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.

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