOT 1 intel platform I believe, and it is flip chip not flip top lol

. That is another name for the socket p3's. If you are buying everything new, You should have to make any cable purchases. In fact, I would bet that you would have more than you need. 1 with each device and a few with the mobob.

Freck

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 10:25 pm

thanks for the info! those are things that I didn't know. so, you recommend that I use the AMD 1GHz instead of PIII GHz?? I have Athlon 900 MHz now and like it but don't know the diff between AMD and Intel chips, but you know better than I.
Also, do you recommend or know of any certain brand of cases that are nice? Thanks for the help!!
Also, anyone else, if you know of a website, let me know!!

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 10:30 pm

AMD is faster, look for a 266DDR 1ghz processor(not ddr ram, but a ddr proc, they are different) get PC133 ram from www.crucial.com http://www.abilitywholesale.com/abicom/index.html this second address has great case prices, even has goo ram pricing too, check it out.

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 10:56 pm

Thanks for the input (computer joke, i guess

). anyway, what is the difference with the new DDR? I haven't heard of that before. I will be sure to check out the websites. Thanks for the info...again.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 11:10 pm

ddr is on all durons and tbirds, most are at 100mhz fsb(200 DDR) newer tbirds are at 133mhz fsb(266 DDR)

teleman1098 · Post by **teleman1098** » Sat Mar 17, 2001 11:42 pm

check this site out www.pcmech.com

have fun!!!

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 12:05 am

hey, thanks teleman...that is the site that I saw before, i think. thanks for the info. it looks very in-depth and exactly what i'm looking for!

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 12:12 am

I am thinking about getting them the xGamer. I am wondering how you like it. Here is the whole set-up of what I want to get. Tell me if you think there should be something different:

Full Tower + 3 fans
Gigabyte Socket A mobo
AMD Athlon GHz
256 MB PC-133 SDRAM
56X CD-ROM
Mitsumi 8x4x34
10/100 Realtek PCI Network Card
3.5" Floppy
ATI Rage Fury Maxx 64MB AGP
Creative SB Live XGamer 5.1
WD 40GB 7200rpm HD
Altec Lansing 3pc speaker system
19" monitor

Any ideas would be great!

freckmoto · Post by **freckmoto** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 2:09 am

Dump the rage fury maxx, it suxx bad!!! Get a radeon. Instead of wester digital get an IBM Deskstar hard drive. Dump the realtek for a 3com, though I use a D-Link, and it works perfectly. Gigabyte generally makes good mobo's, however, I would suggest the Abit KT7A or the Asus A7V133 instead.

Freck

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 3:45 am

I agree with freck, but i have a realtek 10/100, its nice, does the job for 30 bucks less, i would trash the altec speakers and get either the camebridge sound works pack or a klipsh(sp) pair

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 9:52 am

hey guys...thanks for the input. I switched the video card to a "ATI radeon vd ddr 32 mb ddr agp" and switched the mobo to the "asus a7v133" and the network card to the "3com 3c509b top isa" and the HD to the "ibm 45GB with 7200 rpm". does all of this sound like the right stuff and will work good together??
Also, does that IBM HD something special, or is it just the runof the mill one??
Thanks for all your help. I'm sure my parents (and bro) thank you!!

smaier69 · Post by **smaier69** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 1:31 pm

those are all very good choices in terms of hardware. i have a Radeon 32DDR on an Abit KT7A-RAID, and it works fairly nicely.

the IBM Deskstar drives are pretty much "run of the mill", that being a "regular" IDE drive. they just happen to be the fastest IDE drives on the market at the moment. i believe they are ATA/100, and io think your motherboard has an ATA/100 controller. even if the onboard controller is ATA/66, you would still see very high performance from it.

freckmoto · Post by **freckmoto** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 1:43 pm

Dont get the 905b ISA get it PCI! ISA is antiquated.

Freck

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 1:49 pm

yo...freckmoto...what is the deal with 905b ISA?? I am not sure what you mean by all of that. could you elaborate a bit for me?? thanks for all the input and websites. undefined

dreww71 · Post by **dreww71** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 2:01 pm

I own two IBM deskstar hard drives and have never had a problem. If you look up reviews, you'll notice that IBM is rated very highly. They are quieter than most and also run cooler than most.

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 2:06 pm

I have another question...I am looking at these mobo and some say RAID and some do not. What is that? And should I get one with or w/o??

