In fact - I have a decent $30 sound card (which I could have gotten for $10) and a three piece set of speakers from Cambridge sound works (‘low-end’ affiliate of Bose I think ) after rebate was $50. Nice sound! On the internet are recordings called MP3 and XM’s - these are awesome algorithms that compress music. I like techno and just downloaded 33 songs from Sweden. (all legal!) Then got WinAMP which is $10 shareware - which I swear, I’ll send in the money - this program I will keep and use....
When you customize your computer - you can make it as versatile as you want.
A case to house the ‘stuff in’:
the case comes with a power supply and places to put the stuff.
(oh, make sure the power supply comes with the case or you may need to
buy one separate.) Depending on what you want in a case and expandable,
ease of use and the type of Motherboard you buy -dictates price. The power
supply, well you don’t need a brand name power supply - just one big enough
to power all the guts - average one is 200-250 watts. I paid for
my IN-WIN case with 235Watt Power supply about $75 with shipping - the
construction is durable and easy to take things in and out - and I can
stand on it!
I wanted a big case but settled for a midtower..having a full tower
does have it’s advantages. There are two types of cases - AT and ATX and
their off-chutes, this is based on the motherboard designs - which leads
to....
Motherboard - a.k.a. Main board
This is where it’s at for the computer. I went to the AMD (the chip maker) site and picked one that was recommended by them. There are two main styles - the old AT and the new ATX - go for the ATX - more features less ribbons and many things are built-in on the board. ASUS P5A board was what I was looking for. I also wanted a fair amount of open slots. It’s got a cool feature that monitors the motherboard for temperature and voltage faults and will start to turn parts of the computer if something is wrong. The board can take a chip up to a theoretical 600Mhz!, but I think 500Mhz will be the last speed built for the board...that’s OK - the 333Mhz chip is doing just fine. which leads to....
The CPU chip -
unless you break it open the chip is in cased in ceramic material with lots of pins (over 300!) sticking out of it. The style that’s been around for a while now is Socket 7 - there are other styles - like sockets 1-6 and 8 and for Intel - slot 1 and 2. So, AMD and cyrix build Socket 7 chips. I bought the fastest AMD I reasonably could afford - the K6-2 3DNow - 333Mhz for $99. When the 450 (500Mhz if they make it) chip drops from $350 down to $70 - I’ll buy that one - or the fastest one that the motherboard supports (which is 600Mhz) I want to buy one sooner than later - When they stop making the chip - then it gets really $$ when the supply is gone. RAM is the same way so...which leads to...
RAM
I bought one stick of 168 pin 8ns PC100 ram for $87 plus $13 for shipping - not bad and I have two (of 3) slots left to put more memory in. This is based on the motherboard - this is the fastest RAM you can buy. It also needs to be fast to keep up with the CPU chip force feeding the RAM with instructions to hold on to. Some motherboards will let you use the older 72 pin style - don’t .
Hard drive -
Any high quality Hard drive will do - size and seek time are important. Keeping the hard drive defraged helps a lot. I have a 8 Gigabytes - 8,000 Megabytes. Although I haven’t loaded it up - I have only used 1.3 Gigs up. If I ever need more room - I can put a second hard drive in - transfer over the documents and other non essential and continue running the computer
SOUND!!!!
ANY reasonable 16 (or go for faster)bit sound card will do - many motherboard have built-in sound - be careful, find out if you can really disable the built-in sound to install a sound card in a slot. This is usually a no-brainer item Sometimes you can buy a multimedia kit - which comes with a ...
CD-ROM drive.
In theory a computer can only understand up to about 12x - but the race
goes on to build a faster CD-ROM drive - so 32-40 is the ‘norm’ it
doesn’t hurt to get too fast a drive - it slows down to the right speed
to read items - some older music CD’s do have an issue with the speed.
You can also buy a CD ‘burner’ to make your own CD’s - but really
you should consider getting additional hardware to make it run, but let’s
just stick with a CD-ROM unit - if you do burn CD’s - you’ll need two CD
units anyway. A unit ranges about $50 - some less than $21 - make sure
it’s ATAPI (sp?) compliant - most are. You gotta hear it so...
