Hyperstrike

Also, for those interested, I'm currently building a computer for a fellow forum member here.

If you want to, you're more than welcome to take a look-see.

One more reserved space just for good luck.

Yet more reserved space

More reserved space

Reserved

Okay, you all know I'm a tech-head. Pry off an ear and you can see the fans whirring in there.

And yeah, I've built my own computers for years now. But I still do, on occasion, build systems for others. I don't do it as OFTEN anymore. Mostly because I'm obligated to provide support for the systems then. And my real life schedule is busy enough as it is. Or, as the saying goes:

It's only free if your time is worthless.

Anyhoo, another forumite approached me asking for directions to someone who could assemble a computer for them. They had the knowledge to do so themselves. Just not the time. Their original point of contact kinda disappeared on them so they were looking for options.

Now, to be honest, I don't track "who here builds computers for others and who doesn't" real well. One of those zillion or so factoids that races around in my head for a few seconds and then zings right out one of the aforementioned ears.

However, as luck would have it, I have a small lull space in my own schedule right now. So I offered to build for them. After a slightly stunned response, we got the details hammered out.

Normally when I build for someone, I put up a bunch of crummy pictures (I'm an IT guy with a camera phone, not a photographer) for them to ooh and ah over whilst I build.

This time is not really any different. Save it's for a forum member here. I asked if I would be allowed to build a HOWTO post out of this (as I'm sorta rabid about them). I got the okay.

For right now I'm just posting the small versions of the images.
Eventually I'll go back and relink everything so that you can click on them for the full-sized images.

If you want to see the full-sized ones yourself, you can head over here for the interim.

So here we go.



As you can see, my apartment's a mess.
Err. Uhm.
As you can see, this is a higher end build.

• Lian Li PC-9F case
• Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800W PSU
• ASRock X79 Extreme9 Motherboard
• An Intel i7 3820
• 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
• OCZ Vertex3 120GB SSD
• EVGA GeForce GTX570 Classified
• Sony OptiArc CD/DVD Burner
• Corsair H80 self-contained liquid cooling system.

Would get a pic of the front of the case, but the unrelieved black makes it darned difficult for the camera to focus. Here's a decent shot of the back of the system though.


As you can see, it's already got fans pre-mounted.


There's no I/O shield on right now. This is cool because most newer motherboards come with their own I/O shields. This way you don't have holes in the back for dust to infiltrate.


Also, this is one of the newer cases where the power supply mounts at the bottom of the case rather than the top. There's pluses and minuses to this.



On the plus side.

• It's easier to get at it when it isn't shielded by the case top.
• You don't have to disassemble the entire system if you need to swap out the PSU.
• You run less risk of overheating the PSU if your system runs warm (as the PSU warms up, it's efficiency drops and it doesn't deliver power as reliably.

On the minus side.

• You don't want to keep these machines on the floor in a dusty environment (see VACUUM CLEANER).
• You can lose some of the benefit of the PSU working as an additional exhaust device (sucking in case air and blowing it out the back).

The case also has a top vent in case you want to mount another fan (the system already comes with 3 (2 up front and one in the rear) which is usually sufficient).


It also comes with a vented replacement plate in case you do decide to put in another fan. The top mount is for a 140mm fan, while all the rest of the case fans are 120mm.






And here's the case denuded of side panels.





There's space up top for 3 5.25" drives. The top two are tool-less. Pop the retention mechanism, slide them in, and lock the retainer back in place.


The bottom one requires screws. And it comes pre-loaded with a 5.25" to 3.5" adapter.


Now we get to a small thin I like to call a "U N00B" moment.
As you build lots of systems, it's really REALLY easy to get jaded with the "I've seen it all" mentality.


Then something tosses you a curve. This is the hardware gods tossing you a "U N00B" moment.



Okay, as noted, this is an X79 board.






And this'll be the first one I've installed water cooling on. As such, I had a small brain fart when I was looking at the fit for the thermal plate.


On Socket 1155 boards, you get a back-plate that mounts to the bottom of the motherboard and provides the standoffs for the thermal plate.





However, on an X79 board, the holes in the board where you would mount this don't exist or are covered by the Socket 2011 bracket.


