I realize that a lot of people are going to be busy, and this is a pretty hopeless request, but here goes:

I've been around computers my whole life, but just recently I've felt like I could use a hand building one. I'm in university, first year, taking science related courses. I haven't had the time in the last while to keep up with PC trends, and it's causing me serious problems.

Here's a couple examples;
About three months ago I bought some new ram for my computer. I know my system can use DDR400, so I bought two 512 chips of that, to add to my DDR266/333(not sure which) 256 meg chip. I had 3 slots on my motherboard, and I figured it wouldn't be a problem.

Apprently, ram chips are 'sided'. Some are one side, some are two side, but regardless, those sides count towards how much a motherboard can handle. My motherboard can only use two sides (i don't even know the term, sorry) of DDR400 ram, or four of DDR333.

Needless to say, I could only use one of my two purchased 512 megs of ram. I had to pay a 15% restocking fee to return the other one.

A more recent example is this; my hard drive failed, so I purchased a new one. Of course, I just clicked on "IDE" and searched the listings for one that I liked (For the price), and bought it.

Now I'm sitting here next to this SATA Hard drive that I can't use, because I didn't realize there are new IDE drives. (I don't keep up anymore)

I mean, I'm not a complete idiot. It's not like I bought a SCSI HD, or a Laptop HD...but still, now I am out $140 ($126+tax+shipping) and I have a 250 gig seagate HD that I can't use.

Here's the kicker; I assumed my 80 gig drive was the one that was failing because whenever I tried to access it, it would lock up and crash my system. I removed it, and my system was working fine for a week. Last night, however, I turned off my system for the night (something I rarely do, but had to because my roommates needed to flip the breaker in the morning to get the power back on in the basement, and I didn't want my system to be on when they did it), and after my classes today I came back, turned it on, and oops - no hard drive detected.

I even tried booting in linux to see if I could find it there, but it's been a long time since I've done anything in linux, and it didn't autodetect. Nothing in the bios either.

I unplugged my old drive, and plugged in the 80, booted up and it detected fine. Right now I'm formatting it to try and put Windows XP back on; so I could use my computer temporarily. Although, I'm not all that sure this one isn't going to have problems too!

I really don't expect anyone to help me out. I realize that people are busy, and chances are no one had the time to even read this whole message. But, if someone wants to contact me at my provided email, or better still, at msn: aro2220 at msn dot com (messenger only, no emails please), I would really appreciate discussing computer building with you.

I know what I want, I know my budget, I know what I want to be able to upgrade in the future, and I know the stores I would like to purchase parts from. But, it's the little details that keep getting past me, and end up biting me in the ass that has me too worried to attempt this on my own.

As I said in the beginning, I'm a student. Which should translate to, I'm broke. I can't afford buying hard drives, and ram chips, and cases and motherboard that aren't going to fit together, or cause conflicts, etc. I don't want to make hte most incredible computer in the world, but for once in my life I want to build a computer completely from scratch, choosing every part (including the case) and having everything mesh well together.

I'm pretty certain that I want to be using AMD, not Intel (price vs performance) but I'm worried about the extra heat output. I don't mind it, provided I can buy a case/psupply that can distribute the heat well enough (if I can figure out how to attach cooling devices to; just a couple fans, but ones that are quiet and efficient)

But I'm not sure if I should bother buying the AMD 64's, or the 64+'s....and now I think there's even something else, X2 or whatever. I have no idea, and I have a billion midterms coming up so I can't look at benchmarks for hours and hours.

I'm using an AGP video card; it's not very good, but it's good enough for me right now. (It's a radeon 9600XT, but it's a cheap brand Saffire). But, all the 64+ motherboards I've seen use PCI-Express.

And one store that I want to use for the majority of these parts don't really sell any 64 athlons anymore, they're all pretty much just semprons.

Anyway...I think I've ranted long enough.
Hope someone who is in the know feels like helping me out, but if not, thanks anyway.

Are you looking for someone to walk you through the process of building a computer in this forum?

Have you done a Google search on this topic?

This covers building a pc from parts selection to startup.

I'm crediting per for this link :-)

i_XpUser

Sorry, but as a parent, I HAVE to comment on the "I can't afford buying hard drives, and ram chips, and cases and motherboard that aren't going to fit together, or cause conflicts". Aa a student, you wouldn't sit down and write a term paper without first studying the material, would you? Or take a quiz on a subject you're only vaguely familiar with? So, lesson learned, I guess. The only saving grace as a student is you have access to a larger community of folks who may be interested in buying what you don't need than the average Joe. Now that's off my chest, let me say this; building a pc is not all that difficult. I would suggest you look at boards that support both sata and IDE drives so you can salvage them. You should be ok with the memory you have. As far as the video, you said one thing I've preached to the folks I build systems for: unless you HAVE to have the latest games and technology, get what works for you at a price you're happy with. With the bargains that are out there, there's no need to overspend. Maybe this board? http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2524 It provides SATA and IDE, AGP and PCI-Express. Check it out.

"We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'."
- Sir Arthur Eddington 1882-1944

Where is per? Haven't seen any responses from him lately. Of course I've been out enjoying the summer too.

What happened to my quote

Aro,

At the risk of offending you, you obviously don't know what you're doing & are going about your repair or rebuild all wrong. As dsbal stated above, you should do your research BEFORE you get started. You're very wrong on many of the statements you made & it would help if you listed your current system's specs. I don't understand why you're formatting your 80GB HDD if it booted fine...formmatting should be the LAST thing you do after all other troubleshooting measures are of no help...it should rarely be the 1st option. Generally speaking, people who immediately format don't know what they're doing, then soon find out what happens when you don't have drivers...lol!

You mentioned something about heat issues? The P4 Prescott is known as the "hot potato"...AMD no longer has heat issues, the torch has been passed (excuse the pun) to Intel.

Sapphire is an excellent grahics card manufacturer & the Radeon 9600XT is still a decent card. I don't know where you plan on buying your parts from, but if it's not Newegg.com or ZipZoomFly.com, I highly suggest you reconsider.

List your specs...your curent system may just need a bit of upgrading. And to brutally honest, I don't think you're capable of a new build just yet...you have a lot of learning to do 1st....

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

jam is very terse and a bit abrupt,maybe, but he is correct. You must learn to walk before you can run. Above all else, don't rush into anything! Take your time. Learn about it from every angle. New stuff comes out every day, but you probably don't need it. Not for now, anyway. Read and study and aim for a good solid reliable system what will do what you want it to do, with some wiggle room for upgrading later. Maybe. If you have a good monitor you can probably build a decent system in the range of $400, maybe less, depending on what pieces you already have. So, take it slow, do lot's of reading here on Computing.net (and elsewhere) and ask us questions when needed. We are all here to help each other and most of us even enjoy it. Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress.

Bob

After all is said and done, there's a whole lot more said than done.