An old guy's first & final MoBo install try

::: HELLO ::::

When I was a bit younger and the 8-cylinder automobiles had spark plugs that stuck up out of the engine and the oil filter was....right here by your left hand and gas was, yes it was, gas was twenty-four cents a gallon, there were many times when we found it difficult to dig up a dollar or two to put 7 or 8 gallons in the car. But we did it, just as we were able to work on the old Ford 256 or what have you. Wait with me here....

Quite some time after that but quite a bit before now there was a time when 8 meg of RAM was twice as much <still is, actually> as the 4meg that it took to run DOS and when folks like me could stick our hands in the machine and pull out an oil filter or what have you (my first 1.2gig hard drive cost $1375.00 and weighed about 6.75 pounds) ((it later became a .22 long rifle target much like all the others that went bad and went to the monthly HD disposal day - but, again, this was when it was easy to fix the darn thing and pookie yourself up to the keyboard and BASIC yourself to death all night without so much as one picture on the green on black or ORANGE on black screen, and when DOS 3.12 was a MAJOR release...... Those were not the good old days......NOT!

As a disabled vet struggling these days to do many things in life, I've found that the computer is a great equalizer. I _am_ able to handle a lot of things online and, with some difficulty (but what am I in a hurry for, anyway?) I am able to mess with the innards, upgrade the memory, swap out hard drives, format, set up the CDs and the DVD roms and I'm particularly good at huffing and puffing the dust-devils out of there (*no devils in my system*) etcetera. Well, there's one thing I still have not done but need to do now:

Upgrade my motherboard (I think)
and put in a new CPU and
whatever coolers or anti-freezw things need these days.
No, I've looked, and the oil filter doesn't just hang down there any more.
So, if you'll bear with my terribly long post here, I'll lay out what I have right now and what I think (think!) I want to do before the hurricane puffs itself up the Mississippi to Vicksburg where I moved after the Chicago winters became too intense for my physical situation.

I'm looking to fix up my last and final computer.

I am running XP-PRO on a PC-M810D motherboard (ouch!)
with 2x512 PC-2100
and an AMD 1800+
Maxtor 6Y260P0 and several 40+ gig layarounds
I have all the CD/DVD burners I need
I have a USR Courier external V-Everything PnP (V90 X2) (no broadband available herein the inards of Mississippi)
some nice 10/100 cards

Now, I want to upgrade to a NICE new MoBo that has all of the sound/video/10/100 etc. built in because all of the cards I have are like way-old, an
All-in-wonder that's circa 1999 or 2000,
a Creative Systems "Live" pair of cards - that type of thing - oh, and an
802.11g turbo PCI adapter,
A USR LAN/WAN Wireless Turbo Access Point & Router

So, let's have some fun and upgrade the processor - another AMD I should think.
I am _not_ going to play games online or put that sort of pressure on the system but I would like to keep my reaction time up to par by putting in some Half-life time and others when they come out.
So, here's what I am thinking: Perhaps I can afford about $300.00 for case, powersupply, MoBo and processor. In order to stay at this dollar figure I will need to continue to use my PC-2100 RAM for awhile. The thing is this, folks - my wife's Acer laptop 2800+ wipes me all over the place in speed and (hah - accuracy). So, I'd like to get a really nice mobo and maybe a 2600+ or whatever I can afford. I have two mini-towers heree but they can both be salvaged out to the neighborhood kids with 256 and 80 meg drives -

I would at least like to be in a position to give her some competition (yes - we old folks compete too) I'd also like to make use of her wi-fi onboard and this other equipment to set up a wireless net here.

Does anyone have any really good ideas or should I just goto TigerDir and find something in the price range and grab it and forget it? This will be my ONCE AND FINAL attempt at setting up a motherboard. Yee-hah!

Thanks for your patience!

Rev_Al

 

something for under 300$:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=876363&CatId=1181

or if ya wanna spend a little more:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1022270&CatId=1181

cases are more your personal taste ... so whatever fits your budget ... and as always it's nice to get a second opinion or two

 

He meant 300$ for the mobo processor case and psu..not just for a mobo; thats probbaly the most xpensive mobo you can find lol.

 

the first cpu/mobo combo was 250$ ... leaving 50$ for a cheap case ... the diabolic at tigerdirect doesn't look too shabby though and thats 50$ with a 400W PSU


oh and you're not into metal slug are ya?

 

Thank you, Pyrate,

I had just spent about 4 hours at TigDir looking for a setup just like that and I never saw either of them. Of course, I'd like to purchase the 3200 but the 2800 is in my ballpark and I'm happy enough to have found that. It's the devil that wants me to spend more than I should to get the 3200....but.. ...but.......oh, Al, what does the Bible say?

For the love of MONEY is the root of all evil [ 1ti 6:10 ]

But more is better when you want a new computer, that is a certainty.

Thank you for your help and God Bless!

Rev_Al
P.S. Do you realize that when you sell something you are actually buying money? Just something philosophical to think upon