AAARGH! My Desktop died yesterday.

[Team Squishee]

As the title says my desktop died last night - been getting occassional bsod over the last 6-8 weeks but now it wont even re-boot.

It's not the end of the world - I was planning on getting a new PC some time this year anyway so I have been forced into spending my money a little earlier than planned.

I work from home so my desktop doubles as both gaming rig and work PC - I can buy a new PC through my business , but pay for a gfx card & any other upgrades myself - for this reason I really dont want to build my own rig (never done so before , I think I could from a technical point of view but the Work aspect means i do need reliability) , so I have been looking around for a base system to ad upgrades to.

I like ebuyer, good value, prompt delivery, and nice people so here is what I am considering:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139682

this is the absolute max budget I can spend on the base system (billed to work )

Upgrade wise I will need a gfx card:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142610 - seems great value to me , any feedback appreciated.

and some Ram: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130429 - the base system comes with Vista Professional , not being an expert I presume this is 32 bit so I will have 3 gig + gfx ram - is this correct?

2 things I am unsure of and would appreciate some advice:

1) is the 350W PSU that comes with the base system sufficient?

2) shall I buy additional / upgrade the cooling ? if so please advise what would be a good choice for less than £50 (i want to buy everything from the same supplier so an ebuyer link would be appreciated)


A couple of other things to consider:

I have 2 monitors already - 21" HD ready 16:9 LCD & 15" 4:3 VGA - the gfx card comes with DVI:VGA adaptors so will I be able to run both screens considering they are different resolutions?

I dont care about sound cards - I mainly game with the sound off and my Hi-Fi on, maybe upgrade this later.

The hard drive isnt that big but I have a NAS drive for work and a separate MP3 server so the internal hard drive will be mainly for OS & gaming and I am happy with 250Gb


Any feedback greatly appreciated - I plan on placing my order today (3rd April) for delivery in time for the weekend so swift replies get extra kudos :thumbsup:

[Diamndzngunz]

1) is the 350W PSU that comes with the base system sufficient?

It could work. But I would go for 500+ they are only $100+

[Wilbur]

As you are a UK'er I'll let you in on a little secret

http://www.overclockers.co.uk

Best prices I've found.

A couple of things with that HP.

1) Limited Warranty - Opening the case and adding components will probably void it, so you'll be left with the component manufacturers warranties only.

2) 365W is *totally* insufficient. This would be more than sufficient AND would allow for a fair amount of future Expansion.

3) The RAM you are getting, do you intend to use that in conjunction with the cheap HP RAM, or are you just going to remove it?

The Monitors will work with the GPU, you might need to get a DVI > VGA adaptor.

Aditionally, I'd seriously think about getting your system and components from Overclockers.co.uk

[Team Squishee]

Cheers for your advice Wilbur.

I had a slight change of plan due to finishing work late on Thursday - phoned ebuyer on friday for a little advice and to check that warranty question you raised - response was that the expansion slots are there to be used so as long as I fit compatible parts in the right slots there will be no probs , HOWEVER they werent able to advise about changing the PSU & any warranty implications - HP account manager will have an answer for me on monday.

The guy on the phone gave me some good advice and I have changed the shopping list slightly -

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143021 - Core 2 duo 8400 rather than a quad 6600 base system - £150 cheaper for what seems a similar spec performance wise , which means extra £££ to spend on other bits and pieces (it comes with an even worse PSU but that will get upgraded on yr advice)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130429 - 2 x 2Gb Corsair Ram to replace the cheap HP ram

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128675 - Budget 650W modular PSU - cheap but the reviews have convinced me

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/105994 - Processor cooler

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129414 - small second HDD , which I plan to install XP on.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143104 - Upgraded to a 9800GTX card for a simlar price - less on board Ram than the original 8800GTX choice but slightly faster speed - newer is better though imo

All in all approx £690 ex Vat, which is cheaper than what i planned last week and I have added PSU, cooler , HDD and upgraded(?) gfx card so seems that having to wait a few extra days has done me a favour :thumbsup:

- I had a look at overclockers and they dont seem to be able to match a system of similar spec for that price - will be sure to give them a call before I order though and see if they can do anything

[Team Squishee]

All ordered and waiting for delivery tomorrow (anyone got a time machine i can borrow? no?!? bah i better just go and get blind drunk then).

I added a third Hard drive (same as above) - thought i may as well at that price so I can run my main wow on the main HDD, and 2 WoWs on each of the other 2 drives.

Really excited about having a look at the 9800GTX card , should be quite an improvement over my 7600GS !

[Wilbur]

I think you've gimped yourself by getting the dual core processor over the quad core. The Quad core is vastly increased performance and it overclocks nicely (if clock speed is what you are worried about). Other than that, its a nice rig, and assuming you dont have any power problems, you should be golden.

[Team Squishee]

Well got myself up and running (sort of) after a day of hard work and I really learnt a lot :thumbsup:

The HP case wasnt big enough to hold the monster 9800GTX ! so I spent the day transferring all the components into my old case lol - I practically rebuilt the system from scratch and if i had known it were that easy i would have just built from parts anyway!

didnt have enough sata power cables to fit the 2 extra HDDs , and ebuyer forgot to send the CPU fan, so more to do tomorrow .

Only just got round to installing antivirus & firewalls etc by 1am so havent had a chance to check out the new gpu yet, loving having dual monitors though (and i was only looking at the hp desktop images)

So a little more hardware fitting tomorrow , followed by the installation of WoW & TBC and the patching

Then setting up keyclone

And Re designing my UI

It's going to take forever - sometime in June I may actually get to start playing wow again!

Cheers for your advice Wilbur, and as far as my gimping myself goes - toms hardware reckons the E8400 core 2 i got will outperform the Q6600 (non clocked) on most applications, although maybe a quad would have been better for 5 x wow (my pc isnt just for wow though , honest, no really, :whistling: ).

Anyhow I am set now for at least a couple of years hardware wise so if the processor starts to feel restrictive a Quad Extreme will slot into the system nice and easy once the prices come down to a reasonable level , which may work out better than getting a Q6600 now and trying to make it last 3 or 4 years

Cheers again for your help - this thread can now be locked :thumbsup: