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COMPUTERS: Do-it-yourself & learn A PC TO DIE FOR Blinding speed, lots of memory, huge hard disk & DVD drive – you can have it all Why build your own PC? Why not? It’s fun and it’s easy to do. You will know exactly what has been put into your machine and you will know enough to be able to do upgrades later on, if and when that becomes necessary. T By GREG SWAIN The Asus A7V133 is a superb motherboard that’s designed for use with AMD’s Athlon and Duron Processors. 4  Silicon Chip HERE COMES a time for most people when they become dissatisfied with their old machine and start hankering for something which will really do the job. That happened to me just recently. Sure, my old machine was OK and had been functioning well for the last few years. But I knew that it was pretty pedes­ trian compared to the latest machines running at 1GHz or more. I wanted one – and I wanted it now. And I wanted it with all the fancy bits! The only problem was, the boss didn’t want to pay full whack for all the latest hardware that I wanted. Now Leo can be pretty unimaginative some­ times. He could see that the machine on my desk was still running OK – so why change it? However, I eventually conned ... er persuaded ... him that we could save some dollars if I did all the work of putting it together and then we could show readers how straightforward it all was. That convinced him. So the approach outlined here shows how to build a high performance machine for the home. That meant it had to have all the multi-media bits such as DVD-ROM drive, a video card with TV output sockets (S-video and video) and a first rate sound card. After all, that’s what most dedicated PC users really lust after, isn’t it. Afterwards, it would be relatively easy for us to convert our “home” PC to office use by adding a network card and ZIP drive and by swapping the operating system from Windows Me to the much more robust (and expensive) Windows 2000. However, we wanted to initially use Windows Me, since this is the operating system most home users would use and we wanted to prove that it ran OK on our chosen hardware combination. It’s up to you whether you use exactly the same parts specified for our PC or substitute other brands. You might want to save money by using a lower cost motherboard, for example, or by downgrading the processor and/ or hard disk drive. And, of course, a CD-ROM drive is much cheaper than a DVD drive. You might also want to strip parts out of an exist­ ing machine but be careful of this approach. Some older parts, such as hard disk drives, video cards and slow memory, can seriously com­­promise performance. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from using floppy disk and CD-ROM drives, an existing keyboard and mouse, and an existing soundcard. A word of advice here – try to buy the main bits, including the motherboard, CPU and hard disk drive, from the same retailer. That way, you can buy an OEM (original equipment manu­facturer) version of the operating system, as well as an OEM mouse and soundcard, which is a “helluva” lot cheaper than buying the full retail versions. Check on warranty too but be aware that warranty doesn’t cover accidents – damage any of the parts and it’s your wallet that will suffer. The shopping list The accompanying panel shows our shopping list, together with the total cost. It also shows the savings that can be made by downgrading the processor, DVD drive and memory. Let’s look at some of the main bits. At the top of the heap is the processor. 1GHz is the “magic” processor It only takes a couple of hours to assemble a fully working machine like this. 1GHz Computer System Shopping List Item Price AMD Athlon 1GHz Processor...............................................................$389.00 Asus A7V133 Socket A Motherboard...............................................$295.00 2 x 128Mb 133MHz SDRAM ...............................................................$230.00 Prolink GeForce2 MX Graphics Card..................................................$209.99 20GB Quantum Fireball AS ATA100 Hard Disk (7200 rpm).......$245.00 Mitsubishi 16/40x DVD-ROM Drive .................................................$225.00 Creative SoundBlaster Live Value Soundcard (OEM)..................... $115.00 Panasonic 1.44Mb Floppy Drive.............................................................. $30.00 Logitech 104-Key PS/2 keyboard......................................................... $59.00 Microsoft PS/2 Intellimouse (OEM).................................................... $45.00 ATX Tower Case....................................................................................... $79.00 Philips 107S 17-inch Monitor...............................................................$445.00 Speakers: Philips Multimedia Pedestal................................................ $49.00 Operating System: Microsoft Windows Me (OEM).......................