The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Rich, should be under settings. Look to the right under messages. I have 6566 posts to the discussion forums.

 

Kevin, you're a genius!!

I'm at 12, this will make 13 - soon to 25. LOL

Blaze - the explanation and the solution are brilliant. (Scary - remove the heat spreader - really? But you say it's easy, so I'll believe you.)

But when you say "not a design flaw - done deliberately", you didn't really explain. Why in heaven would Intel to do this to the Ivy Bridge? I mean, what did they have to gain by using the paste instead of the fluxless solder.

Rich

 

I wouldn't say genius in this case. I'm simply familiar with the site You're welcome

 

Finally Kevin, you jumped in and saved me from the double. Much appreciated information.

Well, here's post 14 - but who's counting?



Sam, you need to go see a chiropractor - probably some pinched nerves within the vertebra. What I have found out about chiropractors is 1. it works, and 2. you need a strong person to adequately crack the back.

I have a guy I see - I was going once a month, then that fell off to once each two months, then I didn't go for 3 years, lol. Then I went back 8 months ago for a few times, but not recently. I'll probably drop in next year - maybe I'll make it once each 3 months or 4 months. He's strong, and everything cracks. I had my back "go out" about 10 years ago, and he got everything working again. After everything is working, in other words after you're in pretty good alignment, you don't have to go that often to stay aligned.

Russ, what you went through with Fannie Mae is amazing - banks are being sued all over the place, according to my short sale negotiator, and they are losing. Their paperwork is in terrible disarray as you discovered. The result is that the banks have now hired auditors, and we had to go through and resubmit paperwork several times to fix the tiny things the auditors found.

Russ, that organ music was terrific! The Mighty Mo is very mellow. Regarding the singer - holy christ, Russ, do you specialize in 12 year olds who start puberty at 8, like the one you took to the 3D show?

The singing started out great, and then the camera came close - how old is that kid! "Oh, no, Rich, she's not 12, much older than that - 13 1/2." Seriously. I guess I'll have to google her. Oh for Pete's sake, she was born April of 2000, she's 12. LOL

Great!

Oh, now I get what you're talking about. I always have that unchecked - I like to see the extension - but if you change a name you better remember what type of file it was; I guess that's why they have the option.

Yes you do, not to mention sharing it with us. (Like also telling us about GREAT games we otherwise would never be aware of, like the Operation Flashpoint beauties that were VERY nice shooters indeed.)

Haha. That sounds good Jeff. But I probably shouldn't get so worked up - I have a feeling that it's going to be crossfire 7950s before I can max crysis and get at least 40 fps, and then Sam says the end of the game is 1/3 the fps. So maybe I'll max the first part and just stay in the jungle, and to heck with the ice. By 2015 I'll be the only guy playing crysis for 3 years steady, who never went past the first 4 chapters.

By the way, do these mods apply to Warhead, or is that an entirely different set of mods?

Rich

 

Jeff,

Back in the day Goldstar was like American companies "Admiral" and "Emerson". All took outrageous liberties in there designs. They weren't designed to be good, they were designed be cheap. They would do things like design TVs with only 3 RF stages in them instead of the more common4, to make them cheap. The results were predictable, they had all sorts of picture and sync problems, and wouldn't stay in tune, and you were constantly adjusting the fine tuning. After it was on for a couple of hours and the operating temps had evened out they worked a lot better They were looked at by the critics of the day as junk!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I have nothing against LG. I hear good things about them. I have two BD burners. One is on the fritz(Burning, reading is 100% fine). It was early generation So I digress. The new one, I slapped a 3yr warranty on it. Not just for the warranty, but for the piece of mind. It's my luck, actually. Since I bought the warranty, I'll probably never have to use it... Which is good!

 

I don't know about with mods, but two HD6970s handled the start of Crysis pretty admirably to be honest, so HD7950s should get a lot further than the opening area before you start to get slowdown I would think.

Unable to run any tests at 2560x1600 at the moment as the PSU in my 3008WFP has died :/
Trying not to think how much an out-of-warranty repair will cost!

 

Curious. Since you bring up a Dell monitor, I have to ask. Do you ever hear it make noises? Snapping/crackling? Kind of like cooling, but perhaps not.

