clocker
04-24-2006, 11:52 AM
A call from Mom,
I hear the pain,
Her poor PC,
Circles the drain....
Oh well...'twas inevitable.
My mother's PC, a five year old eMachines, finally went toes up.
She can't complain really...it's been running 24/7 since new under the worst possible conditions. Housed in a desk cubby, it gets zero airflow and is only blown out when I visit- to her great dismay, I must add.
An old school house marm, she is always appalled at the dust build up, little aware of the affinity that dust has for fans and electronic components.
Not exactly what one would call a "power user", Mom basically cruises the internet, produces newsletters for the hospital volunteer group and her homeowner's association and plays Spider Solitaire.
Lots of Spider Solitaire.
Seems like the perfect chance to play the good son and come to the rescue (and cadge some excellent home cooking in the bargain, as well).
You see, I just so happen to have enough stuff laying around (or, to be strictly accurate, stuffed into boxes somewhere) to build her a replacement.
My castoffs will actually be an upgrade for her.
Kinda works out for the both of us...she gets a better computer and I score some major brownie points along with a bit of a closet clean.
Perfect, really.
The only part I lacked was a suitable case- her eMachines was too small and proprietary to house my parts- but I work at a computer store, so I nabbed one of our cheapo "standard build" beauties.
Grubbing around in my closet of castoffs I came up with the following:
-a nearly unused Sparkle 530w PSU
-Asus A7N8 Deluxe motherboard
-Barton core 2500+ Athlon CPU
-ATI 9600 XT vid card w/ Arctic Cooling HSF
-3x 512 MB Patriot/Mushkin RAM
-80GB Seagate SATA HDD
-Samsung CD-RW
-generic floppy (she doesn't need it but I do to load the SATA drivers)
...and a the requisite cables, screws and doodads to assemble it.
I also have my recently retired (legal) copy of XP Home (might have to dicker with MS over this but I'll bet I can get it activated).
Oh yeah, and an entire passive watercooled loop.
Mom is extremely anxious about the water bits, despite my assurances the whole concept stikes her as against nature and common sense.
I may defer and just go with air, after all, I also have at least three heatsinks I could use as well.
And case fans of course...lots and lots of case fans.:naughty:
Not exactly the way I had planned to spend my weekend- Sprocket is somewhat miffed that she won't be the object of my ministrations- but what's a son to do?
Shouldn't be a particularly arduous build (especially if I forgo the waterloop) and I'll try to get some pics of the finished machine...it won't be anything very special, so don't get your hopes up.
Now, off to the build.
I hear the pain,
Her poor PC,
Circles the drain....
Oh well...'twas inevitable.
My mother's PC, a five year old eMachines, finally went toes up.
She can't complain really...it's been running 24/7 since new under the worst possible conditions. Housed in a desk cubby, it gets zero airflow and is only blown out when I visit- to her great dismay, I must add.
An old school house marm, she is always appalled at the dust build up, little aware of the affinity that dust has for fans and electronic components.
Not exactly what one would call a "power user", Mom basically cruises the internet, produces newsletters for the hospital volunteer group and her homeowner's association and plays Spider Solitaire.
Lots of Spider Solitaire.
Seems like the perfect chance to play the good son and come to the rescue (and cadge some excellent home cooking in the bargain, as well).
You see, I just so happen to have enough stuff laying around (or, to be strictly accurate, stuffed into boxes somewhere) to build her a replacement.
My castoffs will actually be an upgrade for her.
Kinda works out for the both of us...she gets a better computer and I score some major brownie points along with a bit of a closet clean.
Perfect, really.
The only part I lacked was a suitable case- her eMachines was too small and proprietary to house my parts- but I work at a computer store, so I nabbed one of our cheapo "standard build" beauties.
Grubbing around in my closet of castoffs I came up with the following:
-a nearly unused Sparkle 530w PSU
-Asus A7N8 Deluxe motherboard
-Barton core 2500+ Athlon CPU
-ATI 9600 XT vid card w/ Arctic Cooling HSF
-3x 512 MB Patriot/Mushkin RAM
-80GB Seagate SATA HDD
-Samsung CD-RW
-generic floppy (she doesn't need it but I do to load the SATA drivers)
...and a the requisite cables, screws and doodads to assemble it.
I also have my recently retired (legal) copy of XP Home (might have to dicker with MS over this but I'll bet I can get it activated).
Oh yeah, and an entire passive watercooled loop.
Mom is extremely anxious about the water bits, despite my assurances the whole concept stikes her as against nature and common sense.
I may defer and just go with air, after all, I also have at least three heatsinks I could use as well.
And case fans of course...lots and lots of case fans.:naughty:
Not exactly the way I had planned to spend my weekend- Sprocket is somewhat miffed that she won't be the object of my ministrations- but what's a son to do?
Shouldn't be a particularly arduous build (especially if I forgo the waterloop) and I'll try to get some pics of the finished machine...it won't be anything very special, so don't get your hopes up.
Now, off to the build.