Which case will it be? Here are some I am considering:
Antec Plusview1000
(pretty big, but sure would have good air-flow) It will fit in my desk's compartment but the pretty lights and window won't be visible. How would I show it off? Rearrange my desk maybe? :-) I will have to have some kind of colored lights in there. Blue is cool. Probably blue.
Antec Lanboy
Small, light aluminum, nice looking, but is it too cramped inside? I like the fact that the front swing open panel would hide my light colored DVD and CD-R/RW drives. Looks like good front venting for front case fan intake. I won't be going to any LAN parties. I just don't do any gaming, but the price is good and aluminum is so good at transferring heat. Comes with a 350W PSU. I would replace that.
PCMCIS Bubble Light
Light aluminum but expensive! Sure is flashy! Front drives may clash with the case. Comes with a nice big PSU.
Saturday May 17, 2003
Today I finally got my computer finished! It was a real job this time! My computer experience just increased a notch! This was the first time I ever had to remove a heatsink and CPU, remove the thermal pad, clean the processor and reinstall it. My Asus Board decided to stop working in the new case after I tried to install the new CPU. I believe I found the problem, (after I got a new motherboard), and the Asus board may still be OK. I forgot to punch out the case holes for the onboard sound that I do not use and it may have been causing a short circuit that caused my power supply to prevent startup. I will try it when I build my son Joe's new computer. (Maybe I can get him to help and maybe he'll really get into it.)
When I had to remove the new Athlon XP 2600+ CPU, I had to remove the heatsink to get it out of the zif socket I had to remove the new thermal pad. I was left without a pad and I could not find one anyplace. I went to a small computer repair shop in my town and the man there gave me some thermal paste. I called around to the large computer parts stores in the big city nearby and they told me that if I used the thermal paste that came with my motherboard it would not void my AMD "Processor in a box" 3 year warranty. I applied a thin layer of paste to the top of the CPU didn't like the way it went on and cleaned it off and did it again. I used a plastic store card to spread the paste, cleaned around it with a swab and 91% alcohol and with a LOT of prayer was able to install the heatsink. I watched the AMD Processor and Heatsink videos a few times to make sure I was doing everything right. They were extremely helpful.
My new motherboard is a Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra. It uses the VIA KT400 chipset. It is good for me because it uses my single 528MB PC-2700 DDR DIMM rather than the dual DDR memory that the NForce chipset uses. It is good because right now I can't afford to buy twin DIMMS.
I put Windows XP to the test this time too. I was expecting an easy cpu upgrade, not a motherboard transplant, so foolishly, I didn't completely back up all my files on CD-R disks. I didn't want to lose some of the pictures and stuff I had so I decided to try to do a driver update rather than a clean install. I can't believe how well Windows XP handled it all! It found all the new hardware without a hitch! I did have to call Microsoft to re-validate my copy of Windows XP, but that was a cinch! This thing is beautiful!
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Friday, May 16, 2003
Went to CompUSA to buy a new motherboard. It seems my old Asus doesn't want to move to the new case. Got a Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra (Black edition) (it has a black PCB). Stopped at MicroCenter to grab one of those nifty cool cathode blue lights. I will have to reinstall the CPU which is something that I have not done before. Praying hard here! I don't have a lot of time to fiddle around with this thing. My classes start Monday!
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
My family decided to pitch in to get me some sweet computer stuff for my Mother's Day / Birthday combined gift once again. We went to my favorite computer super store (MicroCenter) yesterday to get the things I had already picked out online. I got the Antec Plusview1000 case (pictured to the left) and a Antec TrueBlue 480 watt Power Supply Boy is this thing huge! I had to modify my desk a little so I can put the new computer in it's cubby hole. I also got a new Athlon XP 2600+ CPU. I hope that it will work with my newly updated motherboard. The ASUS website says that my A7V333 motherboard will work with the 333MHz processors if it is revision 2. Mine is revision 1. I read some newsgroups and forums to see if anyone else was able to make revision 1 work and they all say it will work fine with the updated BIOS. I'll blog again tomorrow to let you know how it went. If it doesn't work I will have to get a new motherboard. I like ASUS so I'll stay with them. I won't be going for the Nforce board this year. Maybe next year there will be something even sweeter out there!
Tuesday May 13, 2003
I flashed my BIOS today and it seems to have solved my temperature problems! Amazing! The CPU is running 10° cooler. Way cool! Maybe I will wait a while to upgrade now.
Saturday May 10, 2003
It is time for my annual computer upgrade! Sometimes, for my birthday in June, my family buys me the parts I need to upgrade my computer, so I have been doing my research. It looks like this year I am just going to do a BIOS flash and get a new faster CPU. I think I need a new case for air flow so I'll spend a day tearing down and rebuilding, but will not have to reformat my hard drive. I have to get ready for classes next week and I don't want to have to do a whole reformat and reinstall everything right now. Maybe next year I will do a full upgrade.
