Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Richeydog's Uber Cheap PC Build Thread

I've never built my own PC before so I thought it would be a fun and rewarding challenge to do it myself. I've been researching for a couple months trying to decide what I need and have finally starting buying components. Keep in mind this is for simple computing only, browsing the web, streaming audio and video, office, maybe a little bit of photoshop. No gaming or heavy/intensive cpu stuff. So, you won't see any high/mid range parts here.

Here is my old system: An HP864n Media Center, circa 2003. It was given to me a couple of years ago and have been using it since.

Processor - Intel Pentium 4 2.66 GHz
Motherboard - MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-6577 (Socket 478)
RAM - Kingston PC3200 1GB, Smart Modular PC2100 512k
Graphics - 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440
PSU - Bestec 1956d b2 200 Watt Micro Atx
Hard Drive - 78GB Western Digital WDC WD800BB-00JHC0 (PATA) (This is a couple years old)
Optical Drives - HP DVD Writer 200j, MITSUMI CD-ROM FX48++W

As you can tell, this thing is a dinosaur and I felt a change was needed. I want a computer with low(er) energy consumption and something that can handle multiple tasks with relative ease.

So far I've bought (don't laugh/cringe too hard...remember this is a super budget build. I'm not looking for the latest and greatest as you'll see below)
- Processor - Intel Celeron G530 ($46)
- Motherboard - ECS H61H2-M2(1.0) LGA 1155 ($28)
- PSU - OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W Modular High Performance ($55 Bundled with DVD Burner)
- DVD Burner - Sony Optiarc 24X
- RAM - None yet
- Case - None yet
- Hard Drive - I'm going to use my existing hard drive for now. I can't or won't spend the dough for a new sata drive. Prices are too high right now. When they lower I will consider buying one. That or an SSD(when the price is right).

So I need an IDE/SATA Adapter to run with my new system. I've found one on Monoprice . I plan on ordering it when it's back in stock unless you know of something similar in functionality and price.

It's late so I'm off to bed. Must get sleep. I'll snap some pics in and show you some progress once I start my build. Later.

But will it make the pictures of Anna Faris look any different?

I don't know much about IDE to SATA converters but I can't imagine getting by with just 78GB. Depends what you are doing I guess.
You should be able to get a 500 Gb drive for $80 or so and not have to worry, but again it's whatever you need.

I would pay a little extra for a mobo that has an IDE port on it rather than using an adapter.

Or I would just pay a few bucks for a SATA drive.

Since parts have been purchased, and you are on a budget, try the adapter and existing hard drive or see if you can get a bigger hard drive. 78GB might last a while, but then again, who knows how long hard drive prices will be high and you could end up using that space and needing to buy a larger (SATA) drive anyway and have to rebuild the system.

Biggest advice I have after building dozens of machines over the years? Don't skimp on RAM. You don't need to have the fastest RAM, but lots of it never hurts. Since you are on a budget, I would shoot for 4 GB. Others will say 8GB, but I do some pretty extensive gaming, Photoshopping, and even video editing and do real well on 4GB in my 3 year old system. Granted, I went pretty high end on components back then, thus the reason I've gotten along well with it for so long.

Thanks Ken. A new mobo(1155 platform) with an IDE port(according to newegg) would cost $75 more than what I just paid. A 500GB 3.0 Sata Drive costs about the same. So, if my adapter doesn't work, I'll get a new SATA drive.

Another vote for ditching the old HD. Too small, already a few years old..why take a chance? A WD 500GB drive can be had for $50.

I am going to try the ide/sata adapter and hope it works. If not I'll be shopping around for a new SATA Drive. The prices are really high right now that's why I want to try an adapter. I still have quite a bit of storage space on my existing 78GB HD, so it's fine for now.

I plan on buying at least 4GB of RAM, but may go as high as 8GB. If I can get 8GB for about the same price as 4GB, why not?

Because I'm cheap.

The price for a SATA HDD has been steady around $80 for many years now, I don't think they will get any cheaper and if they do it will only be by $5-$10. Take the cost of the adapter away from that $80 and you will have only paid the difference and gained a TON of extra storage and a 5 year warranty(Westrn Digital).

If I am not mistaken you should be able to reuse your old case.

