good local motherboard source?

[mark at buttery.org (Mark J. Dulcey)]

Bob Keyes wrote:
> Hi all,
> I have been getting tired of waiting for kernels to compile on my lowly
> 833 mhz p3, so I am looking to upgrade. Athlon XP 2100 seems to be the
> sweet spot right now, looking at pricewatch shows multiple vendors with
> board/cpu/fan for under $100. I placed an order with tufshop, but they've
> claimed they are out of stock and are now trying to bait & switch me. I
> then read online reviews that show they are really horrible. This makes me
> doubt other pricewatch vendors as well. So anyhow I am going to cancel my
> order with tufshop.
> 
> Anyhow know of a good local place to pick up something like this?
> MicroCenter steals from you by not being reliable with rebates,
> pcsforeveryone seems expensive and their staff seems to only want to sell
> full $2000 systems. I am willing to pay a small premium for a local
> purchase but they seller needs to be GOOD.

MicroCenter has been offering a combo of XP2400 plus some variety of 
suitable motherboard for $129 for a while. (The motherboard was 
originally a Shuttle AK32A; they switched to a different one when they 
ran out of those. The newer one is actually slightly nicer, since it has 
USB 2.0.) Not quite as cheap as some of the Pricewatch quotes, but it's 
not bad and it's local. And there aren't any rebates involved.

Keep in mind that any modern motherboard is going to need DDR memory, so 
you may have to budget some of that as well.

I've never had any trouble with rebates from MicroCenter, or anyone else 
for that matter. My two secrets: cut out the UPCs nice and large so they 
don't lose them, and mail the submissions at the post office.