First solo computer build road trip

[Beavis68]

Last year I got a Conroe (Core 2 Duo) E6700 from work. I also bought a DG965WH Intel motherboard. This board has a built in RAID controller, is ATX and has a great sound.

I eventually got 2GB of ADATA 800MHz DDR2 for the board, an LG lightscribe DVD drive and two western digital caviar 160GB 3GB/s drives.

A few weeks ago I built a system based on the same processor and MB at work with the help of a few coworkers. This system we set up with 4GB of RAM ( a waste) 4 250 GB drive in RAID10 config, and a nice video card for driving a 24" wide screen and a 20" LCD.

For work we used an Antec Sonata III case. I was impressed with the case and the standard 500W PSU so I decided to use this for my build too, completing my set up.

I will also use a 7600GS video card that is installed in my other system but I havent installed it yet.

The build

I installed the processor, RAM and fan (a simple thermaltake unit) before putting the MB in the case. the two drives and the DVD went into the case easily.

The Antec case has a good description of the plugs and with the other build still in my memory the wiring went pretty easily.

I got everything hooked up and powered the system on. The green light went on [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

I pressed the start button and................... nothing [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]


I checked all the wiring and ............. nothing [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

I was pretty pissed and a little scared now. I IM'd a friend and he said it sounded like the processor or the RAM wasnt seated well.

I couldnt believe I didn't check the RAM but I was not looking forward to pulling off the fan. Well, we are getting quad core chips for our systems at work, so I may as well pull the fan on this system and see how it goes.

I pulled the fan and reseated the RAM and processor.

I powered up and ...............it worked! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

great. I stuck in my windows disk, rebooted and restarted.

I created a 40GB main partion and installed windows.

the install went great. Windows came up. the DVD was no where to be found and windows did not recognize the drivers for the ethernet and many other MB components.

Well, WTF do I do with no DVD player?

I decided to unplug the formatted drive and reinstall on the second drive.

The install went fine and this time the DVD was recognized [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

I was able to use the intel disk to install all of the MB drivers. I am now on the web and all is good [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

All totalled it probably took me 7 hours and cost about $600 for a pretty nice case, two 160GB drives, a DVD burner. I got Window XP Pro for 5 bucks and had keyboards, mouse, and a monitor. If I didn't have the second drive I am not sure what I would have done. After finishing two system builds, doing numerous system upgrades, and maintaining home computers myself I am still not convinced of the value of home builds. Unless there is help nearby it can be an extremely frustrating expirience.

When you include the cost of OS peripherals, support, and time I don't see how home builds are a great savings. Personally, I will do one again because I have a great support network and I like the challenge. Plus I am in the semi-conductor bussiness and I feel I should know how to do this.

I do have a pretty sweet system that cost me less than $600 but most couldn't replicate it for less than $1000 not including a monitor.

I am glad I got the intel motherboard. It contains some pretty cool utilities.

[fiskebent]

I've just built my first PC from parts as well. It's a great experience and I'll recommend it to anyone that's considering it.

Mine's a file server with a Gigabyte motherboard, a 2.66 GHz Celeron processer, 1 GB RAM, Wireless network card and 2 TB disk in a software RAID-5 array. Software is FreeBSD 6.2 with Samba.

[Beavis68]

I reinstalled windows again because I forgot to load the RAID drivers.

I set up RAID 1 and it seems to be working fine. My LG DVD RW lightscribe drive is fkd though. Won't recognize more media and won't label discs. Fortunately I had a spare Pioneer DVD RW.

I tried transferring my files over the network from the old system buy that was slow as hell so I ended up just installing the drive from the old system into the new one and the transfers are going great. I installed a new 160GB drive in the Pentium D system for my family and have it all good to go.