Hey guys, long time, no see. I haven't been on the forum lately because of school and other things that have been keeping me busy. And, when I do get the time, I'm on a Jeep forum figuring things out about my Jeep. Well, some of you might know, but my parents bought my brother a 1993 SSEi, that looks just like Willwren'*, just not as nice. My brother hasn't gotten his liscence yet, but my father had been driving it back and forth to his work to save some money on gas, he would usually drives a Suburban (not too good on the gas bill). My brother wants me to do some mods to his bonnie to make if faster and run better, like I did with mine. Once I start doing mods I'll try to let you guys know how it'* going. Now onto my questions.

Well, as Christmas is approaching my parents have asked me what I want for Christmas. I didn't really know what I wanted at first, I've got a BEAUTIFUL Jeep, lifted with 31'*, and a nice system, so I tried to think of what I would like for Christmas. Then it hit me, I would like a new computer to put in my room, the one I have is old and operates(sorta) on windows 98. Needless to say, it doesn't really work anymore and is practically dead. So, I told my parents that I would like a new computer. They told me alright, I have a budget as to how much mullah I can spend on one though, $400. So, I figured I'd try building one for that much. I would be using computer for internet surfing, videogames, online messaging, music (iPod/iTunes), and maybe some other things. I don't know too much about computers, though. I know a few things about them though, enough to get me by. So, I have done some research and have compiled a list of parts, and a few questions too. I found most of the parts on www.tigerdirect.com, which seems to me, has pretty good prices on the items. I'll give you guys links to the parts that I have found. If you could tell me if these parts won't mate up/work, let me know. Also, if there is anything that I'm missing, let me know that also. Anyways, here is the list of parts.

I already have a keyboard, and have a mouse laying around here somewhere. Also, don't need speakers, I have that worked out as well.
Case
Power supply
CPU, Motherboard, and RAM combo.
Video card.
Hard drive.
Sound card.
Operating system.

Again, I'm trying to keep the build cost AS LOW AS POSSIBLE!!!!! If you know of any parts that I could ditch, or find a cheaper part of, let me know, I don't want to have to use some of my own money to pay for part of this.Now, onto my questions....

I have done some research, and have found that I don't necessarily need a Floppy drive. Is this true?
What is an optical drive? Would I be needing one? Any recommendations if I am in need of one?

Well, that'* pretty much all I have for now. Again, if you see any problems at all with what I have listed let me know. Also, if you have any better ideas, I would LOVE to know about them, I'm all ears. Thanks for your help.

Hmm, it just hit me, I was originally going to get this computer. Seems to be a decent computer. So, my question is this, if I bought that computer, and the case that I previously showed you, would I be able to swap the parts from the desktop, to the newer case? I ask this because I would be upgrading it sooner or later in the future, and would like a different case.

Alright, let me see if I can help. First of all, TigerDirect rebates have been known to be absolute shafts in the past. I would go with an AMD Athlon XP series or Semperon over a celeron any day. Also, you don't need a floppy drive if you don't use floppy disks. I put one in my tower when I built it a year and a half ago, and haven't used it since. An optical drive is a CD-ROm type drive. Could be a cd burner, dvd burner, dvd rom. Yes, you need at least one of these, you can get a DVD Burner which does the work of all the drives I just stated for under 50 bucks, dual layer. I prefer to shop at www.newegg.com for almost everything. If you go out on black friday, walmart has a desktop for under 400 bucks.
HP Pavillion 1203w-b Desktop w /15" LCD Monitor $398.00
Do some research on that, it very well be your best best, especially with a 15" LCD. I;ll edit this post if I think of whatever else I was going to say.

Edit: You can ditch the sound card. Yours comes with onboard if you choose that mobo.

Heres a dvd burner, dual layer on the cheap:
hop4Tech has the ND-3550ABK NEC 16X Double layer DVD+-RW for only $41.99 - 10% off | Code : PS10 = $37.79 Shipped Check out the reviews from CDfreaks.com.

Pricegrabber Price : $42 ~ $65 Shipped

Also: I can save you the cost of the OS, if you're looking to save some money

Dell Poweredge 400SC orginally around $1400 can be had for $400

for example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/PowerEdge-400SC-...QQcmdZViewItem


This is a very NOT-well known fact but these are of exceptional quality and reliablity, as far as a Dull goes.


The features of the PowerEdge 400SC are highlighted in the chart below:

Feature Specification
Processors Single Intel Northwood (2.4GHz and up to 3.2GHz) with
800MHz FSB/and 512 KB Cache, or

Single Intel Prescott (2.66GHz and up to 3.4 ) with 800MHz FSB/1 MB Cache (RTS+)
Hyper-Threading available on all Prescott Processors (RTS+)
and on Northwood Processors at 3.06GHz and above

Chipset Intel 875P "Canterwood"

Hard Drives 2 x 1" IDE drives, or
2 x 1" U320 SCSI 10K drives


External Drive Bays 1 x 3.5" floppy drive
2 x 5.25" for CD/DVD or other media devices

PCI 4 total- 32 bit/33MHz , all are PCI 2.2 compliant

Memory 4 DIMMS
Dual-channel DDR SDRAM, 400 MHz
128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB or 1.0 GB DIMM sizes
128 MB up to 4 GB

USB 6 external USB ports (2.0 supported)
NIC 1 GB Intel LOM
Video ATI RAGE XL (PCI Card)
Embedded IDE controller ATA133

RAID support CERC IDE RAID card

and this box has an AGP 8X slot (it is similar to the dell Precision workstations) so high end video cards are possible.

3 year tech support and warranty where you will never get routed to india.

a lot of the boxes on ebay have 3 to 5 year warrantys with 4 hour total response time warranty

I cam assure you this box will outperform any sub $600 dell box for sale right now.

but if you must build your own box like a true geek will..The parts are up to you, but I would get at least a gig of ram, and SATA based hdd...those seem to make the biggest cheapest way to get performance.

Would it be possible?

In theory there shouldn't be any problems. Did you check out that one I linked to from walmart on bf?

If you're buying a computer from WalMart, start out by wiping out the hard drive and reload a fresh CLEAN copy of Windows. WalMart has such control over what they buy that they tell the manufacturer what they will come preloaded with. Any computer coming from WalMart will start off with marketing(Adware) software on it. Marketing firms pay WalMart for the privilage to have their software preinstalled right out of the box... this being said, if you wipe and reload from an image on the drive you'll reload all the preloaded software including the adware...
I agree with the idea of staying away from celeron processors, but sempron is just AMD'* version... Buy a P4 or and AMD 64. If you're looking to skimp to keep the price down, buy less memory or hard drive space... these things are easily upgradable later.
As for Tiger Direct, I've never had problems with their rebates... they take too long to process, but other than that they're fine.

I'm the senior desktop support tech and main purchaser for a local college and I've been doing it for about 10 years now.

Just my 2 cents....