Mentor Log #5 March 21, 2013

Individual Time: 6 Hours
Running Total: 20 hours

Ohhhh lord. I'm am BEYOND happy. My graphics card FINALLY came in the mail two days ago, but I waited for my mentor to come back from a trip to be able to put it in (although it's a fairly simple process, I wanted to make sure I didn't ruin a VERY expensive piece of my computer).

So let's begin. First off, the graphics card I had in computer when I built it was a GT 420 which came out in September 2010. This card was meant to be cheep, inexpensive, and to be bought in bulk by companies (like Dell) that preinstall them in their computers. This card was given to me by a friend that recently swapped his card out. So I installed it in mine, and everything went well. I knew I just needed a bit more to save up for a better one, so I stayed put for a couple of weeks until I got a new one.

My new card that I obtained is a GTX 570. This graphics card isn't all that new (released 1 month after the 420) but wasn't designed like the 420. The 570 was made for people upgrading their graphics cards or building their own computers, which is why it is WAYYY more expensive and powerful than the 420. This card is also almost double the size of the 420. My mentor and I managed to unpack it, snip some of the cable management we had done on the computer, and installed the graphics card. This took about an hour. We then had to tie some cables down again to make the computer look neat and organized. This took about another hour and I was set to go.

My mentor left and then I sat down to work on the card some more. There are programs on the computer that let you unlock the true potential of graphics cards. These programs overclock the card so that it can perform better and faster. A way to make this understandable is if you think of it as a car. Overclocking a graphics card is like downshifting a car when you're going uphill. It will give it more power but in the long run, could damage the engine if not done properly or correctly. So I tinkered with my graphics card and overclocked it. I had to tweek up and down to get the right settings, all while running the benchmark to make sure everything is stable and not overheating. When finally done, my graphics card was able to run many of the newest games released on very very high settings if not max settings, which made me extremely happy.


Now we wait to order my new hard drive and possibly RAM to make my computer a BEAST! :D

Mentor Log #4 March 15, 2013

Individual Time: 0 Hours
Running Total: 14 hours

Wrap-up:
My graphics card hasn't shown up yet! This made me very sad because I was expecting it by today, but it didn't show up. I'm still very happy with the outcome of my computer though. It has been running pretty fast but one of the main problems I've found with it so far, is that boot up is still slow. I previously had a laptop that I used as my main computer which broke down. This was another reason I decided to take the opportunity to build a computer instead of going with my other idea for this project of volunteering at the ASPCA. I'm currently using the old laptop's hard drive. So now I will patiently (not really. I'm very impatient) wait for the graphics card to come in and for me to order the Solid State Drive (newest type of hard drives in the market).

Mentor Log #3 March 8, 2013

Individual Time: 0 Hours
Running Total: 14 hours

Wrap-up:
This week was nothing but waiting for the products to come in. The GPU is in the mail and on it's way. I still need to order the Solid State Drive, but it should be in by next friday. The GPU is really what is getting me excited. It's really going to add to the awesomeness that is my computer so far. Until then, I'm going to wait it out.

Mentor Log #2 March 2, 2013

Individual Time: 10 Hours
Running Total: 14 hours

What a CRAZY day for me. My parts came in the mail today and I was SIKED! After saving up so much for them, I finally got the chance to build my own PC. My mentor came over. I had arranged all the parts. We carefully opened them all up and got ready to build. Putting the CPU cooler onto the actual CPU was the hardest part. It was really scary. My mentor took the time to explain how everything flows from the power supply. We spent some time putting everything together and doing a test run outside of the PC. When it booted up for the first time, I was really happy. After that, we put everything into the actual case. We booted again and nothing. I was really sad, thinking that something went wrong. But really, we only forgot to plug the 8 pin adapter all the way in. We laughed afterwards. We spent about 2 hours managing the cables. We got zip ties to make it look better and neater. After that, my mentor left. It was my turn to do my favorite part, installing the operating system. It took a while, but I finally got to a desktop. I started organizing everything, and installing necessary programs. All that's missing now is my Solid State Drive and the Graphics Card. Those are to come later.

So far, I'm really happy and super excited to finish it with the SSD and the GPU which are yet to come. So far, so good. :D