My New Computer
My First Build

 

I decided to build my own instead of buying one for several reasons. I already have several of the needed componants like an almost new TDK DVD +/- R/RW Drive, a brand new Floppy Drive, a nice 17 inch CRT Monitor, cordless optical mouse, keyboard that is old but that I like and am used to and some other parts. Also, I hope to spend less than $700.00. Doing it this way, I can get alot more computer for the money than I could by spending that at Dell, HP or Gateway. Also, there will be no proprietary parts, (parts designed by manufacturers, that only fit in their machines), so I will be able to upgrade this as better technology comes out or becomes more affordable.

On this page, I plan to show you the parts I am using and to post my experiences along the way. This may help others who may be planning to build their own computer.

I am buying all the new parts from Newegg.com. They seem to have the best prices, superb sevice and very quick and resonable shipping by FedEx.

The next item I purchased was the DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb Motherboard. It's a Socket 754 Board for AMD 64 Athlon 64 Processors. It has lots of yellow UV sensitve parts which will glow under the light of the blue LEDs in the case, works with both IDE and SATA drives, and comes with yellow, glow under UV light round cable for the Floppy Drive, Round cables for the IDE drives and SATA cables. In my new case, with the blue LEDs and the side window, it should look AWESOME! It has onboard 8 channel audio with 48KHz. Digital to Audio converters.

Although, for now, I don't plan to do any overclocking, it is highly rated at AnandTech who said "The DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb is the best overclocking Athlon 64 board we have ever tested...".

So if it's great for overclocking, it should work well for me, and at $106.00, I thought it was a good deal

Next I purchased, (from Newegg) my Processor. I chose the AMD 3000+ Athlon 64 Processor with HyperTransport Technology - Retail. I chose this processor based on a balance of the latest technology, speed and price. While not the fastest CPU available, at $146.00 I thought it offered the best compromise. Being a retail package, it came with the CPU, the heatsink and fan and the thermal paste is already in place. The instructions were very disappointing with the guarantee printed in about 20 languages but no installation instructions other than some very crude pictures.

While this is far from the fastest CPU around, it's way faster than anything I have had so far, and with this motherboard, I can always upgrade later. Upgradability is one of the features central to the planning of this computer.

Along with the CPU, I also ordered my new OS, Windows XP PRO Service Pack 2 OEM. I chose WinXP PRO for a couple reasons. At $145.00, it wasn't that much more expensive than WinXP Home. Pro has a few features not included in the Home addition, which I may or may not use, but may want later. Also, when the next Windows version, (Longhorn?) comes out, it will only be a matter of time before Microsoft discontinues support for XP, but I'm betting support will be around a lot longer for the Pro version than for the Home version.

I was a little leary about getting the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) version but after doing some research at the Microsoft site and others, I found that as long as I affixed the included sticker, which has the activation key, to the back of the computer case I would be OK since I am building the computer for my self and it's not for retail sale. This way it was much cheaper, and, since I'm already familiar with XP, I dont need extensive printed documentation.

[July 9th, 2005]
Next weekend, after my next paycheck, I hope to order the rest of the parts so I can finally start building this computer.

The remaining parts I need are Memory, a Hard drive and a Video card.

I plan to order:
Patriot 1 GB (2 X 512) 184pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC3200) Dual Channel Kit Retail. This is a matched pair of 512 MB moduals which will give me 1 GB of RAM. While this may not be the best RAM, Patriot has been very well recommended and at $116.00, the price is right. Every machine I have had so far has suffered from Memory problems. This should give me plenty of headroom.

Western Digital Cavier SE 80GB 3.5 SATA150 HardDrive OEM. I already had a 40GB Hard Drive I was planning to use, but when I discovered that this Motherboard could utilize SATA HDs, and I found this Western Digital 80GB SATA Drive for $56.50, I decided, Why not, since SATA is supposed to be much faster.

