hardware requeriments for server?

[StoneG]

im going to setup a ¡¡CHEAP!! win2k pro server in my home network to do ICS, printer sharing, unreal tournament server (only on the lan, not internet server), file sharing, and programed client computers back up over the network at nigth.

the main reason is that i want to share my ISDN within my lan, but i don't want to use my own workstation to do it (it's what im doing rigth now) 'cause, as i use it mostly for profesional multitrack audio recording, and games, it has win98se installed and win2000 pro is way faster on the net (i've already tested it), also i don't want to use my workstation's resources sharing the internet connection.

i know i could use freesco but i tried it and it won't detect my external ISDN modem, so i choosed win2k pro 'cause i already have it and it's faster than win9x sharing the internet.

i need advice about what hardware to buy, i know win2k works great with 256+ ram, and as it's very cheap right now, i can afford it, also i know i need a fast hard drive and a tape drive (to make backups), im not going to get a monitor, sound card or even a mouse (going to use my own monitor to set it up and VNC for management from within my workstation (tested it already and works great for me), just CPU and a keyboard, but:
what cpu?
what speed?
video card?
motherboard?, etc.

remember i want it to be cheap, so forget SCSI hard drives, tape drives as an option.

i have a k6II 450 mhz liying around, but i don't trust them so much 'cause of the crappy chipsets they use, i want to have a very stable server that don't have to be restarted everyday.

thanks in advance.

 

[blstriker]

This might not help you much, but almost any modern cpu (600+) will fit the bill. Durons would be a great place to start and Anandtech has a huge listing of stable MB's.

If I were you, I'd try out that AMD assuming you already have a MB. I'm using a AMD K6-3 333@350 on a FIC 503+ which uses the VIA super 7 chipset. It's stable as a rock. The longest I had it running without rebooting was over 100 days (3 months). It could have gone longer but I needed to shut down the computer to add more ram. Now I have a total of 192 megs of ram with w2k advanced server and it runs just fine as my LAN server and webserver.

 

[spidey07]

Make absolutely sure all your server hardware is listed on the microsoft hardware compatibility list (HCL). You take your chances if it is not...could work fine or could cause you really annoying can't diagnose problems.

HCL link