Second-Hand System: A Good Buy?

[largeruk]

I live in UK and am considering buying the following second-hand system for the equivalent of c.US$1,200.

Motherboard: Gigabyte 686BX
CPU: Pentium2-333mhz (overclocked to 400) - retail (B80S23P333512E SL2QF)
Case: ATX Full Tower (300w psu, 2 fans)
Ram: 128mb (2x64mb PC100) - unbranded
Graphics: AGP 8Mb ATI Xpert@Work (oem) & PCI 12Mb Orchid Righteous Voodoo2 3DFX (retail) - connected by an external pass-through cable
Sound: ISA 4Mb AWE64 Gold (retail)
Hard Drive: Seagate Cheetah 4.5Gb Ultra-Wide Hard-Disk (10,000 rpm) (oem) - includes 68 pin ultra-wide cable. Has a JustCooler 5.25" bay fan added to cool the HDD.
CD-Rom: Plextor X32 speed UltraPlex Internal Caddy drive PX-32TSI/CSI (retail) - includes 50 pin ultra cable
SCSI Card: Adaptec 2940 Ultra-Wide SCSI controller PCI card (oem)
Monitor: Iiyama Vision Master 450 19" S901GT (retail)
Floppy Drive: Panasonic 3.5"
Keyboard: Keytronic Lifetime Series Designer (retail)
Modem: Pace External 56K/V.90 modem (retail)
Mouse: Logitech Mouseman 96 (retail)
Speakers: Yamaha YST-M7 speakers (retail)
Gamepad: Microsoft Sidewinder gamepad (retail)
O/S: Windows 95/98

The system would be used primarily for game playing and office97 apps. I would appreciate some advice/views re the following:-

1. Price
Is this a fair price for the above system, most of which is c.12-13 months old?

2. Overclockability
a) Motherboard/cpu
Does anyone know if it is possible to further overclock this mb/cpu combo? If so, how??
b) Video Cards
Can I overclock the ATI/3dfx card combo? If so, again how?

3. CPU
Can anyone tell me more about the P2 cpu from the code info given above?

4. RAM
PC100 DIMM (64Mb) - 8 chip/code on chip: SEC KOREA 813 KM4858030BT-GL
PC100 DIMM (64Mb) - 8 chip/code on chip: LGS GM72V661641CT75 9815 KOREA
Can anyone tell more about these ram sticks from this chip/code info? Is it 'true' PC100 SDRAM? Is it any good?!

5. Potential for Future Upgrades
I would want to add an SCSI cd-r (probably Plextor or Yamaha) as my first purchase for burning/copying cds. What would people spend money on to make the system better/faster in the future when money is available?

All advice/views gratefully received. Thanks in advance.

[Dominus]

1. Sounds like a good deal to me, money-wise.
2. As for overclocking, the SL2QF, might go to 414 or 450 depending on the PCI bus speed the HDD can handle. That 3dfx card will go to 95 0r 100 mhz safely, (default 90mhz) perhaps more depending on cooling.

3. That cpu has multipliers 2.0 - 5.5 enabled and has 4 or 4.4 ns cache.

4. Don't know anything about that ram.

5. Don't know much about SCSI.

hope this was helpful.

[largeruk]

Thanks for the replies so far. Much appreciated.

System would cost in UK equivalent to US$2,000 if purchased new. But don't really have an idea of market worth of second-hand systems, hence my orginal question no.1.

System is being sold by person who uses Mac at work and wants one at home.

Any more advice/information/views? Please respond...

Thanks.

[CMonster]

That sounds like a good deal to me.

[Ed_S]

Sounds like a lot of system, maybe a little short in HD size. I'll keep my comments to question 1, as your posts imply this is the deciding factor.

Most important factor in value of used is local market, which can only be determined in your area. Here in St Louis, for instance, there are so many computer stores that compete price-wise that used systems are plentiful and hard to sell. I just can't compete with the four CompUSA stores here that sell systems for $500 & up with no interest financing deals!

First rule of used purchasing: Price is ALWAYS negotiable!!! Even large stores haggle over floor models & clearance items.

Are there other people interested? On the other hand, are there other used systems available if you pass it up?

How long has it been for sale?

Has it been trouble-free so far? Even good components don't always work well together. A buggy system isn't worthless, but it's definately worth less!

Is this a friend, or from an ad? This makes a BIG difference! You can haggle with a stranger easier, but have more faith in friends - but deals can kill a friendship!

Will you get the original reciepts? Some components will still be under warranty. For instance, most monitors and HD's carry 3 yrs.

Will you get the O/S disk and all drivers disks and manuals? Other software?

All these kinds of things affect the valuation. Also, when you compared to new, was that component prices or did you take list to someone & ask if they could replicate it? System price will be less! E-mail your list to a couple of major vendors.

Remember, this all doesn't really matter if you REALLY want it NOW. Most have us have thousands tied up in these "toys" & know we'll never see it again, and that it will always, definately, be cheaper tomorrow. We sure wouldn't do it if the money was the most important thing. If this is the system of your dreams and you can afford it, buy it!

[Roy]

At $1200US that system would sell in a heartbeat here in Los Angeles. The monitor is top-grade and worth at least one half the system price.

The Samsung (SEC) -GL SDRAM is rated CL3 at 100MHz, works up to 112 and is considered PC100, although it predates the standard.

The Goldstar (LGS) stick likely is 7J, not 75. If, so it has equal performance.

True (certified) PC100 SDRAM bears a label that reads "PC100-###-###" where the numbers give information about certain specifications. If the label is present, email me and I'll let you know what it means. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Roy (edited 04-26-99).]

[Nathan]

Very well spoken Ed_S!!! Offer a thousand and be willing to walk away from it if they don't come down in price. Remember, that "new car smell" will be gone once you start having problems with it. At $1,000.00, that's a lot of money to take a chance on it failing on you. You can build a good system for $1,000.00 less a monitor and have a warranty too.

[Nathan]

Looks like a great system.

1. As to the price, what would all that cost if you were to buy it new right now? Let us know on that one. The price seems a pretty good because a 19" monitor is included. So let us know on that one.

2. Why are they selling the system?

3. It's all ready overclocked. I'm not a fan at all with overclocking. Can and usually does shorten the life of the system. I would be concerned because it's overclocked as to the length of time left on the system.

4. What about the warranty? I doubt you'll get one.