[sclug] Custom-built PCs

[Alex Butcher]

On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, Ian Park wrote:

> A few years back, I bought a custom-built PC from a company called Vadim. At 
> the time I bought it, it was pretty high spec: 2x 2GHz dual core Opteron 
> CPUs, 4GB RAM, 640MB RAM on the graphics card, 150GB + 2x 320GB hard drives, 
> T-Balancer temperature sensor + fan controller subsystem... I've done some 
> upgrading: added another 4GB RAM, swapped out the graphics card for one with 
> 1GB RAM, added another 3x 320GB HDD to make a RAID5 array; but I'm wondering 
> whether to go for a fresh system with faster processors. Unfortunately, Vadim 
> have gone out of business. Does anyone know of a similar company they'd trust 
> to do a decent job of building a similar system but with a more up-to-date 
> (spelled f - a - s - t - e - r!) processor etc?

DIY, IMHO.

Anyone doing it properly won't be cheap. Anyone who's cheap won't be doing 
it properly. And anyone who is doing it properly and is cheap, won't be 
around for long...

It's not that hard, and it sounds like you've got a fair amount of 
experience already, given the upgrades you've carried out.

Just stick to quality components (Asus and Gigabyte are safe bets for 
motherboards and graphics cards, Crucial and Kingston for memory, Antec for 
cases and PSUs.  WD are my preferred HDD manufacturer) from trusted vendors 
(Insight, Dabs, Novatech).  Check the CPU and memory compatability list from 
the motherboard vendor before you start.  Buy (and use!) an earthing strap 
from Maplin.  Use latching SATA cables.

> Thanks in advance for any help.
>
> Ian

HTH,
Alex