I might be able to add a little something to this thread.

I don't think that learning to build a PC to save $ is
practical, at least in the near-term. This has been implied/
stated previously ...

I gotta Celeron 300A that thinks its a 450 mhz.  Runs pretty
much like a PII 450 (which costs hundreds more).  Yet if I
put a price on all the time I spent researching the
available equipment and the markets to purchase from, I fear
that my Return On Investment (ROI) would be negative.

But if I also put a price on the knowledge gained in
researching/ building/testing the system (and I do, I do!),
ROI becomes positive and reasonable.  But it still ain't
like "stealing".

If you/anybody _really_ want to get in touch with "what's going on
inside the box", I would recommend that you do the work and build a
system. If you are used to treating a PC as a "black box" and are not
likely to change, I recommend you buy one off the shelf.

One other item. Several folks mentioned www.pricewatch.com, a
valuable resource for builders. If an amateur ordered what
they needed from the lowest-price vendors on Pricewatch, I
think he/she _could_ get in a lot of trouble. Vendors commonly
allow 10-20 days in which to test components. Problem is,
if you order many devices from many vendors and you need to
assemble/test _all_ of them together, one bad device from
one bad vendor can keep you from testing much of anything in
the needed time-frame.

For this reason, I recommend that "candidate" vendors from
Pricewatch be traced to resellerratings.com for evaluation.
This site rates "friendly"/"unfriendly" vendor characteristics,
and _may_ save the amateur massive headaches.

  Zalut,
  David

**********************************************************************
** David Nasser                     **     [log in to unmask]  **
** Univ. Mo. St. Louis              **                              **
**********************************************************************;

"I don't believe you really, really love me ...
 You just like the way my music sound."
      - John Lee Williamson, maybe 1937

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