€1200 PC - Have a look before I buy please

cregser

This is my first attempt to build a PC. Please take a look at this PC spec for around €1200 inc. VAT + Del. I'll probably order it tomorrow. Delivery is surprisingly dear (GLS €30 or DHL €327!!!). Maybe because it's Christmas.

Here it is on Komplett. I've looked at JES but frankly, I don't like the idea of dealing with a PC delivery from Germany - especially at this time of year. Also, I've been comparing prices over the last few months and Komplett prices are pretty close if not cheaper now.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp?mode=receive&si=224587&su=F5643288-9E18-4F4E-879D-7C1CECAF33C5

• MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum-54G Mainboard S939nForce3 250Ultra,SATA,GbLAN,ATX,Dual-DDR
• AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHzSocket 939, 512KB cache, BOXED
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB S-ATA8MB cache 7200RPM NCQ
• Q-Tec Midi tower ATX TL-MD2, Silvertransparent, (Without PSU)
• Sony CD recorder 52x/32x/52x IDE blackOEM
• Creative Mouse Optical 3000,USB
• Logitech Deluxe Access Keyboard PS/2,Retail UK
• Samsung 19" CRT Syncmaster 957p TCO99Monitor
• Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2English OEM
• Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPRO DDR 1024MBKit w/two matched 512MB 3200XL PRO's DIM

A few things you might comment on:

1. I'd like to have it for Christmas but I'm sure there'll be a delay!
2. The CPU is 130nm as that's all Komplett had it in. I would have preferred the 90nm.
3. All the Komplett PSUs are boxed. Should I really get an alternative cooling solution - maybe Artic Silver 5 or something? I was planning to wait and see what temps are like.
4. I have a Q-Tec 400W PSU that I'm going to use despite Q-Tecs bad rep.
5. I'll use my old PC's Audigy 2 NS, GeForceFX 5600, DVD player, and speakers for now.
6. I already have a WinXP OEM on a Dell. I think it's probably locked to the Dell mobo BIOS.

Thanks for reading. I'd appretiate comments.

Chad ghostal

I think you should consider getting a dvd-rw theyr cheap enough and extremely handy
and although iv never had one, people here treat q-tec psu's like hand grenades, but since you already have it and know this then ill keep quiet..

have you forgot graphics card?
other than that it looks to be a sweet machine

good luck

cregser

Cheers. I may reconsider the DVDRW. I was gonna get a DVDRW/CDRW combo drive but the Sony one I have is only €23!

The Q-Tec has never given me trouble. Also, I had to (nerve-wrackingly) drill into my Dell case to make it fit so I kind of have an emotional attachment to it.

And it's mentioned in the middle, down the bottom somewhere:
I have a PNY Verto GeForceFX 5600 256MB already. I wanna see how it works on a decent PC spec. I know it's not the greatest but it cost me about €250 (a mistake) at the time so I'm attached to that too! I want my moneys worth but probably not gonna get it.

jessy

I unfortunately had to get a Q-TEC PSU as well as it was all I could afford at the time, and I’ve cursed the day I bought it ever since (Q-TEC should have put a pair of ear plugs in the box).

If your going to stick with the current Graphics card I hope you’re not going to try and play any games like Doom 3 or Half Life 2 on it.

Other than that it looks like you’ll have a very decent computer.
Good luck with the build;)


"I already have a WinXP OEM on a Dell. I think it's probably locked to the Dell mobo BIOS"

No its not.

BloodBath

Nice build. Your always risking it with q-tec psu's. A friend of mines recently blew up in the machine. He had fun trashing the psu afterwards with a baseball bat, then setting it on fire. That's about all q-tec psu's are good for tbh.

I've heard their cases have a tendency to fall apart as well but anywho. Maybe get a new psu and graphics card down the line and your gonna have a very nice system.


BloodBath

cregser

Did Q-Tec sleep with somebody's wife and kill their children or something?
Mine has two fans and isn't very noisey (but noticeable) and has not struggled with 4 USB devices, a few PCI cards(modem+TVcard+networkCard), 2 optical drives, fx5600, 640RAM, and 1.8GHz P4. Although I'm sure an AMD64 will eat up more juice.

Jessy - I've a few games at the moment that I'd like play on max settings before moving on to the FarCrys and the HalfLifes ...and Brothers in Arms is looking good too.

