How to build your own computer

Tools

There are only very few tools you need to assemble a computer. One bolt driver (C) to fasten distance bolts carrying your mainboard and fastening screws on serial ports, printer ports and similar plugs. Two cross point screwdrivers, Philips size #1 (B) and #2 (A). One set of slightly curved thin pliers for pulling jumpers. You can do that with your fingers as well. Thermal compound paste for CPU mounting. Nylon cable straps for fixing cables out of the way of coolers. Patience. That's it.

And now the fun-part: Building your own El Cheapo Rocket Let's start with the box. No fuzzing around, no designer boxes. Just a plain old big tower. Big towers are extra cooling metal, making your system last longer than small boxes. Watch for the craftsmanship, get boxes where the edges have been rounded off or folded. This prevents injuries or shortings at injured pieces of insulation. Look for the possibility to take off just the side covers without removing the full cover. This makes future servicing or upgrades easier. Get a box with not the thinnest metal parts, this will reduce noise by vibration. Remove the screws of the box (marked in red) to open it and put them aside with the case covers. They should be standard UNC screws, but sometimes for strange reasons box screws are different from standard screws, so keep them apart from the others. Inside of the box there is the power supply (marked 1) and a set of accessories (marked 2) such as slot covers, a bag of screws and bolts, the mains cable and (optional) casters for the box itself. The shipped accessories of a regular case. Put the screws and bolts into one of the case covers, so they don't roll around all over the table. Get rid of the shipped power supply. Almost all boxes are shipped with very simple, cheap, poor power supplies (left). Replace that with an Enermax 330, 350 (shown right) or 400 Watt power supply. Maybe you find a place that can sell a standard box without power supply or replace that for an Enermax with a rebate for the shipped one. See above, the difference in workmanship is dramatic. Open covers over future USB-terminals (1), audio jacks (3) and for add-on cards (4), where necessary according to the board you bought. Check which case holes (2) will match your board. Remove covers over all drive bays you will need for CD/DVD/CD-R-drives or similar. Leave them in all other places, they are meant to reduce electronic smog. Lay the box on the side, and fix the panel connector cables with a strip of scotch tape to keep them out of your way.

