New Custom Built Computer

[Konaguy]

Just in case anyone was wondering, the reason why I haven't been around
the past couple days was because my computer died. The power supply fried
my motherboard. On Tuesday night I heard like a big whoosh coming from
my computer. I suspect what happened was the fan on the power supply
failed causing the unit to fail.

Anyway I got a really good custom computer built in two days. There is
a place in Kona called Falcon Computers www.konafalcon.com that did
it. It costed less than 600.00 with tax.

I got a 2.8Ghz Celeron, 1GB RAM 80/40GB HD,16X DVD-RW/ROM.
The Mobo has integrated NIC,Video (32MB), processor. The Hard Drives
and DVD-RW/ROM came from the fried computer.

[Pomai]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

Smart move. "Frankensteining" your old storage parts allowed most of that $600 to go towards new performance parts.

You didn't mention losing any data when it fried, so that must've not been an issue.

[Konaguy]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

Well I do regular backups of my files on to DVD and have a backup hard drive
with all my files on it also. So data integrity wasn't a problem for me.

[Konaguy]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

$14.90 -1.44MB Floppy
$74.90 - Case
$190.00-1GB RAM
$115.00-2.8Ghz Celeron
$125.00-MSI Micro ATX Board, VGA,Sound,LAN
50.00-Installation Fee

[adrian]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

How much is shipping to Oahu?

[Pomai]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

How much is shipping to Oahu?

Doc, with all that education and experience you have troubleshooting computers, you'd actually PAY someone in Kona to build one for you?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

$14.90 -1.44MB Floppy
$74.90 - Case
$190.00-1GB RAM
$115.00-2.8Ghz Celeron
$125.00-MSI Micro ATX Board, VGA,Sound,LAN
50.00-Installation Fee

Musta been one hot case for $75
I can get 1Gb of ram for $92.00 delivered
I can get a 3.06 Celeron-D Processor for $82.86 delivered
I can get an MSI Micro ATX Board, VGA,Sound,LAN for $57.86 delivered

These are delivered prices from NewEgg.com to your door. For the price of what you paid for I could also have ordered Windows Media Center Edition 2005 OEM version for $122.86 delivered. The floppy drive I'd throw in for free.

My total price would be $430.48 with the same case (at his price) plus WinXP Pro/MCE 2005 SP2. And I don't charge for installation.

I noticed you didn't include the cost for the OS. If you already have one available for that build, my price would be: $302.62 Complete for a 3.06 GHz Celeron-D with 1Gb of PC3200 Corsair RAM, 430-watt PSU, Windows XP Pro/MCE 2005 OS.

Add an 80Gb Western Digital 7200 RPM ATA Hard Drive and a Lite-On 16X DVD +/- RW Burner for $98.05 and I'll build it for a screaming deal of $528.67 w/OS...$405.81 without OS. And that's if those items were individually purchased online. Cumulatively I can probably drop that price by almost $70 with combined shipping. The case also would be a lower quote as well.

[Konaguy]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

Interesting, so it seems I overpaid by a quite a margin. No matter, I look at it
this way, the computer I got is much better than the E-Machine I almost
bought and cheaper than the high end computers I saw at Wal-Mart and
Radio Shack.

I had a Windows XP Home Upgrade CD that I used for the OS. I had to reactivate it though...spent 16 minutes of my life talking to a lady in
India to get that done.

[Kawika0320]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

I live and die with NewEgg. I'm suprised that more people don't buy from them. In the past 5 or so years I've spent over $10,000 in computer parts, lcd televisions and the like. I'm the resident computer fixer in this area and NewEgg has everything you need. Craig, how is shipping to Hawaii? Are the posted prices what they charge? They ship fast and they charge no state tax (which I' required to claim). For home made computers, and for computer parts, they are by far the best online retailer that I've used. I recommend them to anyone. Craig, have you seen the $130 duo core intel that can be safely oc'd to 4.1 Ghz?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

Those prices are quoted directly from the shopping cart from NewEgg with FedEx 2nd day shipping included. Basically the $92.00 quote for the 1GB of PC3200 ram includes the $11.00 shipping and handling charge (which is cheap in itself). $92.00 is the final price delivered right to your door within one week to Hawaii. If you live on the mainland the shipping prices are almost 1/4 that of what we pay in Hawaii.

That's why when I order stuff from NewEgg.com I do one major order so I can complete several builds at once. My typical order to NewEgg is anywhere from $400 to just over $1000. On orders such as that, the shipping cost for even bulky stuff such as computer cases is virtually non-existant. Otherwise it's about the price of the case itself.

I've tried ZipZoomFly as suggested on this board but price for price, NewEgg still has them beat. Another great source for computer stuff is Computer Geeks at Geeks.com. They have this GREENLIGHT SPECIAL sale that goes on M-F starting at 10am PST and their prices are phenomenal! Shipping is fast and cheap as well. I use both for computer parts. I picked up a refurbished (had bent pins) P4 processor (2.8GHz socket 478) for $86.00 on a Green light special. With combined shipping on other items, the shipping cost came out to less than $4.00 for the chip.

You go to Geeks.com during these greenlight specials and you'll just say, "Wow" when you see just how cheap everything is and how cheap the shipping is as well. And we're not talking parcel post...we're talking FedEx 2nd day express shipping!

As for Intel's new Dual Core, I haven't seen it yet but I heard from Smart Computing magazine, their benchmark testing of Intel's newest and brightest literally "Spanks" the best that AMD has put out. And that's not even when it's overclocked. I think Intel finally did good on this one.

[Konaguy]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

The guy who built my computer tried to sell me an AMD processor (not sure
of the Ghz). But it would've pushed the final cost over 700.00. So I ended up
going with the 2.8Ghz Celeron.

In regards to the power supply.On my previous computer that got fried, it seemed the power supply was on even though the computer was off. There
was a light on the back of the power supply that was constantly on. My
new computer has a on/off switch for the power supply...is the latter better
than the power supply constantly on ?

[Kawika0320]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

Power supplies are notorious for failing at the most inopportune time. The power supply shut off switch is just a fairly new addition to most power supplies. It really isn't a big deal. Strangely enough, the item that takes the most power at one time is your hard drive when they first spin up. If you were having data corruption problems, it is more than likely a bad power supply rather than a bad hard drive.

[Konaguy]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

I've had a lot of computers in my lifetime and I've never had a power supply fail
so soon. The computer itself was only less than 2 years old.One difference
between these other computers and the Compaq that died was the light that
on the back of the power supply. It was always on, even though the computer was off.

[helen]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

Which means it stills draws power, very little but still draws power.

I also noticed that even if the PC is turned off but still plugged in to an outlet and you plug in an active CAT-5 to an ethernet port the ethernet's status light will go on.

[Konaguy]

Re: Konaguy Has Returned From The Dead

Which means it stills draws power, very little but still draws power.

I figured as much, which I wonder if it caused my premature failure of my power supply. None of the computers I had before had that light on it and had lasted
much longer