the sho.gun PC (my new project)

[sho.gun]

I have finally decided to start on my project comp, it'll take a while to finish at the rate I get paid and maybe I'll even screw up something really bad that it won't end up finished. Here's what I'm putting together:

*Epox EP -8KHA+ kt266a mobo (also thinking of the MSI K7T266 pro2, i'm in love with the red mobo)
*Athlon XP 1600 (I'm buying the mobo and cpu last, waiting on some price drops, and maybe I would win one on that AMD XP tour in LA)
*Thermalright sk6 HS with that loud delta that comes with it

*IMT-4000 mid tower case (http://store.yahoo.com/lib/buycaseonline/imt4000side.jpg)
*Sound blaster audigy
*Hercules kyroII 4500 64 mb
*Pioneer 16x dvd slot load (I'm going to do
this (http://www.hitechmods.com/mods/DVD_Win-LED/DVD-MOD.htm) to it)
*Plextor 24x cd rw (I might settle for a lite-on after all, depending on how much $ i have)
*60 gb Maxtor
*512 mb pc2100 ram
*Enermax 431w PS

**extra stuff I'm putting on**
~window on top of the case
~cut out some parts of the side of the case and grill them
~Lazer leds (http://www.glowire.com/Lazer%20LEDs.htm) for inside lighting
~maybe put 2 panaflos on the side and 1 on top
~Rounded cables
~NewQ!!!
~paint the inside of the case
~put wheels on the case
~cut out top of case for the 2nd fan on the PSU and put a biohazard fan grill on it.
~more stuff when I think of em.

10/20/01
Ordered the case and the rounded cables, can't wait to start working on it, I need a dremel though... :(

[sbp]

Hercules kyroII 4500 64 mb :dodgy:

[GraingerGuy]

Why does that look bad? It outperforms the GF2 Pro in a lot of stuff at 32bit color. Granted it doesn't do as well as a GF3 or an ATI 8500, but what if he can't afford that?

[ribitch]

Gotta go with nvidia. Sorry, I think the Kyro is a waste of money.

[sbp]

Originally posted by GraingerGuy
Why does that look bad? It outperforms the GF2 Pro in a lot of stuff at 32bit color. Granted it doesn't do as well as a GF3 or an ATI 8500, but what if he can't afford that? And the GF2 Pro outperforms the Kyro 2 in some 32-bit benchmarks. Factor in GeForces are more compatible than Kyro's and require less tweaking. The Kyro 2 is a decent bang for the buck but its not a good long term solution now. Take a look at getting a GF3 Ti200.

[sho.gun]

I've been debating whether or not to get the kyro or a geforce, but the kyros are a really good card for their price and performance. If by the time i get my vid card geforce 2 prices go down to under $100 then I'd get them. Also, maybe that kyro3 will come out soon... and as for gforce3's, i'm gonna have to sell my bed to buy that.

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by sho.gun
*Sound blaster audigy


No, don't get that. Just get an SBLive. From what I have heard the audigy is the start of hardware filtering to block the playing of unregistered music.

[sho.gun]

Originally posted by Speedfreak


No, don't get that. Just get an SBLive. From what I have heard the audigy is the start of hardware filtering to block the playing of unregistered music.


AAAHH!! Is that true? Well crap, if it is I'm just going to get a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz instead of a SBlive card. Man, I was looking forward to the firewire capability too. :angry:

[ZrEo0]

how far are you along buliding this now?

[IrishSS]

Originally posted by Speedfreak


No, don't get that. Just get an SBLive. From what I have heard the audigy is the start of hardware filtering to block the playing of unregistered music.

I dont mean to be a jerk, but do you have any proof of this? Or is this jsut somethign youve heard? I have the audigy and I have no trouble playing music...

[xsiled2]

poo on pc2100 ram get some 2700 :D

[ZrEo0]

how much $ is that case?

[sho.gun]

Well, the case was $54 and as of right now nothing has been done to it yet. I'm planning on modding the thing so one of these days I gotta visit home depot and get some clear acrylic thing, wheels, and that sort of stuff.

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by IrishSS


I dont mean to be a jerk, but do you have any proof of this? Or is this jsut somethign youve heard? I have the audigy and I have no trouble playing music...

Nope, just heard about it like I said. It must not be true if you have one and it works fine. As I don't have one, I have to go by what I hear.

