After 6 years of reliable service.... (1 Viewer)

HEMI6point1

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After 6 years of reliable service.... (photos added)

...My old PC (1.2Ghz AMD) is finally being retired. It did indeed serve its purpose for general web surfing but I game (or want to game) and it was next to impossible on it.

Finally ordered my parts today (except for the case which I bought a month ago due to a nice sale) and this puppy should be completed by next week in time for the gators.

I may show pics of the build process, for those interested in how a PC goes together.
 
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What parts did you order?

Antec 900 - bought a month earlier to take advantage of a sale at CompUSA.
Corsair 620HX 620w power supply (underrated, closer to 700w).
Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
EVGA 8800GTS 640mb video card.
2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 memory.
2 Seagate 7200.10 250GB HD's for RAID 0
Windows Vista Ultimate x64
Zalman 9700 cpu cooler.
Samsung 18x SATA DVD burner.
Lite-on SATA DVD-ROM.
Plus some other odds and ends (cables, thermal paste).
 
LMAO, I was going to put a floppy in there when I realized I haven't inserted anything in my current floppy drive for over 2 years.
 
Antec 900 - bought a month earlier to take advantage of a sale at CompUSA.
Corsair 620HX 620w power supply (underrated, closer to 700w).
Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
EVGA 8800GTS 640mb video card.
2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 memory.
2 Seagate 7200.10 250GB HD's for RAID 0
Windows Vista Ultimate x64
Zalman 9700 cpu cooler.
Samsung 18x SATA DVD burner.
Lite-on SATA DVD-ROM.
Plus some other odds and ends (cables, thermal paste).

what? no tv tuner card and surround sound? (AIW and desktop theater)
 
well ya got me there. But my AIW even has a remote. and does look better on my syncmaster191t than my old sony tv.
 
I had a MAC OS 8.6 up until '04, when everything from Hotmail to MSN Messenger needed a System 10 I had no choice!
 
Actually it's what I learned on from the beginning. I've used PC's plenty of times and it doesn't matter to me really, but I have heard that PC's are FAR more seceptable to Viruses and Hackers.
 
It is true that MACs are a lot safer, but one of the reasons why PCs are targeted is because many more people use them. Oh, and that Micro$oft doesn't really know how to create a good O/S and web browser.

Also, another reason is because most people use Norton and McAfee products and their consumer offerings are some of the crappiest software I have ever come across. 90% of the time they don't catch shit and you won't believe how many times I have to uninstall them to fix a problem they caused.
 
I'll second that and add that the "out of box" installations for most security products, like thise from Norton, CA, Panda, and others need to be modified to retain the performance of the computer and to actually protect as advertised. There are usually exclusions, inclusions, updates to program files and definitions, and sometimes changes to the base operating systems necessary to actually have a properly set up system.

I was at my doctors office two days ago and he was having a computer problem... He had installed a brand new Linksys router/firewall. He admitted he had done a "default" installation and did not use the setup cd that came with it and that everything "worked" except for one program...

An hour later I had changed the "default" password, shut off his "open" wireless access, and opened the one port he needed to access his off site billing software. I also enabled mac level security so that only his machines could reasonably have access in and out of his system. It isn;'t perfect but a default installation can sometimes make a poor situation even worse.

A great may consumer level products work decently in a non-mission critical environment but the configuration needs to be done correctly. As for my doctor... Lets just say that he won't be doing any more renagade installations on his network now that I have made him aware of some of the risks to his data... ;)
 
Here are the pics from the build process...

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All the boxes (except one) that will become my new PC...

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Intel's stock CPU cooler (right) Vs the Zalman 9700 CPU cooler (left) that I'd be using instead.

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The brains of the operation, the Intel Core 2 Duo. First time I'm using an Intel CPU in nearly 7 years.

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The CPU mounted in the socket.
 
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The Zalman mounted to the motherboard. It's big!

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I got this Zalman heatsink to cover the otherwise naked northbridge, but it kept banging into my video card so I had to take it off.

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Motherboard mounted into the case. BTW, I learned the hard way those fins on the Zalman are sharp...

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The GeForce 8800 video card...
 
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The drives and video card installed. The GeForce 8800 is a BIG card and that's why I had to take that blue heatsink off. It was only 5 bucks and returning it would cost that much so I might as well keep it.

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Antec's huge top fan.

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Zalman's CPU fan speed controller, so I can "supercharge" it when needed!

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Almost complete. I know I'm missing the power supply, that will be installed tomorrow....
 
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Looks good. You need to buy another 8800 and run it SLI. Good luck w/ Vista though (especially 64) there are still too many drivers being worked on. I have twin nvidia 7900 GTX 512MB ea. and they have just now got the thing back to running in SLI mode. Still won't run 5.1 sound. Many other bugs, sound card, some software, etc., but things have improved a bunch in the last week or so.
 
OK, so I had it running but I am using my old PC right now to download all the final drivers I needed. I couldn't get online and when I hooked my old PC up, same issue so I called my ISP they "boosted" the modem and all is well.

Despite all the fans this things is quiet, you have to go right up on it to hear anything.
 
Looks like a bitchin' system, Sam. I'm toying with the idea of building a new one as well. I've always had good luck with the AMD stuff and since I'm not even close to a "power user" I'll probably do it on the cheap and go for a "bang for the buck" build. I picked up a case and 500w power supply on a cheap (free after rebate!) deal anticipating my impending upgrade but haven't pulled the trigger on anything else yet. I'm thinking I can get the rest of the parts for about $500.00 and it will keep me cooking for a few more years. Basically something like this:

AMD 64X2 3800
2 gig DDR667
Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4 MB
7300GT / 256m Vid Card
250 gig Seagate SATA2

Any comments / suggestions / advice by some of you brainacs will be welcomed (but not neccesarily heeded, lol). :D
 
Looks like a bitchin' system, Sam. I'm toying with the idea of building a new one as well. I've always had good luck with the AMD stuff and since I'm not even close to a "power user" I'll probably do it on the cheap and go for a "bang for the buck" build. I picked up a case and 500w power supply on a cheap (free after rebate!) deal anticipating my impending upgrade but haven't pulled the trigger on anything else yet. I'm thinking I can get the rest of the parts for about $500.00 and it will keep me cooking for a few more years. Basically something like this:

AMD 64X2 3800
2 gig DDR667
Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4 MB
7300GT / 256m Vid Card
250 gig Seagate SATA2

Any comments / suggestions / advice by some of you brainacs will be welcomed (but not neccesarily heeded, lol). :D

Good build, just one thing.

I was diehard AMD until the Core 2 Duos came out. The best thing to do is ditch that 3800+ and get an E6300, sure the speed is "only" 1.83GHz but it's actually closer to a 3.2GHz in actual performance. Plus, it runs very cool. Other than that, looks good.
 
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