Aspies For Freedom

hahahahaha, nice!   the always look cooler without the shells.   makes me want to take the casing off my ps2.   Too lazy though.  I did remove the casing once to clean my disk drive out though

While it is easier overall to control with the mouse and keyboard, it does take a Lot of getting used to.  I still haven't quite got the hang of it.   Figured I'd jump in with the specs of my new Desktop:

CPU: Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2160 (both cores are 1.8 GHz)
RAM: 2GB DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics: Inter G33/G31 Express Chipset Family (DX10 Compatible, Minmum Graphics memory is 8MB, maxmimum is 286MB)
HDD:  320 GB
also has a DVD burner, a ton of USB 2.0 Ports, a PCI-E slot for when I have the cash to upgrade the video card, and finally it comes with Vista Home Premium.  (Media Center and Aero Theme are cool, but those security questions.....grr)

right. I need to take this pic again, now that I have a half decent camera, but hell.

note; that is not all my games.

no, thats two copies of FFVII; my original, old and busted copy, and my new and shiny one. both pre-platinum discs.

then you'll love Morrowind and Obliv...we have had this one...

oh, and yes, it is a HL2 box; it contains a shirt, a book, and a disc with STEAM on it, and a key code for the Platinum pack.

no no, this is before orange box

I assume (read; hope) you have Gmod?

:O

oh right. console.

Garrys mod. lets you spawn anything from any source game, and...manipulate it. build. fight. spawn NPC's, destroy, code...anything. its totally fricking awesome.

oh, god, yeah, it's basically a purpose built PC.

a sucky, slow, crappy PC with major heat and design problems, but a PC nonetheless.

note that it is a standard DVD drive, albeit with a SATA rather than an IDE connector; most drives still sold are IDE now, except Hard drives; those are all now SATA (talking a purely household enviroment, of course; there are other interfaces used).

I didnt take the heatsinks off (mostly because I dont know where my thermal paste is) but I'd imagine those are soldered in.

oh, and the HDD is, again, a standard SATA drive; but a laptop one, hence the slower transfer speeds.

PS3, on the other hand...you can just slot in a 3.5" HDD,  no faffing about with enclosure opening etc.

I used compressed air.

you don't want any kind of cloth that can leave fragments behind; and if you want to open a 360, you'll need a TORX10 screwdriver (sort of like a little star).

Chamois (or w/e) is good; but ideally, you dont want to be using anything like that on it. when (if) you take it apart, DONT TOUCH THE BLACK SCREWS. they hold on the heatsinks.

so; compressed air, a TORX10 'driver, and a small, delicate brush for cleaning the fans and heatsinks.

basically, yeah. it's a tri-core PC with crappy cooling, a laptop HDD, a ***, slow, noisy DVD drive...I could go on.

Wait so.. SATA DVD drive? I thought they were IDE (I never looked). My drive needs to be replaced, it is as noisy as hell. Will any SATA DVD drive work? I couldn't see it's power connector.. it doesn't look standard.

I don't understand the faraday cage bit. Radio wha? The 360 should run better with the cage off, no?

I don't know. it may need certain firmware, due to the copy protection.

the faraday cage?

well, computer cases have the same effect; it's to stop radio interference.

also, contrary to popular belief, computers tend to run cooler with the side on, as the air is directed over the heatsinks.

Thanks for the rest but this is just not true. I've done a lot of cooling mods, and I've even done a wooden case mod, in almost all cases the casing limits airflow such that a caseless computer with similarly placed case fans achieves maximum air cooling. (I know some air tunnel designs where you'd be right though.. duals & quads are demanding that level of cooling attention..)

Is the Faraday cage to limit radio influence on the computer or the computer radio waves influence on other electronics? (err, in this instance- computer = console).

ah, I'm talking from my personal usage; this is a quad, and there are a pair of duals in here as well.

the cage works both ways; to be honest, computers are not as affected as they used to be, but it is still useful.

ohh that's nothing. I got 12v rails coming out of my case like snakes (red, black, and yellow at that) because I haven't got space to stuff them or zip ties to keep them tidy.