Now we did have one minor problem. We tripped a circuit breaker on one of the circuits supplying juice to the machines in the basement. The circuit can only handle 15 Amps but only half of the machines down there were on that circuit. We turned off a few lights and powered the machines back on with minimal downtime. Overall it's hard to say who came out on top, but if you look at the picture of Sharaz, he's showing a 7-kill streak in Call-of-Duty-4 - that's pretty good. Of course, he's on our newest machine, an AMD Phenom II Quad Core with an Radeon 4870 graphics card.

I recently had come into some choice computer parts - namely a new motherboard, CPU and video card. I decided to build another computer with these top-shelf parts based on the World of Tanks theme. This is one of the few games I can play and which I am good at, so there you go. Ordering the rest of the parts went smoothly, using mostly Amazon and Newegg. I did order some special stickers and a mousepad from the World of Tanks online web shop though. This was my second AMD AM5 socket build (Wine Time was the first) and this go around I used a socket frame device that better protects the CPU once it's in the motherboard AM5 socket and the heatsink / CPU cooler is mounted. Speaking of the CPU cooler, which is the latest Corsair AIO configuration, I really like the way the fans 'link' together as it reduces the amount of wires you need to attach and hide within your case. You also might notice the model tank I placed inside the case. I still have some of my models from the 1980's!

* This machine is a rebuild of the Thinking Outside The Box (TOTB) from 2013.

I was out of control now. Two computers already built in 2023 and here I was comptemplating yet another chunk of money to be spent on computer parts. Was there no hope for me? Well, this one didn't cost as much as you think. I already had a working TOTB in my workbench shelving unit, but I also had on hand a few major components that could transform the old Windows 10 machine into a relatively new Windows 11 gaming computer! I had won some recent prizes from the AMD Support forum in the shape of a motherboard and a few CPUs, so all I really needed to buy was some RAM, a storage device and perhaps a CPU cooler. In fact, this upgrade only cost me around $200, given the parts already in my inventory.

* This machine is a rebuild of the Mathmos Madness from 2011.

My original FX8150 8-Core CPU computer 'Mathmos Madness' build from 2011 has seen better days. It had been relocated to a spot under my workbench where it was connected to a monitor and the Internet but I didn't power it up too often because it was so darn slow! Windows updates took forever. It wasn't much use as a gaming machine anymore since I have over 10 other machines that would be selected before this one, so I knew it's time was limited. But wait! There is no reason you cannot rebuild a machine and improve it's performance in all areas! It was time.

* This machine has a Steampunk theme.

* October 2023 Update: Wine-Time made it into the top three finalists for the AMD Support Forum Steampunk contest. Another build won the prize, but making it into the top three was an honor!

I was excited to hear about an AMD Forum Steampunk Mod Contest, and even more so to submit my own creation I named ‘Wine-Time’. My first thought was to build a case from scratch, but I fell in love with the Thermaltake Core P3 TG Pro, so much of my modding expertise centered on the surrounding area where Wine-Time is located - in my desk cabinet. During the research phase, I found some cool things like the handmade Pentode USB drives, a mechanical retro-typewriter keyboard, and Steampunk pipe stickers (intended for use on a car as decoration). The pipe stickers fit nicely in the cabinet, and I used some LED light strips from IKEA to light the interior of the cabinet. To hold the two Pentode USB drives, I modded a small jewelry box by drilling two holes in the top and one hole in the back (to allow for the USB cable connections). Oh, I had an old glass-domed clock that we inherited from my wife's parents and that fit nicely next to Wine-Time in the cabinet. This computer took about 30 hours to build, including the cabinet mods. My last mod was the addition of pirate gold coins and clock gears spilling out of the jewelry box....er....treasure chest. I pulled the vaccuum tube clock out and placed that under my monitor where there was enough light to see the digits.

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* This rebuild of the Thermaltake Level-10 GT has all new components.

You might remember that I gave away a computer during my 2022 Labor Day LAN party. Well, this Thermaltake Level-10 GT was the original case from what I gave away. I wanted to save this case, so I had bought a new LAN COOL case in August to house the older components that were in the Thermaltake Level-10 GT (FX CPU, stuff like that). Meanwhile, I won the Rig of the Month contest in the AMD Forum September 2022 contest with my Purrfection build, so I had the two prizes of a B350 Gigabyte motherboard and an AMD 3600X CPU. I figured I would use those in the new build, but I also had an AMD 3950X CPU and an AMD 5600 CPU lying around too. What to do? Try them all, and that's what I did. An old case but one I like quite a bit for superior cooling.

