New Desktop Build

[Gary Childress]

HI all,

I'd like to build a new machine for my mom for her 80th birthday. I'm starting to shop around for some parts but I'm pretty much lost when it comes to all the specs and everything. She mostly uses the computer for surfing the Internet, MS Word, MS Excel and playing solitaire-like card games. So I can probably get away with a relatively cheap and low end system, however, I'd like to give her decent speed so she doesn't have to wait long for programs to come up or web pages to load. My initial thoughts are that I could maybe get by with a Pentium Core i3, however, I'd like to hear feedback on that choice. I possess a spare SSD which I will be putting into the machine, keyboard, mouse and she already has a decent monitor. All I will be needing (that I can think of off the top of my head) are:

Case
CPU
Motherboard (preferably with onboard sound)
Power Supply (not sure how many watts to get)
DVD reader/writer
Video Card
RAM

I am wondering if anyone would happen to have some product recommendations for the parts above. I'm hoping to spend less the $400 on the remaining parts (listed above) needed for the machine.

 

[leif erikson]

Maybe this will help.

 

[Plexus]

Love Logical Increments. These days, you don't need to spend $400 for something just to be used for web surfing.

 

[leif erikson]

Does it need to be a desktop?

Purchased a couple of Lenovo laptops from an off-lease site a couple of years ago for my wife and I. They were 14-inch, core i5's and I added a bit of memory and they have been workhorses for us for surfing, email and general use. On it now in fact. We payed less than $200.00 each and they had newly installed versions of windows with COA. If this is an option, let me know and I'll send you a link to the place I got them.

 

[Gary Childress]

Thanks for the website link, leif erikson! I'm shopping for parts now. I prefer a desktop over laptop.

So I'm going for what logical increments calls a "good" build. So far my parts list is:

Motherboard = MSI Pro Series Intel B250 LGA 1151 DDR4 USB 3.1 micro-ATX Motherboard (B250M PRO-VD)
CPU = Intel Core i3-7100 7th Gen Core Desktop Processor 3M Cache,3.90 GHz (BX80677I37100)
RAM = 8 Gb DDR4

Have a question about RAM. Am I supposed to get 2 sticks of 4 gig ram or 1 stick of 8 gig ram?

Many thanks!!

 

[leif erikson]

In order to utilize the dual channel technology, you need two sticks of 4 GB each.

Good Luck!

 

[Gary Childress]

Thanks for all the help, leif erikson! Computer is up and running like a charm. Only problem I'm having is with Windows 10 updates. They seem to be stuck right now. I've been googling solutions and it appears it's going to be a real PITA to fix.

 

[leif erikson]

You're welcome.

Of course, the build was easy and windows 10 is hard, some things never change.

Best of luck!

 

[leif erikson]

Hope you got it straightened out?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Thanks for all the help, leif erikson! Computer is up and running like a charm. Only problem I'm having is with Windows 10 updates. They seem to be stuck right now. I've been googling solutions and it appears it's going to be a real PITA to fix.

Scrap win 10 and go back to Windows 7.

Your desktop choice is correct. 80 year olds do much better with a "normal" keyboard.

 

[caketastydelish]

Get her an Alienware with pimped out upgrades so she can browse the web and use Microsoft word with fast loading/response times and all its glory.

 

[Zelig]

I guess an 80 year-old has not-insignificant chance of dying within the next couple years, after which Windows 7 will no longer be supported.