- Joined
- Jan 31, 2005
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First up, sorry if this is a bit long. There are a few pictures down the bottom that i have uploaded to the Gallery. 
Well the new pc is up and running. It was good fun building the thing, but more fun using it!
Here’s a quick run down of the events over the past two days……
I started building it later than I wanted to as I had a few too many beers the night before, and had a bit of a bad head the day after, so stayed it bed for a little longer than I would have liked…..
Firstly for those who don’t know I have a Thermaltake Tsunami Dream ATX Mid Tower case with a window and side fan.
Taking the old one apart was dead easy, as I expected.
Started by ripping out all the cables, then pulled out the Graphics card and the memory, then out with the old motherboard! I reused the CPU cooler I got (Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro) so had to remove that from the old board. Decided that it would be a good idea to clean out the dust form said cooler as it been on the go for god knows how long 24/7. Plus I wanted to try out my new can of compressed air!! So outside I went cooler in one hand air duster in the other.
Ready…..Aim…...fire! Jesus! I’ve never seen so much dust come out of something so small! (Funny how it always blows back at you too aint it? Even when you pay close attention to the wind….)
After dusting off myself I set about installing the 4800X2 and 3D Rocket onto the new Asus A8N32-SLI DELUXE Motherboard. Frankly it was fairly easy, helped by the fact I had the mb out of the case. The only bit I don’t like is when it comes to the clip for the HSF, It feels wrong putting that much force onto something you just spent several hundred pounds on! [imghttp://www.planetsmilies.com/smilies/scared/scared0005.gif[/img]
Next up was the back plate for the motherboard connections. Done.
Had to move one of the UV tubes because the new board is wider than the old one, added more standoffs and I was good to go.
The MB fitted into the case so easily, connected all the front panel switches, lights, USB connections, Firewire connections and any others I may have forgotten to mention.
Next the memory went in, I got the 2GB Corsair XMS 3200 Cas2 matched pair from the old board so didn’t expect any probs with that.
Now for that beast of a graphics card!
Sh*t, it don’t fit…….No its ok I just need to remove the ‘Screwless’ PCI slot retainers to get the thing in! Then replace the retainers and we’re almost done.
Hard drive into the cage, old Hard Drive into the cage (so I can retrieve old data), Cage into the case, everything fits, sweet!
Now for the bit I’ve not been looking forward to, the power supply and cabling…….
Bloody Tagan PSU! The Shielded PCI-E cable is only just long enough, and I mean only just! One cm less and I would be very upset. I could, if I really needed to, use the standard molex connector and the adaptor they supply, but I bought a power supply with PCI-E connections on it for a reason!!
Another thing is, why cant they have the power connector in a more easy to get to place? Instead of on the corner of the card right next to all the hard drives??
Anyway after about 10 minutes of trying to route the cable to the GFX card. I get it to fit. Phew, I can breath a sigh of relief. For a moment there I wondered if it was gonna fit. So what if I had a bigger full sized tower case? Would it have fitted? I aint so sure……
Anyway moving on.
Everything connected, checked and double checked I proceed with the XP inatall.
Boring, very boring…..just watching that yellow bar slowly moving to the right.
Well we’ll cut this bit out. Its standard stuff, it installed ok no problems.
Then I installed MB and sound drivers, video drivers, Monitor drivers Firewall, Antivirus and spyware stuff and so on.
Next I plugged in the Ethernet cable and proceeded to get about a million windows updates, followed by everything else. More waiting.
Anti-Vir decided it doesn’t want to update, something about ‘demo mode’ fine I’ll reinstall you after a good Ccleaning! Done and sorted.
After all that I installed BOINC and got the thing crunching!
Then opened a beer! [imghttp://www.freesmileys.org/emo/eatdrink004.gif[/img]
Next day I copied all my documents over and reinstalled all my games and programs. Then copied all my profiles, Firefox, Thunderbird, game profiles and alike.
Flippin heck, I think I’m finally getting somewhere, the screen looks like how it did before I started this madness now. But it has been worth it, not only have I learned more stuff, I now have a very fast pc that is exactly how I want it!
Lets have a beer to celebrate!
Now to the benchmarks!
The old system specs and scores were –
Gigabyte GA7VT600-L
Athlon XP3200+ OC’ed to 2.36Ghz
Leadtek 6800GT Oc’ed to 420 & 1150Mhz
2GB Corsair 3200 XMS
Etc, etc,
3Dmark03 – 10,500 points
3Dmark05 – 5,200 points
New PC –
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
AMD A64 X2 4800
MSI 7900GTO 512Mb OC’ed to Core = 698Mhz & Memory = 1540Mhz. But i aint finished yet. (Stock 650 & 1320Mhz)
2GB Corsair 3200 XMS
3Dmark03 - Scored 21,166 points.
