my friend wants a new build need help

[muz]

ok so my good friend is getting tired with his old pc and has decided it is just time for a whole new rebuild
what hes running at the moment is celeron 2.4 with 256mb ram xp home and 80gb disk and its running slow as a dog and since we last reformatted it we cant get the sound driver to work

ive been out of the loop on building for a while so im not sure whats good anymore . he has a budget of about £200($300sd) this might not sound like a lot but this is for a box only no monitor os or anything and he has said he might be able to extend that budget a bit more maybe £250ish
now he only wants this for general use college work, downloading ,stuff of the like
so i was thinking sort of AMD cpu ,mobo and 3gb ram with 250gb+ disk and a entry level gpu but i was thinking what do you guys think first
we will be getting components from
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products
and
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/

 

[wol-va-rine]

ok so my good friend is getting tired with his old pc and has decided it is just time for a whole new rebuild
what hes running at the moment is celeron 2.4 with 256mb ram xp home and 80gb disk and its running slow as a dog and since we last reformatted it we cant get the sound driver to work

ive been out of the loop on building for a while so im not sure whats good anymore . he has a budget of about £200($300sd) this might not sound like a lot but this is for a box only no monitor os or anything and he has said he might be able to extend that budget a bit more maybe £250ish
now he only wants this for general use college work, downloading ,stuff of the like
so i was thinking sort of AMD cpu ,mobo and 3gb ram with 250gb+ disk and a entry level gpu but i was thinking what do you guys think first
we will be getting components from
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products
and
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/

if he's on a budget and it's just for general use, 2GB should do the trick just fine and free up some $ for other parts...

 

[stratusdodge]

So you want me to build you're friends computer so you can take the credit for it? Well I for one refuse to be a turkey.

 

[muz]

So you want me to build you're friends computer so you can take the credit for it? Well I for one refuse to be a turkey.

in fact i was asking for advice for him as he is not a member of these forums and rather than him join up just to ask this i told him i would do it for him i wasnt planning ontaking any credit he knows ive made this thread cos i was at his house when i made it but if you don't wanna offer me any help that's by all means fine with me however would you please now refrain from posting in this thread

and i wasn't just going to take lists of components off people i have built my own machine and know a lot i was just asking for advice from people who have been keeping an eye on the computer market recently i was going to bounce ideas around and make sure i can get my friend the best for his money i do have my own ideas i was planning on running by everyone

if he's on a budget and it's just for general use, 2GB should do the trick just fine and free up some $ for other parts...

ok , well im going to talk to him later on and check if he can extend his budget hopefully to at least £250 but yer i was only saying 3gb cos ram is one of the cheapest of components also i think we still have a 50% of voucher for ocz memory at this store so if its still valid we are planning to use that


anyway for a base i was thinking maybe an
athlon x2 5400+
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...e+5400++2.80GHz+(Retail+AM2)+?productId=30001
wouldn't know what mobo to pick though cos i have some cheapo foxconn crap

 

[rohan23]

You might as well go for 4GB. They basically cost around the same. I would tell him to save up a little more and not rush building a computer. You'll find great deals after Christmas.

 

[muz]

he was planning to wait till then anyway im going to be building it for him and i know he is waiting till january

 

[rohan23]

Do you know what OS he will be using, and why type?

 

[muz]

hes using xp
because he already has a copy

and he is familiar with it

oh yer forget to mention he has a decent psu as well because he had to replace it a few months back

 

[wol-va-rine]

hes using xp
because he already has a copy

and he is familiar with it

oh yer forget to mention he has a decent psu as well because he had to replace it a few months back

do you know what kind of psu...? many people think they have a "decent" psu when in reality they have a ticking timebomb, one that can take out other components as well when they go "boom"...

 

[muz]

do you know what kind of psu...? many people think they have a "decent" psu when in reality they have a ticking timebomb, one that can take out other components as well when they go "boom"...

he has a corsair psu http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...Corsair+400W+CX+Power+Supply+?productId=34003
i helped him pick this out when the psu in his system failed