I think people and consumers in general have very short memories. Western Digital had a reputation in the past of having short-lifetime harddrives. Samsung went thru that phase also. Seagate has been very good until recently so they are going thru the same stages.
They will probably fix it in...
Two (maybe three) things you can upgrade.
RAM: It takes DDR ram. Look for a second hand 2x256mb or 2x512mb memory ( and you can hopefully still use your old memory, depending on compatibility). DDR2700 or 3200 doesn't really matter.
Harddrive: I would guess 40gb ain't cuttin it. You can...
Usually, if I have to do an Intel-based build for a non-enthusiast friend, I get Intel motherboards. No frills, highly reliable mobo that does the job.
Second the Logitech webcam. This is the best webcam I've tried so far in terms of video quality and low-light performance. The best one I had before was an ADS Firewire webcam thaty had a sony CCD sensor.
After a little observation, I observed that the idle temps ARE higher. The load temps may have gotten higher because the exhaust fan in the rear is barely spinning. After replacing it, the load temps are more in line with what it was before.
Same program, which is nvidia's program for the mobo and video card ( I have a GTX260).
Ambient temps are the same, same setting on my AC (which is like 72 deg F). Heck, I swear the exhaust air coming out the top of my Lian-Li case is hotter.
Made the switch from WinXP 32-bit to Vista Ultimate 64-bit on one of my rigs (E6550, 680i mobo, 2 gigs then and upgraded to 6 gigs after Vista). The CPU used to idle around 30c, never goes above 45c under load. Now, I'm seeing it go up to around 55c under load. I'm using a Coolermaster GeminiII...
The 4550 looks the perfect HTPC video card. Gotta replace the 3450 in my HTPC. While good, no 5.1 PCM over HDMI kinda limits the whole HT expereince, especially for Blu-ray. Show me a low-profile 4550 with HDMI and I'm on it.
Almost any board with the Intel 875 chipset is rock solid. I had Asus, Gigabyte and Intel 875 boards. They never gave me any problems; all were rock stable.. If he plans to OC, then Intel is out of the list.
I stayed clear from MSI years back when they started to have leaky capacitors on their Socket 462 mobos (especially the VIA chipset one that was initially highly rated by AT).
What stings is that MSI didn't honor the $30 rebate and I didn't even know until I rechecked my MIR records. Turns out...
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