Need computer advice.

[StealthCat]

So the computer that I had running my house took a shit.First let me fill you in on what I mean by "running my house" so you can get a general idea of what the bare necessities are.

A while back I got into the idea of automating my home.Since I live in an apartment and travel alot,it seemed like a "cheap" convenient thing to do.I set off on my quest to tinker and it turned into me going overboard but successful.So now as it stands I have 5 camera's,3 microphones,and a majority of my lights hooked up to a central windows xp computer.I set up a webcam hosting program on the computer all the cameras were hooked to in order to view them over the web.I also set up a program called "tightvnc" to control said computer over the internet as if I were actually sitting in front of it.By doing that I was able to utilize a program that controls all the lights and turn them on,off,put them on timers,etc.I then registered a site and linked all of this to it along with an ftp (storing and pulling from said computer) in a nicely organized way as to be able to use it easily and with the click of a button.

The computer was originally meant to be a multimedia computer and file server so I could watch movies from it on the projector (it sits beside my couch).As my tinkering grew,so did the load in which I was putting on this poor little dell and 3 nights ago it finally went.So now I am with out a computer to run the house,and the ability to pull off the files I need for school (which i might add starts in a little over a week).Usually I would just chaulk it up as a loss because its not something that I absolutely need anyways,but I need to get tax information and school files off of it quickly,so I can't just shrug it off.

So,today I headed to microcenter to build a new one.It doesn't need to be the best of the best,but seeing as how I don't want to have to keep dumping money into this thing in order to keep it from obsolete,I'd prefer to do it right the first time.This is what I came up with,and also where the advice comes in:

Antec Nine Hundred Case

nForce 4M-A AM2 ATX Motherboard

AMD Athlon x2 5600 processor

Corsair VS DDR2 2GB dual sticks of ram (at 800mhz)

EVGA GeForce 8800GTx GPU

KINGWIN AS-3000 AquaStar Liquid Cooling System

BK 650W ATX (PCI Express&SATA supporting) Power Supply

Does this seem like it will last me a little while for movies,running the house,and gaming here and there?I know the video card is overkill,but I figure this way it won't be obsolete nearly as quickly as my old radeon.Also,if I just throw my current hard drive in there is there a way I can trick windows into reinstalling everything?Obviously it is going to think "What the hell is going on here?!",but will I be able to configure it to run all the new hardware?I'm trying to save myself the time and money of setting my current HD as a slave and going and buying a whole new HD and operating system.Any suggestions?Is there anything I'm forgetting?I haven't done this in about 4 years,so I'm completely out of the loop and flustered.Any suggestions and advice would be GREATLY appreciated since I really cannot afford to screw this one up.

[Myzon26]

the ideal thing to do as far as the hd would be to get a new one.I say this because in running all the things that you do, especially the file serving aspect, i wouldn't expect that hd to last much longer anyway, if it is the original hd. if that isn't a suitable idea the next would be to do something called "nuking the enum".In your registry there is a registry key called the enum, i can't remember it's exact location (i'll find it when i get home) but when you delete that key and restart the system it will have to redetect EVERYTHING.It is probably going to be about a 45 minute process on the new machine you are building. do not restart (even though it will ask you to several times) until the redetection process is totally complete, after that go into safe mode (usually f5 on bootup), device manager, and look for doubles of drivers and drivers from the previous system, remove them and restart again.With a lot of luck that will be the end of it. i do however stress that this should be looked at as a last resort. best possible case patch your old system up as cheaply as possible, build your new system with a new hd, network them and transfer your stuff that way. if you have any other questions let me know. and if you have actually read this far without falling asleep or hanging yourself, 10 points:banana:

[Myzon26]

oh, and those components should make a very good system. you might want to think about a stand alone sound card if you do alot of gaming.

[flounder]

Looks like a good build but I suggest buying a new HD for the OS and installing it right instead of just letting windows update your current HD OS.. I've built servers and firewalls from the ground up and my background is Systems/Network Administration / Security. Speaking of security, get rid of VNC... that little prog is a exploitable playground... I would love to start playing with your lights at 4am some night while you slept..

[walther_gsp]

Looks like a good build but I suggest buying a new HD for the OS and installing it right instead of just letting windows update your current HD OS.. I've built servers and firewalls from the ground up and my background is Systems/Network Administration / Security. Speaking of security, get rid of VNC... that little prog is a exploitable playground... I would love to start playing with your lights at 4am some night while you slept..

Or at the very least, tunnel the VNC client over SSH. And do it on a port other than 5900.

[StealthCat]

the ideal thing to do as far as the hd would be to get a new one.I say this because in running all the things that you do, especially the file serving aspect, i wouldn't expect that hd to last much longer anyway, if it is the original hd. if that isn't a suitable idea the next would be to do something called "nuking the enum".In your registry there is a registry key called the enum, i can't remember it's exact location (i'll find it when i get home) but when you delete that key and restart the system it will have to redetect EVERYTHING.It is probably going to be about a 45 minute process on the new machine you are building. do not restart (even though it will ask you to several times) until the redetection process is totally complete, after that go into safe mode (usually f5 on bootup), device manager, and look for doubles of drivers and drivers from the previous system, remove them and restart again.With a lot of luck that will be the end of it. i do however stress that this should be looked at as a last resort. best possible case patch your old system up as cheaply as possible, build your new system with a new hd, network them and transfer your stuff that way. if you have any other questions let me know. and if you have actually read this far without falling asleep or hanging yourself, 10 points:banana:

You're aweseome and that is much appreciated,but I've decided to stop being such a cheap D-bag and just buy a new HD and OS.

Looks like a good build but I suggest buying a new HD for the OS and installing it right instead of just letting windows update your current HD OS.. I've built servers and firewalls from the ground up and my background is Systems/Network Administration / Security. Speaking of security, get rid of VNC... that little prog is a exploitable playground... I would love to start playing with your lights at 4am some night while you slept..

VNC is the only thing I could find that was reliable and not riddled with backdoors,any other suggestions?At 4 AM while I sleep?What the hell do you think this is,I posted this at 4 AM.

[shittygsxr]

Somehow I think flounder may have more fun with the webcams at 4 am than the lights

[StealthCat]

He would that sick bastard.

[Myzon26]

You're aweseome and that is much appreciated,but I've decided to stop being such a cheap D-bag and just buy a new HD and OS.

that would probably be the best and most hassle free idea, and you could always use that old hd for a backup. good luck with it.

[StealthCat]

I've decided to us my old 40 gig,and bought a new 250 gig (both SATA).I plan on using xp pro unless anyone has a reason I shouldn't.