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My new computer Update: October 8, 2004. This week the server went down. I did some diagnostics of it, and moved stuff around inside it (to dissipate heat) and then found that (oddly enough) the floppy drive was causing it to crash. A fan was also doing a fair amount of squealing, and not so much turning. I have a replacement fan to install. Update: January 11, 2004. It's hard to believe that I purchased this system almost 2 years ago. It is running very well. I am still very pleased with it. It is up 24X7, and runs my web site. I don't remember what fixed the DNS lookup problem below, but I don't seem to have that problem anymore. I think I finally just reinstalled it. I'm still having problems with mapping drives between my laptop and the desktop, but I think that may be on the laptop side. Update: April 21, 2002. I have been having networking
problems. When my PC is stopped for an extended period of time, it will not pull
up web sites. Then I have to go through a reboot to make it work. The strange
thing is that pings and traceroutes work both by DNS name and by IP. I've been
making multiple changes trying to fix this. One thing I ruled out was the speed
increase mentioned in 03/18. I had moved back down to 1.4GHz. Now I'm going to
increase back up. I'm at 1.61GHz, without any noticeable increase. Here's the
current ASUS monitor info.
Update: March 18, 2002. Well, I've been able to increase my clock speed gradually from the original 1.4GHz to 1.63GHz without any noticeable heat increase. All of this has been done through BIOS settings, so it is very easy to change. I am going to continue to increase it until I see any heat increase. So far, no matter what the speed is, my CPU temperature stays at 104°F and my motherboard temperature at 89°F. I did install all of the latest drivers (came on CD with the board), but had to download a newer BIOS update. This download seems to have fixed a networking problem that I was seeing on occasion. Oh yeah, checked out the latest pricing, and get this. My motherboard is already down $10, CPU $10, and Hard drive $4. That's $24 in 13 days :( Dateline: March 5, 2002. Well, I broke down and decided to build a new computer. I looked around for good pricing. I even checked pricing in Canada. I wound up finding the best prices around the corner at Ginstar Computers. They had the least expensive parts, and I was able to order them Online and go pick them up. For those in Atlanta, they're on Jimmy Carter near the Checkered Parrott. In addition, they will install the chip and memory for you (I HIGHLY recommend taking advantage of this service. These chips are VERY easy to break). Ginstar will also install the entire system for you. I can't speak well enough of this place.
I picked out the AMD Athlon 1700 chip because it seemed to be the best deal. The faster chips were considerably more expensive for what I considered to be marginal improvement. My motherboard will, however, support up to the 2200 (according to the latest BIOS update). I also chose two 256MB DDR chips. Although the motherboard supports up to three 512MB chips, I heard (unconfirmed) that the motherboard functions better with two or three chips, but not one. Since I only needed (yeah right!) 512MB, I went with this option. I can still add a 512 and bring the board up to a GB. I already had a 20GB hard drive and CD-RW, so I just needed one more 20GB drive and a case, and I was set to go. I also purchased an OEM version of Windows XP. In all, with tax, the total was $807.72. It broke down as follows:
Thanks to Mike and Alex for their assistance and advice. It's been a while since I'd built a computer. |
I decided that I'd like an
"All-In-One" board. Since I don't do much gaming, and my sound requirements are
minimal, this solution suits me well. Mike pointed me to the
