R.I.P.

[FridayChild]

It is my sad duty to inform you, If I may, that my good, old, glorious and decaying old calcolatore (see specifications in my signature) has entered immortality yesterday.  :(
[And no, I did not get it from Leonardo Da Vinci, though it may seem likely]  ;)
So long, old pal, will be missing you somehow.
But I'm sure your follower-up will do its best to make me miss you less.  ;D

That kind of closes it up for my FS98 screenies as well, I guess (although you never know).

[asda_price]

R.I.P Rubbbish computer...

...Hello nice, brand-spanking-new computer!  :D

FridayChild, 'tis time for you to move on and hopefully buy a new computer (better to build one yourself actually!) and install FS2004.

Lead a better life with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight!

...

[Dan]

Hey thats what happens after a while I geuus. Yous hould try to see what broke - if its not oo major then you could replace it and keep it as a back up machine like. Otherwise take out its drives - you can re-use them for endless back ups... and RAID 0 springs to mind!!  ;D
Remeber - Get good, buy once.  ;)

[FridayChild]

It's incredible how long this computer managed to work, and how stable it was under the stress of the frequent software updates and the ton of peripherals I added to it through the years. Until yesterday.
What is definitely gone is one of the two DIMMs; but I also have intermittent problems with the IDE devices; most of all my CD burner. I suspect a faulty power supply too.
For sure the fact that I keeped it on almost all the time in the last month (I have switched from dialup to 24h ADSL) took its final toll on the battered chips. Insufficient cooling may be.

[Dan]

Ah well thats a pity. Just take what you can, and keep anything else for 'later'! You never know  ;)

[ctjoyce]

well Ibuypower is having a sale, and Dell is alaways giving something away for free with every purchase;)

[bm]

Dell is alaways giving something away for free with every purchase;)

You don't get something for nothing (except for FS freeware downloads.........)

[the_autopilot]

It is my sad duty to inform you, If I may, that my good, old, glorious and decaying old calcolatore (see specifications in my signature) has entered immortality yesterday.  :(
[And no, I did not get it from Leonardo Da Vinci, though it may seem likely]  ;)
So long, old pal, will be missing you somehow.
But I'm sure your follower-up will do its best to make me miss you less.  ;D

That kind of closes it up for my FS98 screenies as well, I guess (although you never know).

LOL. Congrats. Time for a new computer. Yay. I always love these occasions when my computers breaks...

I recommend you build a new computer. Tell us your general prupose (gaming, video encoding, enginerring, etc.) and we'll help you choose the components.

[GunnerMan]

If it were me I would stik it in the oven....  ::)

[FridayChild]

I will need a big hard drive, partly because I am thinking about some hard disk recording of my music; and obvioulsy the new system must be able to support splendidly FS2004 and the forthcoming FS2006.
I am open to suggestions; anyway my idea since I have not an unlimited budget is to get an Athlon XP based system (not Athlon FX, I'm afraid) with 1 GB DDRAM and a 200 GB serialATA hd and good PCIe video card; does the 6600GT exist in PCIe format?

[asda_price]

Hey FridayChild,

You should igonre the Athlon XPs. They are now rubbish.

The Athlon FX consists only of the FX-55. That is AMD's best CPU. Since you don't have an unlimited budget (as you said) your best bet is an Athlon 64 3000+ or 3200+.

The GeForce 6600GT does indeed come in PCIe, the card was solely intended for it. You will have to buy a Socket 939 processor however. It is a very good value card.

1GB RAM is an excellent choice; it will handle everything you throw at it.

Rob.

[the_autopilot]

Hey FridayChild,

You should igonre the Athlon XPs. They are now rubbish.

The Athlon FX consists only of the FX-55. That is AMD's best CPU. Since you don't have an unlimited budget (as you said) your best bet is an Athlon 64 3000+ or 3200+.

The GeForce 6600GT does indeed come in PCIe, the card was solely intended for it. You will have to buy a Socket 939 processor however. It is a very good value card.

1GB RAM is an excellent choice; it will handle everything you throw at it.

Rob.

Excellent specs. Be sure to get ddr400 memory thats registered. The a64 3000 and 3200 are both socket 939. Make sure you get a good mobo. I recommend the Nvidia  nforce4 regular (I'm sure you don't need any of the fancy features like SLI).

Consider also getting a DVD burner as they are really cheap now with some going below $80 and supportin dual layer dvd's.

A USB optical mouse and keyboard is suggested. The old keyboard probably wasn't ps/2.

nforce4 has sound builtin, so unless you really want good sound and have 5.1 or higher speakers, a sound card is optional and not really necessary.

A OEM copy of XP pro is also recommened.

[asda_price]

Yes, I very much agree with the_autopilot there.

As he said, you should get a DVD Burner, they are very cheap nowadays, and of course you should get an optical mouse.

Also, as the_autopilot suggested, get Windows XP. It's the best OS out with many games optimized for it.

Sound card is optional but I highly recommend it; however, motherboards are now coming out with excellent integrated solutions.

It really is up to you. I think it's best if you buy the individual components and build the PC yourself. Of course, you will need a case, but that's no problem.

I think a 160GB hard drive is enough these days.

I have compiled a list of the components I recommend:

Motherboard: Gigabyte K8NF-9 nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI Express
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB 2000JD SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-013-WD)
RAM: Corsair 1GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 Kit (2x512MB)
Graphics card: Leadtek WinFast PCX6600GT-TDH Extreme Edition GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express)
Case: Antec Super LANBOY Aluminum Super Mini Tower Case - No PSU (CA-012-AN)
DVD-+RW drive: Sony DWU-23A 16x16 DVD

[FridayChild]

"Athlon xp"

I really really meant "Athlon 64"... where was my mind?  :P
Thanks very much for the suggestions! For sure I'll build my own PC choosing the single parts so they will be very useful.
Yes I also forgot to mention the obligatory dual layer DVD burner.
Did I mention that I want the whole system to be QUIET?  :)
I hope I can get down to <1k euro. I'll post here what I find!  :)

[GWSimulations]

Those specs wouldn't even hold the "aircraft" folder in my FS9 directory, let alone the whole game!!!