* LanCool Prize: Greg won this machine at the 2022 Labor Day LAN Party!

The LanCool Prize computer utilizes the working guts of an older machine, the Thermaltake Level 10 GT, which runs close to 5 MHz. It incorporates the water-cooled AMD FX 9590 8-Core CPU, 16 GB of DDR3 RAM, an AMD Radeon R9 390 video card and a decent 1000 Watt Cooler Master PSU, all housed in a new Lian Li LanCool computer case. I wanted to keep the old Thermaltake Level 10 case for a future project and this new case has great cooling along with RGB fans. It will provide hours of gaming entertainment to it's new owner as a prize in the upcoming 2022 Labor Day LAN party. The prize computer will come with a 27" monitor, speakers and a keyboard & mouse - a complete gaming system!

* Talk 2 The Hand: Taking art to the next level!

This project was conceptualized in February 2022 as some type of hanging mobile computer that could rotate as it hung from my basement storage room ceiling near my workbench where I have built all of my Big Al Computers since the early 2000-time frame. This is a computer mod, which generally means a custom type of case and some unique features that you won’t find from a store-bought machine.

* Chopper and Game-a-Tron Rebuild: Pulling the guts out of Game-a-tron to make Chopper into a modern gaming computer!

Chopper was awarded to our friend Greg a few years ago as a LAN party prize (2017 Memorial Day LAN party to be exact), but some problems surfaced with the spinning hard drives from repeated power cuts to the system (in place of normal shutdowns), resulting in a corrupted Windows 7 OS and erratic performance. The solution to this problem was to pull the guts out of our famous Game-a-Tron-2 machine (which was a Windows 10 gaming computer running an AMD 2600X Ryzen CPU and an AMD 580 video card), and then buy some new parts to make Game-a-Tron-3 a more up-to-date gaming machine running Windows 11, an AMD Ryzen 5600X CPU and an AMD 6700XT video card. This was done after 15 hours were wasted trying to fix Chopper, with repeated failed installs of Windows 7 and even Windows 10 OS software. I even tried installing Windows 10 on an SSD through the Chopper motherboard's SSD connections and that failed. You can only do so much before you just replace a motherboard and the related components.

* Alien Vs. Predator Requiem Rebuild: Running well and looking good!

The original Alien Vs. Predator Requiem was built back in 2008, when Tom completed painting the side panels of the Cooler Master Cosmos case. Time marches on and the machine wasn't being used much anymore, so Allen decided he could salvage the case and a few components (optical drives, spinning hard drives, the centrifical fan and things of this nature) but replace most of the other stuff with modern hardware. Since video cards are still twice their retail prices due to COVID-19 in it's second year, Allen waited for the new AMD 5,000 series processor with integrated graphics. This should be sufficient to game at 1080 x 720 resolution for the time being and then the system can later be upgraded with the addition of a video card for higher resolution gaming. The AMD 5700G CPU was purchased the day it was first available (05 August 2021) and the rest of the components - motherboard, RAM, CPU cooler (mostly RGB stuff), etc. was assembled in the orginal case.

* Through the Looking Glass: It's a colorful one! Alice would love it.

The past year (2020) has been rough with COVID-19 keeping us from going out to events and such. By the end of the year, I was starting to think about building a new gaming machine for the new year. Another update to the ZEN architecture (now called ZEN-3, the 5000 series of CPUs) meant I had to have one. AMD also came out with new video cards, those being the Radeon 6800 series. However, both these parts are almost impossible to find at anything near retail pricing. A new 6800 XT video card easily goes over $1K. I elected to settle for a previous generation PowerColor Red Devil 5700 XT and it was actually at retail pricing (just under $500). I did get screwed on the CPU though, as I had to pay about a $250 markup on the AMD 5800X CPU - meaning I paid about $680. Well, it's only money.

* Ryzen Nine: Vertical video card mounting and running nicely.

