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Hardware Chosen in July 2000
[For motherboard upgrade in 2005, see §15.8.]
This system was needed to give me an updated Windows machine with an
extra large disk and good sound support for some consulting work.
Here is what I chose:
- ASUS K7V motherboard ($445 for board, processor, and CPU fan from Viking Computers)
- AMD Athlon 800 MHz processor
- 256MB PC133 SDRAM (around $120 as of 10/31/00 -- I think I paid over $200 for it six months ago)
- Antec SOHO tower case with 300 Watt power supply ($100)
- Western Digital 60GB, 6400 RPM, hard drive (around $250, if memory serves)
- Matrox Millennium G400 32MB video card (swapped in from Linux machine which received an S3 Trio 8MB card instead ($30))
- Teac 1.44MB floppy drive ($20)
- 56X obscure-brand CD-ROM drive ($35 at Fry's) - This CD-ROM drive is unreliable. I will henceforth stick to the major brands and pay their premium.
- Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live Platinum sound card and audio front panel with digital I/O ($160).
- Netgear 10/100MHz ethernet card ($30).
- Netgear DS106 10/100MHz 6-port ethernet hub ($78 from PCSTOP.com).
I found most of the mail-order companies via http://www.pricewatch.com.
This machine gave me no trouble at all on the hardware front. Windows
2000, however, was another story, mostly due to manufacturers being
behind in developing drivers. Apparently, Microsoft has been placing
a huge upgrade burden on PC hardware companies, forcing them to
totally rewrite their drivers to the new software models imposed by
Microsoft. For Windows 2000, you definitely should download
the latest drivers from the company websites. In my experience, the
versions shipped on CD-ROM with the hardware are simply broken.
The worst thing about building a new Windows PC is the difficulty of
getting all the software installed again. The Windows Registry makes
this a real pain, as does the practice of adding new system files to
the Windows system directories. You actually have to reinstall every
application you want, unless you are willing to play games and take
real chances with stability. Microsoft should have long ago
required software installations to place everything in a single
installation folder (such as a directory under Program Files,
and then used a simple path mechanism like UNIX uses. At the very
least, the Registry info should be in easier to maintain ASCII files.
UNIX is much better in this respect. The NeXT OS was even
better with their ``app wrappers''. (Other NeXT features that the
others need to adopt include ``Services'', the ``open'' shell command,
nameable ``Terminal'' windows, drag-and-drop into Open panels, Open
panels that remember where you last were for each application, etc.,
etc.)
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