Spare pc bits?

[macleod]

just a quick query as to whether any pc-building ozgolfer might have some spare PC bits lying around.

looking for a 256/512 stick of pc133 ram if possible....you never know your luck in the big city...

video cards newer than the mx400 strain of nvidia considered as well.

please don't post the predictable 'check ebay you putz!', thought id check in-house as well.

[Fishman Dan]

I've got a GeForce MX420 64mb. Currently in use, but kinda looking to upgrade it for something beefier.

[macleod]

ta, i think i was tossing up a lowend nvidia fx5200 type level....maybe a smidge newer than the mx420 and local brissie to be a scrooge on postage ;)

[Trung]

CD-RW drive + original Nero Burn CD....

Give me a sleeve of NXT-Tour Golf Balls and you can have it :lol:

[macleod]

probably needs more research, it's been yonks since i looked at the duelling chipsets...i think im a wee bit out of touch.....

[macleod]

CD-RW drive + original Nero Burn CD....

Give me a sleeve of NXT-Tour Golf Balls and you can have it :lol:
that's pretty perfect timing.

my LG cdrw drive just destroyed itself a few months ago (along with everything else we own...right after coming back from oseas....)

hmmm....was just going to pickup a cheapie at brisbane car sound or something.....since they are dirt cheap now...

PM me the specs, price?

[Trung]

Mate... I don't know the brand as it was in my desktop when I bought it. Computer is a P4 so you can see that it is not old at all :lol:

Hardly ever use it. I upgraded to a DVD-RW a few weeks ago after Jarro sent me some dirty DVDs. :wink:

[macleod]

Mate... I don't know the brand as it was in my desktop when I bought it. Computer is a P4 so you can see that it is not old at all :lol:

Hardly ever use it. I upgraded to a DVD-RW a few weeks ago after Jarro sent me some dirty DVDs. :wink:
hmmm, come to to sydney for a game, get a receipt from you for the purchase, write the enture 'trip' off on tax.

let me think for a bit :)

if you ripped it out during the upgrade?

[Trung]

Mate, I just want a sleeve of NXT-Tour balls :P

Do what you want, give me some NXTs :lol:


It is in perfect working order. I did the removal and installation of the new burner myself :idea:

[Ducky]

I have quite a few spare parts from 3 different towers that have been put to the side over the last few years. I may have a spare Leadtek GF4 TI4600 and two sticks of 256MB DDR RAM (depending on whether or not the computer guy who did an insurance quote is willing to give the tower back for me to test).

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).

[Flowergirl]

I don't know I even bothered reading this thread. You are all talking a different language to me. The only phrase I was familiar with was "Dirty DVD"S"!!!!!!!

[Fishman Dan]

I don't know I even bothered reading this thread. You are all talking a different language to me. The only phrase I was familiar with was "Dirty DVD"S"!!!!!!!

There you go - nothing's wasted on you FG ;)

[Keza_G]

I don't know I even bothered reading this thread. You are all talking a different language to me. The only phrase I was familiar with was "Dirty DVD"S"!!!!!!!

ME TOO !!! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that....

Thank you FG :lol:

Cheers

Keza_G

[markTHEblake]

Macleod, i have got truckloads of PC bits here, but your kidding if you think you gunna get a 256mb stick offa me for next to nothing - those things are gold (to me). I got about 6 PCs here at home that can use them.

the thing is, 2nd hand 256/512 sdram is holding its value comparable to next generation Ram becuase of so many people needing them for upgrades. 3 years ago Ram was expensive as hell so entry level systems only had 64mb for ram.

(now 64's are another story)

i also have some TNT Riva M64's lying around but i think i might be going to use them. and i think you wanted something better anyway.

brand new gear might be cheaper than you think;
I can get you some from one of my wholesalers
512mb sdram - never seen for sale (imho dont need it)
256mb sdram pc133 for $61
64MB DDR MX4000EL, TV Out 8x AGP $51
52x52x24 CD ReWriter With SW $39

I am doing a pickup this friday if your interested.
also check out www.thediscshop.com.au and www.umart.com.au
OTOH they are a coupla bucks more per item.

