Little Bottle of Magic

So, let me pose a question to ya:

Where do you go to get stuff to upgrade and crazy mod your PC?

Did anybody guess the local auto parts store? I wouldnt have either...
Feast your eyes on this. Its a bottle of Quick Grid made by Permatex. Now this thing is small... Like, half the size of my thumb... Its about 10 bucks of goodness.

Normally used to repair the rear window defrosters in vehicles... I used it for something different... Drawing new traces for the BSEL mod on the processor!

Remember how it took me like an hour full of troubles to make that little metal sliver last time? This time I cut a piece off of a folder to make a sliver to draw the tiny lines, like a small paint brush. Shook the bottle up and 20 seconds later I had a brand new trace running where the metal sliver had been. Worked like a charm!

Now I hit the webs and pulled up a page for a 1.35V BSEL mod and I went for the big hit: 200 to 333 MHz bus speed, or from 2.5 GHz to 4.1 GHz. One quick word: Dont use cheap USB keyboards... They do dumb things like make the computer beep and fudge results... I fought one for an hour before it found a new home in the dumpster and I went and got my Rocketfish Bluetooth one. All in all it seemed to go pretty well... They say a picture is worth 1,000 words:
O... OMG.... LOLOMGROFLMAO!!! Let me tell you Shasta is FAST and completely stable! Who knew??? Dell obviously did their homework for this board! That's a 65% increase in speed!!! I seriously didnt think that was possible out of a Dell mobo that cant overclock! Even at 4.1 GHz it sips only 75 watts of power and runs at 33C! That's darn good! Some stress testing and then it might be time to bestow the mighty server hard drive and retire Amy. What a fun project!

Just a Bad Day.

Oh man that just HURTS.....

This post directly follows the RAM one...

I thought surely I was in the clear... Had temporary working RAM and the Western Digital Raptor hard drive. Man I was gonna get me some Windows XP installed!

Popped in my Windows XP Pro (original) and was greeted with.... ^ What do you do?
I did what any nerd would do....

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

I tried different RAM, I tried different hard drives, I tried a different CD drive, I even ripped off my BSEL mod on the processor (...sniff... sob...). Still every time I would boot the computer would BSOD.

Well Google fixed my last problem... How about this one?

Sure enough! It turns out that in some cases the original edition of XP Pro will bluescreen because of the PCI-e slot this computer has. Fair enough, I have an XP Pro SP2 disc. I popped that in and in 20 minutes was greeted by Windows XP Pro SP2. We are ready for benching now!

The Real Ram Wreck

4GB of awesomeness arrived in my mailbox.

G.Skill DDR2 RAM running at 800 MHz with 4-4-4-12 timings on only 2.0V. This is about as good as it got, and seemed compatible enough to shove in the XPS. They have very attractive black heat spreaders with the company logo in glorious polished and machined aluminum... Oh such a beautiful sight!


The XPS thought otherwise.... I popped in all 4 sticks and powered her on. I was greeted by roaring fans and unhappy beeps. Looking closer, diagnostic lights 2 and 4 were lit on top and the XPS Miniview informed me that the computer detected that RAM was installed... but there was a problem and the computer could not be started... Okay... I reseated the RAM.... Nothing.


Okay, this is annoying. My buddy's gaming PC had caught a virus last week so it was in my shop getting repaired. I stole its OCZ RAM for reference... The XPS fired right up!

Huh.

I decided well maybe I will just swap the RAM... But my buddies machine also greeted me with the same angry beeps (no codes, its a custom build).

Quickly Googling the result gave me this: Post #3: Cons: Does not play nice with current model Dell XPS 420.

That could have saved me quite the headache. I guess I will Google for issues in the future...

Having learned my lesson, I ordered 4GB of Crucial Ballistix to go in this thing instead. Meanwhile, I have the RAM out of Kaitlin's desktop again... What a mess! I hope everything else goes smoother than this.

