Changes

I have made some changes since last posts and I am going to post some of these changes ! Hopefully someone will enjoy them !

First big change is the motherboard. My earlier motherboard (Asus P5B Deluxe), was a great motherboard probably better in some specs than this one. Now i have the eVGA nForce 750i SLI (Socket 775) and I'm still running with my Core2Duo E6600. HOWEVER ! I'm currently overclocking my processor !!! I'm quite happy about it since i haven't overclocked since a few years now !

So i'm running right now my CPU @ 3.30 GHz which is pretty cool... and my cpu is at 51C and apparently 60C is the maximum temperature of my specific Processor.

I am still cooling it with my Thermaltake Big Typhoon, which is doing quite a good job right now, but i gotta admit that most of the job is done by the 14mm 3blade server fan that makes as much noise as a car that exhausts the air in such a strength that one of my regular 14mm exhausts is actually IN-taking air! I.E., air is flowing the opposite direction of what it's supposed to ! Which indicates a NEGATIVE pressure caused by this extreme fan. I'm thinking of setting up my fans in a better way later, since it's not in an ideal setup right now obviously. I'm just testing things for the moment!!

I believe the main source of my Asus mobo frying was some sort of a power issue, since my Cooler Master PSU fried with it. I replaced it by the non-modular (by mistake) 750W corsair PSU. it's a great power supply, I'm not an expert in power but after the few research i've done i believe it's one of the best for it's price. I believe i got it around 130$ about a year ago.

There was 3 HDD's in my PC at that time, one of them fried also with the incident, the other one after removing it i f*****g DROPED IT !!!! it pisses me off so much... most of my important stuff were on it. In order to make a physical recovery right now it would cost me between 300 and 1000$ depending on from who i would get the service. My files are definitely worth it, but I am kind of broke right now !

I purchased a 1TB Western Digital HDD and put it in my rig. The functional 3rd drive, I am still using as an external hard drive with an Eagle Consus SATA to USB 3.0 Internal to External Hard Drive Adapter Station. I just invented the name by the way. I don't remember the official name but here's how it looks like.


I also use it in conjunction (WOW STR8 UP SMART WORD JUST RIGHT THERE !) with my acomdata 500 Gb external hard drive.

WELL WELL WELL. I'm kind of a bit tired of typing right now especially that it's almost 3 in the morning. so here's briefly what is left that i changed :

My sound system: I still have the bose sound system but i added my old Altec Lansing 2.1 just for the heck of it's bass !... when i listen to bumpy music i like to use the Altec Lansing, when i want good quality acoustics i tend to use the Bose. I also have The Beats by Dr. Dre Studio which i don't like by the way. I actually hate them lol in term of sound quality but i love their practiceness !!! here are some pics :

The other 3 objects are a Logitech Webcam, very cheap lol. Belkin 7 ports high speed usb 2.0 which i honestly love ! it is very effiecient, it has it's own power input which is very useful in case u use devices that require high power lowd such as external 2.5" hard drives. and finally my new Obtical Fiber Internet Modem/Router. It doesn't have a optical input but the data is still transmited to the building (i believe) by fiber optic by my Internet Provider (Bell Canada). It's the Fibe 15 (15 Mb/s connection) and i can download torrents usually around 2.8 Mb/s which is extremely impressive to what used to get with the 10 Mb/s regular connection (700 kb/s torrent downloads)

That's pretty much it... I'll try to keep posting !

Case : CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000

This is about the case of my PC. It's the Comos 1000 of the brand Coolermaster.
I will just describe the specs that are the most important to me :

• Full Tower : case, which means it is bigger than usual cases (in fact, this particular case can be described as HUGE !!!!! and f*%$ing massive, on of the heaviest full tower case on the market)
• Ease of hardware installation : 
• Thumb screws that do not need screw driver
• Buttons that help installing DVD drivers without screws
• Non-sharp edges so i wont cut myself while installing hardware
• Drawers for Hard drives
• Cool and Silent
• Big = more space = more air flowing
• The side panels are covered with sound proof foam :)
• Has 4 USB ports (that braked -_-) and one eSATA port in the front pannel + Audio
• Dust Filters ! (amazing to keep your PC clean)
• SEXY !!!

CPU : Core 2 Duo E6600

It is a relatively old CPU but... BUT ! it can be overclocked to 3.6 GHz with adequate equipment instead of 2.4Ghz. Indeed i do not have the adequate equipment (Water Cooling System) but i do have enough of guts to crank it up to 3.2 Ghz and keep it stable. This is actually as fast as a Core 2 Duo Extreme, so please tell me what is the point of paying over $1000 for a CPU ?... cooler ? more cash ? details details details. i like my CPU and... yeah thats pretty much it.

(The picture wasn't taken by me, this is not my actual CPU, i did not want to remove it to take the picture i just googled up a picture of a E6600)

DVD burners : 2x

I have two DVD burners, one of them do not function very properly but i still keep it. its a bit stupid to keep it since it only waists electrical energy but i guess i'm too lazy to remove it :)

I'm going to more talk about the case here than the DVD player itself, first of all look at how it is so easy to remove the front cover in the case.

And then to remove the DVD to replace it, all you need to do is press the button inside the case.

And then just remove the Drive.

CPU's Fan : Thermaltake Big Typhoon

This is a very sexy fan. it has 6 heat sink pipes (to understand what they are please read the post on the OCZ memory) and a little controller for the fan speed/noise. it has a copper base that transfers heat/energy very well. i love this fan it works very great and allows me to overclock my CPU up to 3.2 GHz without major overheat. I tend to keep it at 3.0 just to not take any precautions (during summer for example, hot temperatures do not help). it has a 14 cm orange thermaltake fan that is very cool. It is quite big so if i didn't have a Full Tower case, it would probably not Fit.

