new computer parts

hey I'm thinking of buying some new parts for my PC and basically
redesigning the whole system. this is what i came up with:
--MOBO: Soyo - KT600 Dragon Plus
--CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (comes with mobo)
--HDD: i already have 2 40gb's, and want to get a 250gb and keep the 40's.
thats basically it for the hardware. I'm thinking of putting linux on one
of the 40gb drives (instead of the 20 as it is now), and windows on the
other 40gb, and keeping the 250 for data storage. I understand that the
athlon xp series are optimized for windows, but will still run perfectly
fine in linux. All I wanted to know is if anyone has used the motherboard
im looking at and if it works fine, and if I will need a new power supply.
I currently have a 300w. I'm not much into gaming or intense 3d stuff, but
I'd like to be a little current (as of now I have a 900mhz P3 and some
cheap mobo with problems). Thanks ahead of time,
mitty
--
~Mitty :~:
~http://mitty.hopto.org
~AIM: MittyLinux :~: Y!: mittysoft

On Tue, 25 May 2004 17:59:43 -0400, Mitty
wrote:

hey I'm thinking of buying some new parts for my PC and basically
redesigning the whole system. this is what i came up with:
--MOBO: Soyo - KT600 Dragon Plus
--CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (comes with mobo)
--HDD: i already have 2 40gb's, and want to get a 250gb and keep the 40's.
thats basically it for the hardware. I'm thinking of putting linux on one
of the 40gb drives (instead of the 20 as it is now), and windows on the
other 40gb, and keeping the 250 for data storage. I understand that the
athlon xp series are optimized for windows, but will still run perfectly
fine in linux. All I wanted to know is if anyone has used the motherboard
im looking at and if it works fine, and if I will need a new power supply.
I currently have a 300w. I'm not much into gaming or intense 3d stuff, but
I'd like to be a little current (as of now I have a 900mhz P3 and some
cheap mobo with problems). Thanks ahead of time,
mitty

Do you live in the US?
How much are you paying for the Soyo? Newegg has it for 54 -10 rebate
= 44. It was on sale for 49 a little while ago mking 39 with rebate
but Newegg is always pushing prices up and down. The refurbs really
change too. A little while ago I was looking at 29 for a board and
this week its 45.

You can read the consumer reviews online and see a few reviews at some
websites. They say its OK. Dont know about the fact Newegg prominently
states "1.0" though. Maybe theres a better "2.0" or something?

Anyway newegg also has the Barton 2500 retail for $80. The fan works
great. I would save 113(2800 xp) -80 = $33 since there isnt much
difference between the 2500 and 2800 and you can try overclocking the
2500 to 3200 by setting the FSB to 400. If it works which it does it
seems 99% of the time then you have a decent performance gain for
nothing . If it doesnt you save 30 and there isnt a whole lot of
difference.

That would be 44 net + 80 = 128 plus shipping.
If you are planning on getting some HDs wait until Memorial Day - all
the places havent had a decent sale in months. IF they dont have a big
one on Memorial day Ill be shocked. Theres a 90% chance theres going
to be a boffo HD deal somewhere - Office Max, Office Depot, Compusa,
Staples, Best Buys Micro Center etc.

Just keep the PS if its working fine. Are there differences? I did a
lot of reading and one websites does have thing where you can roughly
calculate your needs and it does seem to cut it close for people who
have lots of devices and you can see the quality differences.
You dont seem to have lots of devices.

I used to run 5 hard disk DVD drive, DVD burner and CD burner ,
sblive and Maudio recording card, TV tuner card - tons of stuff on my
system and it still ran originally with a 300 watt but now Im running
a 400 watt antec and have cut down on the devices.

I think it was Directron that came up with a really loose way of
judging and thats weight. They claimed the cheap ones invariably are
very light and the good ones weigh a lot and that it roughly
corresponded with returns at their store. I guess this wouldnt hold if
you had some special expensive PS made of light materials but I
noticed the really cheapo ones do weigh 2 lbs or so and the good ones
Ive seen the wt on are around 4-5 lbs.

However Ive got to say that out of ALL the times personally I blamed
the PS its never been the PS. And I see tons of crappy systems with
super cheap supplies that see to work for a long time. Ive never seen
anyone do a thorough survey and test - well Toms Hardware did a real
weird one a while back. Anyway there might be a correlation between
all the problems you keep hearing about with memory , motherboards
and lockups that are everywhere but everytime I suspected that its
never been that. And out of all the people I know they are running
everything from several Compusa PSes , Antecs. PowMaxes, and who knows
what else successfully. Im sure SOME problems are caused by crappy
PSes though but I just havent ever traced it to a PS problem on my
system.

If your PS is ancient I might get a new one for the hell of it. There
is a 300 watt Antec for 31 and 400 watt for 48 at Newegg.

