Looking good so far, Nathan.

DDR3 RAM is confirmed on the mainboard and CPU, speeds of 1066 or "PC3-8500U" are supported but you can chose any fast DDR3 module which comes in at low prices.
As 1333 or "PC3-10667U" come at the same price as the slower ones, you can chose them to have some overclocking headroom if you want to go for it.
Go for at least 4GB, better 8 and install a current x64 operating system then. A Win7x64 Home or so will do fine. No expensive versions needed.

Your CPU won't kick bu.. in FSX but of course can run it, overclocking is recommended then, otherwise you are at the lower end of being capable to run detailed sceneries together with some complex birds.
Going for overclocking means that you should look for a good and not to pricey cooler then although the Athlon II X2 run very cool and haven't got a huge cooling demand.

As you said that it has to be a cheap HDD, SDDs don't play a role here, they are to pricey then and FSX installations usually grow and grow. So take a current 1-2GB variant with 7200rpm and you should be ok.
SDD performance in case of fps is almost not present in FSX, so you just have loading times to fight which is no problem on current discs.

You don't have to go for special SATAIII or "SATA 6Gb/s" models as they don't use the bandwidth of the very modern interface, so SATAII or "SATA 3Gb/s" is very much ok for normal HDDs.
Of course, if the price is the same, chose the SATAIII one.

A network card is included on your mainboard, even twice.
Quote:

No need to buy one. See here for the rest of specs of your board if questions arise http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3258#sp

As for the monitor, your preference counts. I think that 24inch models have a nice price point nowadays. The cheaper models use TN-panels which are ok but may be less useful if you are looking for a true color representation.
The magic numbers like 1ms reaction time are mainly marketing ones, you won't find any bad monitors for us "slow" flight sim fans, shooter guys might have another preference then.
You should look for a full HD model, so the resolution will be 1920x1200 and your graphics card won't have problems with this when running FSX.
Other games might change this (performance) picture but a HD5750 can surely run some detail without struggling. Depends on the game of course.


You should choose some price watch site to find your new stuff. Not only watch for prices but also for the reputation of the shop and look at the details before buying.
You can also go to big discounters if the run a shop nearby, all other solutions can be fine too but will raise the price on some parts.
If you need some service though, chose the friendly shops of course.

This mainly means that you raise the default speed of your components. So if your CPU comes at 2.9ghz, you later run it at 3.5 (just an example).
This can be done easily nowadays but used to be a big task in earlier times.

There are various guides around the net, so if you have a running system you may want to read and try.
If you stay within save limits of temperatures and voltages, no harm is done but as the components only guarantee you their default speed, you may encounter instabilities when aiming too high or approaching somehow wrongly.

To get to know those limits is the task then. But, as said, if you google "Athlon X2 overclocking" or something you'll get more than enough information while your first task now is to complete your system and run it.  

For the overclocking thing, a fellow pc enthusiast sitting in front of your PC could be more helpful than any guide on the net.
As FSX generally is CPU limited, the speed of your CPU therefor is the value to raise while your graphics card comes in second place and usually won't give you big gains in performance.

What CoolP said 

not to run into to much techy stuff, but a nice idea would be adding RAID-1 support in your pc.

If you build in RAID-1 (mirror) and 1 disk fails, you computer still runs on the 2nd disk.  Simply replace the faulting disk and the available disk will build up the replaced disk, so you have the RAID-1 back up.

Saves you a lot of time on reinstalling your whole machine and all things on it and stress and even loss of data.

Also found this on google searching for FSX performance on a RAID-1 solution, but found nothing, but found something interesting on RAID-0
http://www.jetlinesystems.com/performance.html

*note: RAID-1 does not replace any backup, so making a copy of important files to a seperate disk is very wise.

i think his laptop is dead now haven't seen him since sunday oops i hope he comes back soon

nahh its just nath2889 cant do any repaints and post them here thats why it quiat lol

Do you have an update about Nathan's activities?