I plan to get a new PSU with a graphics card. Ill probably get the 6800GT or the ATi equivalent - depending on price and the performance in games I wanna buy.

The MSI K8N NEO2 Platinums are out of stock till Thursday so I'll spend more time considering my choices.

koneko

We've used Qtecs here in work and they're pretty much all failed/blown up, which is pretty desperate. Stay well clear of them.

cregser

Ok, I'm convinced. After reading a few too many stories about QTecs I'm goona get a new PSU. Despite the fact my current one has lasted over a year, I won't take any chances - in most of the stories the PSU goes pop when it's moved.:eek:

Are Thermaltake and Antec any good? This Termaltake Purepower Butterfly 480W is the best Komplett have in stock right now. At €109 it's not cheap. Seems like an enthusiasts PSU, I just want something that works! I'm not overly concerned about noise or overclocking.

SirLemonhead

I'm don't know a whole lot about PSUs, but I don't think you can go wrong with Antec or Thermaltake.

I know Antec for sure make very, very good PSUs. It's well worth spending that extra bit if you can to make sure you have a good PSU.

jessy

Tagan are relatively new to making PSU’s but there getting some great reviews and are a bit cheaper than the Antec. This model in particular Tagan TG480-U01 480W Silent PSU.

BloodBath

Thermaltake are alright. Mine is perfect until it comes to overclocking where the 12v rail drops but it's perfect at stock speeds. I'd sooner go with tagan or antec tbh in future.

If you want better performing drives get the hitachi instead of seagate. The seagates are famed for being quiet but the hitachis are reasonably quiet and have much better performance.



BloodBath

gline

cregser wrote:

Ok, I'm convinced. After reading a few too many stories about QTecs I'm goona get a new PSU. Despite the fact my current one has lasted over a year, I won't take any chances - in most of the stories the PSU goes pop when it's moved.:eek:

Are Thermaltake and Antec any good? This Termaltake Purepower Butterfly 480W is the best Komplett have in stock right now. At €109 it's not cheap. Seems like an enthusiasts PSU, I just want something that works! I'm not overly concerned about noise or overclocking.

Antec are great, ive got mine running nmerous drives and it is silent enough. And i recently installed a thermaltake psu into a mates pc and it is running 4 hdds and a cdrom drive not to mention an extremly overclocked cpu etc, though the thermaltake seems to be a bit noisey. But all in all they are 100times bettr then a qtec

Oh and your dell winxp should be fine, i dont think they lock it to a certain bios, i borrowed xp from the same mate above that he got from his dell and put it on my old machine, installed fine, just have to activate it by phone.

koneko

Haven't had any probs with Antec PSUs so far. A good PSU can make a big difference, especially if you're going to be overclocking.

cregser

Thanks guys.

Here's my revised spec. WinXP is out, Hitachi, DVD & PSU are in. Price is €1250 inc. VAT + del.
Hopefully this PC will last for a good while.

• MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum-54G Mainboard S939nForce3 250Ultra,SATA,GbLAN,ATX,Dual-DDR
• Antec SL400 400W PSU UK
• AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHzSocket 939, 512KB cache, BOXED
• Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPRO DDR 1024MBKit w/two matched 512MB 3200XL PRO's DIM
• Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 160GB S-ATA8MB cache 7200RPM
• Q-Tec Midi tower ATX TL-MD2, Silvertransparent, (Without PSU)
• Creative Mouse Optical 3000,USB
• Logitech Deluxe Access Keyboard PS/2,Retail UK
• Samsung 19" CRT Syncmaster 957p TCO99Monitor
• NEC DVD recorder ND-3500A IDE WhiteBulk,DVD+R/+RW/DVD-R/-RW (Dual layer)

I'm just a little confused with connecter pins. Most PSUs on Komplett have 24pins. According to the MSI K8N Neo2 Series manual, I need a 20pin PSU. The Antec spec doesn't say whether it's 20 or 24 pin and Google won't tell me either 400W should do me with a reputible branded PSU, right?

BloodBath

The psu should have the connector. If it doesn't it should have an adaptor.


BloodBath

Azza

My thermaltake has proven very reliable but I have not really pushed it.
Same for my antec but there is a compability issue with abit motherboards.

Praetorian

I've had 2 of the gold color q-teks in two pc's for the last year, and they haven't given a hint of trouble. Luck of the draw I guess.

