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My mostly-finished setup

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,101
1,153
NC
So, here's my current setup which, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much complete with the exception of a couple minor tweaks (and upgrades later down the line, of course).



What you can see:

Dell 1905FP UltraSharp 19" LCD monitor
Altec Lansing VS4121 2.1 speakers
Hewlett-Packard Photosmart 8450
Linksys 802.11g Wireless Access Point
Linksys 802.11b Wireless Router
Linksys 10/100 5 port switch

And, of course, what true geek doesn't have 1000ft of Cat5e network cable, crimpers, wire tester, and 200+ terminators?

What you can't see is the desktop:

Athlon64 3000+ (1.8ghz, Winchester core), overclocked to 2.2ghz
Gigabyte K8NF-9, nForce4 chipset
Leadtek GeForce 6600GT 128mb, PCI-e x16
pqi Turbo PC3200 at 2.5-3-3-7
Western Digital 160gb SATA150
3.5" 1.44mb floppy drive with integrated flash card readers
Antec 3000B ATX Mid-tower
Thermaltake TR2 430W power supply

The new monitor is awesome. So bright and clear. Doom 3 is an entirely new experience - I've been running it at 4x AA and it still pushes 40fps and higher.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,101
1,153
NC
Yeah, I originally bought the WAP54G with the intent of selling the "B" wireless router. Turns out the person who wanted the "B" router didn't need it, so I just ate the cost of the WAP54G and solved things that way.
 

ftlrider

Monkey
Oct 30, 2003
111
0
Spokane
Thats pretty close to what I'd buy if I were getting a new system. My next computer will be a laptop since a P200 doesn't cut it. My current power supply is close to yours, its a Thermaltake 420W.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,101
1,153
NC
ftlrider said:
Thats pretty close to what I'd buy if I were getting a new system. My next computer will be a laptop since a P200 doesn't cut it. My current power supply is close to yours, its a Thermaltake 420W.
Well, it was definitely a budget build. The computer itself only cost me around $550 with shipping. That does not include the monitor, printer or networking components, though, which were either presents or previously owned (sans the WAP54G which was a recent acquisition).

I went with a Socket 939 motherboard with a PCIe video card and a decent SATA controller to ensure that I'd be compatible with the new dual core chips, future video cards, and new hard drives.

Oh, and one other thing I didn't list is my APC battery backup/surge protector. Gives me about 20 minutes of PC run time after the power goes out.
 

Ciaran

Fear my banana
Apr 5, 2004
9,839
15
So Cal
I like that monitor. We use the same ones at work except that we use 17inchers. That 19 incher looks much nicer. I don't have a big monitor, but I do have two monitors... :D


The laptop is for work. My system's nothing fancy, but it's efficient. :)

P4 2.6ghz 800 mhz FSB, HyperThreading
1 gig DDR RAM
Nvidia Geforce FX5200 video card dual output for dual monitors.
Monitors are a pair of HP 1730's. They pivot so that you can look at the image in a "portrait" view as well as the "landscape" view. Neato!

My Network stuff...


Cable modem into an SMC router that goes into a Cisco 2900 Switch. The printer has a NIC built in and is plugged into the switch and is networked. We're in a small apartrment and haven't had to try wireless yet, though it is tempting.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,101
1,153
NC
Ciaran said:
I don't have a big monitor, but I do have two monitors... :D
That'll be the next step. The video card has 1 DVI and 1 CRT output, so I figure I'll get an inexpensive, smaller LCD when I have a few bucks.

Monitors are a pair of HP 1730's. They pivot so that you can look at the image in a "portrait" view as well as the "landscape" view. Neato!
Yeah, the Dell does that as well but unless I was doing a lot of typing, I haven't found a great use for it. It's nice when you're viewing and editing portrait photos, but I'm not whipping my monitor back and forth every time I have a portrait photo :p

The printer has a NIC built in and is plugged into the switch and is networked. We're in a small apartrment and haven't had to try wireless yet, though it is tempting.
That's how the HP is setup, and it has built in wireless, too, so the laptop will talk directly to it.

Nice setup though! Little overkill on the number of ports for your switch, though? :D
 

Ciaran

Fear my banana
Apr 5, 2004
9,839
15
So Cal
binary visions said:
Yeah, the Dell does that as well but unless I was doing a lot of typing, I haven't found a great use for it. It's nice when you're viewing and editing portrait photos, but I'm not whipping my monitor back and forth every time I have a portrait photo :p

That's how the HP is setup, and it has built in wireless, too, so the laptop will talk directly to it.

Nice setup though! Little overkill on the number of ports for your switch, though? :D
I have found only one use for the pivot monitor. Working on web pages. native resolution on most LCD monitors over 15 inches is 1280 X 1024. If you run the monitor in portrait mode you can work with the web page in a 1024pixel width.

My printer is also an HP with the built in wireless and all that. Very nice printer, though I haven't used it to it's full capabilities.

The four port router wasn't enough so I borrowed a switch from work. and hey, you never know when 23 people will show up at my door with 23 laptops needing to connect. :D LAN party! (Gawd, I can be sucha geek. :help: )