As discussed in the previous post I thought we would look at some of the things you need to think about if buying components to build your own PC.  In this post I will start with the things that you need to consider when looking for a case.  So here are my top 5 in no particular order.

Things to consider when buying a computer case

1. Form factor and size - What size of computer are you looking to build? This is important decision that needs to be made early on, as it will effect the choice of both case and the motherboard you will be choose.  Be aware that you will need to make sure your motherboard of choice will fit into your case of choice. So for instance if you go for a standard ATX motherboard you will need a case that can except it and will not allow you to go for a smaller case that only excepts miniATX.
2. Power Supply - The power supply is an important part of your computer system and they should be powerful enough to meet the demands of your design.  Most cases will be come with a power supply but you should always consider its capability. You can always buy a separate power supply if necessary
3. Cooling - Heat is a big problem for computers components especially with the CPU and graphic chipsets that are being created today.  Your case will need to have good fans built in or adequate space and grills for you to add your own.  Cases often come with heat fins as well. If you are looking to build a high end system consider cooling carefully in your design.
4. Ease of Installation - When building your own computer, how easy your case makes it  for you to get inside and work is an important consideration, trust me!
5. Style - Last but definitely not least is how your case looks. A huge range in terms of look and feel is available on teh market from systems with clear side panels and built in LEDs  to the standard beige tower of yesteryear. This where you can let you artistic side run riot!

As an example of high end case that might make a good choice for a high end system have a look at the ThermalTake Tai-Chi, which even supports water cooling.

Have you bought a case recently?

One of the reasons that the standard IBM PC became such a success story was the fact that it was essentially put together with fairly generic components. This made it easy to clone and produce when compared to the more proprietary produced computers available at the time.  Essentially you could source all the components you needed and assemble your computer and sell it. New companies were born who built either the computers or the individual components. You still needed the operating system and software and hence Microsoft and others were also born, but that is another story.

This is of course a bit of an over simplification of the history of the PC,  but the point being that because all the components were available to buy off the shelf, building your own PC also became a realistic proposition too.  I talked a little bit in a previous post about my geeky past when I used to build and tweak my own PC’s.  Well I think quite a lot of other people are also into the same thing, since the individual computer components such as power supplies, disk drives and memory are consistently some of the most popular and highly rated computer products on PriceGrabber.

I thought I would start a series of posts on the important components that you need to build your own computer.  I  will  start with the shell or case which seems like a basic component but actually does need some thought, but thats for the next post. A case does provide good potential for showing off a bit though, have a look at the Thermaltake Armor Black tower case which looks like a serious bit of kit!

Are you interested in building you own computer?

In the past on this blog I have talked about the need for an external hard drive for backups or in case of the Asus Eee PC for some decent storage space.  I have even looked even a purpose built server to help manage all the data that we are all accumulating at an ever increasing rate.  But what if you your data requirements are such that you need something substantial but you don’t really want to go for something as meaty as the HP MediaSmart Server.

Buffalo LinkStation Live

Well in that case you only really have two options,  the first is to use the cloud, and the second is to look for something like the Buffalo LinkStation Live 500GB Network Hard Drive which is something, sort of in between what we have previously looked at.

The Cloud

Lets look at the cloud first. “The cloud” is becoming one of the standard ways of referring to the Internet. So if you store and publish photographs on Flickr for instance you are storing them in the cloud. The cloud refers to the fact that you don’t actually know where the computer your photo’s are stored on, is physically located. Your photo’s are just out there on the cloud, but importantly it is easy to find them. There are now plenty of online storage options available, just search for “online storage”.  Online storage does actually have some advantages, your data is probably safer out there, rather than on your non backed up laptop hard drive, and of course you can access your stuff from anywhere and on any computer anywhere in the world as long as it has a Internet connection.

Network storage

However a lot of people are often a little uncomfortable about putting their data out there, and so the Buffalo LinkStation is a good alternative providing a good amount of network storage. This can free up space on your laptop or provide a backup solution.  The LinkStation also has the added attraction of being able to integrate nicely with iTunes and stream media to your PC.

How do you store all your stuff?

In the last post we looked at laptops for gaming and when I was looking around for good examples I found quite a few.  I thought I would share today what I think must probably the ultimately gaming laptop that I found.  Have a look at the Rock Xtreme SL Pro XSLPRO-TL60 Laptop.

Gaming Power

If you remember that for gaming the most important requirements are a good fast processor, a fast GPU (graphics card) and plenty of memory. Well the Rock Xtreme SL Pro comes with a massive 20 inch screen, a fast AMD dual core CPU,  two SLI Nvidia graphics cards and two hard drives.  This should be more than able cope with any game that you chose to play.