AMD came out with their third generation of the ZEN architure in late 2019; the best processors were available soon after that but the absolute tasty ones came out in early 2020 - like the 3900X. Prices were'nt too high either but there were a few price drops and Allen jumped on one when the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X dropped to about $420 on several web sites. It was the time to buy this microprocessor and build a new gaming machine! This is a 12-core microprocessor, the largest number of cores built at Big Al Computers to date. There are bigger ones of course, but as an example, the 64-core AMD 3990X costs about $3,000. That's a bit too much and who is going to use that processing power at home anyway?

This machine was destined to replace the aging Ryzen-Sun, which runs the AMD 1800X CPU processor (first generation Zen process). It needed to be a gaming machine yet remain reliable for daily taskings too, such as web page development and email distribution processes. For the first time at Big Al Computers, we went with 64 GB of DDR RAM (2 sticks at 32 GB each); that upped the price a bit but with a 12-core microprocessor you are basically talking about a workstation now.

In November 2020, I decided to modify the video card mounting, making it a vertical mount so you could see the RGB fans on the video card. This meant buying a vertical mounting kit from Lian Li and also a special PCIe 4.0 extender cable to maintine the same bandwidth that the motherboard PCIe ports were capable of. This change looked very nice once I got it installed.

* Bowl Me Over: Needs a new name now.

So the Raspberry Pi series of computers run a form of Linux called "Raspbian Buster"; this is a chance to learn a bit more of the Linux world of software. Games are out there too, and this device actually supports 4K HDMI video output. There is a Linux-based office suite and of course Chrome has a browser that runs well. The computer is a bit slower for web browsing than our other machines at Big Al Computers, but that's to be expected from such a small investment in money. Hell, this computer costs less than just an SSD from many of the Big Al Computer machines! Bowl Me Over made it's debut at the 2019 Labor Day LAN Party, and several gamers took the time to see it in action.

Purrfection: Built 09-10 May 2019
Winner of the AMD Forum Rig of the Month for September 2022!

* Purrfection: You might notice that this gaming computer is built inside of a cat carrier. Yes, now you see the connection between the name and the case. But why? Well, I'm running out of things to mod into computer cases. I've done the microwave oven, a printer, a flat-bed scanner and well....it was time for a cat carrier. There is good ventilation too, so I don't need too many fans stiring things up. But the real reason for building another computer so soon after Monolith (built in November 2018) was that we gave Monolith to Valerie a few weeks ago (April 2019) so the desk was vacant. I don't need much of a reason to build something anyway - I'm retired after all.

So this is the third 4K gaming machine constructed by Big Al Computers. It uses the same 32 inch 4K LG monitor as the Ryzen-Sun machine and Valeries' Monolith (she got the computer and the monitor), but this time I changed to just 16MB of DDR4 RAM; its RGB RAM though so it displays pretty colors. This is also my first all-SSD machine. I'm using a 1 TB M.2 SSD for the main drive (this plugs into the M.2 socket on the motherboard) and then a 2 TB SSD SATA drive for data - meaning games of course. The AMD 2700 CPU and the CoolerMaster ML240RGB CPU cooler are the same ones I installed in Monolith, but the video card is a slightly cheaper XFX RX590 'Fatboy' which I had to have since I ride a Harley Fatboy.

Monolith: Built in November 2018

* Monolith A new build to make use of a very large case obtained in 2017, Monolith was the result of internal components bought on Black Friday deals over the Internet. As such, this gaming machine is actually quite capable for the tasks at hand - gaming and more gaming! It sports an AMD Ryzen 2700 CPU, 32 MB of DDR4 RAM and a Vega 64 Video Card. Of course there are a few SSD's involved, including an M.2 drive for the system. It will make it's debut at the Holiday LAN party on 30 Dec 2018.

It should be noted that this is the second 4K gaming machine constructed by Big Al Computers. It uses the same 32 inch 4K LG monitor as the Ryzen-Sun machine, and in fact it has the same 32 MB of DDR4 RAM. Since the Vega 64 video card is not water-cooled as is the one in Ryzen-Sun, we had to undervolt the video card to make it perform at it's peak when the system is under stress (i.e. gaming). The days of overclocking the CPU are now pretty much gone but video cards still require some tweeking now and then.

