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Part I. IntroductionHow to Build a Win 2000 System? By Lee Penrod
Why Build Your Own PC?
So you have decided to build a system for the first time. Good for you! Building your first computer can be a very rewarding process. There are many advantages to building a system yourself, vs buying from a major company like Compaq or Dell. Below I have listed a few advantages.
Advantages of building your own PC
1. You know exactly what is in your system.
2. You have more system upgrade ability vs. a major brand PC.
3. You can see a significant cost savings vs. a major brand PC. (for similar components)
4. You can deal with part makers directly if needed, which often give you quicker replacements when under warranty.
5. A PC you build yourself will have little or no proprietary parts.
Choose Components | Go to Top |
The most important part of building your system is arguably the choosing of your parts. The first thing you need to do, is to decide what processor platform you wish to use. Do you want AMD or do you want Intel? This topic has been debated for a long time, and continues to be tirelessly. As it stands today, the Thunderbird & Duron processor lines by AMD have a significant performance lead versus similarly speeded Intel Pentium IIIs & Celerons. For this system I have chosen an AMD Thunderbird 750mhz processor (200FSB).
Once we have a chosen the Thunderbird processor it is time choose a motherboard & chassis. Since we chose a thunderbird we are now limited to Socket A/462 motherboards. The motherboard we choose will determine the case size we need. After much research I choose the Asus A7V motherboard, because it has received many excellent reviews among computer enthusiast websites & is admired for its great performance, stability, and overclockability.
One thing that is often not properly budgeted for is a decent tower or desktop chassis. A decent chassis can last longer then any other part of your system, as it can often be used as the housing for new systems. I choose the Fong Kai-320 Workstation Mid-tower for its great cooling properties & sturdiness. I feel that it will be a part that will serve me for several years to come.
Now that we have a motherboard, case, and processor chosen we need a Heatsink & Fan combination. Due to the heat generated by AMD Thunderbird processors, it is best to use a large well designed heatsink especially if you wish to
overclock in the future. With this in mind, I picked up an Alpha 6035 pal heatsink & a 60mm YS Tech Fan. The Alpha 6035 pal should fit most motherboards & cases. If you are building a system it is good to research/find out heatsink size issues. Some motherboards have parts too close to the socket for larger heatsinks (like the Alpha pep66t). This issue usually comes up with mATX & flex ATX motherboards. If you are using one of these motherboards for your system I highly suggest you read the heatsink reviews at major enthusiast web sites.
Next, we need a graphics card. Your graphics card should be determined by what you want to use the system for. If you are going to use the system only for office work then you can probably get away with a inexpensive 2D video card. For games you generally want a good 3D card. One of the best card lines out right now is the Geforce2 GTS line of video cards. I went all out on the video card, and purchased an Asus v7700 Deluxe Geforce2 GTS AGP graphics card.
My Configuration | Go to Top |
A lot of other parts in this system are what I call "closet parts", or parts that have come from previous systems. If you get into building systems, you will accumulate these over the years. Below I have listed the major parts for the system. After the list I will make comments on the more notable parts/weaknesses.- AMD Thunderbird 750mhz processor
- Asus A7V motherboard
- Alpha 6035 pal heatsink w/YS Tech Fan
- Fong Kai-320 Workstation Mid-Tower with 300watt AMD approved powersupply
- Asus v7700 Deluxe Geforce2 GTS
- Delta 52x CD-ROM drive
- Acer 8x4x32x CD-RW drive
- Sound Blaster PCI128 Sound Card
- Netgear PA301 10meg Home Phone Line networking card
- Intel 10/100 pro+ Ethernet network card
- Maxtor 7200rpm 20 gig hard drive
- Fuji 6.0 gig hard drive
- Sony Brand 3.5 floppy drive
- Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard (elite PS2)
- Microsoft Ergonomic IntelliMouse (ball)
- AOC 17inch monitor (plug-n-play)
- Altec Lansing ACS33 Speakers w/sub
This system has three main weaknesses in my opinion. (1) CD-RW drive is only 8x & is not burn proof. If you are going to do a lot of CD creation a CD-RW faster then 8x & that uses burn proof is advised. For my purposes the Acer will do fine. (2) The Delta 52x CD-ROM drive is noisy at times. However, it is inexpensive and works well. Generally anything made by Delta is noisy. If I were purchasing a new drive I would get a Toshiba 48x drive, or a Sony. (3) The SoundBlaster PCI128 isn't the greatest. The PCI128 is a bit underpowered for this system. While it is adequate for the time being, a sound card like the SoundBlaster Live would better serve the system. This would be especially true should I wish to add a DVD-Rom drive & use the VIVO functions of the v7700 Deluxe for DVD output to a home theater setup.
Now one part that is particularly useful in reusing is my old 6.0 gig hard drive. If you are upgrading from another system, swapping out the old hard drive is great. While the old hard drive is in a functional computer, download all of the drivers you will need for your new hardware and save it on the hard drive. When you finally get the OS loaded for your new system, you’ll have all of the drivers ready for you. If you don’t want to swap out the hard drive, the next best thing is to burn the drivers you need to a CD-R on another computer.
During this guide I assume you have the drivers ready for your new hardware. If you cannot have them ready for the system at build time, install the network card or modem into your system as part of the basic configuration.
 NEXT: | Part II. Assembling | III. BIOS & OS | IV. Configuration | Appendix |
 BACK: | Preface |
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