Building my first computer

[YellaBunny]

OKay I have a issue, I think, with building this computer.

I purchased a motherboard (ASUS) that has slots for the RAM to go up to 2.0 GB on it (DDR SDRAM). I bought a Intel Pentinum Processor 2.0 GHz (with the heat sink) for it. A tech told me that if I add the maximum ram with the processor I could burn out the system. First of all is that true, second if this situation could happen, is it okay to add a RAM fan or just add ram little at a time. Now what I plan to do with this computer is use it for graphic programs, Music, and hopefully working on server side programming. Tell me what you think? and what is the best idea too do?:confused:

[scoutt]

well you won't get 2gig of ram while running win98. but you could do it with win2k, but why? all you would need would be around 512Mb of DDR Ram, not SDRAM. but it really all depends on what OS you are planning to use. you won't burn out the system adn that tech should be fired. what about all the servers that run over 2gig of ram? they don't burn up.

ASUS is a good board and you should be on the right track. you can't add a fan just for memory but you can add fans in the case itself that would cool the entire system. you will also need a good video card if you do a lot of graphics and a good sound card for the audio and music editing.

[YellaBunny]

you won't burn out the system and that tech should be fired. what about all the servers that run over 2gig of ram? they don't burn up.

You know scoutt..He works at BestBuy, I think they just want my money .:D I wanted to run 2000 on it, everyones tells me thats it more stable than XP Pro. I mean I LOVE my Win 98SE..but like you said, that ain't gonna cut it.

I don't think i'll purchase my video and audio cards from there. I have one more question, since i will be storing alot of music and graphics, would it be wiser to have one 120 MB drive or two 60 GB drives?

Thanks scoutt

[scoutt]

hehe BestBuy, their techs are not really techs. :)

I have a friend that does alot of music on his computer and I remember him saying that 2 hard drives is better because you are not pulling all the process form one hard drive. and 2 is always better as you have a place to backup and stuff if the first hard drive crashes or you have to reinstal the OS.

I can't comment on 2000 be more stable than XP as I haven't and won't use XP. but XP is better for music editing than you would think.

[Ian]

Reports say XP is the most stable OS of the Windows family. I work on systems which have Win98se, ME, 2k and at home I have XP Pro, I have not run into stability issues with any of them but if you have the chance, go with XP, it is more compatible than any other OS and once you get used to it, you will not be dissapointed. (you can config it to look and run just like Win9x family if you don't like the layout). For HDD's, go for two and partition them, that way you can just format one virtual drive without data loss if it is required at a later date.

[Ganon of Evil]

Can XP run server apps well? I would install linux and XP if i were you for the server side programming. I dont think max ram will burn out anything though (doesnt make any sense). 2GB ram is useless and expensive anyways, 512 MB is more than enough for what you want to do. BTW like scoutt said there is a major bug in Win98 that doesn't allow more than 1GB of ram. Something to do with Windows getting confused and starts thinking you dont have any RAM.

[scoutt]

you can use a serer on XP, either IIS or Apache. both run just fine as far as I know. :)

and the limit is 1gig in win98 but win98 will not use more the 256M