Meet Summer and Zoe

Even though I’ve been building computers since somewhere around Windows 95, Tess was my first torrid affair. In 2005’s nether summer between high school and college, Jason and I researched components, ordered them from Newegg, and built cutting-edge sister machines. Between her hardware and my Windows customizations, Tess was the hottest computer in Erickson West, if not the whole residence hall. In the five years since, she’s become increasingly cantankerous, until I finally realized I was going to have to replace her.

I’d been dreaming for years about doing a build with liquid cooling and three-way SLI, but as that’s the kind of gear that rapidly inflates the price, that dream has yet to be fulfilled. Instead, I stalked Newegg over Thanksgiving weekend and ordered the components for a more modest system, one that still manages to out-sexy Tess for a fraction of what I spent five years ago. Isn’t Moore’s Law grand? I’d originally planned to use Tess as an HTPC, but thanks to her instability that role had to be filled by my buddy David’s old computer.

Everything came in the middle of last week, but with presentations, lab work, and other responsibilities I had to wait with bated breath for the weekend, where I could finally partially disrobe (to minimize static discharge, of course) and begin the assembly process. Rachel, loving wife that she is, helped me out. After about eight hours of labor, we had two assembled, properly cable-managed computers. I emerged from the electronic afterbirth covered in grime (a major downside of reusing old cases), powered them on and watched proudly as Summer and Zoe purred to life. Summer, usurping Tess’s status as seductive primary machine, and Zoe, a 2005 system to hang out behind the TV and run XBMC. Tess’s soul was confined to a motherboard, CPU, and some RAM sitting on the kitchen table.

Only then did I realize how tricky it was going to be to get a working OS on both machines without using optical drives. The ones I have are all circa 2005, back when PATA ribbon cables were finally beginning the extinction process. Summer’s 2010 motherboard has no idea what the PATA interface is, and while Zoe’s motherboard supports it, the case has a tool-less system for installing drives for which I am missing the necessary hardware.

Before taking Tess apart I’d had the presence of mind to extract the Windows 7 ISO to an external hard drive, but what I didn’t realize at the time was that the drive had to be made bootable. I was able to boot into Windows on Zoe using the OS on a hard drive from Tess and run the installer off the external that way. Summer was a bit more problematic, since the same technique didn’t work. I ended up copying the installer files to Zoe, reformatting the external, and copying them back so I could boot from it. While I ultimately got Windows 7 x64 running on both machines, I’m ashamed to say it took the better part of my Sunday to figure it all out.

As much as I want to sink hours into it, the remaining tweaking and software-installing is going to have to wait: I’ve got final exams coming up on Monday and Tuesday. I’ve included some pictures of Jason and I building Tess and her twin  (sheesh, that heatsink got dirty). I suppose it’s a bit of a memorial, seeing as she’s now in a storage box in the closet.

Here’s Summer’s specs:

• Intel Core i7-950 3.06 GHz Quad-Core CPU
• Asus P6X58D motherboard
• Corsair 6GB DDR3 RAM
• OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD
• MSI Cyclone GeForce GTX 460 1 GB 256-bit GDDR5 video card

While it isn’t anything like a real benchmark, Windows 7 calculates an “Experience Index” on a ridiculously arbitrary scale of 1.0 to 7.9, where all of your components are rated and the lowest rating determines the overall score. Without overlocking, Tess came in at 4.9 (overlocking boosted her to just over 5). Summer is 7.5.

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