The day before yesterday, as I was going out for the morning paper, I met a fox on our sidewalk. I think he was a young fox. When he saw me, he turned and loped away, heading for the park.


That night, I was awakened about 3:00 am to find a bat circling around the bedroom. He didn't seem to be very smart. I opened a window for him to get out, but he went to the bathroom instead. I opened a window there, but he headed downstairs. I opened the front door and he made several circling flights around the hallway, before he found the way out.


Now I wonder, what has made our house suddenly attractive to wildlife? What other critters will come calling? I can't wait!


Well, yes I can.

computer project rework

When I fired up the system for a rough test, I realized that I had installed the CPU cooler backward. The fan exhaust must face the rear chassis fan.


Tomorrow I'll take it apart, clean the thermal paste from the bottom of the cooler and top of the CPU, reapply the thermal paste and reinstall the cooler.


More work for mother.

Computer update, nearing the end

Here it is, the motherboard is installed with the CPU cooler, memory and memory fan.

Now I'm starting to add the components, drives, etc.

I was going to reuse the DVD drive from my old Dell, but it's not a sata drive. The next day I got a notice from Newegg of a special for a Sony DVD burner at @20.00, so I got it.

The last item is the video card. I have to wait until the 20th to order it, because of credit balancing. Boy, I wish I were rich.

Computer Project Update

I'm adding 12 Gb of Corsair ddr3 1600 RAM to the system. I got the Corsair memory fan cooler shown, to prevent the memory from ovrheating.

The project moves forward in fits and starts.

CPU and Cooler

Continuing on with my project. I'm installing an Intel i7-930 Quad core CPU. It operates at 2.8 GHz. This CPU represents a compromise between my wishes and my budget.



The good news is that my motherboard will allow me to upgrade to a six core CPU later, when the prices drop.

I'll be cooling the CPU with a CoolerMaster Hyper N520 CPU cooler. This is reviewed as better than the standard Intel CPU cooler.

Computer project moves on

Got my motherboard (see Pix), CPU, and memory.

I plan to read the manuals several times and then begin the assembly.

First step is to fit the motherboard to the chassis. Then I can add the CPU, memory, CPU cooler and memory fan.

The case has a removable motherboard tray, to make this easier.

I have the boot and data drives ready to install and the DVD burner and Blu-Ray Burner in hand. When this step is done, all I'll have to do is install the graphics card and test the system.