PC Hardware

The Build Process

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I got a stack of boxes last Thursday, somewhat previously discussed.

I already owned the case.  It’s this one here.  It’s basic, holds a shitload of hard drives, and has several huge quiet 120mm fans.  I also already had a 1TB SATA drive to use.

It’s been a while since I have built a PC, but, in general, it’s pretty simple.  The hard part is picking out the components really, which obviously, I’ve already done.  He was not around for the build but my son asked if I thought I would be done putting my computer together within a few months.  He seemed surprised when I told him it would take maybe an hour, once I had all of the parts.

The only real key is making sure the heat sink on the processor makes good contact and works, since otherwise, you’re liable to burn up an expensive component.

The place to start is the Motherboard.  Here it is, removed from the box and placed on its static bag.

This part is essentially the central nervous system of the computer.  It connects all of the other parts together and lets them communicate.  It does a few other things but at it’s core, that’s what it does.  The Motherboard can’t do math for crap though, which is why the next step is to add the Processor, which more or less only does math… very very quickly. 

It’s small, maybe an inch and a half square.  This one runs at I believe 3.3 Ghz, with 4 cores, which essentially means it does 3.3 Billion calculations per second and can do four calculations at a time.  This chip costs more than any other individual component in this computer.  Because it works hard and runs everything, it also gets hot quickly.  Which is why the next step is to add the heat sink. 

Ok, so a little story on this humongous heatsink and fan.  The last time i bought a processor, it did not include a heatsink of it’s own.  Heatsinks, personally, a pretty generic and unless you’re overclocking the CPU, you really don’t need much.  So I threw the “Number one selling CPU Heatsink on Amazon that was only like $20 anyway” on my order.  The pictures on Amazon make it look like a standard chunk of metal that sits on the CPU with the fan on top.

Turns out the chip came with a heatsink and fan.  It also turns out that the one I bought was like four times larger than expected.  I decided that since it was cheap, I may aw well use it rather than return it.

Hence, gigantic heat sink.  Fortunately, the case I’m using is pretty large.

The last step before bolting the Motherboard assembly into the case is to stick the RAM in.  It’s nothing particularly exciting other than I had to consult the manual to figure out the optimal slot placement.

After the board is in the case, the power supply can be strapped in as well.  The manual suggested putting the PS in first but my experience has been that often the PS obstructs access to the Mother Board.  It didn’t in this case (pun intended) but I waited anyway.  I also stuck the hard drive into the drive bay and reinserted it.

While the view is still relatively clear, I also wired in all of the front panel controls and lights.  Just a side note, I ended up putting all of these in reverse, which meant opening the case later and flipping them all over.  No biggie.

Finally, the Graphics card is inserted.

The desire to upgrade the GPU was a heavy driver in my decision to build a PC to begin with.  This one can be expanded to a second card using some ATI technology that I forget the name of if I want to add a second one.  It’s huge and pretty impressive to look at.

Finally, everything is assembled and it’s time to power things up.

I go through and describe the build Process for a home desktop PC.

Aside from the flipped button leads, I also had a bit of a worry when turning it on with the cooling.  The PS fan doesn’t power up unless it’s needed, so it didn’t immediately spring to life as expected.   This wasn’t helped by rear fan, which it turns out is dead.  I’ve since bought a replacement for it though I have not installed it yet.

I also ran into a slight snag when I went to install the OS.  I don’t own any SATA CD/DVD/BluRay/Disc drives.  Fortunately, I have a USB DVD drive for my netbook, which functioned just fine for this use.

I also had to wait a day for my Monitor to come in and later realized I don’t own a second USB Keyboard or Mouse (no PS/2 Ports).

It’s been running just fine for several days now.

I can run all of my games on super uber graphics mode with no stutter or slow downs.  It boots up very quickly, despite the non SSD hard drive.  Basically, it’s everything it’s supposed to be.

PC Hardware

Building a New PC

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I am extremely familiar with the insides and mechanics behind build a PC from scratch.  I’ve put together several machines for both personal use and at (my old) work.  I also have done numerous upgrades to hard drives, RAM, GPUs, etc over the years.  I’ve wired up cases for better cooling and upgraded a PC so much that I rebuilt the original PC with all of it’s original parts.

I’ve never ever bought all the parts at once to put them together as a cohesive whole at the same time.

