College Project- Extremely budget build [Archive]

hamheyelliot

31-07-2010, 07:09 PM

Okay, I've got a dilemma which I pretty much waltzed into myself by agreeing to build a computer for a college project with a budget of roughly £60/70.

The good news is that it can be heavily underpowered as it only needs to run Ubuntu without issue, but the bad news is that I didn't get anything to help with it parts wise (which I was promised, but ah well).

I can pretty much buy a used, cheap system from eBay and re-build it into a new case- or build from parts, and I have an optical drive and a few HDDs spare.

So I was wondering what the best solution would be with such a small budget? I don't need any peripherals as far as I know, and there's no need for any added graphics.

Any help is appreciated :)

N!ck

31-07-2010, 07:11 PM

Ancient hardware on ebay.

hamheyelliot

31-07-2010, 07:12 PM

Ancient hardware on ebay.
I've been stalking the terrible 512MB ram, Pentium 4, 80GB HDD builds nearly all day. Will probably come to £40 without upgrades.

GommeInc

31-07-2010, 07:18 PM

Ah, if only you went to University so you can take a look at Computer Auctions. You can get Pentium 4, Windows XP Professional computers for dirt cheap at about £40-60 :P

hamheyelliot

31-07-2010, 07:29 PM

Ah, if only you went to University so you can take a look at Computer Auctions. You can get Pentium 4, Windows XP Professional computers for dirt cheap at about £40-60 :P
There's a computer fair every Saturday at Trafford Park but to be honest I don't know what to expect if I even showed up. There are some half decent builds to B.I.N on eBay, but I can't really pick from them.

hamheyelliot

31-07-2010, 07:48 PM

Quick update, strongly considering this, mainly because the case isn't branded so it could pass for a build. It seems okay, but what would the immediate upgrades be? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PC-Tower-System-1-8GHz-Fully-Working-/140430430508?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item20b24e512c

Jack!

31-07-2010, 10:11 PM

Quick update, strongly considering this, mainly because the case isn't branded so it could pass for a build. It seems okay, but what would the immediate upgrades be? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PC-Tower-System-1-8GHz-Fully-Working-/140430430508?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item20b24e512c

that would run ubuntu problem free fine. but if you wanted to upgrade i would do ram, HDD, but that's about it

N!ck

31-07-2010, 10:40 PM

I'd steer clear of Pentium 4. Look for AMD Athlon x64 if you can.

You may be able to custom build, I don't know the prices. A socket 939 motherboad, Athlon x64 and 1GB DDR RAM maybe?