The Linux Extremist

I’ll be perfectly honest. The PC I presently have at work is driving me mad. It’s not because it’s bad; with Xubuntu it’s running competently. What is making me crazy is the comparison between this machine and what I have at home. With an 8 MB broadband connection, the latest graphics cards and hardware - the difference is noticeable.

My company laptop has somehow disappeared into the netherworld with all the socks that get eaten by dryers. So I’ve had a serious look at how I can turn this old Dell Dimension into something with a bit more oomph.

I have several goals in doing this -

1. To just make it so that I don’t have to hear the damn thing - the hard drive churns, the power supply on this Dell has a low hum which is irritating.

2. To make it faster - at the moment, it’s adequate. But adequate is not “perfect” nor even “good”.

3. To have a long lasting backup - for as and when my laptop does arrive.

4. And also, to do it all cheaply.

Happily the world of 64 bit computing is now cheaper than ever. With parts totaling under £250, it is possible to turn this Dell Dimension XPS T600 into something much more decent.

Let’s review what’s on it at the moment -

1. Pentium III processor - this has to go. One of the blessings of having Xubuntu is that I can use a handy monitor which shows me what resources are being consumed at any given point - CPU, memory or swap - the CPU is the one that regularly maxes out.

2. Nvdia GeForce 4 video card - it’s not bad, but not great. No DVI output if I ever got a decent LCD monitor.

3. 10 GB hard drive. I suspect it’s 4200 RPM. It also sounds like scraping metal. This has to go too.

4. DVD-RW drive. That stays.

5. Soundblaster compatible sound card. Fine.

6. 440 MB of RAM. Adequate - it never maxxed out. However, it won’t be transferrable.

7. Netgear MA311 802.11b PCI wireless network card - the wireless network here is “mixed”, meaning it caters for both 802.11b and 802.11g - for some reason, the 802.11b card works better. It also is automatically detected by Xubuntu. It stays.

So, to get this PC up to speed for under £250, I need the following parts -

1. AMD Sempron 3400+ processor. For an astonishing £64, one gets into the world of 64 bit computing.

2. A Gigabyte GA-K8U motherboard. Gigabyte have been very good about providing motherboards for modern processors that still can use AGP graphics cards, which tend to be bargains. At £32, this is also a cheap motherboard.

3. A 400W power supply - I’m rebuilding a Dell, so there are some gotchas to keep in mind; for one, a Dell PSU won’t work with anything but a Dell motherboard. Furthermore, getting rid of the old PSU at least means I can get one that’s much quieter. A decent one costs around £12.

4. Western Digital Caviar (WD800JB Special Edition) Hard Drive - 80MB, at 7200 RPM, and with an 8MB cache. This should solve the problem of the grinding hard drive. This too is cheap - at £31.

5. Kingston ValueRAM 1GB 184Pin DIMM PC3200 DDR Non-Parity CL3 - the motherboard I’ve selected can take 2 GB at 400Mhz or 4 GB at 333 Mhz. I’m going for 1 GB at the higher rate. This should be more than adequate for Xubuntu and leave room for expansion later.

6. Inno NVIDIA GeForce 6200 256 MB graphics card - after much thought and research, I picked this card. As this is a work PC, I’m not going to be playing Doom all day. However, I want sufficient firepower to look at and edit graphics, and also have a DVI connection to an LCD monitor. I want to avoid ATI, because their Linux drivers are proven to be unreliable. This card seems to provide the right balance of qualities required. It also costs only £30.

Should the company pay for it, the project would cost a grand total of £236.03 with delivery costs and taxes. But at the end, we can see the resulting machine, a 64 bit PC with better than adequate graphics and memory, plus one that won’t drive me crazy listening to it all day. In theory, it should be very fast and agile; if the project is allowed to come into fruition, I will report the results here.

Addendum - looks like the case is going to have to go, as Dell is not a standard ATX size.

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