# Building a PC



## Viro (Jun 28, 2008)

Boo, hiss, boo, death to the infidel!

Now that we got that over with, I'm thinking of building a cheap PC box to run Linux on. It's been about 10 years since I last built my own PC and I can't remember everything clearly.

The problem I'm facing is this: I know the components I want to get. But ... do I need to buy the miscellaneous stuff like screws, SATA cables, power cables, etc? Or will these come with the case and PSU that I'm buying?


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## VirtualTracy (Jun 28, 2008)

Viro said:


> Boo, hiss, boo, death to the infidel!



2 Ghosts, a snake and a quote from Indiana Jones .... that aside, good on you Viro!  

AFAIK, they would all be separate but if your likely to buy the lot from one source then the salesperson will gather it all up or at least help you do it, I'd imagine


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## nixgeek (Jun 28, 2008)

HAhaahh.

Personally, I would recommend any Intel Core 2 Duo system, but an AMD Phenom X2 or X3 should do just the same.  Asus always rocks when it comes to motherboards, but there are a few gems from other manufacturers.  NVIDIA for video, although the open source Xorg driver for ATI does 3D quite decently (the open source Xorg driver for the NVIDIA cards has no 3D acceleration).  I've used the following site to get the right Xorg settings for the ATI cards:

http://www.free3d.org

Another site that I highly recommend if you want to pick the best components:
http://www.anandtech.com


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## nixgeek (Jun 28, 2008)

With the case, it depends.  If you go with a cheapo case, then it will have everything you need case-wise, possibly even a cheap PSU.  The higher priced models will always have what you need to install the motherboard, but the PSU would have to be a separate purchase.

I just noticed also that you mentioned "cheap". 

If you wanted to go bargain, you could also get a Pentium Dual Core processor (this is their lowest end Core-series processor).  I know a podcaster that has this processor on a new PC he built and he's quite happy with it.  They perform pretty well.  Incidentally, I have Ubuntu running on an old Socket-478 PC with a Celeron D 335 processor.  I find it to be quite snappy with GNU/Linux, and even with something like Windows XP.

As for the motherboards, most of the times they include the cables you need for the hard drives.  I've noticed this only with retail so if you purchase an OEM motherboard you'll have to get the rest yourself.


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## Viro (Jun 28, 2008)

Thanks for the info. Like I said, I know what components I want. It's just a shame that the damn item details and reviews never ever mention whether you get cables, screws with what you buy. I know it's obvious to anyone who builds PCs, but I haven't built one in years. Gimme a break .

In case anyone is interested, I've decided to try and bump up the specs a bit so that it also runs games in Vista . That adds about £150 to the whole thing (£100 for a decent video card and £50 for Vista).  The specs are:
- Athlon X2 4400+
- 4 GB RAM
- 500 GB hard drive
- 19" monitor
- ATI Radeon 3850 512MB
- 5.1 speakers.

I've got a 6 year old gaming itch that I need to scratch and I figure this is the right time to do it


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## nixgeek (Jun 28, 2008)

Viro said:


> Thanks for the info. Like I said, I know what components I want. It's just a shame that the damn item details and reviews never ever mention whether you get cables, screws with what you buy. I know it's obvious to anyone who builds PCs, but I haven't built one in years. Gimme a break .
> 
> In case anyone is interested, I've decided to try and bump up the specs a bit so that it also runs games in Vista . That adds about £150 to the whole thing (£100 for a decent video card and £50 for Vista).  The specs are:
> - Athlon X2 4400+
> ...



Yeah, I know what you mean.  I used to be big on AMD when Intel was producing the Pentium 4, but that's changed since.  STill, it's kind of expensive to get a current Core 2 Duo (at least for me anyways) so I won't rule out AMD completely.  I can tell you though that GNU/Linux (specifically Ubuntu) will fly on a today's dual-core systems.  I have a laptop from work (Dell Latitude D630) which is Santa-Rosa based and the thing flies even with Ubuntu 8.04 (which has actually felt a little more bloated than previous versions).

As for the gaming its, I also feel your pain.   For the moment, however, OpenArena and other capable open source games have kept me quite satisfied despite others raving about TF2.   I keep forgetting to install Quake 4 for GNU/Linux, though...


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## Viro (Jul 3, 2008)

Got it built. Now I'm wasting away my life playing C&C 3 and HL2. Quake wars ET and Gears of War are next 

I knew buying a PC was a mistake ...


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## nixgeek (Jul 3, 2008)

Viro said:


> Got it built. Now I'm wasting away my life playing C&C 3 and HL2. Quake wars ET and Gears of War are next
> 
> I knew buying a PC was a mistake ...



Hahahaha!

Are you running it with Vista?  How's that holding up since its release and the SP1 patch?


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## Viro (Jul 4, 2008)

I've got Vista Home Premium SP1. It's the 32 bit version but I'm thinking of giving the 64 bit version a whirl. 

It's all working great so far. In fact, I think I _like_ Vista. Probably the least problematic version of Windows I've ever used and UAC isn't all that bad.


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## nixgeek (Jul 4, 2008)

Viro said:


> I've got Vista Home Premium SP1. It's the 32 bit version but I'm thinking of giving the 64 bit version a whirl.
> 
> It's all working great so far. In fact, I think I _like_ Vista. Probably the least problematic version of Windows I've ever used and UAC isn't all that bad.



Glad that it's working for you.  As for me, Vista still drives me up a wall, although I've only tried pre-SP1.  Hopefully SP1 does changes things for the better.  UAC still annoys the hell out of me though.


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