Building a PC

[gpraceman]

My normal desktop has 3 fans: PS, Case and CPU. The two latest PC's have a solid side case and a large front-side filter to (hopefully) keep the bunnies out! Air c omes in the front and out the back. If I were really clever, I'd figure a way to keep the exhaust air under better control ... to warm my bride's feet in the winter and warm the squirrels in the summer.

Well, if I count the CPU and PS fans, there are 5 total with my new system. Should be lots of good air flow. However, in the drier and dustier air here in Colorado, I may be blowing dust bunnies out more than twice a year. Though, even with that many fans, my older computer makes more noise than this one.

[Stan Pope]

Well, if I count the CPU and PS fans, there are 5 total with my new system. Should be lots of good air flow. However, in the drier and dustier air here in Colorado, I may be blowing dust bunnies out more than twice a year. Though, even with that many fans, my older computer makes more noise than this one.

That ought to be more than sufficient! (What engineers call "a good safety margin!")

Is noise influenced by air speed resulting from debris coating the fan and or/fins to reduce the heat transfer efficiency and force the fan to need to run faster? And then there is vibration? Both seem to increase with age.

I'd really like to arrange better management of the inbound air! Filter out the "bunny parts" before they get to be bunnies!

[gpraceman]

I'd really like to arrange better management of the inbound air! Filter out the "bunny parts" before they get to be bunnies!

One problem with filters is that they do restrict the incoming air, more so as they get clogged. If you can find ones that you can easily pull and clean then that would be easier than blowing out the inside of the computer. This also assumes that the fans are providing positive air pressure inside the case; otherwise, any vent holes will allow dusty air in.

I found these filters, http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... s_id=25552. They should be easy to pull and clean. Just not sure how well they work or how much they restrict the air flow.

[Stan Pope]

One approach I've "mentally sketched" is to build a "clean box" in which the entire computer, less K, V, and M, resides. Keys are: (1) Forced air in through a filter and (2) PC exhaust channeled to outlet side. I don't think that the "channeling" needs to be "total" ... just enough that outlet air is primarily from PC exhaust. I could see adding a baffle that mates (approximately) to the rear of the PC cases, resulting in isolation of the rear of the cases from the fronts and sides, which are supplied with filtered air.

The outlet side of the clean box channels air toward my Bride's footstool!

This concept results in positive pressure inside the "clean box" so that leaks are for outgoing air. Theoretically, all of the air taken in by the PCs (there would be 4 of 'em inside the clean box, of course) has been filtered.

Since the clean box has positive pressure, the front may have doors (not too big, please) for inserting / removing CD/DVD's and pushing the power switch. USB's on the other hand, should be accessed via an extender that lives outside the cleanbox.

[Stan Pope]

Had a near meltdown of the new box a couple nights ago after applying an update for Defender. Windows Logs said disk error! Argh! Apparently, the update caused disk usage to get into a bad sector (or some).

The disk in question was recycled from a prior build, but I thought I had any "bad stuff" taken care of ... not so!

A few hours of "diskchk" (it takes a while to check sectors, including the free sectors, on a 500GB drive) and downloading a few hundred MB of replacement files and I was back in business. But, I was sweating it for a while.

Randy, I think you said you had a TB drive ... I bet a full diskchk on that one would just about be a career!

[gpraceman]

A few hours of "diskchk" (it takes a while to check sectors, including the free sectors, on a 500GB drive) and downloading a few hundred MB of replacement files and I was back in business. But, I was sweating it for a while.

Randy, I think you said you had a TB drive ... I bet a full diskchk on that one would just about be a career!

Sorry to hear about the HDD issue. I opted to get a bit smaller HDD, 640GB. That should be gobs of capacity. Though, I didn't think I'd fill up the 80GB drive on my old system. I did however, get a 1TB external drive that I'll use for backups.

[gpraceman]

Well, after waiting on Microsoft for 6 weeks to fix the problem with getting me re-enrolled in their partner program, I pretty much gave up and I went ahead and bought a copy of Vista Business x64. I got it installed yesterday.

The the least pleasant part of building this PC is getting all of my software and files installed. I spent most of my time yesterday installing software, installing any updates, installing plug-ins, and making sure it all is working. That is pretty much done, so I am backing up my old system so I can transfer over all of my data files. At least I don't also have to uninstall a bunch of demo and otherwise useless software that comes pre-installed on off the shelf systems.

There is one problem that I haven't figured out yet. When I reboot, it will not re-establish the Internet connection. I have to run the diagnostics and repair utility to get it to work. It was working fine for most of yesterday, but at some point it stopped working.

[Rod Turnbull]

While you are backing up things, make a backup of the new system as it sits now before transferring over files from your old computer. It is always nice to have a backup of a fresh install incase things go wrong when migrating over old systems.

Also can we assume that the wireless connection is set to auto connect rather than manual connect? Just figured you would have checked that as well as the order they connect to preferred networks... sometimes a neighbors system can get bumped to the top of the list and it tries to get in on their network first instead of yours.

[gpraceman]

Also can we assume that the wireless connection is set to auto connect rather than manual connect? Just figured you would have checked that as well as the order they connect to preferred networks... sometimes a neighbors system can get bumped to the top of the list and it tries to get in on their network first instead of yours.

No wireless on this system. It is hardwired to my router.

I have to run the [get new IP settings for the network adapter "local area connection"] in the diagnostics and repair utility to get it working. I'll try reinstalling the LAN drivers to see if that helps.

[gpraceman]

Well, re-installing the drivers did not resolve the problem.

[Rod Turnbull]

It maybe router settings... try setting the IP address stactically and see if that corrects the problem. ...and sorry I just assumed everything was wireless now, me bad, I didn't read.

Here is one other stupid thought, unplug the router wait 10 seconds and plug it back in and see if that does anything interesting.

[gpraceman]

It maybe router settings... try setting the IP address stactically and see if that corrects the problem. ...and sorry I just assumed everything was wireless now, me bad, I didn't read.

I might have to give that a try. The puzzling thing is that it was working fine through several reboots before this cropped up.

Here is one other stupid thought, unplug the router wait 10 seconds and plug it back in and see if that does anything interesting.

That was one of the first things that I tried.

[Rod Turnbull]

Blame it on one of the patches for windows then.

You might want to check the security setting to see what was updated with the patches.

[Rod Turnbull]

...OR http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

But that is a whole new can of worms.

[gpraceman]

...OR http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

But that is a whole new can of worms.

I'd consider Win7, but not until some bugs are worked out of it. At least on my "bread and butter" machine. I'll put Win7 RC on my laptop so I can verify if there are any problems with running my software on it.