Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...It’s built….. sort of
thewelshbrummie
In that I now have a working PC!
Specs:
- Asus P5E3 Deluxe Wifi ap @n
- Pentium Dual Core E2160 @1.8GHz
- 1x Leadtek 256MB 8800GT O/C (I really don’t care about SLI, and my mobo is crossfire only anyway)
- 2GB OCZ DDR3 @1,333MHz
- 2x 1TB Seagate 7200.11 HDDs
- 1x 250GB WDC 250GB 2.5″ drive (in Icybox 3.5″ dock for use as an external HDD)
- 1x 500GB Samsung HD501 HDD, from old rig (backup for above 250GB HDD and laptop HDD)
- 1x TSST Corp DVD-RAM, from old rig (48x/20x)
- 1x Pioneer Slimline DVD-RAM optical drive
- Cooleermaster Realpower M620
- Scythe Kama Panel
- Vista Ultimate
- Antec P182 in black
And it works. But there are problems; I’ve already had to reinstall Windows, thanks to a crash installing Windows updates… which resulted in BSODs every 15 mins with driver issues, probably a corrupt dll but I thought it wise to start over with the installation.
More worringly, the iMon panel still hasn’t arrived (it had to be an eBay job as they’re nearly impossible to find) but I think the fault may lie with the UK shipping company; we had a card left on Friday to say that the item had been left in a safe place; typically no such thing exists outside the flat. I’m also still waiting for my PC Pro USB hub and the PCI USB card from Amazon.
Building it was really easy thanks to the case, and all of the power cables run behind the motherboard so there’s no nasty airflow problems. Having said that, the CPU is running at 60-63 degrees with stock cooling (though case fans on slowest speed) and some of the cabling is messy; the slimeline optical drive didn’t like the IDE-SATA converter, so I’ve had to use the IDE cable. And Scythe really need to supply header cables with the Kama panel; it’s ridiculous that I’m having to run the supplied cables out to the back panel (through gaps in the supplied pci plates) rather than being able to directly connect them to the motherboard. Mounting the panel is also something I’ve yet to achieve properly, thanks to the case using runners to slide in the parts; it’s far easier than directly screwing bits in, but only if they are full length. The Kama panel doesn’t even have screw holes, so I’ll have to go to B&Q to get some screws that will work.
So it’s not finished by any means; I also need to consider whether I want to transplant the Compro T750 TV card in (or upgrade it to the Vista version [T750F], if at all). And I intend on upgrading the CPU in the not too distant future (when the new Penryn quads with 12MB cache drop to sub-£200, along with a better cooler). But it runs, and Supreme Commander looks gorgeous and is incredibly smooth at 1280×1024 (native resolution for my TFT), and C&C3 runs much faster than my 4 month old laptop can manage it.
Just need to chase up Amazon and eBay sellers….
This article has no comments yet.