Want to build a computer for eBay home business use
Hi Everyone, new here, met Leonardo and thought I'd introduce myself. I will probably lurk here to listen , I'm not that experienced with computer technology but I like to learn something new.
I'm buidling a pc that is just for work on ebay, because the one I have is just a little too slow.
It looks like you know more than me so maybe I'll find out something before it's too late . I'm not a gamer. My homebuilt is a modest P4 , socket 478, 1 gig ram, 160 gig drive, wireless net card, like I say, nothing fancy. The last thing to add will be a vga card,a 128 will do.
I'm buidling a pc that is just for work on ebay, because the one I have is just a little too slow.
It looks like you know more than me so maybe I'll find out something before it's too late . I'm not a gamer. My homebuilt is a modest P4 , socket 478, 1 gig ram, 160 gig drive, wireless net card, like I say, nothing fancy. The last thing to add will be a vga card,a 128 will do.
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A hearty welcome to you here at Icrontic. I have moved your thread to the general hardware forum. I understand you are fairly new to forums navigation, so this just serves as a small boost for you.
May seem like overkill, but keep this in mind. 1st 500gb external drive will probably only run you about $150. Setting up this kind of backup is relatively easy to do and once you've got it setup you forget about it. 3rd if this is for a business the cost of loosing data will likely be more then $150 in frustration.
I also suggest external over internal because if something goes wrong with your computer, say PSU shorts out or whatever. Your external drive will be safe. Shorted PSU's can fry internal Harddrives, doesn't happen often but it does happen and if you are using a drive strictly for backups then you want it to be as safe as possible.
Also with an external USB drive you can take that drive and plug it into any machine without having to worry about compatibility or well anything so your data will be more easily accessible should that unfortunate need occur.
One last thing. Use it only as a backup drive. Resit any temptation to use it as extra storage, that defeats it's purpose and intent.
Your advice reaffirms what I have been told.
Hard drives or PSU's do fail-ask me. The shop misdiagnosed( I was told by the shop the hd was fried) then cost me $1, 800 to have the data recovered.
Then last summer, I discovered the power supply in this old PC did'nt have any voltage output, so I replaced it, connected everything and to my amazement my old desktop from 2005 appeared. Seeing your old desktop after 2 years is almost like finding a toy you had when you were a kid. The drive is OK- it was the PSU. I am so busy I never have been able to get the time to go there and tell them. Not that I think they would refund my money. The warranty is probably run out. I am going to tell them someday though. My hd never needed to go to the lab.
So, since then, I have figured out how to run diagnostics and that has been keeping me from taking it to the shop for $65.00 hour.
My new board is a Biostar P4 , the 160 gb had a Hitachi HDS721616PLAT80 7200 rpm, 8 mb , new in the sealed package.P4 2.GHz, 1 GHz DDR Ram,350 watt Toshiba PSU
Wait- I was wrong- it's a 350 watt. I was going to use the PSU in my current PC, but I just took off the side panel and it's a 350.
I'll use it for now and get a 450 this week as also needed is more RAM. The pc I use now has 1 gig of ddr, but alas, it's 4 sticks. My P-4 has only 2 slots.
Thanks for the welcome dogdragon and kryyst.
I have been too tired at night to get much done, but I am almost ready to plug it in.
I'm slipstreaming a copy of XP with Sp3.
My old computer, a Biostar Socket A also has no sound. The old one shows no driver in the hardware devices list.
the new one ( P4 Biostar Socket 478) has sound drivers but nothing coming out the front. I'll try going out the back and unplugging the front. This case has 2 USB infront , mic and speaker, but nothing happens when plugged in, same as with printer.
One the AMD board, the printer self -tests whenever the printer cable is unplugged or the computer boots. Nothing happens when I plug into the P4 . I was also freezing when I tried to paly music on u-tube to see if I had sound.
I had to hit the reset and reboot to get out of there.
Memory is PC 3200 400 Mhz, it is he old memory . Is freezing a sign of memory defect? Should i run a memory testing utitlity?
- software -- driver conflicts or wrong drivers (or just horribly sloppy software of some type)
- hardware -- could be CPU (processor) overheating or video card GPU (graphics chip) overheating
Could be other causes as well, but the above is what sprang to mind.
Ok,I just ran Memtest86 and on the 6th test nearly 7 minutes into the test, it stopped, and then this:
Unexpected Interrupt-Halting
Above right where it says errors, there is a number 3.
Three errors.
Then the last bottom third has several rows of data.
Of course, I don't understand it, so what does this mean?
Bad memory? The memory installed is used from my old PC, it's PC 3200 400 mhz.
Before I ran the test the freezing became more persistent , til finally, just before I ran the test, and after I booted to my desktop, it froze as I tried to access the net.
I'm going to remove one Dimm module and run the test again to see if I can isolate which module is bad, if indeed that's the culprit.
Well, On pass 3 Dimm #2 test, it halted and says there are 1983 errors. That will pretty much sum it up, no?
I got on the net on Dimm #1, no freezing.
Now to conlcude my test of Dimm #2 by booting up and getting on the net.
It looks like I have one bad stick. The brand is AMPO.
I read that it's cheapo, but I paid $31.00 each for them at a local computer store.
Of course, I'm not sold on this brand anymore, recommendations?
No the other problems, no printer, could the bad memory have something to do with it? I'm going to try to get a response from the printer with the bad ram out.