Thread: Any suggestions Please??

Hi Woodyknot,

You shouldn't have a problem at all, I pretty much did the same thing. One thing you might need to be mindful of is the connection from the HD & CD RW to the mother board. I suspect that they currently are IDE? A lot of the new motherboards have multiple SATA connections and maybe just one IDE, if at all. I managedd to find one which had 2 of each. You might want to look into this when deciding what to buy, it might even be worth upgrading your HD depending on your budget.
If your devices have SATA then there shouldn't be a problem.
Good luck.

Cheers,

Evan

40 gig hard drive is hardly worth worrying about these days. The SATA drives are much larger as you probably know and they have come down in price considerably. Your CD RW will work with no problems if the new board has an IDE connector on the Mobo but if not the price of a new LG SATA DVD RW at the computer markets is just under $50

Originally Posted by WoodyKnot

Hoping someone may give me some insight,
thanks,
Woodyknot.

My opinion... It is commonly suggested hard drives are reliable for 3-4 years max. You probably will get longer, but don't rely on it for data. Also, your current hard drive is probably a 5400rpm one (slower read write). Considering they are so cheap in the below link, just get a new one. Same with dvd rom. Also, the new ones are dual layer.

The cheapest place to get computer parts is
http://www.msy.com.au/
http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf

They will put a system together for $70 on top of parts, or they sell computers with set configurations.

Be warned, if you go to the store on the weekend you will que for an hour before you get to the counter!

The Stacks creek branch is the only one which delivers.

Woody,

I could suggest a config for you if you can:

1. Tell me what you use your PC for:
   1. video editing?
   2. computer games?
   3. Just surfing the web, email, and other light tasks such as office programmes
   4. Connecting to your TV/stereo?
   5. All or any combination of the above.
2. Are you going to keep your CRT or want to upgrade to a LCD?
3. Same with mouse & keyboard and any other external device
4. How long do you want it to last before you upgrade again?
5. Are you able to replace hardware yourself, like video card, CPU etc?
6. You can keep your Windows XP to use it on a new system but then your old PC is a paperweight (unless you use linux)
7. Do you want a custom system or a brand name like "Dell" remembering that custom systems from most on-line stores do not come with user support. Buying Dell (or other brand) will offer you a help line for a limited period.
8. How much do you want to spend?

If you want the cheapest prices then go to MSY, but they will not offer any customer service.

320Gb hard disks are going for $95 - forget trying to save the old one.

Secondly, don't buy a system to update it later - you'll either never get around to it, or end up spending more on it that if you just get what you want to start with.

Coincidentally, I am upgrading mine at the moment too...one of the hard drives seems to be playing up. Oh well, it's been 5 years, so not too bad a run I guess.

Personally, I would keep the XP and loose the rest.

No current gear (memory, processor, cards etc) will fit into the existing system and with the exception of the drives, nothing in the old system is transportable to current gear.

If you find a MB that will accept the drives, they will be a major bottleneck that slows the system anyway as current stuff is much faster.

To my mind, the big question would be can you find a secondary use for the old machine. If you did, you would be obligated to either replace XP on the old system, or purchase a new OS with the new machine/components.

Originally Posted by malb

Personally, I would keep the XP and loose the rest.

No current gear (memory, processor, cards etc) will fit into the existing system and with the exception of the drives, nothing in the old system is transportable to current gear.

If you find a MB that will accept the drives, they will be a major bottleneck that slows the system anyway as current stuff is much faster.

To my mind, the big question would be can you find a secondary use for the old machine. If you did, you would be obligated to either replace XP on the old system, or purchase a new OS with the new machine/components.

Exactly right

CPU- Intel celeron 733mhz
Bus speed- 66mhz
Board- Gigabyte 601-686B
System- VT 860i
Bios- Award 6.00PG
Mem-512MB
Sound-VIA Audio
Video- Trident Video Accelertor Blade 3d/pro media
40gig HD
Samsung 48 24 48 rw
XP Pro


all of this is doorstop material ....xp pro is outdated too and I would guess xp home and xp pro will soon "run out" of updates as vista takes a firmer grip on the market ...just like windows 95 died when xp came out ....find something with at least 1gig ram ....at least 200gig HD ...lcd screens are a dime a dozen .....dual core processors are reasonable if you do a lot of window switching .....anyway ...you will get 4-5 yrs out of it at best ....I also highly reccomend getting an external HD and storing all your pics and files in it ....just keep the pc as a station .....it will run fast a lot longer without all the baggage ......that we tend to clutter them up with .

