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How to spend a lunch hour - the Technosexual way

S

Stark

Diamond Member
This being the slowest week of the year and a good time to spend money, I decided to order a Shuttle box to build a new MCE PC to replace my old dual Athlon MP 2000+ system.

I ordered the following from newegg on Monday and it got here yesterday (price included for those contemplating jumping to mce):

Item List

BRBN PC SHUTTLE SB81P RETAIL (Qty=1,Price=$374.00)
VGA LEADTEK GF PX6600GT-128MB RT (Qty=1,Price=$208.50)
CPU P4/3 GHz 800M LGA775 530 RET (Qty=1,Price=$179.00)
DDR 512MB PC3200 BL6464Z402 CRU (Qty=2,Price=$218.00)
HD 160GB|WD1600SD RAID Edition% (Qty=2,Price=$230.00)
KB MS|NATURAL KEYBRD ELITE PS2 REV% (Qty=1,Price=$18.00)
KB&MS LOGITECH DINOVO KEYB/MOUSE RT (Qty=1,Price=$149.00)
DVD+/-RW 16x+|NEC ND-3500A BK (Qty=1,Price=$62.99)
S/W MS|WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER 2005 % (Qty=1,Price=$131.00)
WRLSS-G NET ADAPTER|LINKSYS WUSB54G (Qty=1,Price=$49.99)
IR REMOTE CONTROL BATAM MC GENERIC% (Qty=1,Price=$29.00)

Subtotal:$1,649.48
TAX:$119.59
Shipping and Handling Charge**:$38.02
Total:$1,807.09
Click to expand...
I'm still waiting on this:
HAUPPAUGE WINTV PVR-500 MCE 2 TUNER PCI W/MCE 2005 (White Box) $136.67

Thank you for choosing mwave.com Sub-Total $136.67
Shipping & Handling / Will Call Fee $8.78
Sales Tax (CA 8.25%) $10.59
Order Total $156.04
Click to expand...

Grand Total: $1963.13 (about $1000 less than the dually system built 3 years ago)

Fedex delivered yesterday morning and since things are dead at work, I decided to put everything together on my lunch break. Here's how it went (with pics-tars, thanks Beau).


Ordered on monday, delivered on wed w/standard shipping. Newegg rules!

Not much in the box. MS ergo keyboard for mrs., dinovo bluetooth for me.

A box worth keeping.

box contents

I still don't know what all the holes on the right are for.

first look at the guts

from above

the other side

So that's what PCIe looks like

screwless rails & manuals

IDE drive enclosure removed

starting with the NEC 3500 DVD-RW

which will go here

Tip: remove the front bezel at this point (or you'll have to take it all apart later)

snap-on rails

ready to install

installed in enclosure (I would be adding an IDE HD later, so changed jumper to slave)

P4 3.0 lga 775 - fast enough for under $200 and hopefully to be replaced with an 3.4 EE whenever price comes down

new pull cord on P4 boxes for easy opening

sweet fan... it's almost a shame not to need it

512 megs of CAS 2 Crucial goodness

need to remove the shuttle ICE heatsink/fan

remove air duct on other side

ICE, ICE baby

socket exposed

pop open the hood

Pinless processor

just drops into place (note, the black plastic cover needs to be removed)

cooling gunk

spread it around

locking down the CPU is easy as one, http://pics.priceyoursite.com/.../Stark/shuttle-044.jpg">two, </a>three!

insert memory

Reinstall ICE

reinstall air duct

moving on to the video card

so many games... so little time

prepping the slots (they lock down with the flip latch/screws)

6600GT installed

it's going to be a tight fit when the pvr card arrives

install IDE bay, attach cables (don't forget about the audio lineout to onboard sound)

now time for the HD... these WD were built specifically for RAID applications)

install the rails and they drop right in

opposite view (IDE HD bay can be FDD bay, either/or but not both)

plugged in and ready for RAID

If you're going to be running RAID, you need a floppy for the F6 driver install in windows. I had to install the FDD cable and hang the drive out the side)

2-2-2-8 = sweetness

enable RAID

set the bios to boot to CD, and start installing MCE. Setup asked if I wanted to join a domain, but I thought that was disabled in the OS?!? You need to install CD1, then CD2, then reinstall CD1 when it askes for SP2 (sort of confusing), and that's all there is to it!

Done!

When a co-worker saw the finished product, he said it was so sweet it was "technosexual." I have to agree, it is one sexy machine.

I just got the third HD (Maxtor 150GB) installed last night and the music and picture files copied over to the RAID/system partition. I should get to start playing with it tonight. I'll need to get a USB hub soon to support two printers, a scanner, two keyboards, and the remote control reciever. 😀

build time: 1 hr
windows install time: 1 hr

transferring profiles/data: 4-5 hours
so far, so good. I'll update as I get to play around with the MCE features.

cliff notes:

i built a SFF computer on my lunch break yesterday. it's uber sexy. 😉
 
Why a P4 Prescott in a small chassis? Whilst it isnt going to burn down, there could be better choices.
 
