Building my first PC for a bit of scum.

[JPR]

Here is a lovely story:
I live in England, and am at 6th Form College (age 16 right now) and because I am poor, get £30 ($53.82) a week for showing up to school. So by christmas I'll have over £200 ($358.82), which I will be setting aside to build a computer with. Its a very low budget. and is important that I build a good PC because, basically, my parents are retarded and the last computers we've got have been bought at PC World (very shite rip-off shop) for wasteful amounts of money and poor performance- they don't listen to my when I tell them to shop around, and I can't be too forceful because they are the ones that pay for the PCs. This is the only way I can tell them to stop being such dumb fuckers.

I'm also interested in building a PC totally independent of my parents- I can be free to mess with things like Linux which would be ultimately cool.

I figure some of you may have been in similar situations, and wondering what you did.

Stuff I want from the PC:
>Do college work.
>Internet through dial-up.
>Live a long time- I'm not going to buy a second hand hard drive that dies in 6 months time.
>A small desktop PC (Micro or Flex ATX, Mini-ITX) on top of my desk would be so much better than a tower under my desk. -- BTX cases are cancelled forever, right?

Stuff I don't need:
>Decent graphics.
>Another DVD player for my room.

I am seriously tempted to build a Mini-ITX- super quiet or even fanless for nights I stay in and am up late. Also would be an interesting build.

The PC I use right now is a laptop, 2.6 CPU, 256 RAM and don't want to make a £200 copy of this from sub-standard parts in a regular case, thats why I am looking at small form factors. Although am tempted at the new AMD Sempron technology, but speed is unnecessary to be honest, just I know this tech. will last a long time.

[AChimp]

I suggest you purchase an XT. The parts are really cheap right now.

[MetalMilitia]

One of my friends uses one of these -> Clicky
And he swears by it. If you are looking to save money one of these would be a good option as they come with pretty much everything you need onboard i.e. high quality onboard audio, onboard graphics (GF4 MX400 performance), onboard lan.. the list goes on.

Only problem is i guess that only leaves you with about 60 for processor, hard drive, RAM and cd rom.

btw, will you be needing a monitor? because that will be around £100 for a decent one.

ALso here are a coupel of sites you will probably want to look on as they are the best for PC stuff in the UK imo.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/home/

http://www.aria.co.uk/

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/k.asp

[AChimp]

An XT is cheap. You would have money left over.

[executioneer]

chimp i think he should go ALL THE WAY and buy a ti99-4/A and an expansion module

[JPR]

So seriously- I'm going to build myself a PC around a Sempron Upgrade Kit, which is a little pricey though:

AMD Sempron 2200+ 1.5 GHz Socket A 333MHz, 256KB cache, OEM

Abit NF7-M Mainboard for Socket A, LAN nForce2IGP/MCP/, ATX, VGA, USB2.0
Looks lovely, seems like it includes manual too, and is a very easy to use board from what I've done.

DDR-DIMM PC3200 256MB DDR CL2.5 Memory 184-P (for DDR-PC400MHz)
Maybe get extra second hand?

Cooler Master CPU-Fan Socket A/7/FCPG
A fan, how lovely.

Seagate 40GB IDE HDD
Reliability is important, so a brand like this is ideal.

Can get a CD-ROM drive for £7
A drive that can do stuff. Will prolly get a second drive if I spot a good deal, or instead. Dunno, don't want to splash out, but if I find a good DVD deal, will purchase at extra cost.

Case that can be easily opened up etc. with minimal fuss.
Don't want to waste money here.

Job done. Comes to around £200 ($358.82). Safe as fuck.

[MetalMilitia]

looks good but a couple of things..

- 256mb of memory is not really enough these days, go for 512 if you can even if it means getting slightly slower stuff.

- 40gigs is not really alot once you start filling it up with mp3s and shit . I would go for 60gigs at least.

- Those cheap coolermaster fans are pretty loud, you might want to get a new, slightly higher quality/larger fan, to use with the heatsink.

[Raize]

If you want a good computer, go with more RAM. I would suggest at least 512 if it's a Windows workstation. 256 should be good for Linux, but you'll appreciate the 512 if you are dualbooting. I also wouldn't worry much about the hard drive space as you're not going to be gaming on it. (you said video card wasn't an issue)

[AChimp]

You are too hardcore, Willie. No human being needs the kind of speed that a TI99-4/A can provide.

[JPR]

Linux is going to be number one, once I pick a distribution. I don't plan to dual boot, at least not right away anyhow. Although it is a possibility because the people at PC World were at least nice enough to provide me with OEM copies of Word 02 and XP.

I don't plan to game, at least not with modern stuff (I do spend a lot of hours on www.the-underdogs.org though).

I am seeing the upgrade kit as a good starting point, but as I won't be buying for another couple of months my options of motherboards that support Sempron should be wider by then, and everything a lot nicer.

A loud fan would be a problem, so I may have to look into that, depends how quiet I can get a full size PC to work.

I still have the thought of building a fanless PC in the back of my head, but am not sure if I can live with only 533mhz (or 800mhz with a lil' fan).

Cheers, gang.