I'm getting a new computer, since my old one practically needs pedal power to keep it humming along. This is what they're suggesting: PCC Celeron 533 Workstation Radiation Shielded Micro ATX Tower Case INTEL D815EEA PCI/AGP Celeron/Pentium III Motherboard Samtron 17E 17" Digital Colour Monitor 64MB 168pin S-DRAM DIMM INTEL Celeron 533MHz CPU PPGA Quantum Fireball 153GB IDE LCT15 HDD Sony 1.44MB FDD Sony 48X CD-ROM Drive Creative Labs* SoundBlaster* Audio PCI 128 V* Onboard 60W Powered Speakers Intel 3D Graphics 810 chipset AGP Video Card Onboard E/IDE HDD FDD controller PCI 1 x UART 16550 serial, 1 x enhanced parallel, 2 x USB Chicony QWERTY Keyboard PS/2 Microsoft PS/2 Mouse MS Windows 98SE OEM Preloaded D-LINK 56K V.90 Internal Modem Norton’s Anti Virus If anyone knows anything about all the goobly-gook, can you tell me if that sounds OK?

153 gig hard drive? are they sure????? I mean damn, i have a 30 gig, and that as the biggest one they had. Quantum fireball is not a bad hd, though. Depends on what they are asking for it. Nice sound card and nice video card, however I really fear motherboards that have onboard video and sound, because it they go out..... You will need more that 64 megs of ram.

BTW, I am A+ certified, and an MCSE, for what ever that is worth to you, so I am not just talking out of my ass this time

Also Cat, if you can afford it, and if you do serious gaming or power computing, you might want to stay away from Intel's Celeron and look for a full-blown Pentium III. Intel used to call the Celeron "Deceleron" as in decelerate, but I guess they thought twice about that name. Celeron is their lower end CPU, aimed at home users who are just going to surf the web and maybe do a spreadsheet or a word-processing doc once in awhile. If that's all you're going to do, it will work out nicely for you, but the 533Mhz clock speed is already old, and the Celeron takes it even further away from the cutting edge.

And Trace is right, the 153GB harddrive is more likely a 15.3GB harddrive.

Yes, I have to agree, stay away from the Celeron, you would be buying a slot 1 motherboard, so go for the PIII, even if you are not gaming. Try at least 600 MHZ.

Since it doesn't sound like she's going to be building a PC from scratch, she's not going to have to worry about whether it's a slot 1 2 M or 7. Fucking Intel.

No, I just meant it would make the upgrade easy.

fuck computers. buy a box of dildos instead. unlimited ram.

My advice: (1) If you are friends with a geek, buy the major parts from ebay and have the geek assemble it and install the OS of your choice, pirated or not (or in the case of free OS's such as Be or linux, it doesn't matter). Make sure you have a long-term geek to substitute for tech support. Even if you only sorta know a geek, offering him $100 to assemble the computer (a two hour job at most) will still save you money. (2) If not, Circuit City/Best Buy/insight.com are a lot cheaper than Gateway/Dell. (3) Get an AMD. Fuck intel and their high-ass prices. (4) You don't need that much CPU speed. I'm guessing you're not a gamer, or doing anything else that requires more than a 200. Anything beyond that is just bragging power. Not that there's anything wrong w/ bragging power, just don't break the bank to get it. (5) More ram. 128, 192, 256 M, whatever you want, it will make the system run faster than an equally-priced processor upgrade. Approx. $60/64M. (6) Don't get anything with a rebate. The time spent getting the rebate will negate any money you receive back from the company. If you choose to ignore this, at least read up on who keeps their promises. Western Digital took a year to honor their rebate, PNY flat-out ripped me off. Keep photocopies of everything you send to the company. (7) If you're going for an easy but stable OS, try NT. After that, 95, and then 98SE. I'm going on my 4th reinstall of the year with the latter, which I keep for its compatibility with certain programs. And even then, I'm considering learning to code and writing similar programs in java or whatnot so I can play around with different OS's. But don't feel limited to MS, just about every OS has some sort of windows-based (not Windows-based, mind you) GUI, and easy-to-use e-mail, browsing, and word-processing programs. (8) DVD (9) CD Writer. Don't let anyone talk you into fucking-huge-storage drives (zip, jaz, orb), if you're like most people, you're going to back up your system maybe once a year. This lets you make your CDs. (10) footmouse (11) Make sure to test the radiation shield. Disassemble your microwave and aim it at the computer. (12) Skip the modem. DSL is $40 a month, some company in town should be offering free installation, and there are even a few that offer DSL in exchange for an ad banner on your computer.