 

Well, whenever I switch my PCs off for the night there's all sorts of noises like those as the casings contract, monitor, PCs etc. they all do it. I wouldn't read much into that.

 

Rich,

Actually, that performance was the year before Angel, almost to the day! She was 11 in that video and 10 on AGT. Nope, I don't specialize in anything like that. I'm not even brave enough to use your "P" word on the internet. A 67 year old man talking about an 11-12 girl and the "P" word is only asking for trouble. It was that voice that captured me, and I'll warn you, she does know how to capture your heart strings

Here's where it all started for me with Jackie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d_XTvLalJk

I'll follow with a PM because this is off topic

Russ

 

Forgive me for the rather outdated and disjointed nature oft his post but there has been a flurry of activity lately. Figured I would go back and make some replies before everything loses relevance...

HAHA HOLY CRAP. Bit late on my answer here but my ISP have firmly settled on new speeds of 30Mbps/4.5mbps. I would imagine more upgrades are in stock as they are still updating hardware all over the place. They also recently ran a fiber-optic cable to my house, so that bodes well! lol. The last time I talked with a service rep I was told they are going to be making big steps with upload speeds, which should boost downloads as a matter of course.

Still, no usage limits or throttling... ever. And it's fairly cheap to boot. In contrast my previous ISP have recently made a "massive" upgrade from 1.3Mbps to 2Mbps... lol. They were more expensive too.

I'll have to agree here. Unless you get a VERY expensive set of 5.1s and have a sound card capable of proper Stereo Surround, it's hard to compare a 5.1 headset to a proper pair of stereos. The quality of the speakers suffers, as does their power and sound range due to the small size needed to squeeze them in. Not to mention cuts made due to price.

I've heard a few pairs of 5.1s that sound fantastic, but most people are so ignorant of quality sound it's hard to get a good idea of other sets without trying them myself.

Have been using the same Pair of $50 Creative Fatal1ty's for about 4 years now. Only some very minor issues with the wire breaking internally near the 3.5mm jack. Easily understandable as I only ever plug them in the back, directly into the sound card, and do quite a bit of fumbling with the wires in the process. LOL That's a very quick and easy fix thankfully. Only need to cannibalize some cheap headphones or make a stop at Radio Shack for two new 3.5mm jacks.

Worth noting is that with any multi-speaker setup, any sound card in the last decade with a Creative chip is capable of Stereo Surround. Anything without an X-Fi chip needs hacked drivers of course but they are easy to find and even easier to use. Also worth noting is that any discrete sound card at all gives massive gains in quality and power. Even an Audigy SE is capable of awesome sound. I know your luck with Audigy SE's has been far from perfect but I've used several and not had a problem... Using the oinboard after so many years is like going from a sports car to a bicycle. Sure, it works, but I'd rather just mute the sound entirely... Also, the onboard has nowhere near enough power to push my headphones. They are very quiet without my trusty old XtremeMusic.

That technology is called "Stereo Expand" and it is pure shite, plain and simple. All it really does is add an echo effect. There is really no practical way to create positional sound with a pair of stereo headphones.

I am usually split down the middle between my speakers and my headphones. Both have great sound quality. Again if you have a relatively recent discrete sound chip, you can use an effect called "Stereo Surround", which will stretch a stereo signal to every channel. On my 5.1 setup it put Channel L on both left speakers, Channel R on both rights, and mixes both channels on the center. Really really nice, that feature

Yes I have heard of them, and they are a good example of HIGH QUALITY 5.1 headphones. Unfortunately you really do need to pay a lot to surpass a cheapo pair of stereo headphones.

Hmm my current collection is 3757 songs at 45.07GB. A good half of it is lossless FLAC or APE files though which accounts for the bloated size. The same collection in only MP3s would be about half the size, give or take.

Still investigating that myself actually but they do use about 90% of the same resources so I don't see why not. Crysis Warhead does have slightly better graphics on its own though. The worst that can happen is some of the textures don't apply.

 

My Samsung didn't make noises. But, I don't read much into it

 

Well, I'm still on the last page, but a bunch of short posts is all I need to bust through "no pics, no links" newbie status, lol.