Wouldn't trust one in my own rig though

gline

Praetorian wrote:

Wouldn't trust one in my own rig though

EXACTLY

cregser

Hey guys, the computer eventually arrived today at 11am.

It's 5pm and after hours of carefully putting the jigsaw together, I have a problem!

I've assembled it and everything seems to work bar one thing: it hangs on startup and there is a loud clicking noise coming from the hard disk. I don't think I've made any mistakes as I've been pretty carefull to read up on everything. Any suggestions? Maybe I should contact Komplett and see if the hard disk needs replacing.

I took some photos with my phone, it lights up like a christmas tree! It's just a pity I can't play with it today. Dam!



It gets here and hangs, not responding to keyboard and hard disk keeps clicking:


Here's two small videos so you can hear the clicking noise. You'll need Quicktime to view these.
clicking1.mp4
clicking2.mp4

Felstorm

Ive got the same case aswell. What happened to the neon strip light you get with it? (I reccomend putting it just above the window thrn you can really light up your room)

cregser

I was anxious to see if everything worked first, and to my dissappointment - it doesn't

I plan to put the neon strip in the same place. How does the voice activation work then? Does it detect the fan noise?

Felstorm

Havent a clue i just turn it on. Apparently you can enable it by turning the dimmer swich but its so sensetive that its either off or on. Btw you really want to stick it on strong because mine keeps falling off and its really annoying to have to put back on especially if youre in the middle of something

KeRbDoG

Turn on the system and keep your hand on the drive and turn on the system to make sure its coming from the harddrive. if it is you should feel the sound (ive work in a datacenter and yea cant always hear what harddrive is broken so gota put your hand on them to feel them tick), then the harddrive is fecked. yea wanna go back to whoever yea got it from and get it exchanged.

try turning on your system without the harddrive(s) connected to the IDE/Data cable. see if it boots any further. it could just be waiting to auto detect the harddrive size/type etc

cregser wrote:

Hey guys, the computer eventually arrived today at 11am.

It's 5pm and after hours of carefully putting the jigsaw together, I have a problem!

I've assembled it and everything seems to work bar one thing: it hangs on startup and there is a loud clicking noise coming from the hard disk. I don't think I've made any mistakes as I've been pretty carefull to read up on everything. Any suggestions? Maybe I should contact Komplett and see if the hard disk needs replacing.

I took some photos with my phone, it lights up like a christmas tree! It's just a pity I can't play with it today. Dam!



It gets here and hangs, not responding to keyboard and hard disk keeps clicking:


Here's two small videos so you can hear the clicking noise. You'll need Quicktime to view these.
clicking1.mp4
clicking2.mp4

HungryJoey

Felstorm wrote:

Ive got the same case aswell. What happened to the neon strip light you get with it? (I reccomend putting it just above the window thrn you can really light up your room)

Ye i got smae case aswel, really looks alot better with the Strip NEON on...

Anyway, thats Bsides teh point. If you want to know waht the problem sounds liek to me , its the PSU. So many problems can come from a PSU. Qtec are Poo yes, i jsut ripped apart a 450Watt one because it wasnt ebough to power MY Pc and yours will demand more ... Try different PSU if possible. Mroe then 400watts and over 20-22A on 12V rail you should be looking for if buying a new PSU, also waht GFX Card u got running, i cant see it in your spec list...

Nice system thoguh all in all...

cregser

I e-mailed Komplett and they told me (with an autoreply) to request an RMA number for returns.

Would the PC boot without a hard disk? It's worth a shot.

I'm fairly certain the noise is coming from the hard disk. There is only one in there. It's definitely not coming from the DVD drive or the fans. Also, the bubble wrap of the HD had a few burst/ripped bubbles which is not a good sign.

I bought a Forton/Source 400W PSU as I didn't trust my Q-Tec. Also, I've only tested with a GeForceMX 440 so far (probably needs about 1W ). When I fix the HD I'll pop in a FX5600 256MB for a while and then buy a 6800GT. I know the 5600 ain't great but I don't think my last PC exploited it enough.

cregser

Ok, I booted without the hard disk and despite an initial scare of nothing happening (the plug wasn't fully in the socket! ) I was able to boot into BIOS settings and set the time and stuff. I boot about 3 or 4 times and each was reasonably succesfull (i.e when I missed the F10 prompt for BIOS it ran some checks and tried to boot from CD-ROM and then stopped - but still responded to Ctrl+Alt+Del). Should it enter DOS (my first build remember )?

