Customized computer?

[Deadfire]

Well, the Computer here is a step in the right direction thats for sure how ever as good as it is I don't see you using half the things for it. It's a Media Center PC, not just one that has the OS but a true one. So unless you are going to ingrate it in to your home entainment centre I'd look at something just a bit down from that.

A point of reference to you NP I am a Computer Tech that works at the Best Buy here in my city in Canada. I have many times worked with the machine you show here (as surprise, surprise it's sold here too) now I want you to really think about that Product Service Plan as well if your getting anything from Best Buy or Future Shop. As well go in to one of them (If you can look at Best Buy, they aren't on comission so they can show you gerenally what you need, People at FS scare me as they take advantage of so many people On average.) I'm not saying that because I work there. Honestly If I could by $200 for someone to look after my machine for me I would, It truly is a pain in the ass. I could list the reasons for it, but I want you to decide to hear them or not, as this isn't my computer

Some things I found on the internet

Another HP Media Center however Refurbished, I don't normally suggest this...

This machine is decent, and the price is too

The computer your showing me but with out all the extra crap you will not use, and at $200 cheaper

Enjoy..

Also I'm moving this topic to your old one, there truly is no need for a new one...

[naruto=pwnage]

thanks. I have no idea what the hell I'd do without you guys

[mage]

You guys are thinking way too expensive for what you want to do with it. A perfectly good and upgradable anime watching/internet browsing computer can be had for 400-500$ (USD).

i posted this previously in the thread:

-AMD Sempron 2800 - 73$
-Abit NF8-V Motherboard - 60$
-G. Skill 1GB RAM PC3200 - 75$
-WD 200GB HD - 77$
-Chaintech FX5200 - 33$
-Cheap case (you can get w/e case you want) - 27$
-Fortron 400W Power supply (don't use the one that comes with the case) - 37$

382$ before tax/shipping.

I suggest just building your own computer with these parts (or comparable), and if you don't know how, learn how. It's extremely simple. Unless you buy a crappy lower end Dell or HP computer you will be REALLY overspending. That, and if you end up taking your computer to Best Buy or FS to be fixed for something, 95% of the time they will have absolutely no clue what they're doing. I've seen many a computer come out of Best Buy with more problems than when they went in.

will it be fast? will I be able to make capable of wireless internet? and if I wanted to add another hard drive to it would it be able to handle it? all suggestions are appreciated

Any modern computer will fit this bill. They're all fast enough for what you're going to use it for, you can add another HD, and you can use wireless if you so choose. There's no reason to buy a 1000$+ computer just for these things.

[Deadfire]

That, and if you end up taking your computer to Best Buy or FS to be fixed for something, 95% of the time they will have absolutely no clue what they're doing. I've seen many a computer come out of Best Buy with more problems than when they went in.

Ouch.. was that a shot at me for any reason there mage?

I worked hard for my position of where I am, and I can asure you I know what the heck I'm doing. Also this 95% bullshit, where did you pull that from? I don't insult your workplace don't fuck with mine

I don't get your logic here either, what is different about the parts you telling him to get compared to pre-built parts. It's the same break down rate, no matter how you look at it. Building it yourself means you have nothing for warrenty if it fails as all the companies you bought parts from will blame the others for the reason they don't work right and thus more trouble. As well, he is a new user, not someone who understands the fine dealings of these machines. Things here are based on skill level what may be easy for me and you may be harder for someone else.

Now to the one point I agree with yes you don't need such a expensive computer. What I think your trying to do is future-proofing yourself. So thats why I'm suggesting things around what you looked at there. I'm not the person using this computer and if your happy with it then there you go.

[mage]

It wasn't any shot at you, it's just the truth. You may know what you're doing, but from what I've experienced (and heard from pretty much everyone) is that people working at places like BestBuy usually have no clue what they're doing.

[BioAlien]

before buying your computer, wait until AMD release they 4 core prossesor lol

[complich8]

yeah, there's problems with bestbuy's support, among others.

And I agree with the assessments here: (1) you don't need a $1100 media center pc to photoshop, nor to download and watch shows, nor to do anything else.

I'll second Mage's suggestion of parts. Really, anything reasonably modern will work for what you want. In fact, I do quite a bit more than that on my aging dell poweredge 400SC (p4-2.4 northwood ht, 1gb ecc ddr400 dual channel, came with onboard sata and a couple open drive bays). For what you're asking, you don't even need a pci-e generation system ... straight-up agp/pci would work fine.