Game-A-Tron-2, Upgraded in August 2018

* Game-A-Tron-2 was upgraded from the original Game-A-Tron because of the demise of it's Athlon 64 CPU (or possilby the motherboard). The system was last running Linux (32-bit version) and was generally being used to enable Big Al to learn more about this operating system, but it would no longer boot up at all. The case was still pretty cool, so why not make this into a real gaming machine for the Big Al Computers LAN? And thus the upgraded version took shape, with some of the latest components (AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU, Gigabyte B450 AORUS M AM4 motherboard, 16 GB of G. Skill Ripjaws DDR4 memory, a Thermaltake 750 Watt 80 Plus Gold with RGB PSU, two 240 MB SSDs, Windows 10 Home Edition, and a PowerColor AXRX Radeon RX-580 Golden Sample video card. The machine has total SSD storage and thus it's quite fast, but it's not running in 4K resolution because that would require another monitor so we're still using 1080p resolution, which is fine of course. Good times.

Ryzen-Sun, Completed in March 2017

* Ryzen-Sun came about for two reasons. First, AMD had just released a new processor design (Ryzen) that was now on par with the current Intel processors but for less money, and second - Allen's been using the Level 10 GT for over three years now and a new computer is always a nice thing to have. The release of the new Ryzen processors was the beginning of March 2017, and of course new motherboards and things of this nature would be required too, but Allen was going on vacation in early March. Some things were ordered though, with Valerie taking delivery of those and Allen ordered the remainder of the components upon returning from vacation. The cost? The Ryzen 1800X was $500 itself; add in the Asus Crosshair Hero VI ($250), the 'Be Quiet' 1000W PSU ($210), the Cooler Master AIO Master Liquid 120 ($70), the Samsung 960 EVO 1 TB M.2 SSD ($500), the Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 32 GB memory ($230), the InWin 707 full tower case ($120), the Klipsch ProMedia BT speakers ($150), two 4 TB spinning drives ($280), and optical Blue-Ray drive ($53), a Kensington Slim Blade mouse ($100), an HP wireless keyboard ($40) and the Windows 10 Home OS ($90) - well, you've spent upwards of $2,600. On top of that, I'm still using the old monitor and a video card borrowed from my Microtron build until the new AMD Vega series video cards come out this summer and I'll also get a new 4K monitor then too.

Build notes: I've learned from past builds that you should assemble the components on your workbench, outside of the case, to first test things out. Something always comes up, and it's easier to figure it out if you don't have to disassemble things when you fail to boot up. For this build, I first forgot to connect the power leads to the video card. Next up was an error code on the motherboard that had no reference in the motherboard manual, and of course it wasn't booting. After a few minutes I remembered an old trick - clear the CMOS. On this board it's a simple pushbutton; in the past you used to remove the CMOS battery. Anyway, that worked and once I had the Windows 10 OS installed an running smoothly, I updated the BIOS to the current version. I'll still be tweaking things here and there, such as memory speeds and maybe a bit of over-clocking, but for now I am happy.

So, how well does this new machine perform? So far, I really like it. I was using a good machine before this though (Level 10 GT) and it was running almost 5 GHz with that AMD 9590 processor. So time will tell as I get used to daily life and of course, adding in the new video card and monitor later this year will be a big step up.

Laptron, Completed in June 2016

* Laptron was designed to take advantage of a laptop (about four years old) and also make use of a useless/non-functional VCR that we bought back in the 1980's. Following along the development lines my earlier Scan-a-Tron, I removed the laptop display but not the top cover/keyboard. You see, the whole laptop was intended to reside within the chassis of the VCR, which I had to disassemble and then grind down with a Dremel Tool. An external display would be utilized and because this laptop (a Sony VAIO) had an HDMI port, I could retain the HD (1080p) picture. I needed an external keyboard, mouse and speakers too, since I would no longer be able to touch the laptop within the VCR. Wanting to spend something on this project, I ordered a glass keyboard that was about half it's original price. The keyboard has blue LED illumination when you are typing on it, but don't rest your hands on the keys because they will activate. This is a hunt & peck keyboard and not intended for normal 'touch typists' unfortunately. But it looks cool so why not. I also spent a bit on the IKEA LED strip set that I've used in a few previous builds and that worked quite well on the glass table.

I should mention that while taking apart the VCR, I discovered why it was not functioning properly (it wouldn't eject the VHS tapes). I found a broken belt on the bottom of the tray. I probably could have repaired the VCR but I no longer have any VHS tapes to watch so it's a moot point to hang onto the relic. Better to be repurposed than to be tossed in the trash, right?