Speakers
your choice - can get $6 pair and up - I like my $50 set - two tiny cubes and a subwoofer at my feet - sounds better than my stereo and I play CD’s while a work on other items in the computer. Sometimes if I am really using the system - the CD player will stop (the CD is looking for things other than a stream of music) - but I can restart the song. My other computer (Mac) it hs a tiny speaker built-in but for big sound, I use my worn out boom box - set for aux/external CD setting - works just fine and saves some $$.
Diskette drive -
You still need to have this baby even though Macs now come without one - they are about $20 for a unit - or what I have is one that can read floppies and the LS-120 Super disk (holds) 120Megabytes - which is the equivalent of a Zip drive - but guess who had the bigger budget? The LS-120’s are around $99 and disks are $15 each. Floppies are too small - you could also and/or get a zip drive, but that’s a different story)
Keyboard/mouse -
spend as much or as little as you want. The big difference is quality , durability and personal choice. I think a spiffy keyboard and track ball (but that both won’t fit in the rear of the computer - the adapters they came with are too phat!) is the best combo. You may prefer a mouse and a egronomic keyboard, or a keyboard that "clicks" when pressed - so $8 each and up...
Modem
Quality will get you everywhere - if that doesn’t matter - then price
is key - I spent $50 for a 56K . Don't expect even 33K speed
from a 56K modem unless you live in a place that has excellent phone lines.
If you're going to surf alot (and the service is available) look into a
cable modem, DSL or ISDN line.
Video card
- a $20-30 card will get you by nicely. It’ll have 2-4 MB
of memory on the card - which’ll supply a bunch of colors on a 17” screen
- but more will do nicely - getting at 4 MB card for the AGP port of the
ATX motherboard is KEY! - from $15 to $150 - if you want feature rich -
this (and anything) is an upgradable item. If you're a gamer - go
for the mega-memory card - 16-32 Megs alone for the card!
Fans for the case/board
keep that air flowin! The ATX power supply has a good fan, you’ll need a few more - the Computer chip -, the case will often allow at least one more - some multiple ones. I have one in the case front and come warm weather - I’ll need to put the cover on the case to let the airflow properly. The hard drive and fans make the most noise of the computer, it’s a trade-off. CPU/heatsink fan is $8 and case fans are $2-8 each.
Monitor
well - that’s up to you - anything smaller than 17 won’t do justice, but if space on the desk is a premium, then 14 might have to do. Flat panels are too $$ and can be fuzzy to look at for a long time. You can get a 17” from KDS - for around $250. Sony trinitrons are the best if you plan on staring at it for hours on end.
Printer -
up to you how much $$ you want to spend. Even the most basic is
good quality. The paper you use for what you need to do, is key.
Copy paper works, but ink can spread out a tiny bit - usually not
noticeable unless you use it for pictures. Some low-end laser printers
are now around $400
Operating system
Legal copies are $129 but you can get it for less from shows - make sure it’s an OEM copy - the upgrades are just that - upgrades and you can’t install it without a previous copy of some sort of Microsoft product. Even though Win98 has been hounded by some folks - it’s because the computer isn’t fast enough to handle the bloated OS -mine is fast and works really well.
Other software -
Norton Utilities is key - about $99
Office97 - you can pick this up for $250-$350
Netscape and Internet Explorer - what one can't do - the other can
and vice versa.
Stuff you don’t need now but ought to get when on sale -
scanner - prices drop like rocks - I have seen a decent one for
$30!! Companies like to keep their really good models in the $100-125
range
That’s it -
gather the parts and a screwdriver - If you bought the components in their original boxes, the extra screws and cables will come with it. You’ll have some cables left over. Consult all the websites that you bought components from to see the latest inf. on installing, drivers etc.Follow the motherboard book to a T - use a friends computer and download the latest drivers (since they are ALWAYS) out of date for the various items you have in your computer. Install the essentials (no sound in this case) double and triple check the jumper settings on the motherboard and start it up! - Load the OS - make sure it works just fine - run it for a day. Then add the other features - sound, etc. restarting it every time until you’re done - than let it run for a few more days - restarting the machine every so often. After a few bug free days - congrats!