PC Building 2.0

Despite my first failed attempt and somewhat flustered declaration that I would never again attempt building a PC, I tried again. I’m not really sure why, something just compels me to roll my sleeves up and get into the nitty gritty of computers components and circuitry. I’ve always had a fascination with all electronics and love to see what makes computers work…and more importantly see if I can get them to work!

I’ve dubbed this second PC building endeavor, Version 2.0, and here begins my tale of woe.

Now with my previous (failed) attempt I had been trying on and off for about 3 years to get it to work. The symtoms appeared to be due to bad memory or a hardware conflict. But after dozens of CPU/memory tests, swapping out memory, video/audo and other expansion cards, I accepted my failure and sold some of the components on eBay this Fall. Anyway, after selling what I could, I was left with several unneeded components and coincindentally also came across an awesome deal on a “barebones system” at Tigerdirect.com. This package included the case, the CPU (and Intel 2.8 ghz Pentium D – dual core), a low end motherboard and the CPU fan. With my previous attempt, I had actually shopped around and bought the components from seperate vendors, so I knew I’d have to put the whole thing together. However, with 2.0, I was somewhat naive and part of me was thinking (hoping) that it would be put together and I’d only have to add a hard drive, RAM and some expansion cards…that was the first surprise. The shipment arrived in 2 seperate boxes, immediately shattering my hopes of a simple setup. Step 1 was to read through the motherboard guide, which wasn’t what I would call clear and concise. Thankfully there really wasn’t much in it at all. Putting the CPU in the slot, seemed to work ok but I was a little hesitant in pushing down the lever to lock it into place, as it did require some force. With the first build, I was actually using an AMD processor, which uses a ZIF socket, requiring no force whatsoever. Anyway after that I attached the heat sink and fan to the motherboard. Apparently these are getting too heavy to be held to the board by the CPU socket as I actually had to bolt it to the board itself. Next, I mounted the motherboard to the case, and began connecting the power supply cables and wires for the front panel buttons and lights. This was fairly straitforward except some slight confusion with the labeling. Continuing, I mounted the CD-rom drive and popped in the 1 GB RAM chip…all went easy enough. Finally, I did a final examination, making sure everything was connected correctly and closed up the case. The only thing left to do was plug it in and turn it on…so I connected a monitor, keyboard and mouse and plugged in all of the power cables and I knew I had arrived at the “moment of truth”. I remember looking at my watch and thinking, somewhat pridefully “Wow, this only took a couple of hours? What mountain will I conquer next?”

Now I’m sure most of us are familiar with the expression: “pride cometh before the fall”. In my scenario, those words couldn’t be any more true.

Ok, back to the story, there I was, feeling like I had just scaled Mt. Everest, everything was set and it was time to power up my creation. I flipped open the front cover a pushed the power button…nothing. Thinking I didn’t push it hard enough, I did it again, same thing…nothing. So I checked all of the cables and made sure the power supply and surge protector switches were on, tried again, nothing. Anyway, I spent several more hours that day unplugging and reconnecting wires to troubleshoot the issue. I even tried a different power switch. After exhausting all possiblilites, the only thing left was to replace the power supply. So the next day I went to Fry’s the next day and had them test the old power supply, they confirmed it was dead. While there, I bought the best replacement I could find, in terms of quality for the price. I settled for a Raidmax product for about $20 (after rebate) and headed home. It didn’t take too long to swap them out, and I was convinced that that was the solution. Having everthing connected again, I once again tried to power the system up, and again…NOTHING. Thinking it could be multiple issues, I ran through all of the same troubleshooting steps again…to no avail. I even detached the motherboard from the case, leaving all wires attached, to isolate it from the case, to test if it was contacting the case and shorting. Nothing worked. Two days later I was back at Fry’s and had them test that power-supply, it too was DEAD!! So I exchanged it for another, higher quality model from Ultra. This time I made them test it for me before I left, and it worked. An interesting side note is this unit was listed at $60 with a $40 rebate, but they scanned it in and said it was $40 with a $40 rebate…essentially free. Anyway, I get it home, and connect it. At that point, knowing for a fact that the 2 previous power supplies were dead and that this one worked I had complete confidence that the system would now power up, but you and I both know better than that, don’t we? Yep, for a third time and at this point with countless hours invested, the system sat there, dark and silent, after pressing the power button. At this point I was pretty frustrated, thinking to myself “Why o why did I do this again? Why couldn’t I leave well enough alone?”

After calming down for a couple of days, I decided to try one more thing. I went ahead and swapped out the power switch again, hit the power button and lo and behold the system STARTED UP !! [imagine Handel's Hallelujah Chorus playing in the background...] It was actually working!!! I was dumbfounded, fully expecting more of the same dissapointment, but instead was greeted with a humming fan, lit up display light and the familar system “beep”. “WOOHOOO!!!!” Regaining a small amount of my former confidence, I was thrilled as the useless “pile of junk” was transformed into a functioning computer.

But my tale of woe is not quite finished yet…

So there it was a lit up computer and monitor, waiting for my input, so I hit the Del key to go into the setup (BIOS) and nothing. Not thinking much of it I checked to make sure the keyboard was plugged in. Everything was fine so I hit reset. This time the keyboard was working fine…for about ten seconds, then froze. I was thinking it was something misconfigured in the BIOS so I again hit reset and then hurriedly tried to get into the setup and make changes before it froze again. This quickly proved to be ineffective, especially since I wasn’t sure what the problem was. Luckily, I happened to notice that the CPU temp was up to 85 C as soon as the PC booted up. This is the threshold that the system is supposed to shutdown at, to prevent damage. After reading about this particular processor online, I found out that it runs very hot. Most people were recommending buying a hi-end ($150) CPU fan or a pricy water-cooled system. I thought it preposterous that Intel would release a chip that one would need to take such ridiculous measures to cool…even in a idle state. I was surprised how many people were having this issue as I saw none of these in the customer ratings. Once again I was very frustrated. Before doing anything drastic, I decided to remove the heatsink and make sure the CPU was seated correctly. In doing so, I noticed that nearly none of the thermal compound had come in contact with the heatsink, so it wasn’t really dissapating the heat at all. This would definately cause the CPU to reach 85 degrees immediately after being powered on. So, I grabbed the tube of thermal compound and squeezed every last ounce (which wasn’t much) onto the CPU. This time putting the heatsink back on, I took more care in tightening the mounting bolts (a few turns at a time each), to make sure it was evenly contacting the processor. Once again, I powered on the PC, went into the BIOS and the CPU was showing at 29 C, after idling for a few minutes, it was up to a whopping 31 degrees!! Phew! Yet another hurdle was crossed.

I was able to install Windows XP, updates and some anti-virus software all without any further issue, and amazingly fast. In fact, Windows XP starts up near-instantly due to the dual-core processor and 1 GB of ram. The final step was to fix the case switch by stripping and re-soldering a loose wire. So it appears that I now have a stable system. Despite all of the trouble, it is a pretty hi-powered system for under $200, after rebates.

In the end, I’ve learned a few things,

1. Don’t ever, ever, ever buy another case from DiabloTek…ever.
2. Tigerdirect.com rebates are a good thing, now realizing you can get them after about 2 weeks (via Paypal), instead of 8-12.
3. Never by a power-supply without having it tested first.

Well, I feel much better after venting this frustrating yet educational experience. Until 3.0…