The end is near... Or is it?

science kid 888 said...

interesting, im gonna miss your blogs when this is over

Oh... But Han... Its not over.

In a way after starting this blog and putting time and effort into it, I almost feel obliged to keep trucking forward.

Plus the XPS is far from finished... I am still waiting on parts, I still have cool stories to share, and still have to show off my totally awesome photography skills (pffft).

Plus its handy! I can share something nerdy and totally sweet with all the subscribers or show, with pictures, how to do something cool, like build a PC or mod a cheapo to get some serious bang for your buck...

Just a hint... I am typing on the XPS now. It is 100% up and running... It just shows you how far behind I am on blogging... Thats okay, keeps you guys tunin in if you suspect there will be more to come...

So stay close: Its far from over.

Master W wants YOU!!!

Allright everyone I am calling on you for help. As you probably noticed all my PC's have names. Amy, Y2K, Missy, HeatZone, Monster, Keira, Celly, Tower-of-Power, and Reeses Pieces, just to name a few.

As much time as I spend using these machines a day, its sad to think one wouldnt get a unique name. Names like MasterW-PC or PC-7856129... C'mon, theres no class in that! Lame! Lame! Lame!!!

*Pause of silence as users scramble to see their PC's name..*

So I am calling for everyone's help. I want YOUR BEST PC NAME! Leave a comment (keep it clean please) of what you think would be the best name.

Until next time, This is MasterW signing off. Stay Classy!

Lets Speed Things Up

Well judging by the picture its pretty obvious I got her consent: 24 hours of using her OCZ RAM in the XPS! Lets waste no time!

So here I have the CPU secured in the system with about a BB-sized dot of thermal paste. Thats all the thermal paste you need. It bridges the little gaps between the CPU and the heatsink so heat transfer occurs more efficiently. If too much paste is used the system is actually less efficient at transferring heat. Lets power this up!

Okay sweet, it recognizes the CPU and the speed correctly. Check out the options under Performance. No overclocking options. One might think SpeedStep is... but that is Intel's power saving technology for your CPU that SLOWS IT DOWN to conserve power. That is why I am going to do a BSEL mod on this CPU. It will raise the bus speed of the CPU from 800 MHz quad pumped to 1066 MHz quad pumped. The real bus speed is 200 MHz (200 * 4 (quad pumped) = 800 MHz). So... that means the bus speed will be 266 MHz after the mod. Now, just like in the previous build, lets figure out what speed we will be shooting for. 2500/200 gives us a CPU multiplier of 12.5. Okay, so now 12.5 * 266 will give us a new CPU speed of 3325 MHz. So that is a (3325/2500)-1 = 33% speed increase! Here is the mod on paper:
Okay, I am going to fast forward time... Ideally this mod is done with a conductive pen you can get from Radio Shack... But because I am impatient and Radio Shack is closed, I am going to take some conductive adhesive from a hard drive and 'build' my own bridge. So, after an hour of cutting, shaping, test fitting, cussing, re-cutting and re-test fitting this is what I ended up with:

With that slight bit of adhesiveness it sticks. Check it out though: Look at the size of that sliver of metal compared to my thumb... thats a LITTLE piece of metal! Well, lets pop it in the tower and see what it thinks.



Blue lights is GOOD! If it failed I would have gotten amber lights. How modern and sleek (once the media card reader covers that ugly hole) it looks next to Y2K! I am going to boot into a program called Memtest32+ to get a realtime measurement of the CPU speed, as the BIOS just reads the CPU information about how fast it is.

Here is a snapshot of what I saw once Memtest86 loaded:

Core 2 at 3325 MHz!!! A successful BSEL mod! Maybe when I get a conductive pen I will shoot for 1333 MHz front side bus, giving me 4162 MHz. Its unlikely a speed like that will work or be stable... but I will never know until I try. If I try it... you better believe I'll blog about the results. Its RAM, hard drive, and the media card reader to go!

Until next time, as always, stay classy and thanks for reading!