Tired's right about AMD. If you can find a machine with an AMD processor, get it as opposed to an Intel Pentium. But a single 200Mhz cpu trying to run NT wkstn? I don't think so unless you like watching the gears grind. Yes, you can always always use more RAM, but with Win95, it's diminishing returns after 96MB, and, RAM does not "make the system run faster than an equally-priced processor upgrade." It keeps program pages in memory as opposed to swapping them out to disk (memory's much faster than disk access.) But it don't make it go faster. Get the fastest processor you can afford, even if it is bragging rights for now: in 2 years, when Microsoft comes out with their latest and greatest new code-bloat app, you'll be happy you have it.

skip NT for the OS, unless you get only name brand parts, the compatibility for nt sucks. The only use for nt ($150 a liscenced copy) is an office environment. 95% of sound cards or not nt compatible, and most over the counter modems are not either. Go for 95B or Win 98se. NT 4.0 will not run USB ports. Neither will 95A, only 95B and after have USB support. And yes, building your own pc is the best way to go, I built my own first 4. AMD motherboards are great. I was just answering your initial question about whether the pc you mentioned sounded ok. For around $900-$1200 (17" monitors and quantum fireball hd and intel motherboards are not cheap, why they threw a celeron processor into the mix, i dunno). I could not live without my CD-R. I thought I wanted a zip drive, because I mean really what the hell do you expect to keep on a 3 1/2 floppy? Pics maybe and that is about it. CLOCK SPEEK (200MHZ vs 600Mhz) IS NOT BRAGGING RIGHTS. Most new software today requires minimum 250 MHZ system. Clock speed is your processor. How fast/slow do you want your pc to process data? If you just got a 250, you might as well go for a PII, 233 MHZ or a Pentium Pro Processor. Why waste the money on a PIII? Here is a good estimate on what a used re-built system should cost: Microsoft Ergonomic or Internet Keyboard Midtower ATX case 2000 Intel Pentium II 533MHz Celeron CPU 512k cache PCI/AGP Motherboard 64mb PC100 SyncDRAM built in PCI Super I/O HDD FDD Controller 2 Serial Ports, Printer Port, Joystick Port, 2 USB Ports, PS2 Mouse Port 3.5" 1.44mb Floppy Drive 20 Gig Ultra DMA Hard Drive 50 Speed CD-ROM CD Quality Sound System Amplified Stereo Speakers 56k v90 Modem PC100 8mb AGP SiS 530 3D Video Accelerator 19" Techtronics SVGA Color Monitor Mouse & Pad Windows 98 2nd Edition CD, License & Book Internet Explorer 5, Outlook Express ___$1100___ Self build, all new parts: PS/2 Internet Keyboard--$29 SuperCase Midtower ATX Case with 230 watt power supply--$39 ATX Pentium II/III Slot 1 Socket 370 ATX Motherboard, 233-800MHz AGPx2, PCI, PC100, 66 to 133MHz bus built in UDMA66, Super I/O, with or without 3D Video and sound your choice--$89 Pentium III 550 MMX 100Mhz Bus 512k cache Slot 1 Intel CPU--$155 64MB SDRAM 8ns PC100 168 Pin Simms--$78 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive--$15 20.5 GB Western Dig 5400RPM IDE Hard Drive--$125 Creative Sound Blaster Live! Sound Card --$72 50xCDROM--$50 Pair of AirWave 221 Amplified Speakers--$29 OEM Mitsumi 4x4x24 ReWritable CDROM Drive--$160 4MB 3D Sis 6324 64 AGP SVGA (16.7 Million Colors)--$49 17" Relysis SVGA Color monitor .28DP --$229 PCI 56k flex v.90 High Speed Voice/Fax/Modem --$39 Microsoft Windows 98 OEM CD, License and Book--$98 or Microsoft Windows Me OEM CD, License and Book--$139 Total: $1256 w/ 98 or $1297 w/ ME

i used AMD for a while, when i worked for the hardware distirubtor i had a machine built for me, with a AMD5x75 whic clocked well over an intel 100. AMD was always the techies choice over intel, simply for price and performance. some peeps liked overclocking the AMDs as well. anyway