3Dmark05 - Scored 10,491 points.
What do you think?
Well the new pc is up and running. It was good fun building the thing, but more fun using it!
Here’s a quick run down of the events over the past two days……
I started building it later than I wanted to as I had a few too many beers the night before, and had a bit of a bad head the day after, so stayed it bed for a little longer than I would have liked…..
Firstly for those who don’t know I have a Thermaltake Tsunami Dream ATX Mid Tower case with a window and side fan.
Taking the old one apart was dead easy, as I expected.
Started by ripping out all the cables, then pulled out the Graphics card and the memory, then out with the old motherboard! I reused the CPU cooler I got (Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro) so had to remove that from the old board. Decided that it would be a good idea to clean out the dust form said cooler as it been on the go for god knows how long 24/7. Plus I wanted to try out my new can of compressed air!! So outside I went cooler in one hand air duster in the other.
Ready…..Aim…...fire! Jesus! I’ve never seen so much dust come out of something so small! (Funny how it always blows back at you too aint it? Even when you pay close attention to the wind….)
After dusting off myself I set about installing the 4800X2 and 3D Rocket onto the new Asus A8N32-SLI DELUXE Motherboard. Frankly it was fairly easy, helped by the fact I had the mb out of the case. The only bit I don’t like is when it comes to the clip for the HSF, It feels wrong putting that much force onto something you just spent several hundred pounds on! [imghttp://www.planetsmilies.com/smilies/scared/scared0005.gif[/img]
Next up was the back plate for the motherboard connections. Done.
Had to move one of the UV tubes because the new board is wider than the old one, added more standoffs and I was good to go.
The MB fitted into the case so easily, connected all the front panel switches, lights, USB connections, Firewire connections and any others I may have forgotten to mention.
Next the memory went in, I got the 2GB Corsair XMS 3200 Cas2 matched pair from the old board so didn’t expect any probs with that.
Now for that beast of a graphics card!
Sh*t, it don’t fit…….No its ok I just need to remove the ‘Screwless’ PCI slot retainers to get the thing in! Then replace the retainers and we’re almost done.Hard drive into the cage, old Hard Drive into the cage (so I can retrieve old data), Cage into the case, everything fits, sweet!
Now for the bit I’ve not been looking forward to, the power supply and cabling…….
Bloody Tagan PSU! The Shielded PCI-E cable is only just long enough, and I mean only just! One cm less and I would be very upset. I could, if I really needed to, use the standard molex connector and the adaptor they supply, but I bought a power supply with PCI-E connections on it for a reason!!
Another thing is, why cant they have the power connector in a more easy to get to place? Instead of on the corner of the card right next to all the hard drives??
Anyway after about 10 minutes of trying to route the cable to the GFX card. I get it to fit. Phew, I can breath a sigh of relief. For a moment there I wondered if it was gonna fit. So what if I had a bigger full sized tower case? Would it have fitted? I aint so sure……
Anyway moving on.
Everything connected, checked and double checked I proceed with the XP inatall.
Boring, very boring…..just watching that yellow bar slowly moving to the right.
Well we’ll cut this bit out. Its standard stuff, it installed ok no problems.
Then I installed MB and sound drivers, video drivers, Monitor drivers Firewall, Antivirus and spyware stuff and so on.
Next I plugged in the Ethernet cable and proceeded to get about a million windows updates, followed by everything else. More waiting.
Anti-Vir decided it doesn’t want to update, something about ‘demo mode’ fine I’ll reinstall you after a good Ccleaning! Done and sorted.
After all that I installed BOINC and got the thing crunching!
Then opened a beer! [imghttp://www.freesmileys.org/emo/eatdrink004.gif[/img]
Next day I copied all my documents over and reinstalled all my games and programs. Then copied all my profiles, Firefox, Thunderbird, game profiles and alike.
Flippin heck, I think I’m finally getting somewhere, the screen looks like how it did before I started this madness now. But it has been worth it, not only have I learned more stuff, I now have a very fast pc that is exactly how I want it!
Lets have a beer to celebrate!
Now to the benchmarks!
The old system specs and scores were –
Gigabyte GA7VT600-L
Athlon XP3200+ OC’ed to 2.36Ghz
Leadtek 6800GT Oc’ed to 420 & 1150Mhz
2GB Corsair 3200 XMS
Etc, etc,
3Dmark03 – 10,500 points
3Dmark05 – 5,200 points
New PC –
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
AMD A64 X2 4800
MSI 7900GTO 512Mb OC’ed to Core = 698Mhz & Memory = 1540Mhz. But i aint finished yet. (Stock 650 & 1320Mhz)
2GB Corsair 3200 XMS
3Dmark03 - Scored 21,166 points.
3Dmark05 - Scored 10,491 points.
What do you think?
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