Building Your Own PC Computer System

The Purchasing

The Motherboard

My new motherboard arrived today at 2pm, promptly delivered by UPS. It's been precisely one week since I ordered. Pretty good service, IMHO. And the board was well packed, with plenty of insulating foam pieces. Of course, I won't be able to tell if it functions properly until I get the CPU chip and video card so I can start assembling things. But it looks like that will be able to happen within a week or so.

The first major component for my new system has been ordered. I bought an Intel Endeavor (aka "Advanced/EV") motherboard from Amptech, for a total of $213 USD, including shipping and handling. The particular board I bought comes with only 256K of onboard cache SRAM, and I chose the one without the integrated soundchip support, as I already have a soundcard (albeit a limited one), and will probably be upgrading to a more advanced sound card in the future.

The Case

I stopped at another locally owned business called Computer Connection on the second Friday of March. Unfortunately he had already sold out of much of his equipment that week (doing good business apparently), but I was able to get a mid-sized tower for $95 USD+tax.

It has three 3.5" bays and three 5.25" bays which should do nicely for my needs, and has a 230Watt power supply. This is a bit less than what I planned to get but the owner indicated he could put in a higher wattage power supply if I so wanted. I'll consider it a future option.

And unlike the Cybertek place, this store has been around for quite a few years and has a good reputation.

I was able to return the case I bought from Cybertek systems with mild hassle. I was given a temporary business check for my refund (Hmmmmm) which, fortunately, cleared the next day without any problem.

Bought a mid-sized tower case from a locally owned store in Gainesville on Monday (2/26/96) for $59.95+tax USD. Took it home, pulled it out of the box to inspect it. Looked pretty good. I checked the documentation (a single sheet of paper describing how to configure the LED's for your motherboard's speed values and the pin-outs of the power cables) and decided to plug the case in and turn it on to make sure it was ok and that the internal cooling fan would work.

Thank Bob for circuit breakers. As soon as I hit the power switch a brilliant blue spark emitted from the area of the switch with appropiate crackling noise and a large puff of grayish-blue smoke came out of the enclosed power- supply. In the immortal words of Sam Beckett, "Oh boy..."

Fortunately, my current system was unharmed (it was turned on and plugged in at the same time I was testing the case). The apartment's circuit breaker kicked in. I unplugged the case and then turned the breaker back on with no problem. I called the store the next day and mentioned the problem, which seemed to surprise the person I talked to. I asked if I could bring it in on Wednsday to get a refund. I got a "Talk to [mumble] and he'll work something out". Right. We sure will.

The CPU Chip

Picked up my CPU chip and SIMM chip from Shicar Systems today. I can finally begin full assembly of my system!

I went ahead and ordered a 100 Mhz Pentium CPU chip from Shicar Systems today over the phone. Since they don't have any in stock, it has to be ordered and won't be available until Tuesday afternoon at beast.

Cost, $159 USD plus tax (%6 sales tax = $9.5 USD. I probably could have gotten cheaper via mail order, but that would have introduced a delay at least one week longer, and the price difference would not have been that considerable. I also decided to go with the Intel due to concerns about the knockoffs (apparently the AMD 586 chip is not a Pentium variation but simply an advanced 486 chip. Or so I've heard). When I wish to upgrade to a faster CPU, I'll probably look into the knockoffs more seriously.

With the help of a friend, I went around to a number of local vendors to try and get a CPU chip for my system. I was hoping to buy a Pentium-knockoff such as an AMD or Cyrix chip. However, I found that most local vendors weren't interested in even carrying anything other than Intel brand (perhaps the result of collusion?). Also, no one locally keeps much in stock because the CPU prices are so volatile.

This was rather disappointing as it was the last component I would need. I did get a bit of pricing. One place wanted $149 USD for a Pentium 75Mhz chip, which is absurdly high.

The RAM

I had to buy another 8MB 72-pin SIMM from Shicar Systems, as my new motherboard requires that a bank of two SIMM slots be filled, with the same size & speed chip. I was slightly annoyed at having to spend the extra money, but had been planning to do a RAM upgrade relatively soon.

Fortunately, the price of RAM had dropped even more since I last bought from Shicar, costing only $65 USD plus tax (6% sales tax = $3.9 USD). This took the sting out quite a bit. It's very possible that when I upgrade to 32 MB of RAM, I'll be able to do it for around $64 USD.

