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First I'd like to thank Mark Brown for sharing how he
built his new computer and his parts list.
Since I'm not as experienced as Mark you may find this
a bit more real.
After studying the reviews at www.anantech.com,
www.ocworkbench.com and Toms Hardware site, I ordered
the following parts from www.Newegg.com. I ordered
the Abit board because it had the best reviews and it
had a Lan, USB 2.0 and IEEE-1394 onboard.
Item List
MB VIAKT333|3P1A4D SOCKETA AT7 ABIT
(Qty=1,Price=157.00)
CPU FAN AMD|DBB WBK38 GLOBALWIN RT
(Qty=1,Price=17.00)
CPU THERM PASTE|ARCTIC SILVER 3 3G%
(Qty=1,Price=6.00)
FD 1.44MB|MITSUMI #D359M3% (Qty=1,Price=9.00)
KB MS|OFFICE KEYBOARD VER. 1.0A OEM
(Qty=1,Price=26.00)
VGA VISIONTEK|GTS-V 32MB% (Qty=1,Price=46.00)
MOUSE MS|OPTICAL WHL MOUSE 2-BUTTON
(Qty=1,Price=16.00)
CASE INWIN|IW-J508P.300F MID % (Qty=1,Price=59.00)
HD 40G|MAXTOR MX6L040J2 72R ATA133
(Qty=1,Price=72.00)
*CDRW 32X12X40|LITE ON LTR-32123S R
(Qty=1,Price=72.00)
CABLE HD|IDE ATA10/33 24"3H TEFLON%
(Qty=1,Price=6.00)
CPU AMD|2100+/266 ATHLON XP RTL (Qty=1,Price=231.00)
DDRAM 512M|64X64 PC-2700H CORSAIR%
(Qty=1,Price=186.00)
Discount for 35-100-003 & AMD (Qty=1,Price=-.50)
Subtotal:902.50
TAX:.00
Shipping and Handling Charge**:52.03
Total:954.53
First Mistake! The abit board only had USB ports for
the printer, keyboard and mouse. With TS4 you need a
parallel port for the dongle. Also I had to order USB
keyboard and mouse.
I put my order in at 11pm at night CST. The first
thing in the morning, I called Newegg to cancel the
Abit Board and substitute the Soltek board. Even
though they didn't have a chance to send my order they
refused to make the substitution because they said
that part of my order was in shipping. Newegg
requested I get a RMA number when I receive the board
and send it back. Newegg would credit me $10 for
mailing the board back.
I then ordered what I should have ordered in the first
place..a soltek board. I also needed a Lan Card with
this board.
Item List
ETHERNT LINKSYS|LNE100TX 10/100 v4%
(Qty=1,Price=15.00)
MB VIA KT333|5P3D SL-75DRV5 SLTK (Qty=1,Price=98.00)
Subtotal:113.00
TAX:.00
Shipping and Handling Charge**:17.69
Total:130.69
When I received the Soltek board I put the computer
together. The Inwin case is an excellent case and the
300W power supply is highly rated. However, Inwin did
not include ant motherboard screws or rails. It took
me 5 hours to put everything together because I've
never done this before and I had to triple check every
little thing. After I put it together, The computer
would not power up! After another 8 hours and many
emails to Soltek, I discovered the Soltek board was
dead on arrival. I called to Newegg and got an RMA
number and FedEx'd them the bad board. Newegg
received the board and then sent me a replacement by
2day FedEx. that process took 8 days.
This time everything powered up fine. I'm not a fan
of Win2000 or Win XP. I like W98SE. I've never had a
problem with W98SE. I used Drive Image 2002 to copy
my current disk onto the new disk. Thus when I
powered up, all I had to do was install the Soltek
board drivers and I had an exact dup of my other
computer.
One thing. The Globalwin fan is very noisy! If you
order the oem version of the AMD processor then you
need to order a cpu fan. If you order the "Box" AMD
processor then it comes with an AMD cpu fan. The AMD
fan is much quieter than the Globalwin cpu fan.
Part 2 next..I my other computer breaks down and I
order a cheap bare bones AMD 1900+. Stay tuned for
the comparison.
Mike
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