Your computer - show it to me

[Duken4evr]

Anyone else roll their own machine?



Midly pimped and assembled myself from parts, without going nuts with cold cathode tubes, windows, etc. I am almost 41 after all. Gotta save the real pimp job for the bike.

It does sport a stable 800 MHz overclock though, P4 1.6A running at 2.4, 24/7. I crunch SETI on it

[Steve TLS]

Does it foul plugs? I see you mentioned you have it remapped, hmmm Tt cooling system, what about the exhaust system?

I have 3 pc's here built from bitsa's, but spend 99.9% of my time on works laptop that I cart around everwhere.

[EvilTwin v2]

You don't even want to see my pc's.

1st one is a Dell PIII 800 w/ 512 of PC133, and a pos powersupply. F*CK Dell!!!

2nd is a 5 1/2 year old Gateway case w/ Cyrix 600 chip & 512 meg of DDR. It also has a 400watt power supply, 80gig WD hd, large fan in power supply, extra large cooling fan, chippset fan, and processor fan. Oh, and it is not overclocked. I only use this as a file server or for burning cd's. Hell, I don't even have a monitor on it...I have to remote desktop from the Dell to do anything on it.

[KrisR]

Re: Your computer - show it to me

Originally posted by Duken4evr
I crunch SETI on it

How many hours (or minutes in your case ) per data chunk?

[GT80]

Re: Your computer - show it to me

Originally posted by Duken4evr
Anyone else roll their own machine?

No, but I helped roll someone else's machine once.











Sorry for bastardizing...I just couldn't resist.

[Duken4evr]

Average SETI unit takes about 3:15 on the P4. I also have an AMD XP2100+ I put together for my 5 year old (ya I am insane), it takes about 3:35 per unit.

[GT80]

I used to build my own machines all the time. That was back in the days when a P233 was the shiznit. The last machine I bought was a Dell PIII 450 and I'm still using it today, almost 5 years later, and it does what I need it to. I've been out of the computer thing so long, I don't have a clue anymore.

[EvilTwin v2]

Originally posted by GT80
I used to build my own machines all the time. That was back in the days when a P233 was the shiznit. The last machine I bought was a Dell PIII 450 and I'm still using it today, almost 5 years later, and it does what I need it to. I've been out of the computer thing so long, I don't have a clue anymore.

Don't bother trying to upgrade the Dell. They are sneaky bastards over at Dell. My power supply needs upgraded, however, they use a non-standard pin configuration, so in order to upgrade anything, you have to replace everything, power supply, mother board, power switch, case. Might as well build a new one.
In fact the pin configuration that they use will either smoke a new power supply or new motherboard, whichever you try to hook to the Dell piece. Nice of em isn't it?!!!

Sorry about the rant, but Dell SUCKS!!! I'll never buy another!

[Duken4evr]

Pretty much all the OEM's suck for upgrades. If they made it so you could just drop a faster CPU in, they would not be able to sell you a whole new machine.

That said, the cost advantage of building your own as pretty much evaporated. It is so cheap now to buy an OEM machine that will have 2 GHz or more, which is overkill for net surfing and office apps.

I do some video editing though, and for that you need all the horsepower you can get in your PC.

Bottom line is I like to tweak. I like tweaking my TL, I like tweaking my PC. If I can't run my memory at some insane speed (currently 187.5 MHz) at CAS2, I am not happy

[EvilTwin v2]

Problem I ran into was that my power supply wouldn't power all of the devices that I had installed in my machine. First I smoked a power supply trying to just upgrade that way, so I called Dell. The lady I spoke to actually seemed to know a few things, and quickly admitted that the power supply that was in mine wouldn't cut the butter, and that I would have to buy a bigger power supply from Dell for it to work in my machine. (not only do they change the pin configuration, but they use a nonstandard configuration on the motherboard with different voltages, etc). I asked, "how much for the better power supply for my pc?" ... and she looked, and said, "they don't make one, would you like me to transfer you to sales so you can buy a new computer?"

