Tech Help: Buying a new Desktop

[Sofaspud]

Hey Wire!  Do you have a quick how-to on how to re-cap one of those Optiplex mobos?  'cause I've got one of the faulty ones sitting in my closet, and I've got a soldering iron that I'm not afraid to use.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Wiregeek]

Step one - NOTE CAP VALUES AND LOCATIONS TAKE PICTURES AND WRITE NOTES.

Step two - remove caps. Motherboard, cardboard table liner, smallish vice grips, patience.

Step three - replace caps. I left the legs full length, and trimmed afterwards.

boot and pray.

Tools needed - end nippers or flush cuts, solder, soldering iron.

I ended up cranking the heat down and the time-applied up, and I had to bridge-pull a couple of caps (put a solder bridge between the two cap wires underneath and put the tip of the iron in that, remove the bridge once you have the cap in question out)

iirc, I ended up using higher-value caps across the whole board. I believe that the value isn't terribly important, though you want to meet or exceed the existing caps. Match if possible.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[jpub]

Or you just do what we do - surplus asset the 270',. replace with whatever you purchased lately (620's, I think).

Of course, we're a public-funded scientific installation with a pretty strict green plan.

[Wiregeek]

Jpub, these 270s are ones that have already _been_ surplused, hence the wonderfully low cost of Free-99...
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[jpub]

Ah. Fair enough.

Also in the interest of fairness, it should be pointed out that practically everyone had that cap problem in that period, if they bought their parts from the problematic suppliers. Dell's problem was that being the #1 PC retailer in North America, they got most of the bad press for it..

[Wiregeek]

At the scale they are working at, the difference in pricing between the $.015 they're paying for foil caps and the $.030 they are paying now for all-metal makes a big freaking chunk of change...
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[jpub]

In further research, I'm disappointed to see Newegg stopped their PC Builder service.

[s3yang]

Hokay, in response to Drogan and actually building his system.

If you want to take a stab at it, here's a general step by step guide. But as with all computer building, specific boards and such will look different to a greater or less degree.

http://lifehacker.com/515...-a-computer-from-scratch

I'm sure there are other guides that may or may not be better, but this one isn't bad and isn't too out of date.

Generally speaking, you need a Case, a motherboard, a CPU, a graphics card, RAM, hard drive, CD/DVD drive, and power supply for the basic box. Make no mistake, the Motherboard is probably the biggest decision, as it dictates how everything else slots in and what components will fit. If you're buying high end components, you may want to look into some aftermarket cooling solutions (CPU/Case fans)

Generally speaking, you'll want to buy your stuff from the same place unless you find a super deal somewhere. Newegg and TigerDirect are both reasonable. Though there are of course, many other sites.

----------

If you're going for a complete system with no input from you then, try http://www.newegg.com/Sto...ory=10&name=Desktop-PCs, or similar sites if you don't want to go straight to a manufacturer. If nothing else, you can go off the specs therein and investigate the different companies. Do be careful about what each system contains, some include the monitors, keyboards, mouse, etc, and others don't, and of course pay attention to what OS comes with it.

For something in between the two you can try custom build sites like Alienware (thought that's probably out of your price-range) or something like http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ or http://www.ibuypower.com/. I'm afraid I can tell you how good those sites are as I don't use them. However, I would look up the components they're using in their systems and see how much of a premium they're charging for putting it together for you.

Whichever way you go, I _highly_ recommend that you do research on each type of component and how much the current/last gen stuff costs and how they perform. Tom's hardware is a reasonable resource for that.

Hope that helps.

[jpub]

I've heard nothing but good things about Cyberpower and IBuyPower.