Building Your Own Computer (II)
Part I: Step-by-step assembly.
Part II: Heat and stability issues.
Part III: Performance: suggestions. Test your PC.
Part IV: Save money: upgrade your old PC for only $35.
If you think mechanical clock repair is fun, try your hand at computers. Computers are easier to service than clocks, and you will feel as if you were stepping into the 21st Century from the 19th Century.
If this is your first time, as it once was for me, do not pretend that you can do it by yourself. You need a good friend to help you get started, after which it becomes easier. I had the good fortune to meet the incomparable computer guru (and skateboard champion) Hugh McCann. All the information on the internet will not help you get started like a good friend.
The next step is to find a friendly computer store that will work with you. The biggest computer store in Austin (as big as the local Wal Mart) had the best prices, but when I experienced software problems, their staff would ask me irrelevant questions that got me nowhere. After three motherboards and two processors, I returned everything and got a full refund. A second computer store had very helpful staff but obsolete merchandise. With their help, I built a computer with an Altos AL-694T motherboard and a Pentium 733 processor, which was stable and smooth but a little slow. Building an older system provides good practice for the beginner and for a low price. A third computer store proved not to be helpful, despite all their advertising on television about how wonderful they were: shop around! The fourth computer store had answers. They told me that my software issues were caused by components on some of the new motherboards, and that they had a motherboard that would probably work with my old software. I went back to them with my old software and tested it on their computer, and it worked smoothly. I performed another test from my website on their computer, and it worked well too. Since they had what I wanted, I bought an AZZA KT400-ALH motherboard and an AMD 2500+ Barton processor (because it had 512k cache: according to Hugh, an important part of a processor is its cache). My video card did not work in the new motherboard (the fact that it fits does not mean it will work!), so I had to buy another one (a "Chaintech GeForce4 MX440SE"). A 512 Mb memory stick (DDR333 is much faster than the SDRAM133 it replaced) and a computer case with power supply and I was ready to build.
The fourth computer store was Valiant Computers. They had a very nice computer case that was obviously a bargain. The SuperFlower SF-401T1-S is an aluminium-magnesium alloy (very lightweight!) case with a side-view window. It is easy to carry and sharp looking. It was a bargain at $80 since it included a 350W power supply (and an L.E.D. fan). Another L.E.D. fan, a couple of lights, three round cables and some other "mod stuff," and the result was a nice toy with terrific performance! Click on the photo to view an enlargement.
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The first issue the new system presented was heat. Avoid overclocking (this is not a pun) until the heat issue is under control. A fast processor generates more heat than the slower 733. AMD processors are known to generate more heat than Pentium processors. I was beginning to understand why water cooling might be necessary. A processor temperature of 51ºC at idle was much hotter than my Pentium 733.
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Adding a system blower did not help significantly.
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What was necessary was to bring cool air from outside the case to the processor, rather than recirculating warm air inside the case. This could be accomplished by reversing the case fan so that air would be blown into the case and installing a vent tube from the case fan to the processor fan. Since I could not find flexible vent tube material, I decided to try building one out of paper and tape. I added a vent box outside the case to expel warm exhaust air from the power supply upwards and away from the cool air intake for the processor. The first thing I noticed was a noticeable decrease in fan noise. The difference in temperature was considerable, ruling out the need to consider water cooling.
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The Thermalake Volcano 9 fan on the processor has a speed adjustment that allowed me to lower the speed and decrease the noise further. The paper vent tube proved to be much more effective than the
Thermalake Ducting Mod accessory, which did not yield any noticeable decrease in temperature (beyond merely looking cool). I removed the Ducting Mod.
An important feature of this computer case is the ability to locate the hard drive in front of a case fan for cooling. If your hard drive does not have a built-in fan, just place it in front of a Thermalake fan and adjust the speed to low for less noise. The temperature of your hard drive may drop by over twenty degrees!
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The computer test in my website that I mentioned earlier is a small (159KB) animated gif of an English Lever escapement that I created with an old computer (Pentium 100). In a more recent computer with a Pentium 733 the action was slow but smooth, with some breaking of the lines as they moved. When I tried this animation with a new computer (Pentium 2000), the animation was slower and slower until it actually stopped after 45 seconds, so there was obviously a problem! Other computers I have tested have proven to be slow, even if the animation did not stop.
This small test is one of many tests that can be used to determine the capabilities and the stability of your computer. When you buy a motherboard and a video card, they should have a CD with their driver software. As soon as you can get onto the internet, you must go to the company website and download the latest driver software for your hardware. I found this out the hard way because the drivers provided on the CD that came with a new motherboard did not work with the motherboard. Not having the right drivers can cause stability problems.
Stability problems are usually caused by hardware and software compatibility issues. This means you need to find the best combination of hardware components and then the driver software for all the hardware components. When you buy a pre-built computer, such as an HP or Compaq, all the hardware and software have been matched and tested at the factory, so you may be tempted to buy a pre-built computer. However, custom-built computers usually have higher quality components because pre-built computer companies face severe price competition. One way to cut costs is to integrate the video card into the motherboard, so make sure the motherboard you buy has at least an AGP slot and does not have the video card built in. Many pre-built computers are equipped with 128 or 256 MB of RAM and a 4 or 8 MB video card. Your next computer should have no less than 512 MB of RAM and a 64 MB video card (as of May 2003). Pre-built computers often have proprietary hardware, particularly the motherboard and the power supply, which makes future upgrades difficult or impossible. If you build a custom-built computer, you will be able to upgrade its memory, processor, video card, hard drive, or any other hardware component easily. Upgrading only what you need will be much less expensive, in the long run, than replacing the entire computer.
Overclocking the processor, which can be achieved in several ways, is very effective in making this fast computer even faster. However, there are unintended side-effects. The processor generates more heat. Stability is compromized, increasing the possibility that the computer may crash. While this computer is more than fast enough for everything I do, those who enjoy overclocking their processors may be disappointed to know that the KT400-ALH motherboard (read this Review) only allows limited overclocking, probably for safety reasons.
If you want a custom-built computer without doing the work, (boring!), let a custom computer store like Valiant build one for you the way you want it. Read their Top 10 Reasons to choose a custom built computer like the ones they offer. Their explanations are similar to the ones I have outlined here.
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