Hi, i know, i know, ANOTHER thread from a noob on how to build a PC, but we all gotta strat somewhere, right? Ive had my current PC for about 4 years now, has done me well, ive upgraded all i felt comfortable doing , RAM ,Graphics card/Sound Card - easy stuff, however a couple of days ago it broke, either the MOBO or CPU (or both) gave up, therefore i thought now would be a good time to learn a bit more about building a PC myself. I dont want an amazing all singing/dancing beast, my current one was only a 1.9Ghz, single core basic, 160GB hd, cheapie PC World jobbie, and i upped the RAM from 512 -> 2G, put in a Soundblaster Live! card and a NVidia 7 series GPU card. What i want is a more up to date/middle range PC but not too expensive, hopefully able to use some of my exsisting hardware, id like a dual/dou core 2-3 ghz, dvd d/l writer, preferably with XP, i really dont know where to begin? what other parts would i need, where to get them etc.. Im in the UK so uk based websites/prices would be good. My budget is around the £200 pound mark, maybe a little more if i can sell some of the hardware i dont need on ebay. all help is appreciated, if you need anymore info let me know. thx
You should keep your existing disc drives, and obviously all the hardware outside the PC, but realistically the rest would need to be changed, as prebuilt PCs have large quantities of hardware that isn't compatible with standard approach hardware you'd buy to assemble yourself. Case, CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Graphics card and Power supply. You can keep your Sound card. If you're not a gamer or a High-Def video user, you've no real need for anything other than a Micro ATX motherboard with integrated graphics and a Pentium Dual core processor - these two will set you back no more than £80 or so between them. You can get 2GB of cheap RAM for £20 or so, a decent PSU (cheap PSUs are nasty, don't buy them) for around £30 and if you need a newer up to date DVD Writer, they're only 15 quid. CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=632059 Mobo: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=848059 RAM: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=291364 PSU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=696393 DVD: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=877414 Case: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=541780
WOW, thanks for the quick reply and great advice, I do actually dabble in a bit of gaming -ala the Nvidia card, and just prior to it crashing - purchased a 24" widescreen monitor for movies which has a HDMI input, could be a chance to put it to use? i was just gonna use the input for the xbox360 otherwise. also what would i do about an OS? i havnt got the foggiest about installing that! I cant find any of the boot discs/paperwork etc that came with the PC originaly (it has been 4 years and a house move since) so i guess i'll have to get another copy of XP (i think the boot discs were on floppy anyway, what use is that!) also i see yo use scan.co.uk a lot, is this the best site for this sort of kit? thanks again buddy
I tend to use Scan because they haven't messed me around before. No website is perfect in the customer service department in this country though, it's a bit of a minefield out there. As far as gaming goes, £200 budget is quite restrictive, however the thought occurs, is your old graphics card AGP or PCI express? If it's AGP never mind, but if it's PCI express, you can transplant that into the new build as well (assuming it isn't what broke). On the other hand if you want a new card, you would be wise to up your budget, even if not by a lot, to say £250, as that will enable you to get a good, powerful card like a Geforce 9600GSO - granted, that's still not an ultimate enthusiast grade graphics cards, but for its £60 or so price tag, it produces stunning results in games. Installing windows is simple, I recommend XP over Vista because I have had nothing but grief with vista when I've used it in the past. With regard to XP, stick the disc in and follow the instructions, couldn't be easier. HOWEVER, reinstalling windows may wipe some of your documents and settings, so make sure you back that folder up - the rest will be left intact. If you want things nice and simple you can just buy another small hard drive and install windows on that instead.
doh' i think it WAS AGP(told you it was an old set-up), n'mind - ebay it and get a newer one i say! Yeah, ive tried vista at work and the techies say its grief, i still love XP, its GUI is nice and simple + patching all my software doesnt sond like fun to me. Actually a dual harddrive was something i had in mind, i could install XP on the new one and add the old one back later, correct?. guess i'll have to suck-up to the wife for a bit more cash :[
That's correct, as long as you tell your BIOS which drive to boot from it's easy. http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=631206 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=870485
