Best bang for the buck

I am currently using an AMD 200Mhz, 32mb.

I figure in a few months, i will have to put my trusted friend in the
basement and upgrade to a new system.

I will remove the floppy drive, the CD-ROM 24x, the speakers, the
printer, scanner, the CRT monitor, and use the 3.2 gig HD as a second
drive on the new system. I plan to install Linux Mandrake 9.1 on it
while the main hd will have Windows XP. I was planning to reuse the
tower case as well but i then would have to install the new
motherboard and wire everything up myself. Is it hard?

Could you suggest a combo for a person who is on a budget. I have
about $400 US.

One more question, I have a lot of precious data on this hard-drive.
How would I transfer it over to the new hard drive? I realise I can't
just disconnect it and move it cos then the data will be lost.

thanks

I will remove the floppy drive, the CD-ROM 24x, the speakers, the
printer, scanner, the CRT monitor, and use the 3.2 gig HD as a second
drive on the new system. I plan to install Linux Mandrake 9.1 on it
while the main hd will have Windows XP. I was planning to reuse the
tower case as well but i then would have to install the new
motherboard and wire everything up myself. Is it hard?

Could you suggest a combo for a person who is on a budget. I have
about $400 US.

One more question, I have a lot of precious data on this hard-drive.
How would I transfer it over to the new hard drive? I realise I can't
just disconnect it and move it cos then the data will be lost.

As you say you are going to move the drive to th enew system, you should be
able to just move it and all the data will stay on the drive. When you have
the new computer operating system installed you should be able to access the
data on the old drive and move it to where you want it. You should have a
cd-rw installed to save your data. One day you will loose all the data on
your hard drive.

"zalzon" wrote in message
...
I am currently using an AMD 200Mhz, 32mb.

I figure in a few months, i will have to put my trusted friend in the
basement and upgrade to a new system.

I will remove the floppy drive, the CD-ROM 24x, the speakers, the
printer, scanner, the CRT monitor, and use the 3.2 gig HD as a second
drive on the new system. I plan to install Linux Mandrake 9.1 on it
while the main hd will have Windows XP. I was planning to reuse the
tower case as well but i then would have to install the new
motherboard and wire everything up myself. Is it hard?

Could you suggest a combo for a person who is on a budget. I have
about $400 US.

One more question, I have a lot of precious data on this hard-drive.
How would I transfer it over to the new hard drive? I realise I can't
just disconnect it and move it cos then the data will be lost.

thanks



Soltek 75frn2-L mobo
256mg ddr 2700 ram
AMD XP1800+ retail
60gig maxtor hd
Evercase midtower case
Sapphire Radeon 9000 vid card

All for less than $400 at Newegg....
Run the board at 166fsb and your 1800 will perform like a XP2100.....

"Ed_" wrote in message
...
In article , zalzon says...

I am currently using an AMD 200Mhz, 32mb.

I figure in a few months, i will have to put my trusted friend in the
basement and upgrade to a new system.

I will remove the floppy drive, the CD-ROM 24x, the speakers, the
printer, scanner, the CRT monitor, and use the 3.2 gig HD as a second
drive on the new system. I plan to install Linux Mandrake 9.1 on it
while the main hd will have Windows XP. I was planning to reuse the
tower case as well but i then would have to install the new
motherboard and wire everything up myself. Is it hard?

Could you suggest a combo for a person who is on a budget. I have
about $400 US.

One more question, I have a lot of precious data on this hard-drive.
How would I transfer it over to the new hard drive? I realise I can't
just disconnect it and move it cos then the data will be lost.

thanks



Here is a system that I actually have built a few months ago. All the
parts and
prices (US) are from Newegg as of this past week. It is a tad bit higher
than
you are looking for but you could do without one of the optical drives and
perhaps run with 256mb ram.

A7N266 asus mobo - 69.00
AMD XP 2000 1.67GHz Proc - 65.00
Maxtor 30G hd - 54.00
Lite-On 16X DVD - 36.00
Lite-On 52x32x52 CDRW 46.00
XP Home (OEM) 97.00
Crucial 512MB PC2100 DDR RAM - 88.00
Foxcon Supercase W 350W Ps - 40.00

Total: 495.00 S&H inc.

