Building new computer. Thoughts?

[agabriel at coe.neu.edu (Anthony J. Gabrielson)]

Hello,
	I can tell you about the machine I just and I am very happy with
it.  I got most of the parts off www.pricewatch.com
	Tyan Mobo ATX S1596		$100
	AMD k62 350			$35  (to good a deal to pass up)
	128 megs PC100			$100
	In-Win case IW-A500		$37
	Matrox Productiva		$71  (I actually got a deal on
this for $30)
	All else is really personal preference.  This machine is really
pretty quick and I am happy with it.  As far as the processor I would stay
with AMD or Intel, unless your going to go RISC.  For mobo's I have tried
many vendors including biostar, supermicro, abit, many no names - Tyan in
my opinion is the best currenltly I have two Intel type basd machines - A
dual Pii 350 and the AMD K6 2 350, both have Tyan boards there very good.
Tyan has a real good support procedure, there manuals are almost to
complete.  I like In-Win cases, due to there quality.  It is one of the
only cases I have seen in today's market that are made of a sturdy
aluminum.  If you like me, and you take your case apart, you will also
like getting less metal splinters and cuts on sharp metal. Ethernet,
Either stick to what you have got, go 3com 3c905 or I saw a four port card
for $40 it was based on the DEC 21040 chipset - I saw it a whare house
(Micro International (603)880-3116 Also goes to the MIT fleas).  My dual
box has a complete SCSI, the K6 has an IDE HD and SCSI cdrom - SCSI is
nice.  Finally, and sorry about the length, I recomend you spend the same
amount of money as you would for a quality pre buit computer so around
$1000-$1200.  You will have about 2x 3x the machine at the same cost.

Can you tell I like to build computers? :-)

Hope thats a help,
Anthony


On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, David Kramer wrote:

> I want to build a new computer.  Normall I would just go to a Ken Gordon
> show, but there isn't going to be one for a while.  This machine will
> run dual-boot Windows and Linux (prolly NT, but I understand it's harder
> to make that dual-boot).
> 
> I am soliciting advice in a few areas of indecision:
> 
> 1) ATX or non-ATX?  I didn't like ATX the last time I looked at them,
> but it's getting harder to find non-ATX motherboards and cases.  Do the
> on-board extra subsystems ever die?  Are they usually flexible enough to
> (dis|en)able individual subsystems, like com ports and IDE?
> 
> 2)AMD K6-3, PII or PIII?  The serial number thing really bugs me.  I
> know there's an initiative to have the kernel return arbitrary serial
> numbers when polled.  Is this in place in a kernel rev yet?  Can it be
> reliably disabled in Windows too?  Is there a big performance increase
> in the PIII?  The hardware compatibility list supports the AMD K6-3, but
> are there really no compatibility problems at all?
> 
> 3)Network card- I've been using $11 DEC Tulip cards, and have been happy
> with them.  Is there a prevailing favorite card for a little more money
> that might be better?
> 
> 4)Video card-  this one can be tricky.  I've never gone all-out on a
> video card before, but beyond the hardware compatibility list, are there
> any ones that work exceptionally well with linux and take 4MB or 8MB? 
> Are AGP cards fully supported, or are there limitations?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> 
> -- 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> DDDD   David Kramer                    david at kramer.ne.mediaone.net
> DK KD                                 http://kramer.ne.mediaone.net
> DKK D  
> DK KD  HYDROGEN: A colorless, odorless gas which,
> DDDD   given enough time, turns into people.
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