The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

See this it, £40 was about the minimum I was looking at for a replacement 939 board off ebay, a second hand one that could potentially also go pop within a year. For almost no extra I could get a new 775 board instead.

 

sammorris,
It's interesting! I've been seeing a lot of motherboards that failed that show no outward sign of anything burned out. Going back a few years, the old socket 478 and 340 motherboards always at least showed some sign of heat. Even good ones had turned the MB brown, all around the area of the CPU socket. Sometimes, even the socket itself showed signs of getting very hot. Today, they just seem to quit with no outward signs of anything wrong. No blown caps or anything. Most often they are the same way Deadrum described! It was working and shut down and just didn't do anything at all when it was turned on again. My P5P800SE died that way! It was working the night before and then didn't work the next day.

Russ

 

None of my three dead motherboards showed any visible sign of trouble, whatsoever.

 

Thanks for the input and you arent encouraging me any worse than I do to myself...Its not pawned yet but I already have 2 people who responded with interest to the old "Optie", I promised it to the first person (as long as #2 doesnt outbid #1 by a ridiculous amount, #1 gets it!)

If I sell the CPU and my Corsair 2 x 1GB pc3500 memory sticks I could pay for a new midrange 775 board and CPU.

 

sammorris,

It's funny my old P4P800SE that has a 3.0 Prescot in it, just recently was here for a D&C, and even with a Zalman 9500LED on it, the area on the back side of the MB had all darkened and discolored by the CPU and NB, and the socket itself had turned light brown from off white. Then again Prescot's were known heaters! It shows me the newer CPUs and chipsets don't make near as much heat! For what it was, it was a very good MB! Still is!

Russ

 

So guys I had to make a new account apparently...

Gotta sleep now. I'll catch up with you all later.

 

Looking at putting together a rig for a friend. It's a business/home machine that will do some light video work, spreadsheets, heavy internet use, and who knows what else. lol.

I'm looking at both AMD and Intel. Integrated graphics is ok with him, no real gaming and not a HTPC afaik.

case

psu choices

AMD cpu choices

Intel cpu choices

RAM choices (leaning toward the Mushkin...surprise)

AMD mobo Just pick I say but if any of you have positive experience with one of these please share. tia...

Intel mobo G3 series

Intel mobo G4 series

One of these coolers

HDD

LCD monitor

speaker choices

wireless card

ODD choices (gettin both of them)

keyboard and mouse

I'm NOT charging this guy. He's my wife's boss and this puter needs to be good and a trooper.

If I didn't miss anything the range is from $575-$727 depending on Intel or AMD choices. He's looking at a Dell with about the same specs for $850 delivered. Of course the only difference between me and Dell is the warranty!! LOL.

....gm

 

greensman,
Since cases are so subjective, it's good for what you are building. Throw away that air duct in favor of a strong exhaust fan. Good airfow should keep the drives cool and the filters should keep the dust down. There's no place for a front fan though!

PSU
The Antec Earthwatts by far!

The AMD CPU
The 64x2 6000+ all the way. The extra L2 cache does make a difference. All but the Windsor's have only 1MB L2 cache!

Intel CPU
The Wolfdale

Motherboard
Asus, for the extra Sata! Same graphics!

Hard Drive
Seagate 250 is a really good drive. A decent choice for it's intended purpose!

Monitor's OK!

Speakers
The S220 17 watt. $1 more than the cheap one that's 7 watt. Unless you are doing sound like you and I have, to spend any more is pointless!

Wireless
The Gigabyte is the better card by far!

The Optical drive
LG! Ive used them and they work and hold up well!

Keyboard and monitor
You're kidding, right? $12! Sold!!!

That's what I chose out of the choices you gave. I didn't bother with the cooler as it's Arctic Freezer all the way. I have both! LOL!!
Remember folks, these are his choices!! ROFLMAO!!

Have Fun,
Russ

 

That's certainly the case now, I'm willing to bet they could have got better sales if they left the 2MB Chips (4400,4800) intact for AM2...

 

sammorris,

AMD better start doing something right for a change, because they will lose all the advantages of faster internal functions when Core i7 comes out if they don't. I've directly compared the performance of the E6750 vs the E8400 at the same speeds, and the extra 2MB of L2 cache with the E8400 is worth about 2 to 3 thousand additional MIPS overall!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I stuck my Q6600 in at 3.15Ghz versus my E4300 at the exact same - and tested with 3dmark. The frame rate at the start of the first test had been unchanged through three different graphics card types - a rock solid 87 maximum. Put the Quad in, and saw 99. 3dmark's graphics tests can only address one CPU core, so the only answer to this is the extra cache - a 13% difference, it really is more of an effect than I realised! Doesn't make the 512KB cache cheapo chips seem all that now, does it? haha

 

sammorris,

Well at least the AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz has 2MB of L2 and 2MB of L3 going for it. Since the L3 cache runs at CPU speed, it's performance should go up as the CPU speed increases. I'm not sure about what happens with the L2 as you increase processor speed. At $164 and less than $300 with a new MB to put together with my existing parts, it's tempting. I just don't know if I'll have the time!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Are you kidding me?? You have too much time on your hands..... sounds like a song. lol. btw if you stopped playing with your "organ" you'd have plenty of time!!!!

Haven't heard from my "buddy" about that build yet. So..... any other suggestions are more than welcome atm. With Russ's help so far I've about decided on the AMD and the nice little ASUS mobo.

....gm

 

I just bought a new OPTIARC DVD RW AD-7200S
Serial N o L1187G18vKXc
Firmware 1.06
Which is supposed to be an NEC, & I thought it was supposed to do Bitsetting. But it don't, the only firmware I can find is the 1.06
Does anybody know what firmware, and a link to the page would be helpful to

 

try this out rick

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/540688/4122141

 

Ic you got your hands on a new style BenQ there..lol happy burning brother..get your bitsetting right and burn away with some good media and post over on the scan thread...

 

cincyrob :bigwill68 : Thanks a lot ! I'd B lost without this forum.
I flashed it with the 106a, and now it bitsets. I think from this point on I'll stick with LiteOn though, don't have 2 flash them. Personally I prefer the IDE DVD RWs to the SATA. This SATA LiteOn that I have gives me retry messages on CloneDVD, but not the IDE LiteOn.
But I'm still haveing problems with this P5Q Premium Brd, iT JUST WON'T LET ME HOOK up any type of slave (HDD or DVD RW). All kinds of crazy boot up readings, or it tells me to insert the install Disc & does not reconize the Disc. But disconnect the slave and all is well (ITS DA SHITZ)

 

ddp..Got your PM Thanks. I don't know what happened either, but after 3 days and nothing from this forum I pretty much thought something was wrong. This is just to busy not to receive some sort of E-Mail on a daily basis. So I check some how I was suspended, didn't know why, so I just re-activated. Everything is back 2 normal. I thought it might have something to do with mt P5Q Brd as I'm still having hair pulling experience with it