Topic awaiting preservation: Building a computer from scratch (Page 1 of 1)

I want to build a computer. I have some expereince with hardware, putting in new drives, replacing memory, things like that.

It seems to me that some of you people have a good understanding of computer hardware so I was wondering where do you start when you want to build a new computer?

I am thinking of using the computer as a home entertainment console to play movies. I started by looking at CPUs, motherboards and enclosures.

After two days of looking at various motherboards and cases I get the impression that the first thing I need to do (after deciding on the uses I want to make of the computer) is to pick a CPU. Is that the right place to start?

-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

Tower
Motherboard
CPU
Power Supply (500w would be best)
RAM
VideoCard
and so on
thas the way i built mine

-=BmF=- Clan

Do a search around here, there are a few other posts that are fairly relevent to our question. Link to one below.

Pick the CPU you want. AMD or Intel. From their pick the motherboard and graphics card that gives you the needed video ins and outs. The ATI Rdeon All-In-WOnder or the nVidia Personel Cinima are two good lines of video cards to look into.
Next the drives and then the case that fights your needs and all the hardware that you want.

You probly won't need one with more then a 2 Ghz processor.
256 RAM comes highly reccomended. A 60 Gb hard or larger depending on how much stuff you want to put on it.

http://www.ozoneasylum.com/21886

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into jet engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

Just a few things to consider:

If you want cheap and decent, look for Celeron. If you want perfomance at its best, look for either pentium IV HT or Athlon XP. Get a lot of fans for athlon tho. There is apparently a new amd processor, but i have no idea about it.
Avoid built-in video in the motherboard.
If money is available, aim for either 512 mb or 1gb ram. No more loading times for you anymore! :P
Make sure everything is compatible. 32 bit cards for 32/64bit processors, and so on.

__________________________________


Sexy Demoness cel

I never tried building a computer from 'scratch' Where do you get your scratches from? I looked on Google but came up blank..

QUOTATION: I've learned so much from my mistakes... that I'm thinking of making a few more.

When I built my computer I stared with figuring out which CPU I wanted, then I found a motherboard that fitted. The next big thing is to find a good graphics card, which can be as tricky as selecting motherboard and CPU.

quote:

---

There is apparently a new amd processor, but i have no idea about it.

---

You're talking about the 64bit processor? I got one of those in February (AMD 64 Atholon 3200+) which has been working like a dream so far. I think AMD is releasing a new series of 64bit processor in not too long which is a slight upgrade for the current series. When they do that the current series will be continued as their budget 64bit processors.

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio - Vim Tutorial -

(Edited by Veneficuz on 06-21-2004 13:05)

I just did that .. I started with the CPU/MoBo combination I wanted, and a heavy cooler 'coz I was going to overclock the processor (that meant finding the right MoBo too) - the rest of the hardware kinda fell into place except for the RAM. If you intend to run a fast box, get the best RAM you can afford. It's pretty expensive, but it's worth it IMO. Finally my wife wanted to specify the look'n'feel because it was destined to be our living room multimedia box .. and here it is


If you're interested, try http://www.trib-design.com/images/new_box_big.jpg - For a bigger pikkie (120k) (aww - erm - sorry but the coffee table and candleholders got in the way a bit.)

1 day to build it, 1 day to rewire the power supply with transparent cables, one day to soak test it running at top whack, (since then I dropped the clock to a more reasonable speed) and now have an ABit NF7s (Nvidia 2.0) Mobo supporting an AMD Barton Core Athlon 2500+ running 3200+ on Giel value line PC3200 DDR with no voltage tweaks. With a bit of effort setting up the voltages I can get it up to around 3500+ (FSB 225, internal multiplier x12, Vcore 1.875, VRAM 2.8) and the RAM still runs in Turbo mode. The whole of the processing power, inc. cooler, cost less than $250. The MoBo supports SATA/SATA RAID 1+0, and is Soundstorm accredited for full 5+1 sound without extra add-ins.

I can strongly recommend that combination for a sound basis for any system.

