Small reasonably cheap wireless desktop needed

thezappa

thezappa

thezappa

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Joined
1 Jul 2012
Posts
891
Hi everyone,

My dear mother has asked me to investigate a new pc as the one I left behind for them is positively prehistoric and is slowly dying hence I come to you as the most knowledgeable people I can contact about these things.

The first thought was to reinstall windows but time is a factor for me as I would have to do it.
For the record the existing motherboard is Asrock K8 combo-z and an Nvidia Geforce gfx card - don't have the model to hand - suffice to say it's old.

So I had a look around and saw this post that appeared to fill the criteria:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27721405&postcount=9

It did however raise a couple of questions:
Can a wireless connection be accommodated without the need for dongles etc whether that means an alternative mobo or case?
And I noticed the memory that was listed doesn't appear to be compatible with the motherboard, the speed of the memory didn't seem to tie up with the mobo specification although I'm happy to be proved wrong :) I'm a long time out of practice with these sorts of things.

She would like a new screen as well so suggestions are welcome there, doesn't need to be big. They do a little (basic) photo editing and will need something to store converted vinyl but an external HDD will do for that. Apart from that its just browsing, watching videos and e-mail nothing fancy. Aside from the need for it to be reasonably quick but I reckon an up-to-date processor and an SSD will do that, also I'll need an OS, they still ship W7 with machines don't they?

Thanks a lot for your help
 
That was my spec, slightly different one to accommodate your needs better. You didn't mention if you'd need an optical drive or not so I left it out.

Wifi mobo. AMD APU- Quad core grunt for photo editing plus APU so some graphic performance. I don't usually like suggesting monitors because the whole thing is subjective so I just picked a moderate looking one. SSD for OS and HDD for storage.

Windows will only usually come with a pre assembled machine, you will need to buy it and install it, although W10 is coming soon and is a free upgrade for W7, W8 and W8.1 users.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AOC E2470SWHE 23.6" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £109.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £59.99
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £56.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £46.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £46.99
1 x In-Win BM639, USB 3.0 Mini-ITX Enclosure, 160 Watt Power Supply - Silver £44.99
Total : £523.92 (includes shipping : ).



Or a build closer to that one of mine you quoted, but it's more expensive:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AOC E2470SWHE 23.6" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £109.99
1 x MSI Z97I AC Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £94.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x Antec ISK110 MiniITX Vesa Mountable Case - Black/Silver with 90W Power Supply £64.99
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £56.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint M8 2.5" 1TB 5400RPM SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HN-M101MBB) HDD £47.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £46.99
1 x Silverstone Argon SST-AR05 CPU Cooler £22.49
Total : £578.41 (includes shipping : ).

 
I have noticed the builds above all have over clocking in mind (A88/Z97 are overclocking platforms) a decent chunk of money can be saved by going to non OC platforms like A55 and H81. This will mean you can only run up to 1600mhz RAM but I dong feel that's a huge issue.

I think Intel wise the pentium K is a solid choice but on the AMD side it may be worth looking at the Althon chips. For general browsing use they are superb and with light photo editing it offers enough CPU power to get by.

With both those change you can probably save £50 off the AMD build.

Were you looking to build it for them or did you want a prebuilt system?
 
Doomedspeed said:
I have noticed the builds above all have over clocking in mind (A88/Z97 are overclocking platforms) a decent chunk of money can be saved by going to non OC platforms like A55 and H81. This will mean you can only run up to 1600mhz RAM but I dong feel that's a huge issue.
Click to expand...

I had to go A88/Z97 to find an ITX mobo with onboard wifi, as requested. There are probably cheaper ones available elsewhere.
 
Looking very promising so far, thanks a lot.

I think it may help if I further clarify the main needs/wants. Size I think is the main expectation so the intel spec is in my opinion going to be favourite out of the two.
A close second is budget; top price would £500 so if savings can be made by substituting cpu's slower memory etc then that may have to be the route but I can check to see if say £550ish would be ok.
With that in mind can the Antec case accommodate an AMD mobo with wireless chipset?

Optical drives aren't really an issue since you can pick those up for £20-30 and most drivers and installation files can be downloaded nowadays.

As for me building or having pre-built, I'm going to make an assumption that pre-built will be more expensive but how much is something like that, going rate for Labour has to be upwards of £50ph so is that the extra cost, in which case I'll probably do it myself over a weekend.

Thanks again
 
The problem is there aren't any cheap ITX AMD WiFi mobos, except the one I listed above.

You could save money and hassle if you went with a pair of powerlines instead of insisting on WiFi, that would free up your spec and reduce the outlay quite a bit I think.

With powerlines:

YOUR BASKET
1 x BenQ GW2255 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x Antec ISK110 MiniITX Vesa Mountable Case - Black/Silver with 90W Power Supply £64.99
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £56.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint M8 2.5" 1TB 5400RPM SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HN-M101MBB) HDD £47.99
1 x AMD Athlon 5350 2.05GHz Quad Core Processor - Retail (Socket AM1) **PROMO** £37.99
1 x TP-Link AV500 2-port Powerline Starter Kit (TL-PA4020 KIT) £34.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2X2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMV4GX3M2A1333C9) £29.99
1 x Asus AM1I-A AMD AM1 (Socket FS1b) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £26.99
Total : £467.90 (includes shipping : ).



Cheaper powerlines are available.
 
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Thanks for your help everyone. I bought this lot in the end:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AOC E2470SWHE 23.6" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £109.99
1 x MSI Z97I AC Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £94.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x Antec ISK110 MiniITX Vesa Mountable Case - Black/Silver with 90W Power Supply £64.99
1 x Crucial BX100 120GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT120BX100SSD1) £56.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint M8 2.5" 1TB 5400RPM SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HN-M101MBB) HDD £47.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £46.99
1 x Silverstone Argon SST-AR05 CPU Cooler £22.49

Having put it together it now isn't working :( although initially it did (kind of) but said 'no VGA signal'.
Won't turn on, well it will for about half a second and it beeps then dies. As far as I can tell everything is plugged in correctly. Just not experienced enough to diagnose the problem. Does anyone have any ideas?
 
How many times does it beep as it shuts down?

Check everything is properly seated, especially memory and CPU.
 
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It beeps once.
I've checked the memory, cpu and all the other connections and they seem ok.
When I think back, I recall it would stay on for a couple of minutes and then turn off, don't know if that indicates a problem or just a feature of the mobo.
Thank you for your help.
 
Disconnect drives (you dont need them to atleast boot into BIOS).

One stick of RAM 9then try the other and the other slot).

Check the coolers plug is on the fan header right.

ClearCMOS (power off, take battery out)
 
Still nothing, in fact even less. Without the drives plugged in I don't even get a beep, the fan spins a few times and then dies again.
Tried different memory stick and in different slot - nothing (fan spins 2/3 times then dies)
Took battery out, put it back in - nothing.
Swapped SATA cables over and power cables for both drives - nothing.

Thanks again.
 
Do you have a PSU you can borrow from your own PC or a friend?

I'd try a different (slightly more powerful PSU) and build the parts outside of the case.
 
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