Kevin and DDP clued me in, only 25 posts, and this is post 15, but who's counting?

Russ, when you say the P word, is that Prodigy, or Proud, or Papa? I read you PM - amazing that your friends, because of your accomplished musical background, asked you to evaluate Jackie's singing.

She said she started singing at 8, but I found a youtube video, saying she was 7, in a school play. I'll find it again if you like, and on post 26 I'll link to it, lol.

All I would say, Russ, is that enthusiasm is the spark of life, and your obvious enthusiasm will keep you in the game at least to 100, so you might as well stop counting.

Rich

 

I'm a mellow, patient person. I plan to live a long time to come. Stress is a mind killer. Trust me...

 

Well put Kevin. And you're so right!

Stress - which is a form of fear - which is another word for anxiety - is future pacing ourselves - dwelling in the future of "what may be" or "the problem that awaits me." But at this immediate one second, right now, what do we have to be afraid of, or stressed about - right this one second, sitting wherever we are, reading these words. Is a lion trying to break down our door 5 feet away. If so, it was good to know you.

I'm reading a VERY interesting book, guys, The Power of Now. We all have extreme difficulty turning off that magnificent tool, the mind, which is locked into time, and identification with the mind keeps us locked into time. "We look to the past for our identity and the future for our fulfillment."

But what about now?

I think enthusiasm, like Russ' enthusiasm for the phenomenon that is occurring right now, called Jackie Evancho, is part of stopping for a second, turning off the mind, and realizing the magnificence all around us.

The book helps me put things in perspective.

(post 16 but who's counting - looks like I too am living in the future - post 26 where are you?)

Rich

 

Hey Russ.


Jeff, it's time to come up to date and answer you.

That's good information on the headphones. I have no speakers at all over where I game, so it's headphones all the way, and the Medusa's were about $150 when I bought them about 6 or 7 years ago.

In all likelihood they don't match the finest stereo speakers, but the positioning has been great - I can hear those little zombies trying to sneak around behind me - their footsteps give them away. I tried out some Bose headphones at Target a few months ago, about $125, for some other purpose, and in thinking about it now, I can't say that I noticed better sound than what I normally hear through the medusa's.

But your point is well taken - 5, or maybe 6 speakers, in each earcup, instead of 1. You would have to wonder if they can match the quality of one superb driver.

Music of course is an important part of the gaming experience, and I wrote about the enthralling music that, together with the shocking 12 story mutant carcass splayed against the opposite wall of the hospital atrium in Rage, his chocolate blood slowly oozing down the walls of the operating room across the way, held me utterly spellbound, and terrified! The visual was breathtaking in its own right, the music added that last dimension needed to raise the hair on my neck - yes I was stressed. I most certainly did think a lion was about to enter the room and gobble me up!

These are the old medusas from about 5 years ago. They seem very high quality - very large and comfortably fitting over my ears - fairly thick and sturdy wires, separate pre-amp, and full volume controls on my chest where the two headset wires come together.

I haven't played counterstrike for years, but footsteps were important. (You could force walk and turn silent.) And Left 4 Dead zombie footsteps have been important. So if the Medusas fail (I have another set but the back left speaker died) I would be likely to upgrade only to another 5.1 set.


By the way, in your opinion, would you think that I could take the other set of headphones somewhere, and have a repair tech swap out the one speaker on the left that is not working?


Regarding the iTunes library, congrats on your large number of songs. My brother has a 4,000 song library that is 25 gigs. I have that library also.

I found a very interesting thing. You can take any windows folder, go to detail view, go to View, choose details, and select all the same columns that windows assigns if they think the collection is music. That was helpful in my XP project.

But I found another interesting thing. If you open a song in notepad, you will see the song tag at the top - USUALLY. But for some newer songs, you see the song tag only after what I call the first paragraph, a blank space about 10% into the song. Windows does not read THAT song tag, but iTunes of course does.

I think that is a newer song tag position allowing people to cut off the front of a song if they don't like the intro. Of course with iTunes you can just tell it to start the song 10 seconds later, but if you were burning to a CD, cutting off the intro I guess would be the preferable way to handle it.

