A new type of PC Build spec

Post by **FatherJack** » August 3rd, 2009, 14:25

Am thinking of build a couple of PCs to try things out, maybe start doing it for a living and hire 5punkers as consultants.

Would like to build:

1. A very cheap PC. Should have a disk and a memory and a motherboard and a psu and a case. I'll probably build one to share media files, burn DVDs, but otherwise not do much but stay on all the time.

2. An interesting-looking PC. While I am not a fan of colourful cases molded into aggressive shapes and blue neon lights pulsing within, I accept that my matt-black monolith is not to everyone's taste. If would add anything to mine it might be red fans at the front.
But I'm looking for ideas - if I bought a completely clear case, for example - what funky-looking goodies could I place inside to make it look more interesting. Gold PSUs, memory heat-spreaders, intriguing cooling solutions, unusual cable options - that sort of thing. Or maybe some other ideas. I guess water-cooling would look good, but I'm not aiming for something massively expensive - the specs would be fairly customisable, while retaining the 'look'.

Post by **Dog Pants** » August 3rd, 2009, 14:31

UV seems popular. Stick a UV lamp in your case and you can get fans, cables, even colouring for the water in a liquid cooling system, which will glow. The only bit I've ever encountered are my IDE cables, which just happen to glow in UV light although I've never tried it. They're made by Sharkoon I think.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 3rd, 2009, 14:47

1) should be pretty easy, just had a poke about on ocock (not the cheapest by any means, but easy to get around for speccing stuff.

Left: pretty expandable, but limited, right: very basic, stick it under the desk, replace HDD once, buy new one.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitteny_berk/3784564265/" title="ideas by Kitteny Berk, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3479/378 ... 4bb5_o.jpg" width="681" height="393" alt="ideas"></a>

Also, if you're building more than one machine, buying <a href="http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... K">this</a> or similar and giving each machine a stick isn't a terrible idea, will save a fair bit.

note: not recommendations of anything, though should be fine.

Post by **FatherJack** » August 3rd, 2009, 20:12

Cheers.

I went on the internet and found this:

HAL9000, much?

If I go ahead with this I'll be looking to start at the end of the month. There are a few PCs I want to try building, such as a mini ITX and one using the quietest fans I can find and I'll either use those, give them away, or sell them for build cost after snapping a few pics for publicity. They'll be fairly basic machines to keep costs down, so might do for a second PC/media server or friends/relatives that don't game much.

After that, while I'm sorting things out and getting stuff up and running I'd be looking at building and selling at cost until I work out how I can make it viable. If any 5punkers want to fund builds at that time with a bit more gaming power, that would be useful to widen the range I have examples of.

I'd probably be looking to charge properly from the new year, but since this isn't anything fantastically new, it'll take me until then to see if it's going to be worth it. I'll look at setting up some kind of web presence before, but I don't plan to do anything that would be to the detriment of 5punk, or advertise on the site beyond the odd post of what I'm up to.

Some ideas I've had to stand out include an ultra-cheap line, interestingly-designed or painted cases, and posted PC/3D Mark scores on the pages. Of course my experience in gaming will be useful as opposed to the "best for gaming" PCs you see off-the-shelf which don't give you any indication of which games you will able to play, I'll be able to provide real-world examples.

Also if anyone would like to get involved or has experience of this sort of thing, get in touch. I don't know where it's going, or how much of it will really happen yet, but any input is valued.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 3rd, 2009, 22:25

I've always thought a build machine to your spec/put parts together for you and get stuff set up and tested type service could work pretty well for the less technically minded gamers.

Also, any kind of support could work well (like hardware/software upgrades)

Post by **HereComesPete** » August 3rd, 2009, 22:38

Yarp.

Random thoughts go!

Upgrades where the costing is quite transparent, laptop and desktop seem to generate good repeat business.

A lot of the people I work with can use the things just fine but when it comes to things like what's actually inside it's blank stares.

A rig that'll play just about anything rolls in at around £700 at the moment.

Noctua fans are expensive but whisper like, scythe are pretty much as good. I can see you getting a premium from people who want whisper quiet smart looking pc dvr/home media systems.

My mate does good money by showing rich business types smart home stuff, like squeezeboxes and pda's to have your music follow you round the house. They'll pay plenty for that superior to their mates shiny toy kudos.

Ebay shop? I wouldn't personally touch Ebay with a shitty stick but some people like it.

Post by **FatherJack** » August 4th, 2009, 0:01

HereComesPete wrote: Yarp.

Random thoughts go!

Upgrades where the costing is quite transparent, laptop and desktop seem to generate good repeat business.

A lot of the people I work with can use the things just fine but when it comes to things like what's actually inside it's blank stares.

A rig that'll play just about anything rolls in at around £700 at the moment.

Noctua fans are expensive but whisper like, scythe are pretty much as good. I can see you getting a premium from people who want whisper quiet smart looking pc dvr/home media systems.

My mate does good money by showing rich business types smart home stuff, like squeezeboxes and pda's to have your music follow you round the house. They'll pay plenty for that superior to their mates shiny toy kudos.

Ebay shop? I wouldn't personally touch Ebay with a shitty stick but some people like it.

Support (generally) was the other thing I was considering, but I'm not sure I can do both straight away. Fixing my own builds seems preferable to any smelly PC that comes along, but expectations are higher if I supplied it, and most will expect not to pay much beyond parts. I'm still torn on that one - people are generally grateful, even if you can't fix everything on some random box, but when you're supplying it they're angry at you if it goes wrong.

Upgrades of anything that comes along is more towards the PC repair side of things which can be a minefield, but perhaps I could offer something more like a rejuvenation, where actually the only original parts are the case and data.

