Church PC

[BigPaul2006]

Ive finished picking out the parts for this box. its main use is powerpoints and media storage (mainly presentations and pics) tell me what yall think of each part:

Case

ANTEC Solution Series Super Mid Tower Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "SLK3700AMB" -RETAIL

64

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-129-122&depa=0

Motherboard

ASUS "A7V8X-X" KT400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL

59

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-131-451&depa=1

Processor

AMD Athlon XP 2000+, 266 FSB, 256K Cache Processor - Retail

57

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-103-383&depa=0

Ram

Crucial 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-2100 - OEM

48

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-145-001&depa=0

Hard Drive

Western Digital Special Edition 80GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model WD800JB, OEM Drive Only

67

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-144-122&depa=1

Video Card

Transcend ATI RADEON 9200SE Video Card, 64MB DDR, 64-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "TS64MVDR92E" -RETAIL

44

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-156-013&depa=1

Convertor

DVI to VGA adapter for Twin-View video cards -OEM

8

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-999-201&depa=1

CD-ROM Already Have

Floppy Drive Already Have

Grand Total: 362

keep in mind that this is a presentation only server. i might also add a wireless pci card (b or g) give me some recomendations on them if u dont mi nd

[bakerster]

Thats too much overly-done.

You don't even need the 9200SE, grab a 9000.. And 256MB of ram?

What about Operating System? You can't use a illegal copy of windows for CHURCH can you? :laugh:

[TrickFinlay2]

throw some linux on there and your all set to go

[matt74441]

,Jun 17 2004, 22:58] What about Operating System? You can't use a illegal copy of windows for CHURCH can you? :laugh:

"Father, forgive me for I have sinned."

"What did you do my son?"

"I pirated Windows XP Corporate Edition."

"Meh, nobody cares."

[nuka_t]

its not the the ethics, its the fact that ms would close the church down. especially since billy G is jewish.

[BigPaul2006]

LOL :laugh:

[BigPaul2006]

how about a review on my parts please

[CoLdFuSi0n]

lmao a church that uses a illigal copy of XP

[DevilsJim89]

Good selection of parts especially for that sweet amount of money. You'll have more than enough power to do stuff for the church. Nice job.

[TrickFinlay2]

why not a get a X800?

j/k lol

[dougkinzinger]

Looks fine. Be sure to use ClearTweak, and set the contrast to 1000.

http://www.dougkinzinger.com/cleartweak.exe

[joeldicky]

I am network admin for a church and have recently moved away from powerpoint and have gone with mediashout. This has bumped up our hardware requirements. MediaShout

About your computer:

It's tempting to get a cheaper system for a system that only runs powerpoint. I would challange you to instead, get a computer that built reliably from the ground up. It sounds rediculous, but what happens if a harddrive goes down, or powersupply dies.... in the middle of a worship song....

Sooo...

This is what I recommend-

Stay away from generic powersupplies

Consider harddisk redundancy (RAID)

Definitley need at least 512 megs of ram.

Even though the athlon XP is great and cheap, they are going to stop making it next year. Not sure it is really a good buy.

Heat is your worst enemy, noise is also a problem. You may want to consider water cooling.

Hope it helps!

Oh, and by the way...

Churches are non-profits, which recieve great deals from M$. No need to pirate when you can get XP pro for $60.

[neojoker]

How would churches go about getting these special deals from MS?

[joeldicky]

You have to be a registered non-profit organization, and then go to a reseller with your certificate. We use the website www.christiantechstore.com.

Also, if you are a non profit that isn't at all associated with a religion, you can get even better deals from www.techsoup.com.

[BigPaul2006]

why would i need clear tweak

[bakerster]

I am network admin for a church and have recently moved away from powerpoint and have gone with mediashout.  This has bumped up our hardware requirements.  MediaShout

About your computer:

It's tempting to get a cheaper system for a system that only runs powerpoint.  I would challange you to instead, get a computer that built reliably from the ground up.  It sounds rediculous, but what happens if a harddrive goes down, or powersupply dies....  in the middle of a worship song....

Sooo...

This is what I recommend-

Stay away from generic powersupplies

Consider harddisk redundancy (RAID)

Definitley need at least 512 megs of ram.

Even though the athlon XP is great and cheap, they are going to stop making it next year.  Not sure it is really a good buy.

Heat is your worst enemy, noise is also a problem.  You may want to consider water cooling.

Hope it helps!

Oh, and by the way...

Churches are non-profits, which recieve great deals from M$.  No need to pirate when you can get XP pro for $60.

:blink: A church does not need watercooling..

And they aren't stopping makein Athlon XP's, they are phasing them out, with new processors.

What should get get a Pentium 4? Well they are stopping those pretty too. :p

but what happens if a harddrive goes down, or powersupply dies....  in the middle of a worship song....

Then I guess the church people are goijng to be missing out on the words? :laugh:

[joeldicky]

Actually, I was refering to going 64bit.

True, a church does not need watercooling. It's definitley something to consider though.

In our church, the presentation computer is one of the most important computers in the building. I want to give it every chance I have for it to be stable. In my experience, the three things that cause the most instability are heat, hard drives, and bad power.

Just my opinon.

[bakerster]

He is doing powerpoint presentations for a small local church. Mabey 100 people. I don't think he needs mission critical server side backup, 64 bit Windows, and a high end Cooling System.

[BigPaul2006]

500 people...

[joeldicky]

I understand. Seems like over kill. Why buy a system that you have to replace in a year?

Don't you agree that stability is critical? So maybe go with some silent fans. Maybe keep an image handy so that when the hard drive fails, you have a quick and easy replacement.

100 people or a 1000 people. It's still a very delicate part of a church service.

[BigPaul2006]

and the reason im building this pc is because the pc was showing a slide for approx 30 mins and the church was full and the ac had died that week in a storm, therefore it was warmer than usual. weve been using a p2 400mhz for the past 3 yrs w/ no problems. well the 40 gig seagate had a bad sector and the cpu cooling fan had become disconnected. so weve decided its time for a upgrade

[BigPaul2006]

joeldicky has a good point

[joeldicky]

Thanks. I'd like to think that I have learned from experience. I remember a time that our presentation computer's hard disk failed Sunday morning. I had to come in to the service and try and troubleshoot it.

It wasn't good.

[BigPaul2006]

do i really need raid? im getting a wd 80 gig and il probibly partition it into a 10 gig for ms and 70 gigs for all files

[joeldicky]

No, you don't "need" RAID. Hard drives fail. What you NEED is a plan for when you come in and the computer won't boot.