Just built my first PC all by my lonesome, and despite all my worries, the thing was a cinch.
It took my about four hours, but I took my time, made sure I plugged everything into the motherboard right, and in the end the only thing I did wrong was accidentally put the shunt on the hard drive to slave instead of master.
Actually, one more thing went wrong: for some reason I can't get the the case LED's to work, and I really don't know why
. They seem to be plugged in just where they should be. The motherboard doesn't come with a manual, which really ticks me off. All it comes with is a quick reference guide that tells you an overview of putting the parts together. My case manual ismore helpful.
Blah blah blah..
anyway, here are the specs and prices:
- P4 2.4GHz 533MHz FSB ($397)
- 512MB Samsung PC800 RDRAM ($216)
- Intel D850EMV2L i850E P4 Mobo ($170)
- Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM Hard Drive ($107)
- Windows XP Professional ($139)
Already had a videocard and soundcard, and I got XP Professional cheaper than usual because it's an OEM version. These are all from Googlegear.com.
If I had to buy the vidcard and soundcard, then the price comes out to be about $1400 with the case. Considering my last PC would have been over $1900 if had to buy Win98, and it wasn't as top-of-the-line as this, I think I did fairly well. Also my friend just bought a Sony Vaio for a few hundred more than this and it wasn't nearly as good, with 2GHz, DDR RAM, and a no-name vidcard.
I love the case I got, it makes everything so much easier than my last PC. I think it was about $140, but it came with a 430W power supply and three fans (one of which is a side intake) and two fans on the the power supply, all pre-installed. Then there's room for two more fans that just snap in to this gizmo thing so I don't need to mess with screws.
The floppy and hard drive cases easily come out of the main case so you can screw stuff in without everything in the main case getting in the way. Then the CD-ROM type slots comes with rails that let you easily screw things in and slide them in and out if you need to. Then finally it comes with front USB and Firewire ports.
The Antec Performance Plus 1080 it is.
I have some questions about XP. I remember hearing around here that I shouldn't stay on as administrator. I'm kinda worried so what do I need to do to change that?
And I have a network set up at my house through a router hub, and for some reason I can see the other PC's in the house but I can't connect to them to share files, but the other PC's (running Win98) can see me and write/delete to my hard drive. Any help on that? I tried setting up a new network with XP, but I don't think that's what I want and it didn't work anyway.
And any other tips would be cool.
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