Any computer builders?

[Galantra]

Wanted to know if there is anyone that is computer savy since I am looking for some help upgrading one of my computers and also relocating it into a new case as well.

 

[bad coffee]

I've done it, it's really easy. What exactly do you want to do?

B

 

[Galantra]

what i want to do is change the proccessor but unsure what parts i can keep from my existing PC which is a Gateway( pretty much change a P4 to a new version instead of overclocking the processor.) wanted to know what changes need to be done or purchase i do have all my info on what i currently have to help

 

[Widdy]

You're probably better off just getting a new computer. The P4 socket (socket 478) is fairly old and chances are you'll have to buy a slightly faster P4 processor - unless you have the parts in possession. More than likely, you wouldn't be able to overclock a Gateway; companies like Dell/HP/Gateway will lock down the needed BIOS settings (FSB/Memory speed and voltage settings) to overclock. The mentioned companies usually have pretty good deals on a weekly basis, more so during end of the quarter. Check www.techbargains.com and you'll be able to see and compare the prices/specs of a newer system.

 

[kimoyo]

It depends on what parts are in your current computer and how old it is. Unfortunately, many times its easier/cheaper to start fresh.

You'll need (not including screen, mouse, keyboard, etc. )
Case - I like lian-li but they are expensive, so you can just find a nice less than $100 case. You want to at least get a mid-tower unless your trying to make a small pc.

Motherboard - This varies a bit because it really depends on how crazy you want to get with it but I'll like ASUS brand. They have been very good for me over the years. I have a p6t6 but thats a $300 motherboard. You really don't need that type of board unless your doing something like gaming, water cooling, overclocking, etc. And even then you don't really need it.

Memory - People seem to like corsair's dominator sticks. They've been doing pretty good in my computer.

Hard Drive - The new ssd hard drives are very cool because they are totally silent but they are crazy expensive. Western Digital's velocity raptor drives are pretty nice. Fast and very good reputation.

CPU - Intel is winning the battle right now over AMD. The core i7's are nice chips but they run hot compared to previous generations. Not really an issue unless your overclocking.

Video Card - Best value right now is Nvidia's GTX 260 card (get the 216 core). Evga is a decent brand. You can get better cards but if your not a video game or graphics nut this will be much more than you will need.

You can put together a nice system for $500...or $3000, just depends on how important that last fps is to you.

 

[Galantra]

Yea, I understand what you are saying but I truly wanted to build my own and thats where it gets tricky for me just didn't want to get a whole to motherboard since this one is a 6 x 240ddr3. Any ideas of a good way to build my own? I wanted to take out the HD video card & 3 Hard drives from this existing unit as well

 

[Widdy]

Ahhh I see. Didn't realize you wanted to try your hand at building a whitebox. Like Kimoyo mentioned, it's all about budget. You have DDR3 RAM already? That's pretty recent...

 

[Galantra]

Paul, thats what I was the kind of info I was looking for. I am a gamer so looking for something half decent since i am not a serious gamer maybe until starcraft2 comes out. But I have a listing of what the Pc currently has but it has been updated slowly thru the time. What I am looking for is to be pointed to the right direction

 

[Galantra]

Yea i know I had a friend thats been building on a couple of my PC's but he left to live in greece so I am stuck without any help

 

[kimoyo]

Are you watercooling or aircooling? And do you care what it looks like?

 

[kimoyo]

Starcraft II is going to be unbelievable. I remember when starcraft came out and its definitely one of the top games of all time relative to its release date in my opinion.

BTW, they have new video cards coming out next year that will be better than the 285's or 295's. If your not going to really get into now, you might want to wait a little bit.

 

[pmui]

i don't believe he wants to get into water cooling, it's really for overclocking. Air cools will suffice if your just a everyday gamer.
Starcraft 2 won't be that much of a power hog, not like the FPS type games, so a decent video and a current CPU will be sufficient.

 

[pmui]

Yea, I understand what you are saying but I truly wanted to build my own and thats where it gets tricky for me just didn't want to get a whole to motherboard since this one is a 6 x 240ddr3. Any ideas of a good way to build my own? I wanted to take out the HD video card & 3 Hard drives from this existing unit as well

are the existing HDD SATA or IDE? what's the capacity? What's you budget to spend? if you can list your computer specs. of what you currently have we can probably help you better.

I'm a advid gamer, and build my own rigs. The main thing is $$$ how much do you want to spend? Do you want it to WOW people, or is it going under a desk?

 

[kimoyo]

Peter, do you watercool your rig?

 

[Galantra]

Yea air cooling will be good for my use. Water cooling is quieter right? I can e-mail it since i have it all on a doc. the existing i will be using is a SATA and they are 500gb, & 200gb. the amount that I am incline to spend is too $700 maybe less since i do have other computers for spare parts. I heard bout the new Video cards but I can always upgrade again later and swamp out parts for the other PC's

 

[noelskii]

just get everything from newegg.com fair prices and they basically have everything you need to build a computer...

 

[pmui]

Peter, do you watercool your rig?

nope just air cool, i've done alot of reseach on that stuff, it looks great and all but i'm not really a overclocker. Air cool with a decent aftermarket cooler works just fine. Don't get me wrong, you can still overclock with a air cool cpu, you just can't push it past a certain point.

 

[pmui]

Yea air cooling will be good for my use. Water cooling is quieter right? I can e-mail it since i have it all on a doc. the existing i will be using is a SATA and they are 500gb, & 200gb. the amount that I am incline to spend is too $700 maybe less since i do have other computers for spare parts. I heard bout the new Video cards but I can always upgrade again later and swamp out parts for the other PC's

Send me or post your existing parts list, and we can see what we can reuse in the new rig. Water cool is much quieter that air cool, but it adds +$200 to the system. Yes the HDD can be reused, they are new SATA and not a problem to incorporate. Depending on the motherboard you choose there may be onboard graphics, but a dedicated video card always surpass it in quality. You can always add a video card at a later date. Were you planning to build from scratch?