I have been reading up on motherboards, chipsets and processors, and I have been trying to look for things that are compatible with most of my current parts. I was actually considering changing from an AMD - Athlon platform to an Intel Pentium 4 motherboard and cpu. I have had a real battle with heat in my current Athlon 1900+ setup. I recently changed my IDE cables to rounded ones and replaced the front case fan that failed, but the CPU temperature is usually 56°C to 59°C according to Motherboard Monitor 5. I built my husband's computer last year right after I rebuilt mine, and his runs consistently 10° cooler than mine does. I don't know whether it is the case airflow or the heat sink/fan on the CPU that makes the difference, but I sure do want to correct the problem on my next build.
I see that Pentium 4 CPUs now run about the same temperature that Athlons do. The new Athlon motherboards now have safety features that will shut the power off if it starts to get too hot. This keeps the CPU from frying within second of running without the heat sink working properly like the Athlons once did. I also see that the prices of AMD Athlon 2600+ CPUs (which run at 2.13GHz) are about the same as prices of Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz CPUs. Price will not be my deciding factor this time as it has been in the past.
I read an article today that has just about convinced me to stay with AMD. I will do some checking to make sure that the accusations are legitimate, but after reading this article: Intel Strong Armed Vendors At AMD Launch. It appears that Intel is still using dirty tricks to try to keep the lead in the CPU race. If this is really true, I want nothing to do with their dirty marketing. I will stay with AMD because they do have top of the line CPUs. Read the article. If you find out anything that refutes it please email me and let me know.
I am anxious to rebuild this year, with an emphasis on increasing speed, performance, and better cooling. I will get a new case and use rounded IDE cables. I don't think I will start off with Serial ATA since it isn't really quite ready for the mainstream just yet. I want to use the hard drive I have, and my Sound Blaster Audigy card. I am thinking of getting an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB AGP card, or an Asus GeForce FX 5200 128MB VGA card, to replace my GeForce 2 Pro 64MB. I hope to rebuild my old parts for one of my sons. He wants to pitch in so he can have a decent computer too. I will purchase a new OEM Windows XP CD for my new computer and keep my present copy on the original motherboard, CPU, video card and case. I might have to call Microsoft to re-validate but we will only be changing the hard drive and taking out the sound card. I had to change the NIC because the one I bought last year died, and I read that in the hardware hash that Microsoft uses to determine the validation, the NIC counts for 3 things. We shall see. The majority of the computer will stay the same so it should be fine.
I am thinking of getting an ASUS board with the Nforce chipset. If I do, I will get two PC-3200 (400MHz) DIMMs and an Athlon 2800+ CPU. (not the fastest one, but at just $239. a good deal.) I don't know if I will end up with 512MB or 1024MB but with the dual channel memory it should do well for me.
I was almost ready to buy an Asus P4PE motherboard with a Pentium 4 2.4GHz CPU. I was so close I actually printed out an order for it. Now I am pretty sure that I will stay with AMD because I do not like Intel's dirty tactics. I experienced their dirty marketing myself when I was shopping for my laptop. I wanted the fastest one I could get for $1200. I was looking for an Athlon based laptop. The major stores had several displays set up of Intel laptops, and the few Athlon ones were not optimized, and were running much slower than they should have. They had slower models on display than the signs above them advertised them to be making them appear to be really poor for what they were supposed to be. I thought it was a little slanted.
Read what Tom (www.tomshardware.com) said back in 1999 about Intel's intimidation of the Taiwanese motherboard makers here: Tom's Hardware Guide Tom's Blurb: Tom's Blurb - Microprocessor Forum and the Cold War of the x86-processor makers - AMD's Athlon and the 'Taiwanese Business Model'
Thank goodness we can see that VIA and now Nvidia have done AMD Athlon CPUs well with their new chipsets. I will very likely get the Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard with the Nvidia Nforce chipset which has Dual DDR Memory support.
from the Nvidia website:
Features of DualDDR memory architecture include:
- Highest memory bandwidth: DualDDR combines the power of DDR400 with two independent memory controllers, which yields a staggering 6.4GB per second of memory bandwidth—twice the memory bandwidth of other DDR400 chipsets. Increased memory bandwidth delivers better system and graphics performance, resulting in more overall productivity.
- Lowest latency: Both memory controllers operate concurrently with each other to hide latencies associated with typical chipsets. For example, controller "A" reads or writes to main memory while controller "B" prepares for the next access, and vice versa. As important is the second-generation DASP (dynamic adaptive speculative preprocessor), which has been re-architected for improved performance.
- Most stable and flexible memory system: End-users can now populate higher density DIMMs, up to 1GB each, to utilize the entire 3GB memory address map. This large memory map allows more applications, audio and video streams to coexist without conflict.