In the recent move, I’ve gained an office space.  Part of my desire for this office space is that it’s not going to be where the kids hang out to play on the computer.  Unfortunately, I can’t just stick them with one of my extra older PCs, it’ll never work out.  So I’m using the opportunity to build myself a new gaming rig.  Computer components have gotten so ridiculously confusing these days.  The last time I seriously build a PC it was simple.  If the processor speed was higher, it was better.  A 2 GHZ PC was pretty much always going to be better than a 1.8ghz PC.  Unless it’s a Celeron, then it just sucked no matter what.

Now it’s all Cores and i7s, and i3s and Phenom IIs and crazy numbers that are mostly just ePeen related.  Fortunately I am aware than GPU means more to a PC than CPU.  That’s why I started with GPU.  My old machine actually performs much better than I would ever expect considering it’s only Dual core and it’s a stock Dell machine with a new GPU and some RAM.  The key was, I picked out a good GPU when I bought it.

So I did some research on benchmarks and performance and came up with a Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6850.  It’s not a top of the line card but it ranks very highly and costs about half as much as the cards ranking similarly.  I’m still being budget conscious with my choices and trying to get the best value I can.

I then did move on to processor.  As I said, modern processors confuse me, so I started off looking into the AMD chip recommended by Amazon to go with the GPU.  It was a place to start more than anything.  I’ve had a lot of AMD CPUs and always liked them.  They used to be the top dog but I was pretty sure Intel had come back to the lead.

Some Google searching suggested that it’s not real great unless it’s overclocked and I’m not really interested in trying to overclock anything.  It’s not that I don’t think I could do it, it’s more than I don’t want to have to buy another $150 processor when I fuck it up.  One thread I found on this chip had several recommendations for the Intel i5 2500 3.3Ghz.  It’s a Quad Core chip.   I did a bit more research and decided to go for this chip.  Mostly my research was into i5 vs i7, but this i5 is supposed to be pretty decent.  Besides, CPU is less important and I’m going to better value with a good punch.

On a side note, I also am hazy on the details but I also know that more cores doesn’t always mean better.  4 cores doesn’t make this a 12 Ghz processor, not every application uses multiple cores.  However I do a fair amount of Photo editing with Photoshop and I do a fair amount of editing with Adobe Premier, BOTH programs I know benefit from using multiple cores.

At this point I threw on a compatible fan nothing fancy, it was cheap and ranked 1st in fans on Amazon so I bought it.  I also threw on a 500W power supply to run it all.  I have a 500W power supply but it’s got some bad bearings in the fans and runs loud.  I could probably fix it but electricity scares me and I am pretty sure power supplies can be dangerous even when un plugged.

all that was left was to tie it together with a motherboard.  I picked up one from the list of recommended ones, it’s listed as Gigabyte Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2133 LGA 1155 Motherboard GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 and is very Blue.

So, because it coordinates, I picked up 8 GB of Blue RAM with flashy cooling fins to go in it.

I didn’t need to get a case, I have a very large and nice case I bought last time I built a machine.  it is absolutely boring as hell in it’s designs but that was what I wanted, something that “wasn’t curvy and swoopy and neon and looked like a Riced up Honda PC”.

I’m not showing this thing off for looks.

I also already have some hard drives.  I have a 1 TB that I’ll probably stick in it out of my current machine.  It keeps disappearing from the OS, but I am 90% sure it’s because that stock Dell Power supply sucks and can’t handle running 3 hard drives and a GPU.

I also don’t need a Monitor.  I ordered a decently large LCD a week ago when I thought I was going to be running a different older machine in the office.

Anyway, I’m pretty stoked.  I also went in for the Amazon Prime trial so everything should be here by Thursday.

Devices (Phones and Tablets)

The First Full Day of Android…

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I think I’ve finally got something I like after rearranging my little icons all over the place back and forth.  I still have not figured out how and if I can rename the single folder I’ve placed on the screen.  Thankfully the pre-installed apps, while not uninstallable, are removable from the main screens.

Of note on tests and discoveries.  At one point I accidentally triggered something called “Car Mode”.  I’ll have to look into how this happened and it took me a second to figure out how to get OUT of “Car Mode”.  This mode is a simplified interface with larger icons for things like voice dial and Maps.  Essentially the idea is you’d put the phone on some mount and interact with it minimally while driving.