 

[Galantra]

Sorry for this being so long this is pretty much correct other than some updates

Want to thank you guys so far with all the help MR is the greatest!!

Processor


Intel Pentium 4, 3400 MHz

200MHz external bus​

BIOS


Intel Corp. SE91510J.15A.2525.2005.0414.1610 04/14/2005


Memory


Undefined MB physical

90% free resources​

Video


Graphics Adapter: undefined

Screen Area/Colors: undefined x undefined pixels, undefined bits per pixel colors
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor​

Drives


C:\ (NTFS) 189909MB total, 46086MB free

D:\ (NTFS) 152625MB total, 131893MB free
E:\ (FAT32) 4556MB total, 1743MB free
F:\ CD-ROM/CD-RW or DVD Drive
G:\ CD-ROM/CD-RW or DVD Drive
I:\ Removable
J:\ Removable
K:\ Removable
L:\ Removable​

Network and Modem


(net) Marvell Marvell Yukon 88E8050 PCI-E ASF Gigabit Ethernet Controller

(net) Microsoft Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
(modem) Conexant In-Build CX11256 modem
(modem) Standard Modem​

1394


AGERE OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller (6/21/2006)


CD and DVD Drives


HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8163B ATA Device (6/21/2006)

TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H552B ATA Device (6/21/2006)​

Floppy Drive Controller


Standard floppy disk controller (6/21/2006)


Hard Drive Controllers


Intel 82801FB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2651 (6/21/2006)

Intel 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 266F (6/21/2006)
IDE Channel (6/21/2006)
IDE Channel (6/21/2006)
IDE Channel (6/21/2006)​

Hard Drives


Maxtor 6L200M0 ATA Device (6/21/2006)

ST3160811AS ATA Device (6/21/2006)​

Hid class


Microsoft e Home Infrared Transceiver (6/21/2006)

Microsoft HID-compliant consumer control device (6/21/2006)
HID-compliant device (6/21/2006)
HID-compliant device (6/21/2006)
HID-compliant device (6/21/2006)​

Input Devices


Microsoft e Home Remote Control Keyboard keys (6/21/2006)

Microsoft e Home MCIR Keyboard (6/21/2006)
Microsoft e Home MCIR 109 Keyboard (6/21/2006)
Microsoft PS/2 Mouse (6/21/2006)
Microsoft HID-compliant mouse (6/21/2006)
Standard PS/2 Keyboard (6/21/2006)​

Media


Aver Media Aver TV MPEG Video Capture (9/15/2004)

Aver Media Aver TV Av Stream Audio Capture (9/15/2004)
Aver Media Aver TV MPEG Encoder (9/15/2004)
Microsoft High Definition Audio Device (6/21/2006)
Realtek High Definition Audio (9/27/2004)​

Modem


Conexant In-Build CX11256 modem (6/21/2006)

Standard Modem (6/21/2006)​

Ports


RIM Virtual Serial Ports RIM Virtual Serial Port v2 (COM4) (1/9/2007)

RIM Virtual Serial Ports RIM Virtual Serial Port v2 (COM5) (1/9/2007)
ECP Printer Port (LPT1) (6/21/2006)
Communications Port (COM1) (6/21/2006)​

Scsi adapter


Microsoft iSCSI Initiator (6/21/2006)


System


Intel 82801 PCI Bridge - 244E (6/21/2006)

Intel 915G/P/GV/GL/PL/910GE/GL Processor to I/O Controller - 2580 (6/21/2006)
Intel 915G/P/GV/GL/PL/910GE/GL PCI Express Root Port - 2581 (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB LPC Interface Controller - 2640 (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2660 (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2662 (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2664 (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2666 (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM SM Bus Controller - 266A (6/21/2006)
Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System (6/21/2006)
Microsoft High Definition Audio Controller (6/21/2006)
Microsoft High Definition Audio Controller (6/21/2006)
Microsoft Consumer IR Devices (6/21/2006)
Microsoft UM Bus Root Bus Enumerator (6/21/2006)
ACPI Sleep Button (6/21/2006)
Microsoft System Management BIOS Driver (6/21/2006)
ACPI x86-based PC (6/21/2006)​

Universal Serial Bus (USB)


Intel 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2658 (6/21/2006)

Intel 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2659 (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265A (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265B (6/21/2006)
Intel 82801FB/FBM USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 265C (6/21/2006)​

Video


ATI Technologies Inc. ATI Radeon HD 4670 (9/2/2008)

Generic PnP Monitor (6/21/2006)​

Volume snapshot


Microsoft Generic volume shadow copy (6/21/2006)

Microsoft Generic volume shadow copy (6/21/2006)
Microsoft Generic volume shadow copy (6/21/2006)
Microsoft Generic volume shadow copy (6/21/2006)
Microsoft Generic volume shadow copy (6/21/2006)
Microsoft Generic volume shadow copy (6/21/2006)
Microsoft Generic volume shadow copy (6/21/2006)​

Display: Generic PnP Monitor


Size: 23-inch diagonal (49mm x 27mm viewable)

Max. Resolution: 1600 x 1200 pixels
Serial Number: 1
Manufactured: 1/2006​

​

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[bizzarro]

I would ditch CPU, because it runs extremely hot.

You should get a new Core 2 Duo or AMD X2/3/4 chip and motherboard for either chip and re-use your hard drives, optical drives, and video card. Not sure what RAM you had, you said DDR3 but there's more variety of boards supporting DDR2 and DDR2 is relatively inexpensive.