ABIT R9550XT Turbo-Guru Radeon 9550 128 MB 128 Bit FBGA AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail Since I don't play the latest 3D Video Games, (in fact I hardly ever play video games - Scrabble, Monopoly) I don't need the latest and bestest Video card. This one at $85.00 is a middle of the road card with decent onboard Memory and should do me more than well enough.

Well, I still have to buy a Grounding Wrist Strap to wear while I am assembling this computer and I don't know where to get one. Newegg does not have them, (I emailed them to tell them they should, but I have not heard back) and I have not seen them at any of the local computer stores. So far the parts come to $707.50 plus shipping (about $30.00 total) so I don't think I did too bad, and I should have a pretty fast machine more than adequate for my needs which can easily be upgraded later.

[July 17th, 2005]
I made one change to my parts list. I decided to go with a cheaper video card, the SAPPHIRE 100583-GN-H Radeon 9250 128MB 64-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - OEM . At $34.00 this will knock $50.00 off the total cost of the computer and get me back under the $700.00 budget.

[July 20th, 2005]
Well, I put everything together and when I turned it on for the first time there was no smoke or fire, but there was only the LanParty logo on the monitor. I couldn't get Windows to load from the CD. I did get one beep from the MB speaker. But nothing else. I'm waiting for some ideas from my friends at the help forum I frequent. About 10 cigarettes and a couple shots (well maybe I lied, it was probably half a pack) later I'm still waiting. I hope someone can figure out what I did wrong.

[July 21st, 2005]
Well with help from my expert friends at PC Q&A, I learned two things, I had one of the RAM sticks in the wrong slot and to press DEL to get into the BIOS. In the BIOS I set my DVD RW drive as the first boot device. Then I was able to put in the WIN XP CD and away we went. Windows is partitioning my 80 Gb drive into 2 partitions as I write this and preparing to load my new WIN XP Pro OS onto my machine.
YIPPEE!!!

[Later that night]
I now have my new computer up and running...on line...Outlook Express set up...and it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOO FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAst! I cant believe how fast this machine is! I'm the happiest guy in the world!

[July 26th, 2005]
Today I got my new keyboard from UPS. It's a SUNBEAM EL-KB-03-BK BLACK MULTIMEDIA LITE-UP KEYBOARD.
It lights up Blue and very nicely compliments the Blue LEDs on my computer case.

[July 31st, 2005]
Well the new blue keyboard turned out to be a piece of crap. The driver caused error messenges and when I tried to un-install it I ended up not being able to use any keyboard. So I had to re-install Windows and start over.

But now I'm back up and running. And everything is working fine after a whole day of re-installing programs and getting updates. That keyboard is now in the trash!

[October 28th, 2005]
Yesterday, I finally got a new keyboard to go with my new computer that does it justice. It's a Saitek Eclipse blue backlit keyboard with very cool, buttery smooth keys that are lit up just right. It's the BEST Keyboard I've ever used!
It was $42.00 plus $6.99 shipping and Newegg got it to me in just two days. Newegg is fantastic!

I also purchased a Logitech Wireless Rumble Pad Game Controller. I don't play many computer games, but now that I have a fast computer and internet connection, I thought I'd try out a few, and trying to play action games using the keybourd has never worked for me.

[October 29th, 2005]
Tonight I ordered a Logitech 961422-0403 Orbit MP 1.3MP Effective Pixels High-speed USB 2.0 Interface WebCam - Retail Webcam. Some friends I chat with on MSIM have cameras, and now we'll be able to video-chat back and forth. It's supposed to be very good in low-light and has keyboard controllable pan, tilt and zoom.

Here's my set-up taken with my new digital camera.

The other computer sitting under my desk is my old eMachine. It is still set up, networked to my new machine, and crunching numbers full-time for the World Community Grid distributed computing project that is trying to find new drugs to cure cancer and other horrible diseases. That is why you see two mice, because my KVM switch doesn't like cordless mice.

The Fad project is also why you will see my processor on my new desktop (below) running at 100%.

And another one, taken without flash, showing my new Blue-Backlit keyboard.

How do you like my new Desktop?