View Full Version : My new PC
Aaron Blood
04-01-2005, 01:45 PM
Well, I finally rec'd all the boxes (4 in all) that contain the guts for my new supercharged PC!!! Finally... : pray2: I'll have a decent gaming machine.
Soooo... the kitchen table is now covered with parts and gizmos that I'll be attempting to assemble this evening.
:beerchug:
My brother's interested in learning how to put together a PC so he's gonna come by tonight and watch me :banghead: until it's all working. Should be fun.
Anne Troy
04-01-2005, 01:53 PM
Well??? What're the specs? C'mon, c'mon!!
(Haven't shipped that disk yet.)
XL-Dennis
04-01-2005, 01:58 PM
Good luck and I guess that You will optimize it for games :thumb
Kind regards,
Dennis
Aaron Blood
04-01-2005, 02:25 PM
Well??? What're the specs? C'mon, c'mon!!
(Haven't shipped that disk yet.)
I was hoping someone would ask.
Processor: AMD 64 Athlon 3500+ 2.2GHz (64 bit processor :thumb )
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (SLI = multi GPU!!!)
Graphics Card: Dual (yes two!) nVidia Extreme N6800 Ultra GeForce
Memory: 4 paired dimms, 2 megs total, OCZ PC4200 DDR2 533MHz
Primary HDD: Western Digital WD740GD Raptor 74GB 10000RPM SATA 8MB Buffer
And some other stuff... new Sony DVD double layer r/w, I'll probably scavenge the 200 gig HDD off my old PC as my secondary storage device. My Dell flat panel display is still in good shape. I'll probably wait a bit before getting a big 20 inch display.
It's like Christmas... :clap:
Zack Barresse
04-01-2005, 02:27 PM
Damn Aaron! Nice!!!
Oh I wish I had THAT for christmas!!!!
Have fun with it (I'm sure you will)!! :yes
Anne Troy
04-01-2005, 02:31 PM
Aaron: Did you ever meet up with Bill? Was that tonight?? Last week?
Aaron Blood
04-01-2005, 02:39 PM
Yeah we had breakfast Wednesday morning at Cracker Barrel. He was down visiting some family. Nice chatting face-to-face. A guy their snapped a picture for us. I think Bill's gonna post it somewhere pretty soon. That'd be funny if I started using it as an avatar for posting to his board.
Aaron: Did you ever meet up with Bill? Was that tonight?? Last week?
Anne Troy
04-01-2005, 02:48 PM
It'll prolly appear here, when it does:
http://www.mrexcel.com/communityphoto.shtml
Ken Puls
04-01-2005, 03:27 PM
Memory: 4 paired dimms, 2 megs total, OCZ PC4200 DDR2 533MHz
Aaron, that sounds like a pretty nice machine, although I think I would have opted for more RAM. 2 megs sounds a little light. I think I woulda gone for a couple a gigs, myself! :devil:
So does this mean that the XBox retires? :rotlaugh:
Anne Troy
04-01-2005, 03:29 PM
ROFL!!! Aaron...if you can't edit your post, I'll do it for ya!
Zack Barresse
04-01-2005, 03:29 PM
I think he meant 2 ghz. :p
And doesn't this say it all, "OCZ PC4200 DDR2 533MHz"?? I mean, wow!!
Ken Puls
04-01-2005, 03:54 PM
Hmmm... he might of, but I doubt it. Memory is usually measured in Bytes, speed in Hz.
OCZ PC4200 DDR2 533MHz just means its REALLY fast for 4 x .25 MB chips! :rotlaugh: (Did they ever even make such an animal as a 256 KB chip?)
Killian
04-01-2005, 04:30 PM
2 6800 ultras... that'll do
Aaron Blood
04-02-2005, 07:04 PM
gigs...megs... it's all that new fangled 'puter lingo.
Shows you how long it's been since I've built a PC. Let me see... was it my C64 that had 2 megs, or the Amiga.
