My New PC Built September 2003
In Win S508 mid tower case with 300 watt power supply
Pentium P4 2.4c CPU running at 3.12 GHz overclocked 30% Asus P4P800 mother board running at 800 MHz FSB 512 DDR RAM Asus 9520 FX5200 GeForce video card (Retired 4-11-2004)
ATI 9600 Pro video card
Seagate Barracuda ST380011A 80 gb hard drive
Creative Labs 5.1 Live audio card
Sony DRU-510A DVD/CD Burner
Sony DRU-710A DVD/CD Burner (Double layer baby)
Toshiba PCX 1100U cable modem
Netgear 614 Router with NAT firewall
Iiyama Vision Master 450 19” monitor
Cambridge SoundWorks MicroWorks 2.1 speaker system (Retired 1-1-2004)
Logitech Z680 5.1 speaker system (Currently there is no better system than this)
Logitech Elite keyboard Great review, click here
Logitech MX 700 wireless mouse Great review, click here
Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe (TV & FM tuner card)
Seagate 200 GB External USB/Firewire hard drive
Here are a few pictures of my new setup
Whoops, looks like the mod bug hit. Just like a Toyota 4x4, I can't leave the PC alone I added two 80 mm green LED fans to replace the intake and exhaust ones. They have a nice green glow to them. I also added a 12" long green cold cathode lamp. That really lights up the Case. Then the following week I added with the help of Jim a 12"x12" clear window to the side of the case to allow the light from within to shine out. The window was a PITA to install. We had to use a jigsaw on the case side, then slip in the rubber molding to lock the window in place. It's not as easy as it sounds.
I may add a fan control unit to one of the front open bays, and maybe add a fan to the window by cutting out a hole for an 80 mm fan. I think the addition of the two green LED fans and the cathode tube give it a pretty cool look. The front LED fan shines out towards the front of the case too.
The above LED fans and cathode tube were bought at a local PC shop by the name of InfoTech in Federal Way, WA. The window kit was bought from a custom shop in New York called Frozen CPU.
12-13-2003 I wanted to add a hard drive cooler setup, and the Cooler Guy's carry the AirMaxx Pro. It has duel fans on it, and is dead quiet. This helps to draw away heat from the business side of the hard drive. The first two pictures below show the new hard drive fans.
The fan on my Asus FX 5200 video card was going out after just having it for a few months. It was real noisy and irritating to listen to. I called up HDNW and they said the fan was infamous for going out as it's not a ball bearing fan. Instated of taking the card back and getting it replaced under warranty, I decided to get a new fan for it. I bought the ThermalTake Crystal Orb chipset cooler model for video cards.
I was lucky as some video cards you must pry off the fan from a heat sink that is epoxied to the vid cards GPU. Not so with mine, only two plastic tangs hold the stock fan on, and you simply remove it, put on a dad of thermal grease, then put on the new fan, and the holes lined up perfectly. This fan you can hear it running, but it's a gentle "breeze" type of sound, not the awful sound the Asus fan was making.
You can see the stock fan in the 3rd picture, and the new Crystal Orb one in the 4th picture.
New speakers from Santa 1-1-2004 Kick ass! I finally retired my most excellent Cambridge Microworks 2.1 speaker setup that is listed in the list above. They are some of the best sounding 2.1 speakers out there, but I have been wanting a good 5.1 system to go with my 5.1 sound card.
After doing some very extensive research, I narrowed it down to either the Klipsch Ultra 5.1, or the Logitech Z680s. I went with the latter as these simply put are the best PC speakers in the world at the time of this writing on 1-2-2004. I read many magazine articles on both, and also links online, and the winner hands down is the Logitech Z680s. They have a built in Dolby decoder, and way more than the Klipsch's will do.
You can connect up to 4 things at once to these, and besides the analog inputs from your sound card to the controller, they also accept digital coax and an optic connection. For now I am using the analog setup until I upgrade my sound card to a Creative Audigy 2 or the M Audio Revolution 7.1. Instead of me going into a huge review on them here, I will include a link from Logitech to other sites, and include a few of the better ones I read. Simply put, these are the best. Playing Battle Field 1942 or any game for that matter sounds fantastic. In Battle Field when you shoot an automatic rifle or a gun turret in a tank, you feel the recoil and percussion of the weapons. It's awesome
Here's a few pics. I have 4 of the 5 satellites mounted on the wall, and still thinking how to mount the 5th one. They say they sound better with the grilles off, and in one pic you can see the grille cover off. The sub woofer is massive, taking up a 12"x16" space on my floor.
