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The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by ddp, Sep 13, 2010.

  1. Mr-Movies

    Mr-Movies Active member

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    Actually if you go to VGA or DVI there are a lot of solutions for converting to analog or digital/analog. I guess your not planning a trip to South Africa? LOL

    Good job Kev,
    Stevo
     
  2. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    LOL SpeedFan's S.M.A.R.T might be no longer reliable. One of my EARX drives now shows 93% for both Fitness and Performance, but the raw values for everything are perfect. It marks areas as a problem, when both sets of data show no problem at all. The drive was previously 100% for both ratings.

    Interestingly the 1001FALS still shows 100% with the same values as the ones that are flagged on the Green drive. Makes no sense. I know it starts downgrading both ratings after disks reach a certain age but the EARX is almost new. Only has about 10,000 hours on it. My Samsung HD501LJ has some 40,000 on it and gets a 90% on both ratings for the online test, but then gets a 97 and 98 on the offline test. The online test must include power on hours count as part of its ratings. It also has one reallocated sector. Only use it for game installs, so not worried about it holding an OS or something.

    I have a Seagate 7200.10 500GB that might be on its last legs. I am considering running some disk tools on it to clean it up a bit and throwing it into an external enclosure. It has a pending sector that so far has refused to reallocate. If I can get that to clear up I see no reason not to use it until it dies. 32,000 hours on it currently. I always need the storage and I don't keep anything that I can't just go get again, however large the amount of data. I filled most of it with a 1Mb connection :)

    Will probably be checking everything out with a different tool later on. SMART values are only a general guideline. Particularly, the Seagate 7200.10 has always shown errant values. CrystalDiskInfo is a bit better as it uses simply a Good/Bad qualifier to tell you if the disk is good or not. I don't know what SpeedFan uses to calculate its final scores.

    -----------------------------------

    Got my Digital Coaxial to RCA converter. Good quality audio output, but loud static when there is no signal to the TV, so must turn off the stereo. Also no direct volume control through the TV. Everything must now be controlled at the stereo, not a big issue, but it has no remote so a bit of a hassle. Is about 20-30 years old. Good quality unit though and worth the fiddling around for the good audio.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  3. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Estuansis,

    Speaking of good audio, I made a discovery a couple of days ago, to do with GigaByte motherboards and their on board sound. I've heard lots of complaints about bad sound, with clicks, pops and stuck (staccato) notes. Before you call for an RMA, add a couple of +clicks to the CPU NB VID Voltage, and it most likely will vanished. The sound quality is now outstanding. I listened last night to a recording of "The Nutcracker Suite" taken from a premium vinyl record, and it was superb. Jackie's new album which I got from Santa Claus, sounded awful the first time I played it. Now the sound is beautiful. I hope this helps others with sound problems.

    Happy New Year to all,

    Russ
     
  4. harvardguy

    harvardguy Regular member

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    Hmmm. So you popped up the northbridge voltage a tad, and fixed the audio? That is brilliant, Russ.

    Speaking of Nutcracker Suite - that's where I got the 30 MB of mp3s at the afterdawn folder on my ftp site - from a classic vinyl recording that produced 450 MB of flac uncompressed audio. Have any of you guys downloaded the mp3s - I'll post the instructions again if you want. Not copyrighted. They sound fabulous and make great holiday music!

    Well, you're probably right. Nobody knows crysis like you do, Jeff, and you even have the mods to improve the looks of the rocks, water, etc. Crysis had trees being blown apart, and destructible environments. Far Cry 3 has bendable trees, and bushes that bend as you pass them, as I was pleased to notice last night.

    You might be right about the extra polish - perhaps that is what I'm talking about. And of course, as you say, technology has progressed in 5 years.

    Six months ago, finally able to play them, I raced through crysis, warhead, and crysis 2 in testing these 7950 cards, and just one 7950 was able to handle them for me at 2560x1600 ultra, about 35fps the whole way through. In Far Cry 3 I need both in cf to get about 45 fps average - I finally got 1025 core clock working yesterday - and now I'm hitting 50 fps sometimes. I find that occasionally I am getting micro-stuttering and I blame it on memory leakage (windows 7) when I alt-tab out to open my graphics program, to mark the map for example. Rebooting takes care of it. But if I stay in the program it doesn't happen.

