Fry's GQ cheap computers
Fishface
cheap computers at Fry's. I Googled, but found little info.
We picked up a $250 computer several weeks ago for someone
who just needed a browsing, email machine. The Great Quality
GQ 5110 ran like a no legged dog with the 128 MB of RAM, but
with an added 512MB stick, it is a very reasonable alternative to
upgrading a dinosaur. The memory subsystem is relatively slow
even for a single channel computer with a 133MHz bus, but
adequate for those with modest needs. Here's the link, I'm not sure
what they're smoking with the price this week:
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4551067
Essentially, it is a Celeron D 2.66GHz processor with EMT64
extensions and 256KB cache on an ECS 661GX/800-M(V1.0B)
motherboard.
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?DetailID=522
There are two SATA connectors on the motherboard, but no
SATA power connectors on the power supply, so adapters would
be required to add SATA drives. The PS is a 250w unit offering
13A on the +12v rail. It comes with a Seagate 7200.7 40GB Hard
Drive and a 16x Dual Layer DVD +-R/RW Drive of unknown
origin, Nero OEM Suite, and Power DVD. System Restore CDs
are included, but there is no XP disk. Activation was not required,
so the license is either pre-activated or tied to the MB bios. The
black keyboard has a nice feel, and buttons at the top to control
browser and media playback and volume. They even work with
iTunes. The mouse has a ball and a wheel. Speakers are better
than nothing-- but I've heard much worse. There is a headphone
jack on the speakers, but they go through the speaker amp. The
headphone jack under the slide down panel which also covers the
floppy and front USB sounds much better.
The cpu fan has a loud, fast 80mm fan. It got very warm inside the
case running Prime95 Torture Test. The PS doesn't pull much air
and it needs a fan in the rear. There is a place to mount either
an 80mm or 92mm fan on the rear, but neither is included. I put a
Zalman resistor bundled with this fan:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118206
...on the cpu fan, and mounted a Vantec Stealth 80mm fan on the
back. Now it is Perfectly cool and quiet. The hard drive is mounted
sideways and ventilation holes in combination with the rear fan would
seem to cool the HD nicely. There is room for another hard drive
above the first, and another 5 1/4" bay for expansion. It takes a
standard size ATX power supply. Nice case.
I messed around for hours but could not get the Sandra buffered
memory bandwidth scores above around 1350ish MB/s. I even
tried installing an AGP video card but the score only bumped-up
by about 25 MB/s. Capable PC3200 running asynchronously at
the tightest timings strangely did not help, and created an instability.
Command Rate is fixed at 2T. We're not burning any barns, here.
All in all, for under $300 with the added memory and fan, it was not
a bad deal for what it is. I even saw it priced at $200 for a one day
Memorial Day sale.