First new box in 8 years

[John in MA]

Not a Tooms or YD thread




Just bought the most expensive PC case I could easily find--Coolermaster Stacker 830 Evo. Lists for about $240, found a once-used one literally across the street from me (as in, 300 yards away) for $160. Fear my chassis. As soon as the new hard drive arrives it's PC buildin' time.

After eight years, three motherboards, four processors, two power supplies, five video cards, and probably six hard drives, the old generic full-tower was showing its shortcomings. Got my money's worth, though, thing was only about $70 shipped back in 2000.

 

[scott00tj]

What box did you end up getting?

 

[Fleg]

Just bought the most expensive PC case I could easily find--Coolermaster Stacker 830 Evo.

What box did you end up getting?

I'm guessing it's a Coolermaster Stacker 830 Evo.

 

[will_m]

What are you building?

Game PC?

Genral Use?

Media Center?

 

[scott00tj]

I'm guessing it's a Coolermaster Stacker 830 Evo.

damnit. 2nd window right over that part. i suck.

 

[DieselSJ]

At some point, I'll need to upgrade this old PIII (overclocked to) 800. Gots me a brand new Antec case in my closet.

 

[scott00tj]

Wow you really do need an update. Hell the old garage computer is a P4 1.2Ghz.

 

[Fleg]

I still use a 700mhz computer. Everything is stripped out of it except for firefox.

 

[John in MA]

General use PC. I often swap hardware or test all kinds of weird stuff, so I need a case with some room. The old box was one of those huge 11-bay towers that used to be popular, but it was way too tight around the top of the motherboard. I had the whole thing done up in late '90s mod style--lots of new fan openings Sawzall'd in.

Got the new hardware mostly together today. Cheaped out on the RAM and video card, but that'll follow when I have more spare change. Total outlay so far is just a few bucks.

CM Stacker 830 Evo case
DFI NF590 M-R2/G tweaker board
Athlon 64 X2 4800 CPU
1GB Elitegroup DDR2/800 (running at 667--DFI RAM voodoo)
GeForce 6500 PCIe video
WD Caviar SE16 500GB SATA HD
Adaptec PCI SCSI card
Apple/Matsushita DVD-RAM (you never see these any more)
Sony DVD+-RW
3.5" 1.44MB floppy
Zip100 soon to go in

I was previously using an Athlon XP2800 with much older supporting hardware. The motherboard got flaky so I figured I'd moderize everything in one shot.

 

[Frank Grimes]

Zip100? Do people still use those things?

 

[John in MA]

I like backward compatability. I kept a Bernoulli44, a SyQuest135, and a 5.25" floppy in my main build until 2006 or so. Also have a pile of external SCSI drives with almost every somewhat-common removable format.

 

[Frank Grimes]

I like backward compatability. I kept a Bernoulli44, a SyQuest135, and a 5.25" floppy in my main build until 2006 or so. Also have a pile of external SCSI drives with almost every somewhat-common removable format.

w0w! No LS-120?

 

[John in MA]

That's in the external drive pile. Along with some MO drives, tape backup, Bernoulli 230, SyQuest105, and some other ones I can't remember. Don't think I've touched any of these in a couple years, but I just know sooner or later someone will have tax records on some outdated format no one else can recover.

 

[Frank Grimes]

That's in the external drive pile. Along with some MO drives, tape backup, Bernoulli 230, SyQuest105, and some other ones I can't remember. Don't think I've touched any of these in a couple years, but I just know sooner or later someone will have tax records on some outdated format no one else can recover.

I can't bust your balls too much. I just threw out a ton of chit that I have been holding onto for years thinking some day I may need it.

 

[John in MA]

I knew a guy who used an Apple Lisa for end-of-year accounting until about a year ago. Still looking for one of those.

 

[Frank Grimes]

I knew a guy who used an Apple Lisa for end-of-year accounting until about a year ago. Still looking for one of those.

I tossed out two old 15" monitors, a 19" monitor, a 486, a Pentium, an AMD 350, and an AMD 450. Oddly enough the 486 was running FreeSCO perfectly fine, I just had no use for it.

 

[Taz]

i still have my old pentium 166mhz, 1.5gb HD, 512mb RAM, sitting here. still works, had it since 1997.

 

[themonk]

I have 2 external Zip100 drives, connect in to your parallel port. I should put them up on craigslist to see if somebody wants them.

 

[John in MA]

I've found anything under the 500MHz mark you can't give away around here. Been dumping all my spare parts into old cases and selling basic 533-800 MHz boxes on Craigslist for $35 a pop. Also have a few in the 1.1-1.8 range that're for sale.

Just yesterday a friend of mine decided to upgrade from the K6/400 with 64MB RAM she'd been using since 2000. After she put Norton 2005 on it it took 30 minutes to boot.

 

[eysdan]

General use PC. I often swap hardware or test all kinds of weird stuff, so I need a case with some room. The old box was one of those huge 11-bay towers that used to be popular, but it was way too tight around the top of the motherboard. I had the whole thing done up in late '90s mod style--lots of new fan openings Sawzall'd in.

Got the new hardware mostly together today. Cheaped out on the RAM and video card, but that'll follow when I have more spare change. Total outlay so far is just a few bucks.

CM Stacker 830 Evo case
DFI NF590 M-R2/G tweaker board
Athlon 64 X2 4800 CPU
1GB Elitegroup DDR2/800 (running at 667--DFI RAM voodoo)
GeForce 6500 PCIe video
WD Caviar SE16 500GB SATA HD
Adaptec PCI SCSI card
Apple/Matsushita DVD-RAM (you never see these any more)
Sony DVD+-RW
3.5" 1.44MB floppy
Zip100 soon to go in

I was previously using an Athlon XP2800 with much older supporting hardware. The motherboard got flaky so I figured I'd moderize everything in one shot.

I definitely would have bought more memory since it's so cheap. I am upgrading my friends PC and got him 2 gbs for 44 dollars.