The cosmetics were a bit pricy, largely irrelevant, but hey .. they were good fun too. The orange cables are black-lite reactive and lit by a hidden cold cathode tube, and the transparent power cables have an aqua electro-luminescent string running along their lengths. (I just HAD to get rid of all those ugly black/red/yellow trashy wires and huge ribbon cables everywhere).


Bug-free software only exisits in two places
In a programmer's mind and on a salesman's lips

(Edited by trib on 06-21-2004 18:34)

Thanks to all of you,

It sounds to me as if you all started by selecting the CPU and motherboard and then moved on from there. That is very helpful to know.

I'll let you know later how I'm progressing with the project. Probably a couple of months before I really get going with it.

Alevice: It's interesting what you say about the AMD needing lots of cooling. Possibly more than an Intel chip? I had been looking at the Athlon XP 3200 however, I notice there is a note on their site that you should not put them in desktop configurations, only towers because they get better cooling from a tower. I have been looking at the Antec Overture and the Cool Master ATC-620C-SX1. Both claim to provide enough cooling for any system, but I wonder if it is enough for an AMD.

Trib: It looks from your photo as if you are using rounded cables in your machine instead of ribbon cables. I have read that the rounded cables will help with air flow through the machine and thus reduce heating problems.


Thanks for your replys.

-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

just thought that you might want to take a look at this: http://bit-tech.net/article/135/

btw ... my suggestion: if you're ever going for a cheap comp then don't concider celeron :P
celeron is just 2x(+) more expensive than a comparable duron

however if you want a silent homecomp for watching movies etc then choose ati and pentium
also a decent psu and case needed for that 'silent'

A decent mainboard forms the foundation of your machine. Your primary concern is the purchase of a mainboard that will provide for maximum support of the features that you are likely to install. Any future upgrades (RAM, CPU, AGP graphics card, etc) rely on the expandability of your mainboard. For example, upgrading your graphics card to 8xAGP will make little difference if your mainboard only supports 4x.

I originally chose AMD over Intel for my own machine, due to the significantly lower cost, but I'm sticking with AMD for overall performance. Having experience with both, I'm glad to see larger companies such as HP releasing AMD versions of their business range of PCs.
I wouldn't recommend going for budget-range CPUs like Intel's Celeron when AMD's XP range are substantially better value for the performance levels. If money really is an issue, even XP 2000+ chips would be perfect for a home-entertainment PC.

If you do buy AMD, stick with fans and heat-sinks that are rated according to the chip. Generally, there is no harm in fitting an assembly designed for a higher-rated chip - though this comes down to a compromise between noise levels and cooling capacity.
I am not really bothered by the noise of my PC, which has three case fans (as well as the CPU, gfx-card, and PSU fan), but I didn't mind foregoing the extra couple of quid to buy low-noise versions in the first place.
If the worst comes to the worst and you just can't stand the noise, investing in a water-cooling kit might even leave change from the money you've saved by snubbing Intel.

500-550W power supply recommended.

512MB of RAM (even PC133) would do for movie playback. 256MB of PC266 might cost about the same as 512MB of PC133 and would be acceptable.

Technically, you do not need a fantastic graphics card to play DVDs. Here in the UK, £35 will buy a 128MB NVidia FX5200 with VGA, S-Video and DVI outputs (or an ATI equivalent). This would be more than capable of providing you with perfect playback and versatility - while also affording you some decent gaming power.

A perfectly usable 5.1 Surround soundcard can cost less than £25. Basic 5.1 speaker systems won't set you back a lot either, with low-to-medium performance sets costing around £30-£60.

I have no idea what any of this would cost in dollars, but a home entertainment system doesn't need to be a games machine (unless that is part of the requirement too) and can cost very little to build.

About the only thing that I can see that prevents desktops cases from cooling as well as tower cases is that towers almost always have a space for a second fan at the front of the case while desktops usually don't.

So go for a case that has at least 2 fans in it and as far as I know you should be alright.

