On my last post, I mentioned about the PC case I selected for my PC project and the modifications I made to accommodate the three larger 140mm diameter cooling fans. The fans will not only maintain the PC components much cooler while reducing noise, but will also help to extend the life of each component.
Components like the Central Processing Unit (CPU), Random Access Memory (RAM) chips, video adapters and the motherboard’s built-in chips can generate a lot of heat during their operation. Overclocking (running some components faster than their rated speed to increase their performance) can cause the parts to produce more heat than normal. If this high temp is not adequately dissipated, it could result in system instability and/or damage to these components.
Cooling fans are the most economically and easier ways to maintain your system cool, however, do not take too lightly the selection and installation of such components. If unsure, ask an expert or do some research.
My PC components
My aims for choosing my components were simple: low cost, high performance and good quality products. After doing some research, I opted to purchase my components from http://www.newegg.com/. I made that decision for three main reasons: low prices, fast shipping and great customer reviews for each component I selected.
Here’s a quick description of the components I initially selected for my PC project:
Motherboard: Foxconn’s WinFast NF4UK8AA (Go here if interested about its specs). I selected this motherboard mainly because of its low price, but also because of its features and the great positive reviews by other shoppers.
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 4000+ running at 2.4GHz. I selected this CPU because it was bundle with the motherboard. The total price for the motherboard and CPU was $59.00 US; that was well within my price range and fast enough to build a pretty decent PC.
Note: With so many different CPU sockets (connectors) it can get confusing when purchasing a motherboard and CPU. You must make sure that the motherboard’s socket matches that of the CPU. For example, the motherboard I selected incorporates an AMD 939 socket platform, so it requires a CPU with 939 form factor. Purchasing a bundle or combo can make your decision much easier while saving you a few bucks.
Memory: OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 PC 3200. Again, as with the CPU, you must make sure to purchase the correct memory chips for the motherboard. Just make sure to read your motherboard’s specs, and, if in doubt, ask. The motherboard I selected had the following memory specs: 4 184-pin DIMM sockets, maximum of 4GB of DDR266/333/400 SDRAM. The OCZ Platinum met those specs, while including beautiful mirrored platinum copper heatspreaders. Again, excellent shopper’s reviews and the $90.00 sale convinced me that this was the perfect memory for my project.
Other components
Silverstone FP34-S USB 2.0 Card Reader: Fits into a 3.5" drive bay and provides three extra USB 2.0 ports, two FireWire ports, and HD audio ports. It also has 4-slot reader to read Compact Flash, Micro Drive, Secure Digital, Multi-Media Card, SmartMedia, xD, Sony Memory Stick media. $39.99
LiteOn, LightScribe DVD Writer: This DVD drive has SATA connection and cost just $37.00, so I thought it was an excellent buy. By the way, if you plan to install Vista on your new machine, you are going to need a DVD drive.
CPU Heatsink: When I first build the PC, I used an older heatsink/fan combo, but soon after I decided to replace it due to the noise produced by the 80mm cooling fan. Three weeks later, I replaced the fan with a Thermaltake CL-P0401 110mm Full-Range Fan CPU Cooler. This CPU cooler is just beautiful, quite and huge – you must make sure you case has plenty of room to accommodate this cooler. Price: $59.99.
Hard Drives: Though I had a 250GB EIDE hard drive, I decided to order a new Western Digital 500GB SATA drive to use with my new motherboard. The motherboard I ordered for my PC project has connections for four SATA devices and I didn't want those connection to go to waste. Total price $99.00, free shipping and no taxes, decent price.
Hard Drive: Though I had a 250GB EIDE hard drive, I decided to order a new Western Digital 500GB SATA drive to use with my new motherboard. The motherboard I ordered has connections for four SATA devices and I didn't want those connections to go to waste. Total price $99.00, free shipping and no taxes; good price.
I will let you know how the PC building process went and provide you some tips that can make your job easier. For now, happy computing!
Jan 17, 2008
Jan 16, 2008
My Computer Case
On my first post, I mentioned about starting a project to build a PC from scratch. On this post, I'll discuss the type of computer case, modifications and additions. Hope you find this post useful.
The computer case I chose for my computer project is an older Dragon full-tower case. I chose this for one main reason; I already had it. If I remember correctly, I bought this case as a bare-bone PC from Tiger Direct http://www.tigerdirect.com/ perhaps about four years ago. The motherboard went bad almost two years ago and the case has been collecting dust ever since. I will include a few photos later on, but for now let me just provide a description of the case.
The case is an all silver, thick-aluminum full tower case. It incorporates four 5.25" and two 3.5" bays. Has two removable 3.5" support bays and provides mounts for two front and two back 80mm cooling fan mounts. The side panel has a transparent Plexiglas and an 80mm cooling fan mount.