Logitech's links to reviews From IGN From Extreme Tech From Maximum 3D
Update on the speakers: Most people will find that even when your master volume on the control module and remote is turned down, you will still have plenty of bass which can be annoying. By default the sub woofers volume is set at 50% on the control module. If you turn it all the way off and then up one notch, it can still be very bassy. I found that it's very easy to knock stuff off your shelves and rattle file cabinets. Playing Battle Field 1942 for example I'd have the master volume down so as to not disturb others, but the bass would still be loud. You have to go into your sound mixer properties and turn your bass down. I had mine set at 75%, and I keep my treble at about 85%. I also run the master volume on there at about 75%. Try turning your bass in there down to between 20% & 50%, and that should fix it. I can now run a game at low volume, or even higher, and the bass is not overpowering when the Logitech's sub woofer volume is up a few notches. I can still get powerful wall shaking bass by turning it up past 5 notches or so.
New ATI 9600 Pro video card 4-11-2004
The Asus FX 5200 video card has been retired to my youngest son's PC. I could only achieve a 3D Mark score of around 1460 or so with the FX 5200 card. The ATI 9600 Pro is twice as fast in benchmarking tests I have performed with both my CPU at the stock 2.4 GHz, 2.88 GHz, and at 3.12 GHz overclocked. The tests results are listed here, but I normally run my PC overclocked at 2.88 GHz all the time with no problems.: Stock 2.4 GHz, no overclocking 3D Mark 03 test: 3281 PC Mark 04 test: 3809 Overclocked 20% to 2.88 GHz 3D Mark 03 test: 3377 PC Mark 04 test: 4344 Overclocked 30% to 3.12 GHz 3D Mark 03 test: 3403 PC Mark 04 test: 4670
You can get the two benchmarking programs for free: 3D Mark 03, and patch it to 340 (current as I write this. PC Mark 04 (current as I write this.
New Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe (TV & FM tuner card) 5-11-2004
I have been wanting a TV tuner card since building my PC Some of the advantages of having a card like this is your PC can now become a Personal Video Recorder, or PVR for short. You can record television and FM broadcasts directly to your PC, then burn to a DVD is you desire. I can record one thing on the TV with my VCR, and if something is on at the same time, I can record it with the PC for a different channel. I doubt very much if I will watch much TV on the PC, I'd rather watch it on my Toshiba 27" one in the living room. But then again I could surf YotaTech and watch TV at the same time. I will admit though, it sounds way better on my computer since I have the Logitech Z680 5.1 speakers hooked up to the PC. Another advantage to the card is you can plug in analog camcorders such as my old Hi 8 mm Sony that I purchased back around 1990. I can then "burn" the tapes to a DVD which will be more convenient than using the camcorder to view them on the TV. I think I will get the most use out of this using it to record TV shows while the VCR is doing its thing in the other room. It has audio out jacks which you plug into your soundcards input jack. My Logitech Z680 system can them take the stereo signal and convert it into surround sound or 5.1 surround sound, and TV on the PC should sound pretty darn good. Much better than the Toshiba TV.
There is also a website you use called Titan TV that you have to sign up for. Once signed up, you input your zip code and cable service, and you will get a TV grid in your web browser that lets you see all the TV shows that are on much like digital cable shows. You can also watch live TV or set up recordings right from the browser.
On my wall in my bedroom is the cable outlet to the outside, and from there I have a 15' coax which connects at the top of the splitter behind my router and cable modem. The left side coax goes to the tuner card, and the right side coax goes to the cable modem. Very neat installation with the splitter on the wall in case I need to disconnect any of the cables for maintenance. There is a separate wire that plugs into the back of the card for the FM signal.
An installation tip: Do not use the install CD that contains the PVR program for viewing TV and listening to FM, and the drivers. Instead download the PVR application and the drivers directly from Leadtek. Execute the drivers first. It will go through 4 stages of installing them, so be patient. Next install your PVR software and you are good to go. It was so easy to install the card and get it up and running. Only glitch was my Logitech cordless M700 mouse would not respond correctly, so I had to use the keyboard to install the software. After a reboot the mouse worked perfectly.
