Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: gnubee on June 22, 2005, 05:29:34 PM
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Well... I finally bought a new rig!
The big problem is gonna be how to tell my wife! Hahaha....
Anywho I just thought I'd share the specs with y'all...For $1600 I got-
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum MB
Athlon64 3200
ATI x800
500W power supply
DVD-R/W
160 GB HDD
1GB Ram
And a few other goodies... all assembled at my local chop-shop...
I decided to go with a local shop because I know they'll back their product (a major relief since I'm not the biggest computer wiz on the block). I know I coulda come up a bit cheaper if I went through an online shop... but I think a little piece of mind is worth a few more dollars...
Well, wish me luck on telling my wife!
-Scott
:aok :rofl :aok
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how did it go?
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sounds like a nice box - gl
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http://www.findlaw.com
Just in case you need an attorney when she says she wants a divorce. :aok
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I can already hear her cry: That was our savings for the second honeymoon..
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return computer. make wife happy. do the right thing.
hap
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Originally posted by gnubee
Well... I finally bought a new rig!
The big problem is gonna be how to tell my wife! Hahaha....
Anywho I just thought I'd share the specs with y'all...For $1600 I got-
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum MB
Athlon64 3200
ATI x800
500W power supply
DVD-R/W
160 GB HDD
1GB Ram
And a few other goodies... all assembled at my local chop-shop...
I decided to go with a local shop because I know they'll back their product (a major relief since I'm not the biggest computer wiz on the block). I know I coulda come up a bit cheaper if I went through an online shop... but I think a little piece of mind is worth a few more dollars...
Well, wish me luck on telling my wife!
-Scott
:aok :rofl :aok
Its ok if she complains about it I will take it off your hands for $100 and even pay the shipping..........Well what are you waiting for tell her man I want a new system.....:D
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......coulda done it yourself for about half...but sounds like good rig
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Well I'm still alive-
She was amazingly cool about it... And as soon as she let's me back in the house I'll thank her for being so understanding! :lol :lol :lol
Maybe on my next rig I'll try building one myself... but I really don't have the knowledge to build one from scratch.
Maybe when AH IV comes out y'all can talk me through it :aok
-Scott
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Just remember that now she gets to go spend $3200 on whatever she wants. I know because my wife did it to me and it was after I told her we needed to upgrade the computer for her embroidery business and she uses this dang thing 10+ hours a day. She thought that because I spent her business money building a better rig she should use home money to splurge for herself.
That one sure did cost me a long time to try and figure out.........To bad that was last year and I still haven't figured it out.
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you really don't need the know how....just make sure everything is compatible, and all the parts come with pretty good directions
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You know what would be sweeeeeet....
We have a lot of smarty-poo-poo-pants computer guys lurking on these boards... It would be sweet if one of them would take it upon themselves to write a simple order of operations for building your own rig... I'm not talking about anything super technical, (let each part manufacturer handle that), but something like:
1- Install MB in case
2- Attach power supply to MB
put in the optical drive... install video card etc...
What order should these things be done in etc, etc, etc....
My problem is I don't have the faintest clue where to start! :eek:
ya know what I mean? Anyway, I think that would be pretty cool.
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you got the order right...mb first, ps could even be last so all the wires don't get in the way when you put cpu in.......
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The problem is not putting it together, the problem is after you did put it together it wont run on 70 percent of the cases. Then you have to find what is broken or wrong, take everything apart return that thing and get a new one.
Then the problem continues because the parts are made for one time assembly, so when you have to assemble more than ones the parts are a bit stressed.
So building your system is easy, but getting it to run is much more complicated.
Beleave me, last 4 systems i build/ upgraded/ worked on
1.) ram not compatible with motherboard... took me 5 hours to find out its the ram. Change in shop np, works fine since then.
2.) Powersupply not working, worked in comp before so heaven knows why. Took 10 minutes to figure out.
3.) Power button switch dislocated when installing DVD Drive. Needed to fix it with a nylon strap.
4.) switched on with CD in drive while lying. CD stuck in the drive had to disassemble the CD drive.
Well.... thats only the ones that went wrong but it can give you an idea how complicated things get once a small mistake is made or some plastic piece breaks.
On this webpage you find a guide how to build you own pc.
