Blue Beast

Blue Beast - Not For Sale - Build for a Friend
Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II
Power Supply: Included with Case
Motherboard: ABIT AI7
Processor: Intel 2.4c
Memory: 512MB Ultra PC3200 400MHz Memory
Video Card: MSI nVidia GeForce 6600GT 128MB Memory
Hard Drive: 40GB IDE 7200 RPM Seagate Hard Drive
CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive: SONY Black 16X DVD+R 4X DVD+RW 2.4X DVD+R DL 8X DVD-R 4X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner
Operating System: Windows XP Home
3.5” Floppy Drive: NEC Black 3.5” Floppy Drive
Mouse: IBM 4-Button Optical Navigator Mouse with Illuminated Scroll Wheel
Keyboard: Still not sure (maybe use old PC keyboard)
Speakers: Generic 2 Piece PC Speaker Set
Monitor: Viewsonic model VA712B 17" Flat Panel Monitor with 8 MS response time and built in speakers.
Extras:
  * Custom Operating System Installation and Performance Tweaking
  * Blue LED Case Fans
  * Exhaustive Burn In and Performance Monitoring (100+ hours)
Notes and comments:
This computer is a very low budget PC for a friend who wants to learn how to build PC’s.  But I’m not sure if he’s going to make it through the operation (joke). The goal is to spend less than $1,000 and have a good solid gaming system and home PC. So far, so good, we’re under $900 and the only real “necessity” yet is a keyboard, but our ambitious new PC owner is already looking at Flat Panel monitors.  Luckily, I saw most of this coming and gave him a very easily upgradable system. Should keep him busy for a few years. :)

Diary

• 5/9/2005: Today I started Diaries on the computers and this is my first entry. The PC is “built” with the XP operating system, and has some minimal modifications so that my friend can play DOOM III. No complaints so far, and quite frequently when I see him, he’s looking a little worn down, just like he was playing computer games until late in the evening/early in the morning. Hmmm...yep, he definitely likes his new PC. Much more fine tuning will be done in the near future.
• 5/12/2005 It’s 11:20 PM and my friend and I just finished up working on Blue Beast, which is now optimized for maximum frag action in DOOM 3...the bosses won’t know what hit them. Now I’m sending him home with enough lighting to keep a city block open at night, and an entire UV Blue cable wrap kit.  I’ll be checking in and seeing how he’s doing after the weekend.
• 6/8/2005: Well, it has been awhile, but I do have pictures of Blue Beast that will be up soon.  My friend has been enjoying many hours of fragging Beasts and Foes in DOOM 3! :)
• 2/21/2006: Well, its been awhile and no updates to the system yet, so I may have to move this to past projects soon. My friend has been enjoying this system and has kicked my butt in DOOM 3 multiple times, making me begin The Magic Conch project.  We’ll have to see if I can talk him into a raptor hard drive and some high speed memory for his system. It might happen! :)