If you think you could still get by with your system, why not try blowing away everything and re-installing Windows? BSOD's don't necessarily mean your computer is failing from a hardware standpoint - it could just mean you have some corruption in your Windows install. Reinstall Windows and see what happens. I'd do that and see if I could get by before spending $1500-$3000 on a new computer. Unless you're just looking for an excuse to get a new pc, of course...
If you build your pc with quality parts, there shouldn't be any problems. I still have a pentium 3 800mhz that still runs perfectly. O_O
you should be able to find a computer geek would would assemble this for you. I think vengence built some for people here before. Someone here might give you a hand, providing you want to learn how to build it yourself.
Chow Yun fat's post made my typed reply worthless.... The ~3 hours of assembly and troubleshooting is great experience for future purchases. Just get the best brand possible and they usually have reasonable warranties to where if it breaks down after coverage it'll be easier to find an upgrade or cheap replacement.
No problem....Here's what my bro got from NewEgg: ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard... $109.99 Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0... $93.99 Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 300 MB/s Hard Drive... $110.00 CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS2GBKIT400C3... $179.00 AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA3800BVBOX... $322.00 GIGABYTE GV-NX78T256D-ZK Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card ... $339.00 (before $35.00 Mail-in Rebate)
A friend of mine sent me the web addresses of a couple of local places. Just to compare, I'll see how they match up against what Fan's bro got from Newegg. Motherboard - Newegg: $109.99 Amamax: $131.25 Directron: $104 Processor - Newegg: $322 Amamax: $355 Directron: $299 Hard Drive - Newegg: $110 Amamax: $113 Directron: $103.99 Memory - Newegg: $179 Amamax: $92 (per Gig) Directron: $84.99 (per gig) Video Card - Newegg: $304 (w/rebate) Amamax: no match Directron: $299 Case - Newegg: $93.99 Amamax: (only Antac they had was Sonata I w/380 watt) $126 Directron: $99.99 So, Directron seems to be the obvious choice over Amamax. Total costs for stated items were: Newegg - $1118.98 Amamax - $909.25 (with Sonata I case, 2 Gigs memory, and no video card) Directron - $1075.96 (2 Gigs of memory) Plus, since it's in Houston, no shipping costs with Directron (although Newegg's shipping is pretty nominal anyway). All in all, I'm probably going to have to put this idea to rest for a couple of months until I pay off a couple of other bills (damn you Best Buy credit card!), but it's nice to know I have options.
You compared identical products from newegg and directron? I've done numerous price comparisons between the two companies and have always found newegg to be cheaper. you pay for shipping, but you dont have to pay for sales tax. oh wait...your comparing it to invisible fans post. i believe the price his brother paid was awhile back. if you check on newegg now, im sure the prices will be cheaper than directron.
No kidding. I bought my wife a new computer for Valentine's Day. There's a little storefront up at the shopping center that builds and sells PCs. It is owned by the same people who run an IT placement firm. Their son runs the PC store. If you have a problem, go drop it at their door. I bought my PC there 3 years ago and other than the intial HD crashing after a few weeks, I've had no problems whatsoever. Dell just opened a plant in our community, so that was kind of tempting, but extremely local service won out easily in the end.
all great recommendations. another option to look at for the motherboard: Epox EP-9NPA+ULTRA $90 if you buy direct (not sure about shipping charges) $99 from chiefvalue.com w/ no tax and no shipping $105 from new egg - no tax, but $8 shipping Putting together a pc isnt as hard as you may think. I just did one for the first time last weekend. It took me about 3-4 hours to do it, following instructions from the net and from the installation guides given with the components I purchased. heres some guides: http://www.mechbgon.com/build/index.html (this one has pics that are helpful) http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/
Ok, in a shameless attempt to bump my own thread, I'll do that. I've got nothing better to do tonight . Motherboard - Newegg: $104.99 Directron: $104 Hard drive - Newegg: $100 ($10 mail-in rebate) Directron: $103.99 Processor - Newegg: $296 Directron: $299 Memory - Newegg: (@ $42.99 per 512 megs) $171.96 Directron: $169.98 ($84.99 per gig) Video Card - Newegg: $299.99 Directron: $299 Case - Newegg: $99.99 Directron: $99.99 So, total without shipping, taxes, etc. are: Newegg - $1072.93 Directron - $1075.96 Hmmm... Seeing as how I get no payments for 6 months from Newegg, maybe I will go that way after all. That'll give me a chance to pay off some otherr stuff and make a good sized payment to Newegg. Decisions, decisions... I hate being a computer noob.
Just a FYI rocks_fan, but I believe Nvidia is preparing to launch some new cards next month (7900 GT/GTX and the 7600): http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20060216A7037.html That might affect the prices of some cards (7800 GT maybe). I'm not sure when you were planning on getting everything, but there might be some reason to wait...or maybe not. Just throwing this out there.
Thanks for the update RC. Had no idea NVidia was going with another generation of cards already. I figure I'll probably end up waiting another month or two, although the temptation to go all in and splurge is awfully strong right now. But, I just got a (small) raise and I've got a friend's bachelor party/marraige to save up for, so I will have to be strong and hold off.
Not so much a new generation of cards as it is a refresh of their older ones. It has been more than 6 months since the 7800 GTX launched, so it was about time Nvidia came out with something new (although not completely new). Now, the G80 (not even sure what they'll call it, 8xxx maybe) will be the next-gen GPU for Nvidia, and that is supposed to be out later in the year (for Vista I believe). Just a minor point I wanted to make.