So, as I say, my brother gave me the big library, but so far I have only gone through and selected a sampling of 31 of the 4000. On those 31 samples, I changed the song tag composer information to Joel (my brother is Joe) which allows an iTune search for joel, and immediately retrieves the 31. That lets her know that similar songs to those are in the other library, or, that would be a way to quickly delete them if she didn't appreciate the sampling - my brother's taste in music is quite different. (So far I like the smaller library better, lol.)

Rich

 

Rich,

The Biological "P"! I probably write a dozen or so reviews a year. It's hard for them to write about something when they don't know what the music is about, and the words are no help because she's singing in Italian. "O Mio Babbino Caro" is an impassioned plea buy a young girl to her father, for the boy she loves. She was actually 8 in April, and it was May when that video was made. It's a shame about the poor video quality, because you don't get a very good look at her costume. I love the way she pulls her hat down to hide her eyes. In Texas they call that, "cute as a bug"! Just being able to remember the words at that age is quite an accomplishment. To be self determined to a lifetime career at that age, probably unprecedented. Most kids that age would quickly lose interest, and that would have been the end of it. In an interview, her father was asked when he realized she was that good. You have to love his answer, "When Sony/Columbia signed her to a contract!"

Enthusiasm indeed, is the spark of life, but you can't put more sand in the hourglass, no matter how much you would like to, or how hard you try.

So when are you going to build a new computer? You're about 4 generations behind now! I've let mine evolve, with my latest upgrade besides better video, was switching to an AM3+ motherboard and DDR3. I also added a 60GB SSD for the boot drive. My 1190T 6 core is clocked at 3.7GHz. I ran it for about a month at 4.0GHz with no problems, and below max voltage. I've managed to get it stable as high as 4.2GHz, and it will boot up at 4.3GHz now. I originally went with Cas 7 1333MHz G.Skill Ripjaws memory, as the were almost equal to the performance of the Cas 9 1600 memory. Now I see I can get 8GB (2x4GB) Cas 7 1600MHz memory with 7-8-8-24 timings for $80, that may be my next step up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231536

Got to keep up with the times! BTW, hope you liked "The Impossible Dream" video from last weekend.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hahahaha. You're almost right, but it's not quite that bad at the moment. I was gifted a Q9450 with an 8800GTX. (You're remembering my p4.)

But exciting upgrade stuff will be happening shortly. Soon I'll be picking up a 7950 - soon as in a matter of days!!!

And then it will be high time to overclock the Q9450. Then - IF - I say IF - I am still somewhat gpu bottlenecked on a title such as crysis, which I am sure I will still be gpu-bottlenecked on, I will pick up a second 7950, within maybe 45 to 60 days after the first one - the $800 is already set aside for this.

That will of course make me caught up gpu-wise, but badly cpu limited. As I already have a brand new $180 case in a box in the garage, purchased several years ago to spur me to upgrade, a second investment of $800 next year some time will bring me fairly current.

Blaze, the guy blazorthon who popped over here from Tom's hardware, where he usually hangs out, suggested to me to get a motherboard that would support 3, or even 4 graphics cards, if I wanted to try to future proof myself for a couple more years, by just adding 7950s as the need arose. That idea appeals to me - 1. they'll become cheaper and cheaper, and 2. Sam here can sure help me with quad cf from his experience with the two 4870x2 cards.

Man, that memory looks MEAN! RIPJAWS! It looks as mean as it sounds, lol.

I can't believe you don't even game with all that hardware - you and probably Stevo also, are more into movies. Well that's cool.

But we have some serious gamers on the forum. Kevin, for example, is now helping Grandma and her shotgun defend us from aliens - which is his most recent gaming upgrade from Angry Birds, lol.

It was lovely, but what I'd really like to hear her sing, is the one you talked about, Vincent (Starry Starry Night). Do you have a link?

By the way, since I added Vincent recently to my Folk Song playlist in my new iTunes library, I have heard it quite a few times, and I have started thinking it is referring to Jesus Christ. Anybody else think so?

Best regards,
Rich

 

I haven't checked that game out yet Rich. Work work work