More screw tips: Egg cartons are really good for organizing screws. Nothing like sorting through 10,000 screws just to fine one of a particular size/pitch. Spend a boring 30 minutes organizing them into different sections of the egg carton and it'll help you save time...if not at home, then definitely at the shop.

Tip about those *badword* AMD heatsink clips: Use needlenose pliers. WAY more safer than a screwdriver. Your motherboard will thank you.

Mousing: Putting Scotch 'Magic Tape' (the frosted-looking stuff) on your mouse feet will help your mouse glide really nicely. Great substitute for teflon tape.

Shop Tip: The labeller is your friend. If you don;t have one, GET ONE! It was like $40.00 Canadian. Works especially well in server rooms, wiring closets, work benches...network printers, you name it. Be liberal with it - it helps to save time.

I know I haven't added to this thread in a while, but I will now

8. Save your motherboard boxes!!! If you ship a lot of hardware, motherboard boxes are great for shipping boards, video cards, hardware in general, I go to the local electronic surplus warehouse weekly and collect their motherboard boxes. Sometimes you can find them in a dumpster but i try to get ones in the store from the tech area. I recently picked up a huge Supermicro box that once contained an X5DAE dual Xeon board. And not just moptherboard boxes, videocard boxes and those nifty Intel boxes, great for shipping things like cables.

Also, if you have ever RMA'ed ATI video cards, the little boxes they send your card back in, keep those too. Very useful for sending other videocards.

I always keep all the boxes of all my hardware. They come in handy

Oh, I've got a tip too;

"Don't pee on an electric fence. Its a wet and shocking experience"

When Ghosting multiple OEM pc models, like a Dell Optiplex GX 240 and a GX260 you do not have to use separate images if they utilize the same chipset. if you are ever in question about the chipset utilized on any machine try WCPUID found at www.h-oda.com it can fit on a floppy, and does not need to be installed, can be run straight from the a: drive, or put on a cd for pcs without a floppy


also if you ever forget the password for a local computer account you can use chntpw found at http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ it is linux driven utility that can be written to the boot sector of a floppy or a cdrom to boot up your windows based system and change, or delete any local account pw including the administrator account. you can also edit the registry from this boot disk

also when using active directory users and computers in a multi-domain controller environment and you wish to make several different shortcuts to automatically connect to specific domain controllers for administration such as for multi site management where you do not wish to wait for replication traffic to show changes such as locked out accounts or computer accounts you just added to AD, open up your shortcut for the users and computers.msc and add /server=server fqdn where the server fqdn is equal to the exact name of your dc. for example dc11.domain.com or dc34.domain.com

When mounting a motherboard to the mb plate, line up the holes and mark them with a sharpie so you dont have to keep trying to figure out which holes you need mounting standoffs for, when screwing them in, put a drop of super glue on the thread and always use a wrench or pliers to tighten them all the way so when you have to remove the board at a later date your mb screws come right out without the mounting standoff coming loose as well

most of these tips except the last wont help those of you with standalone pc's but they were just some things that popped into my head as I read this thread.

Quote: Originally Posted by abyssling When Ghosting multiple OEM pc models, like a Dell Optiplex GX 240 and a GX260 you do not have to use separate images if they utilize the same chipset.

THis is a great tip, and works for any mobo that uses the same chipset, regardless of brand. It's the chipset that you need the image for. Using an i865 chipset image on an i875 board will work too, no problems; but using an i865 image on an i845 board will give you a nice bouquet of blue screens.

using a plastic driver bay cover makes an awesome thermal paste remover...

a Bic ballpoint ink pen with the guts removed works great as a plastic mobo standoff remover, just slide the end of the empty pen over the tip of the standoff, press it flush with the mobo, and lift the mobo up...

double sided sticky tape works great as a mounting medium for case windows

When using a video card that has it own power requirements, i like to make a power cable for it. What i do is take a old PSU cord and cut the ends off and solder/shrink wrap a male and a female molex connector on the ends. then i run the cord below and under the videocard along the back wall of the case, under or behind the psu (depending on your case) to a extra molex hidden away out of site. to me it cleans up the case and gets rig of the attention the videocard power wire makes shooting across the front of the components. and with the cable being black you cant really see unless you look for it. lemme know what you think.....

