Mikelly Posted December 17, 2005 Share Posted December 17, 2005 So all this talk of simulators got me all excited because I have an old 500MHz Celeron powered 400+Meg memory machine that has a virus on it. We pulled it off the network, and since it was so slow, we just hadn't touched it. Yesterday evening I took some of my old hard drives (I"ve got four or five from over the years) and I powered the machine up and started slaving drives to try and extract as many files (Mainly family and car project pics!) as possible before I build an ubber machine of some sorts... In the middle of powering the machine down after the second slave drive was stripped of its files, I didn't notice a bare wire off the floper drive power harness... my arm touched it and CRACK!!! BZZZZ... smoke, machine dies, my arm is on fire... Nice... Good thing I had a nice cold beer to put on the contact burn! So I've either killed the motherboard or the power supply... Nice. Here's what I now have: Bunch of memory (PC130 I think), couple of harddrives that need reformatting (Five total), a good CDR, a good DVDplayer, a brand new ATI Radeon 9550AGP graphics card and a decent sound car. Ive also got a couple of network cards. What I want to build is a dual boot standalone machine for JUST Driver Simms... I'll need a new case possibly, and I'll need a motherboard and CPU, maybe some more ram, and a power supply. I've got a good copy of XP but I'm gonna need to get a good copy of win98 because the CD I have looks like it was dropped in gravel! What do you guys recommend?? Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jt1 Posted December 17, 2005 Share Posted December 17, 2005 posted by Mikelly Good thing I had a nice cold beer to put on the contact burn! A man has got to have his priorities. Glad you were prepared! jt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synlubes Posted December 17, 2005 Share Posted December 17, 2005 Let me know what you need. If you want, call me tonite for some details. I will be out all day, parent’s 50th wedding anniversary party is today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelly Posted December 17, 2005 Author Share Posted December 17, 2005 JT, You know it man... Got the growing gutt to prove it! Doug, I'll ring you... Tell your parents congratulations! 50 years together is something special. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tannji Posted December 17, 2005 Share Posted December 17, 2005 Get someone to burn you a copy of their Win98, and install it with your activation number. go to newegg and look for Socket A mother boards and processors for inexpensive, or Socket 939 for modern, I would go with Asus or DFI, MSI in a pinch. If you go Socket A, the Athlon 2600 and 3200 are sood values, and the Athlon 3500 is in a good place (price and performance) for Socket 939. Your memory is either PC100 or PC133. Do to the performance needs of modern Sims, (if you have any) I would drop that old ram, and get DDR 400 or higher, and go with the Socket 939 AMD processor, and a compatible motherboard. Socket A: AMD Athlon 2600 CPU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103417 MSI NF2 Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130512 DDR RAM 512 MB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820156006 Case Raidmax black ATX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811156018 Power supply for Socket A http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817159008 Socket 939 Socket 939 3500 CPU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103514 Socket 939 Asus NF4 motherboard (Micro ATX) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131570 DDR RAM 512 MB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820156006 Case Raidmax black ATX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811156018 Power supply for Socket 939 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817101508 Note that the socket A NF2 motherboard will have an onboard soundcard that I would use in place of your PCI sound card, unless the card is Creative Audigy 2 or Audigy 2ZS. The socket 939 NF4 motherboard has good sound also, but there it is a toss-up, use onboard for simplicity, or Audigy 2 for better immersion. Both motherboards have onboard network cards that will outperform your PCI cards, unless they are unusually expensive NICs meant for servers. Good luck and let us know if you have any questions = ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cygnusx1 Posted December 17, 2005 Share Posted December 17, 2005 Ooh Ooh Ooh..driver sims!! GET Richard Burns Rally and FIA GT Racing. PC: Get a motherboard that will support Dual Core Processors, SLI (dual video card option), AMD Socket 939 Processors, and Dual-Channel RAM, and at least 500watts of power from an SLI rated power supply. start at http://www.newegg.com they make it easy to build a parts list. If you want me to spec out a system for you email me. I have built many PCs recently fro friends that are into gaming and simulators. You can build a KILLER system for about $900. I learned to drive Watkins on GTR FIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jersey Posted December 17, 2005 Share Posted December 17, 2005 Mike, if i can help. let me know. I just threw out 17 "old" computers this past week at work! I still have some more recent parts laying around the office and in the server room so, i'll keep an eye on the post. Always good to have a beer in hand in case of an emergency. lol. Now if it were GG, i may let the arm burn and drink quicker. ha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelly Posted December 17, 2005 Author Share Posted December 17, 2005 I'm a cheap bastage and gladly take freebees... Let me know what ya have! Sippin' Macallan 12 year single malt right now... