The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

It was relatively subdued, but having been used to the noise 16x makes for years and years, 20x was a bizarre experience.

 

LOL, Indeed! I think they've gotta be hitting the max on this design. Mini discs however, wont shake much. They really should make the next medium that size!

Take Raptors for example. Smaller platter, faster rotational speed

 

Blu-Ray 8cm disc. Interesting proposal. I hate the damn things though, I always wonder whether they'e secure in the tray, usually they aren't, and make all sorts of hideous noises because of it.

You do realise they go up to 22x now right?

 

Judging by the last Lite-on's I've seen, the quality is a bit better, and the tray seems a bit stronger, but they still seem to be noticeably noisy! The pair I bought were both noisy, but one vibrated so badly it would make the wireless mouse move the cursor! I sent them back to Newegg!

Russ

 

Lol I don't think they were that bad!

 

Try rubber bushings. They're cheap and work wonders on loud drives. My Lite-Ons may be noisy but they're dependable. Near perfect success rate with Verbatim DL disks. One fail yesterday because it was burning at 20X after I reformatted and forgot to turn it down. I try to keep everything below 12X if possible.

 

Er, surely you can't burn Dual layer discs at 20x?

 

Haha no it was single layer, I was doing a movie. But it failed nonetheless. I usually burn DL disks as low as the drive can go.

Humor me, it's 4:30am here

 

Oh yeah good point, I'd forgotten about that
I usually burn discs as fast as the drive will go, unless it clearly isn't going to work.

 

ATHLON X2 7750 2.7ghz. Verified with Asus support that the bios version on the board is new enough to support the cpu and it did boot up once with just one stick of RAM so that I could install WinXP. Just bothers me that I am limited to one stick. Possible that one stick of RAM is bad?

 

It is, but if it only works in one slot on the board, either there's something wrong with the CPU/Board, or the memory voltage isn't sufficient, try raising that in the BIOS slightly.

 

Thanks. I will try the memory test later and post the results.

Andrew

 

man this is bringing a tear to my eye's. all this lovely chat about the beloved ODD's. lol wish i could stick around to contribute. but i am on a mission. getting ready to tare down the injured big red machine. going to put my GA-EP45-DS3R back in and try the install of XP PRO with SP3 on it and see if that is the true problem.... i hope like hell it is cause i dont wanna take everything back out to put it back on the GA-EP35C-DS3R board and then wait for another board to be sent to me.
wouldnt be so bad if i knew for a fact it would work. i am crossing my fingers.

so im off for a tare down and install.

I'll be back to futher this lovely topic of ODD's... wheres that GM at thought for sure he would be in on this.....lol

 

Talking about returned motherboards, the CityLink driver due to collect my board called here at 10:35, put a 'you were out' card through the door, and drove off. Didn't ring the doorbell.
Currently trying to negotiate Ebuyer refunding me postage for sending the board through the regular post (Recorded Delivery), as I have no confidence a recollection will go any differently.
Good news is that I will get a refund if it isn't back in stock when they process it, and it's been removed from the website, so odds are good I'll get a good proportion of my £190 back.

On the less happy side, the X48-DS4 is in stock, for only £110.
I paid £140 for my second hand Maximus II Formula with no bag, box, manual or Audio card...

 

well boards have been swapped out CPU, cooler, mem 1hdd and 1 ODD installed and ready to try the new windows disc....

 

well i guess I'm eating more crow. windows XP PRO SP2 disc was the fix. it is installing right now with no problems. SO FAR......

so if you look in the dictionary under the word ignorance it will show a pic of me...lol

its not 100% installed yet but it wouldnt even let me get to the point im at right now so id say it is the fix.

so if it helps anyone else down the line dont try to install a OEM version of windows without SP2 on a new P45 board it wont work...

creaky we need to talk about hte converting dvd's to AVI's. i need some instructions on how too. ive tried once but it didnt work out to well.

man its nice when something goes right. about 16 mins left for the install...

 

hi guys, i have dual monitors, and was wondering if there is a way toplay games and watch video at the same time on different montirs?

 

I swear to God, I'm not kidding! My mouse sleeps after a couple of minutes without movement, and it vibrated so bad, the mouse pointer kept popping up in the middle of a DVD! It normally stays off for an entire DVD! Remember me complaining about a Philips ODD one time? I said it sounded like a Bee on Steroids! This drive was the Killer Bees, on Steroids! You couldn't stand to be in the same room with it for very long! It wasn't just annoying, it was painful. This house has weird acoustics anyway. You would get a kick out of them! LOL!! No, they would drive you crazy!

I can lay in bed with the door closed, roll over and hear the TV in the front room just as clear and loud as if I was in the living room! Move a foot, one way or the other, and it vanishes! I think it's because of the layout of the house and the fact that there's a complete mirror image house and garages, right next to ours! It's all identical and in a perfect line, except the entrance way between the Kitchen, bathroom hall, and my room. That's a wide doorway at a 45 degree angle to the living room. Victor, the guy who lives in the other house experiences the same thing. I can't understand for the life of me why they built two otherwise identical houses that way. It's like the blueprints were turned over to build one of them. A complete mirror image, inside and out. If Russell's having a conversation he wants me to hear, he'll bring me his cell phone to charge. I just lie down on the bed and put my head in the right place and it's like I'm in the living room with them! I can hear every word! Victor and us, don't hear each other, or the same things. I hear my neighbor's to the left of me and he hears the ones to his right, which is even stranger because what I hear bounces off of his house, and what he hears bounces off of mine!

