Enero 31, 2005
The GF's new machine!
The gf got a new computer. It's a nice, nice box, and I confess I'm jealous. It's a Gateway 825GM Media Center PC, and you can read the specs here. But in case you're lazy, here are the highlights:
- BTX System Board w/ PCI Express
- 1 Gigabyte RAM
- 250 Gigabyte SATA drive
- Dual DVD drives--one burner
- 8-in-1 media reader
Stuff like this makes geeks all excited and tingly and stuff. Be glad you're not here. Of course, I took pictures when I had to install the wireless card, and they're all in the extended entry for the broadband challenged.
The first thing you'll notice is it opens from the wrong side.
The interior shot. The power supply is in the upper right-hand corner; the dual optical drives are in the upper left-hand corner. The CPU (a 3.2 GHz P-4) is underneath the blue-green shroud, and the SATA drive is below the shroud, on the right side.
The CPU is beneath the big copper heatsink. About the only thing that's a better conductor of heat is silver--too expensive and too soft for electrical use. There are two 120mm fans cooling the CPU: One is at the shroud entrance to the left, blowing air across the heatsink, and one is on the back of the case forcing the hot air out--you can see it in the interior photo above. To move a given volume of air you can have some small fans spinning really fast (and therefore, making a lot of noise) or you can have large fans spinning relatively slowly. Gateway opted for large fans spinning slowly. When this system unit is powered on, you really can't hear anything.
The PCI slots. The video card is in a PCI Express X16 slot on top, then there are three standard PCI slots (one empty, one with a TV tuner card, and the modem). The little teeny-tiny black slot at the bottom? That's a PCI Express X1 slot.
The SATA drive. I remember back when a 10 megabyte drive was a full height (two DVD drives stacked on top of one another), 5 1/4 inch drive. I still have the first computer I built, with a 386 CPU and a CORE controller and 300 mbyte MFM drive, 5 1/4 inch full-height, and I thought I'd never fill that up.
The tooless expansion thingys. Tooless freaks me out--you don't know how to use a screwdriver? More important, I think the fact tools are not needed makes the average Joe think he can build or work on his computer, and as Mr. Company Computer Guy, I've seen what fumble-fingered lusers can do to a computer, and it's not a pretty sight.