$225.00 Total: $2640.00 Downgrade & Save: substitute 950MHz AMD Athlon CPU – save $50.00; substitute 850MHz Duron CPU – save $200.00; substitute Mitsubishi 52x CD-ROM drive for DVD drive - save $146; delete 128MB of memory – save $115.00. June 2001  5 The first step is to install the CPU – it only fits in the socket one way, so don’t force it. Try not to touch the pins, to prevent damage to the CPU by static electricity. number these days and we’ve gone for a 1GHz AMD Athlon processor mated to an Asus A7V133 motherboard. In terms of price/performance ratio, this combination is hard to beat. At around $389, the 1GHz Athlon processor sits right in the middle of AMD’s range and costs considerably less than a similarly rated Intel Pentium III. You can shave $80 off the price by dropping back to a 900MHz processor or spend another $90 to get the 1.1GHz unit or $166 for the top-of-the-range 1.2GHz chip. For those interested in the technical details, the Athlon processor runs off a 200MHz front-side bus (FSB), has 128KB of L1 cache and 256KB of L2 cache. Some versions can even run off a 266MHz FSB but these cost more than comparable 200MHz FSB proces­sors. By contrast, a Pentium III processor runs off a 133MHz FSB and has 32KB of L1 cache (the L2 cache is the same as the Ath­lon’s). In non-technical terms, it means that the 1GHz Athlon pro­cessor gives you a lot of bang for your buck. For those on a budget, you can cut costs by substituting an AMD Duron processor. These are available as 750MHz, 800MHz and 850MHz models and cost between about $145 and $225. The Duron is no slouch either; it’s essentially a cutdown version of the Athlon and is an excellent choice for those on a budget. The motherboard You can’t just buy any motherboard to go with your proces­ sor. That’s because different processors use different sockets, so you must select a motherboard to suit. AMD Athlon and Duron processors both require “Socket A” motherboards and there This view shows how the step in the heatsink goes over the step in the socket when it’s all locked down. Don’t forget to plug the fan lead into the fan connector on the motherboard. 6  Silicon Chip Make sure that the CPU is properly seated in the socket before closing the lever to lock it into position. The lever goes all the way down and is secured under a socket tab. are quite a few well-known brands to choose from. The Asus A7V133 motherboard that we’ve specified is a beau­ty. This up-tothe minute design runs both the Athlon and AMD Duron processors and has a number of interesting features, including 200/266MHz front-side bus support for the CPU and support for up to 1GB of PC133 SDRAM. It also features optional Ultra DMA/100 support for the new fast IDE hard disk drives, has five PCI slots, an AGP slot and an AMR (audio modem riser) slot. The Ultra DMA/100 support is based on a Promise controller chip and this also supports an interesting feature called RAID level 0. RAID 0 allows two identical hard disks to be written to in parallel, so that one disk is a “mirror” of the other. This means that everything is effectively backed up to a second hard disk and The memory modules are fitted by opening the retaining brackets and pushing the modules down into position. The notches along the contact edge must match the corresponding ridges in the memory sockets. The heatsink/fan assembly must be orientated so that the step in the base mates with the step in the socket. Place it flat on the CPU and fit one clip to the socket to start with. this provides redundancy in case one disk fails. You won’t want this for a home computer but it is well worthwhile in many business applications. Another impressive feature of the Asus motherboard is its so-called “JumperFree Mode”. When this is selected, the processor speed and voltage (Vcore) settings are automatically detected by the system BIOS, so you don’t have to enter in the details your­ self – no chances of a mistake here! Alternatively, if you want to experiment with overclocking, you can enter in custom settings for the bus speed, CPU clock multiplier and CPU Vcore voltage. You don’t have to make big jumps in CPU speed either – this board allows the external system front-side bus speed to be tweaked in 1MHz steps (from 90-133MHz) so you can play around to your heart’s content to extract that last ounce of performance from the processor. That said, we don’t recommend overclocking unless you are very experienced and know exactly what you are doing. The perfor­mance gains are at best marginal and come with increased risk of system instability and processor damage. In particular, playing with the Vcore voltage setting can quickly “fry” the processor. Disabling the “JumperFree” mode allows you to set the front-side bus and CPU clock multiplier frequencies using on-board DIP switches, in the conventional manner. We’re not too sure why you would want to this, however. If you’ve just paid for some fancy technology, why not take the easy (and safe) way