Here is the updated "line-up" of the hardware. Any comment, questions, or advice will be appreciated:

Full Tower + 3 fans
ASUS A7V133 Socket A ATX
AMD Athlon GHz
256 MB PC-133 SDRAM
56X CD-ROM
Mitsumi 8x4x34
3COM 3C509B TPO ISA
3.5" Floppy
ATI Radeon VE DDR 32MB DDR AGP
Creative SB Live XGamer 5.1
IBM 45GB 7200 rpm HD
Cambridge Soundworks PCWorks speakers
19" monitor .26 dot pitch

Thanks for all of your input to everyone who's contributed!!

smaier69 · Post by **smaier69** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 2:31 pm

RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives.

to put it simply, with RAID, you can take multiple drives (ideally identical) and use a RAID controller to divide up the read/write duties equally between them. the theory is that (for example) you could set up 2 drives as a RAID array and get double the sustained and burst data throughput (using stripe... not mirror, i believe).

do you need it? no. would you see a difference id HDD performance? yes.

when you see something like the Abit KT7A-RAID, that means there is an onboard IDE RAID controller as well as a regular IDE controller.

the only real downside is the expense needed to acquire the multiple drives necessary to really take advantage of an array.

for a more detailed (and accurate, i am sure) rundown on RAID, read.... http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/R/RAID.html

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 3:59 pm

Originally posted by mountainmanbrandon:
yo...freckmoto...what is the deal with 905b ISA?? I am not sure what you mean by all of that. could you elaborate a bit for me?? thanks for all the input and websites. undefined

that 3com card, dont get it, u want a pci ethernet card, not a isa, i dont think the asus has an isa slot on it, if it does u can use it, but its best to go with pci.

Charlie · Post by **Charlie** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 4:49 pm

A Good forum about Mother Boards Overclocking
Chips check it out AMDMB

Hope This Helps ya Alittle

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 6:32 pm

thanks for the info...i have chaged that to the PCI card. what is usually used in the ISA slot?? anything?? if not, I won't worry about it.
I can't wait to start putting this thing together. It will be my first one, so I am thinking about stress management classes.
Maybe you all can help me when I get working on it. It will be called...AAAAAAAAHH!!!!
Anyway, thanks again!

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 6:52 pm

always happy to help, ISA is old technology, not really used anymore.

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 10:03 pm

well, I think that the final hardware list is complete. i guess this could be the last check. is there anything that you can see that won't be compatable with each other, won't work well, or anything else more that I need to buy that I'm overlooking?? Thanks for all your input!!

Full Tower + 3 fans
ASUS A7V133 Socket A ATX
AMD Athlon T-Bird 1GHz
256 MB PC-133 SDRAM
56X CD-ROM
Mitsumi 8x4x34 CD-RW
3COM 3C905BTX TPO PCI RJ45
3.5" Floppy
ATI Radeon VE DDR 32MB DDR AGP
Creative SB Live XGamer 5.1
IBM 45GB 7200 rpm HD
Cambridge Soundworks PCWorks speakers
19" monitor .26 dot pitch

Thanks again!!

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Sun Mar 18, 2001 10:04 pm

oops...i actually think I may get the mid-tower with 2 fans from www.abilitywholesale.com . Will this affect anything about this?? I wouldn't think so. Thanks!

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Mon Mar 19, 2001 12:55 am

http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/00q2/000516/index.html

The only time ill recommend tomshardware. That is a comprehensive guide on building a system disguised as a case review.

And check latest prices here:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1438

and here:
http://www1.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1432

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Mon Mar 19, 2001 9:55 pm

Hey everyone...just wanted to thank you for the help. I just ordered all of the hardware and can't wait to get started. I'm sure I'll be on here asking for help in about a week.

SeedOfChaos · Post by **SeedOfChaos** » Mon Mar 19, 2001 10:33 pm

Originally posted by mountainmanbrandon:
oops...i actually think I may get the mid-tower with 2 fans from www.abilitywholesale.com . Will this affect anything about this?? I wouldn't think so. Thanks!

No, that'll do just fine actually, but you have to know that you have more room (and thus space to work with) in big or full tower. However, if the savings are considerably, go with the midi tower.

Also, your PC looks very nice so far, but I would dump the Mitsumi CD-recorder. I've only had trouble with Mitsumi CD-Roms. If your budget allows, get a Plextor burner with the Burn-Proof technology, as that will ensure that you won't have a nice coaster collection (a lot of misburned CDs).

Finally, be sure to put a good CPU cooler on your CPU, otherwise you won't have much fun with it. I don't know too much about coolers for Athlons, but someone else can certainly advise you on that.

Cheers,
Ronald

freckmoto · Post by **freckmoto** » Mon Mar 19, 2001 10:50 pm

Glad to help.

Freck