[IrishSS]

Ya, I havent had one instance of trouble playing MP3's out of it... getting it to conenct to me DTT2500's in Digital though...:bash:

[sho.gun]

So, time to update this I guess...

I got my case a while back and completely dissambled it for the mods. One setback was that the case construction was not what I thought it would be, when you take the side off, it comes off as a whole piece, like a U. Not a side open like I thought it would be. So then, improvise! I bought a lucite board and plan on making a clear door on the side, I've cut out the window and put in some chrome molding on the edges. Lookin good, now I gotta mount my "door", put in the wheels.

I also got my fans from Xsiled2, 2 120mm fans and a panaflo 80mm. I connected to 2 120mms together so they use a single molex and also put a little switch on it, they move a LOT of air... I got some fangrills and painted them gold, now I'm thinking maybe I should paint the whole inside chassis gold. So the 2 120mms will go on the bottom of my case side by side sucking up air from below.

Changed my case LEDs from the plain red & green to some ultra brite red and blue LEDs.

I'll post pics when I have time.

[sho.gun]

Gonna order the following next week from Newegg:

*MSI K7T266 PRO2-RU 266MHz FSB ATX DDR IDE RAID USB 2.0 MOTHERBOARD
*Athlon XP 1600
*Thermalright sk6 HS with that loud delta that comes with it

*IMT-4000 mid tower case
*Sound blaster audigy
*Hercules kyroII 4500 64 mb
*Pioneer 16x dvd slot load
*Lite On 24x cd rw
*2 40 gb Seagate IV 7200 RPM IDE Hard drives for RAID 0
*Enermax 431w PS w/ sleeping mode


Gonna be around $970 with tax and shipping... :( thats so much money!!

[xsiled2]

usb 2.0 doesnt work with XP, or so i heard

[sho.gun]

Originally posted by xsiled2
usb 2.0 doesnt work with XP, or so i heard

It does, just gotta dl some drivers/service pack thingie from M$

[sho.gun]

But since there aren't any USB 2.0 devices out there yet, USB 2 won't be workin for a while... I guess I can run other USB stuff there but i want the speeeeeeeeed

[MusashiM]

Nice. It all sound pretty good, but I would have changed a few things if it were me... Over all, though, really nice...

[sho.gun]

(Blurry) Case Pictures!!

Picture 1 (http://www20.brinkster.com/cecepage/pictures/Picture%20001.jpg)

Side door view (http://www20.brinkster.com/cecepage/pictures/Picture%20002.jpg) Notice the nice crack on it :angry:

Top vent/window (http://www20.brinkster.com/cecepage/pictures/Picture%20003.jpg)

Sorry about the blurry pics, I'll post better ones later.

[sho.gun]

Those links need to be copy and pasted to your address bar, brinkster's not letting it work

[sho.gun]

K those would be old pics as of Sunday night. I think I finished the case, I replaced the cracked door, changed the top window spacers to some cool looking gold stuff, put up my fans, handle, magnets to keep door shut, etc. Oh and yesterday I went to Fry's with a friend and decided to get a UV cold cathode for my comp and the power inverter for it. Wired it up last night and worked like a charm, one thing though, the lucite door I use filters out about 80% of the UV light so it doesnt really go through and make stuff outside the comp glow...

[sho.gun]

Ordered pretty much everything last night from newegg except the CD-RW which is out of stock :mad:.

I should be getting them in a couple of days... the tension feels so.. so.. aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!

[sho.gun]

it comes today... but i'm at school GAAAAAAAAAAH i wanna go home!!

[sho.gun]

/me goes back to shed to put back shovel...

Okay I finally got some pictures today and I made a small website for my new comp. Well it isn't exactly new... but here it is in all her glory:


http://www.dslextreme.com/users/lumowa//Comp/comp.htm

tease picture:




http://www.dslextreme.com/users/lumowa//Comp/Front.JPG

[AmRivlin]

Kyro was dumb... shoulda gotten a GF4MX or GF3ti450... I like the silver slot laoder, whats the easiest way to paint like that?

[Wizard]

Originally posted by AmRivlin
Kyro was dumb... shoulda gotten a GF4MX or GF3ti450... I like the silver slot laoder, whats the easiest way to paint like that?

Hate to point it out but the ATi8500 @ $140 is pretty much the best deal available in the video card world.