out and let the BIOS do it all for you? The other clip on the heatsink is pushed down into position using a nutdriver. Don’t use a screwdriver – it could easily slip and damage the motherboard. By the way, the CPU frequency is simply the bus frequency multiplied by the clock multiplier. For a 1GHz CPU, a 100MHz bus frequency is used along with a x10 multiplier (ie, 100MHx x 10 = 1000MHz = 1GHz). This means that if you bump the bus frequency up to 101MHz, the processor will run at 101MHz x 10 = 1010MHz. Of course, you’d have to overclock the processor much more than this before there were any noticeable performance gains. But remember – every notch brings with it the risk of instability and damage. Other goodies What about some of the other “good- ies” on our list? Well, there’s a 20GB Quantum Fireball AS (7200 rpm) hard disk drive, a Mitsu­ bishi DVD-ROM drive, a Prolink GeForce2 MX video card, a Creative SoundBlaster Live sound card and 256MB of memory. And we’ve specified Windows Me as the operating system. Windows Me will run with 64MB of memory but we recommend 128MB as the minimum. We went for 256MB because RAM is cheap at the moment and it all helps, especially if you plan to run heavy-duty applications. The hard disk drive selected is a 7200 rpm Ultra ATA/100 unit which gives excellent performance. In theory, an Ultra ATA/100 drive can transfer data in 100MB/s bursts but don’t Fit the metal standoffs in the correct locations, so that they match the mounting holes in the mother­board. Take care with this – get one wrong and it could short the motherboard to the case and cause damage. June 2001  7 (go for the 107T if you want a flat screen), a Logitech keyboard with lots of bells and whistles, a heatsink/fan assembly for the CPU, an ATX case and various other odds and ends. An IEC power cord and a bag containing screws and metal standoffs were supplied inside the case. Don’t skimp when buying a monitor. A 17-inch model is the recommended standard these days and the Philips 107S fills the bill nicely. We went one better and specified the optional “Multimedia Base” for the monitor. As well as the swivel support, this base includes inbuilt power amplifiers and speakers to remove the clutter from your desktop. It also features headphone and microphone connectors, a bass boost switch and a volume control. Building it The motherboard slides easily into the case, with the external connectors protruding through matching slots in the back of the case. Make sure it is correctly aligned before fitting the retaining screws. sweat it if you want to use an existing ATA/66 (or even ATA/33) drive – the motherboard is backwards compatible and the performance differences are not that dramatic. As for the graphics card, it’s based on the all-important nVIDIA GeForce2 MX chip and comes with 32MB of memory. Costing around $215, this is an excellent all-round performer although really serious gamers will always lust after something a lot more expensive – such as a 3D Prophet II GTS Ultra (where to they get those names?) for around $880! And the rest of the bits? . . . well, they’re really just bits. There’s a nice 17-inch Philips Model 107S monitor Once the motherboard is locked down, you can fit the ATX power connector to its matching socket. It only goes one way around due to the rounded corner at one end of the socket. 8  Silicon Chip OK – let’s put it together but first the obligatory warning about static electricity. Just about all the parts that go into a modern PC can be damaged by static electricity, so you must take a few basic precautions to prevent this: (1) leave each part in its protec­tive anti-static bag until it’s required; (2) don’t touch any of the electronic circuitry; and (3) regularly touch the bare metal case to discharge yourself of static electricity before han­dling any of the parts. Our series of photographs pretty much show how it all goes together and it’s mostly just a matter of checking the manuals and using your common sense. The first thing to do is to inspect the jumper settings on the Asus mother­ board. The default settings are the ones to go for and this includes leaving the unit in “JumperFree” mode – unless you particularly want to manually set the processor speed using the onboard DIP switches. This done, you can follow these steps to complete the assembly. STEP 1: INSTALL THE CPU & FAN/HEATSINK ASSEMBLY To install these parts, first lay the motherboard flat on the table on top of its antistatic packaging foam. This done, move the handle of the processor socket to the vertical position, insert the CPU and push the handle down again to lock it into place. The processor only fits one way The plastic dress cover on the front of the floppy drive had to be removed before fitting the drive to the Adelong ATX tower case that we used. The cover simply clips off. (there are blank pin posi­tions in two of the corners) and you must make sure that it is properly seated in its socket before