I politely told her to play a nice litttle game of hide and go f*ck-herself, and swore not only to never buy from Dell again, but to also spread the word to anybody buying a computer to never buy Dell. I wrote a letter, and got a phone call back from customer service, and they pretty much told me that was how they did business, and if I didn't like it, don't buy from them.

Dude, don't buy a Dell!

[Duken4evr]

Ya, OEM power supplies are notoriously cheesy. It is a place that they can cut costs that the average MHz driven consumer won't detect. OEM machines often come with weak 200W or less power supplies.

Truth is, the PSU is like the foundation for the stable operation for a PC. I went overkill and have a 420W Antec Truepower in mine. No way that thing will buckle

[SDTLR]

Dell does suck My speakers blew the first day I had it, Dell replaced them and the mother board was fried when I got it back. 2 more weeks at the shop for that one. Also, both clips to hold in the DVD/floppy/batteries broke off. I have them scotch taped on right now

Oh well, company PC so I guess I can't complain too much.

I'd like to beat the crap out of that Dell "dude"

[SWEET-TL1000R]

Ha, you guys are goign ot love this!!! I am running a Dell pentium 1, 133mhz! But the cool thing is that it does just about anything I want except play unreal tournoment

Other than that I would buy another Dell in a beat! I'm sorry EvilTwin, but this machine has been runnin strong for over 5 years and I can only hope to find another puter as reliable as this one!!!!

I have also thought about picking up a puter from Tigerdirect.com Any thoughts of where else to look?

[Duken4evr]

If you want a non proprietary machine, there are plenty of "white boxes" available. Non proprietary means you can swap motherboards, etc and the case will accomodate that. Dells and others do not allow this.

If you do not want to roll your own and want a physical place to bring your dead machine and bitch in case of problems, PC Club assembles machines to spec, I believe their brand is Enpower.

If you are flush with cash and want to do gaming or graphics work, Best Buy carries Alienware. They are expensive, use premium non proprietary components, and are nice machines.

Alienware used to have an aura of coolness, which some say they have lost by "selling out" by marketing their machines through big box retailers, but they are premium machines and whoring it out is the American way I suppose.

Falcon Northwest makes premium white boxes as well. There are also a billion small clone makers whose ads populate the back of every PC magazine.

If you want dirt cheap, there are tons of used 833 MHz or so Pentium III type machines available for around $300 or less. Buy one, low level format their hard drive to nuke any problems and and then reload...

[EvilTwin v2]

My problem isn't so much with out of the box reliability with Dell. It is more with customer service. Their main answer to me was buy a new machine from us when I finally called about problems. Also, I'm not really crazy about their "put in the cheapest parts of the day" policy. If they get a deal on one brand one day that is what they use, the next day it might be something different. Example, a buddy bought same computer a week after I did. Mine had a Seagate 20 gig hard drive, his had a Western Digital 20 gig. We just recently found this out when I opened his case for the first time.

I had a Gateway before the Dell. They are just as bad on being proprietary, but the general customer service attitude was much much much better.

As for Tigerdirect. I've dealt with them on some accessories here and there. They are pretty fast, and stand behind their products pretty well. In fact, they sent a replacement for the power supply the my Dell cooked, no charge, even after I explained what happened. When I called, I was just asking if I could get a deal on another. However, the downside to Tiger Direct is shipping. They will RAPE you on shipping charges. Above and beyond acceptable. $10 shipping for 1 stick of memory is ridiculous.

Another to try is AccessMicro.com. They offer a nice burn-in testing service on any package you buy from them.

I will build my own from now on.

Originally posted by SWEET-TL1000S
Ha, you guys are goign ot love this!!! I am running a Dell pentium 1, 133mhz! But the cool thing is that it does just about anything I want except play unreal tournoment

Other than that I would buy another Dell in a beat! I'm sorry EvilTwin, but this machine has been runnin strong for over 5 years and I can only hope to find another puter as reliable as this one!!!!

I have also thought about picking up a puter from Tigerdirect.com Any thoughts of where else to look?