First Build

2009-06-01T02:54:00Z

I have finally built my own computer. I am 20 and have wanted to buy/build a computer for a while now, but I finally manned up and did it.After almost 2 semesters of "building" computers on newegg (picking out compatible parts that were a possible computer that I would build) I went the extra step and ordered the parts on Memorial Day (last Monday). Newegg, in the typical fashion got the parts to me on wednesday. Well, most of them. The case was shipped from across the country (California to Massachusetts) and it arrived on Thursday. Wednesday night, I unpacked/opened my first shipment to admire the parts. And Thursday night I started my build. The parts I ordered are:

Processor: AMD Phenom II 940 x4

Motherboard: Asus M4A79 Deluxe

PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650W

Hard Disk Drives: WD Velociraptor 150GB, WD Caviar Blue 640GB

RAM: G Skill 4GB (2x2G) DDR2 1066

Video Card: EVGA 896-P3-1257-AR (NVIDIA GTX260)

Optical Disk Drive: Pioneer DVR-217DBK

Case: Lian-Li PC-V1010B

THE BUILD:

The build went smoothly, which was nice cause I didnt have much experience to know how to trouble shoot. The motherboard came with 5 SATA cables, so i didnt need to buy any for my OEM devices (both HDD and ODD), nice job ASUS. Following the mobo manual I installed the CPU and Fan and mounted it on the Lian-Li mobo tray. This is a nice feature and I think I am only going to buy cases with the removable tray. The only problem with it was I had to open the second side to remove and install it and I spent a good 15 minutes trying to get the panel back on, but it was the wrong side as the two panels were ever so slightly different. Everything else was very self explanatory and followed case and mobo instructions the rest of the way. I got it up and running (doing a gritty build, not worrying about cable management) and I was very happy. Later (over the next week) I continued to open it up for various reasons, but the major job was cable management. The case I had was split, so you have only a couple of wholes to route cables through, but it all worked out in the end.

Minor Problems/Reviews:

Overall I love my computer, but I think you always do when you build it yourself because you get what you want. I just have a couple gripes:

Case: I think the case looks sleek and is designed well, but there are a few flaws. First, they tell you to screw in your HDD for added security (during moving), yet for the first cage, the one closer to the front, you have to first remove the fan (not a big deal), but then it is still almost impossible to get them screwed in. I was able to get one half in and the other barely started. Also, the case would benefit from removable PSU cables, which mine didnt have. Because it is split, you end up blocking the PSU with the extra cables you dont use. I tried to minimize this, but it was still a problem. Also the hdds' ports are on the side of the case so the plugs going into them are bent quite sharply. And the final gripe is the lack of direct intake on the CPU/Mobo area (although it seems to do well enough).

HDD: Velociraptor is not as fast as i had thought it would be (but still fast). I got about 110 MB/s rw.

ODD: Loud vibrations on spin up and during install of a couple of things it slowed to a crawl, but may not be the ODD.

Everything else is "perfect" as it does what it is supposed to without problems. I am especially pleased with GPU which gets about 90 FPS on COD5 at max settings (1920x1200) while still being quiet...audible but not loud.

I have since bought a wireless card the MSI one and I am also happy with that as it is about 4x faster than my laptop card at the same distance away.

Please Comment, leave requests for more info.

carickw

First Build