No need to respond

[Karnevil9]

Everyone has been so helpful with your opinions and insight that I thought it would be rude to not keep you updated, and tell you what I bought.

Soltek SL-75MRN-L motherboard.

Athlon 2500+ Barton CPU

2 Kingston HyperX 256MB DDR333 memory chips
(I know many folks here are partial to Corsair, but Directron.com had a sale on the kingston for a few bucks cheaper. I still have another computer to do later, so if I don't like the Kingston I can switch to Corsair on the next.

Toshiba DVD player. Just their low end model for the present.

Total-$312.00

The rest of the parts I will use are upgrades that already exist on my present computer which I will cannabalize. I may have to add another hard drive to up the Maxtor 20GB hard drive I already have. I will let the Video Card wait unitl I see how the onboard ghraphics perform.

I think I will rebuild this computer next week, so you will know how it goes by how many problems I post here, LOL.
If all goes well, I will give my wallet a short break and then start on the next computer a little later this summer.

For those who may remember my name from another post that had the thread removed, I broke down and bought a Windows 2000 professional OS for $98.00 from Sales International. So that makes my total cost $410.00.

One more question for you all. What is/are good computer books to purchase for learning more about building PC's. I saw on another post that "Upgrading and Repairing PC's " by Scott Mueller was very recommended. Any other personnal favorites out there. I would need something written more for the average person then for the technician. Thanks.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by Karnevil9 One more question for you all. What is/are good computer books to purchase for learning more about building PC's. I saw on another post that "Upgrading and Repairing PC's " by Scott Mueller was very recommended. Any other personnal favorites out there. I would need something written more for the average person then for the technician. Thanks.

You really don't need any books if you just want to build a PC. But if you really want to learn more about the inner workings of the PC and how each part functions, there are lots of good technical books out there or you can visit websites like PCGuide.com. Or spend hour upon hour reading forum threads...you'll learn alot that way too.

Cricket

[Optimus Primal]

So easy to overlook the vast information right here at home

PCMECH PC guides

[Karnevil9]

Oh, believe me, I am not overlooking the knowledge that I have found on this board. Everyone here has saved me a lot of time with your willingness to share your own knowledge with others. For free even, lol. I would just like to have a more well rounded knowledge base. While it is great that I can find out how to correct something or fix something with someone else's help, my problem may be fixed but I may not know WHY it is fixed.

Once you know what a part does, and how it relates to the rest of the system, it becomes easier to trace out problems. If something goes wrong, you know what pieces exchange information with that component.