Computer Building 101

[Drewdle]

So, who here "rolls their own", so to speak?  All smoking references aside, I actually build and fix a lot of computers, usually my own, and collect old hardware and software. My main desktop is pretty new, maybe a couple years old, but I've just finished building a PIII class desktop with 512Mb RAM, a 20gb hard drive, a GeForce 4 440MX card, a SoundBlaster AWE64, and a couple of optical drives. I think the PIII is 700Mhz, give or take. I plan on putting Xubuntu on it. I was just happy to get all the parts in one box.

I've got lots to play with aside from this box, though. I've got two Athlon/Duron class boards, a Celeron board, an original Pentium Socket 7 board with 233Mhz MMX chip in it, and a plethora of parts, graphics cards and otherwise. Oh and about 25 network cards.

My crux? I have a love for Macs too, and sadly, you cannot do much under the hood with any Mac I've ever come across. But yeah, you could say it's a bit of a hobby.

[Kesarra]

Not really tech support, but it does give people a little info on who knows what.

My 'portable' MP3 player: http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8678/vert1sa5.jpg 1ghz underclocked to 700mhz and it doesn't even need a fan on the heatsink. Windows 2000, 17GB HD, 80W power supply, USB gamepad for WinAmp controls, 4X20 character LCD (hand soldered to a printer cable) to display title and CPU usage and other things. I do need to get it out of the box and into something thinner. There's also a need to replace the power supply with a picoPSU since the whole thing runs in my car. It's capable of using and powering a handheld Garmin GPS, if I just had a touchscreen. All the computer parts were somebody's garbage. I built it about 1-2 years ago.

My current computer is an AM2 chipset that boots to XP32, XP64, Vista64, and will be OSX once I get a dedicated IDE drive. OSX hangs on the install when trying to use SATA.

I have all kinds of parts from 486's to Pentium4's and not enough motherboards for them. I have 5 complete systems in my home and only 2 are used often. I built 4 of them and customized the 5th (500mhz laptop with internalized USB hub and bluetooth with power switches for each). The laptop lost its battery many years back, but if I still had it I would have replaced the dead cells.

[PyroVulpes]

Wow, Kesarra, you've got some real talent there! There's no way I'd be able to get something like that to work.

I'm by no means an expert when it comes to computer hardware or software, but I do prefer building my computers from scratch. Here's my new system that I put together just over a month ago. What you see there is an MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard, 4Gb RAM, AMD Phenom 9850 CPU, 750Gb hard drive, Soundblaster X-Fi, two Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards, and a Thermaltake liquid CPU cooler. And yes, those are the Tommy and hunter figurines that come with Prey Limited Edition down there on the bottom, xD.

My biggest regret was choosing the MSI motherboard, as it's been nothing but a pain in the @ss. Next time I think I'm gonna go with Asus instead, I hear they're much better. My second biggest regret is, of course, Vista64. I've been seriously considering installing XP32 on it as a second OS.

[Drewdle]

A friend of mine just built himself a rig like yours Pyro, except with 8Gb of memory running Vista 64. It runs Vista 32 in a virtual machine using VMware, and is still fast enough to play games. It's got triple SLI Nvidia 8800 cards, and a Core2Duo Quad Extreme chip, don't know the exact specs. Kesarra, that's some electric-work talent man. That reminds me of some of the projects I've seen online where people have made portable systems out of an N64, etc. I can only put the stuff together; custom electronics elude me. 

By the by, if anyone's interested, the old-school machine I wrote about in my first post is being used to surf the forum right now, except I guessed incorrectly at a couple of the specs. It's actually an original class Celeron machine running at 433 barn-burning mhz, and has an 8Gb hard drive. I plugged in my 8Gb flash drive to give myself some space. 

[sulli]

WOW those are nice systems u guys got, "claps paws" beuitiful jsut beuitiful.

here is my rig, i built it myself 2 years ago, added the water cooling this year just for fun. somewhat of a tight fit but she runs nicly.
AMD atholong 64 bit 3700+ CPU ati radion X1950 pro, (it's a bit hidden in there, trust me it's there) 2 GB of ram 460Gig of space.

mostly i use it fo rmy gamming, (DDO), yes i am addictied to it,  i want to build a new rig soon, but i ahve to kill this one first, kinda need a reason to spend the money tog et a new one, but i will get my quad core one year.

