On 30 Sep 98 at 11:57, Harvey Morris wrote:

>  I,m in the process of building my first pc from scratch, and I'm
>    in need of some info from my fellow pcbuilders.
>
>    This is part of hardware list:
>
>   Case with power supply.

  Since you plan to go PII, you should get an ATX case.  ATX
motherboards include serial/parallel/usb/keyboard/mouse (kbd and
mouse are ps/2 style) connectors on the motherboard.  Unfortunately,
there are two basic layouts for these ports, and maybe a dozen minor
variants.
  So you need to make sure that the case can physically fit your
chosen motherboard.  Many ATX cases provide an interchangable panel
with different port cut-outs -- if you need to buy the case first,
make sure you can change this later if you need to.

>   PII motherboard running 300/400 mhz.

  The key thing to look for, for these speeds, is the Intel 440BX
chipset.  You may still see some PII boards around using 440LX or
even 440FX.
  Also note that your RAM should be certified "PC-100".

>   video card mmx capable w/2-8 mb ram.

  MMX isn't a video card feature, it's a set of additional CPU
instructions.  You might be thinking of 3D -- that's about the only
case where you'd actually have much use for more than 4 MB of video
RAM.  And with a 440BX, you'll probably prefer that the video card be
AGP.
  I'm partial to Matrox; check out their G100 and G200 models.

>   ide harddirve 9 gig and up.

  I don't think I've seen IDE bigger than 8.4GB; you may have to go
SCSI to get a single drive that big.  [IBM makes both, really well.]


>   Any recommendations is greatly appreciated.
>
>
>
>
>                          * * HARVEY MORRIS**
>         -----------------------------------------------------
>                     |   A Man Must Grow Through   |
>                     |   the Maturing of His Mind  |
>                     |_____________________________|
>
>
>
>
>
>                                   -----

  I think I recall list policy being to hold signatures to 3-4 lines.
Please cut it down a little.

David G

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