2018 Computer Build - Bringing The Parents Into The 21st Century Pt. 3

No tricks in '86, it's time to build... (c) Rakim

At a basic level, assembling a computer is like putting together a Lego or Erector set. Insert Tab 'a' into Slot 'b' until you're done. Pretty straightforward, really. You don't need any specialized tools for your build, just a phillips screwdriver (though when something doesn't work you may be tempted to pick up a hammer...). But as with many things, the devil is in the details, and there are always one or two things that you have to think your way around. This build would be no different.

To prove the basic assembly steps of putting together a computer aren't nearly as hard as some may think, I had my 8 year old assistant Sophia Karynn (aka 'Baby Suri') help out with some of the initial assembly. To help her understand what the different components do I likened them to parts of the body. First up: we had to get the motherboard ready, which I compared to the central nervous system, or her spinal cord:

Ideally I'd have an anti-static mat to place the motherboard on, but I don't build enough computers (or anything electrical, really) to need one. So, setting the board on top of the anti static bag and on top of the box it came in gives us time to add the other components. Next up was the 'brain' of the operation, the Ryzen 3 APU.

For all the packaging, the chip itself is pretty small. Most of the space is for the included CPU cooler. But since I'm using the Kraken X42 for this build, there isn't any need to even unpack it the cooler for a glamour shot. Once you line up the notch on the motherboard and the processor, the APU literally drops into its socket, with the metal arm latching down and locking it in place.

With the 'brain' in place it was time to tackle the DDR4 modules, or the 'short term memory'. While 8GB should be more than enough for this build, knowing I got double the memory for the same price just a few years ago annoys me. No matter. Technology and market swings wait for no man, and it was more than my parents had before.

These only line up one way in the memory slot and snap in with enough force. Sophia needed a little help pushing them into place, but she got it done

At this point I was quite happy I went with the white memory sticks here, as they blend in perfectly. My parents probably won't notice or care about the aesthetic choices, but I'll sleep better. Time to move on to one of my most important party pieces, the 'long term memory', aka the  M.2 SSD

I can't stress enough how much of a difference having a SSD as your main drive makes over your common HDD. 30 seconds from cold start to sign in screen is amazing the first time you experience it. I almost want to spend my own money and upgrade my work laptop just for the speed increase, but I don't like my job nearly as much. Installing the drive was yet another 'tab-into-slot' affair, with the drive lining up one way to the M.2 slot (at a slight angle, though), then folding down and being held by a small screw. Sophia made work work of this as well, but not before noticing the blue Western Digital logo being the only splash of color on this board so far. At least someone else noticed...

It was now time to get the 'body', or the case, prepped. Building inside a Fractal Design case is pretty painless, as there's plenty of room to run and organize all of your cables (and there would be plenty of those in this build) and thoughtful touches like over-sized grommets to route those wires and hide some of the clutter while keeping said wires from any edges that may fray the wires and grommets on the hard drive trays to reduce vibration and noise. Little (and nerdy) things that you may not notice, but does make for a better building experience. I installed the brass motherboard standoffs, installed the I/O shield to the back of the case, lined up the motherboard, slid it in place, and screwed it down.

Next it was time to install the 'heart' of the system, the PSU, which will push electricity, the 'life blood' of the system, at all the components (OK, the analogy may be stretching a little thin, but it seems to have helped Sophia remember what part does what, so I'm sticking with it. Sue me...).

The nice thing about having a modular power supply is you only use the cables that you need, and the rest can be stored in the box rather than taking up real estate inside the case. While the cables weren't individually sleeved with color coordinated Techflex braiding like THIS, they will do the trick. 650 watts may seem like overkill for a relatively modest system, but it comes from a reputable manufacturer (Corsair), has a certified efficiency rating (80 Bronze) and should supply stable power and remain silent for years. Having cheaped out on PSUs on a few budget projects before, I wasn't about to do the same thing here. So, in the case it went, where it sat on 4 small pads Fractal had installed to reduce any noise and vibration (again, nice little nerdy touches nobody will notice until you do). 4 screws later and we were set.

