Help me build my first PC

Hey. well im going to build a computer from parts im buying off ebay. so far i have bidded on a 450W ATX Power Supply for P3 P4 or AMD, a7v8x-x, amd Athlon 1400 (1.4 Ghz) Thunderbird CPU , Atx Mid tower. i need to know what kind of hardrive to bid on that will work with this stuff. i like maxtor(that is what i use right now) but it does not matter.

i allready have a video card(geforce 4 mx 400)
pc 2700 512 mb of ram

so i need to still bid on everything else

i will use onboard sound

any help would be great thx guys and is all the stuff that i have bidded on compatible with this motherboard? i think they are

could you please help me pick out the rest of the parts . doesnt need to be high end stuff this pc will not be used for gaimg thx alot

 

I'd stay away from Maxtor, you can do better for the same money. Look into Seagate Barracuda or Western Digital Caviar drives.

 

All in all you should'nt have any problems providing all the parts work properly.

Maxtor are known for making bad drives so id recommend a Seagate or Western Digital HDD and i'd say 80 Gigabytes is a nice all round figure and should serve the purpose!

Just make sure you buy the necessary IDE cables etc...

 

Allright great. i look into those today and yes i hope the parts do work properly but that is a chance i am willing to take . could you please tell what i am missing so far?

I have a cd rom already and a i need to buy a floppy.

 

just thought i'd say what kind of PSU is it? its not a massively power demanding system but you dont want to have the system you've just put together to die because of a generic crappy PSU...400W+ is okay, you shoulsnt need anything much more than that but look for a good trusted brand name PSU.

 

This is the Power supply
Power supply

 

hmm...if it were me, i would not use it, i have used generic PSU's and they arent very good, you can get away with using one for a long time...(my first one for 18months) and buy one and have it blow as soon as you power it up (my second one blew as soon as i put the power cable in (something wasnt right inside it and that = smoke + sparks + burning smell + me realising i was lucky it didnt take my computer with it)
no i have seen the light and bought a trusted brand one...you can go with it if you want but if it were me (and probably a lot of other people on this forum would agree) i would get a cheap but trusted one, and use that.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153006
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153005
there are a couple of thermal take ones, first one isnt too expensive
http://www.hardwareforums.com/showthread.php?t=5218 check this out as well

 

With that system you wouldn't need more than a 200wt psu but obviously I'd go at least 350 in case you want to upgrade it a bit later. How much are you willing to spend and what will this computer be used for mainly? You could build a pretty nice Sempron system with fairly modern graphics card for about $600.

 

yeah i was thinkinh about the future a little bit but you would only need a 350W PSU from a trusted name manufacturer...the tagan model i have comes in a slightly cut down 330W version...

 

Umm ok the The power supply is 450 watts and i have already bidded on it so that is what im getting unless i get lucky and someone outbids me and then i can go bid on a better one. This system might be used for Gaming now. becaue i have a different buyer. I allready have a ati radeon 9500 to put in it.
and i do not want to spend more then 150 dollars on ebay.
thx

when you say PSU that is the power supply right?

 

yeah PSU = Power Supply Unit

 

Something like the Sparkle FSP-350BT is probably going to be one of your cheapest bets outside of some of the Thermaltake units. I've linked a I wrote in my sig, so that might be helpful.

 

hmm ok well i will get a better then one because i believe you guys but i am still going to be stuck with the crappy one anyways i just got an email from a friend and he wants 2 gigs of ram and a CPU of at least 2.4 ghz. Can anyone help me out?

 

Sure, start a new thread about it.

 

Ah, well for 150 that will be the best computer around. When you get around to it upgrade the PSU, but the 450wt one isn't going to dye a week after you get it or anything.

 

I will buy another PSU asap and also there is another change to the pc now it will have only 1 gig of ram and 2500 barton cpu.

so what do you all think

Black ATX tower with side window
Asus A7v8x-x
1 gig pc 2700 ram
80 gig HD (seagate?)
Ati radeon 9500
a good 450 watt power supply lol
LG cd rom
and little things here and there like some wires and fans and what not. it should cost me less then $150

 

yeah get a seagate barracuda or a western digital caviar hard drive...

 

less that $150?! all off ebay?

 

Not bad at all. What are you doing about the motherboard and CPU though? Oh and there's a little trick you can do with riva tuner where you can potentially unlock 4 extra pixel pipelines on your 9500 to essentially create a 9700 for no extra cost. There are plenty of quick tutorials online of course.