PC project under way

[THOR]

Now that I have hoarded all the parts I have begun the assembly of my new PC. I thought I might document the construction as I go since many may not be familar with PC's and may find it interesting.

First off the case has room for 5 cooling fans, only problem is that the "protective" grill or whatever you wanna call it is really going to restrict the airflow on 3 of them and actually make the fans louder, see?

[THOR]

So first off I get rid of those, be sure to take out the power supply and any other electrical parts before doing any drilling or cutting to your case, you don't want metal shavings in that stuff.

Now much better, I will install the fans with real grills that don't hinder the airflow and cause as much noise.

Back:

[THOR]

You see the louver on top of the case? That is for another fan but since it is nice looking cosmetically I will leave it alone, but the fan that goes in there will be one of four that will be connected to a fan controller that I can use to adjust the speeds or turn fans on and off depending on usage of the PC. Example playing a graphics intensive game I might all the fans on high, but for normal PC stuff I may have a couple off or all turned down.

Heres a shot of the front with another pesky "grill" removed:

[THOR]

Next installment I will begin to fit all of this (not the CV subwoofer the stuff on top ;) ) in there:

[Andyman]

Did you ever think of using one of those liquid cooling systems? I see them at computer stores with black lights and stuff and just shake my head.

If water and oil don't mix, wtf about water and electricity???

[ProAc_Fan]

OMG Thor if I didn't know better I'd swear you knew exactly what you're doing. :D


Mike

[Andyman]

Well, I gotta admit chainsawing out those wacky spiral perforations was a nice touch!

[Lefty]

At work here (a large oil refinery) we utilize a 1,500 horsepower variable speed motor drive for a large compressor and it uses water cooling for all the SCR devices in the rectifier/invertor assembly. However the water has to be kept in a ultra pure condition (pure deionized water with many filters and a deinozer tank and lots of instrumentation to monitor water condition). Water in it's pure state is a very good insulator, even in this 7,500 volt system.. :eek: :eek:

Lefty

THOR;

Nice project on the PC but I'm still going to let the local Costco big box store 'build' my system. Going to pick it up tomorrow and I signed up for SBC/Yahoo DSL service last night, $30 a month with a 12 month commitment, free DSL modem.....chat room here I come...:p: :p:

[ProAc_Fan]

Oh and Thor friends don't let friends drink Bud Light :puke:


Mike

[THOR]

Bud light wasn't mine ;)

Lefty, it would cost me about $1300 to get a computer with the same stuff in it, I am spending about $800. It's not too hard and it makes it easy to upgrade since I know what goes where. But there are some great PC's out there for not a lot of money nowadays for those not wanting to DIY.

The whole watercooling thing has two drawbacks, one it's much more expensive than case fans and a heatsink with fan on your CPU and GPU, two, it's a lot more of pain in the ass to setup and maintain from what I've read. You can buy cases all set up for it and you just add the water and the components but they are mucho expensive ;)

I am used to my PC's sounding like jet planes so it's OK ;)

[grumpy]

Thor

I hope that butter knife is for Bagels and cream cheese ?

[Reel 2 Reel]

Isn't it funny how everybody notices the stuff in the back ground?????

What about that smoke detector and the picture of the kids...and is that a bottle of dasani water next to the sub......
nope too small....and the little doggie (dont remember his or her name) didn't finish all (his or her) dinner!!!!


The picts are cool....keep them commin'!!
:)

[bolly]

...It's the multi-tool???

Greg

[THOR]

I used the butter knife to pry up the louvers on the top vent to get a bit more airflow without ruining the astethics ;)

The water? Actually besides achoholic beverages I only drink water or skim milk, really, I gave up soda, juice, and that stuff about a year ago (unless it's mixed with alcohol ;) )

The smoke detector keeps going off and scaring the dogs (low battery?) so I took it down and removed the battery ;)

[bolly]

That's a coincidence!

[Reel 2 Reel]

Originally posted by THOR


The smoke detector keeps going off and scaring the dogs (low battery?) so I took it down and removed the battery ;)

I understand!!!

[boostcrazy]

Originally posted by Reel 2 Reel
I understand!!!

Were the hell do you get all them attachments?

[Andyman]

Originally posted by Lefty


Nice project on the PC but I'm still going to let the local Costco big box store 'build' my system.

