Am i attempting the impossible?

[TomWilko]

I want to build a PC that:

Runs either XP or Windows 98

Will run Office 97

Runs broadband

The story goes my g/f has just started UNI at Coventry and to my suprise there is a broadband port in her room. She dosn't have a PC there, so, as a small suprise i want to try and build her one for as cheap as possible (she will need it to type lecture notes up or write essay's). It must therefore function and carry out those tasks well Price is an issue, because i would like to spend no more than £50 on the machine - does anyone think it can/can't be done for that price??

The equipment or hardware i won't need to buy will be:

Graphics Card (I have a geforce 2 MX lying around)

Keyboard

Mouse

I reckon i can deal with the monitor as a seperate issue so the £50 can go on the Motherboard + Processor etc.

What kind of specs to you think i need to look at, and also, where to buy from I know all the components will be second hand so i think ebay will be my main friend!

Cheers

Wilko

[megah0]

I managed it although i did have more stuff lying around

I went to the local friendly PC shop and they were junking some old dell P3 bases, i got a P3 450, mobo and 256mb ram in a desktop case for £40, stuck in a spare DVD drive and bought a 20gig hdd from a mate for £20.

Runs XP fine.

[TomWilko]

Cool, so it can be done - i just have to find where stuff is going cheap?!

[megah0]

If you can hang on i may have a spare AMD K6 machine going spare.

Depends if sister wants it.

Its complete just needs a bit of TLC and an optical drive

[TomWilko]

Originally posted by mgh0
If you can hang on i may have a spare AMD K6 machine going spare.

Depends if sister wants it.

Its complete just needs a bit of TLC and an optical drive

I was actually looking to use this as an opportunity to build a PC - Never built one before you see!

I am looking at Pentium 2's at the moment or Celerons. A couple of questions on these:

What power supply would i need for these chips?

What socket motherboard do they fit into? Is it socket 370 for Pentium 2's?

What kind of case should i look at?

I have found these 3 P2's on ebay -

LINK 1

LINK 2

LINK 3

[dgr]

tomwilko@
bear in mind that unless you tweak it, xp won't run very well on anything less than a 500mhz processor. far better to use 2k

dgr

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by TomWilko
I want to build a PC that:

Runs either XP or Windows 98

Will run Office 97

Runs broadband

The story goes my g/f has just started UNI at Coventry and to my suprise there is a broadband port in her room. She dosn't have a PC there, so, as a small suprise i want to try and build her one for as cheap as possible (she will need it to type lecture notes up or write essay's). It must therefore function and carry out those tasks well Price is an issue, because i would like to spend no more than £50 on the machine - does anyone think it can/can't be done for that price??

The equipment or hardware i won't need to buy will be:

Graphics Card (I have a geforce 2 MX lying around)

Keyboard

Mouse

I reckon i can deal with the monitor as a seperate issue so the £50 can go on the Motherboard + Processor etc.

What kind of specs to you think i need to look at, and also, where to buy from I know all the components will be second hand so i think ebay will be my main friend!

Cheers

Wilko

You forgot the 120gig harddisk to remote admin and download all ur crap to

[Lemming]

You can buy P2 350s/P3 450s for £50 or less complete with CD,HDD, graphics,network USB and sound at computer fairs here in Kettering, most are compaq machines. I know you want to build but that may be an option for you.

Other than that its just a case of watching the forums, I watch OCUK because theres always a good range. I used to watch the forums here but havent bothered to rebuild postcount to gain access after the forum posts were lost here.

[Austin]

Unfort building an 'old' PC can be much harder and more agrivating than building a new one. There are plenty of considerations and different standards so it will be hard to finds the parts seperately and probably cost you a fair bit more than buying an old base unit ... and that's if you can find parts that are all compatible.

If you buy 'old' stuff then start with the mobo, that will dictate what type of CPU, HSF, RAM and PSU you will need if not gfx too. You ideally want something ATX (PSU connector) as that's still used to day and goes back quite a way (500mhz CPUs?). You really want something that takes SDRam (PC66, PC100, PC133) or even DDR (PC1600, PC2100, PC2700, PC3200) rather than EDO / fast page (72pins) as they are rare, small, need to be dual-matched and expensive. CPU and HSF (capable of cooling that speed/type of CPU) must match up with the Mobo CPU Socket (S370, SlotA, Skt7 etc), be designed to use the correct FSB (66mhz, 100mhz most common in old PCs). It will be hard to get a PCI gfx card so ideally you want a mobo with an AGP slot, but early AGP slots can be problematic, probably best to use a Rad7000-9200 gfx card (excluding 9000PRO & 8500 series) as they are known to be very gentle and compatible.

Do consider buying more modern kit, check on here under the 'For Sale' section. A SktA mobo is very good and should handle a Duron up to 1.2ghz at least, very fast and cheap with good AGP slots etc.

[TomWilko]

Have you got any links to sites about motherboards, the features and what processor speeds go with them?

Thanks for the post Austin - great help

[3Dfx]

because i would like to spend no more than £50 on the machine

tight git

LOL

buy her a Barton 3200 with 10Gb DDR3200 on an Nforce2 mobo with a Radeon 9800Pro and 200Gb HDD coupled in RAID 5 with 4 other 200Gb HDD's.

LOL....

[Spritzup]

You've gotta love the serious posts we get on here

[TomWilko]

Originally posted by 3Dfx
tight git

LOL

buy her a Barton 3200 with 10Gb DDR3200 on an Nforce2 mobo with a Radeon 9800Pro and 200Gb HDD coupled in RAID 5 with 4 other 200Gb HDD's.

LOL....

hehe, not £500

[Lead_Head]

tight git aka a student.

3dfx, he wants to do something nice for his girlfriend.

It's a challenge, but I believe it is achievable. But may take some time....

I think a computer fair is the best bet, can get some right cheap stuff there!

I can always go down with u Thomas!!

Theres one nearby we could goto...

Nick

[TomWilko]

Sounds good to me...now i just need to get myself a job

[Ceryndrion]

hmmm... I am certain that you could find a nice cheap and cheary mobo and processor from ebuyer, I know many dont like them, but the ECS k7s5a isnt a bad board for 20 squid.. then add amd processor of choice..