The case also included a 600 watts modular power supply with two 80mm cooling fans; one at the bottom and one on the rear to exhaust the air out. SATA cables are included as well.
It is a very spacious and sturdy case that can easily accommodate most motherboards in the market today.
What I like about this case?
Almost everything I just mentioned.
What I didn't like?
The 80mm fan mounts and the two 80mm installed on the power supply; and that's exactly where my project began.
The beginning
There are various way to lower a PC temperature while keeping the noise level down as well. You can increase positive air flow through the computer, use a fan control to adjust the speed of the cooling fans, use a water cooling system or through passive cooling using heatsinks. For my PC project I chose a combination of passive cooling and controlled air flow. I will explain my passive cooling at a later time; but for now I will discuss the steps I took to provide positive-controlled air flow throughout the PC.
To lower the noise level, while increasing the air flow through the PC I decided to replace all five (two front, one side panel and two on power supply) 80mm fans with three 140mm fans. In order to maintain my budget down, while still obtaining good quality results, I chose the Yate Loon 140mm Case Cooling Fans. These fans are inexpensive, about $6.00, and can move up to 62 CFM of air while running at around 1400 RPM and a noise level of 29 dBA. Compare that to the 80mm cooling fans that were running at 3500 RPM each and you may begin to understand why I chose to replace the fans.
To install the 140mm fan on to the power supply, I simply got rid of its rear fan altogether, while removing and replacing the fan at the bottom. I have never really understood the advantage of installing two cooling fans in series and with same specs on a power supply. The bottom fan draws the air from inside the case into the power supply, while the other fan exhaust the air out, but since they are installed in series, they don't really offer much advantage. You can get the same amount of cooling air through the power supply with just one fan, while reducing noise and power consumption.
Anyways, I reamed the lower fan mount blow-hole to 140mm diameter to accommodate the larger cooling fan and drilled four new holes to mount the new fan. The larger diameter blow-hole not only allowed room for the larger diameter fan to work efficiently, but also allowed the power supply to dissipate heat more quickly, as its components are wide exposed to the ambient.
I then proceeded to remove the two front 80mm fans, reamed a 140mm blow-hole and drilled four mounting holes. Since the two 80mm mounts covered an area large than 140mm, I simply covered the exposed area with two-inch, transparent tape. Covering the exposed area prevents the air from trying to flow back into the fan, as in a circle. This area was going to be covered with sound suppression material later on, so the tape was more than adequate for now.
For the side mounted 80mm fan I had to replace the Plexiglas due to the position of the 80mm fan mount. The fan was too closed to the edges, not allowing enough room to ream a 140mm blow-hole exactly where I wanted. I just purchased a piece of Plexiglas from a hardware store, traced the door panel onto it and cut it. I also cut a 140mm bow-hole facing the area where the video card would be mounted. This would allow for the installation of a passive cooling graphics card, which would help to maintain the noise level and power consumption down.
To mount the Plexiglas door I used regular screws and nuts with rubber washers on the head and nut side. I also used 3/8” wide x 3/16” thick foam tape weather-strip in between the door panel and the Plexiglas to absorb any vibrations and provided support to the Plexiglas. I bought this at Wal-Mart; 60' for about $3.00. I bought 60' because I needed to seal the doors at my house to prevent draft of cold air from entering the house. Since the weather-strip had glue on one side, it was very easy to apply to the back side of the door panel and get the screws through to mount the Plexiglas.
To mount the fans, I decided to use rubber mounts/fan vibration isolators, which allows the fan some flexibility, while isolating the fans from the case and absorb vibrations. With regular screws, fan vibrations can be easily transferred to the case and resonate like a guitar strings, creating additional noise.
To further lower the noise and power consumption, I installed a Nexus multi-fan controller. It's not fancy but inexpensive at $17.00 and can control the speed of up to four fans. It also fit nicely on one of the 3.5” bay. You can control the speed of the fans to make sure the fans are working at their most efficient level, while maintaining all your components as cool as possible. You control the speed of the fans by lowering their voltage, which saves power, lowers the noise being produced and extend the life of the fans. Controllers are simple mechanism and are easy to install. Some have temperature sensors, which permit the fan to lower or increase the speed of the fan as the temperature inside the PC changes.
There are many variables that affect the air going through your PC however. I will discuss those as I continue posting about my pc project.
So now that I had the fan controller and all cooling fans in place I was ready to purchase and tackle the installation of the motherboard and CPU. I will discuss my choice for motherboard and CPU on my next post. Until them, happy computing!
