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Build a PC (Aspirin sold separately) Part 1 of 2Mar 14 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line If you are an advanced user and wish to get the most out of your computer while possibly saving some money, then building your own PC could be your answer.
===Part 1 of 2=== There is something decidedly satisfying about creating a tool from the ground up. Especially when it is a tool that can give much back to you without hitting too hard in the old wallet. In this advice column, I will attempt to initiate you into the vast (and somewhat complicated) world of home-brewed Pcs. Before I go any farther, however, I must say that building your own computer from scratch is an art reserved for more advanced computer users. If you have never upgraded your computer before (or for that matter seen the inside of your computer), then it would behoove you to simply buy a cheap pre-built computer from a company such as Dell or Gateway. O.K., for those of you I haven’t scared off, let’s begin our fall down the rabbit hole. Note that I have broken this column into two parts so as not to give the epinions.com server a heart attack while uploading. The Basics What does a computer absolutely, positively need in order to function? Well, there are several components that fall into this category. They are: a floppy drive*, a hard drive, a CD-ROM, a video (graphics) card*(2), RAM, a motherboard, a CPU/cooling fan*(3), a power supply*(4), a case (duh), a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. Other peripherals that are not requirements (but are certainly desirable) include: a sound card*(5), a modem*(6), a graphics accelerator*(7), a NIC (network interface card) card*(8), a SCSI (pronounced “skuzzy”) controller card*(9), a DVD drive, a CD-RW drive, a ZIP drive, or an MPEG (motion pictures experts group) decoder card. *though floppy drives have gone into disuse today, I still consider them essential especially if your hard drive gives up the ghost. If the thought of having an antiquated piece of technology in your perfect system haunts you, try looking into getting a 3.5 inch “superdisk” (the company that creates this drive escapes me at the moment) drive. *(2)some motherboards come with video hardware built-in. Check your motherboard’s description/manual for more details. *(3)older 386 and 486 processors did not generate enough heat to warrant a cooling fan. However, all processors today DO require a cooling fan. If you are thinking about purchasing a Slot 1 or Slot A processor make sure you get a VERY high speed fan because these processors routinely max out at 120 degrees. A company called PC Power and Cooling can help you out in this area. *(4)most cases come with a 250 or 300 watt power supply. 250 watts is usually enough power. *(5)some motherboards come with sound hardware built-in. Check your motherboard’s description/manual for more details. *(6)some motherboards come with a 56K modem built-in. Check your motherboard’s description/manual for more details. *(7)a graphics accelerator acts like a normal video card, thus you do not need both a video card and a graphics accelerator. Just pick one or the other based on your needs. *(8)some motherboards come with a network card built-in. Check your motherboard’s description/manual for more details. *(9)SCSI controller cards are not needed unless you purchase a SCSI hard drive or have external SCSI peripherals. Where do I begin to look for these components? I’m glad you asked, I’ve compiled a small list of vendors below. WARNING, I am now speaking from personal experience when I say that you should stick to name brands whenever possible. This is not toilet paper or toothpaste where you can buy the generic brand cheaper and get the same functionality of a name brand. Name brand vendors have strict guidelines and standards they must adhere to, if you stick to them there is a greater chance that all of your disparate components will work together happily. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Vendors ------------------------- Area of experience ------------------------------------------------------------------ Microsoft, PC Components --- Mouse, Keyboard. Creative Labs -------------------- Sound, CD-ROM/RW,DVD,3D Accelerators Diamond, Voodoo, Nvidia,ATI-- 3D Graphics Accelerators Sony, Hitachi -------------------- CD-ROM/R/RW/DVD 3Com/USRobotics -------------- Modems Pine, Soyo ----------------------- Motherboards Viking ---------------------------- RAM Sony------------------------------- Monitor UMAX, HP ---------------------- Scanners HP, Cannon, Epson ------------- Printers Seagate, Maxtor ----------------- Hard drive Generic brands (CompUSA, etc.) ----- Floppy drive --Vendor web sites are listed at the end of this article. Piecing together the puzzle It’s hard to put a five-hundred piece puzzle together when you don’t know what the final picture should be and can choose from five-thousand different pieces. Here are a few points of interest: 1) The Motherboard “form-factor” (size): check the description of your case, if your case is listed as an ATX case it can support all sizes of motherboards. An AT case can only fit AT and Mini-AT motherboards. A Mini-AT (sometimes called “baby AT”) case can only fit motherboards with a Mini-AT form factor. 