Crazy PC upgrade idea.

[digitalwanderer]

A friend wanted me to help him build/buy a computer to use, and after thinking about it I thought that if I sold him my wife's computer for $300 I'd be giving him a great deal and giving myself a great opportunity....

I want an AMD64, I feel behind the times. I know the new Venice is coming out next week and I'm gonna hold of for HOPEFULLY a reasonably priced 3200+ one.

I started a thread about it at EB over here, and this is basically what I came up with:
A case I like that I think would look/work well for me buddy and any computer I build him.

The REFURBISHED: ASUS "A8V Deluxe" VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset for$75us shipped paired with some cheap-but-good 2x512Mb Firestix, and hopefully about $160 for the CPU.

$165
$75
$160
$37.50
_____
$437.50

I sell the guts of Blue for $300 and toss 'em in the new case, I take out my PC's innards and toss 'em in Blue's case, then I get the A8V, AMD64, & firestix to play with for $137.50.

Yes, no, mebbe so?

Oh, here is my system stats:

BluePhoenix Tuly 1.4Ghz, TUSL2-C, 512MBcas2, ATi AIW 128MB Radeon 9600 Pro, TBSC, DVD, 10/100NIC, 60GB
Bubbles Athlon XP-M 2400+ (12x200), NF7-s rev 2, 1Gb PC3200, 256MB Radeon X800 TT (500/540), Audigy2, Altec-Lansing ADA885, ATi TV-wonder VE, DVDR, 2x10/100NIC, 80GB, 200GB sATA
Blackwell Barton 2500+, K7N2-L, 2x256MB PC3200, FX 5950 Ultra, Fortissimo II, DVD, 10/100NIC, 80GB WD w/8MB cache
Kitty 1Ghz celeron, Asus P3B-F, 512MB, GF4 ti4400, SB-live 5.1, 60GB, TV-card, 10/100 NIC, QuickCam

 

[Guden Oden]

Sounds like a plan, Digi!

MotherP4 Prescott @ 3G, 1GB DDR2 @ 400, GF6800 NV41 @ 430/830 + Zalman V700, WD1600JD 160GB, Deskstar 7k250 160GB, NEC3500A DVDRW, Adaptec FW/USB2, Lucent PCI modem, MS Sidewinder Force 2, Logitech MX510, Logitech Z680 5.1, 2xMadcatz Lumicon, Bluetake Poke2, D-Link DSL300T&DI-604&DES-1005D, APC Back-UPS CS 500 ... + a lot more misc. crap.

Speaking of UPS; these are damn nifty I have to say, and I got a good tip from a friend too a couple weeks ago: take one typical PC 3-prong male-to-female power cable and cut off the FEMALE plug (the one that plugs into the equipment), and screw on a standard wall socket type plug instead. Then plug the MALE 3-prong into the UPS, and connect the wall socket plug to a power strip.

Then take a light bulb socket and mount a power cord with a switch to that (or buy one ready-made like I did - except I had to mount the switch myself) and plug it into the power strip. Voilá, electrical light during power outage. If you get - like I did - a nifty Ikea 4W low-energy bulb to screw into that socket it won't put much of a drain at all on your UPS either! The UPS - even a small one like mine - should be able to run such a tiny bulb for hours on a full charge, and it still gives a surprising amount of light!

Finally, connect router and ADSL/cable modem to the power strip; now you'll have broadband access too during a power outage! Or at least for a few minutes anyway... I timed Mother on a full charge and she only lasts 9 minutes with minimal activity until windows says 1% charge remains in the battery, and that's just with PC ( + all my USB crap) and monitor attached! At full CPU and vidcard burn it's only a few minutes, so no gaming unfortunately; at most one can save and exit and then let it sit in windows for a couple minutes hoping the power will come back before emergency shutdown engages.

 

[digitalwanderer]

It'd be a pure Newegg.com shot and they use FedEx, no UPS involved....just like my systems.

I don't have a lot of "mission critical" stuff, so no UPS saves a huge chunk-o-budget for hardware upgrades.

 

[Guden Oden]

Naturally you'd keep the UPS between PC generations, and having one saves you in addition to pure outages, also from voltage spikes and dips and generally dirty power as the US is infamous for providing through those crappy 110V lines you got over there...

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Whats the new system you going to have for you wife. You have your old case, the mobo,mobile,ram from you own system. You need a hard drive and video card.

 

[digitalwanderer]

My 80Gb, a 6800GT, and one of my TV cards to make up for the lack of the AIW. (I took the TV cards out of the kids PCs when we got them TVs for their rooms )

Should be a nice kick for her system.

BTW-Thanks Snipe, for those who didn't read the other thread he's the one who set me straight on what to get. 8)

 

[Sxotty]

I shall snipe the motherboard before you get a chance MWUHAHAHAH Just joking

HAve fun and g/l I will be waiting till next fall I want to get PCIe based system as well...

 

[digitalwanderer]

I actually toyed around with the idea of picking up a new AGP/PCIe system that Snipe showed me...but I dunno.

It'd be neat to be able to compare AGP & PCIe cards on the same system...

 

[Pete]

Wow, that sounds dangerous, Guden. And it's typically recommended not to plug a power strip into an UPS. You'd get the same effect just plugging a regular desk lamp with, say, a 13W (60W equivalent) fluorescent bulb, and without any haphazard wiring. 13W doesn't sound like much of an extra strain considering a typical PC + CRT is probably drawing 150W min. Plus, you get to use that lamp all the time.

Or you could just, you know, keep a flashlight next to the UPS.

On a side note, 500-700VA UPS are getting crazy cheap over here after rebates. I picked up two 500VA APCs a few months ago for maybe $15AR ea., then a Belkin for $10AR, and the next week I saw a 700VA APC for $10AR (with an extra USB cable and an even smaller rebate than the Belkin--very annoying, as I actually bought a USB cable a few weeks before).

 

[Guden Oden]

Wow, that sounds dangerous, Guden.

Dangerous, why? As long as one knows what one's doing it's not dangerous at all.

And it's typically recommended not to plug a power strip into an UPS.

As with almost everything, it requires knowing what one's doing. Naturally, it's not good to plug in a powerstrip to a cheap home PC UPS and then hook up the vacuum, dishwasher, fridge and the entire home entertainment system to it. A couple minor peripherals tho won't hurt - besides, any UPS worth its salt will have overload protection so the worst thing that'll happen is the autofuse triggers.

You'd get the same effect just plugging a regular desk lamp with, say, a 13W (60W equivalent) fluorescent bulb, and without any haphazard wiring.

Desk lamps take up desk space; my design does not. Besides, 13W is 3x higher power draw than 4W. And as for haphazard wiring, no. I did a very neat job if I may say so myself.

Or you could just, you know, keep a flashlight next to the UPS.

And need to remember to keep it fed with batteries, no thanks. This little project's intended to get away from all that crap. Besides, flashlights are no damn good for general lighting, they send light in a narrow beam and needs to be held in one hand. That's not always practical.

 

[pcchen]

And it's typically recommended not to plug a power strip into an UPS.

As with almost everything, it requires knowing what one's doing. Naturally, it's not good to plug in a powerstrip to a cheap home PC UPS and then hook up the vacuum, dishwasher, fridge and the entire home entertainment system to it. A couple minor peripherals tho won't hurt - besides, any UPS worth its salt will have overload protection so the worst thing that'll happen is the autofuse triggers.

It's also recommended to not plug a surge protector (or a power strip with surge protection) into an UPS, or plug an UPS into a surge protector. It may cause power distribution problems.

 

[Guden Oden]

No such warnings for my UPS tho. Guess it doesn't suffer from that particular issue.