Mom-puter system build

Justin Meisse

I haven't had to build an affordable computer for a casual user in about 8 years so help me out.

MOBO
ASUS M4N68T-M $54.99

CPU
AMD Athlon II X2 250 $61.99

RAM
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 $27.99 after $5 instant rebate
cheapest I could find and G.Skill is decent, right?

CASE
Rosewill ATX Mid Tower Case $29.99

PSU
COOLER MASTER Elite 460w PSU $39.99

Video
on board

HD
Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB $49.99

Optical
Lite-On 24 X iHAS424-98 DVD writer $19.99 after $5 instant rebate
basically because it was cheap and not OEM so it comes with software

Card reader
Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader $19.99 after $5 instant rebate

OS
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 OEM $99.99

Total with shipping: $425.74

Unfortunately Florida doesn't have a store equivalent to Frys or Microcenter so getting stuff cheaper at a shop isn't an option. I'm going to have everything shipped to her house and put it together over thanksgiving.

Ben Apuna

It's pretty cool you can put together a system for so cheaply.

About G.Skill:

I think it should be decent. I bought 2 pairs for my PC from newegg. One 1 of 4 was bad and I had to send that pair back for a replacement (this was pretty easy to do). Since then all has been well (over 3 years I think).

The only other thing I can suggest that you consider is Linux Mint over Win7 for a casual user that will only be online, emails, watch youtube, facebook, etc... No need to worry about viruses or malware, at least not yet anyway...

I set up one of [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Zotac-MAG-Intel-NVIDIA-HD-ND01-U/dp/B0030UH2J4"]these[/ame] with the LXDE version of Linux Mint for my wife which has worked out perfectly for more than a year now. She had been on one of my old XP PCs prior to that and every once in a while she'd get some malware or something that would cause me to have to wipe the whole thing. (yes it had a proper firewall, AV, antispyware, and all windows updates - maybe it was just XP...).

Visceral

Fem-Puter Approves

Grimm_Wrecking

Looks pretty solid man. I think that's about as cheap as you're going to get without sacrificing drive bays in the case or snagging one of neweggs refurbished laptops.

mdeforge

If your mom appreciates quietness, you can spring for a nice Antec case that keeps things cool and quiet. Maybe even one of Antec's silent/fanless PSU's. But other than that, great build. I love G. Skill RAM. Never had a problem with it.

Mark Dygert

Looks good! The only thing that throws up a red flag for me is the lite-on drive. They notoriously have issues with all kinds of DRM that gets slapped on all kinds of budgetware, specifically secu-rom... its like oil and water.

So if she's the type to pick up "mahjong" or "101 card games" for 2.99 she might be hounding you in the future to get that stuff running.

Also while you're there install LogMeIn, so you can easily remote into her system and fix it.

EarthQuake

Do not buy an OEM dvd drive if there is any chance she wants to actually watch DVDs on it, get a retail drive that comes with a proper codec.

Any reason you're going with AMD?

I just swapped out my old old amd based HTPC setup for an intel one, at the same price point that you're looking at ($161 for ram, mobo and CPU, shipped).


Oh, another very good option, depending on what she wants to do with it, is forget the whole mid-size ATX tower idea entirely and go for a Atom based system, or something in the micro-atx format. Lack of optical drive may be a deal breaker though.

Justin Meisse

No real reason for AMD - I just used a budget build as a guide. As far as the optical drive, the reason I picked the lite-on was because it wasn't an oem - but honestly it's only needed as a method for installing software with the potential of possibly backing something up.

I'll definitely set up some type of remote management software.

EarthQuake

Oh yeah doh, I see its not the EOM now, silly me.

arrangemonk

why not one of them atom barbones with ion
theyre cheap and usually fit as mom-puter

CrazyButcher

460 watts seems overkill? imo should have some high efficiency (80+) with lower max watts... especially with a "simple" cpu and no addin gpu, the entire system will probably have a hard time even reaching 100 watt

EarthQuake

Thats what I thought too, but the thing is $40, you'll be hard pressed to find one(or pay more) that is decent and less wattage.

Ben Apuna

Wouln't you save money in the long run due to a lower electricity cost with a lower wattage and higher efficiency power supply? Or is it really only a matter of what the various components average power draw is?

I knocked off about $8 a month from my electric bill by switching my wife from a standard desktop PC to that Zotac Mag I linked to earlier. Though I've heard that Hawaii has a rather high electricity cost compared to other parts of the US. so savings might be lower elsewhere.

Justin Meisse

I don't know if she'd be happy with an atom based computer, it might be too slow compared to what she's used to - I have to get the specs from her last couple of laptops.

as far as the PSU - the calculator puts it around 180w - around that range I'm dealing with manufacturers I've never heard of. I might look into that.

Ben Apuna

Yeah Atom with Win7 might be slow. With Linux, Firefox is pretty snappy and it plays HD video no problem (well 720P @ 1600 x 900 anyway). The one I posted only has 2GB of ram, I think there's a variant where you can load up with 4GB.

Grimm_Wrecking

Rosewill R379-M 300w PSU included $49.99

ASRock N68C-S $44.99

I mean it really only saves $30~ but if you're looking for compactness then it might not be too bad.

Snader

Have you thought about buying her a laptop? It'd be a nice selfcontaining package, and I assume she's not really gonna upgrade the thing?

Of course a laptop isn't really ergonomic, but you still have the old keyboard and mouse, right? So you'd just have to position the lappy like a monitor. My GF's got a setup like it and she's pretty happy with it.

Plus there's the bonus that if she wants to go work somewhere else, she can.

Justin Meisse

hah, well she's had a lot of problems with laptops dying on her so she said she wanted a desktop again.

So I was surprised when she called last night about my opinion on a Lenovo laptop - I've heard that people like them, they purchased the Thinkpad line from IBM after I left the computer repair business so I don't have any hands on experience with them.

I did come across a lot of IBM thinkpads back in the day but I don't know if that was an issue with quality or just the popularity of the brand.

arrangemonk

well thats why its called notebook, put it on your lap makes it break very quickly