Actually, I had some trouble with the RAM... I got the wrong stuff. :doh: Had to swap it for PC3200 DDR 400mhz, the DDR2 stuff wouldn't fit the mboard. oh well... The DDR 400's should still be plenty fast.
I did manage to get the puter together today, but now I'm trying to find a cheap way to get my windows XP installed...
Let's see... if I start with my win95 bootdisk, and then use the 5 consecutive upgrades, hmmm... I might be able to actually run software on it by the end of the month.
Retire the Xbox? Are you nuts!!
Aaron, that sounds like a pretty nice machine, although I think I would have opted for more RAM. 2 megs sounds a little light. I think I woulda gone for a couple a gigs, myself! :devil:
So does this mean that the XBox retires? :rotlaugh:
Aaron Blood
04-06-2005, 08:54 AM
The new PC is working! :beerchug:
For anyone out there thinking about maybe building their own PC (I say go for it) you can read on to avoid a few of the blunders that I made in the process and maybe save yourself a little (or a lot) of money.
I managed to get it running by Sunday. Not too bad I guess, considering it was a pile of parts Friday night. I only encountered two issues during the building phase. First (and the biggest blunder by far) I didn't order the right RAM for the motherboard. That should've been an easy thing for me to figure out. It's just been such a long time since I've built one that I didn't realize there was any difference between DDR2 533Mhz Dimms and the more standard DDR400 Dimms. I was actually prepared to purchase the DDR400 Dimms and then I saw a faster rate on the DDR2 and just thought, "Hey faster the better! And they both say DDR, must be OK." Should've reviewed my motherboard specs before making that decision. After reviewing it later, it was VERY obvious the motherboard wouldn't accept DDR2. Basically, what I learned was the new Intel chip motherboards support DDR2 and the AMD boards seem to work with DDR400. I picked up 2 gigs of the proper PNY DDR400 memory at CompUSA Saturday morning. If the internet supplier doesn't take back the DDR2 RAM, it will be an expensive lesson (nearly $600 for 2gigs of DDR2 RAM). My brother on the other hand will benefit greatly if they don't take it back. I'll just give it to him so he can build a new PC with it. Aren't I a good brother?
The other problem I had during assembly wasn't as big of a deal, but it was annoying. The AXT case that I ordered came with a free 480W power supply. Turns out the free power supply was designed with a 20 pin connector for the motherboard power (commonly referred to as an AXT power connector). Even though my motherboard was labelled as an AXT motherboard, it had a 24 pin power connector. The mfg (ASUS) referred to it as a 24 pin AXT power connector. I learned later at CompUSA that the power supply mfg's call the 24 pin connectors BXT connectors. So, I went ahead and picked up a new 500MW Mad Dog power supply with 24 and 20 pin (AXT/BXT) compatibility. The new power supply is a lot nicer. Better cables that detach at the power supply and two big fans in it. When I turned the thing on I thought it might fly away, I now count a total of 6 (maybe 7?) fans spinning in the case! Didn't really lose money on the free power supply, but once again, my brother's new PC will receive the benefit of the freebie.
I probably don't even need to mention it, but building the thing was by far the easy part. Getting the Windows OS installed, now that's hard!
My last PC had Win 98 installed. I never bothered with Win2K and then I finally bought the upgrade for XP Home for like $100. So, I just couldn't bring myself to fork out another $300 for the full version of Win XP Pro, or even the $200 for Win XP Home when I already bought the XP home edition. Besides, I know MS is getting ready to release an XP64 edition that I will immediately purchase when it becomes available in the next few months. So, I just need something to bridge that gap.
My plan was to install Win98 on the thing, and then use my XP upgrade disks on it. You can imagine what it was like trying to put a 7 year old OS on my new PC. Immediately I was faced with the problem that Win98 didn't recognize large HDDs. Soooo, I had to get the updatd FDISK.exe file so it would properly format my "massive" 74 gig drive.