[bachviet]

Damn that case is nice... I need to get my hand on one of those baby! Does anybody know if that case is any good in term of cooling???

[sho.gun]

I chose the KyroII cuz I bought all the parts back in November of last year. That's almost 5 months now. I could have gone with a GF2 but that's over $100 for sure, the Radeon 8500 was really really expensive too, and there was no GF4MX cards then either. From all the reviews I've read about the Kyro, it seemed like a decent card for the money, I paid $70 for mine and for what I do with it, it performs quite well. It's not like I'm drawing 3d cad stuff or whatnot.

The case is the IMT-4000 I got at www.buycase.com . In terms of cooling, I must say that it's not the best but if you don't plan on modding them, they have the usual fan placement in the back, 2 huge vent things on the side of the case, and 1 fan placement in the front that cannot work because it is blocked by the front bezel.


http://www.dslextreme.com/users/lumowa//Comp/Side%20shot.JPG

As you can see, I put 2 120mm intake fans in the bottom and it pushes the hot air out the top vent. Needless to say, with some tweaking, the case cools well.

AMrivlin, I used vinyl dye to paint my drives, you can get a can of them for less than $10 at Pep boys or other auto shops. They're pretty much spray and play but I might write a guide later on.

[Wizard]

Originally posted by sho.gun
I chose the KyroII cuz I bought all the parts back in November of last year. That's almost 5 months now. I could have gone with a GF2 but that's over $100 for sure, the Radeon 8500 was really really expensive too, and there was no GF4MX cards then either. From all the reviews I've read about the Kyro, it seemed like a decent card for the money, I paid $70 for mine and for what I do with it, it performs quite well. It's not like I'm drawing 3d cad stuff or whatnot.

Well that teaches me to look at the dates on the messages :)

How's the pimped out sho.gun comp working out for you?

Is the KyroII pretty good? Word on the street is that VIA's purchase of STMicro will ensure that Kyro3 will see the light of day!! :)

[Windsor]

Originally posted by Wizard


Well that teaches me to look at the dates on the messages :)

How's the pimped out sho.gun comp working out for you?

Is the KyroII pretty good? Word on the street is that VIA's purchase of STMicro will ensure that Kyro3 will see the light of day!! :)

I would really like to see the Kyro III come out, assuming VIA doesn't screw over the program, but I have no reason to expect that to happen. If it improves as much as the Kyro II did over the original, it would be a major candidate for the next vid card. I just hope it continues to be unique.

Sho.gun, that is a really nice case... Nice job on the modding! :thumb:

[Showtime]

Nice work.
I personally don't care about having the most expensive hardware as long as it gets the job done. Kinda like a fixed up car with a stock motor. Cool to look at and fun to drive, not to race.
How many hours did you spend moding the case and its parts?
This looks like it could be my next distraction. hmmm build a cool case or a really cool one made of legos.......
:hmm: lay goes

[sho.gun]

W|z, the sho.gun PC is huggin' and chuggin' along just fine. Except whenever I play Starcraft, it crashes :( . But now I am very happy knowing that it's already outdated.

Jello, it took me about 2 weeks working on it a little at a time. If I were to work nonstop on it, I'd say the case could be finished in 2 days at most, the other stuff would take another 2. It's a fun project I must admit, now I'm trying to think of other things to do with it.

[Cantacuzene]

One complaint: Seagate hdds. I hate Seagate with an utter passion. They've screwed three times, all right after the warranty ended.

[attgig]

so, where can i get my hands on a dremel?
any deals? :P

[sho.gun]

Well it was either the seagate or the IBM ones, from the stuff I read about the IBM ones seagate seemed to be a much better choice reliability wise. Well hopefully mine won't crap out because they are in RAID0...

att, go to home depot or target, or k-mart, or walmart or soemthing. Sometimes they put the black and decker ones on clearance and you can use Dremel tools with it so it works out quite nice. I've seen K-mart put them out for $14.99 so just keep an eye out.

[Burzhui]

Umm dude, fans on the bottom = vacuum cleaner

[sho.gun]

Originally posted by Burzhui
Umm dude, fans on the bottom = vacuum cleaner

Yeah no kidding, that's why I put some Bounce sheets under the fan to filter the air coming in. It still sucks up dust, but not as much.

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by sho.gun
but i want the speeeeeeeeed


Yes, many people do. :naughty:



Sorry, though. I am only going with the ladies.