At this point it was way past Sophia's bedtime, so she had to get to sleep before I could tackle the 'lungs' of the system, the LED fans. First, it was time to RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!

At this point things start to get a bit trickier and your thinking cap should be on. Unfortunately, it was also close to midnight and history was being made by UMBC, a #16 seed, defeating #1 seeded Virginia, which had never happened in the NCAA men's basketball tourney before. So, I was a little distracted and things took a bit longer than I would have liked. In order to get this installed I had to:

• Install the correct retention ring on the water pump (the round thing with lights)
• Remove the stock CPU cooler brackets that were installed on the motherboard and install the standoffs for the water pump
• Screw the water pump onto the standoffs
• Wonder why the pump was not pressed tight against the APU and the motherboard as it should be
• Go online and discuss UMBC's improbable win
• Watch highlights of said improbable win
• Look for websites and forums to see if anyone else had this problem with their pump and standoffs
• Remove the standoffs and install the correct standoffs for the motherboard
• Stare at the water pump and wonder why the NZXT logo isn't horizontally oriented
• Watch Kenny, Charles, Ernie, and Clarke break down the games of the tournament
• Look at images of other builds with the logo in the correct orientation
• Debate on reaching for the hammer
• Realign the retention ring so that the logo is now horizontal 
• Reinstall water pump on standoffs
• Pat myself on the back for figuring it out
• Kick myself for not figuring it out sooner
• Mount one of the AER RGB fans to the back of the Kraken radiator
• Laugh at Jason Jones in The Detour
• Futilely try to align the stock fan in between the radiator and the case
• Watch more of The Detour
• Wonder why I haven't watched this show before
• Wrangle the fan and radiator in place, and screw it all down
• Stand back and admire my work
• Realize this should not have taken over an hour to install
• Finish watching The Detour, then call it a night

2018 Computer Build - Bringing The Parents Into The 21st Century Pt. 2

With marching orders in hand and a budget well over what was needed, it was time to select the components for the build. Some were a no-brainer. Others had very little choice. And still others proved more finicky than anticipated. Here's what they got:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G.

There were a few things that went into this pick. First, AMD's Ryzen chips are the first time in a LONG time AMD has been able to challenge Intel's CPUs is anything other than the low end/value market. Couple decent benchmarks with on-board graphics that smack down anything Intel can muster (so much so that Intel will soon be partnering with AMD for their onboard graphics on Intel chips in the near future) and you have a pretty compelling CPU for $99. Now, my parents don't need much, if any, computing power, and the likelihood of them playing anything more that a rousing game of Mahjong is highly unlikely. Still, if they were to try any PC gaming at some point, they at least could do so with decent frame rates without a separate GPU (and looking at the price and availability of the GPU market in March 2018, that's definitely a good thing). Also, AMD is good at supporting their platforms over time, so upgrading the CPU down the line (which, considering their last computer was over a decade old, is quite possible) would be much easier than with, say, an Intel i3, which would definitely require swapping the motherboard as well. Speaking of which:

Motherboard: AsRock X370 Pro4

Picking a motherboard wasn't difficult per se, but I did have to do a bit of research. The 2200G is relatively new, and while most AMD boards will support this chip and activate the video output on the boards (the 1st gen Ryzen chips did not have any onboard graphics, requiring a separate GPU for any video output), many would require a BIOS update to work. Doing that may be easier said than done, as AMD has resorted to sending customers loaner CPUs so they can boot up the system to upgrade the BIOS, then install the new Ryzen chips. The alternative was to find a newer board that was certified to work with the 2200G out the box. The Pro4, which was released shortly after the 2200G, fit the bill perfectly. I have an AsRock board in my personal rig, and it has given me zero problems (then again, a mobo should rarely give you any problems). On the plus side, AMD promised to support the AM4 Socket at least through 2020, so if there ever is a need to upgrade my parents to a more powerful (or at least newer) CPU it should be a drop in solution. On the minus side, the board only has 2 internal USB ports, which would become a problem later on. Still, the $99 price tag was a winner, and the white on black color scheme works nicely with the case. Which brings us to:

Case: Fractal Design R5

This would be my third build in a Fractal case (I have a R4; my brother's computer, which I rebuilt, has a R5). Part of me wanted to find something different, but my options were limited by two requests:

1. My mother wanted 2 external drive bays for an optical drive and a SD card reader, and
2. She wanted a door on the front of her computer.

