Awesome Build 1.0

Day 6, Buzzin the Rockies

2011-12-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

Today I got to go flying with my friends uncle over the Rockies! Our aircraft for the day is a Long-EZ, a plane dreamed up by Burt Rutan with a very unconventional design. Because we would be flying over 10,000 ft. it is required by law that we have supplemental oxygen (a first for me!) which consists of a tube you put into your nose hooked up to a regulator. Also the aircraft is controlled by a side stick, as apposed to the yoke I use in the Warrior and 172.

The Long-EZ

Not your daddy's 172

Another interesting feature is that because the engine is in the back, the plane is very back heavy. This means that unless a pilot is in the cockpit, the plane will flip backwards when the nose gear is down. To prevent this, whenever the pilot is not in the aircraft, the nose gear is raised and the aircraft sits on its nose.

Whatever that is supposed to mean...

One more thing to mention is that this is considered a home build, experimental plane, meaning that it does not have as strict requirements for things such as maintenance.

Big wingtip/rudder

After the engine was started by a hand crank, we taxied out to the runway.

The canard out front as we taxi

Once everything was warmed up we lined up with the runway and headed towards the sky!

Rotate!

In the air we climbed parallel to the mountains until we were high enough to clear them.

Mountains on one side

Flat lands on the other

At this point he let me take the controls a little. It was very light and responsive to control. You more thought about what you wanted the plane to do than actually input control commands!

View from the back seat

My O2 regulator and control stick

At 14,000 ft. we turned left and headed straight for the mountains!

Over the mountains, my friend's uncle demonstrated some of the cool things you can do in a canard plane. It is almost impossible to stall, the second you let go of the stick, the plane more or less flies itself! This also means that it is near impossible to spin. He tried several times to get into a spin, and each time he let go of the stick the plane would level itself out!

The ski lodge we buzzed

Soon the sun was starting to set, and we had to be home for diner, so we headed back to the airport

Heading back

Coming back to flat land

Entering the pattern for runway 11

We landed and taxied back to the hanger (here is the video). I had an amazing experience and now want to do some more high altitude flying myself! The pictures don't do justice to how epic the views are from the airplane, if you are in the Denver area and have a plane capable of getting up there go check it out!!!

Day 5, Wyoming!

2011-12-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

Since we were done with the build, we had some time to explore Wyoming a little. We strapped on our hiking boots and got into the car. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking!

Shoulda brought some carrots

Fact: there are more cows than people in Wyoming

Little bit of snow

Eventually we were running out of time, and more importantly gas, so we had to head back without getting to do that much hiking. The landscape is pretty awe inspiring (there is a reason they call it big sky country) and I would definitely like to spend some more time out of the city if I ever get a chance.
Soon we'll be driving to Denver, and my friends Uncle has offered to take me up over the Rockies in his plane! Stay tuned!

Day 4, Our Trials with Microsoft

2011-12-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

Now that we had a machine that boots, it was time to put an operating system on our computer and start using it for what we intended! Because we only had an upgrade version of Windows 7, we planned on first putting Windows ME (I know...) onto the SSD. This would theoretically give us a licensed version of Windows that we could upgrade over. But before we could get and OS onto the system we had one last thing to unbox...

Our keyboard and mouse!

Whats inside

Ready for action

Now that we could type and use the mouse, we went into the UEFI to change the first boot drive from the SSD to the optical drive. This let us boot from the CD and access the Windows installer. Once we got the installer running we saw this funny option on the screen:

We have a little more than 512 MB...

We got ME onto the SSD, but for some reason we could not get it to run as an operating system. Most likely ME didn't know what to do with the SSD and as a result could not boot. Either way we assumed that it was working good enough and put in the Windows 7 upgrade disk. The system recognized the disk and we notice that there was an option to wipe ME from the SSD and do a clean install of Windows 7. We did not want any remnants of ME haunting our system so we gave that option a try, only to realize that our product key did not support a clean install. After scratching our heads for a while and looking for another product code we accidentally hit some key that allowed us to proceed without a product key! Soon we were running Windows 7, but we knew that there would be some problems down the line so we decided to call Microsoft and get a valid license. Before we could do that, we moved the computer upstairs so we could hook it up to the internet.

