The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Thought RARE was the way to eat a Steak
My self I don't buy name brands as your paying for the name. But I do shop Quality
Bought a Fisher VHS Player once, do to the fact I was pleased with other things I bought with the Fisher name, couple months later needed another VHS Player, took a chance on a Daewoo from Walmart. Well the Daewoo turned out to be the same insides as the Fisher, just a cheaper looking housing, Identical remotes is how I discovered that, Remotes worked both machines, so I took them apart [Yep identical on the inside]. From that point on I shopped around a little harder. Same thing with HDDs, Bought an Iomega external 1Tera for 79 bucks turned out to be a WD HDD, was I pleased, Well anyway the housing failed on the unit, TECH Support told me that HDD is probably OK. I get the new one just Take the HDD OUT OF THE FAILED CASE and try it, well it worked,the HDD was OK. they sent me another one it turned out to be a Seagate inside, another one turned out to be a Samsung...All had the Iomega housing only ..So ya really just buyin a PIG IN A POLK now a days. Look at the labels made in HONG KONG, TAIWAN, MEXICO,Western Digital are made in Malaysa . So if your lookin for a new girlfriend or wife ya better shop around, Don't forget to look under her hood to check her label. WARRANTY IS IMPORTANT Also

 

Iomega don't make their own HDDs, so finding a WD inside the enclosure was obvious. I tend to stay away from generic stuff however, as typically only cheaper brands are rebranded. Better brands often prove a little more reliable than the tacky stuff, but not always.
Most HDDs are not made in China or Taiwan, Malaysia is one of a few countries they are made in, though I believe some Seagates are produced in Taiwan.
Dell ultrasharp monitors, at least the ones in the UK, are produced in the Czech republic and Hungary. Core electronics (motherboards, CPUs, graphics cards, cases, PSUs) are almost universally produced in China and Taiwan. The former due to cheap labour (usually a sign of cheap manufacture),the latter due to it being the home company of almost all of the companies involved (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, DFI, Biostar, GeIL, G-Skill, Thermaltake, Thermalright, Coolermaster, FSP (PSU OEM found in OCZ units) and Seasonic) just to name a few.

 

I think russ may be referring to this scoop

Dell Employees New About Faulty Computers

 

Sam,
You can google a lot more than this. This was only released a month or so ago!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/technology/29dell.html?pagewanted=all

http://arstechnica.com/business/new...-dell-shipped-12-million-faulty-computers.ars

I think it was funny that Dell computers belonging to the Law Firm that was defending them in the suit, were failing, and Dell balked at fixing them! LOL!!

Russ

 

Even if this story is truly accurate, 3 years is still a lot longer than a lot of third party motherboards from companies like Asus last.

 

Sam, what happened to your last asus boards? I still have one Asus board 9yrs old. I was considering getting an Asus next time. Since the Haf932 keeps things pretty cool, that should add to any Mobos life My MSI and my Asus are still the smoothest boards I've owned to date. Can you elaborate your Asus difficulties?

 

A8N-SLI SE: Systematic failure of onboard devices. Initial faults 4 months, final failure 6 months.
A8R-MVP: Failed POST/PCI express controller, 16 months.
P5N-E SLI: Chipset failure, 9 months.
Maximus II Formula: Stability problems with all BIOS revisions and default settings, 6 months.
Radeon HD3870: Faulty DirectX interactions, from new. Retired from use (partly due to this fault) at 4 months.

Not to mention I know other people with dead P5N-E SLI boards, and about 3 separate people who had as many as 6 Striker / Striker II boards, which all failed in 4 months or less. The people I told to stick the Striker boards and move to Gigabyte P35 boards, never looked back
Some are still using old Gigabyte 965 boards long after all the Asus ones are dead. About the only Asus board still in use amongst my friends is a Rampage Formula. It's not that old, so we'll see how long it lasts.

