This is my Computer. I built it from the ground up using ONLY the parts that I wanted and liked. I started buying parts for it in october 1999, and finally finished it on January 18, 2000. Since that time I have upgraded various parts as i have seen fit.
Here is everything I used to build My PC, with prices, in no particular order.... (OK, its actually alphabetical... shhhhh)
| Case | $ | 9 | 7 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| CD-RW | $ | 2 | 1 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| DVD | $ | 1 | 4 | 5 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Ethernet Hub | $ | 2 | 6 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| Floppy drive | $ | 2 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| Hard Drive | $ | 9 | 6 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| Joystick | $ | 7 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| Keyboard | $ | ? | ? | ? | ? | . | ? | ? |
| Monitor | $ | 2 | 3 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Motherboard | $ | 1 | 4 | 2 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Mouse | $ | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | |||
| Network Card | $ | 2 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| Printer | $ | 1 | 3 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Processor | $ | 1 | 5 | 2 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Ram | $ | 1 | 1 | 6 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Sound | $ | 8 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| Speakers | $ | 1 | 5 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Video | $ | 2 | 8 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| UPS | $ | 9 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | ||
| Windows 98 | $ | 2 | 0 | 0 | . | 0 | 0 | |
| Other/misc. | $ | 2 | 5 | . | 0 | 0 |
| Total Price__ | $ | 2 | 1 | 7 | 9 | . | 0 | 0 |
Case
I Bought my case, an antec Gemstone Sapphire (Blue) atx Mid-tower case at compusa for $89.00 US,it cost about $97.00 US with tax. Actually, it looks more green to me, but i still love it =) I am trying to stay away from beige, (ugh!) and this case has some really nice features, such as a slide off panel on both sides, so you dont need screws to get into the case, but with the option of putting one screw in if you don't want easy entry to the case for some reason. A carry handle on top to make moving it easy. A fan duct that blows directly on the processor. 2 internal hard drive size bays (who can live with just one hard drive?). One nice feature i didn't't expect, it comes with screwed on bay covers in back (for all your internal cards) rather than snap off! And no sharp edges anywhere.
basicaly this is just a nice (and flashy) case. Here's a pic,
$97.00 US
(This pic is from the Antec website, thats obviously not my MB)
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CD-ROM
I Started with a philips CD-RW It cost me $210.00 US with tax. Not the cheapest one around, its 4xW,4xRW,32read.
Then I traded that for a Mitsumi 4804TE, it reads slower (24x) but those of you who make "backup" copies of games will understand why I traded.
$210.00 US
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DVD
A Pioneer DVD-104S atapi Slot Load DVD-ROM. I paid $145 for it cuz i was sick of waiting,
but you can often get it for $99 (us)
$145.00 US
It has 10X DVD and 40X CD. (its also referred to by some as the pioneer 1040S or 10X40X slot load)
sweet eh?
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Hard Drive
I have 2 hard drives curently both made by Maxtor. My boot drive is a Maxtor Diamondmax 7500 RPM ata133 40GB Hard drive that cost $96 US, the other is a diamondmax 5400rpm ata66 13GB, that I got free from my brother for building him a computer.
53GB total capacity
$96.00 US
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Monitor
19" Envison EN910E
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Motherboard
MY motherboard is an abit BE6-II.
When i got this board it was one of the very few boards on the market to have an on-board eide ATA66 controller so you can use ATA66 drives for more speed. One added advantage to this board, is that it includes both the ata33 and ata66 controllers, so you can actually connect up to 8 ide devices!
Let me tell you, if you plan to overclock your PC, this is one of the best boards to use! If you choose to use the softmenu III bios setup rather than the dip switches you can set the fsb to 66MHz, 75MHz, 83MHz, and then ANY NUMBER you choose from 84MHz to 200MHz! Plus core voltage adjustment (for those overclocking times when you need a bit more juice!)
But then, if your into that sort of thing you already knew that... I have seen this board anywhere from $130.00 US to $189.00 US, strangely enough, (yea right) the place that advertised it at $130.00 didn't have any in stock, and tried to pawn off a BE6-I on me "for the same price"... Well, with a bit of searching I found one at $142.00, so with our ripoff sales tax here (8.6% or some such) it ended up costing me $154.21 US , anyway, heres a pic,
$142.00 US
Dont pay more than $150.00 US (before tax) for this board, its not too difficult to find it around $145.00.
Yes, it only has 1 ISA slot, but who really uses ISA anyway, Right? (not me, hehe) Let me tell you, this board kicks ass!