Now, most cases today are eliminating the optical drive bays completely, opting instead for solid front panels to allow installation of multiple fans or water cooling radiators (that and physical media is slowly but surely being phased out everywhere). There were only a handful of cases that had 2 bays and still looked decent, and even fewer that had a front door. So, the R5 got the call. I really wanted to go with the newer R6, which has a nice tempered glass side panel (quite a few cases have hopped on the tempered glass bandwagon it seems). But, the R6 only had one drive bay, and my mother would not be talked out of wanting 2 bays. So be it. I knew the R5 had plenty of room for the components that I would need.

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2x8GB

When I built my rig, 16GB only cost me $72. In 2018? 8GB runs $90. That's insane. Still, considering my parents were trudging around with a paltry 2GB RAM in their old rig (I'm honestly not sure the mobo could support more, nor could I even find the DDR sticks anymore), quadrupling their current amount wasn't a bad thing. Finding the memory in white keeps the color scheme going. Gotta coordinate, after all....

SSD: WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB

While the price of memory has gone up, the price on storage has come down, which seems to be the inverse of what the market looked like when I built my computer. At that time, a 240GB SSD would run somewhere in the $160-$180 range. In 2018? I found this 500GB SSD for $130. The market giveth, and the market taketh, it seems. Realistically, 500GB should be more than enough space for my parents to install, download, or save whatever and not run out of space before it's time to do a major hardware upgrade. And the speed benefits of going with a SSD as the primary drive cannot be overstated. As far as going with the M.2 form factor over the regular 2.5" enclosure? There wasn't a price difference, the motherboard has 2 M.2 slots built in, and that would be one less set of cables I'd have to run through the case come installation time. Having that dash of blue throws off the black and white aesthetic a bit, but I'm going to be the only one bothered by it, because reasons.... A few minuted comparison shopping a few sites and an order was placed to Newegg for all 5 items, which arrived in 2 days.

HDD: Toshiba 2TB 7200rpm Internal Drive

Unless you're doing a budget build, the best storage solution for most setups would be to have whatever SSD you can find at your price range coupled with a higher capacity HDD to store your data (music, photos, videos, etc). Prices have gone down a bit since my personal build, so finding a drive for cheap was no problem. $58 later, my father had enough storage for every video he's taken of his grandkids so far and then some.

PSU: Corsair CX650M

A PSU isn't a hugely exciting thing, but it is an extremely important thing. One thing I have learned over the years is never cheap out on one. You don't need a 1200 watt behemoth with cloud based power monitoring, but you do want something from a reputable brand that at least has 80 Bronze certification. Go cheap  and you run the risk of having an extremely noisy PSU fan or a PSU that dies within months. Been there, done that. Won't make that mistake again. Something in the $50-$70 range should net you something like this Corsair PSU I picked up at Microcenter. At 650 watts there is more than enough power to support my parent's modest system. Being semi-modular I don't need to hide the wires I'm not using. At $60 with a mail in rebate, this would be a safe bet (though I did get an extended warranty, just because it was cheap and the cashier was nice)

Internal SD Card Reader: Generic

My father has a sizable collection of SD and Compact Flash cards with all forms of blurry photos and videos that he has taken over the years. An external card reader would have worked fine. But, my mom wanted an internal reader if she wasn't getting a second optical drive. I wasn't going to overthink it. So, I grabbed whatever card reader and drive bay adapter I could get with Amazon Prime One-Day delivery.


CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X42

There is absolutely no need for this cooler for my parents. They are not gaming. The CPU will not be overclocked. The stock AMD Spire cooler that came with the CPU would have been just fine. But, my mother wanted lights. And while a few other manufacturers make RGB coolers (Corsair and Thermaltake come to mind), none of them stand out quite like the NZXT offering. The pump assembly has the LEDs set up in a descending ring for a 'infinity' display, and the NZXT logo is a separate LED which can be colored and controlled separately from the rings, making for some interesting effects:

At $130 this bit of vanity is overkill, to be honest. But it is impressive. So, if my parents want lights, they got lights...


Fans: NZXT AER RGB 140mm (x5)

RGB lighting in computer cases is in a weird place at the moment. Every RGB component needs to have some sort of control to change the color of the LEDs and any effects you may want (color change, strobe, breathing effect, etc). While RGB lights follow a similar principle, every manufacturer seems to have a different method of controlling those lights, and few are compatible, either on a hardware or software level. Now, some will gladly mix and match coolers, LED strips and fans, and deal with different ways to hook them up and separate programs to control each component. I was not about to deal with that, even if it meant some compromise. For example, Corsair's newest RGB fans have 2 separate LED rings compared to the NZXT fans, making for more dramatic lighting effects. However, going with Corsair fans would mean having a separate program to change the color on the cooling pump and the fans, which may cause some internal conflicts (and at the very least would be one more thing to explain to my parents, which I dearly want to avoid). On the hardware side, the NZXT fans allow you to daisy chain each LED connection to each other, whereas with the Corsair setup each fan needed to be wired to a controller individually. This would mean a much more involved installation and cable management solution, which I didn't feel was worth it for a few fancier effects. So, the AER RGBs made the cut. For maximum effect, I went with 5 fans: 2 in the front panel, 2 in the top panel, and one in the rear. While the X42 did come with a fan for the radiator, it was not lighted. So, I decided to set the radiator up in a push/pull configuration, with the AER RGB on the front of the radiator and the stock fan in the rear. At $40 a pop they aren't exactly cheap (though they did have a 3 pack at some savings). And quite honestly, 5 fans for a setup that will not be pushed is overkill. But again, they wanted lights.

RGB Controller: NZXT Hue+

As mentioned earlier, every RGB component needs a controller, and every manufacturer has their own hardware and software solution. The Hue+ is NZXT's. The controller is relatively compact, about the same dimension as a 2.5" hard drive, but slightly taller. The Hue+ has two channels, which can control up to 5 RGB fans on one channel and 4 RGB light strips (which came with the controller) on the other. Installing the Hue+ in one of the unused drive bays was no problem. Figuring out how to connect everything was quickly becoming a problem...


Internal Power Expansion: NZXT Internal USB Hub

While looking over the parts I was collecting for the build I was trying to visualize how everything needed to be wired and routed through the case. Running power to everything didn't seem like too much of a problem, as the PSU has enough cables to provide power via SATA or Molex connections. However, the Kraken pump and Hue+ both needed an internal USB connector so that the software could talk to the hardware. There was also the front panel connections on the R5 case that needed their own USB connection, along with the internal card reader That's 4 internal USB devices. The mother board only had 2 internal USB headers. That wasn't going to work at all. So, an expansion was going to be needed. I had already gone all in with NTXZ components so far, so picking up their internal HUB just worked. I got the extra internal headers I needed, and as a  bonus I could put the USB dongle for their mouse inside the case as well, freeing up an external USB port (and making it harder for them to lose the dongle in the first place).

At this point I had assembled just about everything I needed for assembly. I planned on reusing their current DVD drive, as there wasn't anything wrong with it (and it wasn't worth spending $15 on another one). I picked up a few Y-Cables for the fans so that I could run 2 fans on each of the fan headers and thus control the speed of both pairs of fans (front and top). It was now time to put it all together.