Only once did I really think it was the PS. It was when I REALLY cut
corners for a friend - cases were REALLY expensive here my enlight
cost $140 - it was $60 everywhere else. I bought a $20 case this guy
was importing and selling out of his house! The PS felt like it was
made from tin foil it was so light. It was PURE junk . It ran but it
caused tons of random lockups but all the weird lockups since then Ive
been getting with various boards dont seem related to PS problems.
That one was really an obvious problem.

wrote:

On Tue, 25 May 2004 17:59:43 -0400, Mitty
wrote:

hey I'm thinking of buying some new parts for my PC and basically
redesigning the whole system. this is what i came up with:
--MOBO: Soyo - KT600 Dragon Plus
--CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (comes with mobo)
--HDD: i already have 2 40gb's, and want to get a 250gb and keep the 40's.
thats basically it for the hardware. I'm thinking of putting linux on one
of the 40gb drives (instead of the 20 as it is now), and windows on the
other 40gb, and keeping the 250 for data storage. I understand that the
athlon xp series are optimized for windows, but will still run perfectly
fine in linux. All I wanted to know is if anyone has used the motherboard
im looking at and if it works fine, and if I will need a new power supply.
I currently have a 300w. I'm not much into gaming or intense 3d stuff,
but I'd like to be a little current (as of now I have a 900mhz P3 and some
cheap mobo with problems). Thanks ahead of time,
mitty

Do you live in the US?
How much are you paying for the Soyo? Newegg has it for 54 -10 rebate
= 44. It was on sale for 49 a little while ago mking 39 with rebate
but Newegg is always pushing prices up and down. The refurbs really
change too. A little while ago I was looking at 29 for a board and
this week its 45.

You can read the consumer reviews online and see a few reviews at some
websites. They say its OK. Dont know about the fact Newegg prominently
states "1.0" though. Maybe theres a better "2.0" or something?

Anyway newegg also has the Barton 2500 retail for $80. The fan works
great. I would save 113(2800 xp) -80 = $33 since there isnt much
difference between the 2500 and 2800 and you can try overclocking the
2500 to 3200 by setting the FSB to 400. If it works which it does it
seems 99% of the time then you have a decent performance gain for
nothing . If it doesnt you save 30 and there isnt a whole lot of
difference.

That would be 44 net + 80 = 128 plus shipping.
If you are planning on getting some HDs wait until Memorial Day - all
the places havent had a decent sale in months. IF they dont have a big
one on Memorial day Ill be shocked. Theres a 90% chance theres going
to be a boffo HD deal somewhere - Office Max, Office Depot, Compusa,
Staples, Best Buys Micro Center etc.

Just keep the PS if its working fine. Are there differences? I did a
lot of reading and one websites does have thing where you can roughly
calculate your needs and it does seem to cut it close for people who
have lots of devices and you can see the quality differences.
You dont seem to have lots of devices.

I used to run 5 hard disk DVD drive, DVD burner and CD burner ,
sblive and Maudio recording card, TV tuner card - tons of stuff on my
system and it still ran originally with a 300 watt but now Im running
a 400 watt antec and have cut down on the devices.

I think it was Directron that came up with a really loose way of
judging and thats weight. They claimed the cheap ones invariably are
very light and the good ones weigh a lot and that it roughly
corresponded with returns at their store. I guess this wouldnt hold if
you had some special expensive PS made of light materials but I
noticed the really cheapo ones do weigh 2 lbs or so and the good ones
Ive seen the wt on are around 4-5 lbs.

However Ive got to say that out of ALL the times personally I blamed
the PS its never been the PS. And I see tons of crappy systems with
super cheap supplies that see to work for a long time. Ive never seen
anyone do a thorough survey and test - well Toms Hardware did a real
weird one a while back. Anyway there might be a correlation between
all the problems you keep hearing about with memory , motherboards
and lockups that are everywhere but everytime I suspected that its
never been that. And out of all the people I know they are running
everything from several Compusa PSes , Antecs. PowMaxes, and who knows
what else successfully. Im sure SOME problems are caused by crappy
PSes though but I just havent ever traced it to a PS problem on my
system.

If your PS is ancient I might get a new one for the hell of it. There
is a 300 watt Antec for 31 and 400 watt for 48 at Newegg.

Only once did I really think it was the PS. It was when I REALLY cut
corners for a friend - cases were REALLY expensive here my enlight
cost $140 - it was $60 everywhere else. I bought a $20 case this guy
was importing and selling out of his house! The PS felt like it was
made from tin foil it was so light. It was PURE junk . It ran but it
caused tons of random lockups but all the weird lockups since then Ive
been getting with various boards dont seem related to PS problems.
That one was really an obvious problem.
thanks for the info. I'll certinly consider overclocking to save a few
$$ :-D and my power supply is a pretty nice one, an antec 300 watt and its
not ancient at all... even though i got it for free because it came with a
case that someone bought, and their mobo didnt fit the case... so i got a
free full tower with a power supply
thanks for the info,
mitty
--
~Mitty :~:
~http://mitty.hopto.org
~AIM: MittyLinux :~: Y!: mittysoft

On Wed, 26 May 2004 20:02:20 -0400, Mitty
wrote:

thanks for the info. I'll certinly consider overclocking to save a few
$$ :-D and my power supply is a pretty nice one, an antec 300 watt and its
not ancient at all... even though i got it for free because it came with a
case that someone bought, and their mobo didnt fit the case... so i got a
free full tower with a power supply
thanks for the info,
mitty

Well the main thing youll need of course is memory. Either 3200/400
memory OR memory that can be overclocked too to 400.

I have some Crucial 2100 that works OK even at 3200. However I use two
sticks of 3200/400 for my my Asus and keep the Crucial at 2100 on
another system.