The computer case I chose for my computer project is an older Dragon full-tower case. I chose this for one main reason; I already had it. If I remember correctly, I bought this case as a bare-bone PC from Tiger Direct http://www.tigerdirect.com/ perhaps about four years ago. The motherboard went bad almost two years ago and the case has been collecting dust ever since. I will include a few photos later on, but for now let me just provide a description of the case.
The case is an all silver, thick-aluminum full tower case. It incorporates four 5.25" and two 3.5" bays. Has two removable 3.5" support bays and provides mounts for two front and two back 80mm cooling fan mounts. The side panel has a transparent Plexiglas and an 80mm cooling fan mount.
The case also included a 600 watts modular power supply with two 80mm cooling fans; one at the bottom and one on the rear to exhaust the air out. SATA cables are included as well.
It is a very spacious and sturdy case that can easily accommodate most motherboards in the market today.
What I like about this case?
Almost everything I just mentioned.
What I didn't like?
The 80mm fan mounts and the two 80mm installed on the power supply; and that's exactly where my project began.
The beginning
My first two concerns about my PC project was heat and noise; keeping both down as much as possible. Though 80mm cooling fans can provide a great amount of air, they most rotate at a high RPM and can create plenty of noise, so I decided to tackle this issue right from the start.
There are various way to lower a PC temperature while keeping the noise level down as well. You can increase positive air flow through the computer, use a fan control to adjust the speed of the cooling fans, use a water cooling system or through passive cooling using heatsinks. For my PC project I chose a combination of passive cooling and controlled air flow. I will explain my passive cooling at a later time; but for now I will discuss the steps I took to provide positive-controlled air flow throughout the PC.
To lower the noise level, while increasing the air flow through the PC I decided to replace all five (two front, one side panel and two on power supply) 80mm fans with three 140mm fans. In order to maintain my budget down, while still obtaining good quality results, I chose the Yate Loon 140mm Case Cooling Fans. These fans are inexpensive, about $6.00, and can move up to 62 CFM of air while running at around 1400 RPM and a noise level of 29 dBA. Compare that to the 80mm cooling fans that were running at 3500 RPM each and you may begin to understand why I chose to replace the fans.
To install the 140mm fan on to the power supply, I simply got rid of its rear fan altogether, while removing and replacing the fan at the bottom. I have never really understood the advantage of installing two cooling fans in series and with same specs on a power supply. The bottom fan draws the air from inside the case into the power supply, while the other fan exhaust the air out, but since they are installed in series, they don't really offer much advantage. You can get the same amount of cooling air through the power supply with just one fan, while reducing noise and power consumption.
Anyways, I reamed the lower fan mount blow-hole to 140mm diameter to accommodate the larger cooling fan and drilled four new holes to mount the new fan. The larger diameter blow-hole not only allowed room for the larger diameter fan to work efficiently, but also allowed the power supply to dissipate heat more quickly, as its components are wide exposed to the ambient.
I then proceeded to remove the two front 80mm fans, reamed a 140mm blow-hole and drilled four mounting holes. Since the two 80mm mounts covered an area large than 140mm, I simply covered the exposed area with two-inch, transparent tape. Covering the exposed area prevents the air from trying to flow back into the fan, as in a circle. This area was going to be covered with sound suppression material later on, so the tape was more than adequate for now.
For the side mounted 80mm fan I had to replace the Plexiglas due to the position of the 80mm fan mount. The fan was too closed to the edges, not allowing enough room to ream a 140mm blow-hole exactly where I wanted. I just purchased a piece of Plexiglas from a hardware store, traced the door panel onto it and cut it. I also cut a 140mm bow-hole facing the area where the video card would be mounted. This would allow for the installation of a passive cooling graphics card, which would help to maintain the noise level and power consumption down.
To mount the Plexiglas door I used regular screws and nuts with rubber washers on the head and nut side. I also used 3/8” wide x 3/16” thick foam tape weather-strip in between the door panel and the Plexiglas to absorb any vibrations and provided support to the Plexiglas. I bought this at Wal-Mart; 60' for about $3.00. I bought 60' because I needed to seal the doors at my house to prevent draft of cold air from entering the house. Since the weather-strip had glue on one side, it was very easy to apply to the back side of the door panel and get the screws through to mount the Plexiglas.
To mount the fans, I decided to use rubber mounts/fan vibration isolators, which allows the fan some flexibility, while isolating the fans from the case and absorb vibrations. With regular screws, fan vibrations can be easily transferred to the case and resonate like a guitar strings, creating additional noise.
To further lower the noise and power consumption, I installed a Nexus multi-fan controller. It's not fancy but inexpensive at $17.00 and can control the speed of up to four fans. It also fit nicely on one of the 3.5” bay. You can control the speed of the fans to make sure the fans are working at their most efficient level, while maintaining all your components as cool as possible. You control the speed of the fans by lowering their voltage, which saves power, lowers the noise being produced and extend the life of the fans. Controllers are simple mechanism and are easy to install. Some have temperature sensors, which permit the fan to lower or increase the speed of the fan as the temperature inside the PC changes.