Micro-Tron, Completed in March, Enhanced in May 2015

* Micro-Tron is a build intended to bring new life to an old microwave oven that died a few years ago. I knew that someday I would build a computer into the microwave oven and that day has come! This time I used all new parts, including the AMD APU 7850K which has those graphics cores built into the chip along with a nice quad-core CPU. This way I don't need a separate video card and I can put that extra money into a new 27" monitor and wireless keyboard. The 16 GB of DDR3 RAM was a good investment because the APU can use lots of memory for the graphics processing. Micro-Tron is my new workbench machine and it will replace Scan-a-Tron and the Sun X-Terminal for browsing the web and such when I'm working down in the basement. It took about 30 hours to build this machine, so it wasn't a walk in the park. Take a look at the photos below and you'll get an idea of what's involved in the fabrication process. Oh, those three pictures in the third row are the 'magnetron' that generates the microwave energy that cooks the food. It's basically a vacuum tube that emits microwave frequencies when high voltage is applied.

In May 2015, I did perform an update to include a clock display and to add some nice case feet. The clock was fabricated using the guts of an alarm clock I found at the local CVS store and it fit almost perfectly once I had the clock pulled apart. It even has a battery backup for when I turn the machine off.

Game-A-Tron, Completed in December 2014

* Game-a-Tron consists of mostly used parts - many came from my old 'Printer-to-Computer-Deja-Vu', which I disassembled in the fall of 2014. Some of these initial images show that disassembly. It's hard to tear apart something you put perhaps 80 hours into constructing, but the old rig was just not needed anymore and it took up lots of space. The old parts were supplemented with a new SSD so Game-a-Tron would boot and run fast, even though it has an old Athlon 64 3000+ CPU (dual core) - I could not even use a 64-bit OS with this CPU so I ended up loading in the Windows 10 Technical Preview (Windows 10 was announced to be available in mid-2015). The chassis of Game-a-Tron comes from a slot machine that was given to me by an old WORMS (motorcycle group) friend called Jim. He found it on a trash pile near a apartment building he manages and I kept it for several years until now. The time has come to turn a slot machine into a real computer.

Now Game-a-Tron is not actually a gaming machine per se. Why? Because of the old parts that were utilized - an old CPU, slower memory and an old video card. No, this is a machine intended to be a test platform for the new Windows 10 Technical Release, and eventually just an every-day browser machine once the new OS is officially released. Game-a-Tron was built in short order, to the tune of perhaps 15 hours not accounting for the deconstruction of my old 'Printer-to-Computer-Deja-Vu' machine.

Thermaltake Level 10 GT, Completed in October 2013

* Level 10 GT was to be a quick build, mostly because I wanted to get my hands on the recently released AMD FX 9590 8-Core CPU! This processor requires liquid cooling and a very powerful motherboard that can provide the juice to keep it running. I built the machine using some good parts: A Samsung 240 GB SSD, a 2 TB Western Digital Black Edition Hard Drive, 16 GB of DDR3 RAM, an Asus Crosshair V Formula-Z Motherboard, the new Asus Matrix Platinum Radeon R9 280X video card, and a Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 1KW PSU. I finally was able to procure that Thermaltake Level 10 GT case that came out a few years ago (it was pretty expensive back then). No big mods performed on this case because I liked it just the way it was - lots of good fans with a built-in fan controller and color-changing settings too. It's running at 4.9 GHz, and it clocks up in turbo mode beyond 5 GHz. Very impressive!

Thinking Outside The Box (TOTB), Completed in May 2013

* TOTB was conceptualized in January as Big Al himself was participating in the 1K Beer Walk in Crystal City, Virginia. The idea was to have open frame construction, using some type of light-weight case, and hang it on the wall above the computer desk. This would be the third machine built at Big Al's Computers that was designed to be wall mounted, but it would be the first with an open chassis. With weight minimization being a top priority, and money always a bit tight, I decided to utilize a simple plastic storage container for the surrounding case. It could bear no weight of course, so the interior must be designed to support the weight of the computer components, including the PSU. Aluminum bars served as the framework, along with a scrap piece of plywood. For wall mounting, I used molly bolts with their heads cut off so the whole unit rests on pins - which go through the aluminum bars. Component choices were the obvious AMD microprocessor - in this case the six-core 6300 running at the stock 3.5 GHz. The graphics duties are performed by the AMD/Sapphire HD 7950.

