Well I was able to score this pretty decent HP desktop from work for $250 open box. I'm giving it to my brother for this birthday, but so far so good. Turns out the mobo and CPU were defective but replaced. Here are the specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3400+(Venice 2.2ghz)
ASUS mobo
1GB PC3200 DDR
160GB IDE HD(going to throw in a 160GB SATA too)
DVD+/-RW and Regular CD-ROM drive(weird they threw that in...)
I also picked up a 19" Proview flat panel for myself(giving the Acer to my brother as well) for $227. The contrast ratio is lower than my old 17" Acer though, and I had to tweak both the monitor settings and video card color options to make it look decent...keeping it at 1280x1024 too long hurts my eyes, so I'm leaving it at 1024x768. Kind of a step down, but eh you get what you pay for. I'll live with it, despite the fact my brother is getting the better monitor.
