Sparked, likely, by the rebellions of X-G's and gnolam's hard drives, my computer has decided to suddenly die without warning. It worked fine yesterday, I turned it off as usual, but now it does not boot. The power light, hdd light, DVD light, and all other peripheral lights shine brightly (without wavering for an instant, to mock me), but the monitor remains blank and the air void of any last beep resonant of my allies.

Normally on computer death, I'll get a beep code, a readable error, a spoken error, or at the very least some smoke coming from the guilty party, but this time, nothing. Just the whir of fans and shine of a few LEDs. Any suggestions as what to test before I just guess and check on every part in the machine?

I checked with another power supply, then with different RAM, then with a different video card, then with a different HD, then all of the above at once. All to no avail. Then I tested with a different motherboard, low and behold, it works. Unfortunately, I don't have any spare motherboards lying around. My only choice is to hook a monitor up to my cardboard box computer or get a new one.

I should probably just get a whole new system, however, as my computer is about 4 years old. Thus, I now convert this thread to a "Build Me a New Computer" thread.

I have about $800 to spend (perhaps a bit more, definitely not less), and need at least a new motherboard and CPU. That also probably mean I need a new video card as AGP really isn't in style anymore and may mean I need new hard drives if IDE isn't supported on motherboard X. I have 2 512mb sticks of RAM and 2 256mb sticks, so I should probably up that to 4 512mb sticks or 2 1gb and 2 512mb. My PSU is 350W, I think, so that may be alright, I guess.

The only requirement: Linux friendly.

I hereby open the floor to suggestions and links, carefully guarding the plate of cookies.

What kind of mother board was it? Just curious...

Well the Core2Quad is half of your budget, and you might want to spend more than $100 on a motherboard (going cheap on the Mobo is a very bad idea, same with the psu)

Ah, also, you're going to want to go with a new PSU probably too.

Newer process, more in stock, etc.. It seems odd, but it isn't really. The 6750 has the smaller die size, more cache, etc, probably a faster FSB as well. Its cheaper to make, so its cheaper for the end user (at least while Intel has to compete )

I've heard good things about Antec, Thermaltake, and OCZ.. Probably others too, but I can't recall off hand.

You're also going to want to spend over $80-$120 on the psu, and make sure its rated for over 400-500 watts.

It has exactly the same die size and cache amount. Only FSB is 1333 instead of 1066. Basically Intel made them cheaper to push its new 1333MHz FSB motherboards

You could save a bit by getting adata instead. They produce excellent RAM

For vide I'd get either of those:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814186023 < bigger fan (== quieter)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121076R < no fan (== silent)

Nope, there are no 45nm CPUs on the market. First ones will be in a month or so but on desktop there will only be the highest end 3GHz quadcore. Slower ones will come early next year: http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=16193&catid=2

Btw, I know a guy who was testing that same 3GHz quad. He said that under full CPU load the entire system took only 118W
Big image, sorry (~1.7M). Power usage is shown on the upper white thingie with 118 on display
{"name":"powerCon.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/5\/6522b837a38eba3cdf609b1d49fa9d9a.jpg","w":2288,"h":1712,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/6\/5\/6522b837a38eba3cdf609b1d49fa9d9a"}

In unrelated news a guy I don't even know gave me his old 7800GT video card for free because I helped him solve some problem in a forum. Now I can tell everyone that it is not wasted time to hang out in forums

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I quite get what you mean. 45nm won't have a big impact for quite some time, certainly it had none when E6750 was released nearly three months ago for the same price it costs today.

Ah, yes. Obviously it is cheaper to produce. Sorry for being confused and confusing others

Intel will probably have decent mobile CPU price drop in the first few months next year as it introduces new 45nm mobile CPUs. Also ATI (aka AMD) and Nvidia will have 55/65nm GPUs out by then that should provide more performance at same power. Though I'm not sure if you can wait for 3+ months ..

But what about getting a cheap $300 PC for now and get a decent laptop just before going to college?

Remember, he said two channels MAX, that means both HDDs would be on the same controller (I do not recomend this) and you'd have nowhere to plug in a pata CD/DVD Drive, etc...

As for your original motherboard, if you still want to test it, unplug everything from it that you don't need (hard drives, cd, dvd, floppy, expansion cards except video), unplug usb devices from the back (I had a frozen printer once cause a machine to not boot), make sure your internal speaker is connected, etc. Only have the minimals in it, ex: the bare minimum amount/speed of ram you need to POST, etc.

If you still can't get it to POST, well then, something is very wrong. If OTOH it starts working, well you can work your way up from there.

edit: also check for popped capacitors. The type I'm talking about will be cylindrical, you should have quite a few on any given mobo, if the tops are raised up a bit, and/or black, then the board is probably dead or at the very least, unstable.

You could probably save a bit of money during the half a year you stll have before college so the difference wouldn't be $600