The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

The latest BIOS for my board decided 1.7V was a good voltage for the CPU to be at... I too am no longer in favour of BIOS updates...

 

WOW! Theres a good tip if I ever heard one. Bumped your voltage without permission! Well... Im NEVER flashing my mobo bios! I'll have the shop in town do it. Atleast if something goes sour, its all on them
<------ windows 7's pretty sharp (on another note) Installed in 20min too. oh yah, its play time.

 

Wow, 20 minutes, that's less than half the time Vista takes, and even less than XP I believe. Did you need to have Vista to install it?
creaky: Welcome to the modern BIOS. Asus users even criticise Gigabyte's BIOSes for not being featured enough, and as for DFI well, you're in for a shock! Trust me creaky, you won't need the Dominator fan module. My 2x2GB Dominators run a full 25ºC lower than the 4x1GB XMS2s I had before, and I don't use the airflow powerhouse case you do
On the plus side though, I was pleasantly surprised with how quiet that fan module turned out to be.

 

Creaky
your temps are about identical to mine. but i do have mine OC'd. .

now guys. i know most of all of you have more experience in the PC building world than i do. i have done 2 bios flashes. 1 on the GA-P35-DS3R & 1 on my now GA-EP45-DS3R. and not one problem with the flash.just take your time and follow the instruction/directions on how to do it and all should be fine...
Creaky your right easy tune 6 isn't the way way to go.. Russ and Mort made that clear to me not to use the tuning programs that go with the boards..

 

When I bought my RAM, it was cheaper to come with the fans than without, and that situation persisted for a while in the US too.
Rob: I have never had any issues with the flashing process per se, but the BIOSes themselves are often bad. Three quarters of the ones Asus released for the boards I had of theirs all bricked the board permanently, like Creaky had with his MSI. Nothing that severe with Gigabyte, but as I Say, auto-ing a CPU to a dangerous voltage, and randomly reverting to the original F1 BIOS periodically makes a mockery of the whole process. I'm on F3 for a while, but if I encounter a BIOS reset due to a failed overclock if I go at it again, it will put F1 back.

 

No, I was running XP before. I did a CLEAN install of 7. It doesnt bother me to reinstall every other day if needs be. I just thought I would take a peak at this "INCREDIBLE MICROSOFT RELEASE"
So far, No words will give this OS justice. Smooth running, quick install (no bloatware yet though), Graphics running IMMEDIATELY!!!
I havnt even installed my GPU drivers and its running at max resolution for my monitor! Must have some kinda unified driver. Infact all of my hardware is running minus capture card, and printers. Though it didnt fix my Ide card trouble My guess is I have a lemon, or it simply wasnt designed for optical drives. But the manufacturer is as confused as I am soo...
Hmmm... I see i got bumped to senior member,

 

Someone told me the Win7 beta demanded they had Vista before they installed it. Oh well, obviously isn't the case.
I believe Vista has a software native resolution system, though just like much of Vista, it is also troublesome.

 

modded BIOS FTW??? lol

i use them sometimes, then upgrade to a propper new bios, and then wait for the modded version

 

Easytune never caused me any problems, it was just a completely useless and functionless program.

 

Troublesome? So would you recommend installing the PROPER drivers? I suppose thats a good rule of thumb. And I am seeing little stutters in video. I guess they simply made it a better experience, UNTIL the proper drivers are installed. Cause on XP without proper graphics drivers, web pages were pretty rough, until proper drivers were installed. I suppose they would have to upgrade their basic graphic drivers with a login as sharp as this!

 

hey guys I have a friend that was building a pc for me. Just wondering here is what he quoted me on. I just wanted to get some input on whats a great deal. I initially wanted to spend 500 don't mind going alittle bit more.

CASE:
Antec P182SE Mirrored Stainless Steel ATX Mid Tower Case 4X5.25 1X3.5 6X3.5INT No PS $170

DVD DRIVE;
LG GH22LS30 Black 22X SATA Lightscribe DVDRW $35

MOBO:
Asus M3A78-EM Socket AM2+ AMD 780G Chipset + ATI SB700 ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics (HDMI) Dual Channel DDR2 1066/800/667 1x PCI-Express x16 2.0 4x SATA 3Gb/s 8-Ch HD Audio GigaLAN 12x USB2.0 Support (Phenom 140W CPU) $120

CPU;
AMD Phenom X3 8450 (95W) Triple Core Socket AM2+ , 2.1GHz, 3.5Mb Cache, 1800MHz HT, 65nm (HD8450WCGHBOX )$150

PSU:
OCZ 550W Fatal1ty Series Power Supply (OCZ550FTY) $100

MEM:
Corsair XMS2 Dominator TWIN2X2048-8500C5D 2GB 2X1GB PC8500 DDR2-1066 CL 5-5-5-15-2T 240PIN Dual Channel Memory $120

HDD:
Western Digital Caviar (WD6400AAKS) 640GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Buffer (OEM) $90

OS:
Windows Vista Home 64-bit (OEM) $150 OR FREE YOUR CHOICE

I wanted quad core initially as well help me out and give me some better parts if you see them for the best bang for the buck.

I went to another forums and they all jumped on and said that I was getting ripped so good thing I didn't purchase that rig. I really do not know much on what parts are good but if you guys have some ideas that would be great on a whole system. I'm in Canada by the way so CDN prices only. looking to spend at most 800 CDN

 

I should add, I don't want a high end rig, as well as a very low one. I am expecting it to play games, not every game though. Most Likely diablo 3 and starcraft 2, maybe WOW, and I obviously still play madden 08 and madden 2k10 comes out i'll be playing that. I will time to time play it on my 47 incher 1080P TV.

