The PC building blues

[MaterDei]

Aargh, why do things that should be so simple wind up being so hard?

The PC I built three years ago bit the dust so I went to Frys and bought a new CPU/motherboard combo.  It was high time for an upgrade anyway.  They had a good deal on a Pentium 4 506 CPU with Gigabyte mobo for $159.  Now that's a cheap upgrade.  $159 + a few hours build and installing and I've basically got a PC twice as fast as the one that died.

I couldn't sleep last night.  I got out of bed at 2:30 to start my project.  I opened the mobo box to find that the antistatic bag that the mobo was in had  been ripped open already.  I thought that I bought a new mobo.  Upon further inspection I see a sticker on the box that says 'return to vendor' reason: dead!

Great.  I decided that rather than spend the time to find out whether it was really dead that I'd play it safe and take it back and exchange it.  I did that today, no big deal I guess, just another wasted hour or so.

So...after dinner tonight I decided to sit down to work on the new mobo.  I get the CPU and RAM installed and install the board in my case.  So far, so good.  Next step is the video card.  I already have a very serviceable FX 5900xt that I want to use.  Wait a minute...what's this?  No AGP slot?  PCI Express!?!

Aargh!!!!!!!!!

So, what do I do?  Should I start over and return the mobo for one with an AGP slot or bite the bullet and purchase a PCI express card?  

Anybody got one?

[jefnvk]

I do believe you are going to have a hard time finding a mobo that both supports that chip and has AGP.

[Sindawe]

I'd bit the bullet and get a new graphics card.

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

I've found that about 30% of all hardware I buy at Fry's I return because of defect.

Regards,
Rabbit.

[matis]

MasterDei,

I don't know about Intel CPUs, haven't built one in ten years or more.

But I just built 3 machines with AMD Athlon 64s.  Used Asus motherboards: A8V Deluxe.

This gives me 64 bit capability and the mobos are socket 939, not 754.  And THEY HAVE AN AGP SLOT (but no ide express slot)!

Paid $139 for the cpu and $47.88 for the mobo, free shipping in each case.  The CPUs were new retail box, which means the cpu fan/heatsink is included.  Cheaper than buying oem and then paying for fans plus shipping.

the mobos were "refurbished" with 90 day warranty.  They were easy to build and work perfectly.  Only problem with refurb mobos is that they come in a white box and bare.  I had extra ide & floppy data cables, so no problem.  Drivers and manual came from Asus website.

So I was able to avoid buying ide express video cards, which are still new and expensive.  Just used my old AGP cards and other innards.


You might want to consider going this route.


Try: Newegg.com or Mwave.com or zipzoomfly.com.

If you try pricegrabber.com or some other shoppping bot, you'll find many names of cpu/mobo suppliers as well as any other techie stuff (cameras, ipods, etc.) you're interested in.

These suppliers ship super fast, especially Newegg, and many items ship free.

Hope this is of use.


matis

[cfabe]

I also just built an athlon 64 system, and had the same problem with no AGP slots. I didn't even think to ask, I've been out of the hardware market since I stopped gaming a few years back. Mine had built in video which I'm using for now (god awful slow for 3dMark, but excel doesn't care). I am running WindowsXP 64-bit version, and I have had some problems finding drivers for my hardware. My TV card in particular. The only way to get it to work is to re-install 32-bit windows.

[MaterDei]

Hope this is of use.

matis

It is, thanks.