So, it’s been an incredibly long time since I last built a PC, or really done any kind of hardware work. Heck, where I work we have to wait 2-5 days for a union electrician to come and install a new HDD in a removable rack, and if we try to do the two minute job we’d get a grievance filed on us. It sucks, but thankfully I spend my days stuck inside of PHP code and an Oracle database.
After making the switch to OS X, I really didn’t think I’d ever be inside a PC again. Oh, sure, I opened up my Mac Mini and added some memory and swapped out the HDD, but that’s no big deal. Well, a few weeks ago I had a mysterious package arrive at my doorstep. After ensuring there was no white powder or explosives inside, I opened it up to find half a computer system courtesy of Dave, an old friend at OverclockersClub.com.
With the parts he sent me, and the graphics card I received from the OCC Christmas Contest, I had the beginnings of a damn nice PC. Just needed a few more things and it’d be good to go. Once everything was ready, I dusted off my old custom Lian Li PC70 Disturbed case, and shoved all the components in.
And, nothing… no video, no error beeps, no post, nothing. My first build in ages would power up and proceed to do nothing. A few hours later, I had given up. Actually, I thought I may have damaged the CPU or motherboard when installing the heat sink.
This afternoon, I decided to give it another try. Took the video card out, and nothing. Took the memory out and the system beeped at me. Hmm… so I put the memory back in, put the video card back in, and magic the system booted. Stupid PC! :p
So, now I’m up and running. Vista (Ultimate 64) is grinding away downloading the first round of updates, all 84 of them. I now find myself wondering, what the heck am I going to do with this system? My wife chirps in often with the same question. Truthfully, I have no idea. I’m not crazy about Vista (or the much improved Windows 7)… everything I do these days is on my Mac.
Perhaps I should blow it away and install Linux (it’s been a while since I’ve messed with Slackware). Maybe this will become a test web server, or some kind of FTP/file server. Though it really would be a waste of that Radeon HD 4870. Hmm… MythTV maybe?
Here’s a preview:
However, I did win a pretty slick video card.
There is more to it than just this contest though. You see, Folding@Home is a research program that is looking to find a cure for cancer and various other diseases. The program is designed so that when you aren’t busy using your computer (or PS3) it’ll run as a screen saver or background process. After it’s up and running, you’ll probably notice no difference with your system, unless of course you enable the screen saver option. 