The Media Machine

Almost all the parts have arrived. We have the wireless keyboard and [optical] mouse, Micro-ATX Motherboard, DVD-Rom, Sexy, sexy case, 128MB video card with S-Video out, Thermal Paste, heatsync and fan, the processor (Athlon XP 2700+), and the sexy black power supply (400W). I'm still waiting for the RAM to arrive. (I've got a couple hard drives just waiting... one is full of TV shows and sitting in my black Win machine, the other is the 250 g I got for Christmas.)

Here's another look, slightly higher. At this point, I was wondering which part I was going to break first. My money was on the case, as it was what I liked the most.

Here's the keyboard, mouse, Motherboard, and DVD-Rom.

And a closeup of the other stuff. That's a copper shim to the left of the processor. It was supposed to help me not break the processor... then there was a long list of ways that using the shim could break the processor. I used it, but it scared the hell out of me.

Here we have the processor and the shim. I was supposed to clean both, then set the shim on the processor. Sounds easy enough. [I did not use that rag there... instead I spent an hour looking for a "lint free rag"... eventually using a combination of Swac's glasses bag and a credit card.]

and woot, there we go. Shim is in place. That wasn't hard.

Here's the motherboard. Time for some fun.

The Cpu is in place! Huzzah! What you don't see a picture of is me messing with this damn thing for 20 minutes because some of the pins on the processor were bent, so it wouldn't fit. So I had to carefully straighten them out with my fingernail.. and it was a tedious process, cause there are a lot of pins on those things.

Quite a bit of time has passed. I've cleaned the cpu [again.. I was a bit nervous about it] and the heatsync with alcohol (yes.. 2 cans of Milwaukee's Best), and have applied the thermal paste to both.. which was a little touchy, as I didn't really know what the hell I was doing. Anyway, you can see the paste on the slug of the processor now. There's not much on there, but it stands out, I guess.

And now the heatsync/fan are put in place and latched. At this point, I'm praying I didn't just break everything.. but I wouldn't know for a while.

Pretty sexy looking setup. I find heatsyncs facinating. They're quite fashinable, and I think we'll all be wearing them someday.

I only cut myself once getting the case open.. I count that as a success. They already had the front USB/Firewire/Audio things wired, which is pretty nice.

Here's the sexy black power supply. Why did I pay a few extra dollars for a black piece of hardware that, once installed, will prolly not be seen by anyone ever again? Because I'm retarded.

I'm my defense, it does look nice. and I'll know it's there.

It was not difficult to install.

And now the motherboard has been installed, and I get to do some wiring.

Okay, the case fan, lights, and USB ports are all hooked up to the motherboard, and the DVD-Rom is installed as well.

I've also installed the 250d Hard drive now. So far so good.

The power plugs and video card are now installed as well. Just looking for some RAM now. Stupid non-showing up ram...

Okay, I decided to try powering it on without RAM to see if it burst into flames...and..... it did not! I was also quite taken with the blue lights by the power button on the right side there. Once it found out there was no RAM, it started beeping like mad.. but no horrible fire type situations.

The power supply also lights up, apparently. interesting.

It's pretty noticeable in the dark. Odds are it won't be noticeable with the cover on. Still kinda interesting.. At this point I find it kewl, but I could see it being potentially annoying as well.. We shall see.

I was still too curious about if everything was working correctly, so I stole RAM from my black WIN machine, and threw it in, and hooked it up to that monitor. This also gave me a chance to try out the wireless keyboard and mouse. [results: I love wireless]

Tests proved successful. I didn't have Fedora cds with me, so I ended up installing Windows on the machine for the moment (Someone may need to use it on Saturday), and everything appears to be working well. I am very pleased. Phase 3 will be getting Linux up and running, and setting up some good user interface stuff so retarded monkeys and my roommates can operate it. [Zing] I must say, it does look very slick.

I bought the Nexus AXP-3200 Quiet AMD CPU Fan. It's quite special. And very quiet. I installed it.. and almost burned up my entire machine.. but didn't, and now it all works.