[Drewdle]

WOW those are nice systems u guys got, "claps paws" beuitiful jsut beuitiful.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o2/sullilan/DSCF0496.jpg
here is my rig, i built it myself 2 years ago, added the water cooling this year just for fun. somewhat of a tight fit but she runs nicly.
AMD atholong 64 bit 3700+ CPU ati radion X1950 pro, (it's a bit hidden in there, trust me it's there) 2 GB of ram 460Gig of space.

mostly i use it fo rmy gamming, (DDO), yes i am addictied to it,  i want to build a new rig soon, but i ahve to kill this one first, kinda need a reason to spend the money tog et a new one, but i will get my quad core one year.

Overclock the bejeesus out of it and throw on DDO non-stop. Might take some time, but that usually shortens the lifespan of a system. Also, take the water cooling out, it'll make things faster.  Hey, you did say "kill this one first".

[Mobile Suit Bunny]

I roll everything.

I used to build my computers from scratch, until I moved away from Toronto and didn't have such an awesome selection of parts sources to choose from. And when I joined up and moved from Windsor, I had to give away my rather awesome collection of old PC bits.

In recent years I've mostly bought laptops, though my current PC was bought (for a rather happy price) from Canex, which is basically the military department store:

Quad-core 2.4GHz
500gb SATA HD
2gb DDR2 RAM
GeForce 5500GT

Since I've acquired it I've had to replace an inexcusably weak power supply (350w...!?), which took the mobo with it when it died, but I'm much happier with the new mobo. I also use an Audigy 4 in place of the mobo onboard sound. All I play on it is EVE and TF2, so the stock 8500 is quite adequate.

So my current roster consists of a mostly-stock Seanix, an early dual-core iMac, an Eee with extra RAM and so many extra USB storage devices it looks like some sort of top-secret military signal-acquisition computer, and a Sun Ultra 1 (which is mostly unused now).

Oh, and the G4 we have in the basement for StepMania, which doesn't have a network hookup. (But I did get a dlink wireless card to work in it once, on Tiger.)

[Don Karnage]

i got 3 computers.

the first one is a
pentium 4 
1 gig of ram
hd of 80 gig, 200 gig and a new 500 gig
a video card ati i think of 256 megs
near 2 Ghz

the other one is
amd athlon 1.81 Ghz
1 gig of ram
video card nvidia geforce 6600 256 meg
hd 20 and 200 gig

and the back up is a
pentium 3 from compac
866 mhz
512 meg of ram
video card: nvidia geforce2  mx 100/200 i think its 64 megs

i will buy more rams for the pentium 4 later and another hd for the amd and see how big i can put on the pentium3

[mtnlion]

Well, one of many systems I'm running, which is my main desktop computer:

Athlon X2 4600 (2.4ghz) running at 3.0Ghz on Air (had Watercooling, res cracked, havent replaced yet)
MSI K9N SLI Platinum
Evga GeForce 8800GTS video card
6gb OCZ DDR2-800mhz (2x2gb, 2x1gb)
Pioneer SATA 16x DVDRW
LG SATA 18x DVD-RW w/ Lightscribe
Creative X-Fi Platinum running about 1000 watt 5.1 system
200, 250GB Western Digital RE IDE drives,
320, 500GB Western Digital RE SATA drives,
2x120Gb Western Digital RE SATA RAID striped.

Running Vista64 Ultimate non-SP1, and loving every minute of it.. well, once I disabled all the extra security BS (the "are you sure you know what you're doing" dialog type things), as well as a tonne of useless services like indexing.. hogging resources everytime I seem to fire up STALKER.. Its amazing how much bloat is in the OS. And I thought XP was bad.

A prev post mentioned problems with MSI boards, and possibly switching to Asus.. I was the complete opposite. I had an Asus board (m2n-e or something), and had nothing but problems -- bad drivers, slow sata access times, too many unknown hardware devices, which turned out to be devices that were disabled in the BIOS. And then one day my HSF literally FELL off the cpu bracket, investigated further to find that the actual HSF bracket had broke. That was what made me get rid of it. I was thanking god it didnt crack my 8800 in half..

