Want to assemble your PC yourself? Nothing easier!
At last I completed my short review about my sleepless week. I had assembled almost 15 PCs. Of course, you will say that you can do it in 2 days, but I was limited with components. They were arriving in different time, with interval 2-3 days. So after clicking ‘more’ you will see full version
So let’s get it started… I got order from my old friend. He opened small company and needed a computer staff to make company working. The main requirement was – not expensive computers, maximum was $500 on each one with TFT monitor. I tell you it was hard to select hardware to assemble PC. It meant only one thing: all components would be cheap Chinese. Exclusion was motherboard – Asus P5GV-MX. So I selected such components:
- Intel Celeron J326J 2,53GHz BOX (533MHz, 256k)
- s775 ASUS P5GV-MX i915GV/4xDDR/PCI-X16/SATA/PCI-E/VGA/SB/LAN/USB2.0/mATX
- DIMM DDR 512Mb PC3200 Hynix
- SATA2 Hitachi 80Gb, 8Mb SATA II
- Deluxe DLC-MD372 Black-Silver 300W P4
- Mouse A4 OP-620 Black PS/2
- Keyboard Gembird KB-7400-R Slim PS/2
- “Monitor 19″” Philips 190S6FG”
- DVD-RW LG GSA-4167BBB 48x32x48x/16x8x16x Silver
Let’s discuss each point. At first why I chose Intel platform. On that moment Intel’s processors were the cheapest offer with box cooler, which is really not bad. Also cooler is quiet and effective. And I’m fan of Intel, since it has released Core 2 Duo 
.
Motherboard – motherboard’s cost is medium. As you see it has integrated video. For the office needs it’s full enough. As I knew the only applications that would be used on those PCs were Microsoft Word and Solitaire.
Memory – no comments.
HDD – the cheapest HDD which was available at that moment.
Case – the cheapest I’ve ever seen. Of course, excluding LinkWorld. But at least these cases don’t break in your hands. The quality is… Have you ever seen Codegen cases? Well, it’s worse than Codegen.
Mouse – the cheapest optical mouse.
Keyboard – the cheapest and the ugliest keyboard J.
Monitor – the main requirements for monitor were: LCD, 19 inch, the cheapest (doesn’t remind you anything?). My impressions about this monitors read further.
DVD-RW – standard de-facto as for me. LG is much better than Nec, which had many bugs with last models. And cheaper than Asus.
So, that’s the main configuration for 14 computers. The last one was for the owner of the company and my friend. So the configuration was much better:
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (200MHz, sAM2) Box
- Socket AM2 Asus M2N-E, nForce570 Ultra, ATX
- 2xDIMM DDR-2 512Mb PC4300 Hynix
- PCI-E GeForce 7600GS Albatron 256Mb TV-out, DVI-out
- SATA2 Samsung HD300LJ 300Gb, 7200 rpm, 8 Mb cache
- DVD-RW LG GSA-4167BBB 48x32x48x/16x8x16x
- Case Chieftec Bravo LBX-01B-B-SL/400 (GPS-400AA-101A) USB 2.0, Audio, IEEE1394 [Chieftec
As you see it’s much more expensive than first configuration. By the way this PC without monitor costs like two first PCs with monitors. Why it’s so expensive you will ask? Because it has dual-core processor, 1 gb memory and nice, but not powerful videocard – Geforce 7600GS. Albatron wasn’t chosen, it was the only available 7600GS.
After all configurations were approved I began to assemble them. I won’t say that deliveries were at time. As a matter of fact they were delayed for few days, because my suppliers are stinkers. But when they at last have arrived I began to assemble PCs. At first I assembled ‘big boss’computer. What can I say? It was a dream for assembler to make such PC. Big case, almost like server case of the beginning level. Nice motherboard without coolers. Allow me to remind you – Asus equips M2N-E with heat pipe. Badly I don’t have camera at that moment, so I can’t provide you photos of this computer. Just one snapshot of the case and one of the motherboard.
Other computers were assembled in two days. After assembling I have just wait for monitors deliveries. The process of assembling simple PC is simple:
- Take out everything from the boxes ;
- install processor on motherboard;
- install cooler on processor and motherboard;
- insert motherboard to the case;
- insert HDD and DVD-RW;
- install memory;
- if you have videocard – install it;
- connect all cables;
- install OS;
- enjoy.
Before installing OS you must mark your HDD by logical drives. Microsoft Windows XP offers it during installation.
Each computer took almost an hour of time. Instead of installing system on each computer (Windows XP) I installed only 1 time. On others computers I just used image created with Acronis Image (I hope Microsoft doesn’t visit my blog). But I have one problem installing image. I couldn’t use cd-rom to boot image loader, because there was the image itself. Acronis developers couldn’t make self-bootable image and they got my big minus for this. I had to make bootable flash. Thanks, Acronis could make at least this. On several PCs bootloader was hung and I had to install system manually. Remember that you can install image only on the equal PC with equal hardware. On others it won’t work.
Again I have to wait for few days for monitors to be delivered. After this I went my way to the new office and installed all PCs. Few words about monitors. I won’t say they have nice picture, but they cost less than Samsung! And don’t have any problems with subpixels. Week ago I had to change Samsung 920n two times, because there was 1 subpixel. And it’s just one monitor. Instead of Samsung, who exchanges monitors, only when there are 3 subpixels, Philips exchanges any monitor with at least 1 subpixel! And on the 14 monitors there wasn’t any subpixel. ‘Big boss’ had received Samsung 970P. Awesome monitor, but it has own problems with fastening. This problem was solved in 971P model. Well, that’s all folks. Computers were installed and work perfect now (in spite of its cost). If you have some questions with assembling PC or want some advice about hardware you can ask me free. In comments below, please.
Written by mente on November 5th, 2006 with
2 comments.
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