I thought it might be fun today to write about the new box I built myself over the weekend. Whilst it’s not exactly the type of thing I regularly put on this blog; I think it might be useful to someone maybe. Whatever the case, doing so will be useful for me in the form of it being a record of my weekend’s activity if nothing else.

On Thursday 16th April 2009 my second computer failed. I’d been doing further maintenance work on it, and I’d inserted a Molex plug incorrectly into a drive’s power socket so that the two ground pins shorted the 12 volt rails: I’d just had a break, and returned without remembering that I hadn’t checked my work before the break. I absent-mindedly powered up the box and the PSU died. Maybe I put it out of its misery?

I’d had so many hardware-related problems with that computer recently that I wasn’t that sad about it. It felt as if that box was jinxed in a way, and as soon as I replaced something another problem appeared. I decided after not-a-lot of thought to replace the machine totally. It was an old model built on a barebones box that I’d rebuilt during 2008 after a BIOS failure.

I’d already made up my mind that I was going to build a box to run Windows 7 on when it was out of beta and the RTM version was released. I decided to bring that forward; and either run XP on it until Windows 7’s RTM, or run Windows 7 beta build 7000 if I could find the key to the 64-bit ISO I’d made earlier in the year.

‘First things first: Let’s get the new box put together:

I’d already decided what components I was going to use: -

For the processor I was going to use an AMD Phenom x 3, 2.3GHz. I’d seat this on a Gigabyte GA-M720-US3 motherboard. (The board with the chipset that isn’t really a chipset in the full sense of the term.) 

That board is different from the ones I usually use, in that it has no onboard graphics, and relies on a separate graphics card inserted into its one PCIe x 16 slot for the output to the monitor. I used the old Asus nVidia 6200LE graphics card from the old box, as that would give me the 250MB graphics I required. (Although this card only has 64MB graphics memory fitted; it “borrows” the rest, up to 256MB total, from RAM if need be.)

I fitted 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800Mhz RAM; which leaves 2 slots clear for another 4GB at a future date. I wasn’t after anything gamey, and had no intention of building a high-performance machine: I just wanted something that worked well and had decent specs. Also I wanted to keep the cost down: I wasn’t intending to spend a small fortune, rather I’d just spend as necessary and use anything secondhand where possible.

I utilised the old HDD from the old box: I wiped it using Webroot System Erase and returned it to as-new condition. I also used the IDE DVD-ROM from the old box and connected it to the single PATA socket via a ribbon cable.

Everything was up and running, and seemingly built properly and well. I was later to discover that I’d improperly connected the front USB sockets; but that took 5 minutes to rectify, following which everything was fine and dandy.

If I need extra storage in the future I’ll add another hard-drive. – After all; there are six SATA II 3mb/s sockets on the board; and currently only 1 is being used. The old HDD from the machine’s predecessor that I used is only 160GB; but that’s plenty big enough for a system-drive. I can always add more; currently up to another 7.5 terabytes storage if I choose to do so.

I found a couple of product keys for 64-bit Windows 7 betas amongst some paperwork I’d filed away, and one of them worked with the copy I installed.

Windows 7 is a very Vista-esque operating system. I have very limited experience with Vista, and until then almost absolutely none with Windows 7. – So if you were expecting a huge write-up on the benefits of Win 7 I’m afraid you’re out of luck, at this time anyway.

I’d been quite keen on the idea of a triple-cored processor since I’d first heard about it prior to AMD’s release of their Phenoms. To be honest I find the triple-core Phenom to be quite a gutsy processor; easily capable of handling anything that Windows 7 throws at it, at the same time running Carbonite online backup, which is rather processor-intensive at times.

The system appears to be using around 1.6GB RAM on tickover with Carbonite and a few other programs, such as Panda Antivirus Pro, Glint system monitor, Google Talk, Twhirl, Windows Live Messenger, DS Clock, and a few others, running in the background. Firefox is also running and has a window open.

Unlike the early reports I heard of Vista taking up 2GB RAM just to produce a blank screen, along with stability issues and driver incompatibilities; this OS appears to be quite stable and neither processor-intensive or resource-hungry. (The one gripe I have with it is that I’m unable to run my Samsung ML-2010 printer with it: It doesn’t like the Vista driver, nor will it work on the XP version.)

Some 64-bit software can be difficult to get hold of. – Such as the Windows Vista 64-bit version of iTunes from Apple (The 64-bit version is required: The OS advises you to install the 64-bit version when you attempt to install the 32-bit version.); but a little perseverance gained a result. Many 32-bit apps such as FileZilla, GMail backup, Glint, Hootech Net Meter, and even Microsoft Office XP Professional, run without a problem on it

Rich Menga of PC Mech.com had already described Windows 7 as “Vista as it should have been in the first place”. – And seemingly so it is. I’m impressed with the effort that Microsoft have put into it, even as a beta. I’m looking forward to seeing the release candidate in the near future. I think I for one will be purchasing a copy of Windows 7 when it is finally released to manufacturing later this year.