[macleod]

Macleod, i have got truckloads of PC bits here, but your kidding if you think you gunna get a 256mb stick offa me for next to nothing - those things are gold (to me). I got about 6 PCs here at home that can use them.

brand new gear might be cheaper than you think;
I can get you some from one of my wholesalers
512mb sdram - never seen for sale (imho dont need it)
256mb sdram pc133 for $61
64MB DDR MX4000EL, TV Out 8x AGP $51
52x52x24 CD ReWriter With SW $39

I am doing a pickup this friday if your interested.
also check out www.thediscshop.com.au and www.umart.com.au
OTOH they are a coupla bucks more per item.
ta, i knew the pc133 is still up because of that, happens with every overlapping genration of memory from 'memory' (no pun intended), cheaper to upgrade most of my bits but the cascade of desire and research new bits would up the $ value of the exercise ;)

just slapping some more in my remaining ram slot since we run xp and it can't hurt since im only at 256mb now, bare minimum for running it properly as far as i can tell so just needed a kick.

since mine is an 'older' pc the one thing i didn't know was wheter i needed double sided ram or not....it's an amd athlon 1.1 but i'll be sodded if i remember the motherboard strain....

i got this pc from umart actually but after a waranty dispute over of one of those famously failing IBM drives a few years ago i haven't been back....i swear the replacement 60gb is dying to just fail on me lately...

just need to do some more research on the card side but that price seems darn sweet to me...the mx4000 was the last of the mx chipsets?

[markTHEblake]

just slapping some more in my remaining ram slot since we run xp and it can't hurt since im only at 256mb now, bare minimum for running it properly as far as i can tell so just needed a kick.

i have run between 256 and 512mb on my main machine a Duron 1G, depending on what spare sticks i had at any given time. to be honest I cant tell the difference beyond 256mb, so thats what I run now. Not even worth the hassle to open the box. I figure that unless the swap file is getting paged too much then more ram is not needed.


since mine is an 'older' pc the one thing i didn't know was wheter i needed double sided ram or not

wont matter, you wont need matching ram. OTOH you cant get doublesided sdram anymore.


i got this pc from umart actually but after a waranty dispute over of one of those famously failing IBM drives a few years ago i haven't been back

i have had a few drives fail over the last few years, usually its a known fauult. never had any trouble with replacements though - often the wholesalers just accept your report and replace it without testing it.


just need to do some more research on the card side but that price seems darn sweet to me...the mx4000 was the last of the mx chipsets?

cant help you there, graphic chipsets are out of my league. i just put on what people order, and most of my builds are entry level these days so just settle for on board gpu.

otherwise thats the cheapest card i can get, without looking at whats available retail.

[macleod]

I have quite a few spare parts from 3 different towers that have been put to the side over the last few years. I may have a spare Leadtek GF4 TI4600 and two sticks of 256MB DDR RAM (depending on whether or not the computer guy who did an insurance quote is willing to give the tower back for me to test).

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).
thanks ben, my mb only takes pc133...

what graphics card are u currently using? im looking for something that can handle HL2, deus ex 2 etc without giving me unbearably shite fps. won't matter for the classic stuff im running like ultima 7, baldur's gate etc ;) i wans't sure with more modern games if more were like the original UT where the cpu was acutally a factor as well as the card...

the gf4 is of interest, what are looking for on that? pm me if you'd like.

[gazgolf1]

Scott,
I have some Ram you can have,just pay me what you think its worth.
Not too computer savvy but it says PC-133 on it.
Wanna play in the comp at Nudgee tomorrow?,you can check out my bits then. :wink:

[Ducky]

what graphics card are u currently using?
Currently I have a GF 6600GT. Here is the rest of my system (quoted from another post):


- Motherboard: Gigabyte 8I-915P Duo
- Processor: Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0Ghz (LGA775)
- Memory: Geil Dual Channel (1024MB)
- Hard Drive: Western Digital 200GB SATA (7200RPM, 8MB Cache)
- Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS
- Video Card: Albatron GeForce 6600GT (128MB DDR3, PCI-E)
- Operating System: Windows XP Professional (Service Pack 2)


im looking for something that can handle HL2, deus ex 2, etc...
Aside from the fact that 'Deus Ex: Invisible War' was a complete flop in comparison to the original, my GF4 TI4600 was able to run it fine (in conjunction with a XP 1800+ processor, 512MB DDR RAM, and a SB Audigy). Do not even bother with the FX5200, it was (and is) a terrible card for gaming.