locking it down. The heatsink fan assembly can now be fitted to the proces­sor. This bit is important – there is a step in the bottom of the heatsink. This step must go over the a corresponding raised step at the back of the socket. Once you’ve determined the heat­ sink orientation, peel the protective strip off the thermal contact pad, then position it close to the CPU and push one of the locking brace clips (ie, the one without the hook) over its matching socket spigot. The heat­sink can then be carefully seated on the CPU and the retaining clip (with the hook) at the other end pushed down and clipped into place. The floppy and hard disk drives slide in from the rear. The floppy drive release button should just make contact with the pushbutton switch on the front of the case. A nutdriver is the best tool to use to push this re­taining clip into position. Do not use a screwdriver – one slip and the motherboard is cactus (and you won’t get warranty). The next step is critical – plug the 3-pin lead from the heatsink/fan assembly into the CPU/FAN connector on the mother­board. STEP 2: FIT THE MEMORY MODULES The two 128MB memory modules go in next. These only fit one way and are orientated so that the notches along the contact edge match corresponding ridges in the memory sockets. Installing a memory module is simply a matter of opening the white retaining arms, then firmly pushing the module down into the socket until the arms snap back into position. Check the jumper setting on the back of the hard disk drive before installing it in the drive bay. The jumper settings are shown on a label. STEP 3: FIT THE MOTHERBOARD INTO THE CASE Before actually fitting the mother­ board, you have to fit the standoffs into posi­tion. Our case came with metal standoffs but you may be supplied mainly with plastic standoffs and a couple of metal standoffs which are usually fitted to two central positions near the rear of the case. Assuming the use of metal standoffs, these should all be installed on the motherboard panel using a nut-driver. If neces­sary, do a trial fit of the motherboard to determine which loca­tions are used for the standoffs. Don’t overtighten the standoffs – you’ll strip the threads if you do. Once the standoffs are all secured, lower the motherboard into position. Make sure that all the mounting holes The DVD-ROM drive slides in from the front of the case. Be sure to set the jumper to the correct position on the back of this drive as well, before fitting it to the case. June 2001  9 The panel connector leads go to the pin headers on the bottom righthand corner of the mother board. The lead connectors are clearly marked, so they’re easy to identify. The video card plugs into the brown AGP slot on the motherboard and is secured to the backplane bracket. Make sure it is properly seated in its slot. The sound card plugs into one of the white PCI expansion slots. It is a good idea to fit the audio cable from the CDROM drive first, to make the job easier. The Asus motherboard comes with this 2-port USB expansion card. It attaches to a backplane bracket and connects to a USB header on the motherboard. line up correctly, then secure the board using the supplied retaining screws. STEP 4: INSTALL THE DISK DRIVES With the motherboard secured, you can slide the floppy disk and hard disk drives into the case. The case we used came with a moulded opening for the floppy disk drive, complete with release button. This necessitated removing the plastic dress cover on the front of the floppy drive (it just clips off), so that it could be pushed far enough for­ward in the drive cage. It was also necessary to remove the breakaway metal barrier at the end of the drive cage. Secure this drive using the screws supplied with the case. Now check the jumper setting on the back of the hard disk drive. Make sure that’s it’s correctly set for a single drive – the settings will be shown on 10  Silicon Chip the drive label and, if it’s a new drive, the default setting is usually correct. However, if you intend using two hard disk drives on the same IDE port, the boot drive is set as a master and the other drive is configured as a slave. On some drives, the master and single drive (DS) settings are the same; on others, they’re different – look at the drive label. Assuming that the jumper setting is correct, slide the hard disk drive into the bottom of the drive cage and again secure it using the screws supplied. Unlike the other two drives, the DVD-ROM drive slides in from the front. It must be mounted fairly high up (using either of the top two bays), otherwise the motherboard prevents it from being pushed all the way home. Be sure to check its jumper set­ting at the back – this should be set to master since the DVD-ROM connects to a separate IDE port. If you later decide to add a ZIP drive to the same port, the DVD-ROM drive can be left as is and the ZIP drive configured as a slave. An unusual feature of our case was the inclusion of