Front

Side with room lights on

Side with room dark

Motherboard:
Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra Black edition

http://www.soyousa.com

Integrated 10/100 Ethernet

Added Rounded IDE cables

Case:
Antec Plusview1000AMG
http://www.antec.com

Network Switch

SpeedStream 8 port switch

Sound Card:
Creative Sound Blaster
Audigy Gamer

http://www.soundblaster.com

DVD ROM
Pioneer 16X (40X CD)
slot loading drive

Pioneer Product Website

Hard Drive:
Maxtor
DiamondMax 60GB
ATA-133  7200 rpm

http://www.maxtor.com

CD R-RW

52x 24x 52x

LG CD Re-Writer GCE-8520B

http://www.lge.com

(upgraded 12/25/01)
Speakers:
Sonigistix Monsoon
MH-505

http://www.monsoonpower.com/

Antec True Blue 480w PSU

http://www.antec-inc.com

http://www.viewsonic.com

Blue LED
front fan

Antec
LED Fan
(for window)

Cold Cathode Light

http://www.pcToys.com
 

     Here is a link to an excellent article on
Assembling Your Own PC, complete with pictures and easy step by step instructions.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1444 

 

How I Built My Latest System
(May 2003)

After I reformatted my hard drive I began the hardware rebuilding.

1. Removed IDE cables and power connectors.

2. Removed PCI cards and placed them in anti-static bags.

3. Removed DVD and CD R-RW drives (And 5.25" H.D.D. cooler fan)

4. Removed 5.25" drive bracket and hard drive.

5. Removed 3.5" drive brackets and floppy drive.

6. Removed ATX power cable from motherboard.

7. Removed motherboard, cpu and memory intact and placed them in an anti-static motherboard bag.

8. Checked standoffs to match up with new motherboard.

9. Changed power supply from Antec 400w to Antec TrueBlue 480w.

10. Installed CPU / heatsink into motherboard.

11. Carefully lined up new motherboard with case.

12. Attached motherboard to standoffs with screws. (not too tight now!)

13. Took flashlight and looked behind motherboard to make sure nothing metal was touching it.

14. Installed 512MB DDR 2700 DIMM.

15. Attached drive brackets and remounted CD ROMs, floppy, and hard drive.

16. Attached IDE cables.

17. Attached power connectors.

18. Installed AGP (graphics) card. (MSI GeForce 2 Pro)

19. Took flashlight and looked behind motherboard again, double checked all connections.

20. Powered up to check everything before installing PCI cards.

21. Power up was a total success! New jumperless motherboards are so awesome!

22. Installed PCI Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer.

23. Setup motherboard in the BIOS (CPU clock speed 166 x 12.5).

24. Installed motherboard's VIA 4 in 1 drivers, other motherboard drivers from CD.

25. Restarted computer. Windows XP installed new hardware with no glitches.

History of My Home Built computers
 

Why I Built My Own Computer

     Why build your own computer? My reasons were pretty simple. After buying my first Pentium 100 computer in 1996, I didn't have the money to go buy another one when the 100Mhz systems were out of date. I decided to buy one upgrade at a time so that I could keep using my computer and eventually get it updated enough to suit my needs. That first computer of mine locked up all the time when I was on the Internet. It only had 8MB of RAM and 1GB hard drive and a 14.4kbps modem. It is always easier for me to come up with a little money at a time rather than try to save up a big amount. You can buy a computer right off the shelf cheaper, but you need to pay for it all at once, and you don't get the high quality components that you do when you buy them one at a time.

    My first upgrade was to add more RAM and a faster modem. My PowerSpec 100Mhz came with a combination sound card / modem and only 8MB of RAM. When I took it to the store and paid to have it upgraded they told me that I had to buy another combo card to upgrade it. I really wanted a faster modem, and not knowing any better I told them to go ahead. They had problem after problem with that combo card. They finally thought that they had it fixed and I was able to use it for a couple of weeks. Suddenly the modem just died on it. No one at the store knew why. They decided that the card was bad and tried to replace it. I had been talking to a Christian tech friend that I met on the Internet. He told me to get rid of that combo card. I asked the store if I couldn't just get a separate sound card and modem for it instead of the combo card. I mentioned that with what I had to pay for that combo card I should be able to replace it with two separate cards. They did some checking with management and it was approved. Finally my system was fixed and up and running again.

    My next upgrade was the video card. My original card came with 1MB of video RAM so it was just not up to the speed of the day. I bought a Matrox Mystique 4MB SGRAM card and it improved everything quite a lot. I now had 24MB of RAM  a Sound Blaster 16 value sound card, a USR Sportster 33.6 modem, and the Matrox Mystique video card. I thought I had quite the machine! :-) Computers have come a long way since then!

    My church's youth pastor helped me do my next upgrades. He totally rebuilt my computer for me and as I watched he explained everything that he did. That was all that I needed to learn to do my own upgrades. I decided that from then on that I could do these things myself. I have since rebuilt my computer completely with new cases, motherboards, CPUs and the works, four times, and have built my hubby and a son new computers as well.

I gave the LInux box to Joe for his birthday. :-) Now it is a Win98 box again
AMD K6-2/450, 128MB PC-100 RAM
Maxtor 7200 ATA-100 20GB hard drive
Generic Aureal sound card
Creative Graphics Blaster Riva TNT 16MB VGA
Maxtech 33.6 modem
(The KVM switch is now reserved for when I work on other people's computers.

September 2003 - Gave the new Linux box to Jeremy, Josiah and Jared. Now it is a Windows 98 computer again. All of their favorite children's games were Windows games so... -and it works better with the home network.