Blessings on ya'll. May your hard drives never run dry and your cursors always flash. Of course I don't understand a word of it, but I'm printing out all your comments and taking them to a geek I know for translation.

OK, the system does not actually "go" faster with gobs of ram, but most of the time a normal person spends waiting for the computer is not pure computing time. What do you wait for? My waiting time mostly consists of the boot sequence (nothing can really be done about this one short of a different OS), starting programs (things being moved into RAM from the hard drive), and loading files into these programs (ditto). After that, during the actual "go" period, everything responds faster than my reflexes, which is really as fast as anyone needs. The thing is, my system, in which I previously ran my 450 chip at 450, had been running at 150 for the past few months since an accidental BIOS modification. Everything worked fine, from win98 (if you can call what win98 normally does as "working fine") to photoshop to cool edit to winamp to netscape6 alpha (ditto the win98 comment). I never would have even noticed were it not for the skips in my real-time synthesizer program. So what do you mean by "Most new software today requires 250 MHZ"? Are you rocking the house with groovy techno or factoring points on elliptic curves or rendering 3D landscapes or compiling reams of code? As mentioned before, intel creates the demand for its CPUs, so whenever anything asks for an ultrafast chip, first check if that isn't complete bullshit by running it anyways, and if it actually does require more CPU speed, look around for alternatives. If there is no reasonable alternative (which may well be the case, if all the alternatives are in DOS and list BBS numbers in the help files) and an upgrade is in order, you'll lose about $30 on a 200 chip (or $100 if you start out with a 450, which is already 80% as fast as what you listed.) Then again, if the slower chip keeps you going for even a few months, you may recoup those losses through falling prices of mid-range chips. Just one caveat: if you do start out with a slow processor, make sure your motherboard can handle an upgrade.

Okay. Garg on all of you. y'all may be excellent geeks, but your lousy fuckin' counselors. CAT: What do you want to do with this computer? How much are you comfortable spending? What peripherals (printer? scanner? external CD-R/W? ZIP/JAZ/ORB drive?) do you have / do you want? The build for a "good" computer can vary lots between a "good" graphic arts machine and a "good" "do huge heavy math" machine. random notes: if you're intent on buying premade, get Dell. Best tech support, usually totally upgradable. AMD motherboard / chip combo are the fastest things out there, to the best of my knowledge. HDD: Quantam? Western Digital and Seagate are the best two manufacturers, as far as reliability goes. built in cards bad. not upgradable, not fixable.

amd - go for it. amd rules. tyan or abit mobos quantum or ibm deskstar agp or pci voodoo or riva graphics card. the difference is negligable but if you have an agp slot you may as well use it. 16megs minimum. 128 megs ram. (with a memory manager like memturbo) any creative labs card with 4 or more megs ram. get a big ass monitor. 19 or 21 inches. you won't regret it. optical wheel mouse. definitely get a cd burner. 4x or greater. 2meg buffer minimum. stick with major brands but try to stay about 6 months to a year behind bleeding edge technology unless you're filthy rich. (in which case, i need to borrow a couple thousand bucks. american.) try windows me. there are "issues" but they will be worked out soon enough. learn how to use newsgroups to get any software you would ever need. go broadband. (we talked about this briefly) good luck. email if you have any questions. mwa.

get a pink one.

Just for the record, I despise Dell.

