THE COMPUTER THREAD

[RVR II]

If anyone's interested, I'm selling my old ATI X800XL All In Wonder AGP video card from my recent computer upgrade on Ebay..
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150215610265

[NinjaComic]

My last experiment.

[NinjaComic]

That's cool and all, but what's the point?

It's one of those, because I can things.  It's in the living room now, looking like an old TV.  Except that it plays music and DVDs.

[NinjaComic]

I like this idea with a nicer TV, though.

This one falls under the heading of possible prototype.  I learned a lot about what needs to go and what needs to stay in the box.  But finding a nice looking old TV is going to be a costly process.

[bettertomorrowamy]

If you could make the buttons on the tv function as hotkeys for windows applications that would be cool.

[NinjaComic]

And here I was happy to figure out the power switch and the power lights to make them work with the HD and Power LED for the system.

[jewishcarpenter]

I think I screwed my current graphics card up because I've got green pixels showing up on my screen and they get really annoying to look at when working in photoshop and playing games. Sooooooo I ordered this Diamond 3870 which I'm pretty sure is what Nunyerbiz originally told me about, it was $199.99 with free shipping. The thing that sold the item for me other than the specs was that it has built-in HDMI with Multi-channel 5.1 surround audio so I ordered this HDMI cable which I'm going to run to my tv and move my nice upscaling dvd player to my bedroom so I can take advantage of the USB input and watch stuff I put on my pen drive while I fall asleep. My next planned purchase is to upgrade my current rig with a new Q9450 (2.66 Ghz, 12MB Cache) for recording purposes. That's my geek rant for the day.

[RVR II]

That'll be Cool!
All of My recent upgrades (including that ATI All In Wonder X1900 video card) are working Perfectly!

[jewishcarpenter]

Yeah I'll probably get this motherboard, it's more than I've ever spent on a MB but it's really nice and a bit more future proof, with features I don't need at the moment, but could take advantage of in The Future.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131236
and this RAM, because 4GB's sounds about right.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231145
to go with the Q9450, the processor is probably going to be about $350-400 when they first release it. It'll be expensive but hopefully worth it.

[RVR II]

Oh Yeah! Definitly!
That's an Awsome Mobo!

Mine is 'overkill' , but is Definitly ready for The Future as well

[kodiakthejuggler]

Well boys and girls, I've made some nice improvements to my computer and am ready to show it off!


I call it... MONOLITH




The case is Antec's P180B. It is sound dampened very nicely, and is quite inert.





The front door opens to reveal the Disk drives and Start/Reset buttons. There are two air filters that are removable for easy cleaning. I have a Sony DVD DL Burner and CD Burner, top and bottom. There is a locking mechanism for the front door, but honestly, if someone wanted to get it open, it wouldn't be too difficult, as the front door's hinges are not very sturdy.





Opening the side reveals some nice interior designs. The power supply is mounted at the bottom of the case, a nice touch. All the hard drive bays are removable and have effortless mounting solutions. There are rubber grommets that support the drives and isolate them, keeping sound vibrations down. I removed the center drive bay to make room for the optional 120mm intake fan at the front. There is another 120mm fan in the middle(bottom), and two for exhaust. The Motherboard is a Micro ATX board with a Celeron processor at 3GHz. It was the only solution available to me at the time. I'd rather have a larger board to provide more room for the expansion cards to breathe.





At this angle, you can see the new CPU cooler I installed this weekend. Zalman's CNPS9500A LED. IT'S BIG!! I wanted the bigger one, but I decided to save myself $10, and it's a good thing too, as the CNPS9700 is larger!! I don't think it would play very nicely with the other children. But this one's great! Exceptional design and superior cooling properties. Notice the FanMate 2 controller at the top right, which allows the cooler to run at continuously variable speeds. I currently have it running at just over 2,000 RPMs, and I think it works nicely for my style of computing, as I am not a heavy gamer or overclocker. It still stays fairly quiet, overall.

At the bottom of this picture you can see the Video Card, an ATi Radeon 9800 Pro, complete with Zalman VF700-Cu GPU cooler. The puny little stock fan died a while ago, so I had to replace it. This Zalman cooler is substantial, just like the CPU cooler. It has all-copper fins. Notice the blue anodized aluminum passive heat sinks. Another great product from Zalman. The whole package makes my Graphics card quite heavy!

[RVR II]

WOW!!
That Is Impressive Indeed!

*takes notes for future build*

[kodiakthejuggler]

Oh yeah, that thing is freakin' awesome!!

Very nice work.

[RVR II]

Hell Yeah! I'd Hit It Too!!

[bettertomorrowamy]

Hell Yeah! I'd Hit It Too!!

I think it's a computer RVR, not a walking Fleshlight.