downloading rig

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18 Nov 2005
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I need a computer that needs to be 24/7 to download stuff and send the files over a network.Have a price range of £650.

NOTE: it has to be quiet
 
Soldato
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12 Jun 2005
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5,361
May, I suggest that you go Mini ITX with a passive system which runs of a passive Laptop Style power supply. Get a 1GHZ model and add 512MB of RAM

Then buy this hard drive: Samsung SpinPoint T HD300LD 300GB ATA-133 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-027-SA)

and (maybe) this:

OcUK Silentmaxx Aluminium Hard Drive Enclosure

to make that quiet hard drive even quiter.

You would then have to buy a Mini ITX case.

With the money left over, get a TFT and the rest.


This will make your system extemely quiet, but it would not be good for anything that is intensive and should really be only used as a download box.


[EDIT]

If you are going to be sending the files over a network, to make you PC even quieter, I would get a laptop hard drive.

I suggest this hard drive as it claims to be the quietest on *** market:

Western Digital Scorpio 120GB WD1200VE 2.5" 8MB Cache HDD - OEM

[edit again]

You should be able to fit it in your budget:

Monitor = £130
Keyboard and Mouse = £20
512MB RAm = £30
Mini ITX CPY and Board = £120
120GB Lappy HDD = £160
Lappy PSU and Converter = £50 - 60
Case = £50


^^ These are just estimates
 
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Eating PI
Try this:

MO-022-SA Samsung SM-913N 19" LCD Monitor - Silver (MO-022-SA)
£164.95 £164.95
CA-000-AR Arctic Cooling T1 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-000-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
MB-000-BG BFG RNF4U nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-000-BG)
£64.95 £64.95
CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£129.95 £129.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£54.95 £54.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£61.95 £61.95
CD-028-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-028-NE)
£27.95 £27.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG)
£19.95 £19.95
Subtotal £574.60
VAT £100.56
Total £675.16

I'm not sure how noisy the std coolers are for the 3700+ so you may need to get the OEM version and add a silen cooler like a Zalman or something.
 
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Monstermunch said:
Try this:

MO-022-SA Samsung SM-913N 19" LCD Monitor - Silver (MO-022-SA)
£164.95 £164.95
CA-000-AR Arctic Cooling T1 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-000-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
MB-000-BG BFG RNF4U nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-000-BG)
£64.95 £64.95
CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£129.95 £129.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£54.95 £54.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£61.95 £61.95
CD-028-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-028-NE)
£27.95 £27.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG)
£19.95 £19.95
Subtotal £574.60
VAT £100.56
Total £675.16

I'm not sure how noisy the std coolers are for the 3700+ so you may need to get the OEM version and add a silen cooler like a Zalman or something.

what the hell!

why on earth do u need to run a DOWNLOAD pc that fast and spend that much money!?!?

Get like a 2500+, or not even that, and the cheapest m-atx/m-itx mobo u can find, stick in a couple of spinpoints, get a arctic cooler on the chip, get a quiet mobo, cheap pc3200 value ram and a cheap lcd.

Spending £650 on a download pc is quite insane.

Or you could just buy old second hand parts off ebay like an old penitum 3 700mhz or something.
 
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ive been wanting to build a download machine for quite some time, just keep on using the family comp instead of bothering to build one though. Conrad11's idea is quite good though, willl have to look into it
 
Soldato
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Location
Brit in the USA
tang0 said:
what the hell!

why on earth do u need to run a DOWNLOAD pc that fast and spend that much money!?!?

Get like a 2500+, or not even that, and the cheapest m-atx/m-itx mobo u can find, stick in a couple of spinpoints, get a arctic cooler on the chip, get a quiet mobo, cheap pc3200 value ram and a cheap lcd.

Spending £650 on a download pc is quite insane.

Or you could just buy old second hand parts off ebay like an old penitum 3 700mhz or something.

Agreed. I've just used an old PC I had kicking around and turned it into a file server / download box / basic media center type thing. It's a Duron 1.2GHz with 384MB RAM, and it works great!

I would spend the most on lots of storage and a nice quality PSU. The rest can be very basic.
 
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R B CUSTOMS said:
arnt laptop hard drives really slow though ?
i dont suppose HDDs contribute to noise as much as other components.
and... is 300GB enough ?

Depends on what you're going to be sticking on it I guess :) You might want to think about a case with plenty of bays tho - that way you can add drives when you need them and even go down the RAID route for extra speed and data protection.
 
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18 Nov 2005
Posts
421
How's this:

AMD Sempron 64 3100+ 1.8GHz (Socket 754) CPU - Retail (CP-136-AM) £70.44

Asus K8N4-E nForce4 4X (Socket 754) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-125-AS) £58.69

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 120GB 1200JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-055-WD) £51.64 (x2 in RAID 1)

Corsair 1GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 (VS1GB400C3) (MY-062-CS) £58.69

Antec SLK1650 Beige Quiet Mini Tower Case - 350W SmartPower PSU (CA-024-AN) £46.94

Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-024-AK) £10.52

LG GSA-4167BRL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - Retail (CD-036-LG) £31.67

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X300SE 256MB Hyper Memory DDR TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (RX300LE-256) (GX-032-HT) £38.72

Antec NeoHE 430W Modular ATX2.0 PSU (CA-044-AN) £64.57

Hyundai ImageQuest B70A 17" LCD Monitor (MO-026-HY) £164.44

Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 Keyboard (KB-054-MS) £17.57
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total (with vat): £782.31
 
