By: Michael 'Stans' Stansfield
Date: 2005-05-01
So my old computer is, well, old. It is so old that it will not run the newer games such as Pacific Fighters. I have built computers before and enjoyed great success and felt good about the state of hardware and ease of building, especially since plug-n-play has evolved. My old computer was a Pentium III - 550E on a Gigabyte motherboard and a cheap case. This system has been rock solid since the first time I put the power to it. The main problems were in setting IRQ's (only those who have dealt with the older Windows operating systems know this joy, XP doesn't require this), one worn out hard drive (also crammed so full that it became incredibly slow) and the el-cheapo 300 watt power supply that died after five years of service, so I figured I could build a modern replacement.
After reading numerous reviews from various review sites such as Anandtech, Tom's Hardware Guide and Sharky Extreme as well as the reviews given by purchasers and posted on the NewEgg website I selected my components. I intended this to be a pretty modern computer, so I desired a PCI Express motherboard, a 256 MB video card, a Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS sound card, the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU, 2 GB of RAM, and a 500 watt power supply. I did have to strike a balance between cost and cutting edge, that is why I selected the A64 3500+ as it is a solid cpu, but the prices are about $100 less than the 3800+ and I couldn't even consider a 4000. The following is the complete list of components that I have purchased.
- AMD Athlon 3500+ CPU, 130 micron core
- Fortron Blue Storm 500 watt power supply
- Codegen C-6209-CA-38C case
- Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS OEM sound card
- Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 motherboard
- Viewsonic PS2/USB keyboard and optical mouse
- Corsair Value PC-3200 RAM, 2 packs each containing two 512MB DIMMS
- eVGA Nvidia 6800 Ultra, 256 MB video card
- Sony 3.5 inch floppy drive
- Samsung 710N LCD 17 inch color monitor
- CH Products USB F-16 Fighter Stick
- CH Products USB Pro Pedals
- Track IR 3Pro with Vector Expansion
- Western Digital 120 GB hard drive
- Sony CD-RW ROM/DVD drive
- Four 80mm case fans
All items except for the Track IR system, hard drive and CD ROM were purchased from NewEgg. All parts were ordered after 8pm on a Monday night, the NewEgg components arrived Thursday afternoon using FedEx shipping, the Track IR is being shipped by UPS and will take 8 days to arrive. I purchased the case fans, hard drive and CD ROM locally (Best Buy rocks!).
Friday afternoon I started my build with the case. I should have known I was in trouble when I opened the box, started to remove the case and a plastic case foot fell out onto the floor. Now this case received rave reviews and for the price you can't find a better case, at least according to the reviews. This case featured an 80mm exhaust fan, sliding plastic tabs to hold expansion cards or to retain the block out plates, a wind funnel for the CPU, ventilated sides and top, spots for adding more fans, and is all steel except for the plastic front cover. Well, the little plastic feet are only held in by two little tabs, so I was able to reinsert the foot, I hope it stays in place. Proceeding with the project, I decided to install more fans. I stripped the case, which by the way does not come with instructions other than how to operate the plastic expansion slot tabs and front panel wiring legend. I installed an 80mm exhaust fan in the top of the case and at the rear of the case. I moved the stock fan to the front of the case and put it in the removable plastic housing for the intake fan. Removing this housing requires the removal of the front panel. Getting the housing back into the case requires effort as the tabs do not want to slide through the slots in the steel case frame.
With that finished, I moved on to installing all of the drives. No real problems here except that the non-removable faceplate over the 3.5 inch floppy puts the drive so deeply into the case that it is really difficult to get a disk into the drive. The cover over the CD ROM has a hinged door that has a lot of spring tension, this might interfere with smooth movement of the CD tray and is likely to accelerate wear on its gears and motor. The CD ROM also sits pretty far into the case and it may be difficult to insert and remove CD's with this arrangement. I removed the CD ROM cover plate and made a standard installation of the CD ROM. This works just fine, but now I have a beige colored drive in a sea of silver and black, so it is functional, but not very attractive.
Now on to the motherboard installation. I installed the CPU and stock heat sink and fan. The stock heat sink is massive, the only thing that would be nicer is if it was copper instead of aluminum. The fan seems pretty strong and capable of moving some air. Next came the RAM. I filled all four RAM slots with 512 MB sticks with no problems and there is plenty of room between the CPU/heat sink and RAM slots. Next, I installed the motherboard in the case without incident. This was all I accomplished today since I had other duties to complete.
Saturday morning, problems arose when I attempted to install the video card. The plastic tabs slid back and released the block out plates, I installed the card, slid the tab back down only to discover the tabs will not stabilize the card. In fact, the tabs actually popped out of their tracks! Ok, I have plenty of assorted screws on hand from previous projects, I'll just pop in screws to secure the card to the case frame. WRONG!!!! The plastic tracks that hold the tabs prevent the screws from lining up with the holes. No problem, I'm real handy with a hobby knife (I still have all ten fingers!), I'll just trim away some of the track. Well, that didn't work too well either, can't even begin to get a screwdriver in there. So in frustration with this poor design I just removed this wonder device for securing plates and installed a bunch of screws, old school style!
