Tag: hard drive

Finally Updated!

I must start this post with an apology to anyone who is subscribed to my feed!

Earlier today I finally upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.5. At the same time I took the opportunity to clean out my database, quite literally I reformatted my blog!

This involved me exporting all my posts, and blogroll, deleting all WordPress files, apart from my theme and wp-config.php, and then deleting all the WordPress tables from the database!
Then I installed the new version of WordPress and ran through the install. I then deleted the test post, and updated some of the options. I then imported all of my old posts into the fresh install.

That was only this morning, now what have I been doing for the past two weeks since my last post?
The answer, nothing much!

The only notable exception is that I have finally got my new computer up and running!

I installed both Fedora 7 and Windows XP onto the first hard drive, Linux on 100Gb, and Windows on 60Gb.
I am using the 500Gb hard drive for all of my files, on Linux this is mounted as /home

The new computer is working brilliantly, and its so much quieter than my previous computers!
I’ve just got to get a set of speakers, and possibly a new heat sink/fan for the processor, and that will be it sorted!

It’s getting quite late now, so thats it for this post
Till next week!

New Computer Built

If anyone has been keeping an eye on my Flickr account, you may have noticed pictures of my new computer being built have appeared!
They are the best of the ones I took, and unfortunately don’t show every step I took in building the computer.

I started the build on the fourth of March (Tuesday) by fitting the power supply, motherboard, cpu, memory and DVD drive inside the case.
Then on the eighth (Saturday) I fitted the two hard drives, and connected all the cables!

The build went quite well, I brought a few extra bits that I didn’t actually need, but at the time thought I did need! Lol!

I found a few limitations with the case during the build, one of them being the extra hard drive bay in the bottom of the case right behind the power supply, I feel it was a little cramped, and that there was barely any room for the cables coming out of the back of the power supply!

There is practically no cable management built into the case!

And finally the external drive bays, only one side of the case can be opened, which means that only one side of any drive fitted is attached, but there is some support provided to hold the drive up.

There is also the problem of the blanking plates on the front. I found I could not remove the plastic blanking plate from the outside of the case, and I couldn’t push it out from the inside because of a metal plate that had to be broken off first.
Having the metal plate there may help with the cooling, or keeping the system quiet, but maybe there should be some easier way to remove it?

That’s all I have time for in this post, but I’ll post more details when I get another chance!

Till then,
Happy computing!

Finally got the hard drives!

I’ve finally gone and got the hard drives, and DVD drive for my new computer

And here’s a nice photo
Hard drives and DVD rewriter
The photo shows the DVD rewriter drive (top) and the two hard drives (bottom)

The details are:

DVD Rewriter: LG GSA-H66NBAL 20x DVDRW/RAM Black – SATA £13.85
Product Details: (Could not find specific details on website)

Hard Drive #1: 160GB Samsung Spinpoint SATA2 8MB £24.55
Product Details: http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/spec.do?group=computersperipherals& type=harddiskdrives&subtype=spinpointpseries&model_cd=HD160JJ
Hard Drive #2: 500GB Samsung Spinpoint SATA2 16MB £46.95 (on offer at the time normally £48.95)
Product Details: http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/spec.do?group=computersperipherals& type=harddiskdrives&subtype=spinpointtseries&model_cd=HD501LJ

That’s a total of £89.15 exc VAT
Delivery was an extra £9.95 (I chose a morning delivery)
The VAT came to £17.34
Which brings the total to £116.44

That means that the total price for my new computer comes to £369.78

Now I just have to build it now, that’ll be fun! Lol!

That’s all for this post now!
Till next time!

New Computer Specs/Wish List

I have been doing a lot of research over the past couple of days, and I have some of the final specifications for my new computer all sorted out!

Processor: AMD 64 X2 3800+ – About £40

Motherboard: MSI K9N SLI-2F – £44.25
Its a motherboard using the NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI chipset

Memory: Corsair 2GB PC2-6400 XMS2 (2x1GB) – £49.99
Its just 2GB of memory!

Graphics card: ATi Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB PCI-Express – £69.95
I know it’s not top of the line, but it is going to be way more powerful than what I have at the moment, and what I will b using it for!

Total: £204.19
The price doesn’t include a Hard drive, PSU, CPU cooler, case, or an optical drive (DVD/CD drive), but it is the base system, and gives me an idea of how much it will all come to!

I am stuck on what case to get, I could do with one that puts the motherboard on the opposite side of the, which would mean the motherboard is upside-down!
This is because the computer will be sitting on my right, and the left side (looking at the computer) will be up against the side of the desk
At the very least I don’t want any vents or cooling fans on the left side!

The missing components for my computer will be:

  1. A 200GB SATA hard drive – About £30
  2. A 450W – 500W PSU – About £50
  3. A combo DVDRW and CD-RW SATA drive – About £20
  4. CPU Cooler – About £20
  5. Case – About £50

Total: £170

Total1: £204.19
Total2: £170.00
Total: £374.19
VAT @ 17.5%: £65.48
Total: £439.67

Nearly £450 for a computer, some of the figures are estimates, but post and packaging hasn’t been added to the total, so it could be more!
I don’t think the specifications for the computer are that bad, it will mainly only be used for web browsing, and general home use, I wont be playing games on it!

One thing that is on my wish list that I haven’t added is a TV card, but I’ll add that at a later date!

I will create a separate post when I get more details on pricing for the other components

Until then,
Bye

The prices for the above were taken from the Aria website