Well, the contents of this page used to be in my home page, but it's getting pretty long, so I decided to make a separate page for it!
I built my second computer in July 2011. Now that I work at Intel, I felt like its time I build an Intel computer (Plus I get 50% discount on their processors :D). Click here for details
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE AN OVERVIEW OF MY BUILD,
PLEASE CLICK
HERE.
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GALLERY A
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[Nov. 27, 2009]
I ordered
the first component- the power supply. It is a Corsair
CMPSU 620HX. Its a
620 Watt Modular power supply that is Intel i7 processor certified, as well as
Nvidia SLI and ATI CrossFire certified. I want to use an
AMD Phenom II X4 955 on this one. I am waiting for good deal on
www.newegg.com. That's where I bought the power supply. I got it $70 off
with a mail-in rebate of $50! A 189.99 power supply for $69.99! And no sales tax
and free shipping too! How sweet is that? Keep checking. I will post updates
regarding my progress here!
[Dec. 8, 2009]
So I got my PSU. I checked if it was DOA and its not. I
connected it to our Dell Dimension E310 at home, and powered it up. Worked like
a charm!
Here are a couple of pics of my PSU:
I had also ordered the case. Got a $54.99 COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 for $39.99 and free shipping. It was delivered on December 8th. Here is a picture of my case with the PSU installed. I did it as soon as I got the case. Just couldn't resist!
[Dec. 21, 2009]
Alright... I finally ordered all the components to get my
computer up and running! I ordered a Western Digital Caviar Blue 640 GB
Internal Hard Drive. They delivered it to my house on December 16th. Then I
found this combo deal on Newegg, an AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz
Quad Core 95W processor along with an Asus M4A78T-E AM3 ATX
Motherboard with the AMD 790GX (ATI Radeon HD 3300
IGP) chipset together for $245.99! It also had an additional $15.00
Mail-in Rebate, so final price is $230.99! I know I said I wanted a Phenom II
955, but whatever. There isn't much difference between 945 and 955, and the 945
consumes less power (95W vs. 125W). Besides, three Codemasters games came free
with it! I also ordered a Crucial DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) 2 x 2 GB.
I got the $93.99 kit for $83.99. Nothing' exciting about that, but ten
bucks is still ten bucks!
Now, I have not received it yet, and I will upload the pics once I get it! The best thing is, the things are going to be delivered on Christmas Eve! I think that's going to be the best Christmas present for me ever!
[Dec. 25,
2009]
Okay... UPS delivered the box with all the stuff on December 24th
around 5 pm. Everything arrived in pristine condition. I started building the
computer around 9 pm. I had already installed the PSU and the floppy disk but I
felt like they are going to interfere with the Motherboard installation. So I
removed them. Then the next thing I did was to mount the processor. The AMD
Phenom II X4 felt huge and heavy compared to the Athlon XP that I took out from
the old one. I mounted the processor without any issues. Then I proceeded
to install the stock heat sink and fan. It took me some time to figure out the
right way to attach the heat sink, but did figure it out eventually.
Next step is to mount the motherboard. Attached the stand-offs, screwed the
motherboard in, installed the memory modules, mounted the PSU, floppy disk, DVD
drive, hard drive, and connected all the plugs. The screw less design of the case
was really simple and effortless. Also connected the case fans to the power
outlets. made sure all the connections were right and secure. It was around 1 am
by the time I was done. then I took a sigh of relief, and turned it on!
Bam! The display took some time to show all the messages, and on the last line, it said "...OK, .... OK, .... OK, Chassis intrusion.... " blah-blah-blah "...fatal error"! Now that was scary! So turned it on again, and this time it said to put the boot device in the boot drive. Well, it was time to set up the BIOS. Rebooted again, and this time went into the BIOS and changed the boot device to DVD drive. Next step, loaded the Windows Vista Business 64 bit DVD, and it did the rest. Took some time to install the OS. Once that was done, changed the boot device to HDD, and restarted it again. Then I installed the ATI graphics drivers, ran the Windows Experience index, and the score was 5.9 for all the components except the graphics! Now 5.9 is the highest score for Vista! The onboard HD 3300 got a score of 4.6- decent for an IGP! Installed rest of the drivers that came in the motherboard support DVD, tested all the components out, and everything was working. It was around 3: 30 am by the time I was done, and I went to bed, feeling pleased about successfully completing my first computer build! Merry Christmas!
[Dec. 31, 2009]
Performance update: The computer is working fine, with no glitches.
Downloaded Windows 7 Professional 64 bit Upgrade from the student offer website
for $29.99 plus tax. Windows 7 looks gorgeous! All the devices are compatible,
and did some benchmark tests. CPU is working up to par, and the only weak point
is the graphics, and I am going to get a graphics card as soon as I get a good deal
on a pretty decent one! HAPPY NEW YEAR!
[Feb. 12, 2010]
Finally!!! I ordered the video card!! The XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 was
Newegg's shell shocker deal today, and I ordered it. $94.99 with no tax and free
shipping- after $20 off. Pretty decent; was hoping for a larger discount. I had
made up my mind to buy it when the price dropped below $100, and it did. So I am
happy. UPS is not going to deliver it until Feb 17th (darn holiday & weekend), and
I will not be installing it until the 20th. I will update the page once I get it
and install it. Might even post an HD video so keep checking!!
[Feb. 12, 2010]
UPS finally delivered the package on
Wednesday, the 17th. I was up in the University of Washington that day. I cam
home to Tacoma today, and the first thing I did (I had some food, of course) was
to install the card. I took a video of the installation process and uploaded it
into You Tube. I am embedding it below. It's better to watch it than to read
about it!
I played Crysis, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Grid, Dirt, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, and all can be played very smoothly at very high settings (Crysis- high, 2xAA). Very impressed with the performance. I mean this is the first time I am getting my hands on a PC with a quad core processor, and a discrete graphics card! For the price, the performance is UNBELIEVABLE!! One thing to note is that I did notice the card fan being very weird. It's speed goes up and down without warning, if the fan speed is set to automatic. It is LOUD when the speed is manually set to 100%. I was expecting this, as I read about all this in the product review at newegg.com, so no worries! As of right now, everything is GREAT!
Here's Crysis game play
Alright... I am done.. at least for now! I am not going to update this page any time soon unless something undesirable happens.. (hopefully not..knock on wood!!). I will probably get another hard drive when one goes on sale, probably next black Friday. Well until then, peace!!
[March 18th, 2010]
So I ordered a Reosewill PCI USB 2.0 expansion card when I got free
shipping for $9.99. I installed it today. Here are some pics.
[June 19,2010]
Replaced the floppy disk drive with a 3.5" USB 2.0 card reader from
Rosewill. Also got a Thrustmaster T.16000M USB 2.0 joystick. Playing FLight
Simulator X is a joy now!