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Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2005
Posts
5,709
MY-005-OK OcUK Value 512MB (2x256MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-005-OK)
£23.95 £23.95
GX-032-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X300SE 256MB Hyper Memory DDR TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (RX300LE-256) (GX-032-HT)
£32.95 £32.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
CP-138-AM AMD Sempron 64 2800+ 1.6GHz (Socket 754) CPU - Retail (CP-138-AM)
£45.95 £45.95
MO-033-HY Hyundai ImageQuest B71A 17" LCD Monitor - Black (MO-033-HY)
£149.95 £149.95
KB-011-LG Logitech Internet Pro Keyboard (Black) - OEM (KB-011-LG)
£8.95 £8.95
KB-047-LG Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Sea Grey - OEM (KB-047-LG)
£5.50 £5.50
CA-000-AR Arctic Cooling T1 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-000-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£48.95 £48.95
MB-127-AS Asus K8V-X SE VIA K8T800 (Socket 754) Motherboard (MB-127-AS)
£39.95 £39.95
Subtotal £431.05
VAT £75.44
Total £506.49

or swap that 17" monitor for a 15" ...


MY-005-OK OcUK Value 512MB (2x256MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-005-OK)
£23.95 £23.95
GX-032-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X300SE 256MB Hyper Memory DDR TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (RX300LE-256) (GX-032-HT)
£32.95 £32.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
CP-138-AM AMD Sempron 64 2800+ 1.6GHz (Socket 754) CPU - Retail (CP-138-AM)
£45.95 £45.95
KB-011-LG Logitech Internet Pro Keyboard (Black) - OEM (KB-011-LG)
£8.95 £8.95
KB-047-LG Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Sea Grey - OEM (KB-047-LG)
£5.50 £5.50
CA-000-AR Arctic Cooling T1 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-000-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£48.95 £48.95
MB-127-AS Asus K8V-X SE VIA K8T800 (Socket 754) Motherboard (MB-127-AS)
£39.95 £39.95
MO-008-OK OcUK Value L1562S 15" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-008-OK)
£94.95 £94.95
Subtotal £376.05
VAT £65.81
Total £441.86


if you are using this to browse the net/forums then ** probably better off with the 17", or fork out for the 19", but if its simply for downloads go for a 15", or even better, get an old crappy crt for £20 and a used system from members market, probably set you back about £200/300.

of you could go and buy a dell ;)
 

amx

amx

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Storage isn't an issue, it only needs to have a big enough hard disk to run windows and store what i've downloaded, as i'm going to get one of those network storage boxes and shove some hard disks in that for the uncompressed data.

I like Conrad's idea, i'll give it some thought.

Thanks for the suggestions
 
Soldato
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Posts
5,709
slightly out of ** budget maybe, but what about this..


CP-146-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core FX60 (Socket 939) - Retail (ADAFX60DAA6CDBOX) (CP-146-AM)
£619.95 £619.95
MB-018-DF DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF)
£129.95 £129.95
MY-064-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC5300 Dual Channel Gold GX XTC Series EL-DDR2 (OCZ26672048ELGEGXT-K) (MY-064-OC)
£169.95 £169.95
GX-045-CO ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
£349.95 £349.95
HD-069-WD Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-069-WD)
£174.95 £174.95
HD-050-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 400GB 4000KD SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-050-WD)
£126.95 £126.95
SC-031-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro - Retail (SC-031-CL)
£174.95 £174.95
CA-002-TT Thermaltake VB5000SNA Tai-Chi SuperMidi Tower - Aluminium (CA-002-TT)
£139.95 £139.95
CA-002-SS Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS)
£87.95 £87.95
WC-003-ZA Zalman Reserator1-Plus Fanless Water Cooling System - Black (WC-003-ZA)
£159.95 £159.95
MO-001-DE Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey (30906) (MO-001-DE)
£599.95 £599.95

edit, i had two systems there lol

Total=

£3000

it should run internet explorer pretty well and play all of them flash animations (although you might have to upgrade to and run two gfx cards in sli for some) :D
 
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Associate
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26 Jan 2006
Posts
1,049
get 3 x 300gb HD for about £240, a 19in screen for £160, £40 on a cheap 939 board, £95 on a cheap 3000+ Venice, £20 on cheap AGP x8 64mb graphics, and rest on RAM :).
 
Associate
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16 Nov 2005
Posts
759
Location
Newry, Northern ireland
hi, i find i cant sleep with the pc on as even very small amounts of sound distract me.
i suggest you do this:

a) get a 140 opteron, as its a server processor it runs cooler. underclock it and undervolt it, and you should be able to run it with a passive cooler.

b) stick on windows xp, and stick it to classic mode so that it takes the strain off the pc.

c) get 1 gig of ram, its useful.

d) get a hard drive enclosure as some1 previously mentioned, theyre good sound reducers.

e) an aspire X-Qpack cube case is what i reccomend simply because its a nice small case, and will let you have your download pc hidden from sight in a drawer even! lol.
get the cheapest Matx motherboard that supports pc 3200 ram and SATA if applicable and you should be fine.


if you do this you should be able to leave your pc on 24/7 ^^. also you might want to mod the power supply, you could probably make it passive although modding a laptop PSU might be better.
good luck :)
 
Soldato
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Here and There...
If all you want is to download studd onto it before moving it to another PC then I'd go second hand get a cheap PIII athlon XP box cram as many hardrives as you need in it and shove it under the stairs. You don't need a monitor keyboard and mouse just control it remotely using VNC. You spending the sort of money that could get you a basic gaming rig on a file server which seems crazy.
 
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