$750 Budget Quiet Computer

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Elixer
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Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2004 10:31 am
Location: Las Cruces, NM
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$750 Budget Quiet Computer

Post by Elixer » Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:30 pm

I'm building a computer for my roommate. The budget is $750 (including $50 as my cost to build it). It doesn't need to be silent, just decently quiet, because our air conditioner makes a fair bit of noise and is on 24/7. Here's what I've compiled:

36" IDE ATA 100/ 66 3-Connector Flat Cable

Antec Beige ATX Mini Tower PC Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "SLK1650" -RETAIL

Samsung Beige 52X32X52X16 DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive, Model TS-H492A/WBEH, OEM

Arctic Cooling CPU Cooler For AMD Athlon Socket 462 up to 3400+, Model "Copper Silent 2M" -RETAIL (Same as version reviewed here for socket A, but instead of being temp controlled it has 3 fan speed settings)

NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive, Model FD1231H, OEM Drive Only

Samsung 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model SP1614N, OEM Drive Only

Logitech Internet Keyboard & Mouse Bundle - OEM

Mushkin 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail

BenQ V773 17" CRT Monitor -RETAIL

Shuttle "AN35N-Ultra" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL

AMD Mobile Athlon XP 2400+, 266 MHz FSB, 512K L2 Cache Processor, 35 Watt- OEM

CINTRE RW-695 2-Piece Speakers - RETAIL (el cheao basic speakers)

Rosewill nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "RW5200-128D2" -RETAIL (passive cooled)

Total = $656.83 including shipping

Basically I just want to hear what you all think of this system. What changes would you make on the same budget? and what should the last $43 be spent on? I'm trying to figure this out. What my roommate has told me is that he would like the computer to be small and quiet. It's hard for me to figure out exactly what he wants though because he's not very computer literate.

Ralf Hutter
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Post by Ralf Hutter » Sun Sep 26, 2004 4:57 am

I'd ditch the 36" long IDE cable. That's twice as long as the recommended maximum length. The SLK-1650 is a fairly compact case and I can't imagine why you'd need longer than a 24" cable at the absolute max. Put the optical drive on a different channel than the HDD and you'll be able to make the best use out of the length of your IDE cables.

The PSU in the 1650 is not quiet. Plan on at least a fan swap or perhaps looking in the Recommended PSU's section for an inexpensive, quietish replacement.

sthayashi
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Post by sthayashi » Sun Sep 26, 2004 5:25 am

Ralf said it all.

Nice setup otherwise though.

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