PC has just died, I'm in a miserable mood, and a quick spec would be great!

KPeh

KPeh

KPeh

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Just installed a Seasonic psu to replace an old noisy Sparkle, but it was faulty and now the motherboard seems to have screwed up* (more details at bottom if you're interested!).

So, this is too short notice for me to read up on stuff, so I would really be greatful for your help. I'm in a miserable mood at the moment!

I'm looking for a:

Motherboard (preferably with fanless northbridge, and with an ethernet port)
CPU
Quietish CPU cooler
Graphics card
2gb RAM**

For ideally £400.
**If you think given the budget 1gb would be more reasonable, go with a single 1gb stick. Not sure if 2 is really needed, but I do use photoshop quite a bit. And it is future proofing I guess.

Many thanks :)

----
* The POST screen says CPU isn't at correct speeds etc (it is), though I can progress past POST, but then it wont detect the hard drives (which work in another PC) so wont boot. The fault with the PSU sounded like it was with the fan though (very loud fast clicks), I'm not sure it had dodgy rails.
At one point when I was making sure it was the PSU making the noises, the +12V extra power cable might have been a little loose, so I may have damaged it that way. But I'm not sure, as it was certainly plugged in. I guess it could've been the PSU. Eitherway, this sucks.
 
Actually yes, that did work :).

However, in my irritated mood and in an attempt to get a frustratingly difficult molex out of my 9800 Pro, I snapped off one of the tiny heatsinks on a transistor or somesuch. And can't find my thermal epoxy. Just my day.

I'm thinking of upgrading anyway I guess, fresh start and all. Probably would be worth it. Vista wont be standard for a few years I guess. I would keep my ram though, now I know it's fine. I'll have a look at the catalogue.

Quiet mb/cpu/graphics for a bit over £300 anyone?
 
Given the budget and your existing Ram I think something like this is roughly what you would want. If you aren't much of a gamer then you could get a cheaper graphics card which would also be less power-hungry and quieter but the X1800XT is about the best price/performance ratio around right now. Actually you could change the motherboard for a passively cooled Abit model to really minimise the noise.

CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£89.99 £89.99
MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£54.99 £54.99
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£119.99 £119.99
Subtotal £264.97
VAT £46.37
Total £311.34
 
Great, that does look good, though I may upgrade the motherboard a bit. It's difficult to find reviews that mention noise, but I'm hopeing the 1800 XT wont be very noisy when idling? Gaming, I don't mind how loud really!

Just working out my budget for the year :(.


Thanks :)
 
KPeh said:
Great, that does look good, though I may upgrade the motherboard a bit. It's difficult to find reviews that mention noise, but I'm hopeing the 1800 XT wont be very noisy when idling? Gaming, I don't mind how loud really!
Click to expand...

Just buy a motherboard without a fan on the northbridge? :D
 
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