Adding the Final Touches

This week I have been juggling Maths revision with adding the final touches to my new PC. Before going home last weekend I had upped the RAM in my new desktop PC to 1.5GB. I have since added another 512MB of RAM to make it a round 2GB of RAM and the difference is, well, just unbelievable. I finally have a system that is very responsive, can load Word and Excel up without having to display the splash screens for any more than half a second at the most, that can rip a CD in around three minutes flat, and that can multitask to the extent that I can watch TV while burning a CD, installing software such as Visual Studio or running Virtual PC or something. I had to replace the graphics card because the fan's bearings started to go on the one I originally installed when I built the PC. I replaced it with one from PC World with exactly the same chipset (nVidia GeForce 7300GS) but this card was made by PNY as opposed to Asus, and it didn't have a fan, which has helped to cut down on noise. Once everything was sorted, well that's when I realised I was really running low on disk space, so on Saturday I went to PC World to buy a 400GB SATA hard disk. I got it home and it was very noisy, which worried me a bit. I took it back to PC World this morning and exchanged it for another which I brought home which is quieter, but it still makes a strange clicking noise when it's shutting down. I enabled S.M.A.R.T in my PC#s BIOS but it didn't bring up any warnings when I booted up so I reckon it's just something on Hitachi drives. Luckily I have kept my Seagata 160GB IDE hard disk in my PC which I am using to hold my documents and music on so if anything should happen to my 400GB disk, I can just replace it and my data should be fine. Apart from that my PC is now completed and should, according to a university lecturer, last for a good few years now. Here's my specs, just if you're wondering.

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz, 1066MHz Bus, 2MB Cache, EM64T
  
• 2,048GB PC2-6400 DDR-2 800MHz RAM (1 x 1GB OCZ SLi Ready, 2 x 512MB PC World)
  
• PNY nVidia 7300GS PCI-E x 16 Graphics Card
  
• 560GB Hard Disk Space (1 x 400GB Hitachi S-ATA 7200RPM 16MB buffer, 1 x 160GB IDE Seagate, 7,200RPM)
  
• MSI P6N SLi Mainboard, 1 x PCI-E x16, 1 x PCI-E x8, 1 x PCI-E x1, 3 x PCI Slots, 8 Channel Realtek HD Audio, 2 x IDE, 4 x S-ATA II, Support for Quad Core, FSB upto 1333MHz
  
• 1 x 16X LiteOn DVD-ROM, 1 x 18X Sony DVD±RW
  
• 550-watt Neon Power Supply
  
• Jeantech PHONG-II Case with Thermometer display and front and rear fans
  
• I/O Ports
  
  • Back:
    
    • 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 Mouse
      
    • 4 x USB 2.0
      
    • 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
      
    • 8 Channel Audio ports
      
    • 10/100/1000 Ethernet
      
    • 1 x LPT Parallel port
      
    • 1 x VGA Port, 1 x DVI-I, 1 x S-Video Out
      
  • Front
    
    • 4 x USB 2.0
      
    • 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
      
    • 1 x Headphone in, 1 x Mic in
      

I built a machine of this spec so that I could run Windows Vista now and into the future and have enough horsepower to run any program that will be needed for future ACW coursework assignments at a reasonable speed with a comfortable amount of RAM and graphics power.