I would buy Corsair for your RAM.

Or Crucial. Crucial's usually cheaper than Corsair.

After finally receiving my power supply and 8 gigs of memory(Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3 1333) I did a not so quick hookup and post tested the motherboard. Being a first timer, I was a bit leery on doing this but after reading a few articles I figured it would be a good idea to find out if everything was working okay.

So, I positioned the flathead screwdriver onto the power pins and immediately noticed the cpu/power supply fans spinning right away...But I'm not seeing anything on screen. Thought I might have something wrong with the mobo. Turn if off then on again and still nothing. So, after thinking a bit, I decided to take out 1 stick of ram and run it again. This time it worked. Don't know why? Tested that same stick in the other slot and it worked. Then put both back in and it's running fine now.

Anyway, pretty soon I'll put this into my existing case and see if it all fits. The case(uATX) is pretty old so I'm not sure what's going to happen but hoping for the best.

Your screw drivers are awfully clean. Are they virgins?

Touched for the very first time...

About a week has passed and I finally have all my components to start this build. First I had to take out existing parts. Quite messy in there as you can see.




About a half hour(?) later, this is what she looks like with a clean slate.




Now time to install the new stuff. Here is the mother board, cpu, and ram installed.



More to come...

Oops, I ran into a slight problem. The new power supply won't fit into the case. The opening is too small. If I could move the dvd cage it would work, but that thing ain't going nowhere.

I had a feeling this might happen and was prepared to invest a few dollars more if I needed one.

The adventure continues...

You need a new case. I don't see any shiny blue lights on that one at all??????

Can't recall ever hearing about a uATX case, but if so, that explains why the full size ATX psu may not fit.

I did a HTPC style build for a friend last year. He wanted a budget of $500 but is a gamer. Doable, but not with what other things he wanted as well (larger hd, updated vid, a monitor, needed peripherals like mouse, keyboard and a new OS).
I found parts that worked for $800 or so after taxes and shipping, but that was before he mentioned the OS, monitor and peripherals which put the price up to just around $1100.

What started budget, didn't end as budget IMO.
But he has a solid up to date gaming system in a HTPC style box.

I don't know if the case is uATX, but the old motherboard definitely was labeled as such. uATX is the same as Micro ATX.

Old psu - 5.9W x 3.4H x 3.9D Inches (Micro ATX)
New psu - 5.9W x 3.4H x 6.5D Inches (ATX)

The old psu was shorter in length, which made it easy to insert between those brackets. The new psu, even though a bit longer, would not interfere with the dvd cage. If I could make it work, it would leave me with 3/4" of space.


I've stayed on course with my budget so far. I planned on upgrading everything, including a new case...yet hoped to avoid it if I could. No worries.

As Murph said above, I'll need something with shiny blue lights!

Windows XP vs Vista Ultimate?

In this corner I am currently running XP SP3 and am comfortable using it.

In the other corner I have a retail copy of Vista Ultimate that I was thinking of trying. I briefly used it on the Pentium 4 system some time ago and remember it being incredibly slow. Since I have a new processor with 8 gigs of ram I was wondering if it be worth the hassle of installing it again?

I guess I could try it and see...

I would stay with XP before going to Vista unless you have a need for it. It's true it's actually stable now but I still disliked it.

My advice if money is the key, is to stick with XP and save up for Windows 7 as quick as you can.

I lived with Vista Home for 2-3 years before purchasing Windows 7. I probably reloaded Vista about 4 times in that time span. I'm glad I finally made the move to 7, but haven't had it long enough to comment for it.

I would try Vista. I have it running on a couple of laptops and have very few problems with it, hardly at all in fact. I like the interface on it better than XP, its flashier.

Search bar in the Start menu makes it worth the change in and of itself.

Vista works just fine. I've been running it for 3 years without issue. My only reload was because of a virus.

The Windows 8 preview will be available in a month or so, that would be free (to run for a ~year).

Fred you gotta use protection.

I've actually messed around with Windows 8 Pre-beta when it first came out. Didn't like it. Quickly went back to xp.

I tried wrapping my son in saran wrap. Didn't work. He still clicks on stuff he shouldn't.

Use parchment paper. Less sticky and meets fire codes.

Newegg has a 10% discount on Windows going on right now.