Building your own Computer!

[KCvale]

Oh I don't know. I had one of those expensive 21" CRTs (nearly 2 grand) in 1995, used it at 1260x1600 rez until it blew in 2007. Immediately "downgraded" to a 32" 1080x1920 refurb LCD TV sized Monitor

I'm running 1200x1920 + 1200x1920 for a 1200x3840 desktop I can actual read sitting back in chair without glasses

This AMD FX-8300 8 core CPU scoots along just fine with 12G and right at the top of the Bell Curve for price vs performance which is always my favorite thing to buy.

I popped my 1TB SATA II drive from the old box in it so I have all my old data, it's nice to see it all intact, I started scrolling through old pics and found myself lost in the past for a couple of hours ;-}

Anyway I am adapting to the new OS and Office.
I got rid of all the BS software running in background and started putting things where I want them, etc etc etc, we all know the drill.

What's the story on Backup/Restore on 8.1?
Once it's set I want to always be able to come back to that state.

 

[Goat Herder]

I'm running 1200x1920 + 1200x1920 for a 1200x3840 desktop I can actual read sitting back in chair without glasses

The only glasses needed here could be 3D?? I am reading this and typing etc from the very back of my den looking at a 60 inch Sharp flat panel 'TV' Clear as abell.. Mebbe 20 footback from it very comfortably.

I here you on the better graphis. They always make a differance. I have had high end and low end computers. Being able to read the screen means everything. I like my higher end laps tops the most.

Running my new video card just now about 1 hour into it. Not any differant than my last card yet. Another hour and it will be set up and tested.


Edit about one hour later definitly better than before. Time for sleep and work. Gotta pay for it lol.

 

[Goat Herder]

Oh man....I cut out of work to pick up the cpu. I just got into Linux and Windows looking around. 5.9 experance index. The old bloated Win 7 64 bit takes a little time to boot up as it was before. Notice it booting a little faster however! Runs like grease lighting in ether OS. Oh man way overdue...

I got stuck with a Linux 32 bit, was tired and did not snap. It runs fine. Might not do anything. Still gotta see because 64 bit should trump it Fo Sho.

This will hold me up dang peachy ''long time' till I get a better board. I am not over clocked at all and gotta say this CPU has blown my mind a little instantly. I did the memory upgrade the same time as the cpu. Have them at +0.2 volts. Typing at great speed no glitches on my letters. Naw I type pretty bad lol.

I did overclock the old CPU '' not by much'' to get a glimpse at temps. Never went past 50c. Edit It has not gone past 39c now since cleaning everything up.. Same with the video card too.


Now for fessing up Of course I went to the garage and blew everything out. I have a huge CPU cooler. Lemme just say the poor thing was caked in dust. Never realized it was that bad? I bloody well new better tho...

Long story short took the CPU cooler ''big honking thing'' to the bench grinder on one side. shaved off about 1/4 inch for more room. This cooler is so big cant even notice! Seriuosly a 6 1/2/ inch cooling fan just butts up flush with it. The ram chip right next to it was into it. They have big cooling syncs on them as well. Not upset about any of this and it is a new CPU!! I am

Daddy needs to start playing with card adjusments now.

 

[Goat Herder]

Man the mouse is to sensitve. Gotta fix that too.

This was off one of my hotrodded LapTops a long time ago.

This is my currant pc here.

 

[Goat Herder]

So progress report. I had been running my cpu on fast, the ram voltage up. From the get go. Pretty funny the Bios kept my last overclock settings and the menu looks the same.

Last the V card runs at extreme. This Bios has normal fast and extreme. Got the impression from a rare but ocassional glitch that mebbe I was bussing this board too hard?

Would only happen on Internet page flipping. Thought that was odd?

You know would have to get a peak see lol. Any how Running the ram at normal voltage ,cpu at normal, and the Vcard at full power. This comp is still fast as heck!! I can have stuff running in the back ground, quite a bit acually and only see 2% cpu going in Linux. Clocked normal!

Fasted comp I have owned to date. Only got about $800 in it. This stuff can be rehashed some where else too.

I will beat the card a little as it seams to be just fine. Ran the old card the same way. Same brand card. Never a prob.


Here is a fun H.D. Video to test things on. My old get up glitched all over this. Pretty bad on the smoke plumes especially. Now well not flawless but pretty close to it!

Gotta learn a little more about how to tweak this card? It turned out to be about 400 cuda cores by the way.

Test on this. http://youtu.be/0vrdgDdPApQ

 

[Goat Herder]

Progress report comp has been running perfecty for what I need . Not a complaint of any kind. It's been a few months now and this thing gets used daily. I do not over clock the CPU as it does everything I need perfectly. I needed a little bit of pick me up and got just what the doctor orded. Love things that just simply work!!