'Half Life 2' supports a wide variety of dated hardware (even allowing DirectX 7 to be used instead of DirectX 9), so your only concern should be at what level of visual quality do you want to be able to run the game?

I will give you an example. The GF4 TI4600 is only DirectX 8 hardware compatible, where as the GF 6600GT is DirectX 9 hardware compatible. The difference between these two cards in relation to 'Half Life 2' (apart from the obvious FPS increase for the newer card) is that the GF4 TI4600 will have trouble displaying bump/normal/specular maps (if at all). This IGN article (http://gear.ign.com/articles/567/567437p1.html?fromint=1) gives a series of comparisons between the various DirectX versions in 'Half Life 2' (screenshots are shown on page 2 (http://gear.ign.com/articles/567/567437p2.html)), so you don't have to just take my word for it.

I will give the computer guy a ring tomorrow and arrange to pickup my tower (unless he gives me some reason as to why I can't), and will do some testing to see what parts are still functional. Then I'll PM you with the details (and a list of other spare hardware I have if you're interested).

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).

[Fishman Dan]

Haven't checked out HL 2, but apparently pretty demanding. Doom III came out and said it would run effetively in low-end hardware - but that's sheer bollocks. The environment is that 'rich' that your PC spends the entire time just re-drawing the backgrounds.

Mind you - Max Payne II and Tiger Woods run fine on my current setup, so no need to panic ;)

[Ducky]

I would like to see who claimed that 'Doom III' would run on low end PCs, because I don't think that anyone 'in the know' believed that would be the case. I personally enjoyed both 'Half Life 2' and 'Doom III', but felt that 'Doom III' was more of a new technology demonstration, as opposed to a story driven game like 'Half Life 2' was (but then again, the 'Doom' series has never been known for the storyline).

I think basically 'ID Software' decided to target the performance PC users (although, someone managed to get 'Doom III' to run on a system using a VooDoo 2 graphics card), where as 'Valve' decided that a large portion of users who were going to purchase 'Half Life 2' and 'Counter-Strike: Source' were going to be converting over from 'Half Life 1' and 'Counter-Strike' (due to the fact that a lot of the users from these two games still have terrible specification PCs, it would have made sense for 'Valve' to at least add support for low end graphics cards with dated rendering versions).

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).

[macleod]

gaz, didn't see this till today...would have required some serious deepheat to get out there today plus the cost.... but if you know the mb size of the ram that would be sweet.

thanks ben and dan, as an ex-gamer i miss keeping up with things it just all got away from and i got old....this coming from a guy who almost got fired for running the counterstrike server at my former place of employment...man i miss being the sysop badly :) use to do stats and rankings for all the players as well, that was tres fun.

ahywho, if im looking at the older midrange of chipsets, 5200 being a deadduck is there anything within the $100 price range that would suit? im doing a crap load of reading today to catch backup on the lineages of chipsets and realife test results.

found deusex2 for $15 thought it would be worth a crack ;)

[Fishman Dan]

Yeah Mac, know where you're coming from. Being a network admin means that while i get a good laptop, thankfully (?) it's not good enough to waste time with all the good new stuff that comes out.

I saw Civ III Complete (all extra bits) is under $50 up the road - between that and golf i'd never see my wife. Best it stays on the shelf..... :?

[macleod]

:D messy is what it would be, but not a bad price so.....

i left the loop around v.11 of CS so anygood games of the vintage 2000 on i missed?

im hunting for cheapo games the the mx400 card i have can still handle ok. got simcity 4 but it's having a struggle...simgolf works fins though ;) tiger wood 2004 was ok on it.

im just happy the guys from exult got something i could resurrect my ultima 7 with...ah ultima 7 i & II, what a game...

ill find a cheap deus ex original, anything else worthy?

[Fishman Dan]

Unreal Tournament 2k3 should work fine - a little dated but good enough to keep you out of mischief.

SimGolf was great, makes childsplay of all that akitexta stuff. Only problem was that they never continued to fix the problems with it and it died off.

You'll also find that Championship Manager will work ok, but it's really memory/CPU intensive, and horrendously time consuming!

