Building a Better PC

[mgonitzke]

Ken-

On edge...it's getting cut up...

 

[kweaver]

Matt - I know you're on edge ...
Here's something to COOL you off !
What a BEAST !!

 

[kweaver]

Matt - This will get you holed up a while Temperatures... 102 to 108.

 

[mgonitzke]

Only through Saturday, which is fine. I'm going glider flying on Saturday, so sun and heat will be a good thing. Then Sunday is H82/L57

I'll start on Sunday. I'm still waiting for the rest of my knockdown fasteners to get here, and I had to have my Dad make an adapter sleeve for the installation tool for those...not sure what the status of that is.

 

[kweaver]

Shoulda went to Lowes

 

[mgonitzke]

Ken-

They are rather expensive at Menard's (Midwestern home-improvement store, like Lowe's) at 57 cents each...I got a bunch for about 10c each on eBay. I need more than 50 of them, so it adds up quick.

BTW, my antenna and TV tuner card came in today...installation was a breeze, and now I can watch TV on my computer. HD looks great on the 23" monitor...

 

[ljones]

Matt, do you have any pics of your computer build?

 

[aschumacher]

Lucas, they maybe tiny pictures since Micro<font size="-2">soft</font> drives it!

 

[rtunison]

The latest in air flow tech.

 

[kweaver]

I hope they beat a path to the patent office ...

Matt - Day 2 of heat advisory here , 96° yesterday.

 

[kweaver]

I found a good way to cool one

Sorry for the funky size , to lazy to go to the house for the camera so I used the web cam.

I've spent 14 hours out here trying to get another PC set up to run. This old HP ME was working out in the garage a month ago. Hooked it up last night and it said it found new hardware but couldn't find a driver for it. I only had the mouse , monitor and keyboard on it ... don't know what it found new.

Any way I cancelled out the driver search and it cycled through and went blank. I turned it off and the HD was dead on restart !!

I transferred 230 gigs off of one of my portable HDs onto the 1T in the Coolermaster which took forever. I also hooked up an old 20gig HD that was given to me and decided to use it in the HP , that's what it originally had any way.

The Hp only had 128meg RAM in it but I was given some odd ball RAM (pics a couple pages back) and one of those fit the socket but wasn't as tall as the original but I powered it up anyway. Now I've got 256meg RAM in the crappy HP.

I worked and worked on trying to get XP to install from boot up but I finally had to go to FDISK and then later FORMAT to get it to install. I thought I'd never get through the windows that kept running me around.

It finally installed but asked for disk #2 ... I must have lost that one because I only have disk #1 and it doesn't say #1 on it , just "XP Professional". No it's not a bootleg disk , I bought it maybe 6 years ago from TigerDirect.
I put every backup and recovery XP disk I have in it and even XP Media Center disk in but it never did find the files it needed.

I've not got Windows Firewall now , must have been some of the missing files needed.

I put the Belkin Wireless USB adapter in it and after the install Belkin software wouldn't connect with the router so I switched over to Windows to controll it and it hooked right up.
Getting a 65mb speed six feet from the router.

I tried for 2 days to get my old XP to work with that stupid USB adapter and I never could get it to work , but this time I got different pop up windows after installing than I got on the old machine.

Just getting finished doing a Windows Update after I registered the OS online. 76 Updates !
I bet I get about 65 - 70 more new updates the next time I put it online , that's what happened to the other old XP that had been off line for a couple of years.

Okay , spec time:
HP micro board / cabinet
NO CASE FANS
256 meg RAM
20 gig HD
100 watt PS
2 USB 2.0 ports
Onboard Graphics
Onboard Audio
blistering x86 800 MHz Processor !

 

[mgonitzke]

I'll post pics after I get it in the new desk...I'm not sure I want anyone to see how messy my current (way too small) one is.

I did buy 95% of the materials I need for the desk. At the last minute, I decided to use real wood (pine panels) instead of laminate particleboard, as they wound up costing the same. The only part that'll be frustrating is that the thickness of each panel is constant throughout, but varies from 5/8" to 3/4" from panel to panel. It's going to take me forever to drill the holes for the fasteners, as I'll have to adjust the dimensions for them on a case-by-case basis. Oh well...

Now I have to figure out what color I want to stain it. All of my other furniture is light, dark, and everything in between.

 

[kweaver]

My little HP got another 58 Windows updates tonight !
Geez there goes my little 20gig drive BUT at least it fixed my no Windows Firewall problem

Somewhere I've got 2 more "modern" boards but I can't find them

I can find my old HTPC "lightening struck" board but not the other 2 AMD 2.9GHz boards

Matt - You needed veneered MDF board for your desk. I use to build cabinets with it and it's great to work with , doesn't warp but it does dull tools cutting it.

 

[kweaver]

I'm on the HP now !

Firefox locked up and restarted the Coolermaster , then it didn't find the SSD to boot back up !!
Hard typing with the keyboard bouncing on my knees and half the key letters are worn off !!!!!

AND I'M USING I.E. !

 

[mgonitzke]

Well, moving right along... I think my circular saw battery is shot. New one won't be here until Friday

I think I fooled the smart charger so I can charge it enough to make a few cuts, at least.

 

[kweaver]

Matt - That SUX!
Well the down time will give you plenty of time to fine tune your measurements for the varying thicknesses of your panels.

I bought a Dewalt 18v years ago when I was lead carpenter and I wanted a spare battery but not for $79 back then. Now I think Lowes wants $98 for a spare which is freakin stupid! since the batteries are being replaced by Lithium batteries now. They ought to be lowering the old battery's price not raising them.
Man those new Lithium battery packs are smaller and lighter but the price of the new tools are crazy.
I have an old Makita 7.2v drill (my first one) that didn't use a pull out battery , never could find any new ones for it so I just took out the old batteries and ran wires out the handle and hook it up to a variable voltage 25 amp power supply I built and use it out here in da shack when I need to drill PCBs.

12v tools would be best to own so you could run a wire out to a LG battery when needed for power !

 

[mgonitzke]

Well darned if I didn't just cut about 3/4 of the stuff on my 'dead' battery...came in for water, and decided to put my DVM across the battery...still above 18V! Maybe it isn't as bad as I think.

I may not have needed to buy that second battery, but I guess it'll be nice to have one for the drill and one for the saw.

 

[kide]

Matt:
Run a pair of thin cheater wires out of that battery, plug it back into the drill and measure the voltage under load...I hate the way Nicads will show a surface charge...BTW- I've heard good things about battery rebuilding services - they upgrade the batteries to higher capacity for less than the cost of oem batteries..

Ken - I refuse to go any newer than 3.6.x on Firefox - they've started bloating it up like IE..

 

[kweaver]

Who says I can't network ...

I'm running the Gigabyte board with an AMD running @ 3.07GHz , got it online.

So I've got a Linksys wireless into a Linksys G Router into a Belkin N Router into a Motorola Modem ... talk about a Cluster ....

 

[kweaver]

For what ever reason.