Need advise: construction of a cheap system

Hello. My friends computer died the other day so I offered to build a new one for him. Me and a friend deteremined it to be a dead motherboard and his computer is terribly old, so I'm going to have to build him a new one on 250 USD.

The only thing we can reuse from the old system are the optical drives and the hard drive aswell as the video card. So I'm going to need to purchase a motherboard, a processor, a case, and some RAM on 250 bucks. I know it is entirely possible to build him a (in his opinion) kick ass system given the computer he's used to. This thing is ancient; from around 2000 or 2001 or so.

I'm thinking about going with a barebones packaged motherboard and case and will most likely purchase from Newegg (unless anyone has any other recomendations). I am looking at ASUS first and foremost because I have had nothing but good experiences with them, but, I am a bit concerned with the price.

Given my 250 dollar expense limit, would I be wise to go with a barebones kit, or would I be smarter buying it all sepperately? If anyone has anything to recommend to me, I would be extremely appreciative. My friend isn't really planning on updating his computer after this, so I'm thinking an semi-old procesor socket and not using PCI-Express would be a good idea. I'm mainly looking for advise on a good motherboard as that's the part that's going to be hell to send back if I get it all hooked up and find out it's a peice of junk.

Thank you for reading my long post, and for anything you can tell me.

 

What kind of RAM and video card does he have?

at $250, i wouldnt even begin looking at retail products. Go browse some for sale sections on forums or craigslist.

Even if you manage to get the necessary pieces for $250, it just doesnt seem worth it, at least in my opinion.

 

SD Ram. And an ATI All-in-wonder PCI card.