Guide (http://www.tomshardware.de/site/special/index.html) (download the left guide).
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Edit only ten minutes now... grumble ok then new post.
Check page 12 to 16, ignore the advertisements. The rest of the guide is intresting but a bit out of date, since its from last year.
My personal order is as follows, but this is no guide... i am not responsible if anything goes wrong.
Always be carefull and if something doesnt go in lightly check if you did it right. Verry rarely you need to apply force. Also make sure to ground yourself before working and during working so static electricity doesnt damage your comp. Best is to use a antistatic wrist band.
Be verry carefull with the screwdriver, when you slide off a screw and hit the wrong place something IS broken for sure.
1. check that the stuff works together, best on the pages of the manufacturer. while your there, download the newest drivers and unpack them onto one cd, so you have all the drivers on one cd, somehow organized in directories that you find em.
2.carfully unpack the hardware and visually check for any scratches/cracks or sign of mechanical damage. put them somewhere noone will step on them, bite into them or pour liquid over them. do NOT mix them up... keep every package seperate and do NOT throw anything away... sometimes a lone screw hides in the packaging.
3. Look at the case, does the motherboard fit in? If the motherboard is on a tray, will it still slide in with cards/heatsink on? Where could the cables go best without being to much in the way? You have distance screws and metal retainers to mount the motherboard in the case. put them in the places on the case where the motherboard has holes. Only have them where there is a hole in the motherboard AND in the case, so to say where they match.
4. Look at the motherboard and the manual that came with it, i dont but i recommend, read the whole manual. Find out where the ram goes, graphic board, cpu, necessary add ons (power module etc). Check what jumpers there are and which you have to set.
5. Set the jumpers right. Jumpers are little black plugs to set electrical connection or not.
6. check if you have to mount parts of the CPU coler to the motherboard before mounting it to the case, like a backplate.
7. see if you have to drill any holes to the case or modify it, to hold water cooling or include a window. Do this now and far away from the electronic stuff, removing any metall bits that are left over to prevent shortening anything.
8. Now you can go diffrent ways, mount CPU and RAM first or screw in the motherboard first. Advantage mounting cpu and ram now is that you can place the board on the foam it came with and have no problems with bending or low light conditions. I put on ram and cpu now, but when your unsure weather you scratch em while mounting the board do it later.
9. mount the CPU. as of now, sockets are square so there are four possible ways to mount it (actually there are more you can misalign it too). ONLY one way is correct. Find out which corner of the CPU and the socket are marked, these corners need to go together. Make sure the lock device (mostly a lever) on the socket is in open position, carefully insert the cpu, convince yourself that its totally seated. Then close the device.
10. mount the RAM. Make sure its the right type (and size) of RAM, then check in which banks you have to install them. That you can see in the motherboard manual. The RAM has little grooves that go onto nibbles in the slot. Make sure to have it aligned the right way or youll damage it. Insert it and lock it in place with the little levers.
11. now you have two possibilities. Either slap together the whole comp without case and see if it boots, or start mounting it. I am usually optimistic and mount it now.
12.Fix the slot cover for the ports in the rear of the case to the case, choose the one that came with your motherboard. Before puting it into the case check with the motherboard, sometimes you have to break out aditional ports. Then snug it in the hole at the back of the case, from inside. Make sure that it is in the right orientation (you have 4 chances at least).
13. carefully put the motherboard in the case. This is tricky since you need to slide the ports into the port cover from inside but still not scratch the board on the mounting posts. Do NOT hold the board on the RAM or cpu. Here is the advantage when installing the ram later, it is saver for the components. Also note that sometimes you have to put pads or brackets between the board and the case, make sure not to forget them.
14. Screw/fixate the motherboard to the mounting points. Put in all the screws lightly and once all are in and it looks like it fits tighten them verry lightly. Also mount the clips for the non screw fixations. Also some screws require insulatiors. Sometimes a screw is to big or a hole is so close to components on the motherboard that the screw would damage the part, then its best not to use this fixating point.
15. if you didnt do before you can install ram and cpu now. Also, if your mb is on a tray you have to put the tray in the case now since most heatsinks wont slide in the case with the tray.
