All Shiny!

So I heard back from my friend... he thought it was a Bios problem and recommended that I upgrade the Bios on my computer. At the moment I'm all done installing Windows 7 and updating drivers. I'm installing video games now, and through all of this there's been no blue screens! So I'm up and running... below you can see my computer desk with my new monitor and the glowy computer down on the floor to the left.

For those interested, here's all the components that went into the computer... forgot to post with the last blog.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S 2.83 Ghz Processor
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L Mother
XFX Radeon HD 4870 1 GB Video Card
8GB Corsair XPS DDR2 Ram
WD Caviar Green 500 GB Hard Drive
MSI DVD R/RW
Azza Orion Case
Azza Dynamo 650W PSU
2 120mm Case Fans
1 90mm Case Fan
Windows 7 Professional
Samsung 932BW 19” LCD

The Shiny (or not so shiny) New Computer (Part 2)

If you haven't read Part 1 yet... don't read this... scroll down and read Part 1 first.

Here's what things look like after I installed the video card. This does what you think it would... handles anything related to video for your computer. Mine is an XFX Radeon HD 4870 1GB. Most likely, you don't need a video card like this in your computer. It's made specifically for gaming and handling the graphics that come with it. I have a full GB of ram on the card dedicated solely to graphics, and it has a 256 bit graphics processor. As of right now that should be able to handle any graphics heavy game on it's highest graphics settings without any problems. I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes.

This one's after I attached all the wires where they need to be in

the case. It looks a little less clean than it did before, but it'll actually do something now so I'm ok with that. All that's left at this point is putting the case back on and powering up the computer to install the operating system.

This last picture is of the side of the case once I put the side back on. I have clear panels on the side of the case so that in the event that I feel like looking at my parts while the computer is running I can do so. On the more practical side, you can see a fan in the side of the case. Most don't have extra fans like this... just an exhaust fan in the back. To help with all the extra heat some of my parts put out my case has an extra fan on the side, space for another one below it, and a fan that pulls air in through the lower front part of the case as well. To keep these from being too practical, they do glow blue while running.

At this point in the build, it was about 2 AM and I was pretty tired. So I went to bed to come back in the morning to deal with turning it on and installing the operating system in the morning.

Turning it on went well. Everything did what it was supposed to and the computer came on. This meant that all the wires went where they were supposed to in spite of it being 2 in the morning while I was plugging everything in. Thus far everything is shiny. The not so shiny part... when I started installing Windows 7 I got a fun blue screen telling me there was an error of some sort. Many blue screens later I talked to a friend who does IT stuff. He suggested that this was probably a RAM problem and that I should run a memory test. At the moment I've run the test with some fun results. For those of you who know what such things mean I'll share.

4 sticks of ram in: Computer freezes at 5% into first test
3 sticks of ram in: Computer freezes at 7% into first test (I have tried every configuration placing ram in different slots)
2 sticks of ram in: Computer retstarts at roughly 50% through first test (again I've tried every configuration of ram in different stots)
1 stick of ram in: Every stick passed with no errors, and every slot has passed with no errors

I'm not really sure what the results mean. It seems like it says that all my RAM is good. My thoughts are that this could be a problem with either the motherboard or Bios, but I'm not entirely sure on that. I'm waiting for my friend to get back with me so I can share the results. I'll try to post more on what happens with this once i get the problem figured out and the whole computer is shiny. Perhaps I'll get Cori to post on her thoughts through the whole thing... most of them probably not quite as interested in the details as mine.

To everyone who contributed... Thank you very much! I'm sure that I'll have the kinks worked out shortly and have a computer that will make other video game nerds drool. I couldn't have done it without your help!

- Adam

The Shiny (or not so shiny) New Computer (Part 1)

So... I had hoped to wait to post this until the computer was all shiny and up and running and all that... it's taking a bit longer than I had hoped, so I thought I'd go ahead and post how things have gone so far.

This is all of my parts still in boxes waiting for me to open them up and start playing with them.

At this point I was a bit giddy... still a little sick from my recent bout with the plague and having just gotten home from a full day at work. It's somewhere around 10:15 and Cori is forcing me to eat dinner before starting to build. So I threw in a pizza and came back to my parts while the pizza cooked.

Here's the inside of the case with only the power supply installed. At this point it's basically a big empty box with a whole bunch of wires in it.

The next step was putting in the hard drive and dvd drive. They both go over on the right hand side of the case and didn't really add a whole lot to how it looked, so I figured for now I'd let you use your imagination on what this looked like (you'll be able to see them peeking out in later pictures) and move on to setting up the motherboard.

This is the motherboard with only the processor installed. Motherboard is what connects everything in your computer and lets them talk, allowing them to become a computer rather than just a bunch of separate parts. T

he processor is the shiny silver square about halfway down on the right side of the board. Mine is an Intel Core2 Q9550S. It's a quad core processor that runs at 2.83 Ghz without overclocking. With overclocking I've read several reviews with my processor and motherboard where the processor has been successfully overclocked to 4 Ghz, and my friend Scott who works for Intel said one of the guys he works with has gotten it up to 7 Ghz with a top of the line cooling system. As of right now I have no intentions of overclocking... the 2.83

Ghz should be fine for me... but in a few years when I feel like I might need an upgrade it's good to know that the option is there.

Here's the motherboard with the CPU (proce

ssor) fan and Ram installed and with the board placed inside the case. (In case you felt a little jipped earlier you can now see the DVD drive on the bottom left, and the hard drive in bottom middle of the picture.) The fan keeps the processor from overheating

. This is important. You may remember Cori and I mentioning the death of her laptop this summer... that was do to a melted processor that overheated. It would make me very, very sad were this ever to happen to my processor. The ram I've installed is 8GB of Corsair XPS DDR2. This and my processor should let me handle just about any program (or multiple programs) that I feel like running at any given time without a problem.

I can apparently only have 4 pictures in any given post... so we'll call this part one. I'll go type up part 2 now.