Powelly

Good day to you, fellow OCNers.
Recently, a school friend of mine came to me with a problem - his computer would no longer boot. I decided to take a look at it for him, and boy - this thing was prehistoric! It contained a Celeron D, 512MB of DDR 533MHz, a 6 series nVidia (I could go on, but I'd bore you )
Anyway, turns out whoever assembled this rig had no idea what they were doing - I checked the HSF (stock Intel) and it wobbled horribly, and to my horror actually came off the CPU entirely with very little force. The TIM was absolutely charred...I decided the rig couldn't be saved and put together a list for a new build.
The wonderful *cough* Australian Government has decided to give a 50% education rebate to certain Australians - my friend fell in the category so long story short, he's getting his computer for half price. This allowed me to increase the budget a tad. I purchased the following parts:

• CPU: Intel E8400

• Mobo: GigaByte EP45-UD3R

• RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR2 1066MHz

• GPU: Sapphire HD4870

• Case/PSU: CoolerMaster CM690 with 430W PSU

• CPU Cooler: CNPS9700LED (from my old rig)

• HDD: 320GB Seagate (from previous rig)

• Optical: LG DVD RW (from previous rig)

Total Price: $915 AUD

Right, now that's out of the way, here's some pictures for you all
Btw, I had a mate come over and help out so we could finish it quickly - it's kind of late and we have school tomorrow...

WARNING: CONTAINS FULL FRONTAL NUDITY




This image is before HDD/DVD drive were installed and things got messy (IDE DVD drive)







Now, we had a little trouble getting the front panel off for the DVD drive - there was a screw in there but we couldn't be bothered working out how to get it - so we tore it off. Observe:



Buuuut it turned out fine, thankfully



Finally got everything hooked up...



...and booted succesfully! Even was able to use the existing XP partition from his old rig, which is amazing.




Well, that was a fun few hours in which I avoided doing any homework
In the future we will be case modding it to have the fan speed control for the Zalman CPU Cooler come out the top of the case where the eSata is located, and some proper cable management.

I hope you all enjoyed this build log, hopefully more from Powelly to come

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carayan

A fellow australian!!



Where did you buy your things from? Because I've wanting to build mine based around the E8x00 series and the price just sky rockets. Any tips or links as to point me in the right direction?

OT: That thing is a beast. Looks awesome. Good work, gotta love the aussie government!

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Secondary System: Pentium 4 515, ASUS PTGL-31, 2.5GB DDR, 480w Coolermaster ExtremePower, XFX 8600GT, 120GB IDE, CoolerMaster 534+ Centurion.

Powelly

Everything was purchased from MSY.

Yeah, I very much like the case! It's sleek and sexy, makes my 1200 look like a fat chick!

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scottath

I would recommend you move the top fan to the other spot - some cooling for the ram....and the CPU already has the rear fan

Nice build though - on a tight budget.....i want free money from gov......pitty family makes too much money to fall into the bracket.....

*awaits mods* - PAINT the case - make it black inside like mine

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My Mod in Progress |||| 3DMARK06 PB: 22044

Powelly

Thanks for the advice Scottath! I set up the top fan as an exhaust so hot air filtering up from GPU and CPU exhaust will be expelled from the system (much like my 1200).
Mods will occur when we have our next lan, whenever that is. Do you think playing with dremels whilst drunk is a bad idea?
Should be fun, and considering school holidays are coming up soon it might be in the next few weeks

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YaGit™

Nice build .. Good thing you got the right case for a tight budget..

that CM690 is screaming to be modded..

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Cooler Master™ RC-690 Club

GRiG-M82™

scottath

i want a lan.... (can i join... via internet though )

dremel + drunk = bad - high speed cutter + unco.....hmm

the rear fan should be fine for the heat expelling - and the zalman already is facing back....maybe try it out (temp wise) in both slots

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My Mod in Progress |||| 3DMARK06 PB: 22044

Powelly

Meh, RAM doesn't really get hot; plus it is already heatsinked (thank you, kind people at Kingston).

Thanks, Git - I think I might have a look around the 690 club and look at some mods and show them to my mate, see what he thinks

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scottath

speaking of which - i need to make more room in my 690.....dual GFX taking up all the room....

Heatsinks are not great on ram - they just make them heatup and prevent the air getting to the ram chips....thats why i have a fan over mine to force air over them

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My Mod in Progress |||| 3DMARK06 PB: 22044

Drin

Nice of you to help your friend there, and +rep for posting the pics!

I know we get burned a bit down here in Australia when it comes to pricing, but I would have made the following changes:

- An AMD 720 BE would perform better in games, and be more future proofed for roughly the same cost. WHILE being cheaper If he managed to get a beastly overclock then possibly no, but I do not see 4.4ghz on a CNPS9700 :s

- Cheaper memory, would've saved a little by going DDR2 800, and a good kit will let you OC up to ~1000 easy.

Otherwise a very solid build, especially if the 4870 was 1gb. It should last him a while to come!

Edit: Just realised, if he had got lucky, he could've unlocked the 4th core on the 720 and possibly get a quad out of it as well xD

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