The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

bigwill68, have you any success using lightscribe?, if yes, can you pm me with the details, I have never used it before and know nothing about it even though I have had a LS writer all along, I do have injet printable disc's but also heard using LS is not at all easy or succefull.

 

Meh. Lightscribe is overpriced, wears down a burner, and just doesnt look THAT good. I prefer printable TYG02's, and prefer Watershields even more so. I tried it for a buddy a while back, and he was OK with it, but I thought the black & white look just wasn't that good. Certainly when regular printables, are better, cheaper, and the ink doesn't cost me much either. But then, I have continuous setup ran to my printer/s

 

Thanks for the comeback omeg, I know this is off topic why I asked about a pm but anyway, I understand your view, I was just intersted in doing a couple of disc's, because I never did it before I read some and you hear all sorts of different opinions etc. many found it complicated or not working at all, I also just found out you need special lightscribe disc's that I also didn't know, I bought a small pack of injet printables thinking thats what what needed, nope, thats what happenens when you don't read or ask first.

Either way like I said I just wanted to do a couple and don't need to start buying extra equipment to print the inkjet printables, if I can do about 4 or 5 lightscribes thats all I need. Sorry about being off topic.

 

Fred-Building a computer that uses lightscribe technically would be within the rules tho...I dont use it because i agree with O-man but that wont stop me from helping let you learn for yourself. Do you use a newer version of Nero for your disc burning? I ask because they have a better interface for making lightscribe graphics than most programs that come with a burner. Depending on your model, go online to the drivers and support page of whatever burner you have and there should be a downloadable program to build a disc if you dont have nero.

 

I would also say its hardly off topic

Im sorry, I didn't mean to seem completely opposed to Lightscribe. I guess I just had a bad experience with it. I would help you if I could, but im afraid the way I had it setup, was not the typical, eh hem, Legal way LOL! And the software was somewhat buggy. Much like you, I only did like 7 discs, then the program was out the window. I wanted to know if the software, and technology was worth it before I spent the big bucks LOL! Good thing I didn't buy all that stuff.

 

I might have an old copy of nero laying around somewhere not sure,I will check, even if I find it I've never used it before, my writer is an HD DVD Writer 840b and yes it is lightscribe, other than that thats all I know. I know I can write to HP sometime you get an answer sometime you don't, and many times thier answers are kind goofy anyway, they send you comments that confuse you more than what you started with.

 

Found this at a independent reviwers website...

I am not finding many updates at the HP website for 840b, here is the link for 840b

http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Nav?...track_link=ot_we/prodlink/en_us/1101461/loc:0

that takes you to choices for the 840i here

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...track_link=ot_we/prodlink/en_us/1101461/loc:0

If you click the "how to use" link it will take you to a FAQ page and at the very bottom is the question about making lightscribe images. This should do for a start.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us〈=en&product=1101461

 

Deadrum33, thanks, I saved the site, did some reading, as soon as I figure out the software thing I will give it a shot.

 

For a little while now my computer has had trouble turning on. A lot of times it just powers up and does nothing, no post or anything. At first I thought it might be because of a ram problem but it works with all of my sticks. Although the best method to get it to start again appears to be taking out or putting in ram. It also BSOD's and hard freezes a lot which has never really occurred before.

I don't know if this is at all related but this problem first occurred the first time I went to use the computer after having a house fan installed and it got put on the same circuit that my desktop is on by accident. I know it makes absolutely no sense as to how that could affect it but it's the only thing that changed. Immediately after that it went from completely stable to crashing nearly every hour.

If anyone has any idea as to what might be wrong or how I can make it stable again I'll take any advice I can get.

EDIT: Okay I've tested each stick of ram in individually now and it's only confused me more. First pass each stick was tested in slot 1 and all booted fine. After putting in all sticks no post, after removing the two 1GB sticks still no post. With one 2GB stick remaining in slot 2 no post and no post after putting it in slot 1. Swapping for the other 2GB stick and the computer will boot again. Putting the previous stick back in and it works in both slots where it previously failed.
In the end if I found that if I put the 1GB sticks in first, one at a time then the 2GB sticks (one at a time again) it would boot and so far has crashed or froze yet. As far as I know it shouldn't matter in what order you put RAM in or if you boot up in between or not. Can someone explain this to me (assuming the above is coherent)?