 

Wow. I'd say that goes a bit beyond bad luck then.
I'll stick with what works. And so far, I've only had one bad MSI, and no bad Gigabyte boards. And I've purchased a total of 4 Gigabyte boards

 

The only MSIs I've had, one lasted the usable lifetime of the system (4 3/4 years), the other survived a PSU apocalypse, but the system was replaced early due to the need for a new, guaranteed reliable PC for university.

 

i have had 2 bad GBs, one was doa. A doa asus P5N-E.

working i have had a P5K-E(P35) working still, over 2 years its been now and a rampage 2 formula, and while i had it it worked perfectly fine, till i sld it to sam.

and now a P45 DFI i have had for over a year working fine.

hate the bios on the DFI i have, can't wait to back to asus tbh. Probably keep this system till next gen cards and sandybridge/bulldozer.


PS the P5Ns were nvidia chipsets as were all the striker mobos.

 

It was a Maximus II, not a Ramapage, and if I remember rightly, you gave it to me in february, having only bought it around november? it was first unstable in april, fault diagnosed for RMA at the end of may.

The P5Ns and Strikers were indeed nvidia chipset boards. However, whilst all nforce chipsets are doomed to premature failure, many people had XFX and EVGA versions of the boards. They all lasted 2-3 years before going bad. Very rarely did the Asus versions last more than that in months. Asus were equally to blame for the Strikers' dire reputation as nvidia. Knowingly selling bad designs (of which the P5N-E SLI was the worst) is why Asus and nvidia are in my bad books. Most companies have accidentally made lemons from time to time, but normally they realise what they've done and correct for it. The fact that boards from mid 2006 through to late 2008 were failing suggests Asus simply don't give a damn, pumping out boards whether they're likely to last or not. The P5K series seem a bit more reliable than most Asus boards, but are not free from criticism as huge swathes of the boards were bricked due to bad BIOSes.

 

love to see facts and figures for that.

 

After a year of use, my 30GB Vertex SSD was not big enough for an OS drive loaded with all my programs.
I stumbled on and purchased a new 50GB Vertex2 SSD which better suits my needs. I now have increased storage and speed, but I have an extra 30GB drive I don't need. What should I do with it? What would you do with an extra drive like this?

 

Why not combine them to be 80Gb Raid? JBOD

 

you could always send it to me.

 

Google, not difficult

I wouldn't ever combine mismatched SSDs in RAID, especially since TRIM with it is still a bit dodgy. If you have another PC that would benefit from an SSD do that, otherwise to be honest you're better off selling it.

 

I agree with both points but was looking for an excuse NOT to sell it. My wife wouldnt tell the difference if i slapped it in her laptop, and she can't be bothered to pay attention to the 30GB limit even though I setup a network folder for her to save all her important data to my media server. Truth of the matter is, i was too eager to try new toys and jumped at this a year ago without thinking it through to this point. Same reason I don't need it anymore is the same reason none of my friends that are curious want to purchase it...

 

ahem!

 

Sam, I would connect them both in raid. But I wouldn't need to rely on it either Multiple reliable drives *knocking on wood* Sure wish I had money to play with. WITHOUT dipping in to my pension LOL! Though I may be doing that to purchase a replacement vehicle Which is fine. I have no interest in staying with the company!

 

Thanks again for the 70 x 70 x 15 Foxconn fan russ. I'll be trying that badboy out tonight
Thankfully, I just bought a couple of these badboys:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812201009
I don't have any other kind of adapter that would support a fans 4 pin. And I just discovered 3, 3 pin to molex adapters I forgot I had. I was rummaging around looking for something and came across those. I love it when I find stuff I forgot about
Not sure whether I'll run it full power, or hook it to the mobo, under smart control yet. I guess that depends on how noisy it is at full steam

Wow! You're right russ. This fan should be virtually inaudible in the case. I plugged it into one of my appropriate 12V converters, and tested it. Its extremely quiet, and moves considerable air