[gazgolf1]

gaz, didn't see this till today...would have required some serious deepheat to get out there today plus the cost.... but if you know the mb size of the ram that would be sweet.



Mac,
You'll probably have to check out the MB size...a couple of the sticks have 256 written on them but as I said I'm computer dumb.
Let me know. :D

[Ducky]

Mac,

Post your current system specifications (and what you hope to upgrade to) and the type of game genre you're in to, and I'll recommend some games for you to check out.

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).

[macleod]

Mac,

Post your current system specifications (and what you hope to upgrade to) and the type of game genre you're in to, and I'll recommend some games for you to check out.

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).
ta! it's an amd atholon 1.1 (overclocked a smidge to 1.2 nothing schmancy though....wife bought it and i couldn't bear to overclock the snot out of it and the vid card or i'd be in twouble :) ),
256mb ram, mx400 nvidia card, 60gb ibm hdd, windows xp professional sp2

like rpg, fps, sims..most things actually except 'car racing'. fps that have more depth are of interest, if there were any others that came out in the last 5 years i'd give them a swing.

loved homeworld when it first came out...nice 3d strategy and resource mix that one. i didn't get heavy into the civs/c&c type games because when playing them aginst guys at work i was too busy trying to make my civ smarter and would get crushed...i wasn't super into the war and resource thing ,just making a better world for the serfs ;)

i'll grab deus ex as think it's run ok, maybe thief 1 or 2. i got ghost recon ahiwle back, nice change from CS but who can resist 100+ rounds in a row of CS....

clunker now, but whilst looking to upgrade the internals the wife mentioned just buying a dell that she's write off on her tax. i already did that for my parents as i didn't want them to go through white box hell.....:D

personally i always prefer selecting the bits but if the wife is buying.....

[Ducky]

Well if she's all for the idea of buying a new PC, then I wouldn't argue. Just make sure that you 'consult' her on the model that she should get. I will recommend some FPS games (which is what I mainly play) that have came out within the last few years, but you may have to wait for the upgrade to play most of them at an enjoyable level (detail and performance wise). These are off the top of my head:

- Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield
- Call of Duty
- Unreal Tournament 2004
- May Payne
- May Payne 2
- Thief 3: Deadly Shadows
- Splinter Cell
- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
- Joint Operations
- America's Army
- Full Spectrum Warrior
- Shadow Ops: Red Mercury
- Far Cry
- Doom III
- Half Life 2
- Counter-Strike: Source

Which games you go for would depend on if you wanted a good single player game or a good multiplayer game, as most of them only have one or the other. If I had to pick five from the above list for single player purposes, they would be (in no particular order):

- May Payne 2
- Thief 3: Deadly Shadows
- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
- Far Cry
- Half Life 2

Doom III would almost be on that list, but I feel that it really lacks a good storyline that would have got the player interacting more with the game. Also, it does tend to get a bit repetitive.

Thief 3: Deadly Shadows is absolute tops. If you liked the original two Thief games, you no doubt should check this one out as well. It has such an eerie atmosphere and I would go as far as saying that 'The Cradle' level towards the end of the game is by far the scariest thing that has been achieved in a game to date. I would wait until you have a good sound card and set of headphones before you play it though (as you want to be able to experience it how it should be).

If you would like any screenshots taken or more information on any of the games that I have listed above, let me know and I will post them for you.

Anyways, I rambled on for a little bit there, so I'll stop now.

:P

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).

[markTHEblake]

ahywho, if im looking at the older midrange of chipsets, 5200 being a deadduck is there anything within the $100 price range that would suit?

FX5200 $75
FX5500 $94
FX5700 $108

send me an email and i can give you the whole pricelist of you want.

[Fishman Dan]

I think the PC shop down the road has 64mb MX4000's for $64 in their latest blurb. But you'd have to come to Sydney to get it ;)

[Ducky]

I'm sorry, but if you want a card that is half decent for gaming, the MX or FX series are absolute rubbish. If you were to upgrade your current PC instead of buying the dell, you could get an ATI Radeon 9550 (http://www.gecube.com/mbu/productCategory.php?proID=66) for $150 which would be a significantly better alternative. If my GF4 TI4600 is still functional I will give it to you for practically nothing, but it all comes down to what you prefer.

Kind regards,

Ben (Ducky).