Finally built a new machine

[Redmax]

Its really quite sad that I had to build my workstation sooner than expected but the stupid Asus laptop keeps randomly shutting down and restarting. I suspect a hardware issue given no real BSOD.

So what did I build you ask??

Nrkissed is having a LAN party this weekend so I opted to go small. Pulled out a LanParty Jr 790GX (http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/mother ... 790gx-m2rs) and used the quad core Phenom black edition featured in the review. Then dropped in 4GB of Patriot 1066 DDR2 to complete the memory/processor subsystem.
Video is served up by the awesome nVidia GTX 275 (http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/video/nv_gtx275).
Hard drive is the 10k RPM Raptor X 150GB, should be enough storage for the LAN and whatever I need to put on there.
PSU is a greatpower xclio, I forget the size but its around 850w.
Case is a Silverstone Sugo SG04 (http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/cases/sst-sg04) I held on to this case for this very reason. Thing to keep in mind when building a MicroATX system in a MicroATX case is look at things from all angles. you will quickly run out of space if you don't.
Optical drive is an LG DVD burner and Bluray Player, its the only SATA optical drive I own and running a ribbon cable in a mATX is not what I call fun

Still don't have my new monitors or Windows 7 but despite a minor chipset cooling issue the system is running like a champ.

[wildabeast]

About freakin time. Congrats no go frag someday at the LAN.

[jimmyz]

I am glad to see you did it. or did you???? you know what they say......Pics or it didn't happen

[Redmax]

Oopp death by BIOS flash. (never had that happen before )

Well I almost had a working system and since the DFI Jr board seems to have gone tits up on me I'll be swapping it for the cheap of the cheap Sapphire PURE Innovation 780V. (http://www.ninjalane.com/reviews/mother ... phire-780v)
There is nothing innovative with this board. its small, its cheap, and it will likely not overheat in the SUGO case I'm using.

I suppose one side bonus, the PCB is red

[skier]

why a raptor? a regular raptor provides less performance than a regular Seagate Barracuda because of the interface and controller - SATA vs SATA II

Velociraptor is worth it, not a raptor(which i foolishly bought myself)

[Redmax]

why a raptor? a regular raptor provides less performance than a regular Seagate Barracuda because of the interface and controller - SATA vs SATA II

Velociraptor is worth it, not a raptor(which i foolishly bought myself)

good question and the answer is simple

I had it already

[Redmax]

Played an hour of MW2 to "burn" the system in and it ran like a champ. CPU and GPU fans were spinning full bore by the time I was done but settled down shortly after.

Ever notice that new computer smell? nice hint of ozone fills the air.

Pics to come

[skier]

Pics to come

they had better be

[jimmyz]

Played an hour of MW2 to "burn" the system in and it ran like a champ. CPU and GPU fans were spinning full bore by the time I was done but settled down shortly after.

Ever notice that new computer smell? nice hint of ozone fills the air.
Pics to come

I love the new parts smell period. Nothing better than new stuff in nice pretty packages. except for the first boot that is

[Redmax]

Ok here are the pics. (well pic) Basically the metal panel under the PSU exposes the expansion cards, removing the PSU will expose the processor.

micro_tiny.jpg (72.27 KiB) Viewed 212 times

Not my best wiring job but its all shoehorned in there with plenty of room for air to get around.

[jimmyz]

The smaller lan party rigs are so good these days it makes sense to build smaller. heck I see ITX boards out now that could hold their own as lan rigs.
Nice looking build, it does look like a tight fit but seems to work out well. and certainly puts the handle in better perspective, it looked a little too big for the case when I saw the case pics without a system in it.

[slngsht]

Wow, that is a little case. I like it! I can understand the wiring difficulties. There's no room to stuff them anywhere.

[Redmax]

Well update to the update to the update....

As you know I did have some issues with this machine and they keep cropping up. A few weeks ago I discovered that the extra hot proc combined with small enclosed space seemed to have fried 2gb of patriot memory. (its ok memory was old so I wasn't too worried) since I had a couple other sticks working in the matching I just downsized to 2GB total.

Well last week I went to play some COD4 (that requires the DVD) and well the game wouldn't start, I was like WTH? Turns out the system forgot I had a DVD installed or something. It wasn't really an OS issue since if I let the system rest for a few hours and powered it back on the DVD would come back.

That should have been the writing on the wall, but I continued on and well my christmas eve gift was another dead system I have yet to troubleshoot and find the root cause, though I suspect memory and maybe an overheating chipset. Somewhat frustrating at this point.

Just gives me motivation to build that fancy ass Core i7

[slngsht]

man. That sounds eerily like the troubles I was having with my current system when I first went to build it. I'm on my fourth motherboard in this case in two years. lol Hopefully, you can get it sorted out without too much hassle, although tearing it apart alot and rebuilding it again gets old... It's like you put all your efforts into placing the wires just-so, just to have to take it apart again in a few days. Rinse, repeat.

[skier]

get a bigger case, a nice big bottom-PSU mount mid-tower should solve yer overheating problem