Windows is up and running! (pardon the horrible resolution)

After being on hold for 45 minutes, we finally were able to talk with someone. We explained our situation and they very kindly gave us a new activation key. With a licensed version of Windows and an internet connection it was time to star letting the updates flow!

7 of 52...

Once the updates started to slow down we noticed something peculiar, our WD hard drive was not showing up when opening "my computer." This was very strange, especially because the UEFI recognized that it existed. We tried to call Western Digital and after being on hold for 20 minutes they asked for the serial number on our hard drive, which was still in the computer. We hung up, turned off the computer, took out the HHD and wrote down the serial number.
After putting everything back, we looked at the UEFI again and noticed that the HHD was in IDE mode when we wanted it to be in RAID mode. We tried just switching it to RAID mode, but this led to registry errors and the infamous blue screen of death. We switched it back and read online that if you want to change the HHD mode after installing an OS, there are several registry edits that one must make. We VERY CAREFULLY edited the registry, and were able not only to boot the system (wohoo!) but also get the drive to work in RAID mode!
At this point Windows still was having trouble with the HHD, so we downloaded some software from Western Digital that let us test it. Western Digital says that if your HHD fails one of the five tests it needs to be returned for a new one. Our lovely drive failed all five, meaning that it must have been dead on arrival.

Useless

We took it out of the computer again and instead installed an old SATA 2 HHD from the previous computer. We noticed that the boot time was much faster than before, and that the CPU temps had fallen from the low 30's to the mid-to-low 20's. This dramatically shows how one bad component can effect the whole system! We then installed Battlefield 3 and finally go to pwn some n00bs!

Finally, the moment we've been waiting for!

Install was relatively quick, and with the settings all maxed out we were seeing 53 FPS using FRAPS on multiplayer. We would say that overall the build was successful, despite some glitches with our HHD. We were able to get the performance we were looking for, even using an older hard drive, with minimal glitches to our build. The only other problem we noticed was that there is a stuck pixel right in the middle of the monitor. This, albeit very annoying, did not ruin our gaming experience and can possibly be fixed later on.
Before we wrap up the part of the blog on the build, we wanted to give out some awards:
Best packaging: SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W PSU

Sooo nice!!!

Worst packaging: LITE-ON DVD Burner

Not so much...

Easiest to install: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB

And yes, those are gold caps

Hardest to install: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus


Not looking forward to having to do that again

Most nerve racking to install: Intel Core i5-2500K

Nor this

Most DOA: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB

Now that I think about it, could make a good door stop

That just about wraps up the build for us. Stay tuned for some pics of Casper and my drive to Denver!

Day 3, Putting It All Together

2011-12-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

Now that we knew all of the parts work and were talking to each other, it was just a case of "fit this into this using nothing but that."

The major components

The first order of business was getting the power supply into the case. This was fairly easy as all we needed to do was place it on the bottom of the case and screw in four screws on the back.

Case with power supply

The next step was to mount the motherboard, but before we could do that we had to insert all of the motherboard standoffs. This was relatively easy to do because stamped into the case there were instructions on where to place the standoffs for different motherboards. Once the standoffs were screwed in place, we put the motherboard into the case and attached it using the screws provided with the case.

Mobo set in place

Next up we got to "unbox" the optical drive which involved removing the plastic sleeve the drive came in. We chose the LITE-ON DVD Burner - Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 because it was cheep and it didn't make sense for us to get a Blu-ray drive. Mounting it into the case was very easy. Our case has 5 optical mounting slots where the drive is slid into place and a button is pressed to release the pins that lock it to the case.

Before

After

Once the optical drive was in place we opened the solid state drive. We chose the Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC with the plan of running just Windows 7 and using the remaining space to try out Intel's Smart Response Technology, thus we only needed 64GB. We are going to put everything else on a Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM hard drive.

SSD

Mounting the SSD on the bracket that came with the motherboard was actually a lot harder than we would have thought. This was mostly because neither the SSD nor the motherboard came with instructions on how it should be mounted. Eventually we noticed that the SSD could be just screwed in from the bottom, but it was not obvious and some help from the manufacturers would have been appreciated.