I'll let you guys in on a clue for shopping at Costco. Look for the $xxx.97 prices. Those are the items that have been marked down (sometimes below cost) to clear out and make way for the fresh. Might not be cutting edge, but what is in computers?

BTW, it will be fully warranteed too.

Somebody's gonna get a deal, why not us??:naughty:

[Reel 2 Reel]

Originally posted by boostcrazy
Were the hell do you get all them attachments?

There are some I steal from other forums..and there are some I steal from ............VinTx...hes the master on GIF's and Smilieys!!!! :ntwrthy:

I know ....I'm slime!!!!

[VinylHanger]

Hey Thor, howabout a list of what you're putting in there. I just upgraded mine a few months ago and am itchin' to do it again, gonna use the Athlon 64 bit chip next time. I figure within 5 months or so it should drop in price a bit.

[BeatleFred]

Hi Thor:

Hope all goes well with setting up your fresh new system. Just thought I'd mention that since its "fresh", be a good idea to install some protection right away when youre ready to use the computer to keep your new system safe from outside intrusion. What anti-virus/adware etc.. program have you been using? I just installed SpySweeper 2.2 to clean out my system, a free version available www.webroot.com

B/F

[THOR]

Mid tower case with 350watt PS (window and light as well )

Abit IS7 Motherboard

P4 2.8 gig CPU

2 x 512 MB PC3200 Cas 2 DDR RAM

200 gig Western Digital Caviar 7200rpm HD

Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card

Soundblaster Audigy 2 Sound Card

Plextor 52x24x52 CDRW

Lite On 16X DVD

Misc. Goodies:

5 - 80mm blue LED fans

Vantec Silver Nexus NXP-205 Fan Controller

Rounded Cables

[THOR]

VH I was originally gonna try an Athlon PC but my buddy who is like the Captain Kirk/Bill Gates of computer nerds convinced me not to since in his experience (runs the system for a college) he said Athlons weren't as reliable. He also pointed out that I have has a PIII that has run overclocked for over 4 years and it's never even hiccuped. In my reading I have seen no indications that new Athlons have any problems but when spending a lot of dough like this in the end I went with what I know works from my own experience, ABIT mobos and Intel CPU's.

BF I use adaware and spybot, I don't use a virus program since I stopped opening strange emails years ago I have never gotten another virus. If I can find a free one somewhere I may throw it on just to be extra sure, but if youare careful of what you open and DL it's easy to not get viruses.

[VinylHanger]

I am thinking that a certain someone thought similarly about tubes at one time? :p: I guess there's hope for that someone yet;)

[Vintage TX]

Thor, it seems like you know what you doing.
Interesting :)

[FreaK]

what'd you pay for the cpu and mobo?
P4's aren't cheap, and combining that with a decent mobo i can't see how you fit it all in $800.

personnally if i were to build up an x86 compatible i'd be quite tempted to make a nice case out of wood and put an array of fans at the top (with a feeder fan at the bottom) to take advantage of convection.

[EchoWars]

he said Athlons weren't as reliable. This right here tells me he's whacked.

Nothing wrong with a P4, but I build with 'bang for the buck' in mind. I haven't had an Intel processor in many years (I believe my last was a PIII 700 O'clocked to 933, and that was like 3+ years ago).

The problem was never the processor, but a lot of the early motherboards were kinda flaky. Mostly the Abit ones, and I swore off those POS a long time ago (sorry...)

Been using Epox mobo's for the last 3 years or so...solid as a rock.but if youare careful of what you open and DL it's easy to not get viruses.That is soooooo no longer true. You used to have to open something to be infected....I used to tell people that 'viruses can't just leap onto your system'. Well, now they can. You are asking (begging actually) to be one of those idiots that I want to pummel because you think that being careful with opening attachments will protect you...and my firewall in the meantime is hammered away at 24/7/365 with infected computers (like your's will be), trying to infect mine...all from people who are 'careful'.

Put this (http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php) on your system, and please be a part of the solution to the crap flying across the internet, instead of being part of the problem.
:rant:

[EchoWars]

...sorry...guess I sounded harsh...

I just don't want you to make the false assumption that because you're careful that your covered. There are sooooo many infected systems out there where the operator hasn't a clue, and it uses up valuable bandwidth over the web and reeks havoc with innocent systems everywhere. If you don't want to shell out for a full-blown pay-for virus program, then the AVG will do a nice job. Small memory footprint, uses almost zero resources, and it's free.