    The kick about this Far Cry 3 is that you can clean up the map so you don't have bad guys all over - just limited to a few areas. Here's the southern islands with a few privateer forts left, and enemy patrols all over the roads and waterways in the red areas:

    [​IMG]

    By the way, I passed a privateer encampment yesterday - they started shooting at me as I flew by in my quad 4-runner. "Oh, great. Some bad guys." (I already had cleaned up the map.) I went back and had a nice fierce little battle - some of my native buddies swung by too and joined in. We wiped them all out, then I went up on top into the mine, came out and they had repopulated, so I got to try out my silenced signature Bushman weapon again, lol. It was cool. I marked that on my map.


    After taking over the forts, the map looks like this, and there are no more roving bands of privateers trying to kill you everywhere you drive. Any enemies that are left are confined to certain sections that you might quickly pass on the road.

    [​IMG]

    So on a clean map you can go crazy with exploration, animal shooting, driving, boating, pistol bird shooting trials, all with incredible graphics. No, it isn't perfect - there are a few visual pops from time to time, and yesterday I climbed down a ladder and passed through the model and fell to my death, haha. But in general there are very few glitches - yes it is polished. I swear, Jeff, that once you get fully hooked up with the graphic cards that will max the game on ultra for you, I wouldn't be surprised if you found yourself with a hundred plus hours into this title. LOL

    Rich
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2012
  5. DXR88

    DXR88 Regular member

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    BF3 is ok what i miss the most from BC2 was the recoil of weapons and the awesome effects. BF3 had recoil from the start but it was odd in the fact that the guns themselves didn't really reflect on the recoil. the other step backwards that they could have improved upon vastly was vehicle disabling.

    shoot a tank on the side and disable its tracks, hit the turret or the front and disable the video feed. the whole engine fire should have been left for the rear hitbox only. jets you should be able to clip the wings off on disabling and for the 50% damage marker secondary weapons malfunctions. for choppers disabling the Tail Rutter would send the chopper spiraling down and enough damage to the front would disable or cripple your co gunners capabilities. the system was already there it just wasn't used to its fullest potential.

    don't get me started with indestructible lamp posts or electrical polls, you can send a tree crumpling down topple a 2 story building but you don't screw with the invincible telephone poll....there obviously there for strategic reason beyond my minds capabilities.
     
  6. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    So we discovered something interesting about the Dell M110
    [​IMG]
    Apparently it does have an optional audio output, Via 24-pin Universal. But Dell apparently does not sell the cord with the projector. Just like they don't include the remote either! I can't find a cord on ebay. The only thing I can find, is converting that port into analog RGB(HD-15, similar to VGA). Which they do supply with the projector. Apparently if we want audio output, we spend even more. Sounds about like typical business practice :(

    Damn... the cable I want/need is part of an $80 bundle too :(
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2012
  7. Mr-Movies

    Mr-Movies Active member

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    Almost always if you have bad sound it is the cause of a bad driver, OC'n issue, Unlocking cores that were not intended for use, noisy power source, or a bad cable. It would be seldom the motherboard its self.
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2012
  8. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Bad Company 2 had decidedly better destruction. Vehicle disabling I sort of do and don't agree on. If you want that sort of damage, play World of Tanks, Company of Heroes, ArmA 2 or Red Orchestra. BF3 is pretty arcade in the long scheme of things. It needs to be predictable.
     
  9. harvardguy

    harvardguy Regular member

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    Far Cry 3 is unbelievable, but of course not perfect. I was at a shooting range - damn I'm good with a pistol. Just lead those birds a hair, and DEAD BIRD. Even the ones who got way out there while I was reloading. For the first time I chose to wager above novice, and went for skilled, and still killed it - $400 easy bucks. Anyway, they had some birds hanging there on chains. I shot a bird, and hit it with an arrow also, expecting it to swing like at other shooting ranges. But not these birds. So they left a few things off when they polished.