The CPU Arrives

I was trying to stay focused in class Thursday when my pocket started buzzing. Apparently a package had arrived at the door. Marvelous! The E5200 CPU must be here. I chose it mainly for its price (~$50) and its overclockability. Indeed judging from the return address thats what it is!

Upon opening...

Oh.... Heh.... NOT cool! I guess I'll have to file a claim with PayPal...

Hmmm... That handwriting looks familiar...




Ahhh yes its the old sneaky roommate prank...

Man and I was looking forward to bustin' some punk too!




Perfect! Maybe I can persuade Kaitlin to let me borrow the RAM in her desktop for a quick test run (I got RAM, but its not here yet...)


I'll be right back... Gotta make a phone call ;)

The Cheap 'n Dirty Build... For Dummies!

So I got a remark from a fellow friend who follows this thing saying he loved the blog, especially the XPS build, but wanted to see more steps on how to build a PC and the parts involved. No worries, I got you covered! After a few minutes of digging in parts boxes, I found parts enough to do just that. Remember the parts have to be compatible to work. A simple Google search of the parts you wanna use will usually reveal what's compatible with what. This setup is very '98-ish, but the general parts and steps dont change.
So first you take your mobo. This one is an old Slot 1 with an AGP slot and PC100 RAM. Like I say, its OLD. Usually you put 'em in a case, but I'm just using my desk, mainly because it keeps things much easier to see.



Enter the Celeron 300MHz Slot 1 processor, complete with broken fan assembly (somehow)... Notice that its socket/slot type matches the board. Also, by a simple Google search shows the board has an Intel 440BX chipset, which supports this processor. Theoretically, it should work.


Here's some PC100 RAM. The board can take up to 768MB of RAM. I am only using 256MB or so, and obviously not using all 3 slots.

Okay, install the CPU and the RAM.



Vewy nice, this is what we have so far. Good start! Now lets add something to output video and sound.









A small AGP video card and an old ISA sound card. Match the slots and into the motherboard they go.














Better give it some power. Its a small 150W power supply. This motherboard only requires a 20-pin connector. Check your mobo manual for power needed.












There! What we have now is enough to power it up. The connectors on the left are to power the hard drives, floppy drives, CD drives, fans, and other miscellaneous devices. Just because I can, I connected an old 20GB hard drive to one of the power connectors and then to the mobo with a 40-pin IDE cable.

Yikes, excuse the poor photography! We are done! Now, touch a bridge across the power button pins to make this all come to life





We have liftoff! Even by looking at the screen we can see the computer recognizes the processor as a Celeron running at 300 MHz. Now for the bonus material: Lets overclock this thing!




Here we are inside the Chipset Features menu inside the BIOS. The processor has a bus speed of 66 MHz. Now, 300/66 gives me a CPU multiplier of 4.5.




Lets crank that bus speed up to 83 MHz. This should give us an operating speed of 373.5 MHz. Now, you are saying, "Wow, 73 extra MHz, big whoop." I know it doesnt seem like a whole lot, but (374/300)-1 gives us a 25% increase in speed. Lets say this was a 2.5 GHz CPU. Then: 2500 * 1.25 would be 3125 or 3.13 GHz! Wow, I'll take a 600 MHz increase any day! Hows that 25% increase look now? Pretty good, I agree!

Lets see if we can boot at our new speed:
Like a charm! This particular Celeron is well known for its ability to overclock, and stay stable as a rock the whole time. Your CPU might be different. Regardless, its a wicked fun project for your Sunday afternoon!

Stay classy everyone! More of this is comin' your way!

So Long, SOOO Long....

Wow, even though its been barely over a week, thats forever in blogland! Something about those professors that just have to make you do SOMETHING for homework after every class period... Yeah thanks, having a life is overrated anyway. Apparently you better the youth pursuing an education by assigning them lots of busy work. So, on this fine day they get to sit back and listen to the pain of pure silence as I neglect and ignore all of my other homework. People, I am getting my blog on today! Ready? Set? GO!

