Posted on 07/26/2010 9:43:02 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Ever find yourself in need of a cheap computer? Yeah, me neither. But if you do, here’s a writeup on the building of a $200 rig and testing it against a $300 eMachines.
We weren't expecting our sub-$200 computer to be an outstanding performer. But that doesn't mean we wanted it to be slow, either—building a computer yourself that can't do what you need well is a waste of time and money. We wanted to know exactly what we had so we'd know what we could expect from it. That meant benchmarking it—and comparing it to another, similar system.
(Excerpt) Read more at hardocp.com ...
More stuff seemed to work after that,.
And the motherboard does require a 24 pin power supply.
But it would go in the same case as the one referenced in the article.
I just looked at the Gigabyte board (post #7) in addition to the 24 pin power connection it also has a 8 pin connection...as my Asus 880 board...but I am running ok with a 4 pin power connector so didn’t have to buy a new power supply.
I need to run Windoz for Business but I have three other machines that I have pack ratted that will be fun Toy’s
Good Stuff
TT
That goes for everyone. I don’t see any reason whatsoever to be having flamewars on FR over computer products. Those who have a problem with Apple should just not buy the product and that takes care of that. Don’t come to FR to flame those who like the product. That’s just dumb. Who cares what computer products people use. Everyone on these threads need to lighten up! On all sides!!That's all. We can still argue. Just do it like civil adults and heed the posting rules of the site, which have not changed and are clearly understandable by all. No personal attacks, and save the flamewars for the forums populated by 13-year-olds.
Better yet. Find a cheap used p4 or AMD on Craigslist. Install linux. Done.
Just the arguing ones about Mac vs PC.
Or you could go on Ebay and find a used computer with an XP license probably for less than $100. If you don’t like Windows then you can do Linux the same way. $200 is way too much.
Mostly this is a true statement. However, hard drives can drastically slow down sometimes as they fail. They can run out of set-aside sectors that are used to substitute for bad sectors, at which point they then are forced to retry reading/writing failing sectors that can no longer be replaced.
This can drastically slow down computer performance, and unfortunately, such slow downs are often the only symptom of a dying hard drive before it completely quits working. This slowing down can occur quite quickly or it can take weeks.
One way to tell if it is happening is if there are periodic and abrupt temporary stoppages at the same time the drive activity light goes on solidly. The worst version of this situation in Windows is if a failing sector occurs in one of the registry files.
In the typical slow system that just needs an OS reinstall, because the disk is rewritten, it going to give you hint if their an underlying hard disk issue...
Many times when I do an OS reload if the customer has never done it before and it had an older small hd I will recommend the customer do a disk upgrade. The reason I do that with drives get cheaper better faster and higher capacity is it a good upgrade...
Plus... I NOT DO CUSTOMER BACK UP ! and I will not touch a customers system till the customer signs off off that they have backed up what they want...backup is always a customer responsibility...I walk you throught it but you got to do it... reason I can replace anything but customer data (old FE saying "customer data is sacred")...when you touch a system anything can happen... (once did an on site and had a business system drive blow up just turning the system off
So the nice thing is.. customer never really have a complete back up ever when they say they have and turn it over for repair..
So if I replace the hd I will set up the new hd put the old hd as a 2 hd but uncabled
Then let the customer use and check out the new system for a few weeks..
That way if the customer stated they are missing a file it's quick and easy to cable up the old drive and find the file..
And after the customer is happy they have all their files on the new disk the old disk gets a format and become extra storage in the system...
FYI to you folk's that work on friends computer ... you want to loose a friend fast .. have them think you lost their data even just that one picture they really deleted by mistake before you ever touched their system..
That’s quite a bit more expensive than free. Also, I seriously doubt a 486 power supply will power all that. There’s a chance the drive bays and PCI slots won’t be compatible either.
You just can't call another Freeper's genealogy into question if they like a different OS than you do.
Yeah, with those you gotta be sure it doesn’t have one of the recalled vid cards tho. I got an earlier model as a gift and exchanged the video card at least 5 times before they finally gave up and just recalled that whole lot entirely, so many were coming back with grinding and dead fans.
I love bringing new use to old pcs via Linux.
Am inheriting an old laptop this week for use in the garage. LuPu may be required.
BTTT
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