[ACGIFT]

I've never owned or possessed any pre-made desktop. The first few I had were built for me by the person who gave them to me as a gift, and later I switched to building my own when I was 17. Admitedly, that same computer still is what I have, and I've been looking to replace it not too much into the future when money permits; I built it to last 4 years, and last 4 years it certainly did. But I'm hoping for a bit more than okay performance on medium with modern games... Something that will, for instance, be nice and ready for the likes of Far Cry 2 and Clear Sky.

Also, Kesarra, I don't think I'd ever be able to work up the desire to turn those parts into a dedicated machine like that. Most impressive, if only slightly impractical.

[DJDarkViper]

Bought the computer as it was, nice and cheap, then i promptly ripped and replaced almost everything but the case and mobo. Those come next.


Manufacturer:     Black Jaguar Studios
Processor:    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory:    4GB DDR2 RAM
Hard Drive:    Total of 800Gb across 2 drives
Video Card:    EVGA NVIDIA e-GeForce 8800 GT
Monitor:    21.5" 1680x1050 Samsung LCD Flatpanel + 19" 1440x900 Viewsonic LCD Flatpanel
Sound Card:    Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Netword Card:     D-Link Xtreme N Desktop Adapter (click for pic )
Speakers/Headphones:    Sennheiser HD555 Studio headphones, + 2.1 Altec Lansing
Keyboard:    Microsoft Wireless Comfortcurve Multimedia
Mouse:    Microsoft Optical, Black
Mouse Surface:    My desk
Operating System:    Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Sp1
Motherboard:    Intel i think
Computer Case:    HP Pavilion

[Tonk]

Wow, Kesarra, you've got some real talent there! There's no way I'd be able to get something like that to work.

I'm by no means an expert when it comes to computer hardware or software, but I do prefer building my computers from scratch. Here's my new system that I put together just over a month ago. What you see there is an MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard, 4Gb RAM, AMD Phenom 9850 CPU, 750Gb hard drive, Soundblaster X-Fi, two Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards, and a Thermaltake liquid CPU cooler. And yes, those are the Tommy and hunter figurines that come with Prey Limited Edition down there on the bottom, xD.

My biggest regret was choosing the MSI motherboard, as it's been nothing but a pain in the @ss. Next time I think I'm gonna go with Asus instead, I hear they're much better. My second biggest regret is, of course, Vista64. I've been seriously considering installing XP32 on it as a second OS.

Don't go with asus they used to be good. Sadly nowadays they have awful support and there boards have a very short lifespan. I have had there quad fx board for about 2 years now and it has been replaced 3 times(not including the DOA one i got last time) I hear they have been improving as of late but i would not buy another asus board for along time.

[Roffo]

My pc falls under being "alright", and quickly got out dated.

Anthlon 64x dual core 3.0ghz
3GB ram (not sure bout clock speed though...)
500GB HD
Asus motherboard
8600GT Geforce (does the job for dual 22" monitors)
Vista Premium 32 bit
pc case HP

I was thinking of making my own build once I get the cash going but I rather save up now.

[Wyrd-Hotd]

Well, my last machine i built....
AMD Athalon 64 3500+ 2.5 Ghz (single)
3 GB DDR 400 Ram
Gigabyte Nforce 4 Ultra Board
Asus Nvidia GeForce 6600GT
80GB HDD

But my New Machine was purchased at FutreShop, its an HP Pavillion that i upgraded from stock
AMD Athalon 64 5000+ 2.6 Ghz (Dual)
3 GB DDR 2 667 Ram
400 GB HDD
BFG Nvidia 8500GT (512 Mb)
Asus Tv Tuner (dont really remeber what it is...)
and, most people find this astonishing, its only got a 230 Watt Power supply!
heh...i think it should be dead but its been a year and still going strong...

[Aurifer]

Does anyone here have DDR3 RAM? I've been looking into it, but I haven't seen many machines capable of running it.

[Tonk]

I do not, and won't for awhile since i am building a skulltrail system. But ddr3 will work on the 790I chipsets and the newer Intel chipsets. Like the ones that support the I7 cpus.

