Ok so far we have selected our case, power supply and motherboard the next step is to select a CPU (central processing unit) chip for the motherboard.  The CPU chip selection is based on your motherboard selection.  In the specifications for the motherboard you will the following parameters for your CPU. 

• Socket type
  • AMD
    • Socket A (462)
    • Socket 754
    • Socket AM2
    • Socket 939
  • Intel
    • LGA 775
    • Socket 370
    • Socket 478
    • Socket 479
• Processor Supported
  • AMD
    • Athlon XP
    • Athlon
    • Duron
    • Sempron 
    •  Athlon 64
    • Athlon 64 FX 
    • Athlon 64 Quad FX
    • Athlon 64 X2 
    • Geode NX
  • INTEL
    • Core Duo
    • Core 2 Duo
    • Pentium M
    • Pentium D
    • Pentium 4  
    • Celeron D
    • Core 2 Extreme  
    • Pentium EE
    • Pentium Quad-core
    • Pentium 3 Tualatin 
    • Pentium 4 Prescott 
    • Pentium 4
    • Pentium D
    • Pentium 4 HT
    • Celeron D

For a basic computer I recommend finding the processors that use the socket you require then arrange the list by order of lowest price to highest price.   You will notice that the prices have points where they jump quite a bit for the newer processors.  For basic computing you wont need the highest priced processor but one that will perform the tasks that you require.  Select a processor that is in the medium range of prices this will ensure that you are getting the most processor for your money.  By chosing one in this range it gives you the future possibility of upgrading your computer to a faster processor when the need arises.  I have created a page with selections for a basic computer to give you an idea of how to select the basic components of a computer.

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If you have witnessed the “blue screen of death” (BSOD) then you are aware of how scary it can be.  All the pictures and documents on your computer facing extinction.  How horrible a thought.  And you meant to make that back up but just never found the time.  Well there may be hope for that drive yet so don’t format it and reinstall, which is the common way of correcting this problem.  If this tip works it may not work for long so be prepared in advance to make backups of your files that are important.  Better yet buy a new hard drive of equal or larger size and clone your system to the new hard drive.  The program that I use exclusively for this procedure is Casper XP and is sold by Future Systems Solutions.  It is an easy to use program.  Before you can clone your hard drive(Please do not think that I am supporting Piracy) you still need to remove the BSOD.  This is accomplished by starting your computer from the Windows CD for your computer.  Once it arrives at the installation screen select repair using recovery console.  This will open a DOS session for you to perform a few commands to try to repair your system.  the first command is (chkdsk /r )without the ( ) this will locate any bad sectors and attempt to recover any data.  This procedure takes quite a while.  After this is done then type in (chkdsk /p) again without the ( ) this verifies the disk against the volume.  The third step is to type in (fixmbr) without the ( ) this will fix the master boot record on the hard drive.  Now type in the command EXIT and your computer will restart.  If all went according to plan then your computer should boot up normally.  If it did not start up then there are further problems and you should take your hard drive to a professional so that they can save the information that you need.  They have special forensic tools to extract data from bad hard drives.  If it started correctly then hooray!  Now is the time to install the Casper XP.  After installing the software shutdown your computer open the case and disconnect the cables from the cdrom drive and connect them to your new hard drive.  I do this as a short cut from changing jumper settings on the hard drive.  Restart your computer and it should find the new hard drive.  After the computer is fully up and running open Casper XP and select the copy drive function.  Leave all the settings at default and Casper XP will copy all the information from your old hard drive to the new hard drive.  Once the procedure is complete then shut down your computer again and disconnect the new hard drive and replace the cables to the CDROM drive.  Then remove the old hard drive from the computer and replace it with the new hard drive.  Restart your computer and it should start normally. 

If you have a question about computers or you are having an issue with your computer then post the question here and I will answer it for you.