Mainboard, CPU and upgrade cards Get a good stable mainboard by a well reputated big manufacturer. Currently my best recommendation would be an Asus board for AMD Athlon and Duron CPUs. When you are on a tight budget, you may start with the smallest Duron CPU available (sells for peanuts) and upgrade to a 1.x GHz Athlon Thunderbird when that drops below 100 US$. The Asus board is much more expensive than any noname board, but it is thoroughly developed and comes with industries best support. This means you will most assuredly be able to upgrade your machine longer than any other, you will have excellent driver support and all manuals available online if you loose yours. Put the board on a flat stable surface onto the anti static foam for assembly. CPU: Even the slowest CPU available today is fast enough for most every daily office job, and capable of many daily routine jobs in graphic arts and photography. So you might start with a Duron. If you know you will need extra performance or have enough money to pre-invest in some headroom, go for the full Athlon Thunderbird CPU. Select your CPU by price, then. The smaller CPUs are cheaper than the big ones, but prices don't run linear with CPU clock. Look at the prices, they rise with CPU clock. You will find a disproportional rise somewhere in the line of CPUs, much more increase from one certain CPU to the next than that from the previous smaller one. The CPU before this big increase is the one to buy. Open the lever of the ZIF (zero insertion force) socket. The CPU can only be placed in one orientation, check the missing pins and corresponding missing socket holes. Close lever again to fix CPU. The four rubber points are buffers to prevent coolers from damaging CPUs by being tilted and mounted. Cooler: Modern CPUs generate more heat per square inch than an oven plate. Up to 60 Watts of heating energy must be dispersed and killed. Buy the best cooler available, the Titan Majesty (left) or the Alpha (right) or the Pentalpha (below). Remove the bubble gum thermal pad that is factory applied. Scrape it off and use Zippo lighter fluid or cleaning gasoline to get rid of all the rests. Try not to scratch the cooler plate. Apply a very thin coating of thermal compound paste onto just the processor die itself. The die must be fully covered with a thin layer, but the paste should not squirt out when mounting the cooler on the CPU. Too much will not be temperature conductive anymore, it will turn into a thermal insulator. Mount CPU, cooler and memory before putting the board into the box. You will need some strength to mount the cooler. On some coolers you can use a screwdriver as a lever. Be careful not to damage the board with the cooler bracket. Memory: Up to 128 MB Windows in all flavors will get faster with every MB of memory. Above that more memory is useful for graphic applications and others that are meant to process large files. It also allows to run several programs at the same time without too much loss of performance. My suggestion would be to buy no less than 128 MB, my recommendation is to buy at least 256 MB, if possible in one module. Above you can see notches in the memory module and the corresponding cams in the memory slot. You cannot mount memory in the wrong orientation. Memory is - together with board and power supply - the most common reason for instable systems. Get modules by major brands such as Infineon (shown above), Samsung or Micron. Graphic card: Photoshop needs no 3D or gaming capabilities. A sharp signal and good performance in higher screen resolutions are much more critical. TV out is an excellent tool for printing to video or presentation on a TV monitor. I have only one recommendation for that, Matrox cards. Currently the Matrox G550 Double Head is the one to buy. 16 MB is plenty to fuel even big 22" screens, any memory exceeding this would be used for a few games, but makes no difference for the working graphics artist. Sound card: Sound cards are either Soundblasters or compatible to that. More or less compatible. If you don't want a full audio studio setup, the cheapest original Creative Labs Soundblaster card will do (and the Soundblaster live in various combinations in known to cause problems). Pay more attention to the speakers. Lift them up, the better ones are usually heavier than the worse table horns. Even with subwoofers you shouldn't need to shell out more than 80 US$ max for a fine set of speakers. Speakers with power supply integrated are a better choice than speakers with external mains adapter plug - you can fully switch them off. Hard drives Same as CPU, calculate what will give you the most GB per dollar. Go for IBM or Maxtor drives. 5400 rpm drives will give you the longest life, they are relatively quite and they are not very demanding regarding extra ventilation. 7200 rpm drives are faster, noisier and have a smaller life expectation because the bearings are stressed more than in slower drives. However, the increase in speed is not dramatic in applications like Photoshop, you need sustained write/read speeds for large files, with files fitting into physical memory that is basically only a help in opening or writing files. Saves only seconds, no big deal. So, I'd suggest to go for 5400 rpm drives. CD-ROM, DVD, CD-R: DVDs are mostly used to watch video movies. Rarely software packages need that much room. I don't really need one today, but since prices drop dramatically, there is no reason not to put one into a new computer. CD recorders use a pickup that is heavier than that of regular CD-ROM drives. Using it for everyday work would wear it too fast. It is a good idea to buy a regular CD-ROM or DVD drive alongside your burner. Don't look for max spinning speed, look for a rugged unit. Drives with high nominal spinning rates usually produce reading errors at max speed, spin down, up again, down, up..... and you find that you bought a siren. Go for a nice and rugged Teac 40x drive or a Toshiba DVD. And while you're at it, grab a Teac or Plextor CD-recorder as well. The new class of 12(16)x/10x/32(40)x drives makes use of a nice little feature: BurnProof. This means the unit can detect a buffer underrun closing in and interrupt burning. Nothing big, huh ? No, but these units can resume at exactly the same position a few seconds later, when the buffer is filled again. Where you used to throw away CDs by the dozen, you now just receive the message that buffer underrun was avoided 5 times or so.... The Teac is a very good drive, but if you are up for audio as well, get the Plextor. It is from my experience a little better in audio. There are several recording programs bundled with recorders today. I would recommend to throw them all away and not to install them if it isn't "Nero burning Rom" from Ahead (http://www.ahead.de). Do not install more than one CD recording program at once, they will most certainly interfere and make your machine shaky - you don't want that. There are programs that might perform better in gamecopy protection cracking, but remember this is a tool, not a toy. No games loaded anyway. Removable media, backup: Veeeery important, and with deadly precision the part where regular budgets end. Without backup this might also be the point where your business ends.... With a limited budget don't worry too much about backing up the whole system. One can reinstall the OS plus all programs in one day. You have installation CDs for that. The dangerous part is losing your contracts, your images, the hours spent in retouching, maybe all your originals if you are fully digital. Burn everything including program settings, rare fonts, downloads and new drivers from the net and everything else you'd maybe need again to CD. Burn it to two sets of CDs, and store both sets in a cool, dry and dark (!) place. One in your house, and one in another house. Your house might burn down or you might get robbed or.... With a second set of backups life goes on. CDs are cheap. You are not. If you want full security to the max possible state of the art, you will need a SCSI SLR or DLT tape drive and a dedicated backup program. Including disaster recovery, open file agent and other features this may well make much more than the complete machine without backup. Input devices (keyboard, graphic tablets, mice): Don't fuss around with multimedia keyboards with loads of extra keys. They will need extra drivers to be fiddled into your system, a potential source of problems. If you are not typing much, the cheapest 10 US$ keyboard might do. If you type some more, go for a cherry keyboard at about 20 US$. There are cheaper graphic tablets, that I don't recommend. A simple small Wacom graphire at about 100 US$ does well. Go no cheaper. There is nothing more expensive than cheap tools. Get a good mouse, Logitech cordless wheel mouse classic, three buttons plus wheel. Or the same in standard cord version. The cordless is much more flexible in handling, but costs extra money. Optical mice are fascinating toys, but if you sport a calendar with printed grid on your desk, your cursor might run wild. Scanners: USB scanners, firewire (IEEE 1394) or SCSI-Devices are the way to go. Don't try to settle for a parallel port toy. For little under 300 US$ you get good units from Microtek or Epson that come with translucent unit and you can expect to draw quite acceptable scans from MF negatives and slides with those. Buy an extra film scanner for 35, the quality of flatbeds with TLU is in 35mm only good for occasional web use. Nikon or Minolta in the low budget range, Canon, Nikon, Polaroid, Minolta and Microtek with the better ones. Printers: For letters you do well with laser printers, there is no cheaper printing in the long run. But if you want to print images, there is no way around Epson printers. My personal tip for sheets up to 8x11.5" is the Epson 900 respectively the new 980. Mere 3 minutes for a print you can't tell from regular RA-4, provided you pick the right paper. If you want your prints archival, the Epson 2000 P is the thing to buy. It also prints up to 12x16" sheets and banners. There has just been introduced a new Epson with archival single ink tanks. I will look into that and report back. Monitors:Monitors are what you stare at (all day if you are slow...). Don't buy cheap, as a photographer your eyes are your most precious tool, you don't want to ruin them. Buy Eizo, Quatographic, Sony Triniton and similar. Be prepared to really shell out some money. This keeps your eyes healthy and it delivers enough contrast and sharpness to judge color balance at all. LCD screens look impressive, they are flickerfree, but they have one crucial disadvantage: Their color rendition is not fit for picture processing and cannot be properly calibrated. Get a monitor that is capable of using BNC cable terminals for input. This adds to signal quality.