 

[Goat Herder]

Rip it's dead now lol. made it about a year. Getting this...http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-P5Q-So...W-/111700918922?ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123

The Kewl part all my old bits and pieces are gonna swap right over.. Been one long and very patient year. Dang thing took it's last breath about two hours ago. Dead puppies are no fun

It won't even go into the bios now.

 

[Tony01]

I think these days it is kind of pointless to build your own computer. Back in the day, 20 years ago, my father as a professional software programmer would contract a local pro builder to build him a desktop supercomputer. And every time, it was very likely the most powerful home computer in the neighborhood. As a small side favor he had the guy build me my first computer (Win95) complete with a "turbo" button. The reality is that it would not be very cost effective for my dad to spend hours researching computer hardware just to save two grand, as after 10hrs of research and computer building he would be losing money.

Cheap repairs is where it's at. Replaced my laptop screen for $50. Went to phone provider to replace my 2012 iPhone 5 with broken screen, new phone is $500. I said no way and bought a screen assembly on ebay for $61 and a slider case for $3.50. My 2012 iPhone 5 (one of the first out) still works flawlessly and is simply a far better size than the new phablets popular today.

So between my computer and iPhone screen repairs I saved $150 + $450 and spent two hours including repair time, ordering time, and brief research, which comes out to $300 per hour. I very much doubt you guys make this money building and researching computers.

 

[Goat Herder]

You are right none of us seam make any more money than say the likes of this MB hobby ether lol. I did learn to program/load new roms in a bunch of cell phones lately. The first one was a major pita. After that a walk in the park. Still not rich yet. Snork.

One of my complaints has always to be frugal. Hard to do in this throw it away and buy a new one sociality. The ol obsolete game. ''My nemesis''

The last couple of Tosihiba lap tops I bought new turned to junk and quit working way to soon? The first one I bought about 15 years back lasted about 10 years. The last two about a year.

Starting to like the old Dells when I find them. Those things just won't die!

Don't wanna jinx my self? Hoping this next run around pays for itself? Did get get about six years out of the last mother board I played with. It ran a surveillance Huper Labs system for a spell too.

 

[Mike B]

Now using;

Dell OptiPlex 990 Minitower Desktop, Intel Core i7-2600 Quad-Core 3.4GHz, 8GB DDR3, 1TB SATA, AMD Radeon HD 5450, Win7Pro

A refurb off woot for $500.

Nope, I couldn't build it for that. Really, why bother?

 

[Goat Herder]

You lost me at windows. Sounds like a great comp! I prefer older bios ATM. Not a big fan of UEFI these days. Linux is my main stay. What is the cpu catch on that I7?

 

[Goat Herder]

So the new mother board works flawlessly. I still digress against windows. ''I just love to hate on them'' All tho went ahead and tried the windows 10 upgrade. It is their quickest OS yet. I mean not a bad OS. Especially if one is a novice needs to learn very little. So windows will spy on them and take great good care of them lol. Had to throw that in there. *Snickers*

Knaw truth be told I can make any of them work and work good. Nuttun faster than a custom Linux tho.




A cheap disposable Minitower as Mike suggested would be a major bummer for me . As a simple video card upgrade would not happen. They don't work in small tiny miniature towers. The only computer monitor for me will always be my 1080p 60 inches flat screen. Once I went this route, no going back for me as a arm chair surfing *champion*

One of the things that makes this system I built work so good is the Quad 12 megabyte catch CPU, This mother board with the hotrodded memory
, and SSD is as good as modern needs to be IME and HO. No hesitation with anything I am doing. Will have to add the clause again that I just have NO use at all for any video games.

With a Alfa wireless N compatible high power usb dongle running. Their is no hesitation at all with web surfing. The best I have ever seen in a Linux and I have had many over the years. Linux did go thru a phase of unsupported wifi over the years. This get up simply fell right together for me. Have seen some interesting battles over the years tho.


Just love taking old comps folks just don't know what do do with and cleaning them up. Been one of my favourite hobbies. It's just so dang easy!

Got a dell Mini 10 that is the absolute bottom of the barrel. Upgraded with a Solid State Hard disk, A pretty bullet proof rugged constructed lap top . That thing can be said to be a perfect example of junk tho.

I installed https://www.linuxliteos.com/ This is still a little slow. Yet faster than it ever was out of the factory... I use it to look up warranty codes at work with it. Perfect example of cheap disposable refurbishment. So the neat-O part is if it should get stolen? I got nothing in it. lol.

Linux Lite is a lot like Ubunto 8.03 was and perfect for a bottom barrel refurbishment.

Linux Mint still is among my favourites. Been noticing a trend with OS code getting longer in every OS over the last few years? Interesting as one does not always catch this stuff when running the newest comp off the shelf. What that tells me? I wanna say it's all bloat ware spy code............

Windows 10 will work fine on my new tower gonna do some registry editing tho.

How bout that bloat ware? Who the heck uses MSN money??

 

[KCvale]

Topic back from the dead ;-}

I finally caved to 'off the shelf'.
$300 ASUS Win 10 64bit.

 

[Goat Herder]

Topic back from the dead ;-}

I finally caved to 'off the shelf'.
$300 ASUS Win 10 64bit.

Oh good we have playfull banter from KC! Been awhile.. How you doing? What does off the shelf have to do with with building one's own computer? Or did you have some estranged kind of a need to say something that makes no sense to my expense? Knuff of that..





Study a lot of operating systems. The Dell Mini 10 was once even a Hackintosh, then Android Kit Kat. Linux Lite is the best thing for it at the moment.

The Android Kit Kat x86 ran great. Did a ho-made work around when installing it involving a Linux Mint live cd.. Android saw my full 120 gig hardrive. Something after reading around nobody has been able to do as far as the forums tell.

Worked perfect until a Kernel up date came around.

Windows is a necessity because they played a propitiatory game.

Have classes for work that the videos will actually only go through explorer.. go figure??

As for the windows ten that was a simple free upgrade from 7. My current Asus plays with it just fine The desktop short cuts are broken and need renamed in the registry among other things. But classes for work are going. I feel it is still kind of a duty to get ten cleaned up right. So it will run good when needing it.

Linux is still the main stay........

The Old Gigabyte was a quadruple boot. Hackintosh,Windows7, Windows7 ''modified'' and Linux mint.


Noticed something when running the Android Kit Kat on the Dell Mini. The comp ran fast and smooth. For a atom processor. Gotta say comp was running neck and neck with late model tablets and such. Which for me brings to question? For me anyway...Are the touted specs on some of these tablets etc even all that accurate? My impression it's a grey area..

 

[Goat Herder]

Got a old Tosh Satellite. It had a broken screen when I got it. Computer was actually in one of the Gulf wars. Put a screen in it from a scrap computer. This thing has been used for play and work. Tripple boot on a SSD. Kali Linux, Windows 7, and Linux Mint.

Do use windows or Linux when flashing new roms on older Tablets and Cell phones. All from command line.... Android Galaxy S3 quadrupole boot with DU rom ATM.

Thanks to the folks from Team Win! Ayup this one is 5 roms, 5 way boot. This gives me time and a chance to learn more about Android code.

Can't wait to get me paws on a Nexus brand comp for Net Hunter.

https://www.kali.org/kali-linux-nethunter/

http://galaxys3root.com/

 

[KCvale]

Oh good we have playfull banter from KC! Been awhile.. How you doing?
What does off the shelf have to do with with building one's own computer?

I am doing well thanks.

I thought after 3 decades of building and repairing PC's for a living that, for the first time in my life, I actually looked at what was in an already made box vs. what it would cost me in time and money to do it myself and choose the off-the-shelf box was relevant.

In short, the end of an era for me I thought I'd share.





http://motorbicycling.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

 

[Goat Herder]

I am doing well thanks.

I thought after 3 decades of building and repairing PC's for a living that, for the first time in my life, I actually looked at what was in an already made box vs. what it would cost me in time and money to do it myself and choose the off-the-shelf box was relevant.

In short, the end of an era for me I thought I'd share.

I wanna know where you find a uber kewl ''off the shelf'' anywhere for 300 dollars? Last I checked 300 dollars pretty much got me junk? Any and every where I have looked? Mebbe I am just too picky dunno? Can't even scratch that off Craigslist. Not over here anyway.

I stare at Craigs randomly and only if it is a gamer somebody built does it peak my interest. Even after that how bad did they abuse and over clock it? Craigs is over saturated with with old wino's etc in these parts trying to refurbish something and have cornered the market.

If one wants to invest in a good new comp IMHO things start at $800 and the price tag only goes up. I mean it's one thing I suppose to get a generic comp around 300 dollars in these parts ''used''.

That can still be a OK deal if at least one knows what their getting and to expect? I know I could use a faster lappy at work.

I don't think I will find that new anywhere? It won't be off the shelf. Mebbe somebodies closet shelf? lol.

The outdated custom gamers used..start at around 800 on Craigs. Did see a nice little 6 core AMD for about 600 hundred. Did not have the cash. Prolly over clocked that thing to death.

I got lucky! I will admit with my recent custom tower. At least I averted uefi for my current Lunux ditties. Not hard on my comps they usually last me a good while.

So main help a brotha out!?

 

[Goat Herder]

Was just looking at the Video again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vrdgDdPApQ&feature=youtu.be Same video card better memory better board. Could not find one glitch anywhere.

edit then saw a video that got a glitch after that one. Guess some better videos came out since then.

After this recent play around I will be curious and dream of getting my paws on a comp 4 times this one. Pretty sure I will never get one lol. When ife'n that comes around everybody else will still have me out done.

It's good and it's running. Do see a better video card coming on the horizon. Just as soon as I can pawn this one off, prices and where the budget is. No worries but the curiosity could prove a treat?

As is don't need to fix nothing ATM. Don't know what I am missing and don't care about it enough...

 

[jeffyh]

regarding SSDs, you technically only need the drive containing your OS(s) to be on an SSD to see real performance gains. There's no reason to waste money buying say a 1GB SSD. I run a i7 4930K on a 256GB samsung evo 850 for my linux/win dual boot and intesive applications. Files and less demanding apps ared stored/run across 3 other various size WD Black magnetic drives. Way more cost effective and my comp still boots in 6 secs.

 

[gaffo]

300 bucks will get you a "good enough" PC for surfing and simple tasks. I'm like Vale - 20 yrs building my own PCs. But unlike the 90's where you had to have top end power to do anything - now any PC has enough power to do stuff.

my last built PC is the one I'm posting from (top of the line 3.5 yrs ago - now middle of the road).
1.GTX 680 "Kepler Nvidia card - 525 bucks!!!!!
2.OCZ Agility SSD 1/2 TB - 350 bucks!!! (this died 6 months ago - lost a lot of stuff - when SSD's die they die immediately - you do not have warnings to save stuff like you do with Hard-drives (M4 Crucial 1/2 TB SSD in box now).
3. microAXT cube case - 80 bucks
4. Corsair power brick - 50 bucks
5. Asrock microATX for i3/i5 "Sandybridge" generation Intel chip - 80 bucks
6. i5 2500k 4-core chip - 220 bucks
7. 206 BDK? Poineer Bruray burner - 70 bucks
8. 8 gigs green- low power Samsung DDR3 ram - 40 bucks

~1400 bucks. 3.5 yrs ago.

TODAY I can get the same speed for 630 bucks.

1.GTX 950 "Maxwell" Nvdia card (same speed as the GTX 680 card above) - 120 bucks
2. ADATA 1/2 TB SSD - 120 bucks
3. microATX with 250-350 watt power brick (which is enough to power new stuff) - 80 bucks
4. microATX motherboard - 40 bucks
5. lowend 4-core i5 "skylake" generation Intel chip - 180
6. 209 BDK? Pioneer Bluray Burner - 50 bucks.
7 8 gigs ram - 40 bucks

so 600 bucks will get you a powerfull desktop pc.

.............

I find I don't really use the power I have. I surf the web - most used program is Interent Explorer - watching "TV" (mostly 70's shows - many British - stuff never shown on American Cable TV) via youtube.

I've used maybe 10-percent of my time actually doing work on it.

Encoding from PAL-DVD's to mp4 using Vid-coder (simplified front end to Handbrake)
CDex mp3 encodes of my music CD library
xmplay (a winamp 2.79 clone) - for playing the mp3 back on my PC
smplayer - frontend for mplayer - for playing back videos I save from Youtube using
CrisPC Tube Downloader.
True Lauchbar - in Stand alone Launchbar form (so I can make my Windows 7 have a program launcher bar on the left side of the screen (like all decent OSes should have))
XnView - for simple picture viewing
IMG-Burn for backups to Blurays of vids/and data
DVDFAB (for illegally copying Blurays and rented DVDs - as well as legally removing region codes of discs I've bought from Europe so they will play on my DVDplayers. Lost the program when my SSD fail - U.S. has since blocked their website due to violations of DMCA. China has since re-opened the site via their own country-code/net domain. So have access to them again and re-downloaded their newer version (9)...................but have lost my "lifetime membership code" which is on a lost thumb drive somewhere in my house ;-(.
and finally a little Q-Torrent for some stuff (legal stuff) not offered any other way.

I have both Blender and GIMP, and LibraOffice 5.0 --------and don't know how to use any of them. ;-/. maybe if I had 80 yrs in a day I'd know how to use them - but not today. They've been sitting on my SSD for years now.

1/2 TB ssd is enough for everything if you offload data to Bluray discs (just use Smart-Blu brand (cheap and non-data fade).........unlike Quantum Digital brand - your recorded movie will be gone in 5 months! - I know ;-(.

After using SSDs for nearly 4 yrs, I'd NEVER go back to hard-drive!

-

worst thing about a prebuilt PC is the crapware that is pre-installed ;-(. they make it hard to wipe it off there now (mickey mouse around with the firmware) and make the windoze licence a pain - by not giving you a disc with your PC!!!

crap like that is what burn me with pre-build PCs there days. 20 yrs ago you could by a build PC - type "format c" then grab the windoze disc that came with that PC and reinstall windows and then the oher programs you wanted on top.

its a lot harder to do that now with modern pre-built PCs. ;-(,