Building My Own PC Part VI

I finally solved the problem with my video card.

For those of you just tuning in, I bought a new computer about 2 weeks ago from TigerDirect. Well, I actually bought all the pieces required to build my own computer. And I spent 5 hours in the floor of my living room trying to figure out how to put it all together. I did finally get it in working order, except for the graphics card. The motherboard has graphics built-in, so I was able to use my computer (which ran wonderfully) without the super-awesome GeForce 9600, but anytime I tried to plug in the 9600, the computer would not boot.

To make a long story a little shorter, it turns out that the problem was that I was putting the card in the wrong slot. Imagine that! It was the only card I have for the 2 PCIe slots on the motherboard, so naturally I plugged it into PCIE1. After calling XFX (the manufacturer), they told me it actually needed to go in PCIE4. Go figure. But now I'm gaming with full-power sexiness. The only thing I lack is a couple of cooling fans to make sure everything stays in working order for years to come.

Here are the specs for my finished system:

• Ultra X-Blaster ATX Black Mid-Tower Case
  
• Ultra LSP750 750-Watt Power Supply
  
• XFX nForce 750a SLI Motherboard
  
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition Processor
  
• ZEROtherm Butterfly BTF90 CPU Cooler
  
• Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory
  
• XFX GeForce 9600 GSO Video Card - 768MB DDR2
  
• Seagate 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/32MB/SATA-3G
  
• Seagate 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/32MB/SATA-3G (2 of these bad boys)
  
• Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
  

Total Cost ($)

    699.97 subtotal

(+)  24.90 shipping

=   724.87 paid

(-)  70.00 rebates

(-)  50.00 gift card

= 604.87

This has been a great experience, and I doubt that I will ever buy a retail PC again. I am officially a do-it-yourself consumer.