Putting the box together..... There are only very few different sorts of screws and bolts used in computers. There are two different threads, one coarse (A,B) and one finer threading (C). A-type screws are for case covers, slot covers, mainboard fixing. B-type screws are used to mount hard disk drives, C-type screws are used for Floppy Disk drives and CD-ROMs, CD burners, DVD drives and Zip-drives. Pretty simple, isn't it ? First mount CPU, cooler and memory on the mainboard. The mainboard is then mounted in the box. It is mounted on distance bolts that come in several variations. 1,2,8 and 9 are basically the same, just different in length adjusted to the box dimensions. These are the best fixtures available. Make sure the box you buy has these, and not 5 or 6 type bolts. The mainboard has holes, and the boxes have fixing threads. Where ever a mainboard hole corresponds to a hole in the box put in one of the 1,2,8,9 type bolts and tighten it wit the bolt driver. Make sure it is tightened, but don't push it too much, else you might damage the thread. 4 type plastic bolts fit in the same threads, but are of minor quality. Do not use them, get extra metal bolts to replace them. Put a 3 type board supporter in every hole of the board that has no corresponding threaded hole in the casing. Put the board into the case and secure with screws type A or C as above. Distance bolts can have both threads as inner threads. Watch to pick the correct one before putting in a screw. Panel connectors Panel connector cables are marked with function. Connectors to switches (power on, reset) can be mounted any way you like, LED connectors have a white wire on the common/ground/minus port. The speaker connector has a red wire for plus and a black wire for minus. Mount them as described in the board manual. Harddrives, floppies Mount the drives in their bays and secure them with screws (C,F below). Connect the ribbon data cables (B, D) to the drives. There is always one wire marked in red, this is always pin 1. Most cables are keyed to prevent plugging them the wrong way. Nevertheless check to make sure, pin 1 on the drive is also marked. Usually it is the pin next to the power connector. If there is only one device on a cable, plug it into the ending last connector. Next plug in the power supplies (A, E). Again, no way to plug them wrong, the plug shape prohibits this. Cable straps This is one of the features making the difference between a poorly assembled and a proper computer. Bundle all cables and strap the bundles to case cover and drive bays where feasible. Do this in a way that guarantees maximum air circulation and keeps cables clear of cooler fans. A single cable obstructing a cooler fan can kill your whole system. Cut off protruding strap tips.