Memory : 4GB OCZ Reaper 1060 MHz

Ok, people, listen ! This memory is so freakishly cool for the following reasons :

1. They are VERY fast (for DDR2 memory) considering that my computer is relatively old. They are as fast as the slowest DDR3 memory... but guess what : it lets you overclock much better because of the lower timings. for you noobs who don't know Sh*t about memory just know : its faster than yours ;)
2. They have Heat Sink Pipes on them : which means that theres a liquid in these copper pipes that takes the heat from the card itself and brings it up thanks to physics law (hotter liquid has lower density, thus goes on top) and therefore there's a flow inside the pipes that keep the card as cool as possible. The black thingies on top of the sinks are called Refrigerators, yes they are very basic FRIDGES ! cool hun ?
3. Again : Easy to Overclock
4. they are f*&#ing SEXY ! 

Video Card : XFX Radeon HD 5770

This is Actually the 3rd card that have been installed in my computer after the MSI GeForce 4950GT and the XFX 9800 GT. I decided to instead of buying one crazy $500 card every two years after that it got outdated, buying one average $120 card every year. And for the moment i have this Beauty. It has 1 GB of GDDR3 Memory, two DVI ports and 1 HDMI which is pretty cool because i can install 2 screens and 1 tv on it (which hopefully will be realizable soon).
It can run almost perfectly most of my games at 1680x1050 pixels on my 22" screen.

Hard Drives : 500 GB in Raid 0 and 1000 GB extra + 500GB external

Noobs won't understand this, Pros will laugh at me:

I have one 500 GB WD hard drive in raid 0 with a 250 GB WD hard drive. which makes it about 2x as fast but i lose 250 GB of memory. I actually tried it as a test and decided to not go back. Usually to put hard drives in raid they have to be identical, but i just wanted to try :)

Anyways i keep all my important stuff on the 3rd hard drive of 1000 GB and on an external HDD of 500 GB.

so in total i have 2.25 TB physically and 2.0 TB in active (without counting all the USB keys i have and the memory cards)

Monitor : Samsung SyncMaster 226BW

This is a very beautiful screen. I bought it 1 or two years ago and it was one of the best/biggest at that time. it has a response speed of 2ms and a contrast ratio of 3000:1. Resolution : 1680x1050. I really like it, the image is clear and colors are beautiful and customizable. I will soon get a Samsung TV/Monitor 25" so i can dual monitor them :)

Mouse : Razer Lachesis

I bought this mouse a few days ago and i'm simply astonished. 

it is amazingly comfortable, no matter how you hold it.

it has cool logo light glowing in red

it is incredibly precise and smooth

although it is a bit expensive, if you want to have a great gaming experience, do not even hesitate ! just BUY IT !

Keyboard : i-rocks compact illuminated keyboard

This is a Small keyboard, which is't necessarily a good thing because i find it's less comfortable when there's necessity to use almost all the keys. However, the cool thing about it is that it's illuminated : typing with the lights off during the night isn't a problem anymore (since i'm mostly nocturne and hate keeping my lights on). other than that it's a normal keyboard there's nothing really special about it.

Gamepad : Belkin n52te

This game pad is beautiful and comfortable and amazingly cool for playing. Most people think its only useful for games but in fact, the buttons are programmable in such a way that they can be used in programs such as photoshop, illustrator, etc. and it is easier to work with than a regular keyboard, believe it or not !

Printer : HP Photosmart C3180 All-in-one

Its a regular All-In-One printer, that does the job quite well. It has nothing really special other than its cool compact shape and the ability to print from memory cards.

Tablet : Wacom Intuos

I bought this tablet for really cheap from a random guy. it is amazing, it is my first tablet, it took me about 45 minutes to get used to how the mouse moves with it (because yes, it can be used as a mouse !). However, as soon as i got used to it, i got addicted to it : some days i don't even use my mouse. it has a big number of pressure sensitivity levels; when drawing, you can decide how dark/light are your brushes, or any other brush option that could depend on the pressure of the pen. There's also an inclination sensitivity : you can chose how the inclination of your pen influences your brush while drawing. Another cool thing about it :it has shortcut "buttons" on top of the tablet that u can just put your pen on it and it would do what the "button"'s option is supposed to do. Also, one could place a sheet, or a picture, or a drawing under the tablet (or more precisely under the gray/transparent plastic sheet) so you can draw it afterward directly on the screen. On the picture you can see the Java U napkin that i placed and the deaf/sign language card.

Microphone : SoundMAX Superbeam

This microphone came along my motherboard (ASUS P5B-Deluxe WiFi) and is very cool since it is actually two 2 microphones in one and it can detect from which direction the sound comes, it also has a very good sound canceling option.
It is also very sensitive, when i boost the reception to the max, i can hear my parents speaking in their room, even with my door closed :)

Sound System : Bose Companion 2 Series II

This is a 2.0 speaker system (which means its only two satellites without sub woofer). I recieved it as a gift and i replaced my 2.1 Altec Lansing VS4121 (which include a subwoofer). I was actually quite surprised : The quality of the sound is crystal clear, no noise in the background, and the sound is just "beautiful". +, The BASS is pretty good for a speaker system without a sub woofer.

USB Extentions

I bought these cute little extentions for my broken USB ports on my front panel. i bought two of them because they were SO CHEAP at NCIX.com ($3 on sale). I dont have much to say except that they are cute :)