MKIV Continues...

I found a guy on the local classifieds selling a crappy looking tower for cheap.  But when I saw a pic of the inside I knew I HAD to have it.

 An ASUS PQ5 Pro Turbo?!

And a GeForce 9800?!














Got a killer deal on a complete PC with awesome components.  The guy said he had a few and was "just trying to get rid of them"

 I had it cleaned up and ready in no time.

 And the MkIV was torn all apart to make way for this gem.

It came together nicely.

 Ready to wire it all up

Assembled and functioning.

Another computer massacre complete.

I ran it this way for some time until I overwhelmed the powersupply with components and fans and it didn't want to work anymore.  I figured that if I need a new PSU I will be getting a nice modular one.  And so it currently sits, unused, waiting for that time, slowly assimilating components as other old computers roll in and out.  In fact, it actually got a CPU upgrade while it's been sitting: from a Core 2 Duo 2.8ghz to a 3.1ghz.  If only I could get my hands on a 3.0ghz Core 2 Quad...

Mk IV begins

The MK IV

In the aftermath of the MK3 I found a Core 2 Duo CPU. Using this CPU I set out to build myself a PC.

I wanted a case with cooling options, cable management and bottom mounted PSU. I wanted a motherboard that would support a lot of RAM. I wanted the best CPU cooler I could afford.

I got a nice MSI Combo MOBO on it's way and searched for a suitable case.  The case was kind of an accident.  I was look for mATX size for the motherboard, and when I found the case I ordered it was listed as an mATX because it was compatible with that motherboard size, but I didn't pay enough attention to realize it was a full ATX size.   

So when the case arrived I becan to put everything I had at the time together.

I was was just jimmy-rigging it together just wanting to to run as soon as possible.  And since it had so many HDD spaces I tossed all of them in there just so they would have a place to be.

 I really liked being able to tie up and hide most of the wiring, but it makes for a little bit wider of a case.

My massive cooler arrived, the upgrade to the one I used on the MK3.

 Got an amazing deal on a BluRay ROM

The cooler barely cleared everything.  Except the side panel fan.  Too tall for that one.

Fan installed

 BluRay installed

Complete (in its first form)

As it sat it was a pretty remarkable computer. Without a video card I was watching Youtube in HD and it was playing DVDs better than my BluRay player. I attempted a RAM upgrade but failed. The motherboard was a COMBO meaning it could use two types of RAM, though not symultaniously. Also the DDR3 it accepted was only DRAM, and I bought SDRAM. Up until now I didn't even know there was a difference. I learned a great deal about RAM from this. So I returned the RAM I bought and decided to leave it as it was for now.

I used it like this for a while.  Then one day I came across something amazing that would take this PC to it's next form.

To be continued.

The MK3

The Mark 3.

I had been collecting more parts and finally got some stuff I though I could upgrade the MK2 with and then accidentally destroyed it.  I don't even know what happened.  I couldn't get any of that old hardware to work.  It was all just fried.  Can't find my photos of it...

 

MK3 was already in the works by this time and I had planned for it to be my PC so it got re-planned as MK2's replacement.  It started with an old case and a Core 2 Duo.

I got it up and running like this and was very dissatisfied with the poor cooling performance.  It was also pretty heavy and a pain to move around.

So I added caster wheels.

It had a 7.1 sound card in it, but the outputs were all weird so I got a 5.1 with Digital Optical because I know that would hook in to the theater's sound system without a problem.

Then I upgraded the CPU cooler to a level of ridiculous.

 New RAM and a PCI slot mounted fan finished off the hardware.

All that was left was to tidy it up and install an OS.

I became obsessed with airflow and air cooling while building this tower... you'll see more of that in later builds.  Cool hardware runs better and lasts longer.

The airflow is so good that the CPU would stay at about 5 degrees above room temperature during load.  My dad bought a copy of Win7 and it's been serving in his theater ever since.

Here we see the MK3 in the aftermath of cannibalizing yet another donor computer.

I believe 6 computers gave their best hardware to assemble this single tower.

Final Specs: 

Asus P5BW-LA MOBO, Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.133Ghz, 2x 200GB HDD, Asus 210 GPU 1Gb, DVDRW x2, 4gb DDR2 RAM.

End.

Intro

My friends and family are aware of my hobby with old computers.  Many people have donated their old junk to the cause and I have turned out a couple worthy projects.  Here will be a documentation of those projects.

I was always playing with the family computer when I was a kid and sometimes screwing it all up.  I remember one time when I got Scorched Earth to run on our Windows 95 PC off a floppy disk and somehow it reset the computer's boot sequence and it wouldn't start Windows anymore.  It would only boot to the game if the disk was inserted.  Neither me or my dad knew anything about the BIOS and setting boot priority so we couldn't fix it.  Needless to say my dad was pretty mad.  Computers weren't cheap and I just wrecked ours.  He took it somewhere and it came back fixed.  Can't remember if I was grounded or not...

I had typing classes in elementary school and Jr. High.  The elementary school computers ran some kind of Basic and the screens were black with yellow text.  The Jr. High ones were modern and sported windows 95 or 98 and we practiced proper typing.  I got to be decent.  Though not much of it stuck because I still don't type with my hands in the proper positions.  I type how is most comfortable to me.  I also had a basic computer class where we learned basics of internet and word and common applications.

In Highschool I had a tech class every year, the first year we rebuilt some old Pentium 3's the school had stashed away and I learned how to install windows with a boot floppy and how all the components go together.  The following years we learned other programs like Flash and AutoCad.

I once had our old Pentium 3.  It was pretty old and useless so I attached all the hardware to a piece of plywood just to see if it would still function and it did, but it was hideous, and big, and as mentioned: useless.

Ha!  I found a picture of it.

My dad gave me our Pentium 4 one day.  I could finally build something useful.  I churned out the "Frankenputer" and gave it back to my dad to use as a media server for his home theater.

It had a good airflow and practically sounded like a jet engine when it was on.  I was shorted USB headers by the motherboard so the front USBs didn't work.  Didn't realize at the time I could have solved that issue with a USB PCI card.
I didn't put any money into this thing and it worked well for a several years.  One day I tried to upgrade the motherboard and CPU to some AMD hardware I scored and I somehow ruined both it and the P4.  the Mark 2 Frankenputer was no more.  It was while building a replacement for this tower, dubbed "Mk3" that I really started learning from what I was doing.  I figured that if I really can build a half-decent computer for almost no cost, then why not?








I will be posting more in the future about my computerey projects I have undertaken including current projects.  Most of what I do depends on what I have on hand.  All my other hobbies are so expensive I figure I gotta have one that's free.

The End.