Switching on.....

After double checking that you plugged all cables correctly (refer to the mainboard manual and not only try where "it fits"), plug in keyboard, mouse and monitor. Caution: If you forget the mouse, you have to switch the machine off before plugging. PS/2 mice may never be plugged or unplugged with the machine running, this may fatally damage the port interface.

Now you're ready to switch on. Leave the case open for the first time, if you have bad luck and something smolders, you can pull the plug. The system will perform a selftest and after a few seconds the screen will show BIOS status reports.
You are done, the system is ready.

source: http://www.photoquack.de

How to Install Android on Your PC

It used to be the case that PC users had the choice of installing Windows or, if they were feeling adventurous, a version of Linux. This is still true, but it is now also possible to install OS X without owning a Mac and virtualization means that you can do all of this alongside your main operating system in a virtual computer.
This being Android.AppStorm, you may well wonder what virtualization has to do with your phone or tablet. Well, how would you feel about the chance of installing and running Android on your PC? Using a free copy of VirtualBox and the information in this guide, you can run a fully functioning – and legal – version of Jelly Bean on your computer.

It’s a Simple Process

First, you’ll need to grab yourself a copy of VirtualBox. This powerful virtualization utility can be used to install a second operating system alongside your primary one, and while this usually means running a second copy of Windows or trying out Ubuntu, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able install a mobile operating system as well.

Android may have been designed for your phone and tablet , but that doesn’t mean it needs to stay there.

Once you have the virtualization software up and running, you’ll need to get hold of a copy of Jelly Bean to install. This does not mean that you need to obtain an illicit copy of the operating system from an untrustworthy website, or rip a copy of your phone’s ROM – it is actually freely available.

Step 1: Grab an Android ROM

There are various versions of Android available for download, but it makes sense to work with the most recent version – Jelly Bean. Head over to the Android-x86 website scroll down to the Android-x86-4.2-devel section and click the View link for the most up to date version (at time of writing this is 4.2 20130228).

There are several Android ROMs available to download including the latest version of Jelly Bean.

Weighing in at just under 200MB, the download will take a moment to transfer. Once you have the ISO file on your hard drive, you’re ready to set about the task of installing it in VirtualBox.

Step 2: Going Virtual

Pay a visit to the VirtualBox download page and click the link to download the software. Here, I’m working with Windows 8, but VirtualBox is compatible with older versions of Microsoft’s operating system, and there are also versions available for OS X and Linux.