Headin for a crash

Well my external hard drive has been acting up lately, throwing tons of read errors in Windows. Normally this wouldnt piss me off, but this is my 3rd one since February, and worse yet... its a 1TB drive with about 850GB of data on it that I've already lost twice. Fabulous.
So I call Seagate and get Greg, their finest tech support guy who is anything but concerned about being a help. He muttered something about having the drive hooked to the PC and running SeaTools. Fair enough. I hang up and do as he says. The drive fails the basic test. Once again, yey warranties!
So I call them back, and by some sick twist of fate get Ty, a guy with a get-er-done and we-can-do-that attitude, who totally wrote off everything Greg had said and promptly issued me a new drive forwarded to me IN ADVANCE so I could get some of my stuff off of my stumbling and faltering drive. Wow, I cant even be pissed at them anymore after that. In closing Ty asked me "anything else I can do for you, man?" to which I promptly replied, "Yeah, go pour a cup of coffee on Greg."
"You have a good day, sir."
Oh, I will.

MORE PARTS :D

Dang! Well I swear I had just published the last post when the Men in Brown knocked at the front door! The package had '26 lbs' scribbled all over it, so I knew it had to be the case...
Brand new, rejected by Dell because of minor 'dings' but... I am fine with that! Check out the front of that thing! Your media PC now doubles as a shaving mirror! I have never seen so much gloss plastic before. The gaping hole is where the card reader and the TV tuner's media ports go. Simply stunning! Well, lets assemble this thing!

Wow, what a humble start. This case came with the standard 375 Watt power supply, seen there on the top right. Cables, brackets, and fans dangle everywhere. Really though its nothing more than a puzzle. Cables are color-coded and only fit in one place. Here we go!


It is a tight fit, sometimes much tighter than any custom-built PC I have ever made. Once the mobo is seated and secured in place, its just a matter of matching where things go. I have never owned or seen the inside of one of these, but by observation it is painfully apparent where everything goes. Unless you were the kid who tried to fit the square block through the circular hole, you could easily do the same. A few more cables and screws and....
TaDa! We are finished for tonight. Now we wait, for the processor and RAM, which I recon will be arriving Wednesday or Thursday of next week. Stay close though... I got lots of stuff for here besides parts! Be back soon!

w00t!!! PARTS!!!

OMG OMG OMG!!! The first fancy cardboard shows up at the door! The backbone of the whole system, it is the XPS 420's motherboard, found used and working flawlessly for $20. Cant beat that with a stick.



Up on opening the box... What the...??? Shopping bags. This already has me feeling a little on the edgy side. Shopping bags are a great carrier of static electricity, which eats stuff like computer motherboards with a cup of coffee and some muffins.



Upon opening further, this is what I found. Wow, I think the purchaser of this Reversible Twin Comforter will be VERY unhappy with the performance of the product found inside. Never have, but I cant imagine that a mobo feels great to stretch out on. Machine wash and tumble dry eh? That wont buff out purdy... Sadder yet was to see that indeed the mobo was NOT packed in an antistatic bag. As much of a n00b as this seller might have been, I would have thought packing that kind of stuff in antistatic bags was common sense. You shuffle your feet across the carpet, shock your laptop and kill it. Why? Deeeee Dee Deeeeeeeee! C'mon.
Well there it is on the table. I hope it still works... This particular board has an LGA775 socket on it for an Intel-based processor. It can take up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM and has a single PCI-e slot for graphics. Throw in some nice high-speed USB ports, integrated 7.1 sound, firewire and eSATA, and I'm set for a kickin' system on the cheap.

The BIG CPU cooler arrived as well, and for $4 it was worth it (its even the quad-core edition!). I threw on an additional little fan on the chipset after reading that thing gets really hot in the forums. If I'm gonna be crankin' up the MHz on this thing, I CANT let heat hold me back. Always make sure you have good cooling. More on this when the case shows up! Stay tuned!