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save all your old computer parts! EVERYTHING (unless you sell it of course)

what ive found, especially with old old old AT equipment is that there is always something that you can use. for example:

old parallel and serial ports make great holders for led arrays.


you can always salvage an AT power supply for use in testing things, because they dont have to be jumped like ATX supplies. just dont touch the green wire.

the heatsinks found on these old processors are just the thing to cut up and use for various chips and cooling situations like your mosfets. they are also very low profile so if the back of your mobo gets hot, you could thermal tape them on(with the fan too) and have a good cooling solution there.

last tip: old ram and processor sockets make great keychains!

Here are the minimum clearances needed under a case for bottom mounted fans to avoid flow restriction.. This applies to any flat surface a fan is mounted on.

Fan Size --- Clearance (Milimeters)

  40 ---  7
  52 ---  9
  60 --- 11
  72 --- 13
  80 --- 15
  92 --- 17
100 --- 18
112 --- 21
120 --- 22
132 --- 24
140 --- 26
152 --- 28
160 --- 30
172 --- 32
180 --- 33
192 --- 36

Very helpul addition to my thread. You have rep.

save dead cdroms! you can cut a hole in the top of them and take the guts out and cut a 80mm fan hole in it so you can cool any hdds that maybe in the 5.25 drive bays!

oh and seyeklopz im in nova scotia! "welcome!"

j-doggg Thanks for the rep

stereomod, I noticed that on the pimp map, added you and other close-by members to my local contacts list. I might stalk putwig or ask him for help with my case, he does sweet work and he's only 90 minutes away



More TIPS

You can use some shoe laces as wire braid. The best are the nylon round laces with the core you can pull out. The fat wide ones are good too. It expands (a little) when you scrunch it. Can get some pretty wild colors.

If you want to reroute that AGP video card power cord, try running it through a mobo mounting hole. You'll need to do some wiring to get it in tho. You can put the wire right through the screw hole in the metal standoff. Just make sure you do it with a short extension cable, so you can separate your power supply from the mobo and tray.

heh he is in alberta dood, unless he has said differently, PJ hasn't changed that map yet

my tip:

if you cut yourself while modding, and even it is a small scratch and it bleeds for a min or more, then you can always use a lighter and close the wound that way, and also super glue works very well also!

Yea, "surgical glue" is just crazy glue

Quote: Originally Posted by godfoot While you are saving drive bay covers don't forget to save PCI slot covers as well. Since I have joined PR I have started saving every piece of computer hardware that I come across as someone, somewhere along the line is bound to need it for a project.

That also goes for molex wire connectors, adaptors, whatever. I keep a couple large boxes full of surplus computer parts, and wires and whatnot in my storage/tool/work shed. Never know when you or someone you know may need them, even if not right away... Ain't that right, godfoot? LOL

Quote: Originally Posted by Seyeklopz Yea, "surgical glue" is just crazy glue

Superglue was originally developed for use in Vietnam to close large open wounds or graft skin onto burns while out in the field.

i should have added this tip a while ago, but never got around it to, till now

For those of you who have chaepie @$$ red cathodes and they look kinda pink, you can make them RED by going to the local car shop and pickin up a piece of red window tint and scoth tape it on and then you will get the desired RED affect!

Here's a quick one for those of you who like to light up your rigs BUT you...

A. Don't want to drill holes in your case for screws (street-glow style lights)

or

B. Like to change out cathodes, etc etc and get tired of scrubbing off the double sided tape.

3M COMMAND ADHESIVE CABLE CLIPS...or standard plastic cable clips like you can find in the automotive section of Wal-Mart hold a standard sized cathode tube or street-glow mini tube perfectly. They adhere to clean surfaces and allow you to clip on or unclip your tubes at will, leaving you with consistent mounting locations and no residue or holes.

Fix bent cpu pins with a pencil.

I just discovered that a 0.5 mechanical pencil with a metal tube tip makes a perfect CPU pin adjuster. I bought an athlon XP 2500 that had several bent pins. I scanned it at 1200 dpi so I could see where the pins are bent by drawing square selections, then worked on the pins, sliding the pencil tip over the pin and bending it. I re-scanned it a couple times while working until it was perfect. A 0.3 mechanical pencil might be a better match.

Whenever i have to use thermal paste, i put my tube of AS5 in the front pocket of my pants about 10-15 minutes before i use it. The heat from my body warms the paste and makes it easier to spread.