PC Revamp

An Idea

olymat22 — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:45:44 +0000

I had an idea wilst tring to find some lights in a BIG box of stuff I see a flex-ATX (dead small) PSU. I was thinking if I could turn it on without a MOBO, it could be a lighting PSU. I could have all the lights (and mabie fans) on without the all the HDD’s and MOBO’s goin’ on. That’d be great (and cool). I googled it, and found this http://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/196/1. It show’s you how to get a PSU on with some wire (and a switch, for a more permenent solution). Go check it out.

Nearly There

olymat22 — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:19:13 +0000

(more…)

Finished! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

olymat22 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:13:04 +0000

So it turns out that when we got the PC back it works. That’s great until the hard disk stopped working. Windows just said FAILED TO READ DISK. We gave it back to 3B and whilst doing it I saw an 8800gt 1gb version going for 180 quid! I put ALL my savings into it and got 3b to stick it in for us (we seem to be cursed with expensive stuff, SKULLTRAIL KEEP AWAY!LOL). The good thing is that I have finished the cube pc. I’ll put some pics & specs on my last post (coming soon). The hard drive went on this one too, but it had been going for 2 years. There is now a 400gb SATA in there.

The Bits

olymat22 — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:02:36 +0000

Now we need something to do with all the bits left over, because there are three boxes of them! We decided to make another pc. We went down to 3b systems to give them the system and we saw a dead nice micro-ATX cube case with windows and everything.They also had a 30 quid micro-ATX mobo with PCI-E and DDR2. I got everything in and it worked, which was a bit of a surprise! I also got it to run Linux,(Mandriva distrobution) which is better than you would think. But when I tried to put it on the hard drive, it didn’t work. Because my Dad wanted to use XP, I tried to load that and it didn’t work either. I also formatted it too, and still nothing. Were’re prettie sure that it’s the hard drive, so we plan to get a 300-500gb SATA to replace it. Because we wern’t overclocking it (my Dad won’t let me), we got an ordinary cooler and put a spair multi-colour fan on it. I ran into a problem there aswell, because thre was no way to get the screwdriver through the hole! I solved this with some intensive twisting and pushing to get the bit through the hole. The screwdriver tip was BOILING after this!!! I’mm sorry that there aren’t many pictures on my plog, but when all is finished I will take some for you.

The Next Build

olymat22 — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:47:59 +0000

Yesterday my dad rang 3B systems and they said they would do the system for us . They said they could do the motherboard for us but then let us do the modding. Then we found a box of cool stuff from the previous build including a see-through PSU and some EL string. There was also a flex ATX (dead small) PSU and that gave me an idea. I saw my NES (a retro games console) and thought I might turn it in to a computer. I googled small form factor motherboard and and went on to linitx.com . They specialise in dead small mobo’s (10×7cm !!!) and i saw one with a VIA 2gh processor and SATA. I also found laptop HDD’s and disk drives that would fit perfect. That flex-ATX PSU would fit too! This could be a GREAT modded pc! But we don’t have enough money at the moment, or time for that matter! go to linitx.com, it’s well good!

DET DRAM

olymat22 — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:55:19 +0000

We had finished the PC, but it didn’t work. It was the same blank screen, no POST (it has one of those LCD’s on the back), but still lights and fan movement. We tested the power supply, and the tester said there was no -5 volts. The people we got it from (Overclock UK) say that they abandoned it some time ago, and the motherboard is new so I think they are right. If you know about this then please comment. We thought that something on the motherboard could’ve shorted, so we took it out of the case. Then it started POSTing and when it got to DET DRAM (I think it means it’s detecting the RAM) it stopes and goes BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! We tried putting in some RAM from a Compaq we upgraded and it didn’t change.We don’t have a clue what to do, so we ane going to give it too a specialist to build. If you have any ideas then comment or EMail me at olymat22@hotmail.com.

Fed Up with AMD

olymat22 — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:48:11 +0000

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while, been dead busy at school. As you can see by the title, we are fed up with AMD. We have decided to go Intel. We have bought an G0 stepping Core 2 Quad Q6600 and an Asus Striker Extreme from 3B systems in Nelson (we went to there shop). This rig will be way faster, plus it will be more future-proof. But when we got home, and tried to put the thermal grease on the CPU, disaster struck. We spilled the grease over the heatspreader and onto the die. We managed to get it all off, but it was a close shave. It just says, use your common sense, not the manual (it said to put it on the CPU, not the heatsink, which is more logical). After that, we got up to putting the drives in, but we remebered that they wouldn’t open last time. We got 2 more, an Asus with Lightscribe and SATA, and a NEC with SATA. They should come on monday.

QUADFX IS BAD!

olymat22 — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:12:42 +0000

I was looking at the spec’s of the dual processor motherboard,when I noticed that it had an L1 socket. I did some research and found out I couldn’t use it without buying 2 FX chips (180 quidz each). I aslo noticed it was AMD’s No.5 mistake in the core wars on issue 51! It would be DEAD pricey too, I did the math and it would be 600 quid! No way!We got the Crosshair back to the BT Shop and we are going to get our money back after they inspect it. We plan to get another one (from somewhere else, probably Lamdatec) and put it in my machine and get a cheap AM2 motherboard to put the other processor in the other one. The reason is that we can’t get our money back for the second processor. I have completely stripped down the build as I forgot to dust it out. Here is a pic from my lab.

Big Ideas

olymat22 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:27:44 +0000

Today we did a test. We swapped the graphics cards around and the old graphics card worked in the luna pc. Result! we tried The other PC, but nothing. We then assesed that it was stuffed. We took it back and swapped it for a 7200. We turned it on and windows came on, but when I tried to play Supreme Commander, it went on to 4 bit colour and 600×400 resulution and it wouldn’t go back! I did all sort of things but none worked, so I reinstalled Windows and that worked. We had a think and a talk, and we thought that it had the motherboard or processor. So, we need to find out if the processor works. I had a look on Overclock.com and saw the price had gon down on the processor I bought had gone down by £5. We also called Maplin, but the processors were around £50 for a cheap one! We had another think, and my dad said that we should get the processor from Overclock, put it in the Crosshair, and if it works we know that it was the old processor casing the problem. If it dosen’t, we will get an Asus L1N64-SLIWS at a later date, because it is a dual processor motherboard so we can utalise all the other processors. It’s also good because it has a Nvidia 590 SLI chipset, so it has SLI, overclockabilaty, heatpipes, and it will fit in an ATX case. There might be a problem with the heatsink, because the socets ane quite close. Also, having one one blowing hot air on the other won’t help the cooling. So we might have to get 2 Swiftech MCX6400-v’s as the have vertical fan mounts. Please comment if you where to get them, as I can’t find them.

Phueh!

olymat22 — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:46:41 +0000

Today I dicided to try and find out what was up with my pc. I Googled the problem and I had a look on the Asus forum. Someone said that CPU INIT was what the motherboard said if it recognised the processor. What a relief! I now think that the graphics card has gone. I’m not really sure though. It’s not the monitor eather, because A.they both work on other PC’s and B. they only have VGA ports (because sometimes the default is DVI). I was also abit annoied about the front fan being so loud. It’s quiet old now, so I set out to get a new one. I need a good looking one, so it needs some LED’s. I had a look on Frozen CPU and saw the BGears BCool. If you han’t heard of it, it displayes the temperateure and the words. I plan to put it on the back and put the back one on the front one.