Gamers too, can be a bit mystified by the innards of a PC - it's only old fuckers like me that had to dick around with EMM386 and the like just to be able to run them - so why their Tesco "best for gaming and multimedia" rig won't play Crysis isn't clear. It's probably actually more complex than it was in the QEMM days - there wasn't the range of (sub)standard components then, yet more and more there's a marketing push to sell ubiquitous "do-all" PCs, which actually..don't.

The gaming rig - with guaranteed 3D Mark results - is probably more lucrative than super-low-end, but costs a lot more to stay current with. I'm struggling to think of a viable support model that will indemnify me against all the other shit people always cram onto their PCs.

I will have to experiment with the quiet side of PCs, all mine are cooling>quietness, perhaps I could measure dbA levels and quote them or something. Luckily fans are reasonably cheap.

Gadgets come and go faster than PC parts, but demonstrating how a media centre PC can work might have mileage, though it borders on illegality for its full potential, which obviously I want to steer well clear of.

eBay shop I hadn't though of, and is a good idea. I was thinking full-on set up a business with premises and everything, but that's a nice inroad to getting customers before you're ready to go big time.

Thanks for the ideas.

Post by **FatherJack** » August 4th, 2009, 0:22

The other thing I thought of was reselling cases - no comeback on busted PCs with viruses, but a decent markup.

Berk got me thinking about anodised aluminium, who wouldn't fancy a case like this one?

I've just coloured a silver case there, but most examples of it in practise seem to be quite bright, garish colours and I thought this was a bit more pleasing.

Post by **FatherJack** » November 10th, 2009, 4:04

I made a logo

Reminds me of something, not sure what.

shot2bits · Post by **shot2bits** » November 10th, 2009, 6:56

FatherJack wrote:I made a logo

Reminds me of something, not sure what.

haha, subtle

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » November 10th, 2009, 7:56

FatherJack wrote:I made a logo

Reminds me of something, not sure what.

Pfffffft

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 10th, 2009, 8:19

Mr. Johnson · Post by **Mr. Johnson** » November 10th, 2009, 9:16

Post by **deject** » November 10th, 2009, 15:30

Lateralus wrote:Pfffffft

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » November 10th, 2009, 15:34

,

:above:, ... ,

:above::above::above::above:

Anhamgrimmar · Post by **Anhamgrimmar** » November 10th, 2009, 17:29

Possibly poke chickenz, and tap him up for some ammo boxes. ISTR that the boxes that 27mm mauser ammo would be the right size to get a motherboard and bits in. An A480 ammo box (again, tap chickenz up for some pictures) would also be big enough. obviously you'd need some way of getting them certified free from explosives, but thats no biggie.

/cynical business idea
and if you jacked the price up a tenner, and donated to Help4Heroes...
/cynical business idea

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 10th, 2009, 19:09

That's quite a good idea there Anham. Putting a tenner on Help for Heroes would make the mob more likely to let go of the ammo boxes, although I didn't think that was too hard anyway unless they get reused a lot and are considered valuable and attractive. Might need a bit of metalwork to get them useable though - obviously ports would need to be cut in them, and taking the side off/welding the top on would make them a lot easier to get at. I reckon there's loads of kids out there would love a gaming rig in an ammo box though.

EDIT: Or failing that a quick google found me some .30 boxes for a fiver, so they're probably not hard to get hold of.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » November 10th, 2009, 19:45

HereComesPete wrote:Noctua fans are expensive but whisper like, scythe are pretty much as good. I can see you getting a premium from people who want whisper quiet smart looking pc dvr/home media systems.

The shuttle I use for my media PC is very quiet without any special quiet components. This is the case, I've used the stock CPU cooler and generally good quality components. It wasn't built for this purpose but it works well with a big disk and bluetooth input. Plays 720p without problems, but struggles with 1080i/p. I can get more of the spec if needed. Although it's probably not the cheapest solution.

Post by **FatherJack** » November 10th, 2009, 20:54

Dog Pants wrote:That's quite a good idea there Anham. Putting a tenner on Help for Heroes would make the mob more likely to let go of the ammo boxes, although I didn't think that was too hard anyway unless they get reused a lot and are considered valuable and attractive. Might need a bit of metalwork to get them useable though - obviously ports would need to be cut in them, and taking the side off/welding the top on would make them a lot easier to get at. I reckon there's loads of kids out there would love a gaming rig in an ammo box though.

It's a nice idea, an earlier google showed me it has been done quite a few times as-one-offs, but it does seem like a lot of work when I can get a crap but useable case for £12. I'm not that good at crafting and the like - I can bodge stuff to my own satisfaction, but not really good enough quality to sell. I can assemble a PC from parts in about an hour, but any cutting and stuff and I'm bound to have an accident and ruin it.

spoodie wrote:The shuttle I use for my media PC is very quiet without any special quiet components. This is the case, I've used the stock CPU cooler and generally good quality components. It wasn't built for this purpose but it works well with a big disk and bluetooth input. Plays 720p without problems, but struggles with 1080i/p. I can get more of the spec if needed. Although it's probably not the cheapest solution.

The trouble with small PCs nowadays is that people seem to equate them with the atom-powered nettops, which are even smaller (too small and fiddly to make myself) and expect to pay next-to-nothing for them. I'd be interested in the spec, though. I'm thinking perhaps the small Lian-Li PC-V351A PC case, but with enough gaming power to justify the higher price the overhead of that case would demand. After all, nettops won't play many games. Also, I've never done a media PC - what do they run? Was there ever anything after XP Media Center Edition? And do they have remote control thingies to do them on the telly?

Lee · Post by **Lee** » November 11th, 2009, 13:44

FatherJack wrote:Also, I've never done a media PC - what do they run? Was there ever anything after XP Media Center Edition?

Windows 7.