the beast is back!

Got the motherboard mid-day, and by the early evening I had everything installed and working! Strange how magical a computer seems until you really get your hands dirty and put one together. I used to think that the processor would be the hardest thing to deal with, but now I'm getting tired of all the PSU connections.

I got a new fan from Thermaltake, which can blow up to about 90cfm. It's like having a tiny Vornado fan in your box! It has a dial that you can install in the rear PCI opening so you can control the rpm. I wanted it to be controlled by the system board but the stupid power cable coming from the fan is too freakin' short to reach! Whatever. I have it hooked to another fan control, but it doesn't register on the system board. Anyway, it can drop the interior temp 5+ degrees when you light it up full blast. I checked the temp after playing COD2 and it hadn't gone above 105°!

I added 2 PCI usb cards so I don't have to use a hub anymore. I think that a board based card is going to be more stable than the hub. I've also added a SATA/IDE adapter but I haven't figured how to get that to work yet. I have too much work to do to worry about that right now.