Re: buy or build computer?
On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 08:37:27AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-03-09 at 12:55, Peter Christensen wrote:
> > My five-year-old Gateway Pentium 200 MHz died recently. (It won't boot from
> > the hard drive or a rescue disk, and it won't go into bios-setup mode.) I
> > don't think it's fixable, and anyway, it was so slow that it's probably time
> > to replace it. Temporarily I'm using a borrowed computer with Win95. Yuck!
Temporarily remove the Win95 HD and replace with the HD out of your
Gateway...
> > For my next computer I want to make sure that everything is compatible with
> > Linux. I searched this list and found a few posts about buying computers.
> > They were a little old (one or two years), so I'm wondering if the situation
> > has changed. A few people recommended the AMD Athlon processor over
> > Pentiums. And Matrox for video, Soundblaster or Ensoniq for sound. Any
> > thoughts on this?
AMDs give you more bang for the buck than Intels. Don't get a
Soundblaster if you're interested in S/PDIF I/O because they resample
everything to 48kHz. Don't get any hardware that people on this list
are having trouble to get working!
> > I've heard that computers nowadays are built with the cheapest possible
> > components, so I was wondering if building it myself would be a good idea.
> > It might not be much cheaper than buying one from Dell or Gateway, but if
> > the result was a better quality machine it might be worthwhile. So far I've
> > only had to replace broken components in my Gateway, such as the hard drive
> > and CDrom, also added memory. Building a computer would be a challenge, but
> > I think I'd enjoy doing it...
The saving will be non-negligible. I find computer fairs are a good
source of cheap hardware. If you can replace bits, you won't find
assembling a system very hard.
> In addition to "buy" or "build from scratch", there is a middle way:
> buy a bare bones system (mobo installed in case with maybe a CPU), and
> then you install everything else. This is the way I prefer to go.
Yes. This method will avoid two potential problems:
- random processor/motherboard incompatibilities that "shouldn't
happen". Eg. The Gigabyte GA7ZXE motherboard and AMD 1700XP don't
work together, though the 1600XP and 1800XP do work in this MB.
- knackering the CPU by incorrect heatsink installation. AMD CPUs (I
don't know about current Intels) have you bring the heatsink into
direct contact with the rear surface of the naked chip. This is no
doubt great for thermal transfer but mechanically it sucks! Especially
when you've never put one together before, and they haven't given you
any thermal grease.
If you can replace hard drives and memory, you'll have no problems
with the rest of the assembly. It's a lot easier than it used to be.
There are very few jumpers to muck about with these days; generally
you just plug it all together and do your mucking about in the BIOS
Setup instead.
Do note however that the paper and CD manuals you get with the
hardware are probably out of date, so download the latest versions
from the manufacturer's website before you start.
Pigeon
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