The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by ddp, Jul 16, 2008.

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  1. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Rick, I imagine that depends on the device. A dvd burner probably requires a power connector. An E-sata Flash drive(never heard of one), probably doesn't require external power.

    I'm currently using a Round IDE cable in my secondary. Hope it doesn't fail :S
     
  2. Deadrum33

    Deadrum33 Active member

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    Most enclosures have power cord to plug into wall, my Gigabyte motherboard came with a panel containing 2 Esata and 1 power interface. It pops in a cases expansion slot, and came with cables to hook up a bare sata drive direct to it without an enclosure.
    click here and scroll down to the picture of esata bracket kit
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2010
  3. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    I'm also a fan of the yellow Gigabyte SATA cables as they have clips which make them more secure (as we all know what a physically crap design SATA is). I never mess with my cabling though, once a machine gets built it stays that way for good, and the case stays closed, apart from the odd dust bunny cleanout, and i'm very careful not to knock anything when i do that.
    Out of the 4 Crucial Ballistix sticks i bought back in 2007, the 2 installed sticks have been causing frequent reboots and freezing, proved this by swapping in the 2 sticks that Crucial replaced via RMA last year (the 2 sticks that were freezing were the original 2007 sticks, last year's replacement sticks were still sealed as i only run on 2GB, kept them as spares, no need for the whole 4GB for my uses). Have put the 2 suspect sticks back in and as is typical with PC's, the system isn't freezing or rebooting (yet), want to run with them 'til another freeze or reboot before i RMA them, as memtest found no errors in over 2 hours, 5 passes. The machine was rebooting/freezing when using a linux live cd & a linux usb stick so i know it's hardware related.
    Anyways, this is why i never mess with a machine when it's built (especially as SATA are so badly designed), to me a PC is a tool to get things done with, i know most of you guys are like i was when i was younger, you love constantly messing and upgrading :)

    Sam
    - i was holding out to buy a HD4650 off Amazon for £40, i waited a few minutes too long as someone whipped it before i could hit the buy button (there was only one left). Got a HD5450 instead as they're only £33 off Amazon and it'll run Sims3 fine, daughter's friend is donating an entire PC for daughter to replace her laptop (which couldn't run Sims3), which is kind and a bonus, so i'm just providing a spare 19" Samsung monitor and the HD5450.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2010
  4. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    I've had failed Gigabyte cables and failed red ones, but only one failed Gigabyte and many failed cheap red ones.
    Rick: eSATA can be powered several ways, depending on what you're using it for. 2.5" drives can sometimes be powered via USB (or two USB connectors), but full size 3.5" drives or optical drives need more. Typically eSATA enclosures provide power for the drive via their own power supply you plug into the mains. Alternatively Gigabyte boards I think still come with an eSATA bracket that plugs into the molex of your PC, and has molex to S-ATA cable adapters you plug into the rear, effectively like having PSU molex connectors on the back of your PC in the same way you'd have extra USBs or graphics/network cards. Of course, a lot of people don't like this, since it could potentially be a safety risk if the connectors are not plugged in, exposed 12V and so on.

    Creaky: Fair enough, though the HD5450 is only half as fast as an HD4650, equating roughly with the HD4550.
     
  5. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Turns out i was looking at the wrong link for the HD4650 last night, the one i was going to buy was still available (doh!), so just managed to buy that one and cancel the HD5450.
     
  6. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Good stuff, that should be plenty enough for The Sims 3 :)
     
  7. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Ha ha! I know exactly what you're talking about LOL! I used to love upgrading my sound system in my vehicle. Now I just go with what works, and sounds good. My deck has a USB port, My trunk has 2 15" subwoofers, and I have 4 Midrange speakers. I couldn't be happier. Upgrading my sound system holds no appeal to me anymore.

    Computers on the other hand... :D I can't seem to leave them alone! There will be a time, where I mellow out, and love a computer for what it is. A tool. But not yet. I'm having wayy to much fun ;) Besides, I believe computers are the key to my future. So I want to learn as much as possible.
     