    Also, my quad 4-runners keep disappearing. I go somewhere, do something, and when I return there is a jeep sitting there instead. LOL But SAVING might help - last night I saved and exited, came back in, and my quad was still outside the safe house. Good!

    Another trick on quads. I went to the Stubborn Kid Farm safe house, where there is usually a quad parked across the street on a path behind the guard tower. It wasn't there. I ran down the path, hopped over the angled quad jump, then ran back to the path above the safe house, and circled again to the path behind the tower. Ah hah! This time there was my quad! (I hated the quads at first - they are hard to control and you have no cover from bullets. But after cleaning up the upper islands, and after doing a few of the emergency medical delivery trials - often on quads, the game forced me to learn to control them. You have a completely unobstructed view as you race down the roads, slightly faster than in a jeep, with the wind realistically whistling in your ears. The difficulty of controlling them is part of the thrill, plus the high speed, the quickly changing scenery, and the incredible graphics.)

    Rich
     
  10. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Got a bit more serious with the OC. Try 4.217GHz @1.280v. Memory runs at 1776MHz on the x800 multiplier using 8-9-9-24 timings.

    [​IMG]

    Note the 2885MHz HT Link Speed in the top pic and the 2441MHz NB speed in the bottom pic, effectively giving a Hyper Transport speed of 5325MHz

    [​IMG]

    In single threaded benchmarks it's still more than 5000 MIPS slower than the 1090t at 3.9GHz. :) But with multi threaded apps, it should rock! I'm told that the Bus Speed limit is about 220MHz, and I'm at 222MHz now so I'm going to leave it this way until I can test everything I use. Ideally, I would like to see how far I can go with the Bus Speed, as there's no sign of a wall yet, given the low voltage, minimal tweaks and and rock solid stability. Time will tell.

    Russ
     
  11. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Wow Russ, sure makes me feel good about the upcoming 1090T! What an amazing chip for such an old product line! It blows me away that they still manage to throw up numbers with the best Intel chips at times; particularly in gaming which I focus on above all else. Too bad Phenom II wasn't a year earlier. Also too bad that Bulldozer and Piledriver don't reflect the new IMC and other performance improvements made late in the Phenom II lifecycle. It's just so slow per core, that Phenom II manages to match it a lot of the time. Ordering my X6 next week BTW. Will be about $200. Wish me luck in getting a good one :)

    My current 790X board can handle one(an OC'd X6) just fine, but I would rather have the better motherboard I'd been planning on. No complaints about this one of course, quite capable, but wouldn't mind the extra ability. This one is only upper mid-range at best, so has slightly limited options. As I understand it, Thuban requires a bit more tweaking than Deneb to OC. Luckily my board has 8+2 phase power design so technically is more than enough to sustain an OC. I won't be hurting if I don't change the board :)

    Just an update: Very pleased with the new cooler. Much more capable than the CoolIt and less sensitive to ambient temp. I imagine the newer closed loop coolers like the H80, H100, H60, the dual fan CoolIts, etc can outperform it, but this certainly tops an H50 or Eco 120. I haven't had to question the decision to replace the Eco 120 at all. There is no margin of error, the Hyper 212 Evo is simply better. I know idle temps aren't overly important but I have gone from 33-35 idle to 29-32 idle, with more voltage than previously used. This difference is reflected, though not as drastically, at load. I daresay that makes it the better cooler without a doubt. I can see why the Hyper 212 series has been so popular. Worth noting that the 212 Evo is definitely better than its predecessors, the 212 and 212+. This is a direct pipe contact cooler BTW. Surprisingly good quality.

    Also pleased with the PSU. Fan kicking in and out with temps is a minor distraction at times but it has so far been pretty quiet. Rock solid voltages and my stability issues have cleared up beautifully. 750W was maybe overkill, and I could have chosen a slightly lower wattage PSU and saved some cash. But gotta have insurance that it'll never be truly tasked, thus hopefully maximizing its reliability and lifespan. I don't like replacing broken parts.

    Very happy with my latest acquisitions. No buyer's remorse at all for a change.
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2012
  12. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Good to hear things are going well Jeff :)

    I have to say, I still think the Phenom II X6 1090T/1100T are about the best CPUs AMD has yet made. Piledriver has gone some way to make up for the shortcomings of Bulldozer, but hasn't quite finished the job - If you spend the vast majority of your processing power on truly multi-threaded applications, they're fantastic value for money, but even in raw total performance, the FX-8350 is not a significant amount better than the X6 1100T, for its two extra cores. There's no sign of any major leaps forward from Phenom II with performance per clock, however, which is really what AMD need to be competitive in all fields. My i5 3470 compares reasonably favourably to the FX-8320 in multi-threaded applications and costs only a little more, yet it does what the FX-8320 needs 125W and a northbridge to do, in just 77W and a self-contained unit, and for being only a quad core, offers me not far off double the performance per clock.

    In other news, have recently bought myself one of these:

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/VSX-922-K-Channel-Receiver-AirPlay-Control/dp/B007YDOY8A

    Got the PC, Wii, FM and Internet Radio hooked up to it at the moment.
    Since you have to spend an absolute fortune to get a receiver with 5.1 analog pre-outs, you really need to use proper speakers with receivers if you have more sense than money.
    Fortunately, the Logitech Z-5500s I've had for the past 5 1/2 years actually connect the satellites to the amplifier in the sub with proper speaker wire, and the satellites are a regular 8 ohm impedance, so you can attach those directly to the receiver.
    As for connecting the subwoofer to the sub preout, although that doesn't have a dedicated input port, you can simply connect the port to one half of a 2xRCA->3.5mm Stereo adapter, and plug that into the Centre/SW port on the Logitech's control unit, and use the speaker set as normal, but just for the subwoofer input. Works great, and means you keep the control centre volume dial for adjusting the subwoofer, proportionally (not in absolute) to the volume of the rest of the system.
    It's actually turned out really well. Since the receiver is an upscaler, it means all the various composite/component connections from consoles can be run through the single HDMI output to the 3008WFP. My only regret is that the smaller 23" Dell Ultrasharp beside it doesn't also have an HDMI port.
     
  13. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Very nice Sam! I mean that :) Makes mine look disgustingly outdated :S

    Yah, I don't believe I'll be buying Piledriver, unless it's a great deal cheaper. But perhaps Steamroller may make up for the shortcomings? Time will tell ;)
     
  14. ZoSoIV

    ZoSoIV Active member

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    hey guys i need some help ...I'm getting a pop-up box that is saying "Message from web-page" "Object Error" and its locking up my brower...any idea how to get rid of it Ive tryed several things no luck... my HJT log is clean...i tryed to get to the spyware and viruse threads but couldn't...any help would be great
     
  15. ZoSoIV

    ZoSoIV Active member

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  16. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Which browser is it, and does it happen on all websites, or specific one(s)?
     
  17. ZoSoIV

    ZoSoIV Active member

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    its IE 8

    just some at random websites..this one affected once i post this i can edit it wothout locking up the browers(getting the popup box) i have to go to task manager to delete the page..
     
  18. Ripper

    Ripper Active member

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    Not really come across it before but some brief Googling suggests a couple of causes:

    - Microsoft Visual Studio installed (don't ask me to elaborate on this, no idea just saw it mentioned)
    - iGoogle gadget/widget things on your personal homepage

    Anyway, my initial thought was that it's probably java related. I would disable any addons/plugins in your browser (IE used to have no-plugin executable in the start menu folder?) and make sure your java installation and plugin for your browser are up to date. See how you get on and (try) to let us know!
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2012
  19. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    do a system restore to before the problem started. told that to another member with similar issue & it resolved his problem.
     
  20. sytyguy

    sytyguy Regular member

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    I presume it has Audyssey, but I didn't notice what version?
     

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