Cycopl

im dumb

So, I finally put together my first computer by myself. It's not my computer, but it IS the first time that I've assembled a computer from a bunch of parts without somebody else doing most of the work for me. (i.e. Josh) And it's kind of a funny story that I'll probably always remember because it was so stressful and foolish and it shouldn't have even HAPPENED.

So, let's start with my friend Adam (not Kaneda adam, a different adam), wanting to get a new computer. He was planning on dropping $1900 on a dell rig, needless to say, it was a ripoff. I told him that he could build a computer for way cheaper, so he decided to try it out. I kind of had a little regret, because I would be the one putting the comp together, and I've never done that before. I would feel better if it was MY comp, because if I fucked it up it wouldn't matter because it's my comp. But this was somebody else's comp, and let me tell you, it's stressful doing this for somebody else when you only have a general idea of what you're doing.

Zoom forward to me coming to his house and getting all of the pieces together. First things first, I got out the mobo and the proc, stuck the proc in the little holes and took the plastic cover off the bottom of the heatsink, put the heatsink on after struggling and sweating and deeply fearing snapping the mobo in half or tearing the socket from the board. Deep sigh of relief when metal clips finally snap on.

Next point of struggle was putting the little jumper plugs in the right places. The manual generally explained where they go, but I couldn't tell where to put the positive sides and negative sides so I called up a couple people and learned that the colored wire is positive, but I still didn't know where positive goes so I just guessed and hoped it would work when I try it out.

Next was putting in the video card. I'm so familiar with doing this, but my heart jumped when the card didn't fit in the AGP slot. The little flap connector thing that does nothing on the very end of the part that plugs in just wouldn't fit. It wasn't like it barely wouldn't fit, I mean it was like there was no socket there for it to go into, and it was completely blocked. I couldn't get the card in. I sighed and panicked and read the mobo manual over to see if it supported AGP 8x, it did. Turns out, Biostar decided to make a little sliding compartment in the AGP slot that slides out and then the card fits perfectly. I could feel the weight lifting off my back when I found this out. Moving on...

Everything goes fine until I'm ready to turn on the comp and try it out. Comp turns on, nothing happens though. I have no idea what's wrong. I take out the RAM and put it in another slot. Comp starts up and boots fine. I'm so happy.

Setting up bios... don't really know what I'm doing, stuff that I know I change, stuff that I don't know I leave the same. Begin Windows XP install. Quick format the new hard drive, start setting up windows. Everything goes fine, comp restarts to continue installation. Error message immediately. So, I turn off comp, clean CD, restart. Back to windows installation. Error message pops up immediately. ARRRGH

So, I get a new windows XP cd from my friend Will's dell comp. Restart windows installation completely (reformat and everything). Yay, windows installs. Everything goes perfectly from there, except I notice that the proc is running at 1.6ghz instead of it's intended 2.1ghz. So, I go back into bios to change the FSB to 166 instead of 133. Well, I wasn't sure what FSB I was supposed to put it on, so I decided to look through some instruction manuals to see if anything says it. I check out the processor install manual. And it says something like:

Remove protective tape from thermal paste

Oh shit. I didn't do that. I didn't remove any piece of tape. I put that heatsink on without removing the tape. Oh shit oh man. By this time, it was already 12:30AM, and my friend tells me it's alright and I can fix it Tuesday since I had to work all day Monday.

So, tuesday rolls around, and we go and buy some thermal paste (arctic silver, mmm). I go and take out the mobo, and take off the heatsink. Then, I look at the instructions again. And I read this:

Remove protective plastic cover or Remove protective tape from thermal paste

Right now, without thinking, I just say "oh my god." I said this because, I didn't mess up on the proc in the first place. AMD heatsinks come in 2 varieties, they either come with the protective plastic case, or a protective tape over the thermal paste. This one had the case, and I took that off. There was no tape on the paste after all. But it was too late, I took the heatsink off already.

So anyway, I say "oh my god", and he's like "what?" so I was just like "umm, I don't really know how to get this stuff off the heatsink."

I ended up just scraping it off the heatsink with a butter knife, then cleaning it thoroughly with q-tips and alcohol. I gave the proc a good cleaning around the core as well, then I put a little bit of the paste on the heatsink and core and spread it around with an old credit card, and when I was confident that I hadn't put on too much or too little, I stuck that heatsink back on (it seemed a LOT easier the second time), and put the comp together... and it's running great now. And Adam (the guy I made the comp for) gave me 40 bucks for it. I tried to give it back but he wouldn't let me so I don't feel really bad for taking it... score city man.

So, I'm kind of proud of myself, but kind of ashamed of myself for being so dumb. I can guarantee that next time, I won't make the same mistakes and it can only get easier from there...

Special thanks to Erik and Josh for answering my jumper and thermal paste quessions

Posted by at April 28, 2004 04:52 AM