I might build a new PC

[Harrison]

Has everything arrived now for the new PC Steve? And how is it coming along?

[Stephen Coates]

It hasn't arrived yet. The Novatech order was posted yesterday so will arrive on monday, since it seems Parcelforce don't deliver on Saturday.

[Stephen Coates]

It has all arrived. I'm in the process of building it now. I just hope it will work. I will post here when it is all set up.

[Harrison]

Great news. Hope the build goes well.

[Stephen Coates]

It is all set up and working. It all worked fine the first time (excpet for the floppy drive which I plugged in the wrong way round).

The fans are a bit noisy, but they are only small ones. I might try and slow them down a bit after I have tested to make sure it won't have any bad effect.

The Intel E6300 seems to run around 32C with the stock cooler (whilst not doing much). Right next to the Intel cooler is a case fan (80mm) and also nearby is the massive fan in the OCZ power supply.

I installed Debian but am considering running Mandrake. I am posting this from Firefox running on the Mandrake Live CD. I see that the forum still has the Amiga style pointer . That is something which doesn't work in Opera.

I'm still considering if/how to install Windows.

*wonders what to do with 2GB of memory*

[Harrison]

32C is a very good temp for the CPU at idle using a stock cooler.

If you think the fans are too noisy, which 80mm ones normally are, than you might consider upgrading them to 120mm fans. These are much quieter as they can shift much more air at lower speeds. And if your case only has space to fit 80mm fans then you can get adapters to fit 120mm fans into 80mm fittings.

I'm glad it all went together well first time and worked. Current hardware tends to either work straight out of the box without issue, or causes loads of headaches.

I would consider installing Windows so you can use the ram and dual core CPU, as well as the graphics card fully. Maybe you could try installing Windows 7. If you don't know where to get a "Free" copy from PM me.

[Stephen Coates]

I just unplugged the 80mm fans, leaving the OCZ PSU (with a massive fan) and the Intel cooler (an 80mm fan). Both produced a negligable amount of noise. The three 80mm case fans do shift quite a lot of air and produce a nice air flow through the case, passing over the hard drive and through the graphics card (which has only a heatsink and no fan).

Here is a very rough drawing of the case: http://www.stevecoates.net/stuff/pccoolong.png

[Harrison]

Definitely keep the case fans running Steve. They are essential for today's systems, especially the graphics card as they can generate a lot more heat than the CPU as modern GPUs are designed to run over 100C and that heat output can then overheat ram and CPUs very quickly.

But if you can replace them with 120mm fans it will cut the system noise a lot. I always try to avoid 80mm fans if I can.

[Stephen Coates]

I've now had this PC for two years .

Unfortunately, the Crucial RAM failed recently. Linux was behaving badly and Windows failed to boot, so I ran Memtest86 and it kept churning out the errors. I tested both sticks individually, and in both slots and narrowed it down to one of the sticks. The other one works fine.

Therefore, I am limited to just 1GB of RAM running in single channel mode. This isn't too good in Linux, but I manage fine in Windows XP as XP is a bit less resource hungry than Linux.

Any ideas whether it is worth contacting Crucial regarding this? Or maybe I should just buy some new RAM?

On the more positive side of things, Harrison's old Lite-On CDRW drive is still working nicely .

[J T]

Any ideas whether it is worth contacting Crucial regarding this? Or maybe I should just buy some new RAM?

Yes, definitely. Crucial were very good when I had faulty RAM - they replaced it no quibbles (this was about 3 years ago, maybe more, so I'd had the RAM for a while). If you can provide them with the original order number it will help, but I think they can work it out from your details if necessary.

RAM is pretty cheap now, but (unless they have changed since I dealt with them) it's better for you to get it replaced.