Originally posted by: txxxx
Why a P4 Prescott in a small chassis? Whilst it isnt going to burn down, there could be better choices.
Click to expand...

none of the A64 shuttle barebones have pci-e slots. the idea is to have it capable for an EE chip once the prices fall to reasonable levels. plus, stability was one of the top considerations in picking the parts, and I trust intel chipsets to be rock solid (even if not the fastest).
 
Originally posted by: Stark
Originally posted by: txxxx
Why a P4 Prescott in a small chassis? Whilst it isnt going to burn down, there could be better choices.
Click to expand...

none of the A64 shuttle barebones have pci-e slots. the idea is to have it capable for an EE chip once the prices fall to reasonable levels. plus, stability was one of the top considerations in picking the parts, and I trust intel chipsets to be rock solid (even if not the fastest).
Click to expand...

Nforce2 is EXREMELY reliable btw.


As for goign the shuttle route, GREAT CHOICE😀

I have one too😀

Mine setup has changed over time (now I have two external HDs, new mouse etc) butI'll always have the shuttle😀
 
Originally posted by: Stark
Originally posted by: txxxx
Why a P4 Prescott in a small chassis? Whilst it isnt going to burn down, there could be better choices.
Click to expand...

none of the A64 shuttle barebones have pci-e slots. the idea is to have it capable for an EE chip once the prices fall to reasonable levels. plus, stability was one of the top considerations in picking the parts, and I trust intel chipsets to be rock solid (even if not the fastest).
Click to expand...

I wont go into detail but AMD stability has come a long long way from the VIA KT133 days. I was thinking more about the heat output of the CPU rather than performance, as there's not much between them,
 
Originally posted by: txxxx
Originally posted by: Stark
Originally posted by: txxxx
Why a P4 Prescott in a small chassis? Whilst it isnt going to burn down, there could be better choices.
Click to expand...

none of the A64 shuttle barebones have pci-e slots. the idea is to have it capable for an EE chip once the prices fall to reasonable levels. plus, stability was one of the top considerations in picking the parts, and I trust intel chipsets to be rock solid (even if not the fastest).
Click to expand...

I wont go into detail but AMD stability has come a long long way from the VIA KT133 days. I was thinking more about the heat output of the CPU rather than performance, as there's not much between them,
Click to expand...

my last board was the K7D master with AMD 762 chipset. it was (and is) a great board, much better than the old VIA boards.

I still think intel makes the most trustworthy chipsets and processor combos. The choice came down to the 915G today or the nForce4 in a month or two. I'm still a little ticked that nvidia wants me to pay $50 for the DTS version of their DVD decoder (or $20 for the basic one), so the "screw you" factor also came into play. 🙂

Goose, I'll have to post a copy of my home setup. You have good taste in equipment.

a gift for anyone who felt cheated by the thread title
 
Originally posted by: Stark
Originally posted by: txxxx
Why a P4 Prescott in a small chassis? Whilst it isnt going to burn down, there could be better choices.
Click to expand...

none of the A64 shuttle barebones have pci-e slots. the idea is to have it capable for an EE chip once the prices fall to reasonable levels. plus, stability was one of the top considerations in picking the parts, and I trust intel chipsets to be rock solid (even if not the fastest).
Click to expand...

I was going to ask why Intel instead of AMD, but you do have some good arguements.
 
Thanks for the compliment. Since it is common courtesy to post pics😉, here you go😀

This is my current pc setup

Here was the way my HT was etup using s-video and optical out from the PC.

Hideous flash shot

hmmm..luminance

Close-up of the system

Movie mode....😀...I over exposed it though....lights aren't as bright in person



Honestly, the only reason I can give for moving my stereo is that I wanted to see how it sounded upstairs now that we took out the carpet and put in wood flooring.

It sound GREAT😀

Close-up with tusk for good measure






Sharp shot of when I was done moving everything upstairs

Blurry, but it shows the nice view and the size...

Nice midnight classical atmosphere

Nice bright shot

I can;t wait until can invest in it again. I will most likely move the front to the rear as only my fronts and my sub are actually good. The surround and center pictured i nthe first pics are utter crap.

Hopefully I can get some nice Mirage OM's😀. That, and offload my reciever on my dad and get myself a nice NAD, Adcom, or just a better reciever.
 
218 dollars for 512 of memory. Me thinks that 1 Gig of slower sh1t would be 200% better.
Other than that, looks good.
 
i hooked it up to the home stereo last night with s-video and spdif audio port and watched a dvd... looked and sounded just as good as my panasonic stand alone box... for 20x the price! 😀

I love being a geek.
 
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