 

ferozkg,
looks like you made the right choice in that 780G MB then! It's people like you and me that it was made for. While we are always selective about what we buy, our quality level is higher than most mainstream computer buyers, but we're still mainstream, and that's where the largest amount of sales are made for all high tech stuff.

I'm not clear on whether you have it or are getting it, but if you don't have it yet, be prepared to be stunned by the graphics quality. It's the visual equivalent of the "Things you never heard before", when you listen to a high quality surround sound system for the first time. This time it comes under the heading of "Things you never saw before"! LOL!! Technicolor movies on DVD are the best to see it all! I have the original Robin Hood from 1938 that was filmed in technicolor and for the first time since I last saw it on the big screen when I was a little kid, I can see the rainbows from the water spray the horses kick, racing across a small stream! I was so little when I saw it that all I remember of it was that scene. To a 4 year old kid, it was awesome! The last time I saw anything close to that good, was the same movie on a CD, That's Capacitive Disk, not compact disk! I had an Hitachi Selectavision Disk Player back in the early 80s that was connected to a Sakata 13" Color Composite monitor. You could see little glimpses of the rainbows but nothing like it looks like it looks with the HD 3200 Graphics. Judging from the video card listed in your sig, be prepared to be gassed! Movies that were well made like Bicentennial Man or The Shawshank Redemption are just so alive! The guys with the expensive video cards know exactly what I'm talking about too! I watched the David Niven version of Around the World in 80 Days, and you get spellbound. There's a scene in the movie where they are crossing the Alps and they are grabbing snow from the mountain top to chill wine, and you could break your fingers trying to reach into the screen! LOL!! You want to reach out and pour yourself a glass of wine! I can't wait to see what it's going to look like on the .024 Dot Pitch CRT monitor I'm using at the moment. I should be stunned all over again

Best Regards,
Russ

 

So the 780 chipset is good? Please bare with me. Im pretty new to considering south/northbridge. If thats the case why spend more on an asus when the gigabyte board is less money and more RAM capacity? I mean NO offense ferozkq I hear GOOD things about Giga boards lately. Ive been considering them for some time now.

EDIT - OMG! Windows 7 is PHENOMENAL!!! At this point... Im simply JEALOUS. I need more ram. After a few installs im already hitting 58% ram useage(2gb 6400)! Well... I new this wasnt a permanent solution. And this OS DEFINETELY deserves some return. I really gotta hand it to the programmers on this one. Smooth, does not do this OS justice!!! I havnt even installed my GPU drivers and its running better than it did on XP!!! What does THAT tell you guys Oh... there I go opening my big mouth. Sorry MS! I better shut it, or i'll hexx it, LOL Sorry about Off topic. Then again, the OS is one of the main components of a build! It appears to have Genuine nvidia drivers installed for my Gpu! Now, I might be behind the times, but thats just friggin AWESOME!!! Performance test installed without fail, And all hardware showing same similar results, INCLUDING GPU!
Well... Time for a new build. Think im gonna look into that 780G board Russ Cause I cant get a straight answer on my current board as to how much ram it supports. Its either 2 or 4gb. ehhh... 4 is becoming barely enough anymore though. Time for a giga board. ahhh... 16gb of ram. The possibilities

 

I know that if you have phenom II in your future then the only MB you should even consider is the $138 GA-0MA790GP-DS4H! For now, no other MB can get a Phenom II to 3.8GHz on air, and it shows ever time you read a review for the Phenom II 3.0GHz 940, the results are so much better than when done with a different brand, same chipset MB! Gigabyte's certainly got something figured out that no one else has! Asus, BioStar and gigabyte were all development partners with AMD for the Phenom II. Then too, You can't be giving all your secrets away now, can you? The MB is solid, and offers you so much flexibility when upgrading. I can't afford the phenom II right now so I'm buying a x2 7750 AM2+ CPU fo $80 instead! Training wheels for the Phenom II! LOL!! If I had enough money to buy one of the existing quads, I would still pick the 7750BE because it's an AM2+ chip, so all the features of the AM2+ motherboards come with the purchase! AMD Overdrive that's highly adjustable, HyperTransport 3, 3 channel memory for DDR2 and Advanced clock Calibration (ACC)! There are six previously unused pins that now make a direct hardware connection between the motherboards + features, and the CPU. That opens up an interesting door as it and AMD's implementation of those features raises the CPU's bandwidth significantly, as well as the memory bandwidth! the clock cycles you gain back because of the direct connection, are significant. Every clock cycle you don't use, to do the same work, makes it a faster computer!

Russ

 

Basically, it activates when you update a graphics driver to try and keep your resolution the same and let you install a graphics driver without a restart. Unfortunately, it usually crashes and you end up with a low resolution even after you've put the driver back, or a corrupted driver installation.

ferozkq: Don't bother with the Phenom X3, it's a terrible processor for that price, cheap dual cores beat it. The power supply is mediocre, the motherboard isn't really worth its price, and the case is way over the top for a low budget system. There are far better systems you can get for the money. If you must Phenom, get a Phenom II and a 790GX board, but ultimately, if you just want the best for your money, you would be wise to consider what intel offer.