[Brasou]

I "Roll" my own as well, my current computer is

Intel core 2 duo 3.0 GHz OC to 3.35ish
4Gb DDR2 Ram
2xAti Radeon 3870(Crossfire, 2 separate cards not the 2 core one)
2x300 Gb hard drives(Raid)
Asus Maximus extreme Mobo
OEM Vista 32bit
42" 1920x1080 TV

[mtnlion]

I do not, and won't for awhile since i am building a skulltrail system. But ddr3 will work on the 790I chipsets and the newer Intel chipsets. Like the ones that support the I7 cpus.

And for the people who do not wish to spend $250+ on a decent motherboard, the new AM3 AMDs are DDR3. And what are you gonna do with a skulltrail workstation? Render-box? CAD/CAM? That's some serious horsepower potential.


My current box:
Athlon 64 x2 4600 @ 3.0ghz (6000+)
MSI K9N SLI-Platinum
4gb OCZ DDR2-800
8800GTS 320
2x120gb WD - RAID 0 Master, 200 / 250 / 320gb WD Slaves, 1TB WD External
X-Fi Platinum
40" LCD, 19" LCD



mtn

[Tonk]

the new AM3 AMDs are DDR3. And what are you gonna do with a skulltrail workstation?

Running flightsim with everything cranked =P
I didn't know am3 was out, how long has that been for?

I also just noticed i have not posted my systems yet. These are the systems i use most, but my main rig has a dead mobo atm.

also rolled my own (not laptop)

Main system:

Asus l1n64-sli ws
Dual amd fx-70's (dual dualcores = 4 cores) OCed just shy of 3ghz
4gb Crucial tracer ddr2 800 5-5-5-15 Can't remember oc but timings were (4-3-4-8)
2x evga 8800 gts 640mb G80 OCed and Voltmodded with custom coolers (SLI)
Soundblaster x-fi extream gamer fatal1ty pro
Gigabyte odin pro 1200W psu
Thermaltake armor (can't remember exact one) with custom fans+fancontroller/temp disp
Logitech G15 keyboard and G5 mouse
Logitech Z-5300e speakers
A bunch of HDs but my os is on a crucial SSD
Lot's of other shenanigans i am to lazy to name
Windows 7 beta x64 + XP pro x86

Second system
Asus a8n-sli
amd 3800+ dualcore
ati 3870
OCZ 750w psu
other shenanigans again
windows 7 beta

laptop (is almost 2 years old and cost me under 400$)
acer
Intel Centrino Duo T5350 1.5ghz 2cores (can't get it to overclock for some reason)
2gb ddr2
Nvidia 8400m GS 256mb+1gb shared system ram (Core overclocked to almost twice it's speed and stable)
Vista home pre

[mtnlion]

the new AM3 AMDs are DDR3. And what are you gonna do with a skulltrail workstation?

Running flightsim with everything cranked =P
I didn't know am3 was out, how long has that been for?

I also just noticed i have not posted my systems yet. These are the systems i use most, but my main rig has a dead mobo atm.

also rolled my own (not laptop)

Main system:

Asus l1n64-sli ws
Dual amd fx-70's (dual dualcores = 4 cores) OCed just shy of 3ghz
4gb Crucial tracer ddr2 800 5-5-5-15 Can't remember oc but timings were (4-3-4-8)
2x evga 8800 gts 640mb G80 OCed and Voltmodded with custom coolers (SLI)
Soundblaster x-fi extream gamer fatal1ty pro
Gigabyte odin pro 1200W psu
Thermaltake armor (can't remember exact one) with custom fans+fancontroller/temp disp
Logitech G15 keyboard and G5 mouse
Logitech Z-5300e speakers
A bunch of HDs but my os is on a crucial SSD
Lot's of other shenanigans i am to lazy to name
Windows 7 beta x64 + XP pro x86

Nice.. Not surprised about a dead Asus board. I have owned 3 in the last 15 years, and all 3 have given me problems. I prefer my MSI or DFI boards, but it's a matter of opinion. That is one kicking system, that's for sure. Sucks for a popped board though, that alone must have ran like $350 - $400?

How do you like the SSD? I've been reading so much saying they aren't quite what people were expecting, but it is just the first generation of them still. I say give em time, but just wondering if you've noticed any difference between that and say and striped SATA/300 Raid?

As for AM3, it's been out for maybe a month or so. I haven't been keeping up, but every now and again I get the NCIX flyer, and I noticed they have both chips and mobos listed for it... Wikipedia says released Feb 9th, so.. 2 months or so now I guess  .



mtn