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollum Posted December 17, 2005 Share Posted December 17, 2005 I wouldn't touch socket A. Sure I have one and it's still awsome for it's era, but it's a dying breed. You can get into an AMD system for near the same price with much more potential for the future. Dual core support has nothing to do with the mobo or anything else other than you cpu. XP reconises it just as a normal dual cpu setup. dual cpu might be an issue in 98, but i know it's possible. Your optical drives should be fine. The graphics car is fine, I run a 9700pro (read: 9500 solder modded) and it still run most games at 1280 X 1024 at good FPS without all the fancy filtering. I personally wouldn't get a SLI board. Radeon has proven the X1500 can give the 7800 GT a run for it's money. ATI hasn't made a crossfire (ATI's SLI name) version of the X1500 yet so dual card they don't compete yet, but crossfire is already proven that it can look superior to SLI for image quality. I try not to discrouage people from buying a name I don't own, I just try to show people all the facts. If someone earlier had told you to buy ATI all they way, i'd be arguing more for Nvidia. Just in: Asus has just released a dual core SLI 7800 GT, so you get quad GPU. ...needed? not really. Fun? OH yea. Would you personally see the difference between that and something 1/3 the cost? No. So check list. Case: Depends if you want to reuse the old one. I sugest a good case becuase cooling is much better and a good case tends to be quiet as well. Hard drive: you seem to have plenty. Buy more if you really think you'll need the space. Optical drives: You're set unless you want a DVD R Mother board: Gigabyte, Asus, DFI, MSI are all good brands CPU: An entry level AMD64 would be fine, I run an athlon XP 2700+ and I do 3d modeling... Graphics card: You're fine with what you've got at the moment. But getting a quality mobo with an AGP slot is hard nowdays, and if you get a mobo with PCI express you'll have to buy a new graphics card. Decent cars that won't be a waste of money start at aroud $110, and I wouldn't spend more than $200, beyond that 200 mark you loose value. Sound card: almost all mobos come with onboard sound, but a good card is always nice. A well made 2.0 card can be better than onboard 7.1 LAN: Well, you said you have some, but it's always nice to have gibabite ethernet onboard. RAM: 512 is a little low nowdays. I run 768 of close to the best PC2700 (DDR 333) ever made. And it's by far not enough. I'd consider 1GB (512x2 for dual channel ram) a good number so you wouldn't have to put more in for a while. PSU: 400W MINIMUM. Remember, higher wattage doesn't mean more power consumption, but more power availability. Now, power supplies have an efficiency rating and the more efficient it is, the less power it will actually used to distribute a given power to the system. I like antec & silverstone PSU's for thier quality, matched with quietness. I believe that's everything. I'm on aim & msn all the time. Feel free to stop in and say high. PS: I build high performance systems for games for a computer service/repair company But I still wouldn't recomend paying someone to build you a system becuase it wouldn't be cost effective over buying a system unless you're spending more than the 1k mark. Wich you could be well within 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelly Posted December 17, 2005 Author Share Posted December 17, 2005 I've had a number of Nvidia cards die on me over the years within 45-60 days. That's why I got the ATI card. Figured it would be ok... I've got a decent workstation upstairs, but need to get the spyware off it that has been plaguing it lately (I have THREE software packages and it still got through.) and I need to load some more memory and get this ATI card running... It is an HP Pavolion 510N 2.1GHZ AMD machine... Maybe I'll just take it over to the local computer geek and have it completely gone through, memory upgraded and card configured, along with a second HD with software for dual boot... Just went out to the sites for FIA GT Racer and GT legends... SHEESH! OK, I'm an AZZ! I'll be getting these two ASAP to run on newer systems... I just want to drive some decent simms to keep me going over the winter. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Here comes trouble Posted December 18, 2005 Share Posted December 18, 2005 Not much help from here.... when my dial up land line to the computer got unplugged it took me 3 hours to find the problem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cygnusx1 Posted December 18, 2005 Share Posted December 18, 2005 The advantage of SLI is that you can buy a good videocard now and add a twin in about a year when the price of the card has dropped. The graphics performance of my PC nearly doubled when I added the second card a year later for almost no cost. We like modding, tweaking, and upgrading here, that's why I chose SLI. You are right that a single "supercard" can outperform some SLI setups but you can do SLI in stages to save dough. Also how cool does "DUAL VIDEO CARDS" sound. hehe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
280zwitha383 Posted December 18, 2005 Share Posted December 18, 2005 get this ATI card running... Maybe I'll just take it over to the local comuter geek that's where I take all the things I want to get running, to the commuter geek... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelly Posted December 18, 2005 Author Share Posted December 18, 2005 Guess I need a new keyboard too... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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