True gaming value?

Of course while the Rock Xtreme SL Pro is obviously a very capable computer, it comes with quite a hefty price tag and with a 20 inch screen it is beginning to move from portable to a “luggable” computer.  In other words it can be lugged around if required, but it is hardly something you are going to carry around everywhere you go!  These aspects also illustrate nicely the point I made in my previous post that laptops are the not in my opinion the way to go for the dedicated gamer.  Just imagine the desktop gaming rig you could put together given the same money, probably something with even better components complete with large screen, awesome sound and good gaming peripherals.

Do you have examples of what you think is the ultimate gaming laptop?

We have previously looked on this blog at computers for gaming. In that previous post we looked at a desktop computer as an example of a possible gaming rig.  But as laptops these days are outselling desktop computers it is probably about time to have a look at gaming laptops.  So what is a gaming laptop and what makes a good one?

What is a gaming laptop?

A gaming laptop is essentially a notebook computer that is both portable but also plays games as well as it does any of the other things you want a computer for.  A laptop that is as happy playing the latest game as it is for writing emails and running office applications.

What makes a gaming laptop?

Most modern games require power, so just like in our previous post a gaming laptop will have to have a powerful, near top of the range components.  The single most important component is the graphics processor, look for the laptop with the best you can afford.  Next important is a powerful CPU followed up by us much RAM memory that you can get.  Essentially there no such thing as a specialist gaming laptop (although there are some that are marketed as such), it just needs to have sufficiently high specification components to be able to meet our gaming requirements. A great example of a good gaming laptop would be MSI GX700-204 UK which comes with a great graphics card, an Intel dual core processor and 3GB of RAM.

Desktops still better for games

In my opinion though, unless you spend a lot of time traveling and need the portability that a laptop gives you, a gamer is going to be far better off with a desktop. Why? Well there can be big downsides to these laptops in that, they are inevitably big & heavy,  get very hot and can be very expensive.  Often for the same price as the laptop you can buy a desktop with a great screen, even better core components and this coupled with high quality peripherals such as joysticks, keyboards would ultimately deliver a superior gaming experience.

Do use a laptop for gaming? Why did you go for the laptop rather than a desktop?

We now have an Asus Eee 4G PC in the family. We are still very happy with the Eee 4G PC sub notebook and would recommend it to anyone looking for a starter computer for a child or for something small, capable and very easy to carry around. The Eee 4G is limited on the storage side though as it has no conventional disk drive and coming with 4GB of solid state storage only.

Limited storage

The solid state storage is nice and robust, but a significant amount of the 4GB is used up by the Linux operating system leaving only about 1.5 GB for user content. Now for my son’s homework and other text files this would probably be fine for the foreseeable future, however he already wants to store some music and digital images on the computer. My wife also uses the Eee a lot and so we are shortly going to have to think about additional storage.

Interface and storage options

Fortunately the Eee 4G PC comes with plenty of interfaces. There is the wired and wireless networking, a good number of USB sockets and a media card reader that excepts SD and SDHC cards. So there are plenty of options to access external storage. The Eee can always access a shared drive on our home desktop PC which also acts as our server, but this of course is only usable when at home. One approach that I have been looking at is to maximise the use of the SD card slot. I investigated and found this very useful SanDisk 4GB Extreme III SDHC Memory Card & Card Reader, which I think is just the ticket for an Eee owner. Why the card reader as well as the card? Well this would make it easy to transfer content from the Eee to other computers who don’t have card readers.

I have also looked at external hard drives for the Eee, which I will cover in the next post.

Have you got an Asus Eee 4G PC? What do you use for external storage?

I was taking a short cut through an electrical goods shop at a shopping mall last weekend and was intrigued to see a very large group of people crowded around something in the area where the shop sells its laptops. When I went over to have a look at what all the fuss was about, I found one of the sales assistants demonstrating the Asus Eee 4G PC. The Eee had finally arrived in the Emirates and was causing quite a stir.

Asus Eee 4G

I returned later on the way home to have a play and to show it to my wife. I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed at first. I think the small size of the screen was the main cause of this, however the Eee obviously worked fine and after playing with it for a while it was obvious that screen size was not really an issue. The demonstration model was logged on to the store WiFi and using Firefox I was able to view and use websites effectively. OpenOffice is preinstalled and opened quickly and easily and worked well and did not appear to tax the processor at all. The keyboard while on the small side for adult hands was perfectly usable and for kids would be fine.

Reactions to the Eee 4G

My wife was completely smitten and was immediately talking about buying one for our seven year old as his first computer, and if he didn’t want for some reason it, she would love to have it! This sort of reaction is probably one of the main reasons why the Eee has become so popular and remember this is before the exceptional price is discussed. It is a very powerful combination and the price was a tipping point for my wife and we bought one on the spot.