[THOR]

P4 2.8 Gig $187

Abit IS7 mobo $97

Where I made big savings was winning an auction for the case, HD, and CDRW for $155 ;) HD and CDRW NIB even. I also got the RAM for a good deal as well.

Oh my friend is not whack it is scary what a computer genius he is, but his ideas for reliable are 24/7 operation in the kind of environments he is used to, not really applicable for home use, and like I said I have read nothing about athlons being unreliable now. I just decided to go with what I know in the end.

[VinylHanger]

I think a lot of it is in the MB's. I was running out of money so I bought a lower end MSI, what a joke. It won't even recognize the speed of my chip. It thinks it is a 1800+ instead of the 2600+ which seems to keep it slogging along at a relative snails pace. The thing that makes me not like Intel is that they are a bit dishonest in the way they rate the speed, maybe EW can back me up here as I am late and not quite awake yet. It has to do with the way they proccess compared to the Athlons, which with the 64 chip does so much faster it is nearly infinite in the amount of info it can process at a time. Very cool, though very spendy.

[EchoWars]

Thor...

The argument has been moot for quite some time as to whether to go with an Intel or AMD setup. No sense arguing the issue...if he claims that AMD sucks, there isn't anything that is going to convince him otherwise. I've built over 50 systems in the last two years using both P4's and Athlons, and had equal success and failures (the failures generally being crappy motherboards), and none were attributable to the processor.

IT guys generally gravitate towards Intel simply because that's what they've always used, and the additional cost is generally a non-issue since someone else is footing the bill. But the 'Intel RuLeZ' and 'AMD RoCkS' BS is best left to the pimply-faced teen fanboys. Educated and up to date IT personnel generally understand that it's all a matter of semantics nowadays.

VinylHanger....

Go into your BIOS and set the proper bus speed. The motherboard defaults to a lower speed to make sure that you can boot in the event of a failure, so if your processor is supposed to be a 133Mhz FSB, you will have to set it manually. It's a 2-min fix...

[THOR]

Originally posted by EchoWars
Thor...

The argument has been moot for quite some time as to whether to go with an Intel or AMD setup. No sense arguing the issue...if he claims that AMD sucks, there isn't anything that is going to convince him otherwise. I've built over 50 systems in the last two years using both P4's and Athlons, and had equal success and failures (the failures generally being crappy motherboards), and none were attributable to the processor.

IT guys generally gravitate towards Intel simply because that's what they've always used, and the additional cost is generally a non-issue since someone else is footing the bill. But the 'Intel RuLeZ' and 'AMD RoCkS' BS is best left to the pimply-faced teen fanboys. Educated and up to date IT personnel generally understand that it's all a matter of semantics nowadays.



Oh I definetely agree EW, he definetely has an Intel bias.

The prices were pretty close between the P4 2.8 and the AMD counterpart, only about a $40 difference so I just went with the P4. I ended up being able to spend more money on this PC than I thought I would be able to. In the beginning I was leaning towards an AMD one. But being able to spend the extra cash I went with the P4 since it is slightly faster than it's AMD counterpart in gaming. I had actually intended on getting a P4 2.4 gig and oveclocking it since people seem to be having great success with them but the word must be out cuz Newegg was sold out of them when I was ready to buy, the 2.6 gig ones too actually so I went with the 2.8 gig just cuz I didn't want to wait or pay shipping to buy it from somewhere else.

If money was no issue (or if I didn't buy that fancy tube amp ;) ) I would have definetely built an Athlon 64 system ;)

[Morden2004]

In my reasonably extensive IT experience there is no 'significant' difference between comparable Intel vs. AMD chips - except for the cost.

In the large organizations, they usually order the Pentiums and Xeon's wheras in the smaller (or self-owned) business they are usually smarter :D (just fooling with 'ya) and go with AMD.

Here at home in my modest 4 computer LAN I have 3 Intel and 1 AMD but mostly because I often buy lease returns and you take what you get :p: .

