Parts (geek warning)

I've been trying to upload pictures to the blog for awhile now without too much success. I finally got one uploaded which shows the inside of my rebuilt computer.



The package that was shipped to me in a previous post was a new motherboard for my desktop computer, which I wanted to upgrade. I brought back a bunch of new components for my computer during my trip back to the US back on Thanksgiving, and so much has changed it is pretty much a whole new computer. Here are the new parts:

Asus P5N32-E SLI Motherboard
Intel's E6600 Core 2 Duo Processor
Seasonic M12 700 watt power supply
Corsair XMS2 (PC2 6400) 2GB memory
Two eVGA Geforce 7900GT 256m graphics cards (in SLI mode)
Western Digital Raptor 150gig hard drive
Western Digital Caviar 320gig hard drive
NEC DVD Burner
Thermalright Ultra-90 heatsink for CPU

I got the last part (the motherboard) the day before I went on vacation and it took about 3 to 4 hours to put all of it together and it runs great! I've tested out a few programs that would not run on my old system, such as Battlefield 2 and Medieval 2 Total War, and they run great and look awesome. I even got a chance to log into Everquest before I left for vacation (and the earthquake happened) and turned the graphics settings all of the way up... Nice! Almost like a new game after playing it for years at a low graphics setting. I want to see how Everquest 2 looks after the internet connection here has improved, but as it is now I can't do anything with my internet connection at home.

It seemed to be running kind of hot when I first started testing it, but after adding a third fan and moving them around it is running much cooler. I have one 92mm fan pulling air through the CPU heatsink, a 80mm fan pulling air into through the bottom of the case, another 80mm fan blowing air out the back of the case, and a 120mm fan in the power supply blowing air out. I am thinking of switching the CPU fan so that it blows air through the heatsink rather than pull air through it to reduce the wear and tear on the fan itself since it currently has the heat coming through the fan, but it would be moved further from the fan which blows air out of the case which might not run as cool. I'll have to try it out and see what happens. And even with all of the fans running it is very quiet. The only thing that makes noise is the DVD drive.

When it is running idle the temperature is at around 30°C for the CPU and around 35°C for the motherboard. Running a lot of programs runs the temperature up, but it has not gone above 50°C now that the fans are well placed and the thermal grease between the CPU and heatsink has settled some. The graphics cards seem to stay at around 50°C to 53°C, and I might look into ways to cool those off later. I don't think I am going to overclock anything on it, since that adds to the heat and also reduces the lifespan of the components. It would be a major pain to replace them.