2) Your cards, PCI and ISA: all internal cards will document what type of slot they fit in, an ISA slot can be identified on the motherboard as being the longest slots compared to the other slots (motherboards today usually color ISA slots black). A PCI slot is the medium size slot (usually LIGHT brown on today’s motherboards) and an AGP slot is the shortest of all slots and is usually offset from the rest of the slots on the motherboard (it is usually a DARK brown color). Most cards today are PCI though they do come in ISA flavors (and 3D graphics accelerators are mostly made for AGP slots today). 3) The frontside Bus speed: This is NOT the speed of your processor, however it is measured in Megahertz (MZ). The frontside bus interconnects all peripherals, your processor, and your main memory (RAM). It is the determining factor as to the type of RAM you need to purchase for the computer and it also determines what the highest speed of processor is supported by the motherboard, as shown below: 66 MHZ Bus: Pentium 133mhz and under processors, DIMM or SIMM (60 nanoseconds) memory chips 100 MHZ Bus: Pentium II 450mhz and under processors, PC 100 SDRAM memory chips 133 MHZ Bus: Pentium III 900mhz and under processors, PC 133 SDRAM memory chips *166/200 MHZ Bus: Pentium IV 1ghz+ and under processors, PC 166/200 SDRAM memory chips *I have yet to see motherboards being sold at this bus speed, however I assume that that is the requirement for the new 1 gigahertz machines now hitting the market. Obviously, for illustration purposes I have stuck strictly to Intel processors. Please note that the above numbers are merely estimates and you should always consult your motherboard documentation to see a list of exactly what processors are supported by it. 4) PnP (Plug and Play) boards: A small caveat here. Practically all expansion cards today are “Plug and Play” compatible, what that means is that all configuration of that particular piece of hardware is handled through software (via drivers) rather then having to physically set DIP switches and jumpers on the board itself every time you need to change it’s configuration. There is an inherent problem with Plug and Play that I discovered the hard way and that is that plug and play boards tend to not play nice with each other. You see, your computer communicates with the boards via IRQ (Interrupt Requests) numbers that are linked to specific slots on your motherboard. The problem arises with the fact that there are only 14 such IRQs that are available to the computer and at least 9 of them are already used by the motherboard (for such things as the real-time clock and DRAM refresh) BEFORE you even install an expansion card. This leaves at most 5 free IRQs for use by your sound card (which usually uses two IRQs), modem, etc. On an ATX motherboard, slot 1 and slot 4 are usually assigned the same IRQ by the hardware, thus if you install say a modem on slot 1 and a sound card on slot 4, one or the other will work but not both. The only way to overcome this situation is to move one of the cards into a free expansion slot, that is if you left yourself a free expansion slot. You can discover whether or not this will be a problem by checking your BIOS “pnp configuration” menu and see if two of your expansion slots are written on one line (Ex. “Slot 1, Slot 4: Auto”), if so you will run into this problem. 5) Beware of ESD: ESD (Electro-static discharge) is a fancy way of saying don’t shock your computer. I’m sure you all remember back in grade school when the teacher rubbed a balloon in her hair and then stuck it to a wall. Well, that static running though your body is bad news to printed circuit boards. Before touching any circuit boards you must ground yourself either by touching the exposed metal of the computer case (not the plastic) or by buying a $3 anti-static wrist band that clamps onto the computer case. 6) Optical mouse note: I haven’t read up on the optical mice in use today (a’la Microsoft Intellimouse) but I do know that the older optical mice required a specific mouse pad with a grid of lines drawn on it. The optical mouse would then use this grid to determine whether or not the mouse is moving and if so in what direction it is moving. This is different from a normal mouse which uses potentiometers to sense the speed and direction the trackball inside it is rolling. Read the box before you buy an optical mouse. 7) Slot 1/Slot A or Socket 370: The type of processor you choose is very important. Today most high-end processors are of the Slot 1 variety but I have heard rumors that Intel is planning on ditching the slot 1 processors in favor of socket 370s. The best bet would be to buy one of these "hybrid" motherboards that have connections for both a slot 1 processor (a slot 1 processor, in case you've never seen one, looks much like an old Sega Genesis console cartridge) and a socket 370 processor (but I believe you can only have one or the other installed at once but not both). Slot 1s also generate much more heat then Socket 370s (I have four cooling fans in my tower computer because of it). [OK, if you’re still up to speed, check out part 2 of this article to see a sample system, get some more tidbits, and find some web sites of interest.]  |
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