LAN Box, Completed in February 2013

* The LAN Box machine uses the CPU from Tom's Curio Cavern machine, which had a power supply go bad and it took out several components on it's motherboard, such as the motherboard itself and the video card. Tom ended up getting one of the other Big Al's Computers while I worked on getting that machine running again. I ended up replacing most everything, so I got a new case to make this machine into a LAN Box for Valerie. It's rocking a Geforce GTX 660 Ti video card from MSI and that AMD 6-core Phenom II CPU was still cranking out the cycles so it's in there too. Valerie just got it to play with on 03 Feb 2013, so she's been loading games and giving it a try. So far, so sweet!

Curio Cavern PC Tourney Prize Computer for December 2011

* Curio Cavern has been doing very well since they opened the doors in January 2011 (almost one year ago). Big Al's Computers is proud to supply a second prize computer for their late-fall Magic Tournament called "PC Tourney". The event was held on 17 Dec 2011 and after several hours of intense gaming, Patrick Cox was the winner of the machine. Speaking of which, this was an AMD Dual-Core rig with 2 GB of DDR2 RAM and a nVidia 8800GT graphics card. The components were housed in a Coolermaster Scout case and it even came with a 24 inch LCD display, wireless mouse and keyboard.

Patrick Cox is all smiles after winning his very own Big Al's Computer.

Fall 2011 Project: FX-8-Core "Mathmos Madness" Build

* Mathmos Madness was built as soon as AMD released the new FX Bulldozer CPU. In fact, I ordered the CPU the second I saw it was available - good thing too because it sold out within minutes! This new 8-core CPU is designed to clock higher (4 GHz is easily obtained) and boy is it fast. Some folks say it isn't much of an improvement over the previous 6-core CPUs but I am very happy with the increased performance over my previous AMD Quad-core. We'll see how this new machine performs on gaming nights with it's AMD Radeon 6950 graphics card and 8 GB of DDR3 RAM. The Mathmos name comes from the LED Mathmos light that I installed into the rear/top portion of an older Lian Li full tower case. I did a review on this case several years ago and now it has finally achieved success as my case of choice for this build.

Video clip of the Mathmos Light

Summer 2011 Project: Scan-a-Tron Rebuild (Scan-a-Tron-2)

* The original 2006 Scan-a-Tron needed a rebuild because it was running so bloody slow, likely due to a compromised Windows XP operating system and just that fact that I've been using much faster AMD machines these past few years. So I set out looking for a faster laptop that I could gut and exchange for the old AMD Athlon XP HP laptop that was the original Scan-a-Tron. Tom offered up his old AMD eMachines M6805 laptop which runs an Athlon 64 3000+ CPU - this would be twice as fast and it had decent ATI (now owned by AMD) 9600 graphics built in too. So the project started and ended on Labor Day 2011. It took about nine hours to complete the dis-assembly of the eMachines M6805 laptop and to get it into the Scan-a-Tron chassis without breaking anything.

Spring 2011 Project: OsbornAgain Rebuild (OsbornAgain-2)

* OsbornAgain was showing it's age this past year, with a dying hard drive and a bad SATA cable too boot. The new Duke Nukem Forever game was finally coming out in July so I figured it was time to rebuild this machine into a powerful and modern gaming platform. I opted for the Nvidia GTX560 in the Duke Nukem Fully Loaded Package along with a tasty AMD Phenom II X4 975 CPU (running at 3.6 GHz without overclock). I needed a new motherboard, PSU and memory too so this was basically a complete rebuild. The results speak for themselves - gaming has reached a new level of coolness with this machine and my 28" LCD monitor. While I haven't finished the game yet, I am destined to reach the end before the year is out. OsbornAgain-2 was well worth the investment.