metal breakaway barriers directly behind the plastic panels covering the drive bays. It’s probably a good idea to remove all these, so that they don’t come adrift later on and short something out. STEP 5: CONNECT THE PANEL LEADS By now, you will be well aware of the twisted lead pairs that have been “flapping” about inside the case. These run off to the front panel switches and LEDs and to the internal speaker, and must be connected to the header pin panel in the bottom right­hand corner of the motherboard. You will need to refer to the mother­ board manual to find out which lead goes where. It’s easy to identify the leads them­selves, since the lead connectors are all clearly marked. Note that, depending on your case, some of the options will not be used (eg, we didn’t use the “Message LED” and “Suspend” options that are on this particular motherboard). STEP 6: CONNECT THE POWER & DRIVE CABLES It’s hard to make a mistake when plugging in the drive cables – just remember that for CD-ROM drives and hard disk drives, pin 1 (the red coloured lead) is always closest to the power connector. The hard disk drive should be connected to the primary ATA/100 connector on the motherboard, while the DVD-ROM drive is connected to the primary IDE port. This bit is important: in each case, you must plug the blue connector at the end of the ATA/100 (80-conductor) drive cables into the motherboard. The black connector at the far end of the cable then goes to the drive. Don’t use the grey connector in the middle of the drive cable and leave the one at the far end free. When playing around with Ultra ATA/100 stuff, it’s best not to have an unterminated “stub” at the end of the cable. The only time you use the middle connector is when you have two drives connected to the same port (one as a master, the other as a slave). In case you’re wondering, the 80-conductor cables work fine with older disk drives (both hard disk and CD-ROM). However, don’t use the older 40-conductor cables for Ultra DMA/666/100 connections, as they will cause problems. Take care when connecting the cable to the floppy disk drive – its red lead faces in the opposite direction to the hard disk and DVD-ROM drive cables (ie, it goes to the left when looking at the drive from the rear). You must also use the con­nector that’s at the very end of the cable to make the connection (the middle connector is used only if you have two floppy drives, which is rare these days). The power connectors can now be plugged into the mother­ board and disk drives. You can’t plug them in the wrong way around, since they only go in one way due to the shape of the socket. The trick with any of this stuff is don’t force it. Use cable ties to secure the excess drive cables, to keep everything neat and tidy. This also ensures that the drive cable cannot possibly foul the fan and prevent it from working properly. It’s a good idea to use cable ties to secure the drive cables, power cables and the twisted pair leads, to keep every­thing looking neat and tidy. It also helps reliability, since it prevents leads from coming adrift. STEP 7: INSTALL THE VIDEO & SOUND CARDS We don’t really have to tell you how to do this. The video card plugs into the AGP slot (that’s the brown connector), while the sound card plugs into one of the white PCI slots. It will be necessary to remove the relev­ant breakaway metal backplane strips WHERE TO BUY THE PARTS All the parts used in this computer system came from Adelong Com­ puters, 54 Rosebery Ave, Rose­bery, NSW 2018; phone (02) 8344 3190. Their website address is www.adelong.com.au; email info<at>ade­long.com.au Normally, this system would cost $2640 but for this month only Adelong is prepared to reduce the price to $2450. Alternatively, you can buy the system fully built and configured for $2499 with a 3-year onsite warranty. before installing the cards. Note that you have to connect an audio cable between the DVD-ROM drive and the “CD IN” socket of the sound card (cables will be supplied with both units, so you will have one spare). It will be easier to connect this cable before installing the sound card in its slot. Once again, use a couple of cable ties to tidy up the excess lead length. STEP 8: INSTALL THE 2-PORT USB BOARD The Asus motherboard includes two on-board USB ports plus an additional USB header. This header connects to a small PC board fitted with two more USB connectors and this assembly is attached to a backplane bracket. It’s up to you whether you install this “2-Port USB Connec­tor Set” or not. If you think that you’re going to need more than two USB ports, simply mount the connector set bracket in a vacant backplane position and run the cable from it back to the USB header on the motherboard. Delayed switch-on OK, the machine is finished. We’re not going to switch it on and install the operating system just yet though. That will have to wait until next month. In the meantime, you can buy the bits SC and get started. June 2001  11