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Budget PC build $300-$400?
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Stemin
Newbie
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3. May 2009 @ 22:00 |
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Sam, are you the only one who bothers to read these forums? Not that I don't appreciate it, but when I'm looking for options and only one guy responds... Sortof leaves you hanging.
Anyways, I opted to go with a WD Terrabyte drive. Hope I didn't make a bad choice with all of Seagates bigger drives failing: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284
I'm still stuck on the airflow thing. Should the side intake be passive like Intel recommends, or have a fan to improve airflow. And if so, should it pull air out of the case, aiding the exhaust from the chip itself, or blow AT the chip, creating a cross wind to move air around in the case and exhaust through the other 3-4 fans I'm adding?
I will have 2 or 3 80mm exhaust fans up top (haven't decided if I want to add the third or not), and 2, 60mm fans exhausting just above the PC cards, next to the chip.
I will also have 1, 120mm fan pulling in outside air into the front of the case, and another fan... maybe 120mm pulling air in through the HD cooler.
I presume I also want to have equal pressure, but I'm not certain. The ironic part is, I work in HVAC, but everyone I know in the business installs like me, and doesn't know any TAB (testing and balancing).
Stemin.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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3. May 2009 @ 22:06 |
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I'm one of the only ones that tries to post in every thread I feel I can contribute to :)
Seagate's big drives have had issues, so have Samsung's. The only brand to really get 1TB drives 'right' was WD, and it shows with four successful drives that size, three of which I own, the only one I don't is the one you have, but I know many people who have used them to great success.
A general rule:
Side fan is always better than no side fan
General procedure with low end or dual slot rear-exhaust graphics cards
Front, Side, bottom: intake
Rear, top: Exhaust
General procedure with high end internally cooled graphics cards
Front, bottom: intake
Side, Rear: exhaust
Top: either
Example of low end card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131133
Example of high-end internally cooled: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121288
Example of rear-exhaust:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102830
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Stemin
Newbie
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10. May 2009 @ 15:54 |
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Well, on Sat. I had no computer after finally taking my old computer out of the motherboard tray so I could mod it for an extra fan, and now on Sunday morning I suddenly find myself with 4 computers sitting in my room.
My dad dropped off an extra case (he got from work) that I intended to use for my old t-bird when I got the new pc together and it turns out to have a working Pentium 4 chip and board in it. Needs a power supply, memory, and a HD. I'm giving it to my buddy in exchange for an empty case for my t-bird. My mom also called and said I could keep my aunts pc that I had been sitting on my desk for a month. She'd asked me to fix it, but I never found anything wrong with it. She picked up another pc, so I now have another pentium 4.
So I"m up to the Q6606 quad core, 2 Pentium 4's (one of which I will give to my buddy) and the old 1200mhz amd t-bird.
Good times.
Anyways... finally threw together the q6606. I was a bit worried about cooling (as I have been the whole time) because the case wasn't finished. The case is totally open, so the airflow doesn't have a proper path. I still want to paint the outer panels black, mod a side duct and I'm gonna have to come up with something completely custom for the front face because of the two new 120mm fans pulling air in. Airflow would be completely blocked if I used the old front panel.
But when we checked the bios the thing was running at a nice 22 degrees celsius. I'm also impressed with how well the fans are pulling air in and out. They're quite quiet as well and will be even moreso when the case is completely together.
So I was up 'til about 6 in the morning last night working on this thing with my pc buddy. He's a little ocd sometimes, so he took a long time on some stuff. I could manage putting this crap together, but he enjoys doing it.
Ran into some problems that kept us up so late. Second one was an easy problem.. the disk I put the ubuntu 64-bit install file on was scratched and wouldn't read properly. I knew it was cloudy when I burned the disc, but used some glass cleaner and burned it anyways. Should have thrown the disk out and used another.
First problem is a PITA, but not the end of the world. One of the memory chips was bad. The system kept randomly crashing and rebooting. My buddy diagnosed it as memory and pulled a chip and everything became stable. We then installed the 'bad chip' and removed the 'good one' and it crashed. Finally we ran an ubuntu memory check and it confirmed it. Lots of red showing up on the bad chip. It's been past 30 days since I purchased the chip from newegg, so I'll probably have to go through the mfr, but they have a lifetime warranty. Anyways... it's running.
I"m a little annoyed that the cool master HD cooler has a blue light on the front fan. I didn't realize that when I bought it. But at least it's blue, which I can deal with more than any other color.
Mathius
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Stemin
Newbie
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10. June 2009 @ 16:56 |
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Got the new memory and everything has been running well for a month now. Copied everything over from the old hard drives onto the new one and have pretty much everything setup. Got the tv card working as well.
I'm a little miffed that the HD cooler has a blue fan. I didn't see that when I bought it on neweggs page, but it was buried under the specs link. Seems like I should either swap my other 120mm fan to a blue one for symmetry or try to replace the blue one with a normal one. That actually sounds harder since I'm not sure how the little plastic rivets come off (holding the HD cooler fan) or if they're replaceable.
Case mod isn't done yet. I decided I'm going to put an 80mm fan in the side panel as an intake fan. That shouldn't be a huge deal, but I have to paint the panels yet and the weather has been crumby. Also I have no idea what modifications I want to do to the front of the case. The old case cover won't work without making some drastic cuts to free up the 120mm fan in the front, which would be blocked on the old case cover.
So until I come up with a design, I can't start fabricating.
Anyways, pretty happy other than that. There's wires all over the place though, that bugs me.
The antec 650watt power supply has a butt load of extra wires I'm not using. I have no idea how I'm going to clean all that up short of winding them up and zip tying them above the PS.
Stemin.
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