Spring 2009 Project: AMD Quad-Core Dual-GPU Gaming Machine "Chopper"

* AMD Quad-Core Gaming Machine has found it's theme. This machine is called "chopper" because I mounted a picture of my chopper (including a few Hooter Girls for good measure) on the backside of the motherboard. I started this project in early March 2009 and ordered the remaining big parts (motherboard, video card, etc.) on 14 March. I built this machine for powerful gaming but for now I started with just one video card, the Radeon 4870 with 1GB of memory on the card. The system is capable of cross-fire support, so in the summer of 2009 I added a second Radeon 4870 video card to run cross-fire. This is an awesome gaming machine now. It has the mother of all heatsinks, the Zalman 9900 - which is even bigger than the Zalman 9700. I have a 1 TB WD black edition hard drive. I have 2 optical DVD burners. I have a CoolerMaster case. There is 4 GB of DDR2 RAM so Windows Vista 64-bit edition has plenty to play with and of course I'm running the top of the line (at the time) AMD 940 Quad-Core Phenom II black edition. Overclocking is expected, naturally, but not until later when I feel I need more power. This machine is running most excellently right now at stock settings. Below are a few pictures of the assembly. Oh, the new monitor is a 25" LCD - is that big enough for gaming?

2008 Build: AVP Requiem Gaming Machine

* AVP Requiem is a movie-theme case that's based on the 2007 release of the Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem movie. This project was a 2007 holiday build that was mostly finished before the start of 2008 - the hardware was complete but the painting took a bit longer - as in 3-4 months longer! Check out some pictures below, and for more details, follow this Mod Nation forum link where I have my work log.

Old News: Gaming Power Upgrade for OsbornAgain

* OsbornAgain received a videocard infusion, gaining an eVGA Geforce 8800 GT Super Clock card after I extracted the older BFG 7800 GT Over Clock card. The new card fit easily into the PCI-e slot and now there is plenty of clearance between the VGA cooler and the nearby optical drive. Check out the pictures below.

2007 "OsbornAgain Gaming Upgrade"

AMD Athon 64 X2 3800+, eVGA 8800 GT Super Clock and 2 GB of tasty DDR2 RAM

2007 Project: "Semper Fidelis"

This project is almost complete; it's up and running with a mid-level videocard (MSI 8600 GTS OC). The case mods were built for a great Marine and good friend of our family - Lt. Col Greg Davis. The modded case was presented to him on his 50th birthday (late April 2007), and now we are awaiting final funding for either one or two videocards - perhaps one or two nVidia Geforce 8800 GTs. Money is tight, just like it is with the government due to the war effort. Stay tuned for updates this holiday season as Greg wants to have the machine completed before the year is over.

If you click on the link found in the title for this project, you will be taken to The Mod Nation forums, which is a very well respected forum site for computer modders like myself. You will be in the link for this project worklog, and there are plenty of additional pictures there to look at.

2006 Holiday Project "Scan-a-Tron"

Scan-a-Tron is fabricated from an HP ScanJet 6100C Scanner, an HP Pavilion ze4145 Laptop, and a custom Laser-Etched Window Made by Hyperkore Computers.

Scan-a-Tron has been included in CPU Magazine's Mad Reader Mod article in the October 2007 issue. You can also see Scan-a-Tron on ExtremeTech here!

Download the build history of Scan-a-Tron here.

2006 "Thermaltake Powerhouse"

AMD Athon FX62 (2.8Gz dual-core), dual eVGA 7900 GT's in SLI on an Asus Crosshair motherboard

2006 Small Projects

Upgrading bottom motherboard in "Printer-to-Computer-Deja-Vu" machine.

Vista Beta 2 Upgrade for the Printer-to-Computer

Color scheme change and some new parts for the Globe of Retribution

Laser-etched window in Sun X-Terminal keyboard

2005 Holiday Project "OsbornAgain"

OsbornAgain was developed from the original Osborne Executive CPM computer (circa 1983).

Velocity Reviews Forum link: here.

Big Al himself gets interviewed on 01-26-06 by Extreme Tech! Here's the link.

Download Extreme Tech's interview, without pictures here.

Major Projects 2004-2005

Sun X-Terminal Mod

Maximum PC Magazine Forum link: here.

Download the build history of the Sun X-Terminal Mod here.

Printer-to-Computer

Winner of Maximum PC "Rig of the Month" (ROTM) in February 2005 issue!

Download the build history of the printer-to-computer here.

Printer-to-Computer-Deja-Vu

Winner of PC Extreme magazine "Mod of the Month" in issue 26!

Winner of Bawl's Hot Mod "Out of the Box" contest in February 2005!

Download the build history of the printer-to-computer-deja-vu here.

Other Projects 2000-2003

Thanks for stopping by!