For my birthday, Megan told me to order some things from my Newegg wish list -- without going too crazy. I decided on an internal card reader and a SATA DVD burner. Using a SATA optical drive will allow me to use the two larger IDE hard drives from our old computer on the single IDE motherboard connection I have to work with. I figured this was cheaper than springing a Franklin on a 500GB SATA drive, and it will give me 360GB capacity. This should be plenty, for now, until we fill it up with family videos or start using it as a PVR.
Here are the two products I chose:
Card Reader - the one from my wish list. It looks great with the black face plate, and includes a slot for microSD cards so you don't need an adapter. I ran a test downloading the same data from an Ultra II Compact Flash card using the reader and then our camera. I saw read speeds of ~9MB/s with the card reader. This is three times faster than downloading the photos using the camera itself.
DVD Burner - ASUS DRW-1814BLT - This drive is a perfect match for my system. It is the quietest drive I've ever (or never) heard. It's completely silent during DVD playback so you don't hear it during silent portions of movies. It also supports LiteScribe discs for burning your own labels on the disc face. What sealed the deal is that it included these features with a sub $30 price tag and free shipping. The only category this drive trails others at the same price point is that it burns at 18x speeds rather than 20x. But I'll trade an 11% slowdown any day to escape that constant purring that comes from those Lite-on drives that Dell stuffs in it's systems.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Newest Additions
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
The Wait is Over!
All of you that have been waiting on pins and needles to see my wish list on New Egg can now rest easy. Here it is. I've included the additions I'd like to make to my system in the long run. As far as priority of the list items, here is what I think:
1. Card Reader - cheapest item and will make a noticeable difference in the capability of my system. I'd hate to cough up 5 bucks shipping on a $15 item though, so it will probably be best to order with something else to save on overall shipping costs.
2. Hard Drive(s) - My system right now is using a 40GB hard drive just so I can use it until I can get a bigger one. Two identical drives would be great because I could use an Intel Matrix RAID setup to have a RAID 0 partition for performance and a RAID 1 partition to protect my data against hard drive failure. Three identical drives would be a dream because I could set up a RAID 5 partition, but this would fill up every possible drive slot in my case, so it probably isn't practical.
3. Memory (1GB) - The next most important item is a toss up between the graphics card and more memory, but neither is really vital at this point. I'll give memory the edge here since it is a quarter the price.
4. Video Card - The card on my list is perfect for my setup. It is the fastest card I've found that uses a passive heat sink rather than a noisy fan. Since I'm using a mobile processor, any faster card would turn my CPU into the bottleneck and would be a waste of money. This wouldn't be a high end gaming system, but it would rip the britches off of a PS3.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Watch Your Back!
You know, it just goes to show that you can't trust anybody.
(I am loosely qualifying this as a tech project since it involved Photoshop and our digital camera)
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
My Project's Transformation to a Media Center PC
Yesterday I moved the PC I built into our entertainment center. I did this for a few reasons. It frees up space in our bedroom where I had two PC's side by side sharing a monitor. It also replaces our current DVD player and it will function as a music player, and picture/video viewer for files stored on the PC. What I am most excited about is Netflix's "watch instantly" option. Now I can login to Netflix and instantly watch a movie on our TV without waiting for mail or going to the video store!
I ran into a problem with switching the onboard video output from the VGA port to the S-Video port. From reading customer reviews of the MSI Speedster 945GT motherboard, I knew this was an issue, but thought I knew the solution.
The problem lies in the fact that the integrated graphics driver for the board is intended to be used on notebooks since the board uses a notebook processor. If you boot the system and it finds a different video output than the last time it started, it will change the default output to the non-existant "notebook" display. The manual for the motherboard says to use Ctrl-Alt-F2 during boot to change the video output to TV, This didn't work for me. When I reconnected the monitor I had been using before to the VGA port, the display would not show up there either. I used Windows Remote Desktop to get on the system, but could not change the graphics output remotely. I about gave up and resorted to reinstalling windows as others had done to fix the problem. Fortunately, reinstalling the graphics driver from the remote desktop and rebooting the system with the monitor connected to the VGA port reset the default output to VGA. From there I could change the output to TV from the graphics system tray utility, then disconnect the VGA monitor. When I rebooted with the TV set as the output, it stayed that way. The documentation in the manual for changing the video output during boot seemed pretty straightforward, but does not work in this case.
After resolving this problem I had to set the graphics resolution to 800x600 in order for text to be readable on our TV. I use a wireless keyboard and mouse to run the system and it works pretty well so far.
