Just downloaded norton antivirus package and the puta has slowed down beyond belief!

 

I think the time has come to bite the bullet and and build my own puta!

 

I have already have all the ancillaries, and have a 60gb hard drive, cd rewriter, floppy drive, just need all the rest :confused:

 

I would like to turn my puta into an entertainment centre with the ability to play telly on me monitor and play CD's/radio through a sound system, also maybe to use my tellly as a monitor?

 

Any advice appreciated!

http://www.ebuyer.co.uk

 

great for the stuff you need. If you want to find out if what you are buying is any good go to

 

http://www.tomshardware.com

Mark forget about Norton. Use AVG its free, intergrates with outlook and generally an excellent bit of software. http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

 

Goodluck :)

Just downloaded norton antivirus package and the puta has slowed down beyond belief!

 

I think the time has come to bite the bullet and and build my own puta!

 

I have already have all the ancillaries, and have a 60gb hard drive, cd rewriter, floppy drive, just need all the rest :confused:

 

I would like to turn my puta into an entertainment centre with the ability to play telly on me monitor and play CD's/radio through a sound system, also maybe to use my tellly as a monitor?

 

Any advice appreciated!

 

I think all you'll need is a decent graphics card and a decent sound card and you should be fine. I've currently got a GF5900 and it has Video in/out as well as digital and analog display connectors, pretty good peice of kit.:)

Has it got a scart connection for normal TV out?

Mark

U need an all in wonder graphincs card so you can record tv onto your hard drive and this also has loads of other connections too!

although these are expensive they are the complete package

also try

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/

 

sometimes good offers on here like AMD&Modo Packages and P4

this is their today only site and the offers are only valid for 24hrs

Good luck m8

mine came with an S-Video cable which I can plug straight into the side of my TV, most modern TV's have one. It also came with some other cables that I have no idea what they are:D

Why get a card which can play TV? They are terrible and cause nothing but errors and conflicts.

 

However you can get ones which do Digital TV now and most TV cards have a radio tuner in them too. I wouldnt bother turning your using your monitor as a TV. I used to have one but I took it out as the picture was bad and I felt stupid sitting at a desk watching bad quality TV when I could be sitting on a couch watching it on a wide screen TV.

 

Hard Drives get better all the time. Your 60Gig HDD is probably UDMA4 66Mb a second transfer. New serial ones are 150Mb SATA and they make less noise. I would change your hard drive too. Most motherboards now have SATA.

 

 

 

Stuart

 

P.S. I hate the phrase Entertainment Centre :mad: ;)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk

 

great for mid to high end gear ;)

I've been building computers since the dawn of time (it feels like) best advice I can give is pick up a bare bones system like the MSI cube, excellent wee unit and all you will have to do is stick in a CPU & memory, your existing HDD & CDRW

 

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/MSI_barebones.html

 

:)

 

& ditch norton... install mcafee av - best there is recently had a Comp with Norton on, removed norton installed mcafee, mcafee found 16 trojans that norton missed :o

I agree, get rid of Norton. I had that and I changed to Grisoft and it found half a dozen viruses.

Cheers guys,

 

I will ditch norton accordingly and follow your instructions :D

 

Must admit Goit that your MSI cube looks interesting!

 

But could I install my CDRW DVDR into it? Also the system looks like if I put my white CDRW into it it would stick out a mile?

 

Also what are the options for expanding the USB ports at the rear, there are just two and in reality I would like 4+?

 

I am probably better off asking the manufacturers these questions :D :D

get a usb hub ;)

probally get one for £15 at a computer fair

Topless, there are 4 usb at the rear too (6x USB 2.0), and the drive sits behind a metal face plate that pops down when you eject the CD/DVD :) so you dont see any beige at all antil you eject a disk.

ah, theres only 2 at the back now (I have older model)

 

get the full specs here

 

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=MEGA_180&class=mega

 

:)

Paul, when you say get a USb hub, is that an extension on a cable as I have one of those already and I hate having spaghetti junction at the rear of my puta, are there any other options? :hyper:

 

One other little question, when it says AMD 3000+ does that mean it will upgrade to beyond the current athlon range?