With the video card secured, I moved on to the sound card. This mother board has one 16x PCIe slot and three PCI slots, so I figured I would have plenty of room for expansion cards. WRONG! The video card has a large heat sink and fan that covers the first PCI slot. The second slot is open, but installing a card here would pretty much block the air intake for the video card cooling fan, so that slot is pretty much useless. The third and final slot is the only spot for the sound card, so in it goes. This pretty much means not using the game port header extension due to space constraints, no problem if you use all USB game controls.
This case has front panel speaker/headphone and microphone jacks and two USB ports. The audio and microphone jacks are wired with a set of wires and standard audio plugs. These wires are to be threaded through a block out plate that has a hole in it, then you plug them into the jacks on the back of the sound card. I decided to install this between the sound card and video card. The hole also provides a small air inlet very near the video card fan. Cool! Now the mother board has 4 USB ports hard wired onto the back of the motherboard. Included with the mother board is an expansion slot plate with two USB and two 1394 ports. I felt these might be needed, I didn't want to install this below the video card due to airflow restrictions around the video card, so it had to go above the sound card. I really wanted to install it well above the video card, but the cables are too short for this area and I ended up installing it directly above the sound card. This is the only spot where the cables will not end up putting tension on the video card or the motherboard sockets.
Speaking of the USB ports, I must say I am disappointed with the ones on the front of the case. The wires are not shielded!!!! They are just loose wires with individual connector plugs that you plug into the motherboard. Their usefulness is highly suspect. There is a spot for a 1394 jack, but no jack is installed. Also, the wiring legend that comes with the case does not match the colors of the wires! This made connecting the LED's and buttons a bit iffy, but I think I got them right.
I was disappointed with the layout of the motherboard. Honestly, it looks like it started as an AGP design, then as a dual PCIe 16x design with the top 16x slot eliminated. The NVIDIA Nforce4 chip set has a large heat sink, but no fan and the graphics card sticks out over the heat sink, so a fan probably wouldn't work. The heat sink would be in the open if the graphics card were in the space normally occupied by an AGP card.
Next came the power supply. This thing is down right awesome!!!! Well designed with a single 120 mm intake fan in the bottom of the supply and the back of the supply is very well ventilated. All the cables are wrapped in a nylon mesh type sleeve and are more than long enough to reach anything in the case. It has a 24 pin motherboard plug and the separate 12 volt ATX plug as well as a dedicated PCIe graphics card line. The power supply went in without a hitch, power connections made, and the drive cables installed. I routed all the power cables down the side of the case, well out of the path of airflow and secured them to the case with ties.
So it is all together, finally, I plugged in the keyboard, mouse and monitor and put the juice to it! Much to my amazement, it started up and went directly into the BIOS settings. I selected my configuration and don't depend on the motherboard manual to help much. It explains nothing about what the options mean. But, I muddled through, I'm not one to waste time reading instructions anyway. With the system running, I'm now interested in how hot this thing is going to run. With the case open, the CPU idled at 38C and the CPU fan running at 3800 rpm. I put the case panels on and the temp was stable at 43C, CPU fan at 3900 rpm. That was all I could do as it was now Saturday evening and I had plans that did not include a computer.
By Sunday morning, I am thinking that I can get better cooling on this rig. The stock 80mm fan that is now in the bottom front of the case is moving very little air. I actually had to visually inspect the fan to make sure it was even turning! Off to Best Buy for a couple more 80mm fans. I replaced the stock fan with a new 80mm fan and decided to install a second intake fan on the side panel. The side panels are ventilated, covered with a nylon filter material, and there is a plastic frame that was supposed to hold a wind funnel for the CPU fan. The funnel was missing and it is just as well as the funnel would not have been centered over the CPU and may have only interfered with airflow inside the case. The plastic frame work is a open grid design, has one 80 mm spot with generous bosses for fan screws and two 60mm openings which are pretty much useless. I orientated the frame so the fan would be near the bottom of the case. I found the screw holes were really tiny and there was no way I could get the fan screws started. Off to my workshop where my electric drill and an 11/64" drill bit opened the screw holes so I could get the screws started and keep them straight. With the new front fan and a side fan, the CPU idled at 38C and as the system burned in, the temp dropped to 31 to 32C with the CPU fan running at 2900 rpm.
So there is my hardware buildup. It runs, I have installed the drivers, I like the software that comes with the motherboard and it should make tweaking and even over clocking (something that I usually don't do) easy. I also installed Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 as the operating system. Now I need to transfer software from my old computer, get my new flight stick and rudder pedals set up, then it is off to fly and fight in Pacific Fighters. I admit it is far easier to just buy a computer, plug it in and run with it, but can you buy this level of computer with game controllers and Track IR for $2000? Building also gives you a real good idea of what goes into a computer, how things work, and when it works, a real sense of accomplishment. Would I build another system? Yeah, but I would not rely solely on reviews by others. I would give a far more critical eye to the design of the components, unfortunately you can't always anticipate how things will fit, so there is always an element of chance.
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