OT- Anyone Build their own PC?

[Bstanley]

UPS says everything will be delivered tomorrow so everyone please be ready to answer even more questions.

Woohoo!

By the way - the internets can be your friend. I imagine if you do a search for "Build your own PC" you will get a bunch of hits with lots of pictures (be aware that not all will match your 'modern' components).

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I'd hold off on upgrading the CS4 just now.

http://cs5launch.adobe.com/?PID=3154956

 

[Gdad]

I'd hold off on upgrading the CS4 just now.

http://cs5launch.adobe.com/?PID=3154956

Thanks- yeah- I saw that earlier today and thought the same thing. Adobe usually seems to be okay with upgrading and skipping a version.

 

[Gdad]

Another (silly) question: Do I need to buy a separate CPU heatsink/fan? I was at CompUSA today and talked to two different sales people about one and came away quite confused. (One person told me I needed one to keep the air from getting 'old' in the case and the other person recommended a model based solely on what the last person they had helped purchased- without knowing anything about my computer. )

 

[boBQuincy]

Another (silly) question: Do I need to buy a separate CPU heatsink/fan?

Yes/no/maybe. I buy 3rd party fans & heatsinks because they are larger, cool better, and are quieter. The factory fans work ok but are built to satisfy a price point and could be better. I like quiet PCs and can run the 3rd party fans slower while still getting better cooling.
Same with the power supply, we get what we pay for (if we are lucky).

 

[Bstanley]

Do I need to buy a separate CPU heatsink/fan?

Depends on whether you already bought one ;-)

If you bought an 'OEM' packaged processor you will need to buy a heatsink/cooler/fan - basically 'OEM' means that the seller bought cases of processors designed for companies that are building thousands of machines a day - they take one of the processors out of the case, wrap it in an anti-static bag and sell it to you at a GREAT price. I don't think either Newegg or Tigerdirect sell OEM style.

If you bought a 'Retail' packaged processor it will come with the Intel (stock) heatsink and fan. High probability that this is what you will get - an Intel 'pretty' box.

I like quiet PCs

Yeah, what he said.

Stock fans are often small fans with small impellers running at annoyingly high rpms - this is especially true with video cards (hint, hint) - but can be true with other components as well. If the fan in your case or any of the fans that your various components use is annoying they can be replaced - no worries.

 

[Gdad]

I was poking around youtube last night and the first couple videos I found on that i5 processor were both talking about the lousy factory heat sink- so I went back to CompUSA armed with my own information this morning and picked one up. Seems like a minimal added investment to make sure everything works well into the future.

 

[Gdad]

...and here we go...

 

[photo_chick]

That case is what The Cylon is in.

If fan noise bothers you (it irks the heck out of me) you might want to pick up some dampers for the case fans because it makes a huge difference on that one... especially on the fans for the side panel. They can be easily added later if you want to build first and see if it is bothersome to you.

The Intel stock heat sinks, IMO, tend to have very loud fans and I don't like the thermal compound they put on them. The right thermal compound, applied correctly, goes a long way to improving how well your processor cools.

 

[Gdad]

Eh- just a few wires to figure out now.

 

[oregondaddyof2]

Did you get it put all together?

 

[YesDear]

Eh- just a few wires to figure out now.

Just so you know, that looks about normal!

 

[Groucho]

Heheh, welcome to the fun. If you want to be really fancy, you can use small zipties to keep all the cables together and out of the way. It even helps airflow a little bit.

I do, however, disagree with the notion that just any video card will do for video editing.

I may have missed something, but I didn't think that video editing was on the list. A video card with onboard processing for 264 encoding or Bluray decoding (that part is pretty standard now) or whatnot won't make a difference when editing still photos. If video editing is on the list, then yeah.

I second the suggestion by Mark for Avast... I have also used that without any issues, and it runs great in the background of your system... it does not tie up any resources like Norton or McAfee do... i get Norton Utilities for free through my cable internet provider... I tried it for a day, and took it off cause it slowed my computer way down... I am a big gamer, and my system wqould lag badly, but it runs smooth with Avast...

Norton Antivirus 2009 & 2010 are dramatically smaller than previous versions and are about as lightweight as anything out there - in fact, I'm pretty sure that 2009 easily beat anything else available. 2004-2008 are a bit bloated, but Norton listened to the complaints.

For free stuff, I tend to use AVG... nothing against Avast, just that AVG has been the main one I've used. The only thing I don't like is that, by default, it "certified" your email - puts a "scanned by" tag on the bottom - but that is easily disabled in the Advanced settings.

I do not like the "security suite" programs - I am not a fan of software firewalls. Maybe if you're using a laptop and hopping on to various public wifi networks, but for a home desktop, your cable/DSL router prevents anything coming it that you didn't ask for.

 

[Gdad]

Whew! I think it's working!

 

[oregondaddyof2]

Congrats!! Glad to see you are up and running... Now for the most important part, enjoying it!

 

[YEKCIM]

Like everything else, you made this look easy! Congrats on the successful initial boot. Looks as if you are off to the races.

~Ed

 

[photo_chick]

WOOOO! Have fun installing everything!

 

[MarkBarbieri]

OK, I'm inspired. I'm going to update my PC. I'm going to keep my case, power supply, and Blu ray burner. I'm ordering a new MB, CPU, memory, video card, and an SSD for a boot drive. I'll use hand-me-down drives for main storage. I'll be using Windows 7 from my MSDN subscription. Am I missing anything else?

Oop...CPU fan.

Anything else?

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I'm done with my rebuild. Here are a few pictures from the process for anyone curious about what is involved:

Here is a shot of the case after I stripped out the old stuff. The powersupply is usually at the top of a case, but mine has it at the bottom. I didn't upgrade the powersupply. I also left the DVD burner and Blu-ray burner and a device that lets you hot swap SATA hard drives. They are in the drive bays on the upper right.

The case is a freakishly large one. I tend to get in and out of my PC a lot and it is easier to work inside a large case.

Here is the motherboard that I used.

Here is the motherboard installed in the case. It attached with 9 little screws. I new that it was going to be a good build when I dropped one of the screws form a height of about 5 inches and it landed in the screw hole.

Here's it is after I took the motherboard back out (oops) and installed the CPU cooler.

Here it is after I put in the memory sticks and the video card.

Here it is with the drives mounted and connected. You can see the SSD dangling. I forgot that I needed a 2.5" to 3.5" mounting tray.

Here it is with everything in place and ready for the cover to go on.

In the background on the right you can see a floor standing fan. My kids are using that with a dimmer switch to "walk" their Pokewalkers. They're getting about 50,000 steps a day. It's fun to watch young hackers in action.

The PC actually worked perfectly the first time I tried to power it up. That may be a first for me. I usually always seem to screw something minor up.

The biggest nuisance was re-installing and re-activating everything. I screwed up my Adobe activations, so I had to call them. I also lost my brushes and some actions.

The computer is mucho faster. I tested Lghtroom on and off of the SSD. It's noticeably more responsive on the SSD, but not by anything like enough to justify buying an SSD just for that. The big difference is in video handling. It can handle AVCHD files on the timeline without breaking a sweat. It can also render Full HD H.264 files in near real-time, which is a huge change. In the past, rendering a 45 show was an overnight affair.

 

[Evad]

Whew! I think it's working!

Congrats Jeff!!!! Well done.