Unpleasant Surprise

[Ben Zwycky]

Hi, I┬┤m back from my honeymoon and it was great, even though the news on Tuesday spoiled things a bit, and the weather was terrible. Eva is so wonderful and I'm so happy I married her . I'll get you guys some wedding photos sometime.

Anyway, when we got home from the honeymoon, we had a bit of a nasty shock. We had been burgled. Luckily for us, they only took stuff they could easily carry and sell, like our passports, jewellery and money (of which they didn't find much). They didn't take any of the wedding presents we had got, and they missed a lot of things they could have easily taken, so nothing of sentimental value has gone, and we're quite happy at all the stuff they missed. Annoyingly, however, they took all the components out of my computer, the motherboard, cards, hard drive, ZIP drive, DVD drive, power supply, modem, scanner.

What I have left:

Monitor

Printer

keyboard

mouse

case

floppy drive

old power supply that I'd just upgraded from (non-athlon approved)

all my CD's (including win2k and 95, all software and drivers for the cards they took)

so now I need to get replacements for those missing parts. I have a limited budget, so I'm looking for value for money, reliability and stability rather than pure performance.

It has to be an Athlon, really, probably in the 800MHz-1gHz range, and I'll have to get another ZIP 250MB because all my backups were on that (which they also left behind)

but I need your advice/experience with different combinations of motherboard/graphics card/DVD drive/hard drive

with my old system ASUS A7V, radeon 64MB DDR IBM Deskstar 30GB UDMA100, MATSHITA DVD ROM 10 SPEED (OR 8 SPEED I can't remember), I was having problems with DVD playback (low frame rate) I wasn't sure whether it was the software with the radeon, or the motherboard or the DVD drive itself which was the problem.

Please make a few suggestions, as I'm not sure exactly which parts will be available here (I'll try to get a component/price list from a wholesaler in the next few days)

Thanks for your help,

[Fendi]

Sorry to hear what happened and trust me when I tell you that I've been there before so I know how you feel.Anyway see if this can help you:

CPU and memory are quite cheap now so you might as well go for the 1.4 gig Athlon (around 95 quid). The difference between a 1.4 gig and a 1 gig is only about 30 quid (ex VAT). Thats what I'll be getting in about a week myself.

Motherboardwise I can't really tell you what to get as I always go for the cheapest option w/sound and never had any problems (yet).

I was bored last thursday so I decide to treat myself to a new graphics card and replace my venerable NVIDIA TNT2. I chose to be different and ordered the KyroII and some memmory. A day later it arrived and I can honestly say its the best 80 quid I've spent in a long time. The BCM demo ran smoothly at the max resolution available (1280 x1024) compared to only 800x600 on my last card (I only have a P3-800).

Well If you want to order on-line check out Dabs.com or Overclockers.co.uk. I ordered from Dabs and my stuff arrived the very next day.

[Joel Schultz]

Sorry to hear you were burgled; we were once - while we were asleep at home! (forgot to close garage door) - and they got away with a VCR. Now, we have a security system, and have accidentally set it off enough times I'm sure the whole neighborhood know we have it...

You know, depending how old your parts were you can probably get them somewhat cheaper now than when you first bought it.

As for graphical problems: your Asus mobo had a VIA KT133 (Asus A7V) or KT133A (Asus A7V133, also my mobo) and a Radeon. There are known graphical issues, you need to download drivers from Viatech to correct this problem. Dunno if that is the cause of your particular issue; the driver fix was made because that particular chipset/card combo could cause the computer to randomly freeze.

[Põdi]

The fact I was in Prague this weekend was entirely coincidental.........

[Ben Zwycky]

For some reason I believe you, Paddy

OK, I've gone just over budget (by 800 Kc's (about 15 quid)) with this setup, what do you guys think?

Seagate Medalist U6 40GB 5400rpm

Microstar K7 Master (AMD 761 chipset)

Athlon 1 gHz/266MHz

Cooler Master DP5-6H51 (for up to 1.2 gHz)

256MB DDR 266MHz memory

Artec DHS-G40 16x/40x ATAPI DVD-ROM

Microstar MS8831 Geforce 2 Pro 64 DDR TVOUT

internal IDE ZIP 250MB

I can get a better power supply (I'll just use my old one for now), modem and a scanner later, preferably fairly soon. This is just to get me up and running again.

Anyone see any problems/conflicts/wastes of money there? I haven't bought anything yet.

Thanks for your suggestion, Fendi. Anyone else have anything to say on that?

I can't order from english computer shops, because they don't deliver to the Czech Republic

Later guys,

[Fendi]

Well for starters I'm waiting for my 1.4 Gig and my Apollo ViaKT133A motherboard to arrive in my front door any minute now.

The only thing I got to say is go for the 1.4 Gig as there are hardly any price difference between that and a 1 Gig. There should be some companies that would deliver to Czech Republic so I'll try to find some for you. Or you can phone my daddy in Malaysia and get him to send some cheap ass high tech equipment to you.

[Scrivener]

We'll, I'm putting a computer together for a friend. His budget was $1500 total (After tax and everything). Here's the gist of the package:

1) CREATIVE LABS SOUNDBLASTER AUDIGY X-GAMER 24-BIT ADVANCED HD

2) MULTIWAVE 256MB PC2100 266MHZ ECC DDR DIMM

3) ELSA GLADIAC 511 64MB AGP GEFORCE2 MX400 W/TV OUT

4) AMD THUNDERBIRD K7 1400MHZ(1.4GHZ) 266MHZ 3D OEM W/O COOLING FAN (1 YEAR WARRANTY)

5) ABIT KG7 AMD 761 CHIPSET ULTRA ATA100 ATX FORM FACTOR 1xAGP(4X)/6xPCI/4xDDR

6) QUANTUM 60GB ULTRA ATA66-100 QM360000AS 7200RPM 2MB 8.5MS(Bare drive)

7) VIEWSONIC 19" G90F .25 1600X1200 FLAT SCREEN

8) CREATIVE LABS CDRW MK4216 32X-READ/12X-RECORD/10X-REWRITE 2MB EIDE INT REWRITABLE W/SW & BUFFER UNDERRUN ERROR PREVENTION (Retail)

I didnt bother including Floppy drive/case/etc on the list. Cases simply MUST be picked out in person, and floppy drives are only, like, $20. All of the above cost just a couple bucks over $1000 at www.mwave.com. Their warehouse is near where I live, though, so I can pick the stuff up for a $5 will-call fee rather than pay shipping costs. Good deal. Try to get the ELSA Gladiac 920, though, if you can afford the extra $200. It's the best GF3 card available right now, IMHO.

Addendum:

I forgot to say, order your cooling fan from www.2cooltek.com. Unless you have a Dremmel at home (For altering your heatsink) chose your heatsink/fan combo very carefully.

[ 09-20-2001: Message edited by: Scrivener ]

[Ben Zwycky]

I forgot to mention, I have the money in cash in Czech crowns, so no ordering from abroad this time round.

You recommend the geforce2 MX 400 64MB SDRAM over the geforce 2 pro 64MB DDRAM? That would save me enough money to get the Athlon 1.4 and still be under budget.

What about the cooler, then. Do you think a Volcano II would be adequate?