Christmas PC for the kids

[xeony2k]

I'm tossing around the idea of building a PC for my two girls for Christmas. They are 6 and 8, so I'm not really in need of a monster PC... browse the net, play kid games, word processing, e-mail, etc. I'm also tossing around the idea of not using a floppy drive... been building PC's over the years... is it time to stop putting floppy drives in? With cheap USB storage devices all over, am I dating myself by even thinking about a floppy?

I'm looking at the Aspire X-QPack case, so I'm trying to research Micro ATX boards. Two biggies for me is SATA and onboard video. I'm not really to sure what SATA is, but it seems to be a new technology that has faster transfer rates over the IDE's I'm used to(ATA133). In short, should I go for a board and drive for a SATA device?

Secondly, many of the Micro ATX boards have onboard video... which would probably be fine for my girls. On the other hand the boards that have the SATA do not have AGP slots. I'd like to have an AGP just in case I find out the onboard video is truly not good enough. The board I'm considering at the moment is a BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M7, which uses NVIDIA GeForce 6100 (North) and NVIDIA nForce 410(South). Can someone make some suggestions or confirm this might be a good choice?

Here is my build list at this point:
- Aspire X-QPack (green - older kid LOVES green)
- BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M7
- AMD Sempron 64 2600 or 2800+ (retail)
- WD SATA 3.0GB/s 120GB HDD
- CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400
- LiteOn CD/DVD R/W/RW drive
- NEC Floppy (not sure why I still put floppies in PC's)

Again... comments, suggestions and etc welcomed.

[trowand]

AGP is no longer. PCI-Express X16 is the new graphics interface which that mobo has. So if/when you decide to try a discrete graphics card, you'll need a PCI-Express card. SATA is the new IDE interface for hard drives and even optical drives. It replaces the wide ribbon cables with much thinner and easier to manage cables and has a higher bandwidth. When I briefly looked up that mobo, I didn't see that it had SATA. Are you sure that it has it? Also, there's SATA and SATA2 and I'm not sure on the differences. I think that HDD you've got listed w/3.0GB/s is SATA2.

[xeony2k]

Thanks for explaining the PCI Express x16 slot for me... better than AGP... got it. I looked up the motherboard and it specs out 2 x SATA2. I'm feeling better about the whole SATA and onboard video.
Link to the MB if anyone cares to looks at:
http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdetails...orce%206100-M7

[MaxRat]

that looks pretty nice... I would look to see if biostar offers any combos for you....you can save quite a bit that way... I still put Biostar M7Vig400's in some budget builds... I can get the board and cpu for under $100.00 with onboard video...add ram and H/D and cheap case I have a pc under $250...

[xeony2k]

Originally Posted by gsrat I can get the board and cpu for under $100.00 with onboard video...add ram and H/D and cheap case I have a pc under $250...

The build list above comes out to $400 including shipping. Where do you look for these board and processor packages? I generally buy from NewEgg and they offer a small discount for adding a faster processor than the 2600 I listed... but it actually increases my overall cost.

Glad you like the build list... nice to get a little positive feedback as my wife just kind of rolls her eyes at me.

[MaxRat]

I relate...
My wife does too... well if you check biostars website you'll know if they offer any combo with the board and cpu of your preference....

OR.. www.pricewatch.com and search motherboard/cpu combos

[piasabird]

If you are not building a gaming machine then PCI-X is not even really needed. You could go with integrated video, but there are probably some pretty cheap PCI-X video cards by now. Gigabyte probably has some models that are not too expensive. I am not a big fan of useless Overpriced SLI motherboards. I would not invest in an expensive AGP video card either.

A lot of girls dont play much video games. Some do and some dont. Hell, I know guys who play games only on game consoles and dont even like computers. Still a mid-range video card is probably a good bet. I am still using an AMD 2800XP and an ATI Radeon 2000 and it runs fine. They can recommend a mid-range video card for you.

Or you can order a new dell with free shipping for $299.00. It does not make sense to try to build a cheap PC. Dell will probably throw in a free printer.

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/prod...=19&l=en&s=dhs

[xeony2k]

Good tip in terms of cost... buying a Dell... one problem though. I have built every PC I own for several years due to the proprietary features and general quality issues with cookie cuttered PC's. It is against my religion to buy a PC. I don't even want to get into the offshore support offered by major PC companies.

I am a satellite systems engineer by day... but of my many other things that tie up my time "free time", family and friends use me as thier PC repair guy. With that in mind, I am constantly fixing issues with their PC's. My latest was a dead power supply in a Gateway for my father-in-law. A standard ATX supply would not fit in the case... so I had to break out the trusty dremel and drill to fit an over the shelf "quality" PSU. He also had about a million viruses, adware, trojan horses and you name it... which made the PC all but unusable. That wasn't a Gateway problem though.

[xeony2k]

I thought I'd let you guys know that I ordered and built the PC. I will say it has been the easiest build I have ever done. It seems with other builds, drivers are screwy, BIOS needs updating to recognize stuff, bad components and so forth... I literally put it together and installed windows.... YAY!!!

Here is the final build list I went with:

- Aspire X-QPack (green - older kid LOVES green)
- Matching Aspire keyboard/mouse
- 15" LCD
- BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M7
- AMD Sempron 64 2600+ (retail)
- WD SATA 150 80GB HDD
- CORSAIR ValueSelect 2 x 512MB(1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400
- LiteOn CD/DVD R/W/RW drive
- NEC Floppy
- Linksys USB 802.11 b/g (had this on hand)

It came out pretty good and seems to be up to snuff for what they will be doing on it. I might try to paint the top of the DVD drive green since the window on top gives you a nice view of the stickered top of the DVD drive. Not sure if this is a good idea or not. I would probably tape off the circle thing on the top, which I suppose probably shouldn't be painted. Can't wait for the big unveiling.

As a follow on, my father in law wants me to build him a PC. We will see....

[Panama Red]

Congrats! Nice build. I'm sure your kids will enjoy it.

[piasabird]

There were some reports of the power supplies on those things sometimes being bad. So keep an eye on it. If it acts flakey it might be the power supply. Dont hesitate to ask for an RMA for a new power supply if it causes problems.

[MaxRat]

Congrats.....

How do you like that Biostar board...? I haven't used that one yet....

[xeony2k]

I also read some bad reviews on the PSU. Upon e-mailing Aspire to see if they would acknowledge there was a problem with the PSU, I got a reply that they did seem to be experiencing a higher failure rate over other PSU's. They are now using a different PSU in the Q-Pack's, but there are some out there with the older PSU. If the fan is centered on the bottom of the bottom of the PSU, supposedly it is the new model that is more relible. Seems to have acceptable voltages now, will keep an eye on it.

I like the motherboard so far, no issues their either. Haven't toyed with OC'ing or anything of the like, just want and expect it to work.

[MaxRat]

good deal...