So Teresa gave me the green-light a week or so ago to go ahead and build out a computer. Our computers stink, and my desktop is from about freshman year of college and really won’t do what I need it to do anymore. I had in mind that I wanted a desktop, because between Teresa and I we already have 3 laptops (2 from work and Teresa’s from college). With that in mind, I compared similar computers from both Dell and HP, trying to get those items that I really wanted – fast processor (~2.8 to 3.0 GHz), 4GB of RAM, Windows XP, DVD Burner, 500GB HD, etc. I didn’t need a monitor, as I still had a functional monitor and really couldn’t justify getting a new one. After looking at the prices Dell and HP came back with, the computer I was looking at would cost me roughly $1250.
I didn’t want to spend that, and I knew Teresa wouldn’t allow it, so I dabbled with the idea of building the computer myself. I went to Tigerdirect.com and Newegg.com and priced out an AMD Phenom processor build at around $750. However, I talked it over with an electrical/computer engineering friend who’s job is designing and building circuit boards and he assured me that it would be better to get an Intel Core 2 Duo than anything else out there. He stated that while the Quad Cores were technically faster, most software systems (including WinXP) didn’t efficiently use the four cores and it was better to stick with Core 2 Duo, because it was a lot better than the AMD Athlon.
So I did it, and here are the specs on my new computer:
- Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3.0 GHz
- ASUS motherboard
- 2 x 2048 GB (4GB total) of Dual Channel DDR2 667 MHz memory
- 500 GB SATA HD
- Phillips DVD-R burner
- GeForce 512MB Video card
- CoolerMaster Chassis with 550w PSU and 3x120mm fans
The first time I put it all together, I did not seat the processor heatsink/fan assembly properly, and I kept needing to shut it down due to heat issues. After buying new thermal compound and re-seating the heatsink and fan last night, it all worked like a charm. The CPU was idling at 17 degrees Celsius, I’d installed WinXP and all the necessary drivers. The last thing I was doing was updating the BIOS. After I’d updated and restarted…
…NOTHING!
After restarting the computer would even boot to the BIOS screen, and no signal was being displayed to the monitor. I figured the only thing that hadn’t been restarted and tested was the motherboard after the BIOS update. So I called ASUS and they told me today that the BIOS chip is bad and I have to either send the BIOS chip or the whole motherboard back, depending on if the BIOS chip is removable or not. I’m still happy with the computer I built, but I’m not so happy with the BIOS chip. I guess that’s something I’ll have to deal with after Hawaii!
4 comments:
That's the problem with DIY computers - they're a lot easier to break, and you've got no one to blame but yourself. Send the whole MoBo back, you don't want to be replacing BIOS chips. Good choice of components. Did you just opt for on-board HD audio? A few comments:
- You should've either gone with Vista (it's worlds better with SP1 on a clean install) or just used Linux/Ubuntu - XP is a dinosaur.
- You should've tried to find a BluRay drive. You can get them for under $150 these days
- You may want to look at incorporating TV cards and turn this into a HTPC
So if it doesn't work, you haven't actually built a computer yet. Maybe you should edit the title of your post to "Almost Building a Computer". Ha ha ha!!! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
I hate you, Ted.
Ian, I do have the on-board HD-sound. And while XP is a dinosaur, I have multiple harddrives that I can install and load Vista onto, so I'm not too concerned about upgrading. Also, I didn't want to get overly expensive with this thing, but I did want to make sure it was flexible enough to handle upgrades and such. With that in mind, I'll wait for the Blu-Ray drives to get cheaper and make a move sometime next year.
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