You can order this board HERE
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Mouse
My mouse, which Im VERY happy with and HIGHLY recommend is a
Microsoft Intellemouse Optical. No more cleaning mouse balls! (hehe) 
Free from work.
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Network Card
I got a Netgear FA 311 because it got good reviews, and so far its doin good (yea, like I have anything to compare it to).
$20.00 US
Its nice to be able to move files between PC,s without useing a Floppy, Zip, CD, ect....
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Printer
A Hewlett Packard DeskJet 932c. Its a very nice printer, I picked it because it prints photo quality prints and was a good mix of quality and price.
$130.00 US
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Processor
My processor is an Intel Pentium III 1100E FC-PGA in an IWILL Slotket II and a Golden orb HSF (HeatSink/Fan)
$152.00 US for the processor alone
$15.00 US for the Golden Orb
$20.00 US for IWILL Slocket II
$7.00 US for a shim to keep the HS flat on the core
I first built this computer with a celeron 400, then "upgraded" to a celeron 366@550, then in May 2001 I upgraded to a Celeron II 633, then finaly to my PIII 1100 in Nov 2001.
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RAM
ahhh RAM... you can never have too much of the stuff!
I have 512MB of 133MHz CL2 7.5ns ECC SDRAM (x2 256MB DIMMs). In case you are curious, the brand is Micron.
116.00 US
It just kills me to see a fast MHz system that has 32 or 64MB of ram, using such a pathetic amount of ram just cripple's the system! Windows alone can use over 64MB of ram just sitting there doing nothing! Add to that a few programs running the the background (see all those cute little icons by your clock? Every one of them is using some of your ram!) and your easily using 80-100MB at BOOT.
A study by The Council on Computing Power confirms that, on average, going from 32MB to 96MB increases performance up to 42%.
Sorry, had to get that out of my system....
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Sound
I have a Creative Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer, All the Sound Blaster Live! cards are exactly the same hardware, they just come with different software. The X-Gamer comes with 3 full version games, Interplay's Descent 3, Electronic Arts' Need for Speed 4: High Stakes, and Eidos' Thief: the Dark Project. Thief is a rockin game, And i wanted it anyway, and racing games rock, so basically the software paid for my sound card =)
That is, if i had paid for it... My dad gave me this one for christmas 99. He paid 79.99 on the web, which is WAY less than you will pay in a store.
80.00 US
If you are using Cheep sound card, or built in sound, you have NO IDEA what you are missing!!! Seriously with my old system with onboard sound my attitude was "Its sound, how can the sound card make any difference?". Well trust me on this, IT DOES! I never knew what i was missing until I got my SB LIVE! Highly recommended!
One thing worth noting if you are using just 2 speakers, the manual is not very clear as to where to plug them in. Before i got my surround sound system I couldn't figure out why I was getting no sound when I plugged them into the "line out" jack as marked on the card. After a bit of fiddling I found that they needed to be plugged into the "rear speaker" jack. wierd....
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Speakers
Altec Lansing ACS56 5 Speaker Surround sound speaker system. This is a VERY nice setup =)
$149.00 US
- Driver (per satellite): One 3 inch full range driver
- Driver (subwoofer): One 6 inch long throw woofer
- Frequency Response: 30Hz – 18kHz
- Satellite Power: 35 watts
- Subwoofer Power: 35 Watts
- Input impedence: >10k ohms
- S/N Ratio: >65dB
- Built in Power Supply Included
- ul/cul/CE approved
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Video
I have an ATI Radeon 8500 that cost me $280 US
$280 US
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UPS
UPS-uninterruptible Power Supply. A must if you ever experience short power outages. I finally got sick of these frigging half second power outages ruining my gaming, so I went out and goT an APC Back-UPS Office 280. Its rated at (supposedly) 11 minutes of power, but I really only got it for short outages.
$89.99 US
The pic really doesn't do it justice. This thing is BIG compared to a normal surge protector, its 2.7 inches (6.9 cm) high, 17 inches (43.2 cm) long, 7 inches (17.8 cm) wide, and weighs 8 lbs (3.6 kg)!!
Floppy Drive
Got my floppy DRIVE from my local pc upgrade store for $20.00 US, its an nec. I had one I bought from CompUSA for $30, but I took that one back because it didn't come with any mounting screws.
One odd thing, I had to shave of the tab on my IDE cable (the one meant to prevent you attaching the cable wrong) to get it on the floppy drive the correct way, strange.....
$20.00 US
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Joystick
Micro$oft sidwinder precision pro. $69.99 US
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Keyboard
A Yahoo Internet keyboard Borrowd from my girlfriend.
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This Website was Hand Coded By Kirk sachs
