A Computer Problem.....Will My Solution Work...Etc.

Do you REALLY need an 80 GB HD?!?!?!?

I'll ask a friend who knows how to fix ANY internal computer errors.

 

Man, what do you people do with your computers? Tow them behind your cars? Lil Pun has a math problem or a computer problem every month!

 

If you formatted the hard drive and reinstalled windows and are still having the same problems, I'm thinking the problem is not in your hard drive. Maybe a bad memory chip.

 

Question is...did you wipe clean the drive(new partitions, format) and then install Winblows?
If so and you are still having those types of errors....then I agree with RavenLunatic...memory problems.


Dont bother with the new drive unless you feel the need for more space.. If the drive was bad, you would have different kinds of error messages..

My advice....go get some new memory(it's cheap right now) and then invest in 2K or XP...get away from the 98/ME(far far away)..

or even better...go with Linux...

 

yes...RAM..I dont recommend one brand over the other...Kingston, Crucial. Doesnt really matter.

Considering that you can find 128M sticks of Kingston for 24 bucks at newegg..buy as much as your system can handle..

 

Get a bunch at Office Max for virtually nothing.

 

RAM is so cheap now. Same with Harddrives. I have an 80GB external FireWire Maxtor. great drive. I really dont have any idea what is wrong with your computer.

 

Like Rockets2K said, I highly reccomend that you install win 2k or XP. They are both much more stable OS's than 98 or ME. Since you are considering reformatting anyways now is great time to make the switch.

Good luck,

 

-the combo is the motherboard bundled with the cpu. here, you don't have to worry about compatibility since they're giving you both the processor and motherboard. the motherboard is the most important piece since it dictates what you can add onto it, so read all of its specs (the manufacturer's website is a good place to start) and figure out what type of memory (and how much) the board can take, how many hard drives/cd-roms/dvd-roms (all of these are usually IDE devices) you can add on, the number of PCI/USB slots it has, and any "built-in" features it might have, like sound, modem, or graphics capabilities. there's a whole lot more that i've left out, so you should definitely check out the internet for articles and guides to building a pc. Tom's Hardware and Anandtech are good places to start, since you can read other users' reviews and opinions in the forums there.

-first, you need to consider whether to go 'wired' or 'wireless'. Then, you'd buy either a wireless or wired router. A router is basically something that splits the incoming broadband connection into multiple ones so you can share a single line throughout the house. I have a wireless Netgear router that has four ports in the back for wired connections, and a detacheable antenna that sends a wireless internet signal throughout the house. After you've got the router, for each wired connection, you'll need an ethernet/lan card inside your pc. If you're going wireless, the computer(s) that will receive the signal need a wireless adapter attached to it. again, your best bet is to get familiarized on this via the net, then later you can put on some thick glasses and join me in a copious game of dungeons n dragons.

 

The hub is a piece of equipment that you connect many different computers to. For example, if you had a 5 port hub and a cable modem, you could connect 4 computers together with Cat 5(network) cable, and hook the cable modem to the uplink port and they could all access the internet at the same time.

If you are getting broadband (cable/dsl), I would recommend getting the Linksys Cable/DSL Router with the built-in 4 network ports.

You could get one cheaper, but I have installed several of these and have had great luck. The are also real easy to setup.


On the motherboard/cpu combo, thats a great option since you can be guaranteed that the components work together. Follow Earl's advice and make sure you research the product you are interested in and make sure it has everything you want.

On the RDRAM you asked about, if you are buying a AMD processor, you will need DDR-RAM...RDRAM is for Pent4 processors and imo...isn't as good as the DDR equivalent. IIRC, RDRAM has more of a lagtime when processing info than DDR does. Besides the obvious fact that I prefer AMD processors myself.

If you are afraid of making a mistake putting all this together, ask a friend that has experience doing it to help. It is surprisingly easy to screw it up if you aren't careful.

Go ahead and email me if you have any more questions.

 

14 replies and not one "get a mac"?? I'm thoroughly disappointed...

Oh, and one can NEVER have enough hard drive space.

 

I can build a pee-cee for 1/3 of what a cheap Mac costs. and then install Linux on it with a mac-emulator graphical window interface....and it's almost the same. Considering that Mac OSX is based on basically the same kernel.

Don't get me wrong, I like Macs...but they are still too damn expensive.

 

R2K,

RDRAM is actually sligtly better than DDR SDRAM. The problem is that Rambus, the company that makes RDRAM, are a bunch of dicks. Both RDRAM and DDR SDRAM are available for the P4. I actually worked on a chipset for the P4 to interface with DDR SDRAM.

 

Oh, and the reason Macs are more stable is that everything in them is proprietary. PCs have to be campatible with so much more stuff. If they wanted to make everything proprietary like Mac does, they could build a really stable system as well.