Searching for my lost shaker of salt

It has been a while since I built a high performance desktop.  In fact, the last two desktop I built was a small form-factor (SFF) that are pretty good in its own right (a Shuttle SB83G5 and an Asus S-Presso).  But its been a long while since I built a big, honking powerhouse. Inspired by Scott Hanselman's blog post on Building the Ultimate Developer PC, I decided to trade in my portable workhorse (an HP dv9000t 17" laptop) for a monster.  And that pretty much sums it up...

The shopping list

Case	Antec P182 Gun Metal Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower
Power	CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 520W
Heatsink	Scythe MINE Rev. B
Processor	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model
Motherboard	EVGA LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Dual NICs are write-combined for a lightning fast Internet connection
Memory	4GB CORSAIR XMS2 DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Video	(2) GeForce 8600GTS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Primary HD	Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM ATA150
Secondary HD	(2) SAMSUNG SpinPoint 500GB 7200 RPM SATA in raid 0 configuration
CD/DVD	LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA
Floppy	SAMSUNG Black 1.44MB 3.5"
Display	Dual SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22" Widescreen LCD Monitors

Assembly

 
Staging the parts

 
Prepping the case

 
Running power

Motherboard and drives, running cables  
 
That heat-sink is huge!  And so are the video cards!

 
The finished product

Build Notes

Everything went together more or less without issues.  The case was wonderful to work with.  All drives were mounted on rubber grommets, which has helped reduce the overall noise--- and each drive bay was removable which made assembly a breeze.  Would have been nice to have a few more motherboard mounting screw backs but it wasn't a big deal. There were 3 aspects that were challenges I would have done differently.

1.  
   1. Power cables.  The cables that came with the PS were of the correct length but were a little hard to run through the case.  I think aftermarket, rounded cables would have worked better.
   2. IDE cables.  Pretty much the same, should have bought more rounded aftermarket cables, about 16" in length.
   3. Mounting the heat-sink.  The pics don't do it justice, this thing is HUGE!  I wish I had installed it before I mounted the motherboard in the case--- tightening the mounts was a challenge with it in in the case.

Operating System Install

I decided to bite the x64 bullet and install Vista Business x64 edition.  Install had only one bump; the initial install went fine but after the first reboot it blue screened.  And did so consistently. After a great deal of research, the answer turned out to be that I had all 4 sticks of 1GB ram installed.  After removing two sticks the system reinstalled correctly and completed without issue. Probably the most frustrating issue was reinstalling the 2 sticks of RAM and seeing the box continue to crash.  Turns out there is an issue with Vista out of the box that it doesn't handle more than 3GB of ram very well.  There is a stand-alone patch (KB929777) that fixes this. Installing motherboard updates went fine along with all other device drivers.  I did experience a number of crashes that seem tied to both Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player.  Again, after research and patience it turned out that I had two bad sticks of RAM.  NewEgg took very good care of me and the replacements fixed the issues.

Bottom Line

Me likey!  This box is FAST!  Not as fast as I had expected, but very fast.  I do not wait for much anymore, and its hard working on other computers as a result.  Games rock.  Virtual PC/VMWare runs blazing fast. Buying the two video cards was overkill, especially with two monitors.  SLI technology means combining two video cards into one, and that one video card powering only a single monitor.  I am considering long term of getting a third monitor and adding another video card; use the "main" for SLI and the 3rd to power the two "side" monitors.  Again, overkill. Total cost was a little over $2000, which is before around $300 in rebates that continue to trickle in.

Featured on Good Morning America this Saturday, World Vision is a different kind of charity.  Instead of writing a blank check that [thankfully most] is used fund aid programs, you are buying a specific gift to send to a needy family overseas.  For example, $75 will buy a family a goat.  The recipients are trained on how to handle and care for the goat, obtaining milk and making cheese that will feed their family for a long time.  More goats means the ability to breed and sell goats to others to make an income.  Or start a goat fertilizer business! http://www.worldvision.org So I'm thinking of buying a goat, two soccer balls, maybe two chickens.  Should I go for the gift wrap?

Well, it didn't take very long at all.  Within two weeks of launching a new blog I am getting flooded with comment spam.  Okay, perhaps flooded is a little over the top, but 15-20 per day.  Fortunately Wordpress has comment moderation so it never makes it live, but it is none-the-less annoying. There is a very easy solution; CAPTCHA.  I did this before with my .text and Community Server blogs, but this has been by far the easiest set up (taking literally 15 minutes to generate, test in dev, and deploy to my production site). http://www.protectwebform.com/plugin_wordpress From their page:

How to install:

• Create account at protectwebform.com. To do this, just go to the registration page: signup.
• Generate your CAPTCHA type with all the desired parameters.
• Follow the link "install" under the new CAPTCHA.
• Choose the "Wordpress Plugin" section and download the file.
• Place this file "wp-content/plugins" directory of wordpress installation.
• Go to the "Plugin" section in admin area of your wordpress installation.
• Find the plugin "CAPTCHA From ProtectWebForm" and click approptiate "Activate" link.

That's it!

What especially intrigued me on this version of CAPTCHA is their smart feature.  Knowing that blog spam is generated by 'bots, it follows a simple algorithm to see if the sender does not supports JavaScript (meaning it is not browser based) and whether its from a suspicious IP address.  If the answer to both is yes, it displays the silly little box (complete with audio read-back).  If not, no CAPTCHA.  Pretty cool stuff! We will see shortly how effective it is...