I want to build another one!

Okay, I built my own PC 2 or 3 years ago and I ran into some problems,
first, the power supply died on the first boot up and it took my hard drive
with it and I became so frustrated that I gathered up all my parts and took
them to a local computer shop and said, fix it! Well as it turned out,
something was wrong with the IDE controller on the motherboard, so the
technician had to use the Raid controller to connect the replacement Hard
drive. To make a long story short, my first pseudo-homebuilt PC has been
chugging away without a problem for a couple of years now and just for fun,
I'm ready to try it again, only this time I really want to do it myself and
plan things a little better.

My first step is the case, what can you all tell me about choosing a case?
The end product I have in mind is one that is capable of high end graphics
and maybe even 3-D modeling. Are there any special considerations as far as
the case goes?

Thanks!
Ray

Do a search on Google loads of "How to build your own computer" guides
kicking around.

Just building a new PC myself as it happens, when looking for a case you
need to ensure that it suits the Motherboard you plan to buy so that said I
suggest theses steps:

1. Choose a CPU Intel or AMD - I tend to stick with AMD an Athlon XP 64 Bit
Processor is a good start.
2. Choose a motherboard, depends on the CPU E.G. if you buy an Athlon XP 64
939 Processor you need a Socket 939 Motherboard, loads to choose from, I
settled for an ASUS A8N-E as I wanted to move to a PCI Express Graphics
Card.
3. Choose a case, must suit the motherboard, if your motherboard is a full
ATX then you need a case to take an ATX Board Not a Micro ATX. Usually if
its got 4 external 5 1/4 Drive bays is probably a full ATX Tower. When
choosing the case also check how many Fans it has or needs and the number of
internal 3.5 Inch Drives, depends how many Hard Drives you want to fit.
4. Choose a power supply, go for a 500Watt + when looking at a PSU its not
just that its a 500Watt check the power output for each voltage +3.3v +12v
etc, read some reviews. I just bought a pretty OK and cheap £20.00 Colours
IT PSU. Also check that it has an additional +12v ATX Power connector as
well as SATA power cnnectors if you plan to use SATA drives. The ASUS A8N-E
comes with a couple of SATA power adaptors as well as 2 SATA Data Leads.
5. Get some decent branded memory, check your motherboard for compatible
memory, the ASUS uses DDR RAM buy 2 x identical sized Mem Stick to get the
most out of Dual Channel Memory Architecture.

6. Buy a Hard Drive prefferably SATA 2.0 (If your motherboard will take SATA
2.0) really fast access time, if you really wanna fly get 2 x identical SATA
2.0 Drives and configure them in a RAID setup also a good fallback if one
fails.

7. Buy a good Graphics card, PCI Express is the way to go know, I just bout
an ASUS 6600 for about £50.00 but you can really spend a lot on a really
good card.

What did I forget?? Oh an operating system XP Home or Pro??

Hope this helps

B.H.

"itemyar" <yar RemoveThis @NOTnehalemtel.net> wrote in message
news:124i3lun2bdt3d@corp.supernews.com...
> Okay, I built my own PC 2 or 3 years ago and I ran into some problems,
> first, the power supply died on the first boot up and it took my hard
> drive with it and I became so frustrated that I gathered up all my parts
> and took them to a local computer shop and said, fix it! Well as it
> turned out, something was wrong with the IDE controller on the
> motherboard, so the technician had to use the Raid controller to connect
> the replacement Hard drive. To make a long story short, my first
> pseudo-homebuilt PC has been chugging away without a problem for a couple
> of years now and just for fun, I'm ready to try it again, only this time I
> really want to do it myself and plan things a little better.
>
> My first step is the case, what can you all tell me about choosing a case?
> The end product I have in mind is one that is capable of high end graphics
> and maybe even 3-D modeling. Are there any special considerations as far
> as the case goes?
>
> Thanks!
> Ray
>