Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. How to Build a PC - Part 6
Iain Laskey completes this series with a look at Loading Windows and finishing things off
In Part five we finished off the hardware side of things. We now have a mean looking tower of black that pretty much does nothing. It's time to install Windows.
Our operating system of choice for this job is going to be Windows XP Pro. It could of course be one of the Linux Flavours and if you want to go for a cheaper option, that would be ideal as the desktop versions of Linux such as Ubuntu are pretty good for many people these days. One way to save with the cost of an XP license is to buy an OEM copy. As we're building a PC, we are allowed to buy the cheaper (but otherwise identical) OEM version of Windows XP but it must be bought at the same time as some PC components. In this instance, an easy task.
When the first SATA motherboards and drives arrived, it could be a bit fiddly installing XP and as part of the install, you'd need to have a driver disk to hand for the SATA controller. These days it's mostly a trouble free job and in this case, we just installed XP straight on without further ado.
To install XP, simply set the machines BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD drive (your motherboard manual will show you how) and then start the machine with the XP Install CD in.
This will load the XP installation program which then talks you through the rest of the install. You'll be asked for some details about your country, time zone, keyboard layout (the default is US, you will probably want to select UK, assuming you're in the UK of course.)
Assuming everything goes well, a few reboots later you should have XP up and running. However, it will have used default drivers for all your hardware so you now need to install all the drivers that came with the motherboard. In the case of the ECS KA3 MVP this was both good and bad. On the bad side it insisted on a reboot for every set of drivers so it was a case of main chipset, reboot, LAN, reboot, audio, reboot and so on. On the upside though, the installation routines automatically daisy-chained it all together so it was pretty much effort free apart from saying yes to each reboot. At the end, all the hardware was recognised correctly.
Next up was the graphics card drivers. the BFG Tech GeForce 7600 GT OC came with a fairly standard build of the GeForce drivers but again, they installed effortlessly and on reboot we were able to set the system to the correct resolution for the monitor i.e. 1280x1024 at 60Hz.
No additional driver was needed for the Lindy front panel (unless you were intending to use an older version of Windows such as Windows 98).
The Logitech Cordless Desktop S510 does come with a disk of drivers and utilities to help get the best from it. Whilst any keyboard and mouse will work with the basic functions, any of the extras will usually require the manufacturer's drivers if they are to work properly. We have know the odd rogue version of Logitech drivers to cause problems so always try to check for any problems being discussed on the web before upgrading as soon as new versions become available.
So, now we have the system fully built and up and running. All done? Not quite.
Software
Before letting the machine loose on the Internet, we highly recommend installing a firewall and anti virus program. XP has it's own firewall but frankly it's a bit, well, it's a bit. We like ZoneAlarm's free offering (although the paid for version adds some useful extras). A quick trip to www.zonealarm.com gets us the goods and in the meanwhile, the XP built in one will do. Once downloaded and installed, it's time for the antivirus, in this instance we visited free.grisoft.com for their free antivirus tool. One final thing is to now check the XP firewall is switched off so open the control panel, select Network Connections, right click on your connection and select properties. Then select the advanced tab and ensure it is has been switched off.
That's it, one PC, ready for action. Other options at this point could include installing OpenOffice, a fine and free replacement for Microsoft Office that costs absolutely nothing. You may also want to install The Gimp for your graphics editing, again free although we'd recommend going for Adobe PhotoShop Elements which is a superb program for the money.
As a final thing to try, we got a beta of Vista and installed that. Vista recognises XP and sets up a dual boot configuration. We used a disk partitioning program to create D and E drives and then installed Vista on to D: with XP being on C:. It was just case of booting off the Vista DVD and leaving it to get on with things, having chosen the correct install type (Do NOT choose upgrade).
Vista runs fine on all the hardware used here and over a few weeks of testing we had no hiccups so for anyone using modern components to build a machine, the whole Vista thing is looking good. As better updated drivers become available, it would be wise to install them for both performance and reliability (although Vista ought to be more reliable than XP).
Benchmarking
We're not obsessive benchmarkers here at Practical PC. There are plenty of other web sites who are happy to exhaustively test things to the nth degree and report every framerate of every variation. We don't do that.
Instead, we can report that Vista gave the system a performance rating of 4.5 meaning it's more than quick enough for Vista and could run quite happily with the slick new Aero interface. Whilst some operations were a little sluggish, that was probably a reflection of the beta more than anything. In the main it romped along and we are looking forward to trying the full version when Microsoft's PR get their finger out.
Under Windows XP, the machine chews through SETI and the BBC's ClimatePrediction.net like a crazy thing with the two AMD 4600 cores doing double the work, as expected.
Finally, we tried a few games such as Call Of Duty 2 and found they ran fine, looked good and even with all the extras enabled produced a framerate that was more than enough for the average gamer. For the price, the BFG Tech GeForce 7600 GT OC really puts in an impressive showing although we did find it's small fan slightly noisy when it kicked in. A small thing in an otherwise good showing.
Because of the Antec Gamer case, stuffed as it is full of fans, even with several disabled, we had no heat problems at all, it ran cool and quiet - the loudest fan being by far the CPU's own one. We had the machine playing taxing games, chugging through SETI work units and generally being abused by plugging as much active stuff in to the USB and Firewire ports as possible. Throughout it stayed steady as a rock, a testament both to the motherboard and modern drivers.
Conclusion
As we said at the beginning, there are many reasons why you might want to build your own PC. What ever your reasons, you should find it a fairly straight forward and rewarding experience. You may also be surprised how easy it is, not unlike Lego for grownups, just plug it together. Yes things can go wrong but as long as you are careful of static and follow the instructions, you should be able to do the whole thing over a couple of nights. We would recommend you stick to quality components though - cheap and cheerful can be tempting but they can often introduce all sorts of strange goings on that can be hard to diagnose and cure. Good luck!