Once I had that done, I was able to install Win98 to the HDD. During my first few attempts at booting I was getting a very disturbing message. "Win98 is unable to operate due to insufficient memory. Please close some apps and retry." Are you kidding me? I've got 2 gigs in the thing!!! Oh, then it dawned on me... Win98 couldn't recognize more than 1 gig. I pulled out 2 of the dimms and sure enuf Win98 then started loading.
I thought I had finally outsmarted it, until it locked on the Win98 loading screen. :banghead:
After several attempts at rebooting, I finally made the connection that the load screen locked at the point the 3.5 floppy light came on. Hmmmm... I didn't even want to install a 3.5 floppy on the thing. The only reason I HAD to install one was so I could run a bootdisk to format the HDD. I may never use it again. With that in mind, when I went shopping for a 3.5 floppy at CompUSA I found one that was a 7-in-1 card reader. Included with the 3.5 floppy was the ability to read all sorts of little storage cards. Cool, if I bought this one, at least it would serve some purpose. But now Win98 was choking on it during the boot sequence, must've not liked the USB connection it had or something. So I pulled up the BIOS and took the floppy out of the startup sequence. Finally, Win98 loaded!
From there it was fairly simple. Got out my XP update disk and started in on that process. Only had one glitch. When I started the XP install it errored out with a "CD is unreadable" prompt. Oh no, don't tell me the disk is damaged. I looked at it, looked fine, actually looked better than the Win98 CD I had just installed. For whatever reason, the Sony Dual-Layer DVD writer didn't like it. Luckily, I had a second CD/DVD and it seemed to run fine on that one.
So, I did finally get Win XP on the thing. Now it taunts me with warning messages about how many days left I have to register it. So now I'm like in a countdown to destruction. I'll have to go out and buy a router and get my wireless network in place so I can logon to the MS website and then they can assign a cust svc rep to yell at me for trying to install the software I legally own on my new PC. Anyone know offhand what the XP Home EULA allows in this respect. Seems to me I'm allowed to install it once or twice, but I don't recall if I'm allowed to have it on a new machine (even though the old machine is no longer usable).
Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that there's probably some way to install XP directly even though you only have the upgrade disks. I suspect this because I think I recall during the XP install process the installer asked if it was an upgrade or full installation. Oh well, if someone tells me it could've been done, it'll just be another lesson learned...
We'll see what happens now with that RAM supplier and the MS website when I try to register XP home.
Zack Barresse
04-06-2005, 09:44 AM
Now that was an adventure!! :D
The memory thing gigs everybody it seems. It's gotten me in the past as well. The best thing you can do *before* you ever buy memory, is make sure it's compatible w/ your motherboard. The best place to do this? www.Crucial.com It is THE place to find memory, plus it's fairly cheap. The problem you probably had was it was too fast for the FSB.
My mother-in-law just did that to my wife's computer. I told her to check (but she never listens to me anyway :devil: ) which never got done. It's like putting PC133 RAM in a MB which accepts PC100; you'll get it to run ... a little, then it will shut down or act really funny on you. Bottom line is it sometimes won't present like a memory issue when in actuality it is. So I rant to everybody, "Go to www.Crucial.com!" :)
I'm glad you got it working though! You'll have to let us know the performance you get with this thing. Will you benchmark it?
Later! :cool:
Ken Puls
04-06-2005, 09:57 AM
LOL! Sounds like you had a good time with that!
With regards to the XP thing, it's been a while since I put XP on a machine, but if memory serves, you just throw in the CD and boot from it. It'll bring up the utility to format, etc...
With the upgrade versions I had, I'm pretty sure (again, it's been a while) that it just asked for the windows disk. Put in the old disk, let if find the windows.ini file (pretty sure that's the one), and it's a happy camper. Away she runs.