So it must be the HD.

This was the longest I had it on for and nothing blew up (Phew). I thought I heard the fan speed increasing but I wasn't sure which one (there's 6!). Maybe it was just my imagination/paranoia. Anyway, I could only feel a slight warmth after I switched off. Anything I should watch out for?

gline

cregser wrote:

Ok, I booted without the hard disk and despite an initial scare of nothing happening (the plug wasn't fully in the socket! ) I was able to boot into BIOS settings and set the time and stuff. I boot about 3 or 4 times and each was reasonably succesfull (i.e when I missed the F10 prompt for BIOS it ran some checks and tried to boot from CD-ROM and then stopped - but still responded to Ctrl+Alt+Del). Should it enter DOS (my first build remember )?

So it must be the HD.

This was the longest I had it on for and nothing blew up (Phew). I thought I heard the fan speed increasing but I wasn't sure which one (there's 6!). Maybe it was just my imagination/paranoia. Anyway, I could only feel a slight warmth after I switched off. Anything I should watch out for?

If theres no hdd , then u wont get dos. Sounds like it is the hdd faulty

Felstorm

Dont worry about the fans except for the PSU and cpu the rest are on all the time.

cregser

ok doky. Cheers.

I'll let you know how I get on with Komplett. I've requested RMA no.

cregser

This just seems mad to me, but I'm currently installing WinXP on a USB HDD while my faulty HDD is getting sorted out (btw I've since found out my HDD has been nicknamed the Hitachi 'deathstar' ).

This might be crazy enough to work (as a temporary solution of course). I think it's USB2.0 and thats fairly fast. Does anyone know what I can expect from a WinXP install on a USB Drive??? I don't even know the file system cos I didn't want to erase the files already on the USB HDD.

I hope I haven't ruined the USB HDD as it isn't mine!


...while I typed the setup reached 100% and the system rebooted. It got as far as the black windows logo screen with the progress bar and I got a BSOD giving out about the HDD. Ah well, worth the shot!

[EDIT] FYI - Windows apparently resets the USBs hubs during startup to detect any USB devices. So booting from a USB HDD is impossible.

gline

sorry to hear that

cregser

Only 5weeks after ordering the PC, I finally have it put together. The replacement HDD arrived today. Everything seems to be hunky dory, I just need to activate WinXP.

Should I be alright activating via internet? Do they just check your version aginst known pirated version or are they more thorough?

gline

cregser wrote:

Only 5weeks after ordering the PC, I finally have it put together. The replacement HDD arrived today. Everything seems to be hunky dory, I just need to activate WinXP.

Should I be alright activating via internet? Do they just check your version aginst known pirated version or are they more thorough?

Why you worried??? its not a priate version is it???

I dont think they are stringent when activating, i used to activate over the phone and it was fine

cregser

No, it's my own OEM. But probably already activated by Dell. I wouldn't bother with a pirated version. The OS is a pretty important part of the PC. You'd want to be able to trust it with your files etc. That said, I'm gonna try Linux on a partition.

As long as they're not too stringent hopefully I'm fine. I'll try activation online now. See how it goes, then ring 'em up.

[EDIT:] Everything is hunky dory. I had nothing to worry about. The only thing is I was infected with the SystemReg16.exe worm (and god knows what else) while I downloaded windows updates. Manually removed, everything seems fine.

Cheers guys

padraigf

They wont give you a new activation key for an OEM copy AFAIK. Had that bother before. Altough that doesnt mean you need to go out and buy a new copy in the shops.....

gline

padraigf wrote:

They wont give you a new activation key for an OEM copy AFAIK. Had that bother before. Altough that doesnt mean you need to go out and buy a new copy in the shops.....

Just ring them and they will activate over the fone, i used an oem version on a few pcs and activated them no prob

Ciaran500

The problem your having with the harddrive sounds like the problem I've had with every IBM Deskstar I've had (4 of them and my brother had 2). When Hitachi bought the brand they were meant to have fixed it but it looks like their still unreliable.

padraigf

Shhhhh gline, microsoft might be watching!

gline

padraigf wrote:

Shhhhh gline, microsoft might be watching!

LOL, microsoft is watching, LOL