Had a small incontinence episode for a sec, then went and checked the Corsair site.


Intel, in its infinite wisdom, build standoff points into the Socket 2011 bracket itself.





So you use a slightly different standoff screw (since the bottom doesn't need to go through the motherboard).





And voila!







Crisis averted. I learnt somethin'!


Now on to our CPU.















Now here's where Intel took a small step BACKWARDS from their previous generation. But with a little orienteering, we can figure it out.



The Socket 755, 1155 and 1366 were all keyed so you COULDN'T mount a CPU in upside down. They had 2 little plastic "nubs" that mated to small cut-outs on the CPU's board. It was VERY obvious that you couldn't mount a CPU that way.



Socket 2011 didn't make this so obvious. And while you COULD go back to the documentation with the CPU or the motherboard, they're not terribly clear either.

If you look at the last picture, you'll see four nubs.


Luckily there are some clues




First, the nubs aren't all equidistant from the sides. The ones at the top of the picture above are closer to the edge than the ones on the bottom.


Second, if you look at the grid array on the CPU in the picture above the socket image, you'll see there are a couple of areas free of contacts. These give you a decent hint as to how the chip should go in.


In the CPU image of the grid array, the chip is actually up-side down right now. So you'd flip it over along what is the "bottom" edge in the picture and it would mount right into the socket.


Okay, that's all for today, save one last picture.


How do I keep all the screws and where they go straight?


Easy!


Corelle!





My parents stocked up on Corelle dinnerware when I was a kid. When they moved out to Vegas, I inherited a bunch of their older stuff. Since I live by myself, a service for 20 is sorta overkill.


But it's great for stowing different screw sets from a build. I simply set out a couple bowls and drop screw packs into each of them.


Enough for now. I'm a bit under the weather. But if I'm better tomorrow I'll start getting into assembly.

Wireless can be really REALLY arcane. Because you're not just dealing with:

• Signal Strength
• Proper channel
• Correct authentication

You've got to deal with how signal propagates in your home (whether your home is RF transparent or opaque), any sources of interference (cordless phones, microwaves, etc), proper positioning of antennas in the RF field, etc.


Plus you have to worry about some things you have zero control over.
Such as propagation of your neighbor(s) wireless and how it interferes with yours, signal reflection, etc.

1: Get an attorney.

2: Get a financial planner.

3: Set up a trust.

4: Claim the prize as a trust. This way it pays out to the trust. And even if I fall over dead from debauchery the next day, it still pays out.

5: Take the payout (roughly 12.5 mil after taxes) . Yes, I could probably make more investing, but I figure this will be a good check in case my common sense deserts me and I spend everything in sight like many lottery winners.

6: Pay off all my bills/debts/etc.

7: Make sure my brother's family pretty much never has to worry about money again. Designate his kids as the trust beneficiaries in case I die.

8: Build myself a geek chateau (fat internet connection, 10-gig E in every room, climate controlled, on-site data center).

9: Build the fastest, most powerful gaming ring I could while still staying conventional (no full-immersion cooling, etc).

10: Set up payment plans for any recurring bills (utilities, property taxes, etc)

11: Possibly solo-crowdsource funding for various CoH projects both in and out of game.

12: Take larger ownership stakes in a corporation I'm part of.

13: Try to live frugally on 1-2% of the annual payout (should be fairly easy since I've already allotted budget for bills and such elsewhere). There was some research a while back that suggested the median income for "financial stress-free" living was something in the neighborhood of $75,000 a year. I figure I'll head over the ED cap on that just to make sure I incur minimal stress.

14: In conjunction with #10, I figure I'll go the philanthropy route. As to which specific charities? Honestly, I'd probably spend some time doing a bit of research on that before opening up the checkbook.

15: ???

Sorry if this is abrupt. On my,phone.

Probably you cannot boot off the cd because you are set to boot off the hd first.
You should be able to do f10 or f12 during boot to choose a boot device.

Or F1 to edit the bios to boot off the cd first.

For the last few months I'd been pulling my points, regularly, on the 29th.
This month I got them on the 28th.

DOOOOOOOOOOM!

HOW did you back up the hard drive?
If you already have all his files off it and the drive is showing blank, you're probably going to need to reinstall.