I also second the suggetsion on price. A homebuilt system that meets those needs wouldn't be more than a couple hundred bucks. If you watch the deal sites (slickdeals.net being a good example) you might find a deal on a dell or something to that effect, if you really really want to go the prebuilt route.

Further, media center pc's are built for a particular purpose, and they're sold at a premium to people who want to buy prebuilt systems tailored to that purpose. If you're buying a media center pc, you're probably paying $200+ more for the system than you would if you were buying the same specs without the "media center" moniker.

Lastly, AMD launching socket-am2, as well as Intel's impending launch of conroe, will both spell lower costs for older generation hardware. That means right now is an excellent time not to throw your money at computer hardware.

[naruto=pwnage]

thanks for the suggestions, but I think I'll spend my money however I want. plus It's going to be waiting a while before I buy it anyways. since I have to rasie the money first at twenty bucks a week

Mage, I'm not JUST going to use it for internet browsing. I want to get a new computer becuause my current laptop isn't exactly built for heavy downloading. it wasn't really built for multitasking and sure as shit wasn't built for vid editing. I'll name once again what I want to do with it:
-internet browsing(duh)
-downloading of lots of anime and programs
-watching anime and running programs
-a very good possibility I'll want to edit videos

and in general I want to have good RAM as well because I want my comp to run really fast and smoothly with no problem. plus I want future proofing, since programs are getting bigger and better all the time.

[mage]

thanks for the suggestions, but I think I'll spend my money however I want. plus It's going to be waiting a while before I buy it anyways. since I have to rasie the money first at twenty bucks a week

Mage, I'm not JUST going to use it for internet browsing. I want to get a new computer becuause my current laptop isn't exactly built for heavy downloading. it wasn't really built for multitasking and sure as shit wasn't built for vid editing. I'll name once again what I want to do with it:
-internet browsing(duh)
-downloading of lots of anime and programs
-watching anime and running programs
-a very good possibility I'll want to edit videos

and in general I want to have good RAM as well because I want my comp to run really fast and smoothly with no problem. plus I want future proofing, since programs are getting bigger and better all the time.

1) Internet browsing: any computer will do.

2) Downloading anime: Again, any computer will do as long as you have a large hard drive unless you intend to just burn your anime.

3) Multitasking while watching anime: Any modern computer will do this fine

4) video editing: Unless you're doing some hardcore editing (eg. professional), the computer I prescribed will do just fine.

5) Futureproofing: There's really nothing to futureproof here. It's a 64bit cpu which will accomodate 64bit applications with Windows Vista if you choose to run that OS when it comes out, you aren't playing games so you don't need a PCI-E slot (agp is fine), and again, since you aren't playing games, you don't need an expensive hardcore CPU. And finally, if you built a computer with the parts I listed, you will be able to use basically any and every program just fine for years to come.

6) Upgradability: You seem to be concerned only with wanting to add more hard drives an ram. All computers are upgradable in this way. The CPU is Socket 754, which is now slightly outdated with the release of Socket 939 and AM2, but that doesn't matter for what you're going to be using the computer for. With socket 754, you can still upgrade the CPU to something better later on if you so choose.

7) RAM: Since you mentioned ram, the ram I linked to in my parts list is perfectly fine. I'm a hardcore gamer and I run 1gb and everything runs perfectly. You will have no problems with 1gb unless you do extremely heavy photoshop work or video editing, in which case you should probably upgrade to 2gb.

I guess it just comes down to how much money you're willing to waste.

[Deadfire]

It wasn't any shot at you, it's just the truth. You may know what you're doing, but from what I've experienced (and heard from pretty much everyone) is that people working at places like BestBuy usually have no clue what they're doing.

Ya, I kind of went off on that. I have had that be told to me many times at work, and thus I get pissed off really easily about that. Only a few more months of school however and I will be out of there. The truth is I can agree that it's a problem in the US that there are those computer that come out of there worse. I personally don't see that much happening with my workplace in Canada, nor the consumer reviews we have gotten at other stores. However I will say that I know of computers that we were to repair and have made either worse or because of a error with our parts sources have in turn made even a small repair turn to be tricky to explain to a person because of the result. As well I'm not there all the time so there could have been issues I haven't known (Or cared) about.

More to the point about this thread I agree with mage on his advice in his above post. As it's basing it on your needs as you have dealt it out to us. If there is something your doing the requires more then that you need to tell us this.

Also the quote Comp:

That means right now is an excellent time not to throw your money at computer hardware.