16. Mount the heatsink, verry carefully according to the manual of the heatsink. Some heatsinks are a bit tricky to get on right, need some force but if you use to much force or slide of you break the motherboard or the CPU. Also make sure to use either a thermal pad or thermal paste, not both. When you use paste you need to apply enough paste so the heatsink has full contact with the heatspreader, but not to much, the paste may not cover any other parts of the cpu or the motherboard. Usually its a verry small amount of paste that you need.
17. check if the heatsink is mounted correctly. it must sit straight and directly on the cpu. If its angled or there is a gap then its wrong.
18. plug in the heatsink fan on the motherboard where it is supposed to plug into. Most fan plugs do only plug in in the right direction, little arresting notch to the plastig tap with hole so the notch arrests in the hole.
19. If you didnt do before remove all the covers from the case that you dont need. Thats the slot cover for the graphics board, cover for the DVD drive and possible cover for the floppy drive.
20. plug in the cables for case speaker, reset button, power button, on light. All these go from the case to mostly one point on the motherboard. Plug these in right, if you get it wrong the comp wont start at all.
21. mount DVD Drive, Harddrive, floppy drive to the comp by either fixing them in their place with screws or fixing them to the mounting devices and sliding them in. Dont forget to set the jumpers right on the drives before putting them in. Also take a look at each drive which way the cables should be put in later, so you know it then.
22. put the power supply in the case and plug in the cables, you want a big connector from ps to motherboard, possible aditional power connectors on the motherboard and cables to all the drives.
23. Put in the cables from motherboard to the drives. Sometimes easier to do before 22, sometimes this way.
24. Put the graphic board into its slot, make sure it arrests in place if there is some kind of arrestor mechanism. If it needs an extra power connector need to put in the power connector from the power source to the graphic card.
25. Fixate the graphics board in place with its screw or with a retenation clip, depends on case. Make sure the Graphics board is fully seated in the motherboard, sometimes the case does not fit then your in trouble and need to make it fit, mostly that is because you did put it together wrong.
26. Check all the cables and make sure they are plugged in the right way. Also make sure you didnt misplace them by one or two pins.
27. Pray.
28. plug in the monitor, keyboard, mouse and power chord.
29. switch the powersupply on if it has a seperate switch
30. press the power button. If your lucky the drives spin and the comp starts up. Watch if the CPU fan starts spining. Hold down del key to get into bios, or whatever key it is for your bios.
31. find the cpu temp in the bios and watch if it stays in range.
32. shut off the comp again. put all aditional fans in place and plug them in and put the cover on the case so it looks neat again. Then start installing windows.
33. if the comp hangs during windows install or shortly after something went wrong with the hardware. Mostly its not the hddrive or the driver so need to check the hardware again.
Now, be sure to read more about it or have a helping hand with you when you assemble a comp but this is my try of your asked "how do i " list. Be warry that a lot of people will offer to help you but have no idea themselfs and its your stuff you scrap for 1000 or more bucks if anything goes wrong. Also when it doesnt work afterwards sometimes its only a forgotten power plug but other times its a motherboard with wrong bios revision, so not always easy to fix.
It really helps when you have a second computer of same type (CPU/RAM/HARDDISK) to find problems, then you can swap in components where you know they work.
Again, i wont take any responsibility for when you break stuff.
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Originally posted by gnubee
She was amazingly cool about it... And as soon as she let's me back in the house I'll thank her for being so understanding! :lol :lol :lol
lol...
:aok
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I always buy my wife off with a nice shopping trip somwhere, after doing stuff like that.
That works very well for me hehe :D
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Well... right about now I'm really happy I went with a local computer company than buying online.
I picked up my new rig on last friday... It's sweet by the way.
But this morning... :eek: I had an unhappy experience. I went to fire it up but it wouldn't move past the opening mobo screen and launch Windows. I have really know idea what the problem is.
By staying local i was able to drop off my computer to be fixed and should have it back tomorrow. :aok
After waiting 2 years to buy a computer this snafoo is a major let down...but it's nice to know its going to be fixed.
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had that happen a few times, always turned out to be the hard drive power cable. went though and replaced all of the cables with pricy tight fitting ones and hasn't happened since. be careful of shops, they are worse than mechanics when it comes to over priced repairs. wait you're still on warrantee....forget what i said:rolleyes: