By
Hogan24 |
Published
Dec 19 2005, 07:47 AM
First of all I would just like to say that I think this is a great idea
to add a hardware section to pocketfives.com. With so many people
playing poker online now-a-days, this will give people some great ideas as to how they can improve their own system.
The only thing that I would suggest is to not look and
see what someone else has and get your heart set on copying it exactly. I would recommend looking around, mixing and matching,
and try to find all of the components that you need to make your system
better.
Anyway, this is what I play around on:
Overview:
Computer: Dell Dimension 4700
Hard Drive Space: 80GB
Memory: 512MB
Monitor(s): Two Dell UltraSharp 2001FP 20.1-inch Flat Panel LCD’s
Extras:
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Video Card
(Unknown Brand) TV Capture Card
Computer: When I first
started playing seriously during my senior year in college (about 2
years ago), I was using the same old Gateway I'd had since my
junior year in high school(1999). It worked just fine for its purpose,
however once I started
picking up a little bit of money, I bought a Dell Dimension 2400
computer with a Pentium 3 processor and 128MB of RAM. Wow
was that awful. I went and bought 1GB of RAM and installed that in my
computer which made it work just fine.
It came with a 15” flat panel LCD monitor which was nice being flat and
all, but the old CRT (big TV-shaped) monitor was 19” and could hold
more open programs without overlap. My dad was desperately in need of a
new computer at the same time so after a couple of months I sold my
computer to him for only about half of what I paid for it and I
upgraded to a Dell Dimension 4700 which is what I am still currently
using. It has a Pentium 4 2.80GHz Processor and 512 MB of RAM.
Monitor: I ordered my
second computer with a 20.1” Flat panel. I loved it so much I
ended up buying a second one off of ebay just for fun. When I
discovered how I could run more programs at the same time and have more
desktop space to play poker on, I can't imagine going back to one
screen.
The number one question I get whenever someone new sees my computer is:
“Where is your second
computer?” I think a lot of people don’t understand that you don’t need
two computers to run two monitors (Just ask MrSneaky, I know he runs
8 monitors off of his 1 computer…yes 8!)
The way you accomplish this is by buying a third party video card that
you have to install internally on your computer. I went on ebay and
found an “NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200” Video Card that worked just fine in
my computer.
If you look at the picture here on the back of my computer, you
can see
that it is one video card that has the capability of holding 2
monitor’s. It’s actually pretty simple to do yourself. Once you get the card in, a wizard will take care of the rest.
To install the video card all you have to do is take the side panel off
of your computer and you will see empty slots that you can plug any
type of PCI device into. In simple terms, a PCI device refers to the
male end of the video card.
(
This picture is not of a video card, but it shows what the male end of
a PCI card looks like.)
You unscrew
one of the open metal slots on the back of your computer, use a little
force to make sure the card is inserted all the way into the PCI slot
of your computer, and use the same screw to tighten it back in
place. Then just plug everything back in, start your computer up,
install the drivers and you should be good to go.
Extras: The one little un-needed extra that I have on my computer is a TV
capture card. It basically gives the ability to watch TV on my computer at the same time as running other applications. I
don’t know the brand of card that it is. It was something that I bought pretty cheap off of ebay too. I plugged it in and
it started running from there with really no problem. I threw the box and manuals away or I’d share what brand it is.
Thanks for reading this, hopefully I have been able to help out
with
some good ideas.
I have also included a picture of the potential my
computer has if I really wanted to play 8 sites simultaneously.
Any questions…as always, feel free to post them or private message me!
See ya on the felt!!
Chris Hogan
aka Hogan24