When I first moved here, I kept hearing voices late at night. It went on for months until I finally asked Russell about it. That's when I found out that we had a talking Dog! It was some kind of Huskie, one of the real smart ones. Russell tells me that it saved a number of lives when it came and got him in the middle of the night saying "Fire, call 911" and dragging him to the door. Russell said that there was a two story apartment house with about 20 units blazing away! My favorite thing of all the dog said was "just give me the damn doughnut"! The two girls of the original owner used to tease the dog by waving a doughnut under the dog's nose and then shove it in their own fat mouths, with their Mother screaming at them to to give him the damn doughnut. Stupid People! Russell figures that it's vocabulary was about 60-65 words! It was his until a few months before it died, when the original owner took it back, so Russell had it for about 6 years. I've never heard of anything like that before or since!

Russ

 

You're going to love the story I tell you next then.

With regard to City Link, I never have any problems in York (other than when the shop writes the wrong address down, i.e. OcUK, which is when it falls apart), but here ninja-carding is a regular occurance, very regular.

Those of you who moan about couriers in the USA, spare a thought for us over here, where the items travel a quarter of the distance, cost twice as much to send, and have an even lower chance of arriving on time.

Anyway, my little story
8:45 get out of bed in time for city-link delivery, get dressed etc. Open the door, and keep the noise down so I'd hear the doorbell.
Work/play etc. in almost complete silence to try hear a van arrive, having been ninja-carded at least a dozen times before.
11:30 wander down to the porch to collect the post having not heard anything and encounter a Citylink 'you were out' card amongst the details. First Rage ensues.
11:40 Phone Ebuyer asking them if they accept items sent regular post instead of Citylink, knowing that if I get the consignment re-arranged, it'll only happen again
11:45 Phone Citylink asking them to cancel the consignment. They refuse to acknowledge it exists, am put through to "our other depot".Receive the same 'Press 1 to leave a message, Press 2 to wait" message over and over until I give up and put the phone down at Noon. Second Rage.
12:00 Send ebuyer an enote asking them to cancel the consignment, slip in a hint of 'I have nothing against Ebuyer's service, only the courier they use' to get them on my good side, and politely ask if they'll refund part, if not all of my Royal Mail postage charge.
12:45 off down to the post office.
1:20 arrive at post office. Charge upstairs (Yes, UK post offices are on the first floor of WHSmith), head to jiffy bag section (brown paper did not go at all well, so I've sent the last dozen or so items in Jiffy bags without incident). Try size 7 out, the motherboard I'm returning doesn't quite fit. Third rage. Size 8 it is then. This is the size with no sticky strip that you're meant to seal yourself, but they usually have no issue with it (or haven't so far).
1:45 reach front of queue. Am sent over to end Bureau de Change desk where I'm told, unlike any other time I've visited the post office, I need to have bought the jiffy bag before I arrive. I would have, but there was nobody at the counter. After explaining this, he tells me to pay for it downstairs and label it. Fourth rage would ensue, but he says I can come straight back. Fourth rage can wait.
1:50 Pay for jiffy bag and start writing it. Biro has severe issues writing on bag. Fourth rage ensues.
2:00 (Yes, writing the address took 10 minutes, it isn't even long) head back upstairs. The guy is busy, so rather than waiting, he stops serving his current customer to spend 5 minutes explaining to the woman next to him why I'm skipping the queue. I return with the jiffy bag and am promptly asked how I am to seal it. "The Person behind the counter usually does it for me with these" I explain. Not good enough. "I can put sellotape on it, but I can't be held responsible if it falls out" - this jiffy bag is literally vast, I don't want to risk it. "Then you'll have to buy some parcel tape" - I can't help but notice there's also some behind her. "I'd buy some, but there's nobody at the desk". "Yes there is" - "No there isn't" - we could have had a little Pantomime here! Eventually realising she's stacking shelves, I wait by the desk beside someone who is far less patient, who almost literally drags her back. £2.29 for a small roll of decidedly low quality looking parcel tape. Fifth rage.
2:15 Spend 10 minutes on the floor of the post office (no desks other than the counter) wrestling with parcel tape, which frankly, has less stick than prittstick, sellotape, hell, less stick than post-it notes, and I'm serious. Sixth, Seventh and Eighth rage, since I have no scissors and have to cut it with my teeth. It tastes vile.
2:25 Give up with Parcel tape. Find the two people behind the Bureau de Change desks have disappeared. Return to queue, which is now thankfully shorter.
2:35 Speak to someone else, once again explain I want to send it and have no means of sealing it. 'Staple it' - hearing this, the guy I spoke to earlier appears out of nowhere and repromands the girl for suggesting this (It's not allowed as they cut postmen's fingers, fair enough). She makes good by suggesting the sharp staple ends be covered with parcel tape. I begin stapling, but surprise surprise, break the stapler, and have to spend another minute picking out the buckled staples from the bag and try again.
This is when the queue that's formed behind me suddenly calls out "Can't you serve someone else?" (The one other member of staff is sifting through the million wedding invites the last customer dumped on her). so I retreat from the desk, and back on the floor, since the only space on the desk is occupied by the scales, which are needed, to finish the job. I wait at least another 2 minutes for them to finish before I carry on.
2:42 ish. Finally done, I discover the item is too big to insure for it's full £190. Settling for the maximum £150 I hand it over and pay the £15 to send the item (remember, £14.99+£2.29 for the tape +£2.49 for the bag = £19.77 to send something that should have been collected for free). Finally done, I walk away exhausted.
3:14 Arrive back home.