Eee 4G user experience

After a few days of having it at home, the experience with the Eee has been really good. I configured the system, the WiFi for the home network and installed our printer in minutes. My son is overjoyed with it and my wife uses it for email and surfing once he has gone to bed. I don’t think either of them has noticed it is not using Windows, the only comment I have had about the interface is how nice and easy to use it is. So my conclusion is that the Asus Eee 4G lives up to its reputation as a fun, easy to use and cheap ultra sub notebook.

Do you have an Eee? What do you think of it?

I have talked a few times now about the popular sub notebook or mini notebook market which of course was initially started by the highly successful Asus Eee. More and more of the other hardware vendors are waking up to the fact that there is a whole new market out there. Even Microsoft has had to respond by extending the life of Windows XP as Vista is not usually considered capable of running on these machines and it needed to provide some sort of response to the increasing use of Linux in this domain.

However just to buck the trend one notebook does provide a (more expensive) version with Vista as an alternative to the normal Linux that is usually provided. This is the latest addition to the market, the really nice looking HP Compaq 2133 Mini-Note PC with its sleek aluminum case. The external good looks are further supported by a keyboard that makes full use of the limited space, and a 9″ screen that boast a resolution of 1280×768. The notebook provides an impressive list of specifications that you would expect on a standard laptop including a 120 GB hard drive, 1 GB Memory, WiFi, Bluetooth, a network adapter, USB ports and a webcam.

It is not all good though, the default configuration of the Linux OS that is installed has not been so well designed for the unit and its intended users as was the case with the Asus Eee. In addition the HP 2133 is powered by the VIA C7-M 1.2GHz CPU instead of the 900Hz Intel Celeron CPU favoured by Asus for the Eee. Unfortunately this may not have been the best move as the few reviews I have read do say that notebook does struggle on the performance. Still a really nice looking piece of kit, and if you are want a small neat machine for email and browsing the HP 2133 may be a neat option.

We have talked a few times on this blog about wireless networks and some of the ways to make you network more secure. But I thought I would write yet another post on wireless as I was recently asked by a very confused friend, what was the difference between all the different flavours of WiFi that you see on the market. What is all this 11b, 11g and 11n and what does it all mean, and what should I look out for when buying an access point? Well it is a good question and I will give it a go. All these refer to various standards that have been agreed for WiFi equipment. In fact the original standard was 802.11a, but this was soon replaced by the other standards each one following on from the other. The changes essentially relate to a changes in the provided bandwidth or range of the wireless signal.

802.11b

Created in 1999 802.11b can be considered to be the lowest or a base standard nowadays and supports bandwidth up to 11 Mbps. The majority of access devices on the market will still support this standard.

802.11g

In 2003 the newer standard 802.11g appeared which increases the bandwidth of the signal to 54 Mbps, with similar or only slightly less of a range.

802.11n

802.11n is the newest standard (although still in draft and not finalised) and is now fairly common in newer devices. It provides significant increases in signal range and bandwidth. The signal is also more resistant to interference from other devices. The standard is backward compatible with both 802.11g and 802.11b though you will be limited to the bandwidth of the earlier standards.

What to look for when buying

When buying an access device, due to generally good backward compatibility you should generally look for a device that supports the newer 802.11n standard. Something like the Buffalo AirStation Nfiniti WZR-G300N Wireless-N Router. All your existing devices should be able to connect even if they are based on earlier standards and newer devices will be able to take full advantage of the new standard’s benefits.

When you slip the rest of the family and visit a computer store for some window shopping, what is it that you usually gravitate towards? Browsing through the latest 3D graphics cards and games even when your poor desktop is way below the minimum specs? Or perhaps it is reviewing the latest WiFi kit for that wireless network you have been thinking of installing for years now? Well for me it is laptops, and I will always browse along the line comparing features.

This is of course the point at which a sales person may well come along and offer to help and sometimes I will indulge is a spot of salesman baiting. You know asking difficult questions and seeking opinions and watching them squirm. Actually this is a great way to identify the people who really know what they are talking about, which might come in handy in future when you do need advice.

Anyway back to the laptops. What I am doing as I look at the different computers is essentially looking for the best specifications for the smallest price. Basically I am looking for a good all round PC that has a good CPU, a good sized hard drive and plenty of memory and all for a reasonable price. Something like the Acer Aspire 5920-3A2G16Mi Notebook would fit the bill, with a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of memory and a great screen. A PC that can handle just about anything and for a very reasonable price.

Which laptop is your favourite all rounder?