Here are some links for the card. Leadtek's site Newegg's site where I purchased it
Reviews, this card scored very high: Bojorn3D SL Central Game Over Online
Update on the TV card: Last weekend (6-20-04) the TV side of the card kept crashing after opening up the application. The app would shut down the video, but the audio would keep playing. The FM side worked great. I uninstalled the drivers and software, reloaded, but to no avail. I kept trying to think what changes I made to the PC but could not come up with any that were of any merit, so I fired off an email to the technical side of LeadTek, and a tech there named Harry helped me out. He asked if I had just updated Nero 6, and of course I had one day prior to discovering that the card would not function correctly. The updated files were from June the 10th on Nero's site for the apps: 1. Burning ROM 2. In CD 3. Nero Express. If you have this TV tuner card or another brand, it may crash like mine did. Here is the fix straight from Harry: Nero 6 latest update includes two new decoders that did not appear in earlier versions. These decoders are the "Nero QuickTime Audio Decoder" (NeQTADec.ax) and "Nero QuickTime Video Decoder" (NeQTVDec.ax). These files can be found in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\DSFilter\" After renaming both these files, WinFast PVR should work correctly.
Card Cooler XT 6-26-2004 I run my Intel P4 2.4c chip overclocked to 2.88 MHz. The PC runs pretty cool as is, as I have lots of airflow from front and rear fans as seen in the pics near the top of this page. But adding stuff as a high end graphics card and other components can make the inside of the case heat up some. Hence my friend Andy found a really cool fan setup at The Card Cooler. This unit blows air over your CPU and other cards in your case, thus lowering the temperature some. He ordered two of them, and I just picked mine up on the date in the title above. The model is the Card Cooler XT 4 pin model. They also make a three pin model if you want to run your fan off of the motherboards fan header, but I choose not to since the LED fans I have are powered off of them. Below are three pictures. The first one is with out the new fan for comparison, and the second and third are of the new fan. As you can see, it's a monster.
The temperature did indeed drop down by a few degrees, but not as much noticeable as when I took the first screenshot it was around 7 am when my room was much cooler than in the afternoon now. But still there is around a three degree difference, and that alone is pretty good. As far as increased noise goes, there is only a slight increase, not bad at all. Before the card installation temps of the CPU: 27 degree Celsius = 80.6 degree Fahrenheit After the card installation: 25 degree Celsius = 77 degree Fahrenheit The Asus AI Booster application only displays in Celsius, so I searched on Google and found a very cool conversion site. Also take note that the AI Booster only displays the CPU temperature, and not the temperature inside the case. I don't have a temperature probe for that, and I bet the temps really went down inside with this new fan setup. Before fan: After fan:
The Card Cooler Card Cooler XT model 4 pin The TechZone Review
Seagate 200 GB External USB Hard Drive Everyone should have a backup plan for their PC in case of a disaster, and I choose to go with an external hard drive. The Seagate I have works with both USB and Firewire. I have it hooked up via USB. It comes with some pretty decent software for backing up your system too. I have it set to back up my PC every Sunday night, and after the backup (incremental now, it just backs up newly added stuff since the first major backup) the PC turns itself off which is a pretty cool feature in the software.
Below are a few pictures of the drive.
For some more cool custom PC shops, click on the links below. Cooler Guys Twisted Mods 1 Cool PC Crazy PC KOOLPCMODS Frozen CPU Infotech Hard Drives Northwest Stuff on the wish list M-Audio Revolution 7.1 Sound Card or... Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Both of the above are the two best 24 bit sound cards out now.
Click here to see my prior PC I built back around '99
Gaming I am into PC gaming, have been for many years now, and it's a lot more fun on a rig that was built for gaming in mind. I play mainly UT 2004 and Battlefield 2 right now as of July 2005. Older games I still play once in awhile are Quake III, Star Wars Jedi Knight Outcast & Academy, and Star Wars Battlefront. I also play the older Unreal Tournament too, but the newer Unreal Tournament 2004 offers much more.
Below are some very good links for these games, and I will add more over time.
Quake 3 Dayentech has his own Quake forum, and also servers for the game. He has a plug-in on his site that will let your browser see the games in action, and you can launch and join a game right from your browser.
Jedi Knight Jedi Outcast and Academy Ravensoft's forums for JK Raven Games forums
Unreal Tournament & UT 2004 Unreal Tournaments main site A very good forum by Atari on everything you need to know about this game
Battlefield 2 Battle Fields official site on EA Games
Movies from in the games Most games allow you to take screen shots from within the game so you can view them later. I found a cool program on the web called Fraps which does even more. Fraps allows you to not only take screen shots, but also high quality AVI files which you can then shrink down with other software to show the game play to others.
Below are a few videos I recorded of Unreal Tournament 2004. After compressing the huge AVI files down into a Windows Media Video file, you do lose quite a bit of quality, but they still look pretty decent. Unreal Tournament 2004
TV Output, And How To Use Your PC As A Free "TIVO" I decided to make a new page with the info. You can turn your PC into a TIVO, and best of all, there are no monthly fees to use the scheduler to view what shows are on and to set recordings. To learn more, please click here for my new page.