Originally Posted by WoodyKnot

I have considered a Mac but don't know much about them only that they're a great thing for video editing.
Hoping someone may give me some insight,
thanks,
Woodyknot.

My daughter is studying graphic design and it is manditory to have a Mac in that game. She is at me all the time to buy a Mac and give up the PC.

Her arguments are (and I am not sold yet)
1. Macs are not affected by viruses and spyware.
2. Macs use a more stable OS and hang a lot less frequently.
3. Mac developed the GUI (graphic user interface) that Bill stole to make the original Windows but the Mac one is still better.

She also tells me that Apple are now using an Intel Chip that makes the Mac a lot faster and that it is now possible to load a Windows OS as well as the Mac OS so you are able to run any Windows based application as well as the Mac applications, the downside to that is that you then need an antivirus protection because of the many security holes in the Windows OS.

She was able to network her Powerbook into my home network and use the shared internet connection as well as the networked hard drive I installed. She can also access any shared drives and printers in the network.

My argument is that if a piece of hardware like a video card or a RAM module should go on the fritz, it is a cheap and easy fix in a PC but could be quite costly in a Mac. Also the price to buy it initially is way up on a well spec'd PC, so I reckon that unless you need to use a Mac for what they are best at, don't bother.

Thats 2 sides to the story in 1 post.

Your first step should be to decide what you want to use the new computer for and how much you want to spend.
Get as much memory as the budget will allow.
Nest look at a fast processor as this and the memory will account for most of the cost.
Disks, DVDs etc are pretty cheap these days.
If you're planning on fast graphics then try to get a system with a separate graphics
cards and not one that's built into the mother board - and possibly shares your system memory.

I've bought my computer stuff for the last 10 years or so from http://www.eyo.com.au. They're in Sydney but as they only deal
via their web site and have fairly cheap delivery, this should not be a problem.

Originally Posted by manoftalent

all of this is doorstop material ....xp pro is outdated too and I would guess xp home and xp pro will soon "run out" of updates as vista takes a firmer grip on the market ...just like windows 95 died when xp came out .....

XP is still up there in terms of software availability, reliability, driver support and is still being installed on a lot of new systems, because Vista is still in guinea pig stage, and lacks most of these things. MS slipped the XP supply cuttoff date back a fair way not long ago because it can't get the Vista reliability it needs to kill of XP. Big business was reluctant to put their toes in the water and most that did pulled out fairly quickly and haven't gone back.

Vista was going to be everything, secure, reliable, on schedule, not need patching etc. It was an unfaithfull dog, unpredictable, riddled with bugs and security gaps, and a year late. MS have spent nearly as much patching and developing service packs for Vista as it did on the software, and its still not meeting MS publicity claims and still not right. Think bitter acidic fruit.

MS also claimed that there would be no further development of XP after the Vista release. Yet when the Vista service pack came out in beta, so did XP SP3.

I doubt that XP will get killed of soon, but even if it did, WoodyKnot may well be satisfied with the software and peripherals that he already owns. In that case, he should be able to run XP on a new box for five years without any pressure at all.

Originally Posted by malb

XP is still up there in terms of software availability, reliability, driver support and is still being installed on a lot of new systems, because Vista is still in guinea pig stage, and lacks most of these things. MS slipped the XP supply cuttoff date back a fair way not long ago because it can't get the Vista reliability it needs to kill of XP. Big business was reluctant to put their toes in the water and most that did pulled out fairly quickly and haven't gone back.

Vista was going to be everything, secure, reliable, on schedule, not need patching etc. It was an unfaithfull dog, unpredictable, riddled with bugs and security gaps, and a year late. MS have spent nearly as much patching and developing service packs for Vista as it did on the software, and its still not meeting MS publicity claims and still not right. Think bitter acidic fruit.