The only issue is airflow in the entertainment center. I keep the doors closed to keep my one-year-old boy (who I absolutely adore!) out of trouble. This only leaves the small cable hole in the back of the cabinet for air to leave. With the doors closed the system idles around 39 degrees C and goes as high as 48 degrees under a load. This is around a 10 degree increase from when the system was out in the open. While these temperatures are low compared to a standard desktop system, I'll probably try enlarging the hole in the back to exhaust the hot air from the case better.
Happy viewing to us!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Language Bar Be Gone!!
I don't think I am the only one that has been plagued by that blasted Windows language bar reappearing every time I reboot and wasting my already limited task bar real estate. It seems like this problem showed up with Service Pack 2 or an automatic update sometime later. I am all about being accommodating to those whose first language isn't English and showing the Language bar by default after installing Windows. However, if I manually go to the task bar properties and de-select the Language bar, why does Windows assume I've had a change of heart and want to welcome it back with open arms when I restart my system? I finally cracked and called on the Google S.W.A.T. Team for help rooting it out for good. Here is the effective treatment for XP's short term memory loss (you will need to do this once for each user, logged in to their account):
- Go to Start->Control Panel and open Regional and Language Options. (If you are using Category View for the control panel, you can find this under Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options)
- Click on the Languages tab, then click Details
- Under the Settings tab click Language Bar
- Un-check "Show the Language bar on the Desktop"
- Click OK on all the open boxes.
- Go grab a Tall Raspberry Crème Frappuccino at Starbucks to celebrate your newfound freedom (or a Venti sized if your significant other accompanies you).
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Start Your Engines!
Last night I put my first built-from-scratch computer together (Thanks to Ben for his help!).
As for the heat sink that I have been struggling with, it turned out I had been using the mounting clips for the heat sink wrong. They looked like the tabs on them would fold down to clamp when they really are just there to give you leverage to get them on the bracket. It actually was necessary to file down the risers on the bottom of the bracket in order for the heat sink to sit tight on the processor die. I took off about 1/32" and I think it would have been better to have taken off 1/16" to make it tighter on the die. My CPU temperatures seem to be staying very cool, though, so I won't worry about it for now. I also forgot to install the felt pad I made to go around the CPU die to balance the force of the heat sink. Hopefully this will not cause any future damage to the CPU. I may try to reinstall the heat sink later to file off the risers a little more and put the pad on.
The Arctic Silver went on smoothly and evenly in a very thin layer on the CPU die. I used an old Costco card I cleaned off to spread it. The Arctic Silver website claims temperatures will go down up to 3 degrees after a 200 hour break in period as long as the chip has a few cycles of cooling to room temperature and heating up again. We'll see if that proves to be true.
With that obstacle behind us, we put everything else together. We managed to install the temperature probe from my Micro Fly case directly on the CPU package with the strip of tape that conveniently came in the box with the case hardware. We put it as close to the die as we could get it without interfering with the contact between the heat sink and processor. This means I can't take the motherboard tray completely out of the case anymore, but it's nice to have a display of the actual chip temperature rather than that of the heat sink, which would be several degrees cooler.
We attached the front panel case connections to the corresponding headers on he motherboard. I was disappointed to find out that the motherboard does not have a header for the audio ports on the case. This means no front microphone or headphone access for us - Grrr. Oh well.
I was delighted when I fired it up and the CPU temperature in the BIOS showed a chilly 36 degrees C. The front panel temperature display was 3-4 degrees cooler. During the Windows installation, the front display showed as high as 40 degrees C, which may have not been a full load, but close to it. I experimented by unplugging the CPU fan. The idle temperature only went up about 4 degrees and leveled off. When the system is completely idle, the front display hovers around 29 degrees (85 degrees F)! I don't know what readings others are getting on similar systems, but I don't mind a CPU that idles at a temperature 30 degrees cooler than it is outside here in Arizona at times. Taking the on die reading and case temperature probe reading differences, I am guessing the CPU will max out at 45 degrees C (113 F) under a full load. Not too shabby.
The BIOS is not as full featured as some, but still allows me to overclock the Front Side Bus from 166MHz to 199MHz, bringing my CPU from 2.33GHz to 2.79GHz. Because I won't be doing any gaming on the machine at the moment, I will probably run it at stock speed for now. Since it runs so cool, I would unplug the CPU fan to make the system quieter at the expense of a slightly warmer chip. Unfortunately, it wouldn't do any good. I can't hear any system fans over the constant whining of the sideways-mounted 40GB IDE hard drive I have in there right now that I salvaged from my Dell.