Paul

[VinylHanger]

EW, it has a manual jumper and a bios setting and they are both set to the higher one of 266. But it won't see it, so the next free day I get I am taking the thing to the shop where I goot it and he said he'll check it out. I am thinking I will just get a better board, as this one has conflicts with my Hurricane extreme sound and is having some stability issues. What do I expect for 70 bucks:rolleyes:

[THOR]

Made a little progress last night.

Some people may install the parts differently, I know some may put the CPU/heatsink/fan and RAM on the mobo before putting it in the case but I like to install the mobo then put the stuff on it.

Mobo installed in the case, with CPU/heatsink fan and 1gig of RAM (I just get a kick outta saying that! My very first PC had 16MB of RAM and the last one I built 128MB RAM cost more than the 1 gig of DDR RAM I put in this one! Amazing!)

[THOR]

Then I installed the drives. Next up I will start wiring things, my goal is to make the wiring neat and clean, I want it to look like the underside of one of Wards DIY amps when I'm done ;)

[THOR]

Been working on it the last couple days on and off. Front bezel on and PCI cards installed:

[THOR]

Everything for booting up and install of OS installed, want to make sure everything works 100% before tying everything down and buttoning up ;)

[THOR]

Fanbus installed, allows the speed control of four of the fans, adds more wires to the mess I gotta make neat :confused:

[THOR]

Front view, pretty blue lights to match the case:

[THOR]

Now I can install the rest of the fans, pretty blue LED ones ;)

[THOR]

So trick!

[THOR]

Wires all cleaned up (perhaps not up to Ward's standards but I think damm good considering just how many there are :eek: ) Also the blue light installed, either you can run it on contantly or you can set it to react to ambient noise. Which means YES it bounces to the music!!!! :D

[THOR]

All finished!!!

[THOR]

:D

[THOR]

No comments on all my hard work and my sexy new PC :confused:

You guys are a bunch of turd burgulars :mad:

[Reel 2 Reel]

Ok I'll be the first....Its cool...and I just wish I could see the lights bounce with the music!!!!..and a DVD player...I need one of those too.....how did the set up go...any headaches???

I just need a whole new setup...this 3 year old wonder has seen its days...but it still works ...and No problems

[THOR]

Only problem I am running into is that Call Of Duty is crashing when I play it, seems to be a common problem from internet searches, tommorow when I hook it into the home network I will download and update new drivers for the sound card, vid card and update my BIOS and all should be fine. I had it running all day and played a couple of DVD's picture was pretty amazing and I played some Unreal Tournament with no problems. Tommorow when I get into the network I can try some newer games and demos. PC is actually pretty quiet even with 5 case fans and the fan in the PS and on the vid card.

[opt80]

Nice job,Thor!Congratulations

Alan

[Wireworm5]

She's real perdy. I wish I had those lights on mine.
I'm going to have to get a dvd burner and more gigs and ram just to keep up. I only have 180 gigs and 256 Ram and 1.2 Amd Athlon chip.:(
I think the Amd chip is better for music from what I read. But that was over 2 years ago.

[THOR]

I talked to my PC buddy and he is telling me that with a DVD burner you can copy XBOX games, they have that $30 have two games out at Blockbuster deal and have been going there daily and bringing games back to the shop and copying them :eek: I might have to get me one of those!

[VinylHanger]

The reason I upgraded mine was so I could play Day of Defeat with less lag and better graphics. Only that is the only freakin' game I can't get to work. So now I am going to get my old MB back in a case just so I can play it :mad:
Sweet system, though as you know it has been at least a week now and your system is hopelessly obsolete, at least that is what the newest mags seem to say :p:

[THOR]

Well I could still play everything with my old PC, PIII 700, 256MB RAM, Geforce 3 64MB, ay 1024 x 768 but on games like Call of Duty and Max Payne II I had to play at lower detail settings than I like and sometimes the gameplay still slowed down. It still plays a lot of great games beautifully so when I get it set up in my boys room we'll be able to have some great multiplayer Counter-Strike and Unreal Touney battles, of course I always stomp a mudhole in his ass cuz I got my gaming skills in the Atari dojo ;)

My new PC will play Call of Duty at 1600 x 1200 at all highest detail settings with 6x Antialiasing and such. We will see when I get it to the net and DL all the latest drivers just what it can do ;)

[THOR]

Updated my mobos bios, new soundcard driver and vid card driver and I am good to go, no crashes are nothing blazingly fast beautiful graphics ;)