Ok well here's uber-boring the story... (Pics to follow soon!!!)

My desktop was recently relegated to file server in Feburary as I got a laptop with the healp of my university that was more powerful. It was a 3ghz P4 Northwood with 1gig of DDR400 (only running at half its rated speed), a crap motherboard and a 6600GT GFX card. I had inherited it with 1gb ram and a naff case in a constantly BSOD'ing condition from my grandfather. I had had this machine for nearly 4 years and in that time all I had done is change the case to the one you will see soon, add 512mb more ram and add a 250gb drive to the very old 120gb one it had.

When I relegated it I added a cheap SATA card and 3 500gb hard drives giving it 1.75TB (and I ditched the 120gb one).

Recently I've wanted to play some games and had to overclock the 8600GS graphics in my laptop to do so (which I was not happy about, and couldent afford to replace the laptop if this killed it)...

SO, when someone at work offered me £80 for the internals (aka mb, cpu, gfx and ram) of the desktop, I, despite being poor, decided I wanted to upgrade it! I broke out the credit card and decided that armed with £80+70=£150, I would 'upgrade' :-)

Well this is what I have ended up with (albeit £28 over budjet - so £170 (but I did get extras and sell a 256mb ddr laptop mem module for an extra £10 - so effectively went £18 over ;-) )

This is my first real venture into overclocking and I'm pretty chuffed for a budget build...


E2180 @ 3.15Ghz Stable (9x multi) - 1.475v Bios - 1.440v windows idle 1.420v windows load
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Motherboard set @ 350FSB (1400), +0.1v FSB +0.1v MCH
2GB OCZ SLI Ready PC2-8500 (1066mhz) 2.1v Ram @ only 840mhz 2.0v (due to issues with instability - crappy damn ram lol)
XFX 8600GTS 256mb GDDR3 - up from 675 Core / 2000 Mem to 760 Core / 2200 Mem
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
And a 20x LG DVD Writer (as I needed a SATA one)

Not ran any Benchies yet but finally after 4 nights of messing about I have managed to get it rock solid stable...

I cant wait to run 3DMark06 - I know its a crappy card etc and I dont have high expectations... But my mate who is well into £1800+ systems sold his old Pentiom D 955 EE system that got only 6009 marks for either £500 or £750 or something, definately £500 at least anyway and I had bet him that I could put together a MB/CPU/RAM and GFX card for £150 that could beat it... And with out the dvd drive and AC7, I think I've managed. There is no money on it but he HAS to lose!

Anyway, do you think I've done alright? Do u think I'll win my bet?

Ok 35 views and no votes.. lol

Well some pics for all u ppl ive bored to death...

(The inside of the case cycles colours, going through the whole spectrum gradually)

I love that cycling coloured light in your computer.

Looks absolutely amazing.

Thanks guys

I know its only a cheap case (£17.99 lmfao) But ive tried to make the best of it. I salvaged the blue dials, the front fan came with it and all the ither fans I added. The fans and dials are all blue except the side one which is deliberately 3 coloured to go with the colourcycling leds...

The leds are on 4 strips (hiden around the perspex bit) and came from Ikea and I havent a clue where you'd normally use them, suvice to say I cut the transformer off and added a 4 pin pc connector to the end (as they happened to be 12v). Pics dont the the leds justice.

It does the job anyway

I would vote, but you are speaking a slightly foreign language to me.  

All I would ever ask was "Can I play WoW?"

I would vote, but you are speaking a slightly foreign language to me.  

All I would ever ask was "Can I play WoW?"

LOL!

Yes you could... as far as I am aware most pcs can cant they?

It is difficult to discern your history of old PC(s) from the project of a new PC. All of the technical stuff made sense. For all of that technical stuff you haven't at all mentioned temperatures (or did you?). The build looks to be well planned.

3DMark06? Ya know there's a marginal difference between 6000 and 6500. Don't take it seriously either way your score turns.

Lol sorry, what I mean is ive gutted the old pc and for little money put in a new mb/cpu/ram and gfx crd... I just went off track...

Anyway, I know the difference wont be huge but he said I wont hit 6009 or exceed it, or he will be surprised if it would.

Ok temps... (in Celcius)

CPU -
30 idle - 55 Load under Orthos - 59-60 in heavy games

System temp - (and i think that one refers to the MCH) - 36 idle - 39 Orthos load - 42 Heavy games

And just to be really boring...

Total system wattage at the plug with a 17" CRT:

190w Idle
255w Orthos load
265w peak 245w average under heavy games.

I have a temperature dial on those dials I got for case temps but unfortunately the probe's dead so i need to get a new one.

Also I need to get a tiny fan for the MCH and a big one pointed at the RAM sticks as I noticed they overheat and start causing errors at thier rated 2.1v under sustained torture and within an hour of 2.2v operation, hence the underclock...



*** UPDATE ***

Now at 3.186Ghz and Mem @ 850 with a 354 (1416) FSB

And GFX card - 62 Idle (+2 deg from stock), 74-81 Load

Very good. How did you measure wattage load/idle? Or is that a calculation?

I have a plug un watt meter from maplin... it does volts amps watts hz and kwh usage

its a bit like a Kilowatt meter!

I have a plug un watt meter from maplin... it does volts amps watts hz and kwh usage

its a bit like a Kilowatt meter!

I want one