The Windows install went pretty smoothly. Since I don't have the CD that usually comes with the board, I took the drivers (Graphics, sound, chipset, and LAN) off the MSI website. These all installed fine except the LAN driver, which looks like the download didn't finish because the menu only shows "Release Notes" when I open the installer. I took the latest drivers from the Intel site today and found out that the versions furnished by MSI are mostly outdated. I will update all the drivers again and, hopefully, I can get my LAN ports working with these updates.
All in all I am very pleased with the motherboard and case I am using. When Ben and I finished the build, I even got a "How much did that computer cost? That really was a good deal" from my wife.
So $175 and just a few drops of elbow grease later, I have a system running with a 2.33GHz Core Duo processor, with 1GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, and Windows XP Pro. I love opening the task manager and seeing two cores at work after. This will be a welcome feature when I start some photo and video editing on the system. Best of all, I have the potential of having a small form factor system in the future running a Core Duo at 2.8GHz, 4GB DDR2 667 memory, multiple terabytes of storage, TV tuner cards, and any graphics card I choose.
Thanks for visiting!
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
¡Cuídate!
The DHL guy dropped off my Ultra Micro Fly case today. It looks like a great case (at least for the $40 it cost). It is obviously not made of expensive materials. I have heard of case metal being sharp, but this one cut me so cleanly that I didn't even notice it until I saw the blood. I'll have to be more careful.
The case's side and top panels fit together well. It also came with an Ultra V-Series 400W power supply that retails for $60 on their website (although I doubt many pay that much for it). The wiring and plastic on the power connectors is noticeably lower quality than those of my old Dell, but the power supply itself looks better and comes with a lifetime warranty. I'm crossing my fingers that the power supply won't poop out on me.
The case also has a temperature probe for the CPU (or anything else in the system), as well as front USB, Firewire, and audio ports. There is an LCD temperature display on the front panel. It came packaged with a power cord, thumb screws for the back of the case, standoffs/screws for the motherboard/drives, extra pins for the clear side panels and a piece of yellow tape which I assume is intended for affixing the temperature probe to the CPU.
Heat Sink Mod
Last night I went to work on my modification of the heat sink mounting bracket I am using. I filed down the risers on the bottom of the bracket about 1/32" to compensate for the lack of an integrated heat spreader on the Core Duo CPU package. This made the heat sink so tight that I couldn't secure the latches without damaging the processor.
(update: This modification turned out to be necessary I later found out. I had just been using the mounting clips incorrectly. Please read "Start Your Engines" post for details )
It looks like MSI has already compensated for the difference in the CPU packages by making the CPU socket itself slightly higher. This means that I likely could have used the socket 478 heat sink and mounting bracket without modifying it. I added washers as spacers to the bottom of the bracket to bring the bracket back up to its stock height. When I tried this, however, the screws for the mounting bracket were not long enough to grab the backing plate on the back of the motherboard.
My local Fry's is out of stock on these mounting brackets, so I can't pick up a new one. I will try to find some longer machine screws at Home Depot, and hope they work. At least there was not damage to the CPU or motherboard during this process, and not too much time lost in the project!
When I attempted to install the heat sink, the thermal paste on the bottom of it was pressed onto the CPU die. I am not sure if I can get good contact using the same thermal compound when I reinstall the heat sink, so I also picked up some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste and cleaner to take off the old thermal paste from the CPU and heat sink. The Arctic Silver Cleaner worked amazingly well and now the CPU die has a perfect mirror finish. I also scraped the rest of the paste off of the heat sink and used the cleaner to removed the residue. It looks surgically clean now too!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Keepin' it chill
So the first challenge I am facing in my PC build process is trying to cool my CPU without the stock heat sink/fan that usually comes with the motherboard. This is not an unwelcome challenge as many people have reported that the 40mm fan that comes boxed with my MSI 945GT motherboard is loud. I would like to have a silent system since I'm using a notebook processor in a desktop case.
The board fortunately comes with standard Intel socket 478 heat sink mounting holes so there are plenty of coolers out there that will mount on my board. The low clearance on the Ultra Micro Fly case that I am using means I can't use a tall CPU cooler, but there is enough clearance that I don't have to use a low profile cooler either. A standard sized Pentium 4 cooler should offer a balance of excellent cooling and silent operation. The problem is that the Core Duo processor I am using does not have the integrated heat spreader that Intel desktop chips come packaged with. This allows for thinner laptop designs and makes the chip itself slightly thinner than the Pentium 4 chips that the heat sink is designed for. For my project I will have to compensate for this difference in thickness in order for the heat sink to make contact with the processor die and provide effective cooling.
