PC modded for the first time!

[God Of Mana]

Well, I acquired a new computer and decided to take apart the old one.

I always believed that it would be terribly difficult to take apart a computer put it came off quite easily. I was really surprised to find a few of the fans were covered in dust,and lint i summed up enough courage to remove more screws, two cooling fans and the wire-thing that protects them.I cleaned them with a damp cloth and fixed everything back as it used to be.

I'm writing this because this was the first time that I ever opened up a computer.
I was also able to reset the BIOS passwords using the CMOS reset button. So now my (this is my older PC) PC is now cooling better then ever and it is now working
(I can now get into the OS).

Is it just me but can modding PCs become a valuable hobbie and past time.

:haha:

[RIGHT]Reply Soon,
GOM[/RIGHT]

 

[Rik]

What you have done is refurbish your old pc. To mod means to modify, make non-standard.

Cleaning out the dust should be done when ever you see a temperature rise above and beyond the norm.

 

[God Of Mana]

I also changed the lithium button battery. (could that be considered as modding?)

 

[bushwhacker]

Nope.

Modding meant, light to heavy modifications to your case, such as custom fan blowhole, lights, or chassis modification.

One of my case are under the heavy modification. You can see this pictures for a example.

It is not completed and is ongoing. I started this yesterday.

http://z4.invisionfree.com/COMMODORE64/index.php?showtopic=9

[Keep coming back later and I'll add the description. Please don't register at my forum, but just pm me about it.]

Also, I will post up my worklog in both Techspot and PC Apex soon.

 

[Daveskater]

I agree that cleaning fans off and replacing them isn't modding, but for the first time opening a case you did ok

My first time was years ago (probably 4 or 5) and i probably just had a look or something haha - I expect the pc was on too

 

[bushwhacker]

You can lightly mod it by replacing the fans with light one.

That could be a good start.

 

[Daveskater]

True, I forgot to mention that earlier

Another light mob would be put CCFL's in (cold cathodes) - I put some in my PC because I can and it look very nice

 

[God Of Mana]

You can lightly mod it by replacing the fans with light one.

That could be a good start.

Hmmm...I think i will start with that!
I may also need to change the case to a plexi-glass one. Ohh! I may also get another HD. This is gonna cost me some serious $$$.
And some light reactive wire holding things. :grinthumb Is that a start?

 

[Daveskater]

Putting in LED fans is definitely a light mod and personally I'd say replacing the case with a new non-generic one is some sort of a mod but a new HDD is more of an upgrade, really

Basically, anything involving LED's or cold cathodes is most likely going to be a mod

 

[bushwhacker]

It would be nice if we get your picture of the case.

So we can get the idea.

After all, Rik and I can pick it up and give you a good sample of advanced modding.

 

[God Of Mana]

I still gotta buy em, i opened a thread looking for somewhere selling them.
Also i am considering some cold cathodes and some UV reactant wire selves.

Thread link: LINK

Hey what do you think about liquid cooling? Is it worth the cash?
----EDIT----

Woha! Look at this guys! LINK

 

[Daveskater]

Watercooling would be worth it if you do a lot of gaming that stresses your CPU quite a bit and/or you've overclocked your CPU a lot.

I've never used it or even seen it though so that's all I can really say on the matter

 

[God Of Mana]

Is overclocking a good idea too?
EDIT
How hard is it to add another hard drive, if I want to keep the old one.
(first i should ask if it is even possible) ...well, is it?

Hmm...is $100 USD a fair price for a 500gb hard drive?plus 15$ shipping

 

[bushwhacker]

Ok, seem you went to upgrade path instead modding.

Liquid cooling is a optional choice, but it can get expensive.

 

[God Of Mana]

naw, just keeping my options open.

 

[Daveskater]

Is overclocking a good idea too?

It depends on what you use your pc for, how good your airflow is, is you have a good CPU hsf and whether you can answer these questions

How hard is it to add another hard drive, if I want to keep the old one.

It's extremely simple

All you have to do is put the new drive into your case and plug in the cables. It will only have 2 cables plugged into it, the power one and the data one. Both of which look different whether you're using IDE or SATA but I'm 99.9% certain you'll have SATA.

 

[God Of Mana]

I really dont know whats sata but ok. Would it appear in windows as two separate drivers?

 

[bushwhacker]

I really dont know whats sata but ok. Would it appear in windows as two separate drivers?

No.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

 

[Daveskater]

The only ways I can think of to find out what you have is to take off the side of your case and look, or find a program that will give you your hard drive's model number, then you can look it up

SATA is just the type of cable that is used to connect the drive to the motherboard, and it has a different power connector. Older drives have IDE connectors (aka PATA) and a Molex power connector, which is still used for things like fans and AGP graphics cards.

SATA and IDE look very different so you will know straight away what you have. SATA is a small connector and has one wire coming out of the connector that isn't very big, and IDE has a connector that is about 2" wide and usually comes as what's called a "ribbon cable". this is because each wire is individually insulated and they're all stuck together flat, like a ribbon. However you can get rounded cables where the wires aren't stuck together and they're all stuffed down a rubber tube

The easiest way is to compare with pics from google

 

[God Of Mana]

Ok i realized that the power cord for the hard drive is blue and the data cable is brown, yellow and such, but i found another data cable but no other power cable...what is that about.

 

[Rik]

There are a lot of cables in a pc. Perhaps it would be easier if you posted a picture.

 

[Daveskater]

I second the picture, I'm not quite sure what you mean