Unboxed SSD

With the SSD in place we opened the WD hard drive and snapped it into one of the 5 trays in the case.

WD hard drive

Once all the components were in the correct place it was time to connect everything to the motherboard and give everything power from the PSU, a.k.a cable management!

Everything is in place

We didn't really have a strategy going into cable management. Instead we just plugged everything in using a more or less random order, focusing on keeping cables in the large space behind the motherboard tray provided by the case.

We're plugged in and ready to go!

We then used the provided zip-ties to condense all of the random cables into larger groups to decrease the amount of obstructions to good air flow inside the case.

From the other side

With everything ready to go we re-attached the side plates, plugged everything in, and again held our breath...

Second moment of truth....

And it worked again!!!

Look at that UEFI!!!

The UEFI came up on the screen, meaning that everything is getting power, and all the components are talking to each other!!

Let the domination begin!

Now that everything was working, the next step was to get Windows 7 installed. But at this point we were really tired and decided it would be better to work on it after getting some well deserved rest the next morning.

Day 2, Unboxing Day

2011-12-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

Today we started getting down to business and building our computer. First here are the final specs for our build:

Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Graphics Card: EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1573-AR GeForce GTX 570 HD w/Display-Port (Fermi) 1280MB
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
SSD: Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC
Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX
CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm
Power Supply: SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC
Keyboard and Mouse: Logitech Wireless Combo MK260 920-002950 Black 8 Function Keys USB RF Wireless
Monitor: ASUS VE258Q Black 25" 2ms HDMI LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor w/Display Port & Speakers 250 cd/m2 50,000,000:1 ASCR

We started by unboxing the case. We chose the HAF 922 because of its 2 massive 200mm fans (one in the front and one on top) which will give us the airflow needed for overclocking.

Unopened 922 HAF

The first thing we noticed when unboxing the case was that it is massive (especially for being advertized as a mid-tower case)!!! The side panels are easily removed by four thumb screws (two on each side on the back of the case) revealing the spacious interior.

Unboxing the case

The 922 HAF

Everything the case came with

The case came with two bags of screws, two mounting brackets for a 3.5 in drive, a bunch of zip-ties, and a POST speaker to be attached to the motherboard.

We decided early on that we would first do an out of case build to make sure that all of the major components worked. We moved the case to under the table so it would be out of the way, yet close enough so we could stay grounded using an anti-static wrist strap.

Once the case was out of the way we opened the motherboard. We chose the ASRock Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3 for a number of reasons. First of all, it supports the most recent Intel CPU socket, LGA 1155, which allows us to use the new second-generation Intel sandy bridge chips. Also, it uses the new Intel Z68 chipset, which is faster in coordinating system hardware, and allows us to use Intel Smart Response Technology. It comes with a USB 3.0 front panel bracket which can hold an SSD. And it has PCI express 3.0 support which allows for the use of next gen. video cards.

The Mobo

Damn straight!!!

The motherboard itself came with 4 SATA cables, an IO tray, 2 molex to SATA power connectors, a USB 3.0 SSD mounting bracket, an SLI bridge, an audio cable, and a floppy drive connector.

Unboxed Mobo

The motherboard itself was packaged in a foam ring which turned out to be very useful during our initial out of case build because it kept the bottom of the board elevated so there was no chance anything could get scratched.

Unboxed Mobo (check out the foam!!)

Next we opened up the RAM. G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB was chosen because it was relatively cheep and many people seemed to be having success using it.

RAM in box

The RAM was the first thing we installed to our motherboard because we wanted it to be below the CPU fan.

So pretty!!

The processor we chose was the Intel Core i5-2500K, which we felt gave us the best performance for our money. As of now for our gaming build there is nothing on the market that is justifiably better by price. The only time you would need an i7 is if you are doing something crazy like heavy movie editing.

i5-2500K

The star of tonight show!!

Unboxing the i5 was relatively unexciting. It came with the processor, and a stock cooler which we will not be using.

Useless...