Some solutions which others have used that I've read about on online forums include:
- Ordering the MSI mobile pad from their online store. This was designed to use mobile AMD cpu's on desktop boards and basically serves as a heat conducting shim to fill the space between the heat sink and the mobile CPU. This retails for $10. Some have been successful using it on Intel mobile cpu's as well, but seems like it would not transfer heat as efficiently as placing the heatsink directly on the processor die.
- One guy sanded down a pre-1972 all copper penny to use as a shim. It's a cheap solution that probably works just as well as the mobile pad, but it still seems that sending heat through 2 layers of thermal paste before reaching the heat sink would not be very effective.
Another thing to note is that the processor can be damaged by all the force of the metal heat sink being concentrated on the small, bare die on the chip. Every stock heat sink I've seen that ships with boards that use mobile chips has a square of felt or foam to help spread the force over the entire chip and protect the die. It also keeps the heatsink level on the chip. I fashioned my own pad out of a piece of thin felt.
Cross Your Fingers!
Being do-it-yourselfer, by consequence of my dad being such a handy guy, I have been wanting to build my first PC from scratch for a few years now. The fact that we have a veteran Dell Dimension 4400 from 2001 that works perfectly fine has made it impractical to justify the costs of a new PC.
I caught a break last August when my employer offered to "loan" some CPU's to employees to build their own system. By the time I signed up the only choice was a batch of Core Duo T2700's, which, at the time, was the top shelf mobile CPU. I grabbed one hoping I could find a good deal on a mainboard to finally realize my dream of building my own PC.
To my dismay, budget limitations and the confounded reliability of our old Dell delayed my much anticipated project. I had two boards in mind and was hoping to find a great sub-$100 deal via Ebay or an out-of-sight deal from an online retailer.
On this limited budget, my first choice was the MSI 945GT Speedster-A4R for the following reasons:
- An S-video output baked into the board. This meant I could connect it to our existing TV set to use as a home theater PC without the expense of a video card.
- Future Upgrade Headroom. Space for 4 hard drives and 4GB of RAM, and a slot for a graphics upgrade later.
- It had a slot for a future graphics upgrade as well, but only space for 2GB of RAM maximum and would need a video card to connect to our TV.
This week I had another breakthrough in my project. The MSI motherboard that had been my top choice, but that retailed at $150+ showed up on Newegg as an open box item for $71! I jumped at the opportunity, and not minute too soon because the board was out of stock again the next day. I had seen this deal before, but it had disappeared for a few months as desktop boards that use my mobile CPU became scarce.
"Open box" meant more work for me because it would not include the driver CD, custom mobile CPU heat sink, or the custom I/O shield for the back of the computer case. I could download the drivers from MSI's website, and the I/O shield was mostly a cosmetic concern. The CPU heat sink would be my biggest obstacle. I will detail my proposed solution later.
My mission now is to get a system up and running for as little out of pocket expense as possible, while still getting outstanding performance. So far, these have been my expenses:
- Core Duo T2700 2.33GHz CPU - Free! Thanks undisclosed employer!
- Windows XP Pro - 1 cent + $2.52 shipping. Special purchase through employee purchase program last year! (When Micosoft was under the illusion that people would buy Vista).
- MSI 945GT Speedster-A4R micro-ATX Motherboard - $79 including shipping from Newegg.com
- 1GB DDR2 667MHz PC2-5400 Memory - $34 including tax and after using two gift cards at Circuit City
- Ultra Micro Fly Computer Case - Great case that includes a quality Ultra power supply at a great price - $40 after rebate from Fry's online.
- CoolerMaster CPU cooler and mounting bracket from Fry's Electronics (in-store) - $16 including tax. No shipping charges to worry about. This is a low end cooler made for the old hot-running 80-115 watt Pentium 4 CPU's, but is a monster of a heat sink for a 31 watt mobile processor. I'm hoping to be able to overclock the processor with this heat sink. My other hope is that I can use it without the fan running most of the time to keep a silent system going. I'll have to make some modifications to the mounting bracket to make this work on my processor.
I will detail my project build with pictures in posts to come! Thanks for visiting. If anyone is building a machine with the MSI 945GT Speedster board I am using, I'd love to hear comments on any tips you have or hear if you found any tips from this blog useful.
