Evidence of nerdyness...

So I've been ignoring the blog a bit...oops. But it's for a good reason, really. I repaired my laptop and built a new computer. I'd been trying to decide what to do about my laptop. The nub mouse was in bad shape, the battery was dead and the CD drive didn't work anymore. I'd actually priced a new laptop, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to do that. I ended up calling HP and found out it was still under warranty and they sent me a new CD drive. I ordered a new battery and a new mouse and decided that a desktop would be a good investment. I also needed to reload Windows on the laptop and it's good to have a back-up computer if things don't go well. So, I built a desktop. It's been years since I've had one. I've had a laptop with a docking station since before college. John helped me research parts and they finally came on the day of the big storm in Omaha. I was so excited. I had everything and then the storm hit and I didn't have power for a little over a day.

For the less technical people reading this (yes, this was a learning experience for me too), here's what I bought and how I put it together:

From the top left, is the case. Under that to the right is the box with my new laptop battery and the envelope with my new mouse nub. Up and to the left of the case is my new keyboard and mouse (that was my splurge in the whole deal). Under the keyboard is the processor and the video card to the right of the processor followed by the motherboard. Under the motherboard is is two boxes each containing two GB of RAM. The final row is a power supply, a DVD/CD burner, a DVD drive, and three hard drives.

When you put together a computer you have to start by assembling the pieces that attach to the motherboard. The box comes with lots of stuff in it. The motherboard comes with a faceplate you install in the back of your computer that labels all the connections. It also comes with cables to connect your hard drives, floppy drives (who uses those anymore? ;-) , and your optical drives (CD/DVD drives). They also give you cute little stickers you can put on the outside of your computer so everyone knows how awesome it is. There is also a book that comes with it as a reference and an installation guide (that's the big one on the bottom left).

My motherboard supports either a Duo Core or Quad Core processor. It has built in energy efficiency (in case you couldn't tell by the stickers on it). I took it out of the box and took some pictures.

I think it looks like a little town. Yes, I know that's silly, but it entertains me. So, here are some "artsy" pictures.

Along one side of the motherboard is the connections. That's all your input devices (mouse, keyboard), USB ports, printer, monitor connection (but I have a separate video card), audio inputs and outputs, etc.

The first thing I installed was the processor. That little square is the processor and the big round thing is a heat sync with a fan. You do not want your processor to overheat!

To install the processor, you have to take that wonderful plastic piece out of the processor's home.

Yeah, that's right, Core 2 Duo. Isn't it shiny?

Here it is before I shut the door. There's a hinged door that keeps the processor in place so it can't move.

After the processor is installed, you install the heat sync on top of it. Here is my nerdy self worrying about how I'm going to get the pins to snap into place on the motherboard without cracking something. The motherboard certainly didn't seem very stable, but it's tougher than it looks.

I did get it installed and the fan plugged in.

Then, I installed my memory (RAM). It was much easier than I was expecting. They sort of make it idiot proof. It only goes in one direction because there's a little notch in the bottom that matches up with the holes. Then you just push down till the clips snap into place.

After the processor and the memory was installed, I put the motherboard in the case. You have to lay the case down flat and use screws to attach it to the case.

Once the motherboard was fastened to the case, I installed the video card. That is one shiny video card. Wiring everything proved to be a challenge because the video card was 9" long. But, the card is really quiet.

I put the rest of the pieces in their places inside the case. The cables at the top-right of the photo are my optical drives. My Hard drives are in the bottom right. Once everything was put into its place I connected all the cables. There are a lot of them. You've got a cable between each hard drive and the motherboard. A cable between the power supply and basically everything in the computer (fans, hard drive, motherboard, optical drives, video card, etc.). Then you have cables from the motherboard to the video card, optical drives, hard drives, processor, etc. It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but the cable that came with the motherboard was a little tight going to the optical drives because it had to go around the video card (it's the big blue one). The motherboard also only came with two hard drive cables but I bought three hard drives.

When it was all said and done, it ran! I was so excited! I did decide to get a couple cables though. I bought a thinner cable to the optical drives which worked out well. I also bought a third hard drive cable and a monitor cable. John and I ended up going to DIT because there aren't many places in town who carry that type of stuff. Their prices weren't awesome, but by the time I would have paid shipping on new cables it would have come out the same. I think part of their mark-up is to cover the cute little bags they give you to put your stuff in.

I made an enormous mess. Got pretty nervous and frustrated a few times, but it was all worth it. I priced a computer on Dell's web site with the same specifications as the one I built and I saved over $1,200 by building my own computer, which is more than I spent on everything together including the laptop fixes. I sent in quite a few mail-in rebates and should be getting about $150 back as well. Plus, my new desktop has been in the living room since I built it. I can't seem to convince myself to unplug it from my new TV. It's just so shiny!

I have since cleaned up the mess in my apartment. I kept all the boxes for the internal parts and the case. Oh, I also got my laptop completely fixed. The new nubbins are an enormous improvement over the previous one.

The old one:

And the new one:

Money well spent. Oh, the amount I spent to fix one computer and build a new one was also about $700 less than a new laptop I was considering. :-)