Also on heat and fan noise, avoid the "Prescott" Pentium IV. Those things make so much heat that mobo makers are afraid they will burn the board and limit voltage to the CPU to prevent this.


There are many web sites on silent PCs that can tell you how loud a particular fan is and what else can be done to keep a PC silent. Here is one that may of interest to you since it is on building your own silent PC.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/section8.html

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into jet engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

I don't know whether you noticed, but my case has NO case fans fitted. The holes are there - one 80mm front, one 80mm side and one 80mm back, but by trial and error, I found that I get enough airflow just by using a 2 fan power supply mounted with the second fan pointing downwards (set up to suck wuth the case side fan and blow with the outside one - to pull air through the case) and a Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu cooler. The PSU pulls the air from the case across the fins of the Zalman and provides the airflow just where it's needed, and the empty fan holes provide a good volume of cool outside air ... and it's quiet ... In fact the Zalman is quieter than the little fan cooler that Abit provide as stock on their northbridge chip! I run the CPU cooler in silent mode (low speed) and even with the 2500+ overclocked to 3200+ it never gets hotter than 40 degrees C in normal operation. The Zalman needed turning up to full speed (still very quiet) when I ran the Prime95 torture test overnight, but it still never got hotter than 68 degrees.

As a comparison, with all fans fitted, running at full whack (FSB 225MHz, VCore 1.875v, VRAM 2.9v, Multiplier 12x i.e. 3500+) the CPU gets up to 68 degrees C on occasions when running the Prime95 test (it ran stable for 24 hours non stop), but the fanless version got up to 75 degrees at one point, so I stopped the test. However, for a 2500+ Barton Core Athlon, that's fairly extreme overclocking, and 75 degrees is still well within manufacturers limits for the processor.

As far as cylindrical wiring is concerned, get a board with ATA as a standard fitting, get SATA HDDs (only Ca. $10 more than an equivalent size IDE drive) and use ATA cables. That little curl of cable at center bottom of my picture is a SATA cable to the HDD (coiled around 3 times to keep it tidy). SATA cables are small, inconspicuous, and shielded, all good things. With the Abit NF7-S (Release 2 only) MoBo you also get a really useful ATA converter for IDE disks, so if you fit one SATA HDD and one IDE CD/DVD drive, you can use the 2 ATA channels and do away with ribbons altogether (I don't bother with FDDs at all any more). I doubt that the ribbons vs. round cables airfloww argument is of any particularly significance until you get your in-box air speed up to about Beaufort 5, but the round ones sure look tidier, you can get them in colour, and they don't get in the way if you have to get your hands inside the box .. oh .. and they are also shielded, and ribbons are not, so there's probably less RF and audio interference to muss up the quality of your sound.

Of course if you want totally silent operation, you could get a Zalman TNN 500A case and just start there. No need for fans at all, silent (fanless PSU) ans it looks like a beast when it's all fitted up, but it is around $1000 to $1500 !!! ... Here is a review.

Oh, and BTW - I originally bought a CoolMaster Jet 7 cooler - It was alsovery good at cooling the CPU, but it looked like a jet engine, and sounded like one too. Anyone who wants to build a computer for use as a Multimedia machine .. avoid CoolMaster CPU coolers with cylindrical fans (any of the Jet range). Having said that ... do any extreme clockers want a noisy, but powerful CPU cooling fan ... going cheap ... well ... actually ... going WHOOOOSSHHHHHHH .. heheheh ... :P


Bug-free software only exisits in two places
In a programmer's mind and on a salesman's lips

(Edited by trib on 06-22-2004 10:55)

Thanks for the comments and the links. I've learned as much from this thread about building harware as I have in doing all the research I've been doing on the net: reading articles, tutorials, and spec sheets.

By the way, all the terms used in hardware are new to me (like AGP, ATA, FSB, etc.) I found a pretty good glossary of terms that explains things in ways that I can understand them. Thought anyone else who is trying to learn more about how hardware works migh find it useful.

-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.