# Budget System Builders Guide February 2011



## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Budget System Builders Guide February 2011.

This Guide covers the following topics:
Basic System Builds
Expected Performance and CPU Upgrades
Graphics Power and Storage Upgrades
Upgraded Budget System and Wrap-Up

-- Tom


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I built a budget box four years ago . One of those that Arstechnica posted, and it's been a good machine and still functions efficiently with lots of use left in it.
But for a basic machine, I think there is value to some of the branded computers that are offered now at a substantially lesser cost.
Last summer I bought a Compaq CQ5320F for $300 to replace an older Dell P3 machine.
All I needed was a basic budget box.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...us&site=null&lang=en&key=null&product=4107708

Currently, Staples has been having some nice deals on HP and Compaq computers at the budget level.
And according to their spec sheets, there is room for upgrades in many of them.

Arstechnica will be having some builds out in the near future, I'll post a link to them when they come out.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

TechReport just came out with their March builds.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20479


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Better late than never....the Ars system builds are out for March:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide-march-2011-edition.ars/2


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

TechReport has new builds out for spring:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20722/1


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## Coastal (Sep 5, 2010)

Stoner-
In the past I purchased a Compaq Presario, but will not purchase another one. It had a boot manager failure abt 4 weeks out. I did not purchase the extended warranty so the Staples tech (on the side & apart from Staples) did a dual partition. Although I still have and use the CP I will not purchase another one. Coastal
You are correct prices have come down on these products.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Coastal said:


> Stoner-
> In the past I purchased a Compaq Presario, but will not purchase another one. It had a boot manager failure abt 4 weeks out. I did not purchase the extended warranty so the Staples tech (on the side & apart from Staples) did a dual partition. Although I still have and use the CP I will not purchase another one. Coastal
> You are correct prices have come down on these products.


Buying any $300 computer is a risk 
Mine did work out, though. 
The reviews were good .
Mines been running almost a year with no issues other than Comodo.

A boot manager failure sounds more like a software issue than hardware.
I ran into software conflicts with Comodo Firewall after a particular MS critical update on my Compaq. A lot of .dlls wouldn't load.
I uninstalled Comodo firewall and that solved it for me.
I switched to the MS firewall.

What model do you have?


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## Coastal (Sep 5, 2010)

SR5610F AMD Athlon Dual Core processor
I not been able to update 3.5 main frame yet somewhere along the way 4.0 downloaded
so I am thinking it over wrote the 3.5.
Do you know why Flash keeps updating?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Coastal said:


> SR5610F AMD Athlon Dual Core processor
> I not been able to update 3.5 main frame yet somewhere along the way 4.0 downloaded
> so I am thinking it over wrote the 3.5.
> Do you know why Flash keeps updating?





> Do you know why Flash keeps updating?


Adobe seems to be having a lot of security updates lately.


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## Coastal (Sep 5, 2010)

Okay. Hope the Nortons work.


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