I haven't had much fortune with desktop computers lately. In fact, I have 3 carcasses laying around. I had a 1.7Ghz Athlon, but it developed a problem that is most likely in the power supply, but there was another problem right before the power supply completely failed. There was a single, rapid beep. I took my wife's old 1Ghz Athlon and used that for a desktop system, until it's power supply failed. A friend gave me a Gateway that wasn't working and said it was mine if I could fix it. I couldn't.
I haven't been without a computer. I have two notebooks that I've been using, plus an old iMac G3 (Rev. D) that is more of a toy than anything. I like the mobility of notebooks, but there is just something nice about having a desktop system to call home base. I have a WinTV and the hard drive space is nice for recording shows and watching them when I can. It's also nice to be able to back up the laptops to the hard drive space on the desktop. I can also download and process video from our DVC camera and burn to a DVD.
I sold my Dell Axim and took the money to a computer show. My wife found an eMachine at Wal-Mart for under $300, but was decided that I should see what I could find at the computer show. It's been a long time since I've made it to one. I went with my father in law. There were some awesome deals. One vendor had Windows XP Pro for $99, but my budget didn't cover that.
I looked around at the available hardware. I found a 400 Watt case for $31. That's a good deal, considering that the computer store down the street from me wanted $69 for a 350 Watt power supply for my 1.7Ghz box. I found a good deal on a P-4 2.6Ghz and motherboard, I bought 512 Megs of DDR RAM (I still have 256 from my other system) and I bought the 400 Watt case. All told, I got a much better deal than that eMachine at Wal-mart.
I can't wait to get it put together and running.
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