What do you mean? There never has been a excellent time to throw your money at computer hardware

[darkshadow]

7) RAM: Since you mentioned ram, the ram I linked to in my parts list is perfectly fine. I'm a hardcore gamer and I run 1gb and everything runs perfectly. You will have no problems with 1gb unless you do extremely heavy photoshop work or video editing, in which case you should probably upgrade to 2gb.

I guess it just comes down to how much money you're willing to waste.

i say go for 2gb of ram, i do lots of editing and photoshop, or any kind of other proffesional editing ( being it 3d, 2d or video), will speed up significantly with more then 1gb of ram, this is even more so if you are gonna spend more then an hour editing the same thing.

[Board of Command]

I don't think it has been mentioned yet, but you're best off waiting a little longer for AM2 to mature a bit. 939 is becoming the 754 of this generation.

Better yet, wait for the Big C to come out next month before doing anything. Even if you don't plan on buying it, its release is bound to shake the market. Right now is the worst possible time to get a new system.

[BioAlien]

Big C ?? what that?

[mage]

Conroe, Intel's next cpu.

[LaZie]

I just built me a SLI PC a few days ago

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 2.6GHz Processor
GIGABYTE GA-M55SLI-S4 Socket AM2 Motherboard
2x 1 GB G.Skill Ram
2x EVGA Nvidia GeForce 7600GT
250GB Western Digital HD
HIPER SLI-Ready 580Watt PSU

It's my first build and I was on a budget so don't be too hard on me

[Killa-Eyez]

Here's a list of a system I put together for a friend of mine (in order of how I put it together)...

Coolermaster Centurion 534 Chassis
Coolermaster iGreen Power 500W Power Supply
Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Processor
Coolermaster Hyper L3 Cooling
Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4 Memory
Asus EN7950GT/HTDP/512M Graphics Card
Creative Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 500GB HD
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 320GB HD
Lite-on LH-16D1P (Black) DVD-Rom (In Europe only)
Lite-on LH-20A1H (Black) DVD-RW
TEAC 3,5" Diskette Drive 1,44MB (Black) / 8 in 1 Cardreader (In Europe only)
Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard
Razer Copperhead Tempest Blue Mouse
Logitech Z-4 Speakers (Don't ask why, he has 7.1 output)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (NL, 64-bit, OEM)

He got an overall score of 5.0 on his Windows Experience (3.0 and above being sufficient). More info here.
The whole list costs € 1496,77. Do the math!

[Kraco]

Lite-on LH-20A1H (Black) DVD-RW

I recently upgraded my old (=ancient) 451 to LH-20A1P. And I also changed the black front panel to it. The old LiteOn never had any media issues (no matter how dubious media) but this one has had some troubles with the lead in, like rejecting the disk (no more dubious than Verbatim), but when I put the same disk in again, it will burn it ok.

Why didn't your friend build his own machine? Or do you just like the screwdriver so much that you offered to do it?

[Pessu]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Asus P5k
Club3D 8800GTS 320mb
Antec NeoHe 500W
Antec P182B Gun Black
Samsung T166 500GB
Creative Live! Ls 5.1
Mushkin 1GB DDR2 800Mhz x2
Logitech MX518 <3
Samsung Super WriteMaster SH-S183

I just put it together few weeks back. Those parts cost me around 1200 euros.

My monitor and keyboard are really old tho...

[itadakimasu]

In response to mage suggesting that he buy a $73 sempron....
www.zipzoomfly.com

Free shipping, plus great prices, generally at least a dollar or two better than newegg and free shipping on everything not just select items.

if you're going low end processor you can get an X2 3800+ for 72.50 with free shipping, 2gb ram for 67.50 (corsair xms-5400) ... why settle for a sempron and 1gb memory for more money than you can get a dual core w\ 2gb ram?


I'm on a budget, and cant see myself spending so much money($1000+.)

I recently upped my main computer from a stock emachine t5420 w\ 3400+ and 1gb of pc3200 + 200 gb hd.

Gigabyte GA-MA69VM-S2 690V Socket AM2 1000MHz DDR2-800 M-ATX
AMD X2-4800+
2GB Corsair XMS DDR2-5400 RAM

and just the other day picked up a new Antec power supply and added my other hard drive in, so i have a 250 maxtor and 200 maxtor 3.0 sata in it....

excluding the hard drive, that was a total $350 upgrade and the only thing left stock of the computer is the emachine case, and the dvd and cd rom drives.

[darkshadow]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Processor
Asus EN7600GT/2DHT/256M Graphics Card

total waste right there, you shouldve gone for an E6600 and use the xtra money for a better vid card, 7900gt and up.