2018 Computer Build - Bringing The Parents Into The 21st Century Pt. 1

Almost every family seems to have a designated IT person. The one family member that knows something about a computer that goes a bit more than just how to turn them on. That person is then tasked to answer and service any electronic issue that their respective family members (and said family members friends, co-workers, associates, acquaintances or hangers-on) may have for eternity. That person also needs to be on call 24/7 in the event that any of said electronics break, resulting in texts and/or phone calls at the most inopportune times and numerous devices being left at their home for servicing at any given moment. If the issue cannot be resolved by instructions given over the phone (which conversation will be simultaneously frustrating and hilarious), expect to make housecalls to resolve said issue, which most likely will take less time than it took to drive to their home, but which you cannot bill them an hourly rate or suggest they call Geek Squad next time. I"ll give you 3 guesses who fills that role in my family...

Anyway, the IT project at hand is my parent's desktop computer. My parents bought a HP Pavillion a1640n, most likely at my suggestion. A quick Google search shows the computer came out in 2006, which is an absolute eternity in tech years. For a bit of perspective: The system is rocking a Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB memory, 250GB hard drive, a Lightscribe DVD burner, front panel memory card reader with USB and Firewire(?!?) ports, and a 'Pocket Media Drive', which was basically a removable USB drive. I know all of this not because I remember it like some kind of tech savant, but because HP made sure to plaster stickers all over the front panel to remind you what your wonderful silver box could do.

The computer came with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, which was more or less a 'skinned' version of Windows XP that was focused on being a media hub for your home entertainment (which few people, including my parents, ever did). If memory serves HP also issued vouchers to buyers for a free upgrade to Windows Vista, which was set to roll out a few months after the computer was purchased. That means this collection of hardware has soldiered on through 4 major OS versions (Vista, Win 7, Win 8, and Win 10). Just let that marinate for a minute...

I've performed my IT duties on this rig the past 12 years. I upgraded the system to Win 7 and then Win 10, skipping the undercooked OS that was Vista and the desktop disaster that was Windows 8 (though I still had to deal with that horrible OS when my mom purchased 3 Windows 8 tablets, because secretly she doesn't like me. Even on a tablet, that OS was a disaster). The hard drive was replaced at least twice. Two PSUs were installed. The optical drive inexplicably died and was replaced (as for the Lightscribe setup? They never once bought the correct CDs to take advantage of burning their own labels to the CD, instead handwriting things with a Sharpie like everyone else). The memory was upgraded to a whopping 4GB a few years ago (which was surprisingly challenging to find memory for this computer and cost more than expected). And every device driver, print driver, anti virus, malware and software install and update were dutifully ran by me, either via remote access (when it worked), phone conversation (which was always a painful ordeal) or house call (like the time somebody clicked a bad link and 15 windows of porn popped up and would not close). For the last 5 years I've told my parents there's not much more I can do to patch their computer up anymore and they would need to finally upgrade their system sooner rather than later. When the computer refused to boot up and started screaming out beep codes just before Christmas, I decided enough was enough. They were going to upgrade whether they wanted to or not.

My parents use their computer like most people do: they check e-mail, pay bills, look at websites about old people stuff, and store (but not edit) pictures and videos of their grandchildren. Pretty basic, low level stuff. As such, they could have walked into Best Buy, blindfolded themselves, spun around three times, pointed at any computer there, and bought it. Whatever they chose would have been generations better than what they currently had and more than they would need for the next 5-10 years based on their usage. But no. My mother decided she wanted one custom built. Why? Because she could. She only provided 3 build guidelines:

• The case has to have lights, preferably purple and orange (her favorite colors)
• It has to have 2 external drive bays, since her soon to be decommissioned computer had 2 drive bays (one of which, I pointed out, was empty and never used)
• It had to be under $2500

The last one would be the easiest to meet. I told her even going custom I could likely keep everything around $700 (though I underestimated that price a bit, it was still much less than her $2500 cap). The other 2 guidelines took ka bit more planning than I originally thought...