I hope that Christmas brings him some working system again. I have enough repaints to get over the calm days now, so his pause is approved.  

Seems like the bad news keep going on. 

Well, a surely workable CPU mounted on a board and getting cooled will give you some beep codes, but from your description, silence was the thing that happened.
Lets hope for the new CPU then. One small chance would be a CMOS reset via jumper before trying to start a new assembled system. But I think you guys already tried that.

i think he did buy the replacment motherboard and PSU
not sure what he is doing for the CPU i know he hasn't got one yet

Bad memory sticks can cause problems.

1. The m/b should set of an error code (a sequence of beeps) if they are faulty, missing, or placed incorrectly.
2. They can cause the computer to not start, but I would expect condition one to make an appearance (be heard).
3. The computer will start but it can freeze up at any time (often the same point in a particular game due to the memory location) because of faulty memory chips.

Mark

we have tried with both boards just to boot  them in with no other cards inserted other than mem and still the same thing
and now im kicking my self as i think it is the mem as i remember nath saying some thing about beeps that happened with both boards after first turn on
but beeps no longer present
and he went and orderd a new CPU with what little money he had left
he should be getting it to day and he will be so disapointed when it dosnt boot
ok i think i better tell him the bad news and i dont think he has any cash left for new mem
think he is going to kill me lol

Sam im gunner kill you when i get my hands on you lol
any way just an update im still not up and running yet as im using a public computer at the moment to do my emails and online stuff
but it turns out no thanks to sam lol
that this problem could of been the memory all along if there is any one that could back this up so i dont waist any more of my very limited funds
as im about ready to kick the ne PC out the darn window
simptomes when first booted up with both motherbords was after the CPU , HDD ,Memory and PSU were conected the pc did not boot but did how ever beep a few times but i cant tell you how meany beebs as it no longer dose it
ANY clues

Yea ill hold my hands up to this one i should of thought about it befor geting you to get new mother bord , CPU and PSU could of saved you lots if i got you to do mem sticks first
soz man
look at it this way though you have spair parts for if it gose wrong after you get it running

Well he was only jokeing when he said he was going to kill me
but it is still kinda my folt in a way as he brought the PC to me to take a look at and i rushed to a conclusion and told him it was a CPU and knowing he dosnt have much funds i feal kinda bad as he spent a lot on some thing he didnt need

maybe a bit to late since he already spend a lot of money on hardware.

If you don't know much of computers and stuff, buy a brand pc like a Dell or HP.

If it's broken, you have warranty. Other thing, there is a whole development team at those kind of suppliers who already figured out what works with what based on hard and software, so no need to invent that wheel.

Some say it's more expensive, but whats more expensive then pulling your hair out figuring out why your hardware is not working together and you have to replace this because its not compatible and ending up with a huge stress and hate about the hardware you bought..
Specially for those who are no comp wizzes

People in my area i always recommend, if you don't know much about a pc, buy a preassambled one. 1 box, 1 warranty to fall back on in case of nuts.

I myself work as an IT-specialist at a Japanse Firm and maintain quite a few boxes which are all bought from Dell.
At home i use a Dell pc and had a few times that my harddisk was broken. 1 phonecall and the next day i had a new harddrive and since it was RAID-1 config was just pull out the defective one and chuck in the new 1. No downtime
(I used to toy with self made pc's, but it costed me a shitload of money since i always wanted to upgrade and stuff and in the end costing me more time on rebuilding/reinstalling then actual playing with it.

Don't hurry, Nathan, the calm days are coming up.

Can't some parts that are of no use now be returned or something? At least, if you bought them online, you can return them within a certain time, in good (new) shape and with all packing and bundled stuff included.
Even if you've got them from a local dealer, they should be fair then or not?

No worries Nathan.

Glad to have you back. I look forward to more of your repaints.

Mark

Well when you get to my age, bad memory, supposedly, becomes "the norm".

Mark