  8. shaffaaf

    shaffaaf Regular member

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    red ones i have had and yellow ones have been fine :) though havent had any right angled yellow ones. only ones i have had to go bad are the DFI ones, which are UV orange.
     
  9. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    I don't think I have had a single right-angled one go bad yet, but I've only had one or two of them, so I don't have a very good sample size :D
     
  10. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    I have 4 right angle ones as of currently. All working good and 2 of them are actually in use as we speak :)

    The DFI cables seemed fine enough to me but I never used them. In fact, they're still in the little plastic bags...

    As far as upgrading goes I carry much the same mentality now. They are tools, each with a specific purpose. I still upgrade, but not because I have the upgrade bug. All of mine are made when it is practical to do so. In fact, I almost don't like upgrading because it means more hardware goes unused. I may have a small fleet myself someday if I'm not careful... :p
     
  11. FredBun

    FredBun Active member

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

    Estuansis, I tried looking for gigabyte sata cables, could not find any anywhere, where did you get yours, a linky if possible please.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2010
  12. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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  13. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    As far as I'm aware you can't get them separately. Their design is used in all sorts of brands you can find around, but the cables themselves, to my knowledge, only come with Gigabyte boards.
     
  14. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    I'm now wondering if my USB flash drive/printer issue, is a windows 7 issue. I was NOT printing, and inserted the Flash drive. Took it's typical 30 - 60 seconds to acknowledge the drive. Went to print later, and the data never made it to the printer. The Printer monitor just sat there waiting, like nothing was wrong. It makes me wonder, if the flash drive TOOK/overwrote the printers port numbers, or address if you will. The flash drive used to use that exact port, before the printer. Very curious.

    It should also be known, that I have 2 identical Kingston drives. BOTH of them cause the issue. And other flash drives of mine do not. The drive in question is the following drive. Perhaps I should alert either Epson or microsoft about this. I'm sure they'll want to know. Perhaps kingston as well...
    Kingston DataTraveler 112 16GB
     
  15. Red_Maw

    Red_Maw Regular member

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    Thanks for the links sam.

    I still have three red ones in use, and it's the devices they're connected to that are acting up.....probably not a coincidence lol.

    Are the round Sata cables as bad as the IDE one's?

    TIA

    remdaw
     
  16. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    OM7 - USB sticks just sometimes play silly beggars. I have a really old one that used to crash one or two PC's stone dead. No idea why, it just did. I still have the drive and it no longers does it though.

    Come to think of it, i have a brand new 4GB maxell USB stick that my kids got me, it is the slowest thing i've ever used, virtually unusable on the 2 machines i've tried it on. Note to self, i'll look into reformatting it under linux tomorrow and see if i can get it to buck it's ideas up.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2010
  17. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Omega: Which USB port are you using? If you're using the HAF's front USBs, that will crash most PCs as they are badly designed and can't take high bandwidth.
     
  18. cincyrob

    cincyrob Active member

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  19. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Yeah they don't work worth crap with full drive enclosures and especially my Centurion was picky. But my particular HAF 932 works fine with portable USB HDDs, flash drives, my 360 controller, and my Saitek X45 2-piece HOTAS flightstick. The only issue I've had is that they're upside down :p
     
  20. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    I have not had a front usb port problem, since I moved that particular board to another case. I used to have a curious restart issue, when inserting ANY flash drive in the front usb port. But that was with the GA-MA790X-UD4P. I no longer have that problem on EITHER machine. At least it hasn't happened in its new case yet ;)

    Why would it be so far fetched to believe that it could be a windows 7 issue? Windows 7 is not perfect. I like it a great deal. If it turns out that my current problems disappear when I reformat, well...I'll just have to be more vigilant next time ;)

    The first port that the flash drive seen, was one of the back ports, via an extension cord. My Canon printer now uses that cord. Whoops! I thought the problematic printer was using that same extension cord/port. So now it looks more like a flash drive issue. That's pretty friggin weird.

    I'll try some more tests either tonight or in the morning. I'll try literally every port if I have to. I will get to the bottom of this!
     
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