Having positive air going through your PC is made simpler if you can compare it to running outside air through your house. To let the air in, you open a window facing the direction of the wind and then you open another window at the opposite end so the air can exit. This creates a nice breeze to enter the house, replacing any stale or hot air before it exits at the other end. Installing computers fans is not much difference. You want the air to go through one side of the PC, preferably the front and/or side and exit through the rear. This way you can get a nice current of cooler air entering your PC and exhausting as much heat energy out the PC as possible.
There are many variables that affect the air going through your PC however. I will discuss those as I continue posting about my pc project.
So now that I had the fan controller and all cooling fans in place I was ready to purchase and tackle the installation of the motherboard and CPU. I will discuss my choice for motherboard and CPU on my next post. Until them, happy computing!
My Computer Project
As many others, electronics and computers are my passion. Since I disassembled my father's 13" color TV when I was about that same age, I knew that messing around with electronics was something I wanted to do. However, instead of following that career path, I chose to become a turbine engine mechanic. Though it is an exciting career, as a turbine engine mechanic there's little room for creativity and imagination.
I have worked with computers since 1988 and, slowly at first, I became addicted to them. A few months ago, I began building my own PC. Though I have built other computers, this project is different. At first, I wanted to just simply build a PC around old parts I had laying around the house, while keeping the budget down as much as possible. And, though I have been able to maintain the budget down, some older parts have been replaced by newer and more efficient components.
Through this blog, I hope to detail my journey as I build and continue to make improvements to my new computer. Perhaps someone can learn from my experiences and put them to practice, or not. Or maybe someone can point out some of the mistakes I made or perhaps offer some expert advice. But regardless, my hopes are that readers can get motivated to enjoy the satisfaction of building their own "mean" machine. The way I see it, we only live once (at least that's what I believe) so why not spend sometime doing what we really enjoy.
Before I leave for the day, let me provide you with a few details about my PC project. During the next few days I will provide you a better detail description of each component and why I chose them. Additionally, I will talk about the thrill of building the PC and the agony of not being able to sleep because of the many ideas floating about my head at any given time; but, it's all worth it.
Here's a quick detail about my PC project:
About the case
The PC case I selected for this project is an all thick-aluminum full tower case, manufacture by Dragon, but the model is unknown. It incorporates a clear side panel and can mount up to five 80mm cooling fans. It also has a 600 watts modular power supply incorporating two 80mm cooling fans.
Additional features
I have worked with computers since 1988 and, slowly at first, I became addicted to them. A few months ago, I began building my own PC. Though I have built other computers, this project is different. At first, I wanted to just simply build a PC around old parts I had laying around the house, while keeping the budget down as much as possible. And, though I have been able to maintain the budget down, some older parts have been replaced by newer and more efficient components.
Through this blog, I hope to detail my journey as I build and continue to make improvements to my new computer. Perhaps someone can learn from my experiences and put them to practice, or not. Or maybe someone can point out some of the mistakes I made or perhaps offer some expert advice. But regardless, my hopes are that readers can get motivated to enjoy the satisfaction of building their own "mean" machine. The way I see it, we only live once (at least that's what I believe) so why not spend sometime doing what we really enjoy.
Before I leave for the day, let me provide you with a few details about my PC project. During the next few days I will provide you a better detail description of each component and why I chose them. Additionally, I will talk about the thrill of building the PC and the agony of not being able to sleep because of the many ideas floating about my head at any given time; but, it's all worth it.
Here's a quick detail about my PC project:
About the case
The PC case I selected for this project is an all thick-aluminum full tower case, manufacture by Dragon, but the model is unknown. It incorporates a clear side panel and can mount up to five 80mm cooling fans. It also has a 600 watts modular power supply incorporating two 80mm cooling fans.
Additional features
- Four 5.25" and two 3.5" bays.
- Removable 3.5 and hard drive baysOther components Motherboard: WinFast NF4UK8AA Foxconn
- Processor: AMD Atlon 64 4000+, Code Name: San Diego
- Graphics: NVidia GForce 7300 GT, 256MB of RAM
- Memory: OCZ 2GB DDR
- OS: Dualboot Win XP Home Edition and Win Vista Ultimate 32Bit edition
- Thermaltake CL-P0401 110mm Full-Range Fan CPU Cooler
- Six USB Port PCI Card
- Multi-Card Reader with USB
- Four input fan controller
- Creative, 60 watts speakers
- LightScribe DVD Drive
- LG 17" LCD Monitor
- One SATA 500MB HD
- One EIDE 250MB HD
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