advise for buying case & PSU

Qui Gon-Jinn · Post by **Qui Gon-Jinn** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:31 pm

that is a decent case..

Don't know what you where looking for as far as a PSU.. but this comes with a 450 in it..

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... ture=ANTEC

check it out..

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 12:07 am

the WD special editions are good, i used to get those exclusively.

but my first SATA drives were Maxtor Maxline III ultra 16's and those are now my favorite. i have them in both flavors (SATA and pATA)

for pATA (IDE) this is a good drive for the price.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=100718-7

i have noticed that the WD's i have ( most are 3+ yrs old) make more noise than the maxtors.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:33 am

Don't buy any drive with less than a 3 year warranty, and most Maxtors (except their high-end drives) are only 1 year.

I like Seagate.

Qui Gon-Jinn · Post by **Qui Gon-Jinn** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 4:14 pm

I will second the part about 3yr min. on warrenty.. most WD's have that..
Seagate is doing likd 5yrs now.. I have a mix of drives.. 80% are WD.. 10% IBM and 10% Seagate..

as the WD's die off.. and are not under warrenty.. replacements will be Seagates..

Jerome Bettis · Post by **Jerome Bettis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 5:53 pm

what Seagate 80, 120 GB models are quiet and have the best warranties?

What are the least expensive PSUs you would buy? Will any PSU fit it most cases?

How do you determine if a case will hold a PSU model?

Is the Venice CPU and good model ?

Cheers

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 6:30 pm

All ATX PSUs are a standard size. The cheapest PSU I'd buy is the Enermax Noisetaker I linked above. Seriously, you CAN'T spend less than around $70 for a PSU and get a quality unit. A cheap unit will fail you, or cause intermittent lockups, or fry your mobo someday.

Venice is a good CPU - also a good overclocker. I'm running a Venice core 3200+ on an Asus A8N-E mobo.

All Seagates have a 5 year warranty.

Jerome Bettis · Post by **Jerome Bettis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 7:51 pm

I just bought AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice Core on eBay. Sweet deal. 3 year warranty and $80 cheaper than retail.

Next question. I'm getting a Seagate IDE drive. Anything I should be aware of?

SATA has more convenient connectors right? Which should I get?

What kind of kit do I need or would that come with the mobo?

Does the mobo determine if I shoudl get SATA or IDE?

Most all new mobos support SATA right?

Btw, I've been reading customer reviews about the ASUS A8N-VM/CSM. People are sayign that it overheats after 30 hrs use and the heat sink gets in the way etc. Who knows. Maybe they have bad fans/sinks.

What other mobos between $80-100 USD should I look at?

cheers

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 8:05 pm

usually you get ribbons with the board; if it supports SATA, those cables would usually also be included.

if you go with SATA, make sure your PSU has SATA power connectors; if it doesn't then you would need to have an adapter which is sometimes included with the HDD or mainboard.

theoretically, SATA (serial ATA) is more efficient than parallel ATA (IDE) and more board makers are going with SATA support. for now, any board that supports SATA usually also still has IDE. it will be a while, before SATA' s potential will be reached.

if you are planning for the future, then go with the SATA. personally, on the systems i have with SATA, i still use both. but i am probably through buying ATA drives, anything new i have been getting SATA.

as for the mainboard, get one with the nforce4 chipset.

if you are planning on getting a bigger cooling solution, make sure it will fit without problems.

Jerome Bettis · Post by **Jerome Bettis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 8:11 pm

This one looks good for SATA and overclocking capability. Would this one be good for overclocking?

I know it mentions overclocking but is it good for overclocking?

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... merReviews

Oh and the mobo I'm looking at says SATA 2.0. Does that mean the HDD has to say SATA 2.0 or can it just say SATA?

This drive also looks good.
Samsung Spinpoint P Series 200GB SATA2 7200RPM 8MB 8.9MS FDB Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty

If I can't find an eBay Seagate SATA then whats a good second choice?

Can I use a SATA drive on a SATA 2.0 mobo ? And you said the PSU should have SATA. Should it have SATA2 ?

Jerome Bettis · Post by **Jerome Bettis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 8:27 pm

SEAGATE:

While they do offer a 5 year warranty, it may not be worth your time if the drive fails, as they insist you pay for tracking shipping, as well as paying to package the drive in 2" foam rubber, which is not easy to buy.

Hey what about this PSU? Its SATA but I don't know if it should be a SATA2 PSU.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... Track=true

Whats the least I could spend on a video card for soem games like Quake, Doom and Fear?

I don't need to run the games at their highest performance.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:42 pm

Well, as someone who returns a lot of drives as part of my business:

1) ALL manufacturers insist you ship the drive in 2" foam rubber or equivalent (equivalent being whatever the drive was packed in when you bought it which nowadays is usually plastic or styrofoam trays). This is totally acceptable. You should ALWAYS keep the original box the drive came in just for this reason.

Alternately, wrapping it in bubble pack is also acceptable. It DOES NOT have to be foam rubber, but it must be the equivalent of 2 inches of foam rubber.

2) The manufacturer doesn't care how you ship it, but they RECOMMEND you send it Fedex, UPS or Airborne with tracking. You'd be foolish not to. Nor is it very expensive. It costs $8 to ship a hard drive via UPS (I do it all the time). You'd pay about $6.50 Priority Mail with a DC # and a DC # is NOT proof of delivery as far as a manufacturer is concerned because there's no signature.

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:50 pm

yeah, i have a whole closet full of empty boxes anti-static bags and styrofoam packing. i wish i could toss them out, but they have proven to be handy when i need to send something back.

Jerome Bettis · Post by **Jerome Bettis** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 10:14 pm

cool thanks guys. I'm nearing close to the end of my buying on eBay.

I'm just looking for a video card basically. I wanna be able to play new games but dont need top performance as I don't even have a high end monitor and dont care if I see every bit of shading and pixels lol I'm definitely not a game fanatic. I do multitask with Adobe and Macromedia products though.

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 10:22 pm

ATI radeon 9800 pro

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx ... ia=AA21610

Jerome Bettis · Post by **Jerome Bettis** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:25 am