Thanks in advance.

 

Red_Maw,
I would check your memory voltage with Everest or your PC health in the bios setup. If the voltage is set correctly, then I would suspect one of your ram sticks is drawing a bit more watts than it should. This would indicate High Resistance connection problrms, which generate a lot of heat! IMO, you should always use the manual settings for your memory voltage unless like mine, you have it under EPP control. If you have EPP memory, and you have a setting in the bios for it, turn it on and turn the DDR2 voltage to auto. On mine, I can't get the results setting it manually that the EPP control gives in controlling the memory, so it's the EPP setting for me! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Thanks Russ. My RAM is SPD controlled, don't know if that's the same as EPP since I can't find any documentation on my MB (commando) that mentions EPP. Everest reported a voltage of 2.1v right before it BSOD. Bios reports voltage 1.904v though. Going to set the voltage to 2.1v which should be the stock voltage for Dominator series ram.

Edit: It seems the 1GB sticks get 2.2v while the 2GB sticks only get 2.1v. This could be because of the slots their in although since it's booting I don't feel like moving them right now.

 

Red_Maw,
I should have looked in the manual, as I would have seen that your MB specifies non EPP memory (Page xi). Your memory should be, 1 pair in slots 1 and two, Starting with the ones closest to the CPU, and the other pair in slots 3 and 4. They call them slots A & B and A1 and B1, but you get the idea.

Russ

 

Thanks for the advice Russ. I think I've got them put in right and after manually setting the voltage to 2.1v it's been alright. We'll see tomorrow morning if it continues to work lol.

 

Red_Maw,
You're most welcome!

Russ

 

Im becoming quite discontent with the AAKS 500GB Wd drive. My brothers might be on the fritz, and mine is substantially slower than the FALS 1TB drive. Perhaps it was WD's lemon ehh. I just bought the AALS 500GB today, to replace my brothers drive. I'll use his for storage, assuming its any good. Thankfully, it still has 4 yrs on its warranty I installed Nero 9, side by side on a dual core, and my quad system, and the dual core kept up. I believe it to be because the Fals drive is the Dual Cores Operating system. Currently, the dual core is impressing me once again...*shrugs his shoulders*

I might even attempt a raid 0 array for the first time(assuming his drive isn't too bad). If I have his drive, and mine, it should be at least a little quicker than the FALS, heck... probably even the VelociRaptor! At least for read write speeds. Wish I had two AALS drives. They have twice the cache that the AAKS have. Ah well. SSD will be my path before too long

 

As someone that's owned two of them I disagree. I don't think there's anything wrong with the WD5000AAKS as a product. They're getting on a bit now, they came out in either late 2006 or very early 2007.
You do realise RAIDing a 500 and a 1TB together only gets you 1TB of space right?

 

Raid 5 IMO is the best choice, but you need 3 drives, and I'm not sure if they all have to be the same size or will shorten their capacity to match the smallest one. If I remember rightly it can be recovered unless more than one drive fails. To me, Raid 5 a good compromise between Speed and storage capacity! That's about the whole thing. It's speed vs capacity. You want more speed, you have to give up capacity!

Russ

 

Well no, you want redundancy, you sacrifice capacity. RAID0 is the simplest way of getting big speed and you lose no space if both drives are the same size, downside is there's worse than no redundancy, if one drive fails, you lose the lot. With RAID5 and above, if one drive fails, there's no consequence for your data. RAID5 is something I'm considering for my file server, but I need to ascertain exactly how to hook up WD Green drives in an array, and where to find a reasonably priced 8-port PCI Express RAID5 card.

 

Sam,
True! You can have redundancy with Raid1 Mirror, but it slows it down to less than a single. Not very much less though! I do RAID1 with a lot of business computers The Raid5 gives you a fair amount of redundancy, as the likely-hood of two drives failing is pretty slim, and it gives you more speed with, as you say, "no consequence for your data"!

Russ