Memory

Well, I'm home now.  After getting back, one of the first things I did besides sleep (jetlag sucks, btw) was check my mail.  Sure enough, there was a package there for me.  It was the memory I ordered.

Now, for those of you who might not know, RAM is your memory, and the more of it you have in your system, the better.  Well, as you may have read in an earlier post, I only had two Gigs of RAM, due to a speed discrepency I found between some of the sticks I had, it was limiting my overclocking potential for my CPU.  Unfortunately, even after the fix, I was still limited two Gigs of still-not-quite-that-fast RAM.  So I ended up ordering 4 Gigs of 1066 MHz RAM (DDR2).  Now its in my system, and it's better than ever.

Next up I have planned an even better upgrade.  I will be going from Win 7 RC to Win 7 Home Preimium.  On a solid state drive!  An OCZ Vertex 30 Gig SSD.  It's only big enough to hold the OS  and maybe one or two programs, but it should improve my initial load time dramatically.  I already have the drive (it's the part I was waiting for in the mail), and now I'm waiting on the OS, which hasn't shipped yet.  I'll post again when I'm ready for the upgrade.

Sound and light.

About a week ago, a problem on my computer became apparent to me. It had no sound. For some reason or other Windows 7RC couldn't see my sound device (the sound chip on my mobo). I went to the manufacturer's website, downloaded the most up to date driver, and installed it. That did absolutely nothing. While thinking about what I could do, I remembered a sound card I got from a bricked computer I had bought earlier. It is a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. It's by no means the best sound card out there, but it should at least fix my problem of no sound at all. Here's a pic of it.

I tried to keep the same functionality the board had with the case, so I tried to find the connectors for the ports to plug in to the card. It might or might not have worked; I have yet to try it. Anyways, the install- besides hunting down the right connectors on a commercial board with no actual labeling-went well. I had to remove the video card so I could get my hand in there and maneuver around, but it went back in just fine. Now I have sound again. It's on the 2006 Windows driver, and I'm downloading Creative's driver for it as I write. It's actually installing now. Anyways, on to the next mod.

I bought a case today. It's just a mid tower, but it's much more spacious than the commercial case everything is in now, so I'm happy. It's a Raidmax Sagitta. It has a clear side panel, 7 expansion card slots, 5 5.25" drive bays, 2 3.5" external drive bays, and 3 3.5" internal drive bays. It's also got a tooless construction, for easy part installation. The fans also light up, and I might install some lighting of my own on the inside. Unfortunately, that's kind of a teaser, because I will not be swapping everything until after I move, in about a week and a half. You'll know all about it when I do though. If you have any tips or suggestions, feel free to leave them as a comment. Now for some eye candy:

A peek inside.

In my first post, I mentioned that I had already made a change to my computer's makeup. About last week, when I had this idea, I already had a few spare parts on hand. Nothing phenominal, mind you, but it was a start. I had two one gig sticks of DDR2 RAM, and a video card. An nVidia 7800GTX 512MB, to be exact. See the picture below. Even better, I had two of them. So, here goes the upgrade.

To get started, I took my PC from it's normal position, detached all it's cables, and moved it to a table. After removing the side panel, I was disappointed. The mobo only had one PCIe 2.0 slot! Fine. I'll only go with one card. But then came the next surprise; there weren't any PCIe power connectors on the power supply, and there weren't enough 4 pin molex connectors to make one! So, I was apparently stuck there. I installed the RAM, and in the meantime, had an idea. I had a spare power supply in the other room that did have a connector. I'd just change them out, and I'd be good.

So, I disconnected all my connectors, unscrewed the power supply, and realized another thing about this rig; the CPU fan rests directly below the power supply. After removing the CPU fan, I was able to pull the PSU out easily. I put the new one in, reconnected everything, screwed the fan back on, and -the point of all this- installed the video card. The bios picked everything right up, and so did Windows 7. All I got from it was a nifty little popup box that said I needed to restart for these changes to take effect. OK.

Now it all runs smooth. I'm even running two 15" monitors now, thanks to dual DVI outputs. All these are temporary measures, though, until I can buy better upgrades. My next objective after this is to move everything into a bigger box, so it will all fit (after realizing that the case everything is in now is DEFINATELY not enough). Hopefully I'll post about that in the next month. There will be other posts in between though, so don't be disappointed. I'll also post pics of what it looks like inside my rig soon. By the way, if anyone has tips for my upcomming mod, please share them in a comment. Until next time.

EDIT: Here are the pics inside I promised;

Pretty cramped, eh?