According to my geek mate, you all know your shit. Except he doesn't think pink (but he's kinda boring). One last question...what do you think of the AMD K6II 500 processor?

i have that. it's perfectly adequate. get a motherboard with a 2 meg L2 cache and you're good to go. you should be able to pick up the processor and mobo for 150 bucks american. unless you're playing cpu-intensive games or rendering graphics for business, 500 mhz will satisfy. especially if you're upgrading from a 133 or something. is this guy your date?

Nope. I went out on a few dates with him a few months ago, but he's way too into getting married and settling down for me. We decided it would be better if he just gave me tech advice and I cooked him dinner occasionally.

poor guy. he wants your ass and you keep leading him on. what a sucker. give it up for fuck's sake. dude, if you're reading this, don't give up the wisdom unless she gives up the booty. tit for tat, so to speak. where's the tat?!

tip: if someone gives you a free hard drive, have it erased first. an ex-boyfriend aquired one, loaded lots of playthings onto it, and gave it to me to install. didn't work. at all. after one week, so i'd put all sorts of stuff i needed on it, which were no longer on the old hard drive. :sigh: at least it was free.

WANNA SEE MY HARD DRIVE?

There's no way I'm letting geek boy see this page. I'm already outnumbered by all you uber geeks as it is. But if he saw dave.'s suggestion, he'd tell you that my seafood lasagna is better than ass any day. I think I'm getting that AMD thingy now unless anybody has any major objections. I would post you all some seafood lasagna, but it probably wouldn't be too tasty after 7,000 miles. Ta again for all the advice. Ewes all rock!

I like ewes. When I can't find lasagna or ass. You could just hook us up with a recipe for lasagna, in return for a (sorta) recipe for a computer? speaking of hard drives: anybody want one? I just ripped apart my old 486 'cause I needed the CD-drive for my latest experiment in geekdom, but I pulled everything out. up for grabs: one 540 Mb (don't laugh) HDD one 28.8 modem (maybe 36, actually) Sound blaster 16 don't suppose anybody wants a plain ol' VGA card? erm... well, you can always have the motherboard, if'n ya want it. 486 chip on a 133 board. ah, the good old days.

just a correction to the previous post. . . Wow prices have dropped - $103 now gets you www1.amd.com/products/cpg/result/1,1265,1188,00.html a 650MHz Duron, link removed because of the commas in the URL, and that's straight from AMD, so you don't need to worry about overclocking. Lemme explain that last bit. There's a difference between improving hard drives and improving chips. When intel announces a new chip that can go at 1.13 GHz, they mean that it can probably go at 1.13 GHz without overheating. You might be able to make a chip go faster than its stated speed, but it is more likely to overheat. In fact, in some cases, chip speed is determined _after_ the chip is manufactured. Whereas there's no way to fool a computer into thinking it has more hard drive space than it does. Well, there might be a way, but you'll know when it fills up before it's supposed to. So for years, you have people making their systems go faster (overclocking). Some of these people do it for fun, and install better fans to avoid overheating. Some of them do it for profit, and remark the chips, copy the packaging of a faster chip, and sell at computer shows or over ebay. The end user experiences a few more crashes than usual during CPU-intensive processes, but since few people run temperature-monitoring programs, they usually won't figure out the actual cause. Because of this phenomenon, chip manufacturers are instituting protections against overclocking, such as inscribing the chip speed instead of painting it onto the chip, and making it physically impossible to make the chip go faster. So with later-model chips (such as the duron), you can buy over ebay and be relatively safe, but with earlier chips, you could get ripped off. So consider this a retraction of my earlier advice; get a duron. Yes, I did just read about this on slashdot; I knew about overclocking before, but I hadn't realized its potential for fraud.

Morlock...just thought about it...send it all to me! email me first...

The AMD should be fine, but it does depend on what you want to do with it

i got an abit "mobo" abit rocks

Pink often doubles the processor's speed.

I haven't been able to make shit from shineola about any of this.Pink? Abit? AMD? God is there a book about computers for morons?

Yes. It's called: "So, you're an Apple owner" *ducks*

I'm guessing abit is a manufacturer, of motherboard if not of anything else. AMD manufactures CPUs, amd.com. Pink is between red and white.