I know for 100% certainty that upgrade or not, I've always found a way to start with a fresh install ever since Win 95. :yes
Aaron Blood
04-06-2005, 11:46 AM
Now that was an adventure!! :D
The memory thing gigs everybody it seems. It's gotten me in the past as well. The best thing you can do *before* you ever buy memory, is make sure it's compatible w/ your motherboard. The best place to do this? www.Crucial.com (http://www.crucial.com/) It is THE place to find memory, plus it's fairly cheap. The problem you probably had was it was too fast for the FSB.
My mother-in-law just did that to my wife's computer. I told her to check (but she never listens to me anyway :devil: ) which never got done. It's like putting PC133 RAM in a MB which accepts PC100; you'll get it to run ... a little, then it will shut down or act really funny on you. Bottom line is it sometimes won't present like a memory issue when in actuality it is. So I rant to everybody, "Go to www.Crucial.com!" :)
I'm glad you got it working though! You'll have to let us know the performance you get with this thing. Will you benchmark it?
Later! :cool:
The RAM is indeed too fast for the 400Mhz FSB, but aside from that... You'd think DDR2 and DDR400 would fit the same socket. They actually look identical at first glance. Same length and relative size, but the center notch doesn't line up. Off by maybe 2-3 mm. Close, but not close enough. Probably a good thing to prevent hacks like me from damaging equipment.
Benchmarking... Perhaps, if you recommend something to benchmark it with, I will. You have to realize though, it's a 64 bit CPU. There aren't many apps yet that really exploit it. A lot of the benchmarks right now won't really tell the story. Especially since I'm using a 32bit OS. I don't have the top-o-the-line Athlon64 FX55 ($1000), I have a notch or two down from that: 2.2Ghz Athlon 64 3500+. I'm told the 3500 designation is trying to draw a comparison to the clock speed of the Intel CPU; in this case 3500 being 3.5Mhz. I don't know if I believe that 100% but to put that in $$$ perspective, an Intel chip in the 3.4-3.6 range costs $415-$580, my AMD CPU cost $270.
I did see an excellent analogy on another board that compared a faster clock Intel CPU to the slower AMD64. They said, "Think of the Intel chip as a 6 lane highway with a speed limit of 150mph. Now think of the 64bit AMD as a 12 lane highway with a speed limit of 100mph." Assuming an application is built to operate on either hwy you can see how the hwy with more lanes could move more cars from point A to B in a given amount of time, even at the slower speed.
I've heard much talk that in the next year or two you'll see developers taking advantage of the 64bit design. The soon-to-be-released Windows XP64 I think will be a big step in that direction. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx
Looks like they had a customer preview program where I could've possibly got my hands on a beta version of it. But, I'm too late it's already closed. :doh:
BTW, I'm not just spewing on-and-on for no reason on this thread. I'm saving this one so that when I build the next PC (probably for my brother in a few months) I'll have something to refer back to. You guys are kinda serving as my diary on this one.
I know for 100% certainty that upgrade or not, I've always found a way to start with a fresh install ever since Win 95. :yes
Great... :think:
I had a feeling I was doing something moronic. Next time around I'll know better.:banghead:
On a side note... and Zack you might appreciate this.
Over the past couple years, I've become very fond of my Xbox controllers (and not just because they vibrate... although that IS nice).
I was looking around to see if my favorite 3rd party Xbox controller mfg (Logitech) had a decent PC version of the cordless one I use. Turns out they do have something... but then I stumbled across it!!! I found out that instead of buying new controllers, I can get a neat little USB adapter with a driver set for like $10 that just allows me to use all my XBox 'trollers on the PC!!! I ordered two of em.
Oh happy day! :cloud9:
Aaron Blood
04-08-2005, 06:57 AM
Good News!!! (at least for me)
The online company I ordered the RAM from agreed to take it all back without charging any fees other than shipping costs. A good PC parts supplier out of California. If you're looking to build a new PC or upgrade I can recommend them without hesitation. I'm also using one of their own brandname all aluminum cases. Good quality, I was very pleased with it. I'll be ordering more PC guts from them for my brother in the near future as well.
eXtreme PC Gear
http://www.xpcgear.com
I have no affiliation with them, other than being grateful for how they dealt with my situation. Most online dealers wouldn't have bothered with me. They went out of their way to accomodate me on this one and all my email correspondence with them was replied to personally and promptly. (thanks Jeff Ho!)
