All done

Actually I was all done In November but only writing this now.

The replacement BIOS chip came from ASRock and once installed I could complete the Windows install, and all the other drivers.

 Now it sits in my front room neatly in an ikea shelf!

construction time again

All the parts arrived :)

So the first step is to assemble them all on the coffee table without the case.

• Install the CPU and the Memory
• Add the graphics card
• Add the PSU (two ports, 24 pin ATX and 4 pin P4 connector)
• Add a Keyboard and mouse, and connect the GPU to a screen
• I also added the Power On switch from the case, but you could just short this with a screwdriver

Close up of the CPU, Memory and GPU on the Motherboard on the left. Note I didn't bother with the Cooler for the first test. Once it powered on I added the heatsink and fan. This is a very small motherboard!!


With the PSU in view. You can see from the Keyboard just how small the mini ITX board is

So power it on and stand back just a bit.

Nice.








So I left detached the PSU connectors and the GPU.
I added the drives first (SSD and HD) after taking off the case cover
Then installing the motherboard (with CPU and Memory still attached), screwing it to the floor of the case (note added heatsink and fan)  Then installed the GPU.

Rear Profile: 

And finally with the PSU added and all cabled UP.

Note some of the case leads are some of the trickiest to connect (USB headers, power on switch, reset switch etc). I used the cable ties that can with the case to tie all the excess cables to the top of the case.

Once the BIOS was able to recognise the two drives then I was free to install windows 7.
I had no Optical drive to I created a Windows7 bootable USB from the install ISO using Rufus

I had a base OS pretty quickly. For some reason there was no CD of drivers with the motherboard when it was unboxed but I was going to download them anyway as the newest ones are online. So I got the suite of ASROCK drivers here.

The REALTEC Lan driver did not play ball. Windows did not have any recognisable network device.
I remove/re-installed a few times but no luck.
I was considering logging a call with ASRock but I checked first in case there was a newer BIOS upgrade available. So I upgraded to the new BIOS via a nice method called Internet Flash. The network card worked via the BIOS so I was online pre windows boot so I went ahead and flashed it to the latest.
O Gawd now I wish I hadn't.

The BIOS upgrade hung indefinitely. The subsequent reboot failed. The Bios Chip was fried.
Frying pan to the fire!
I logged a call with ASRock explaining my drama and they agreed to send me a new BIOS chip in the post.
Now I'm waiting,
Waiting sucks ass.

selecting parts for small form gaming machine

It's been almost 3 years since I build my last PC and seeing as mrs hurlex has taken over my old one for work.... a new opportunity arises!

The Brief:
Build a new PC, just for gaming for €400.
My only benchmark here is my old machine (dual booting windows7/hackintosh) was a follows:

• Intel i5 2500k 3.3GHz
• Radeon HD 6870 1GB 

The Constraints
Cash money, €400
Monitor will be the Tv.
Needs to be a small case as it needs to fit in a Ikea shelf in the front root.
Ideally needs to be inconspicuous.

I briefly considered an A Series combined CPU and GPU. But that was not going to cut it.
After some healthy discussion on boards.ie I found it difficult to go any less than my old processor, plus I reckoned I could do better on the graphics card for about the same money as before (circa €140)
I went with Mini ITX to keep the case as small as possible. This machine will not need to be all things to all users in my house so I am keeping it small, and simple.

So here was the final parts list and the costs:
(the i5 was second hand on ebay, as was the memory, all the rest came from hardwareversand)

PCPartPicker part list: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/kqQMyc

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  (Purchased For €109.67)
Motherboard: ASRock B75M-ITX Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard  (Purchased For €58.58)
Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  (Purchased For €21.20)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For €58.73)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card  (Purchased For €128.78)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case  (Purchased For €36.75)
Power Supply: XILENCE Redwing Series, 350W, Rev. 3 ATX Power Supply  (Purchased For €21.25)
Total: €434.96

I could have gotten a cheaper motherboard but I disliked doing without USB3, so the ASRock B75M-ITX was perfect.
There were 3 options for the Cooler Master Mini ITX. The Elite 110 was the cheapest and the smallest, at 260 x 208 x 280 mm.

Parts ordered, hurry up mr postman!