The purpose of this site is to chronicle my various computer builds and to offer some instruction and encouragement for those who are interested in building or upgrading a computer. I would also like to post articles by others about building or upgrading computers. If you would like to contribute to these pages you may contact me HERE. I would like informational articles on various aspects of the build, such as power supplies, cases, graphics sub-systems, processors, motherboards, and other hardware. I would also like to post descriptions of various builds. I will incorporate a forum on the site if there is interest.
Computers have long been an interest of mine. I resisted getting my first computer for several years. I wanted to get into the business of selling computers in the '80's but did not follow up on it at that time.
My first computer was a Dell. It was a 1.3 Ghz computer when 1.6 Ghz was the fastest there was. The excuse to get that computer was to use it in my business. I went through the Dell tutorial on how to use a computer and dove in. I got dial-up Internet access and started exploring the web. I found resources online and began to be aware of the world in which we live.
The first chance I got at putting a computer together was a chassis given to me by a friend. This was an eMachines computer with an AMD Athlon cpu that ran at about 1.25 Ghz. The motherboard had fried and the hard drive was missing. I bought a motherboard and hard drive from NewEgg and put the computer back together. This was a second box. I run the Boinc distributed computing software so my machines run 24-7. The eMachines box was faster than the Dell on the computations.
Then the dual core era hit. I didn't immediately jump on the band wagon. I keep up with the technical press. When the Core 2 duo processors were about to be introduced I decided it was time. I bought most of the parts for my current box and a $105 Pentium D-805 so that I could put it together while I waited for the Core 2 duo to be introduced. Then when the Core 2's came out I chose the E-6600. This box has been a pleasure to use and runs rings around any of the previous toys.
My latest effort was to upgrade a friends box. It was an eMachines that came with a 2.66 Ghz Celeron processor. We chose an Athlon X2 4000+ and an ECS motherboard with 2 Gb of A-data memory and an Antec 350 W power supply for this upgrade, as budget was a consideration. The total bill for parts from NewEgg was under $200. The upgrade went well though I could not get the procedure for transferring the hard drive to work with this combination. I had to reload the operating system. This precipitated a call to Microsoft because the update was so extensive, but they issued a new product key without any real hassle. Now I will find a home for the old motherboard in one of the P-III chassis that I have pulled out of the dumpster.
