I am an engineering student at engineering school in
Missouri
Fellow classmate has the following system for sale used
for $275
Is this a good deal or not?
======================================
AMD Athlon 3200+ (socket 939, single core)
Zalman CNPS7000C-Cu heatsink
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo
2GB DDR800 RAM (I think)
Gigabyte 8800GTS - ASUS EN8800GTS/HTDP/320M GeForce
8800 GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready
SLI Support HDCP Video Card
Lian-Li case (Black, utilitarian) - LIAN LI PC-7B plus
II Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
2x 80GB Sata HDD
1x 250GB Sata HDD
Creative Labs sound blaster sound card (not sure which
one)
Card Reader (haven't used in a LONG time) - Rosewill
RCR-103 USB 2.0 Card Reader
PSU - SILVERSTONE ST60F 600W ATX 12V 2.01 / EPS 12V SLI
Ready Active PFC Power Supply
You can check the feedback on the Silverstone PSU here. Newegg keep their
old product reviews around, even when the product is discontinued.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817163109
One weakness of computers, is the health of mechanical components.
Fan failures, for example.
Some fans are easy to replace, and some are harder to replace.
For example, if you have an older video card, when the card was
new, there would likely have been several after-market cooling
solutions with better fans. So if you got in a bind, and the
fan died, you could find a cooler to slap into place. As cards
get older, coolers that fit may be harder to find. And the
fan itself may not be directly replaceable.
That being said, I think you're getting some value there.
Another thing to watch on Nvidia video cards, is failing GPU chips.
Nvidia had problems with solder balls or interconnect underneath
the GPU. Some GPUs fail early, because of a bad connection underneath.
Some people have solved this, by stripping down the card, removing
heat sensitive stuff as much as possible, and then "baking" the GPU
to restore the electrical connections. This has even been tried on
laptops with defective GPU chips. If I was buying the system in question,
I'd want to research whether 8800GTS is on that list or not.
You can look up video cards here.
http://www.gpureview.com/videocards.php
It might be based on G80.
http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-8800-GTS-card-475.html
So you'd be checking whether G80 fails from solder problems or not.
You can see here, there was recent activity on the Nvidia front.
You'd probably need to do a bit more searching, to get a GPU list
for video cards that are affected.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/gpu-failure-g84-g86-settlement,11400.html
Chances are, if that computer has lasted this long, it can't be on the list.
The weakest link in your new system, is this:
AMD Athlon 3200+ (socket 939, single core)
If it was my new computer, I'd probably look for a dual core to stuff in there.
http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=A8N-SLI Deluxe
It all depends on what kind of price it's bid up to.
http://cgi.ebay.com/AMD-Athlon-64-4...ORE-/200527605016?pt=CPUs&hash=item2eb0606d18
You can translate the part number, using CPU-World and get details like stepping.
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon 64 X2 4400+ - ADV4400DAA6CD (ADA4400CDBOX).html
The Zalman CNPS7000C-Cu should be OK. I've owned two from that series,
and the fans lasted until the computers were retired.
The RAM in your computer, could be configured two ways. It could
be 2x1GB or 4x512MB. Personally, I'd prefer the 2x1GB config, as
the RAM bus may be able to run with more aggressive settings.
But with 1GB modules, you want low density sticks with x8 chips.
(They sell high density sticks on Ebay, using x4 width chips,
for less money, but you don't want those.) Again, if the system
has been running this long, chances are the current owner got it
all sorted out. If he just built the system from parts on hand,
ten minutes ago, then anything is possible.
It's kinda like buying a car. Some neighborhoods, have punks who
run a used car dealership out of their driveway. They sell one
car after another, and have no idea of the history of the car.
If you know the owner actually owned the product, and used it
for a couple years, then chances are the bugs were worked out.
But if the guy just buys garbage of Ebay and slaps together
systems, then it's hard to say whether you're getting a deal or
not. It's a deal if it is in good working order, and has a
valid OS license.
Paul