As for battery life, I removed it from the charger this morning at around 6:30 when I woke up and plugged it in to charge off my laptop at around 2:30 PM when it alerted me that it was getting low.  Eight hours isn’t too bad though It looks like I’ll want to invest (eventually) in a second charger for the desk at work.

I’ve been getting notifications about tying together “friend accounts”.  Irritatingly it seems to have doubled up my twitter followers.  i wish it would just take the obvious ones and pair them for me.  Guess what phone, Twitter.com/XXXX is the same person as Twitter.com/XXXX. 

The music player works so far.  I had little trouble with everything it played on random except for MP3s from an Allison Iraheta album I got from Amazon.  Everything else came from Amazon so I’m not real sure what the malfunction is.  I’ll probably just recopy these tracks and see if that fixes it.  The last.fm scrobbling works great.

I’m not real sure I like the built in FriendStream app.  It combines Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr together.  I like the Idea but I find it a bit cluttered and hard to follow.  Also I can’t open links directly in it without going to a secondary screen.  Finally I wish it would “remember” where I had left off instead of jumping to the newest items every time it comes up.  I’d rather scroll up into new stuff then scroll down and figure out where I left off.

Today’s installed apps… (I plan to get more detailed on a lot of these later)

Amazon.com – In case i feel the need to shop while mobile.  not that i couldn’t go to the website.

Barcode Scanner – This seems useful and it seemed to sort of work on the only barcode I found handy on some granola bars, though it said they cost 40 bucks a box, which is WAAAAY off.

Google Earth – Mostly a novelty.

Google Sky Maps – Because stars are fun.

WCIA’s Mobile App – I saw a short clip promoting this on a local television channel and figured hey, sure.  I have not tested it a ton but if the School closings tab works it’s worth keeping around.  Too bad we’re probably beyond school closing season.

A Handful of Games – I’ll get into this aspect another time.

I also installed another NoAgenda app then proceeded to completely uninstall all three of the apps.  None of them do the most basic thing desired of playing the most recent episode of the show.  I also exported my iTunes Podcast list to the Podcatcher App I’[d installed yesterday.  Basically, now i can download the show (among others) direct to the phone, who needs some lame program.

Devices (Phones and Tablets)

HTC Inspire – Day Zero

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After much debating on which Android phone would be the one i wanted for my carrier (AT&T), I had finally narrowed it down to the Captivate, which my brother has and enjoys, or the iPhone 3GS, which many people have.  Then it was announced that AT&T was getting a second Droid phone that was worthwhile (the first being the Captivate), with the HTC Inspire.  The price was right between my two dilemma price points and it was “newer” than the captivate, though i have not yet compared the actual specs.  Anyway, it was getting a lot of positive buzz up tot he launch so I went with it.  I went with it on it’s launch day, February 13th, 2011. 

Unlike any iPhone launch, there was not a line outside the store.  In fact no one seemed to be promoting the device device in the stores though I’m not sure any of the other customers I overheard were looking for this style of device to begin with.  The store where I had mine had the display model unceremoniously dumped on the counter near the other Droids since the display was only designed to hold 3 phones.   According to the store clerk i was the first person in the area to own one” which is probably true considering what a bustling center of technological activity Central Illinois is, This is ESPECIALLY true in the manufacturing town of Decatur, home of Mark Whitacre.

Anyway, after 3 hours in the phone store, i had my new phone?  Why 3 hours?  Well, that’s a longer story but basically, my wife and I were getting upgrades for her and the kids’ phones.  Also we made some adjustments to our minutes that I’ll probably touch on in a later blog post.

I’m not going to do a full review or anything yet, I’m sure I’ll get to that eventually.  I’m satisfied with it a lot at the moment.  We’ll leave it at that.

Zero day App Installs:

Angry Birds – i know nothing of this game other than it’s name, I figured I should see what the hype is all about.

Final Fantasy VII Soundboard – There didn’t seem to be a real Final Fantasy game available but I did find this nifty musical soundboard.

Foursquare – Because I really should get around to annoying my friends online with pointless “check ins” constantly.

Google Goggles – Take a picture, do a search, I tested it with a book cover with good results, I’ll try it out more and give more thoughts later.

last.fm – i think i can play music off of this but mostly I want it to Scrobble what I am playing.  I’ll have to get back on how that works out.