Get a proper computer. These cube things are good, but you are limited to expantion later

Oh my GOD, I have been thrown into turmoil again :shock: :shock: :shock:

AMD 3000+ is the name of the chip. Even though it is called a 3000+ it will probably only run at 2.2Ghz. Because of the way the chip works, even though it is slower, it works at the same speed as a Pentium4 3Ghz.

So as you said before the chip is a limiting factor in it's ability to upgrade in the future?

Give us a bit more of an indepth list of what you want the pc to do and how much you want to spend, I'm sure a few of us can shop around on the net and find the best package for you.

If you get a computer which gets a AMD3000+ chip, yes you are very limited as there is only the 3200+ chip to go.

 

AMD have the AMD64 and AMD-FX but they are completely different and wont fit into or work with a motherboard for a normal AMD.

 

What is the spec of your computer now?

The spec of my computer now is ancient, celeron 400, 312mb ram, brand new 60gb hard drive, newish CDRW, DVDR, it is a dell based computer and is not possible to upgrade the motherboard! Which is why I want this upgrade to be easily upgradeable in the future!

 

What do I want a computer for?

 

Mainly internet use,to be able to use my puta for recording CD's listening to the radio, watching DVD's and tv in/out + surround sound!

 

It also has to a few USB ports on the rear and a 6in1 card reader!

Hi Mark

usb hub here

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=8845

 

all it is m8 is 1usb lead from back of computer into hub then plug upto 7 deferent usb devices into the hub hey presto lots of usb ports

 

p.s. if you are going for big power pc that you play games on then dont forget extra cooling and at least a 480watt power supply unit.

The problem is, computers are moving so fast now upgrading your computer usually means motherboard and chip. You could get a AMD 2800+ or something for quite cheap, but will only really allow you to upgrade to a 3200+ which isnt that much of an upgrade.

AMD are spending more time on their AMD64 and FX range so I doubt any more XP chips will be coming out, The AMD64 and FX are still quite expensive, but if you buy one of these there will be faster ones coming out and in a few years it may be a simple chip change to make your computer faster.

 

You could get an Intel, but recently Intel have just been making their chips a little bit faster every few months or so or adding more cache onboard. If the continue this, you can get a decent chip now and in a few years, if the chips basically stay the same, you can just upgrade your chip. However Intel have been adding extra cache in their chips which makes them go faster but there may be issues whether the motherboard you chose will be able to take a chip with extra cache. More than likely it will, but its not 100%.

To complicate things more. Intel may completely change their chips like AMD are doing now. The new AMDs are 64bit chips and only work at 1.6 - 2.0Ghz but are keeping up with Intel's fastest chips and beating them in a lot of areas. The Intel chips will start to have a lot of problems if all they do is increase the speed, which may mean they will look into the 64bit market and slow the development of the normal Pentium4.

 

How much money do you have to spend on a computer?

building for upgradability is a false economy, as by the time when you upgrade, your motherboard, memory, PSU, and socket technology are generally well out of date.

 

I upgrade my system every few months, have been professionally in the PC industry since 1989. Although now I am a network admin/systems analyst, and I don't have such a big hands on role in hardware, I keep a keen eye on it.

 

You are always better buying one or two levels down from the latest equipment to get best value for money.

 

And there is no point going anywhere near 64bit CPU's until they release the 64bit OS (late 2005/early 2006) which will make current 64bit CPU's practically obsolete.

 

The MSI box is attractive due to the home media system (which you dont even have to power on the PC section to use) and the ease of use and installation of bits (it already includes a Nforce2 chipset, lan, sound, Nforce2 Graphics - equivalent to 5600FX)

 

The MSI box can take up to 2GB of RAM, as large a hard disk as you can afford, and a DVD-RW, you can also stick in any 8x AGP video card and plug on any external USB and firewire devices.

 

The best way to buy any PC or bits is to work out how much you have to spend, and then get the best you can for the money.

 

:) hope this helps.