I would suggest getting rid of your present tower since you would have to
replace the power supply anyway. Jusr my small contribution to your
dilemna.

Ed

Here's a Newegg nForce2 overclocker:

Raidmax Model 208 $18
Fortron - P300XF 300W Power Supply $25
Biostar M7NCG Motherboard $99
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Thoroughbred $42
Speeze CPU Fan Model 5F263B1M3 $7
MAXTOR 60GB 7200RPM 8MB $77
Samsung SW-252BEN 52x24x52 $37.50
LITE-ON 16X DVD retail $35
PANASONIC Floppy $7
2x Buffalo Technology 256MB PC2700 $84 (run in dual channel mode)
OS....hehe

$431.50 + ~40ship

For better gaming go with:

Shuttle Motherboard AN35N $77 and

ATI OEM RADEON 9000 Atlantis PRO 64mb DDR DVI/CRT/TV out $67

or GAINWARD/CARDEXPERT GeForce 3 Ti200 64MB $79

or similar...~$50 extra

BTW, is a Radeon 9000 really better than the onboard nForce2 video in dual
channel mode ?
At least it doesn't use any system memory, some have DVI and you can plug
them into a TV for games and DVDs. There are so many, kinda confusing for
non-gamers...LOL

zalzon wrote:
I am currently using an AMD 200Mhz, 32mb.

I figure in a few months, i will have to put my trusted friend in the
basement and upgrade to a new system.

I will remove the floppy drive, the CD-ROM 24x, the speakers, the
printer, scanner, the CRT monitor, and use the 3.2 gig HD as a second
drive on the new system. I plan to install Linux Mandrake 9.1 on it
while the main hd will have Windows XP. I was planning to reuse the
tower case as well but i then would have to install the new
motherboard and wire everything up myself. Is it hard?

Could you suggest a combo for a person who is on a budget. I have
about $400 US.

The following appeared last week at www.techbargains.com. You are
likely to see similar prices sometime within "a few months".


*Dell P4-2.4Ghz/800 Desktop $429,* /Aug 4/

Dell Small Business http://www.techbargains.com/j/9.htm has this
desktop which uses the latest P4 chip and DDR400Mhz Memory for max
performance http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030521/800fsb-16.html.
It costs only $30 more than the P4-2.4Ghz-533Mhz/333Mhz Memory version
but is faster than P4 2.8Ghz/533Mhz!

Dimension 4600 http://www.techbargains.com/j/9.htm desktop
P4-2.4Ghz/800Mhz Bus/HyperThreading, Intel 865 chipset, 256MB Dual
Channel DDR400 memory/40GB 7200 HD, 48x CD, Free Office XP Small
Business, No monitor, 6 months ISP, XP Home $579 - $150 rebate
http://www.dell.com/downloads/us/bsd/bsd_rebate_form.pdf = $429
shipped free.

Select Desktops, Choose Dimension, Featured Systems under 4600,
Customize it on middle config, 2.4Ghz/Dell Quietkey/48x CD/No monitor/No
speaker/Integrated 5.1 audio/Integrated 10/100 Ethernet/Choose ISP -
Continue, Continue, Add to cart

On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 16:31:15 GMT, "Jan Alter"
wrote:

As far as upgrading your OS to XP; I'm assuming that you currently have
'98 or even '95 on your present hook up. You might get away with simply
dropping the main hdd into the new system and booting up on the new mb...

No. That won't work. Worse, it might initially *seem* to work.
In fact it never works. It stopped working somewhere around the
Pentium and Win95. Just save yourself from tons of troubles, and don't
even try this.

If you change either the cpu model, the boot hd, or the mobo, you need
to reinstall the OS. Period.

Odds are an old version of W95 won't work even if reinstalled. I think
there's patches for this though.

There's several reasons for this. One is the computer identity code,
introduced with Win98 (officially, that is, I wouldn't be surpriced if
it's been around since Win95beta).
More serious is that cpus have diverged in respects of instructions,
cache and register arrangements. Some of these changes are
backwardscompatible, it will work, while you'll not get anywhere near
proper performance. Other issues will pop up and bite you, the minute
you upgrade or install some software components. Like new driver, new
DX, new media app or game. Other issues again, might just subtly
corrupt your data.
And of course, - your old mobo chipset drivers won't work with your
new board.


ancra