Solid non-gaming budget build advice

[pally01]

Hi all.

A friend's Dell Dimension 2400 has become insanely infected with a virus(es) and he's decided to get a new pc rather than restoring the Dell. The Dell has outlived its' relevance.
The goal is to build a quick, lower budget, rock-solid desktop pc for internet browsing, email and the odd dvd rip etc. No gaming or CAD program usage etc. Budget is appx CDN $500.00 +/- $100.00 or so.


Here's what I was thinking of putting together:

Windows 7 Home premium x64

Antec Sonatta II case: I have one I'll give him (no power supply)

ANTEC EarthWatts 500W Power Supply: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...2%28ME%29.aspx

Asus P5QPL-AM motherboard: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...1%28ME%29.aspx

Intell E5300 processor: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...7%28ME%29.aspx

Patriot Extreme Performance Viper Series DDR2 4GB Ram: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...2%28ME%29.aspx

Western Digital 500GB Caviar Black H.D: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...6%28ME%29.aspx

LG DVD burner: Re-use what he has now.

LINKSYS Wireless-G PCI Adapter (WMP54G): http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...4%28ME%29.aspx

- Although a budget motherboard, is the ASus stable? How about the G31 chipset?
- the ram doesn't appear on either Asus' QVL or at Patriot's site as compatible. Thoughts?

Any input on parts selection etc welcomed.

[glc]

That ram is gross overkill for that processor. The G31 chipset is fine for a budget non-gaming build, it's very stable. I've done several builds with the P5KPL-VM and P5KPL-CM. The G41 is somewhat more up to date.

Back to the ram - all you need is DDR2-667 or DDR2-800, standard latency.

[pally01]

Thanks for the quick reply, GLC.

DDR2 667 or 800 is actually more expensive than the 1066 is selected. That's the only reason I went with it over 667 /800. Do you think the 1066 will run stable?

[glc]

No, I do not. Have you looked at NCIX or Newegg for alternate ram?

[pally01]

I ended up getting 4gb DDR2-800. Box is up-and-running now.

Thanks for the input GLC.

[us11csalyer]

If you're doing dvd ripping / Encoding you might want to pick up a cheap ati gpu. They do help ALOT in that department.

[glc]

That's something that can be easily added later if necessary. With a 500 watt Earthwatts, he has plenty of headroom.

[pally01]

I think with the amount of ripping my friend/wife do (perhaps a disk every other week or so), a video card probably won't be necessary. As GLC says, I can add a cheap-o Asus card or something if it seems required. Good insight however. Thanks.

[systempat]

What is the plan to avoid the virus infections that they experienced with the previous system? Virus and malware can cripple the newer hardware too. They need to have a plan to run decent virus and a firewall and malware software. It is unfortunate but necessary with using the Internet these days. Without protection the new machine could be infected within days. Hours even. Especially if one of the users of the machine likes to do random surfing and check out linked videos, or file-sharing. Or downloading 'cool' things.

[pally01]

It was d\l'ing a "cool thing" that got him into the situation he's in now. The school of hard knocks is a pretty good way to learn a lesson, though.

I have installed AVG, malwarebytes, super anti spyware and spybot. All this won't help if the front door is opened and the baddies invited in though, so i've imaged the new operating drive and installed on the old pc's reused hard drive.

[systempat]

Sounds like you had a plan. Just wanted to point out that new hardware alone does not solve the problem. It also takes some tools and some attitude of caution. That they downloaded someting that then caused problems is not a surprise.
For keeping the bad guys from finding their own way in, I like a router with a NAT firewall in it. The hardware firewall is good. I think all decent routers from Linksys and D-link have that. For viruses I like Avira and Avast best, but have not used AVG. For the free version of Avira, you have to manually scan downloaded files. Just recently went to the pay version and it automatically scans them.
For malwarebytes and spybot they have to be run periodically to do their job, which is partly to find what already got to the PC from email and activeX gremlins. So they either have to have a batch schedule or you have to get the owner to run them weekly or whatever.

I like your backup plan of the drive imaging.

By the way the hardware selection looked good for a budget build. I'm more of an AMD fan but it will work. One of the reasons that AMD is good for a budget is that the onboard video is much better and can avoid buying a video card if not a gamer. The AMD 785 and 790 chipsets are at the Radeon 4200 and 3300 levels, respectively. If the Intel graphics don't quite cut it, then a modest video card like a Radeon 4650 would be the cure.

[pally01]

Yup - I had a plan so far as security goes: do what the gurus here at PCMech suggest! I use the same programs myself on my two pc's and I haven't had an infiltration yet.

I recently completed a budget AMD HTPC build for my brother. The budget was similar and the results were too. Nice machine that flies right along for what he does with it. First AMD build I did (of the 4 to my credit thus far), and I would have no reservations about doing another if need be.

Thanks for the input, systempat.