VirtualBox can be used to install a second operating system on your computer, including Android.

Once downloaded, run through the installation of the program  – just accept all of the default options. Don’t be concerned when you’re asked to install a new network adaptor as this is part if the usual installation process.

A virtual network adaptor will be installed by VirtualBox to allow virtual machines to get online.

Once installation is complete, launch VirtualBox and you’re ready to move to the next stage.

Step 3: Create a Virtual Machine

You’ll need to start by creating a new virtual machine onto which you will install Android. Click the New button. Name the virtual machine whatever you like, and (as Android is based on Linux) select  Linux from the first drop down menu. From the Version menu select Other Linux and then click Next.

Android is a Linux-based operating system and it needs to be correctly identified in VirtualBox.

Move the memory slider to the right so that 512MB or more of RAM is set aside for VirtualBox and click Next. Make sure that the Create a virtual hard drive now option is selected and click Create. Select VDI, click Next and then select the Fixed size option before clicking Next.
You can then use the slider to choose how large a disk should be assigned to the virtual machine, and you can use the folder button to choose where it should be stored. Click Create when you’ve configured your settings — it might take a few minutes for the virtual disk to be created.

Your virtual Android device can be assigned a drive capacity of your choice — go wild!

Step 4: Install Android

Make sure that you have your newly created virtual machine selected and then click the Settings button in the toolbar. Click the Storage link to the left hand side of the dialog and then towards the center click the Empty entry in the Storage Tree section.
To the right of this, click the small disc button and select Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file from the menu that appears. Navigate to the ISO file you have downloaded, select it and click Open followed by OK.

The ISO files you’ve downloaded can be used as a virtual CD to install Android.

Power up your virtual machine by clicking the Start button in the VirtualBox toolbar.

If this is the first time you’ve used the program you may see a message letting you know about mouse capturing. When you move the mouse cursor inside the virtual machine window you’ll find that you cannot move it back out to control Windows as you normally would – just remember to press the right hand Ctrl key to free up the mouse when you need to.

Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll down to the Installation option and press Enter.

Android can be run without installation, but opting to install provides a better, faster experience.

Now you will need to configure the virtual hard drive so that there is somewhere to install Android to. Select the Create/Modify Partition option and press Enter.
Select New at the bottom of the screen and press Enter, and then select the Primary option before pressing Enter again. Press Enter to create a partition that occupies your entire virtual drive.

Configuring hard drives for Android may seem complex, but it takes just a few moments.

Now select the Bootable option and press Enter, select Write and press Enter, and then type the word yes before pressing Enter once again. Select Quit, choose the partition you’ve just created and press Enter.
When prompted, select the option to use the ext3 file system and select Yes to confirm your choice. The GRUB bootloader takes care of launching Android, so select Yes to install it and then select Yes again to make the /system directory writeable.

The correct drive format must be selected for Android to work properly, so take care during configuration.

It won’t be long before Android boots, and at this point you should remove the virtual CD from the drive. Click the Devices menu and select CD/DVD Devices followed by Remove disk from virtual drive.

It’s a slightly time-consuming process, but getting Android on your PC is very rewarding.

Step 5: Almost There!

You might find that Android takes a little while to boot up — at least the first time around — and you’ll then have to run through the initial configuration just like you did the first time you switched on your phone or tablet.
Should you find that your mouse does not work and you are unable to click within Android, click the Machine menu in Virtual Box and then click Disable Mouse Integration. You may also find it useful to click View followed by Switch to Scale Mode if you find the mouse acts erratically — you can switch back to regular mode by pressing the right Ctrl key and C at the same time.

The first time you run Android you’ll have to set it up just like you did on your phone or tablet.

You can ignore any steps related to connecting to a wireless network as VirtualBox will just make use of your computer connection without the need for additional configuration.

Running Android within Windows can feel strange to start with, but it’s also great fun!

Now it’s time to pay a visit to Google Play and start downloading apps! Let us know how you get on, particularly if you think up any interesting uses for a virtualized copy of Android.