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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Street Walker who wrote (77)	1/31/1998 6:04:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Respond to of 14778

>>FULL PC power and Cooling tower << PC Power and Cooling is the manufacturer. The Full is a full height tower (8 full size bays). I want a full size tower but I price the SuperG configuration with the mini tower as it is better for price comparison. The case has an air filter! I have opened computers after one or two years of operation and they are very dirty inside. Cooling is a very important consideration for electronic components so a well designed case with good air flow and an air filter is a must IMO. Also, I am looking for a case that is easy to take apart. This has a removable side panel. I have worked with removable side panels before. It is easy to replace expansion cards in the cases that I have used. pcpowercooling.com I have checked into external SCSI cases for additional harddrives and CD ROM's. Kingston has one (9 bays if I remember right) for $1075!! It seems much cheaper to get the expansion space inside the computer. Also, I get frustrated taking computers apart, the covers don't seam to come on and off very well. I have several cases from old computers (Dell,Compaq) which are useless as they use proprietary motherboards and components. I am looking for a quality case, and don't know yet if this one fits the bill. Regards Zeuspaul

To: Street Walker who wrote (77)	1/31/1998 6:27:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14778

>>what determines the amount of power supply needed?<< The number of components that are installed inside your computer. Harddrives CD ROM , Dual CPU's (PII's draw a lot, hence the heat sink etc. It is also important to have a quality stable supply. If the correct voltage is not supplied to some components they will run hot. Many low cost power supplies may not provide quality juice. The power supply should last several generations of computers (depending on how long the ATX spec lives??) and it is probably worth the investment for a better quality power supply. I have not spent much time yet investigating power supplies. My decision is influenced by what is available at the outfit that puts the base machine together. Regards Zeuspaul pcpowercooling.com

To: Street Walker who wrote (77)	1/31/1998 6:58:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Respond to of 14778

>>Brand Names: why did you choose the particular Hard drive and motherboard?<< I have spent a lot of time reading motherboard reviews. The ABIT LX6 is a well respected board. There is some safety in numbers with this one as a lot of people are using it. I do not like configuring computers! I just like to turn them on. Many comments about this board are about its ease of use. There are sites where you can ask questions about this board as it is popular with the overclocking crowd. If you start with a PII 233 and then later upgrade to the PII 300 (when the price comes down), you will not have to open the case and set jumpers as it can be done in their BIOS. It is a single chip board. I think most applications will run faster/better IMO with a single CPU than a dual CPU with the same amount of RAM as the RAM is divided between the processors in the dual set-up. This wouldn't be true for multi-threaded or multi-tasking applications. SuperG is for graphics so single CPU is best for this application The Intel 440BX? chipset is due out soon. This may influence my choice of motherboards. Why the IBM harddrive? I have not spent much time on this one yet. It is one of the choices at ESC and I want it in the base configuration that will be provided "by others". I have read good things about IBM drives(larger cache, although I don't know the specifics of this drive yet). I have experienced six or so harddrive crashes and none of them were IBM. At the moment it is only my best guess for a harddrive and I plan on doing more research. Regards Zeuspaul

To: Street Walker who wrote (77)	1/31/1998 8:08:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Respond to of 14778

>> CD Drive or DVD??<< CD now, DVD later. There isn't much use for DVD yet. It will be a long time before software manufacturers distrbute on DVD as there is enough room on CD and there is a large installed base. The only need I see is for multimedia applications. There are not many titles yet and who wants to spend $25 on a movie when you can rent or pay per view for a couple of bucks. I will install two or three CD ROM drives (one recordable) in the full tower. My charting program makes use of the CD as do several other programs. Removing and replacing the discs for the different programs gets rather tiresome. I will have a SCSI host adapter so adding a SCSI DVD two years from now will be a simple task and it will be much cheaper than now. Onward Zeuspaul