In which I build a PC from an Atom.

And so, after several years, I was back on Sardar Patrappa Road.

I have no idea who the venerable Sardar was, but I hope he liked electronics, because that's what he will always be associated with in Namma Bengaluru.

The mission: build a simple low-cost PC that suffices for simple browsing and basic use for junior, and also doubles up as a home media server and file server.

My shopping list was simple

• An Intel D945GCLF motherboard + Atom CPU
• 2GB DDR2
• 160GB SATA HDD
• DVD writer
• Mini-ITX "cube" case.

The first four took all of 2 minutes to get, and the person at the shop I decided to patronize seemed to know his stuff, and know what I wanted as well. The mini-ITX cube was something I couldn't find.

And so I settled for the smallest micro-ATX tower I could find - approximately 300mm x 300mmx100mm. The total came to below what I expected, and it seemed like I was getting a good deal, so I haggled less than I'd planned to. One can never be sure, though. For the record, I paid Rs. 8750 for the above, plus Rs. 350 as VAT. My target was to be below Rs. 10K. Incidentally, I could have saved another 400 by going for a cheaper but slightly larger case, but I was thinking small today.

And there I was, back home with these. The case was bigger than I wanted, but not too bad.



So, off came the case cover.



This particular case had a disk tray, which is supposed to hold the hard disk and the optical drive. Six screws later, off it came, and the case was now ready for its new occupants.



The disk tray holds both the disk drive and the optical drive, both easily screwing onto opposite sides of the tray.



The D945GCLF motherboard comes with an Atom CPU and cooling fan pre-installed. This saves some bother, or prevents some fun, whichever way you look at it. I think Intel only ships the Atom pre-installed on a motherboard.



The motherboard fit smoothly into the case, not surprising since it was built to fit into an even smaller form factor.



In went the 2GB DIMM, and power connections were plugged in ..



The disk tray, now holding its cargo, was installed back into position, we are now into the home stretch.



Back went the case cover, and we're ready to check if things work.



And peace, astute reader, I know I haven't said anything about a display or I/O. I had these lying around, (paid) remembrances of my former employer that had gone to the great bit bucket in the sky.



... and we're on the road - BIOS come up smoothly to the sound of high fives.



Without further ado, the Ubuntu install CD went into the DVD drive, and started endowing the lump of hardware with a living soul - er, an OS. No Microsoft software is foreseen to run on this. Living souls must be kept away from Mephistopheles.



And, so it came to pass, that a login prompt was displayed, and all was well.



Not soon after, came this blog post - yes, from the very computer that was built this very day.

What remains? They say a computer is never fully built; it is built and built again. The odd niggle needs fixing - an LED that doesn't work (did I connect it right?), a fan that's too loud for the gentle ears of Mrs. Hatter (Atom doesn't need all that much cooling and has its own motherboard fan; perhaps I can turn the case fan off), ...

And then to create and test out all the file/media server goodness. But that's another day, and another blog article.