NoAgenda App – I was hoping I could get the shows with this but it doesn’t seem to do that.  Mostly it’s just a sound board (In the Morning!).

Nook – So i can read my nookbooks when my Nook it’s available/convenient.

Pandora – Because I like music.

Portal Soundboard – The Cake is a LIE!

Posterous – So i can get my mobile photo blog back in gear.  Also my FoodBlog.

Remember the Milk – So I don’t forget…  something….. I can’t remember now….

Skype – because it seems useful but i never use it.

SSH Droid – Because SSH is for Nerdy Linux hacking and whatnot.

Team Fortress 2 Soundboards for all 9 Classes – Because ENTIRE TEAM IS BABIES!

TWiT.TV – So I can get all my TWiT.tv shows in one place.

Google Voice – voice transcribed voice mails sent to my emailbox are better than regular voicemails.

Wardrive – I plan to map out all of the wifi hotspots I come across.

Yelp! – I like this service and figured this will make using it easier.

PC Hardware

The HP Mini 311 Review – Part 3 – The How

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This is the last part of my multipart “review” of my recently acquired HP Mini 311.  This is probably the most difficult to put down since at this point, it’s changing on a regular basis.  The How, is how things are going to be done, and how things are being done.  For example, i am currently typing this using windows Live Writer in Windows XP on this machine.  However I’ve spent MOST of the time using this machine in Ubuntu.

So I’ll start at the top with Windows Live Writer, since I already brought it up.  This is a program I’ve been wanting to use ever since it was first released.  The beef I always had was, keeping everything organized in one place.  Probably the primary reason I wanted a computer like this in the first place was for writing.  So far it has proven to be an excellent tool for this.  Now, i will give you that, because I use a “two fingered method” of typing, the transition to the slightly smaller keyboard hasn’t been much of an issue.  If you’re used to touch typing on a full sized keyboard, you may have some issues.

It is perfect for this use however.  It’s light weight enough that I can carry it anywhere in my bag.  Which means, for example, if I’m out eating somewhere, or at the park during lunch or whatever, i can easily pull it out if I feel like typing something up.  This has, so far, only amounted to a translation to writing more blog posts for my various outlets for such activities.  I plan to try to transition this into more long form writing.  It’s something i used to do that I do enjoy and have lots of good ideas for, but I can generally never find the time.  Being able to type virtually anywhere is a blessing for this.

Part of this type anywhere ability, I’ll admit, is the battery.  Not the battery size or anything, just that it’s there and works.  I’ve had a few used laptops over the years and none of them had a decent battery.  So using the computer say, while sitting in bed, required I dig out the cables and find a spare outlet nearby etc.  It was a hassle.  At this point I’d estimate that I plug this machine in maybe once a day for an hour or so, usually while it’s sitting on my office desk.

Back to Windows Live Writer.  It was probably the first program I installed since it’s an excellent tool for blogging.  The interface is intuitive, the ability to easily attach multiple blogs is great and in general, it’s something Microsoft should be proud of. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a Linux equivalent.  There are Linux blogger tools that are similar, but none of them are quite as robust.

Which leads me to the second part of the How, Ubuntu.  I’ve got a long and sordid history with Linux.  I do use it fairly regularly however… sort of….  Most of the Linux based set ups I “use” are “set it and forget it” style set ups.  An FTP server for work.  A file server at home.  Occasionally I log onto these machines via VNC and putz around with settings or play around with CURL but for the most part, they are autonomous creatures,  I’ve tried using various flavors of Linux “full time” but generally I have little long term success.  The other issue is that I’m not going to inflict that general irritation on my family with say, my main home machine.

This is where the personal portable, touch it and die Netbook is handy.  I can dual boot with ease.  I’m still not really ready to go all in and wipe out my XP install or anything, but I do use Ubuntu way more than I do XP. 

Again… sort of….

I’ve also been experimenting with VirtualBox to run a virtual session of Windows XP on top of my Ubuntu install.  Can you wrap you head around that?  I have an “underpowered” PC that can boot to either Windows or Ubuntu, and inside Ubuntu, it can also run Windows.

This allows me to do things I can’t do with just Ubuntu, like run Windows live writer (eventually).  Or play DOS based games like Diablo 2 or Grand Theft Auto.

Ubuntu however should get a post all of it’s own so I’ll save more of the details on that for later.

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