You know they've got this banner at the top of their website that says "Top Service, 5 stars, rated by our customers". Typically you just ignore stuff like that... But in this case, I have to agree! :clap:
Zack Barresse
04-08-2005, 08:39 AM
Great site Aaron! Bookmarked!! :yes
Breezing through their cases, I recognize some my father-in-law has built:
http://www.xpcgear.com/blueuvcase.html
http://www.xpcgear.com/powcp0327pl4.html
http://www.xpcgear.com/strykerst626s.html
http://www.xpcgear.com/strykerst626b.html
http://www.xpcgear.com/xsalienyellow.html
http://www.xpcgear.com/clearblueled.html
Aaron Blood
04-08-2005, 08:59 AM
Mine's not all that fancy, It's just stuffed into a computer armoire anyway and not all that visible. But I did want a good all aluminum case.
http://www.xpcgear.com/aluminum.html
I liked the design of the slideout mboard tray. Also a good solid construction, you don't have to bang on panels to get things to click in place if you know what I mean (I'm a former Dell owner, closing up a Dell case sometimes involved a rubber mallet or at least my fist). Everything fits and slides smoothly when the twisty screws are removed.
Also, I like their case mods section (even though you can't really see my case). The spidey and punisher fan grills are pretty cool. Some neat window decals too.
http://www.xpcgear.com/casemodding.html
Ken Puls
04-08-2005, 09:43 AM
... you don't have to bang on panels to get things to click in place if you know what I mean (I'm a former Dell owner, closing up a Dell case sometimes involved a rubber mallet or at least my fist)....
I hear you there! Some of the older Dell's I had running at work, you have to try multilple times to get everything to line up BEFORE you beat them as well. Of course, you didn't realize it wasn't aligned properly before the damn thing wouldn't close and you'd hit it a couple of times!
I have some older compaqs that are no better, too. Your pretty much have to slam the case against the chasis to make it lock.
The saddest part is that you have to go around telling all your users to be careful with their PC's, then open up a can o whoop-a$$ on them in front of the users when you want to add RAM or something! :rotlaugh:
An easy close case would certainly be a nice thing!
Aaron Blood
04-11-2005, 12:50 PM
The saddest part is that you have to go around telling all your users to be careful with their PC's, then open up a can o whoop-a$$ on them in front of the users when you want to add RAM or something! :rotlaugh:
That is funny... :rotlaugh:
Aaron Blood
05-10-2005, 06:55 AM
Put in my order yesterday for the free 120 day trial version of Windows XP64.
Anxious to see if there's any noticeable difference.
Ken Puls
05-10-2005, 08:01 AM
So does this mean that you're going to start pioneering the 64 bit API calls?
What happens after the 120 days? I got really irritated with the Visio 2003 trial. It runs out, and you have to uninstall the trial version, then install a full version. There's no way to buy a key and activate the software. Hopefully it isn't the same with XP64, as that would be really irritating with an OS. :yes
Aaron Blood
05-16-2005, 09:26 PM
So does this mean that you're going to start pioneering the 64 bit API calls?
What happens after the 120 days? I got really irritated with the Visio 2003 trial. It runs out, and you have to uninstall the trial version, then install a full version. There's no way to buy a key and activate the software. Hopefully it isn't the same with XP64, as that would be really irritating with an OS. :yes
:rotlaugh: Pioneering? hehehe... I'd have to learn how to use the 32bit ones first.
Don't really know what happens after the 120 days... I'll have to read the fine print when it shows up. So far it's only cost me $6 shipping. I doubt it will end there though...
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