Picked up the new RAM chip from Shicar Systems with no hassle, and installed it in my current system later that evening. Works fine. The extra RAM helps out when you've got some memory wasting program like Netscape running and want to keep other apps loaded as well, :)

I stopped by Shicar Systems on 3/5/96 and ordered an 8 MB, 72-pin non-parity SIMM for $150 USD, plus tax (6% sales tax = $9 USD). I'll be picking it up later in the week. This SIMM will allow me to have 12 MB in my current setup, as well as in the new system when I'm able to put it together.

The Video Card

My video card arrived via UPS today, complete with fancy packaging, three disks worth of drivers and utilties, and a complete manual. I'm impressed with how small the card is. However, it can not be tested until my system is fully assembled.

I ordered a Number 9 brand video card (Motion 331) today for $126 USD, though that does not including Shipping and Handling charges. I purchased this card on-line from Sparco, a computer component supplier and catalog company.
The card uses PCI, has 2 MB of onboard memory (DRAM), supports 24-bit color in high-res displays, and all around offers a lot of features for a low price.

Well, back in April I attempted to procurr a new video card through a local business. I ordered an ATI Mach64 card, which runs about $130 USD and is a well-supported, reliable card with a lot of basic, solid functionality.

However, even though it's been over a month and it was supposed to be overnight shipped to the store, I have yet to hear anything. Fortunately, I have made no payments.

The CD-ROM Drive

Due to some mix-up with my credit card, my order was delayed. A rep from Sparco called me about it shortly after I discovered an unspecified charge on my balance. Later I discovered the charge was for something I had had on backorder for over 3 months from a comic-book company. So of course Murphy's Law came into play. Fortunately, I was able to make a quick electronic payment and the CD-ROM was shipped the same day.

I ordered my CD-ROM drive today. Once again I went through Sparco's on-line ordering system, using my credit card to pay for the purchase. Hopefully it should be arriving within a week, though it may take longer if they don't immediately find it in stock.

I decided on the Samsung SCR-830 drive.

The Hard Drive

My new hard drive arrived today. However, it was lacking all of the documentation (specs, installation instructions, warrantry registration, etc.) so I had to call NECX and request that they send them to me. I was called back by the rep I talked to who said he called Maxtor and that they would send me the documentation.
Fortunately, I was able to get onto the Maxtor homepage and get the necessary information about the drive I had ordered to be able to install it on my system.

I discovered that my electronic order with NECX never got finalized. Their lengthy series of pages for the on-line ordering made it seem like you had finished you order before you actually had submitted it. I went ahead and re-did my order, somewhat annoyed at the time I wasted. Overall, though, NECX seems to have a good setup.

I ordered my new hard drive from NECX today.I decided to get a Maxtor "Durango", a 2 GB EIDE hard-drive. It was a total of about $285 USD with the next-day shipping and handling I chose. Unfortunately, I placed more order after 2pm on a Friday, so it won't actually get processed until Monday.

The Sound Card

Just thought I'd add that even though I sent Email to Aberdeen telling them to cancel my order, I never received an acknowledgement of that message. Not even a confirmation on the cancellation.

I've cancelled my order with Aberdeen. They have been utterly incapable of fulfilling a simple order or responding to Email and phone calls promptly. The last two email messages I sent were never acknowledged.

Instead, I called the local Circuit City and found they had the SoundBlaster 16 card in stock for $100 USD, so I went ahead and bought it from them. I would have saved about $20 USD by going through Aberdeen, but a total of two weeks passed and they never even processed my order.

Having still not received my order confirmation, I call Aberdeen on the phone and ask about my order. I'm told I have to speak to a gentleman named Dennis who isn't available at the time, but will call me back. I leave my number. However, I am not called back.

I do get Email though, telling me my card was declined. This was due to the card expiring. I gave them the new card number and expiration date and for good measure, tell them to knock the RAM chips off the order.

I call back later that evening and say that I still haven't received the Email confirmation on the order. I'm told it was put through two hours ago.

Today I received a reply to my Email informing me that the electronic order I had submitted had somehow gotten "overlooked" and had not yet been processed. I was promised it would be shipped later this evening or on Monday, and that I would receive my Email confirmation and tracking information by Friday evening.