Installing the processor was easy, but insanely nerve racking! We just removed the cover on the motherboard, dropped in the i5 (ZERO INSERTION FORCE!!!!) and closed the load plate over the chip.

Look at all the little pins!

...and we can breath again

Once the processor was in its socket, it was time to open our aftermarket CPU cooler. We chose the COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus because it was cheep and had great ratings on newegg.com.

CPU cooler

The COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus came with a 120mm fan, a direct heat pipe contact heat spreader, a mounting bracket, some screws, and thermal compound.

Oh so cool...

Before we could mount the bracket that the heat spreader would sit on we had to cut away some of the foam to be able to access the screw holes in the motherboard. Mounting the CPU cooler was relatively difficult because one person had to hold the bracket to the back of the motherboard while another person held up the motherboard and held the screws in place because the bracket would only slide on when the screws were aligned just right. Once everything was in place, we then had to screw on the nuts from the back, fighting the gravity holding the screws in place. It took us about 30 minutes and a lot of frustration just to get the mounting bracket on. We would recommend trying this next time with three people with one person holding the motherboard, one person holding the screws and bracket, and one person screwing on the nuts.

Finally got the bracket on!

From the other side

Once the bracket was on it was time to apply the thermal paste! We actually bought some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste because we did not know that the CPU cooler would come with its own. There are several methods to apply thermal paste, but we decided the easiest and most effective would be to put a pea size amount onto the CPU and then just attach the heat spreader. This evenly spreads the paste onto the top of the CPU and insures that there are no air pockets (the reason we use thermal paste in the first place!)

Mmm peas!!!

Attaching the heat spreader

Once the heat spreader was on, we attached the fan, which just snapped on and fit nicely over the RAM as expected!

The fan just fits!

Once the fan was on it was time for the graphics card! Originally we were going to get the Nvidia GTX 560Ti because that is said to be the best graphics card for the money, but due to Black Friday deals we were able to get the EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1573-AR GeForce GTX 570 HD for only $50 more, which was a no-brainer in our minds!

GTX 570 HD box

In hind sight we should have gotten the non-HD version because the HD version blows hot air into the case while the non-HD version blows it straight out the back, allowing for much better air flow and decreasing the temperatures in the case. We were hoping the packaging would be foam because that is what we have seen on other people's builds, but EVGA got lazy and only gave us plastic.

No foam :(

The GTX 570 did come with 2 molex to PCIe cables, a VGA to DVI adapter, a drivers CD, and a poster!

Thar she blows!!

Attaching the graphics card to the motherboard was not that difficult. The snag we hit was the edge of the back plate was hitting the foam and box the board was resting on. We cut a notch out of the foam and let the metal back plate hang of the edge of the box and the card snapped right into place.

One step closer to pwning n00bs!

With the graphics card in place it was time to open our power supply. We chose the SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W power supply because SeaSonic is a very good brand, 750W is enough power to support our components and overclocking, its rated 80 plus gold meaning it is very efficient, and it is modular allowing us to use only the power cables we need.

Power supply unit box

Opening the PSU was an experience to say the least. The unit itself was wrapped in a very nice black felt bag. Also inside the box was what I can only describe as a cable utility belt bag which housed all of the modular power cables.

Ohhhh!!!

Oh you fancy huh?

In the box was the power unit, a bunch of modular power cables, and the main power cord for the unit. The bag that the cables in was very nice because we did not use them all and could easily store them for later in case we wanted to add more components.

Lots of cables!

Powering everything was very easy and soon we were ready to get the monitor set up. The ASUS VE258Q Black 25" was chosen because it was big and there were many good reviews online.

ASUS VE258 box

Putting together the monitor was actually harder than we expected because the base required more force to snap in than we were use to when dealing with more delicate components.

Hay there gorgeous!

Then it was time for the moment of truth, the first power up!!! We plugged everything in, made sure the power supply and monitor were on, and hit the convenient power button on the motherboard and...

Moment of truth...

It worked!!!!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

There was a quick moment of doubt because there was no POST beep, but the monitor revealed that our labors (of love) had payed off! We attribute the lack of POST beep to a faulty POST speaker. We then took a well deserved, celebratory break and started scheming about getting it into the case...

