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Aug012010
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Lynnfield |
I devoted Friday to rebuilding my desktop PC and making some small modifications to my case. I’ve had an Antec P180 case for my desktop computer four years now. After clearing the case of all components, I cut two holes in the panel where the motherboard is mounted to allow wiring to run behind the mainboard. Fewer cables running through the middle of the case improves airflow and aesthetics. I found myself wishing I had thought to make this modification in a cooler season as it was quite hot outside, even in the shade. The work itself was not hard, however. I also had the benefit of practice. I made the cutouts on a spare case the day before to assure myself I would have no problems.
I used a Dremel with a cut-off wheel to do the bulk of the work and then smoothed the edges with a couple different bits. I covered the metal edges with u-channel rubber to protect the wiring that would be running through the cutouts. Later after thoroughly cleaning the case of dust and metal filings, UPS arrived with my new parts from NewEgg. Assembling everything was easy enough although doing it neatly is time consuming.
Since my old Scythe Ninja heatsink is not compatible with LGA1156, I had to replace it. I picked the Scythe Mugen 2 which has a hard bolt mount. It takes some work to get everything aligned right but it works so much better than a spring mount which requiring stressing the components to get it installed. I spent the better part of the evening getting the rest of the parts and wiring just right.
With all the components installed, I plugged it in and turned it on. I was quite pleased to see it boot up successfully on the first try. Windows even loaded without complaint. I figured I would also have to reinstall the OS with all the hardware changes. It took a couple reboots before drivers were installed for all the hardware. Eventually I had to reactivate Windows over the phone.
I was up well into the early morning cleaning up the mess I made. I had a couple boxes of spare parts sprawled out over the floor that needed to be repacked and the parts I removed from the case earlier in the day had to be stowed. I finally got to bed at about five in the morning.
Saturday afternoon, I shot pictures of my newly rebuilt rig before closing up the case and moving it back to its corner. We had leftover red beans and rice for dinner before I headed to work this evening. I am usually the lone PA on Saturdays but Danielle was working tonight because I had to run graphics for the show. Tonight was basically my first time doing that. For graphics display we use Avid Deko. Running the playback controller basically consists of tabbing through a list on onscreen graphics and calling up the appropriate ones in each of the four channels in which they can appear. I was nervous having never done it before but it’s not difficult and I did alright. Running graphics for the 10 PM news was a nearly duplicate experience since both shows are so similar.
August made its presence known as I was waiting outside for a cab after work. Even though it was 10:30 at night, it was still a sweltering 95 degrees outside and there’s no reason to expect the weather to get any better in the coming weeks.