Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

Interesting, is it possible to replace water with another cooling agent, spirit or glycerin for example?
Of course they're not so effective (lower specific heat characteristics) but not so dangerous for electronics.

Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

Well, any liquid is really a waste compared to using a peltier cooler...

peltier is pretty cheap, no worries of condensation and liquids spilling on your uber mobo+cpu, and a pretty cool tech-doodad http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

Back on the cost savings subject...
Building your own is not a big cost saver.
BUT... it gives you control over your system, esp the software.

Buld your own and you can have the OS CD, and a CD for each application.
So the OS can go on a smaller C: partition and be easily reinstalled without affecting application on D:.

Buy a built one, and you may have to pay extra for the OS CD.
Your application and OS may be tied up in a bundled CD set.
Forget about selective reinstalls, you may have to wipe the whole HD and start over.

Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">PPG is the poor mans pick for coolant, but water mixed with a good wetting agent is about as good as it gets. They usually add some color to help find the leaks and make it look cool too.

[ June 08, 2004, 18:38: Message edited by: Thermodyne ]

Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">PPG is the poor mans pick for coolant, but water mixed with a good wetting agent is about as good as it gets. They usually add some color to help find the leaks and make it look cool too. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What's PPG? Is it conducting fluid or not?

Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Pelts can be a pain in the butt. Condensate from frost is an issue and they suck up a lot of amps.

Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">PPG is the poor mans pick for coolant, but water mixed with a good wetting agent is about as good as it gets. They usually add some color to help find the leaks and make it look cool too. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What's PPG? Is it conducting fluid or not? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Poly propoline glycal also know as pink automotive antifreeze.

Re: OT: Worst PC Decision
 

Ouch, rough story.
Revenge my friend is best served cold. You aren't the only person he sodomized, his list of clients would be numerous.
Likely would have beaten him down in his store and inserted an AGP card in his his incompatible A drive.
I'd rather spend 1500 on bail then waist it on some shyster lawyer.

There are more of these clowns out there then people realize. Just because someone has an A+ Certification, doesn't mean jack. Hell, I have one and I don't even work in the computer field.
Building your own computer doesn't mean it will cost less than a prebuilt machine. What it does mean is you'll have the ability to pick and choose brand name quality parts. That deal you see in the paper for a MB, fan, CPU, and Heatsink for 80 bucks isn't worth two dead flies.
Or how about some House brand generic RAM for your system?
Maybe one of them sweet 70 watt power supplies Gateway is known for will work in your game machine?
People slap this cheap crap together, then blame problems on the few name brand big items they focused on, such as their Nvida or ATI video card. Or how AMD/Pentium sucks because it conflicted with XYZ chipset.
Dells and Gateways are good for the payment plans and that's about it. A quality computer builder should be available within a day of down time. Quality parts have their own warantees as well. Case in point, I have two Western Digital 10,000 rpm hard drives in a RAID 0, they have 5 year factory warantees on each of them. So until 2008, I'm golden with them.
Hell, they even sell quality case and heatsink fans now with lifetime warantees.
If you're running into thermal issues, make sure you have a working fan that isn't caked with dirt. Same goes for the heatsink. Check to see that thermal grease has been applied between the processor and the heatsink. Make sure it was applied properly -- less is more.
Make sure you have a quality power supply able to handle the load of your system. Most burner issues are due to this alone. I recommend nothing less than 350 watts.
As of late for friends and family, I've been building systems on Windows XP Pro. This is typically the break down:
Pentium IV 2.4/2.8/3.0ghz Prescott core, 800mhz FSB

ABit MotherBoards IC7 series, highend gets IC7-MAX3, I prefer to use the IC7-MAX3 due to the decent onboard 5.1 Sound card, and a good gigbit lan card, duel RAID controlers along with the standard IDE headers. Lots of clearance even for the big Swiftech heatsinks.

512/1024mb RAM PC4000 (500mhz) 2.5 CAS GeIL/Corsair/Crucial/OCZ

Swifttech makes a great heatsink, Alpha's are okay as well. Swiftech's will accept larger fans. I put 92x92x25's on them.

Processor fans, go with Vantec. If you don't care about the noise, use the Tornado series, they are extremely loud though. Sounds like someone using a hair dryer in the other room, seriously. They move 84cfm though. Go with the stealth for a fan you can bearly hear. They push around 28cfm. More than enough with a good heatsink like the Swifttech. You need to strain to hear the computer turn on with the Stealth fan and a quiet PSU.

CRT monitors, usually 19 or 21 inch. Unless flatscreen is requested for looks. I like Viewsonic monitors.

For the hard drives, I like the Western Digital Raptor drives. 10,000 rpm, 8mb Cache. Only 37gb's though. They make a good C: drive. Additional hard drives with larger amounts of space can be used for non esential items or storage. My preference is to go with a RAID setup for extreme speed using the Raptors. IC7-MAX3 board comes equiped with the RAID support.

Name brand Power Supply Units (PSU's) are the way to go. No less than 350 watts. ENERMAX are good. They're shielded well, and don't have much power flux levels. They have a quiet line which are nice. If you have a few hard drives and/or a few CDROM/DVDROM's, you should go with the 425watt.

Video cards can be a touchy subject. Depending on what you are doing with the computer is typically what leads you to your choice. Nvidia and ATI are both good cards. Stay away from the budget line models. Even if you get a card that is a generation old, it is better to get the old high end unit. Don't spend over 300 - 350 on a card unless you've got money to burn. I run duel monitors on the Radeon ATI 9800 Pro 128mb ram. It hasn't met a game it couldn't whip with both screens at high resolution. Currently, going over 128mb or video ram is pointless. Very few games take advantage of this. Textures need to be more complicated (bigger) for this to help. Paying for this feature now is fruitless. The difference between 64 and 128 is nominal at best as well. Recently, its value is being slowly realized though.
Stay away from water and pelter cooling unless you know what you're doing. They aren't ment to be systems that run 24/7. Leaks can and will happen, just like the plumbing in your home.
A lot of times, adding blow holes and things of the sort do very little to the cooling of your system. Sometimes they actually hamper it. Instead of one smooth path for cool air to enter, and hot to exit, you create a turbulant area within the case which restricts airflow. Air must stay in one spot long enough to transfer heat to itself, before exiting the case. Think of how your thermostat works in your car.

To wrap it up, if you don't personally know someone who can build a quality system (not cheap) or can't build it yourself; go with a prebuilt name brand unit from a big seller like Gateway or Dell. Stay away from strip mall computer shops for builds, you're almost guaranteed to get some refurbished parts in the unit.
If anyone has any computer related questions, feel free to e-mail me or contact me on ICQ.
-Steve