I haven't received Email confirmation on my order yet, and when I checked my credit card had not been debitted for the charge. I sent email to the company requesting an update on the situation.

I ordered my new sound card from Aberdeen today, using their on-line ordering form. I also added on a couple of 4MB SIMM's for my wife's PowerMac. I requested E-Mail confirmation of my order, but since it it's Saturday afternoon I don't really expect anything until Monday.

Memory

As the COAST module I ordered from Aberdeen does not work with my system, I called their techincal support number to discuss the problem. After going through a standard script of questions with the tech, I was asked to test the module with another PC. I was able to test it on a friend's system and found that it appeared to work on his (at least, his PC booted up succesfully). I informed Aberdeen I'd like to return the item and have them send me a new one, as I still felt it could be deffective. They agreed to do so, and gave me an RMA number.

My order finally arrived, and it was clear why it was late. My address had not one but two errors (incorrect house number, and they put "Street" instead of "Terrace"). Oddly enough, the address on the invoice was a little more accurate, at least having the "Terrace" part correct.

I also disocvered I was charged $10 USD for shipping and handling. That's an obscenely high rate when you consider the item ordered is only centimeters in size and weighs perhaps one or two ounces at the most. Clearly, Aberdeen likes to gouge customers with high shipping costs.

At this point, it's been more than a week since I had placed my order, but it had yet to arrive. I decided to hold off on calling Aberdeen, however.

I had yet to receive a phone call confirming my order (even though I had given them both my work and home number), so I called Aberdeen. The representative I talked to confirmed that my order had been processed. Clearly, Aberdeen has an extremely difficult time getting back to its customers. IMHO, that's just about the worst thing you can do.

I ordered a 512 KB COAST module from Aberdeen today, for $27 USD plus shipping. Annoyingly, their on-line order system does not give you any indication of shipping costs (I chose UPS Ground shipping, generally the cheapest option). This time I asked for phone confirmation of my order.

I ordered two 16 MB 60ns SIMM's from The GR Company Store, which offers secure on-line ordering and truely excellent memory prices. I decided to have the memory express shipped over night as it only cost an addition $15 USD (which is unusually cheap for that type of delivery).

The memory didn't arrive overnight, unfortunately, as I had ordered too late for it to be processed. But I received the RAM on the 20th. The service was excellent and I had no problems of any sort with what I ordered.

Miscellaneous Peripherals

I ended up buying the keyboard I borrowed from my friend for $30 USD. It's a Key Tronic and retails at Electric Avenue for $80 USD, so it's a pretty good deal for a used keyboard. Since he had kept a cover on it for the years he used it, once I peeled it off the underlying keyboard was very clean and functional.

I was also able to return the useless mouse adator with relatively little hassle.

I didn't need a mouse when I first put new computer together, since Windows is pretty easy to navigate and use with just keystrokes. However, my Colorado backup utility for windows does not have a menu option for doing a restore or backup operation! You can only start the operations by clicking and dragging. How braindead.

So I was forced to find a solution sooner than I had intended (I ran low on funds since I had to already make an unexpected purchase of extra RAM). The only PS/2 to Serial adaptors I could find were all Female gender, and I needed a Male gender adaptor. I checked several national chains (Office Maxx, Electric Avenue, Wal-Mart) as well as several local vendors. I finally tried a local place called "On-Line Computing" and they had the Female gender adaptor, minus it's packaging and for an outrageous $6.99 USD. I went ahead and got it, but of course it failed to work.

Later that evening my wife and I stopped by Office Depot and I bought a new mouse. I got a Logitech basic mouse for $30 USD plus tax. It works great and has a significantly nicer feel to it than the Packard Bell mouse I've previously used. I'll be returning the worthless adaptor next week.

Even the most carefully laid plans can fail... I had neglected to verify the ports on the Advanced/EV motherboard for the keyboard and mouse. So the PS/2 style mouse and keyboard I have from my old system will not connect to the new motherboard.

I purchased a keyboard adaptor from Office Max for about $5 USD, but it turned out to be the wrong gender (and of course, it was the only gender they carried). Fortunately, a friend of mine had a spare keyboard that used the classic "bigmouth" connector, so I borrowed it from him to use until I purchase my own keyboard.