Day 1, Travel Day!

2011-12-08T09:35:00.000-08:00

I'm finally here in Casper!! Overall the trip over here was not bad. I left the house at 5:15 AM and my mom dropped me off at the airport around 6:00. Having checked in the night before on United.com I went straight to security, which was a breeze, and was at my gate by 6:20.

My plane for today N567UA

My plane for today is N567UA, a 757-222 delivered in 1992 to United. Boarding started around 7:10 and we left the gate on time at 7:40.

View from my seat

The previous night I changed my seat to 31F with the hopes that I would have a whole row to myself, and as it turned out the only other person in row 31 sat in seat 31A. This meant that I could switch to the middle seat from the window to recline without disturbing the person behind me (for a layout of the aircraft check out seatguru.com). The load for today's flight was relatively low, around 60% in economy. Takeoff was smooth from runway 9 and soon we were climbing through Boston's rainy weather.

Climbing through "the soup"

As we leveled off at 40,000 ft. the first drink service began. I got some tomato juice (I know its weird, but I can only drink them when flying. I think it has to do with the fact that our taste buds are not that good at altitude). The movie was Our Idiot Brother, but I rather tried to catch up on some sleep.

It's always a sunny day, you just need to keep climbing!!

Mmm, tomato juice!!

When I woke up I think we were somewhere over Iowa (there was never any moving map displayed) and another drink service was conducted. This time I opted for some tea, and decided to watch the episode of Big Bang Theory which was playing.

Second drink service

Soon the flight attendants collected our empty cups and we begun our decent into Colorado.

This farm looks like Pac-Man!

Landing in Denver was uneventful (Check out this video) and soon we were at gate B25 after 4 hours and 13 minutes.

Landing in Denver

Overall it was a good flight. The FA's were very professional, and the seat belt sign came on only twice due to light turbulence. The only thing to complain about was the only food available had to be purchased, which I knew booking my flight, but $7.00 for some chips and salsa was a bit much (hence me not buying anything on board).
I had never been to Denver airport and only had 45 minutes to catch my next plane so I didn't get a chance to take any pictures. Because my next gate was B91 I got to walk the length of Denver's terminal B, which was very nice (would definitely connect through DEN again). On my way to the gate I passed a food court area and grabbed a blueberry muffin (which was not that great, the ones I make are better!) and continued onto my gate. The regional terminal was packed with people and I could only find a seat three gates down from my plane. The flight to Casper itself was also over booked as they made a call for four volunteers to switch to the later flight. Around 10:50 boarding began, and we left the gate for an on-time departure of 11:18.
Unfortunately I had to gate check my carry-on because the overhead bins on the CRJ-200 were too small. I forgot my camera in my carry-on so again no pictures. We took off from runway 25 and made a slow climb to 26,000 ft. There was one drink service from which I ordered a sprite from our very chipper flight attendant. After a short while (which I spent playing Uno on my iPod) we began our decent into Casper. Landing was fairly smooth and after quick taxi to the gate the engines were shut off. We deplaned through a gate where I got my carry on back and soon I met my friend at the waiting area.
Overall United did a very good job. Everything went very smoothly and there were no complications. I would definitely book with them again after today's experience. Just remember to buy something to eat at the airport before longer flights or be prepared to pay a lot!

Day -1

2011-12-05T18:40:00.000-08:00

Well, its a balmy Monday night in Boston as I take the plunge and finally set up our blog! The whole idea is that we want to document my upcoming trip to Casper WY where my college friend and I are going to build a "super computer." First we'll give a summary of the research and buying process that took place (I want to be in Casper with my friend before we get to technical), then we'll go into the build itself and finally we will get into some benchmark testing and see what our computer can do (can you say maxed out BF3???). Also I'm going to see if I can throw in some pics from my travels and Casper for some of our not-so-technically oriented followers. I am insanely excited because this will be not only my first build, but also my first time going more West than Chicago! I'm looking forward to learning a lot (and hopefully passing it onto you too!) and eventually building my own computer this summer. So for now to whet your appetites:

What awaits me in Casper

As for me, I'm going to start thinking about packing...