I doubt that XP will get killed of soon, but even if it did, WoodyKnot may well be satisfied with the software and peripherals that he already owns. In that case, he should be able to run XP on a new box for five years without any pressure at all.

ditto to all the above I am now back on xp and its silk smooth operation
it will take a lot to convince me to try vista again when xp is capable of doing all I need especially now that I am retired regards Wally xp
MS also claimed that there would be no further development of XP after the Vista release. Yet when the Vista service pack came out in beta, so did XP SP3.

I respectfully disagree, in parts

Vista at home
Xp pro at work.

I run the same versions of programmes on both (Cinema 4D, VectorWorks, CorelDraw suite, Office 2003, Bioshock, Crysis, Half-life 2, BF2, QuakeWars etc plus heaps of smaller apps) and I tell you, in MY experience, Vista craps all over XP for speed and reliability, but it took some work to update software, fix bugs in drivers and other hardware issues.

However if I we're updating from an older machine like WoodyKnot then Vista is probably not the way to go as he probably has a few old programmes that will need updating and that might not be possible without more money thrown in.

Then again, if that's not a problem, then upgrading to Vista or buying a OEM version might be a wise move as Vista will eventually come good and he can do it just once. I'd only do this if there wasn't any redundant software to worry about.

Woody, we still do not know what you want to do with this new PC. As soon as you can let us know we can suggest configs for you.

EYO is good, I reckon www.umart.net.au is good too AND they have a shop front.

[quote=wayfarer;668853]Woody,

I could suggest a config for you if you can:

1. Tell me what you use your PC for:
   1. video editing?
   2. computer games?
   3. Just surfing the web, email, and other light tasks such as office programmes
   4. Connecting to your TV/stereo?
   5. All or any combination of the above.
2. quote]

Wow thanks folks for all your input.

The pC will be used for all of the above with exception of gaming for now. I realise i can add a gpu card later if i desire to play games.
I want to keep XP as the OS as i reckon it's the best and in par with 98se and seeing their ain't no more support for 98, xp will do.
I would prefer using a CRT although have seen others use their tv rather than a monitor for viewing and i like this kind of portablity as it also means my parents can use the 'puter when they come n visit and actually see whats on the screen which will help give them the confidence continue using it too.
I was given a Panasonic NV S20A video camera and although it's dated a bit, it is still great for me to learn and would like to transfer my VHS tapes to dvd as well as the camera stuff.
I do a fair bit of image editing for family history but not so much now because this computer has slowed to a point where their just isn't enough of something and it takes a couple of days just to edit one pic if the computer don't crash b4 hand, and forget about image resizing.
Editing music is the same as is playing online java games at pogo.com
Has come to the point now that the defrag tool and other programs too especially so with windows, won't work as files go missing here and there until one runs the disk scan on startup where it repairs itself then all is fine for a few days.

With budget I have thought around $200 for the MB & $250 for the CPU although i think would go to $250 for the MB. I know that spending more on the cpu would benefit heaps but for now I do want a MB that has expandabilty for the future and can still have just base components installed. In the long term this probably isn't the cheapest way to go but i think when the prices of the better products fall in the months coming, buying this and that to update the system if needed is ideal for me.
I am undecided if I would put the system together myself. Sure I know where things go and how to attach them but configuring them well this is my bottleneck and probably best left to someone who can put it all together for a fee. I've seen mates formatting HD's using either the NTFS or the FAT file system and each of them say the same that they are more stable than the other file system so i dunno.
In an earlier system which was my first and was purchased through a store which sold other electrical stuff, it ran ME and didn't have a cd rw. I purchased one and tried to install it and checking everything 10 times to make sure it was correct, when starting the machine, flames and smoke came out the back of the computer and everything was buggered. First thought it was me then it could've been not having a surge filter on the power point. It was all good in the end because our power supply mob, northpower at the time, paid for the re-imbursment of that computer being for as they stated, a surge in the mains power supply. Hence why I have this system now and found out later that it was mostly 2nd hand parts installed.

I am more inclined to go for an INTEL system rather than an AMD however after reading much about both of them in PC User and online, this still confuses me a little although the AMD is cheaper in most instances for hardware. Perfomance wise I think the base difference between the 2 is only around a minute depending on the application. Any ideas on this would be appreciated.

Thanks again for you comments as I reckon I'll learn something along the way.

Cheers,
Woddyknot