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The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by ddp, Sep 13, 2010.

Page 31 of 399
  1. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Wow red. So Green technology is definitely recommended for you guys ;) Or perhaps running your equipment off of 220V ;)
     
    omegaman7, Nov 3, 2010
    #601
  2. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    Well...so much for the late MSI board in my HTPC. The Northbridge is going haywire now. Sometimes it'll run for hours, and other times it won't make it more than a minute. Pretty weird. I've even had it freeze on the Countdown screen:
    [​IMG]
    I've eliminated the reset switch from the equation. It's not a problem. The Ram has been tested more than one way. It passes. The processor...obviously that's pretty unlikely. It's never seen overclocking, and frankly, processors generally don't know how to fail :p
    Though it does happen...
    It really is a shame the board can't overclock too. If I could over-volt the NB/Chip, I might actually stabilize it. At least til it ultimately fails ;) Ahh well. I'm currently looking at a replacement board. Such a shame that AM3+ boards aren't being released yet. But the one I'm looking at will probably support 6 core phenom, so that'll have to do.
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2010
    omegaman7, Nov 6, 2010
    #602
  3. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Try running off a linux live cd for a while, to elimate Windows being the culprit maybe...
     
    creaky, Nov 6, 2010
    #603
  4. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    I don't think so. See, it doesn't freeze at 0 seconds, it froze at 11sec last night. BEFORE the hard drive would have received the signal to boot ;)
     
    omegaman7, Nov 6, 2010
    #604
  5. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Dunno, it's always worth a try. Though it's probably a rogue BIOS setting. From overclocking maybe ?. I don't bother with such things, my old and trusty Q6600 runs Seti@Home/Milkyway@home the whole time it's powered up, no resources found wanting so need for any overclocking here.

    Come to think of it my main works linux box (i have a few now), which is a C2D E2180, runs Seti@Home/Milkyway@home 24/7, the machine has an uptime of 101 days now, it has excellent (and silent) cooling. It's a Dell Vostro 200, nice little machines.
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2010
    creaky, Nov 6, 2010
    #605
  6. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    That board doesn't overclock at all. I believe sam is correct. Faulty Nvidia chipset. Which is apparently typical...
     
    omegaman7, Nov 6, 2010
    #606
  7. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Very typical :p
     
    sammorris, Nov 6, 2010
    #607
  8. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    The GA-MA785GM-US2H is what I've decided on. It will support my AM2 Athlon 5200+ 89W Windsor. It will support DDR2 Kingston HyperX 6400 (800Mhz) Ram. Other than the absence of Usb 3.0, the board should serve me/us for years to come. *knocking on wood*
     
    omegaman7, Nov 7, 2010
    #608
  9. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    theonejrs, Nov 7, 2010
    #609
  10. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    That's the board I decided on russ. It all around looks great. The onboard graphics are probably better than the HTPC's current Geforce 210 too...

    Why does the UK and most of that continent start/end daylight savings differently than say the U.S.? I believe you guys switched a week ago. And in march you started 2 weeks after us. Kind of strange LOL!
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2010
    omegaman7, Nov 7, 2010
    #610
  11. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Hehe, what's to say the US doesn't change DST differently to us :).
    Luckily in linux time changes are a doddle, and clock changes 'just happen' as we use 'NTP' to control changes. However me monitoring various remote branches in foreign timezones presents a slight problem, though using the TZ command i found a way to basically cater for any changes in timezones anywhere, automatically (i have a script that runs in UK's office hours, that monitors whether remote branches lose connectivity to us, and catering for all the various convoluted and staggered timezone changes was a tad tricky, 'til i figured out i could manipulate the output of TZ such that the script stops monitoring branches once they're out of office hours their time). How happy am i :).

    Anyways, i'm going great guns at filling the various 2TB drives here, still need a few more, am still very pleased with the WD20EARS drives. At some point in the coming months i think i'll be needing to swap out the 500GB boot drive and replace with a 2TB. I know that kind of thing is frowned upon, though i don't see any problems personally, and more importantly i don't take much heed of others re the size of boot drives, it's just a.n.other disc to me, no different from any data drives.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2010
    creaky, Nov 7, 2010
    #611
  12. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    LOL! Sorry to come across that way. You're absolutely correct. Perhaps it simply has something to do with the axis of the earth. Iceland for instance does not observe DST ;)

    My WD20EARS is still performing well. I just did its first defragmentation the other day. Can't wait to buy some more 2Tb drives. I've only used over one quarter of the first drive :D

    I used a WD1001FALS drive for boot. It performed extremely well. It blew the 5000AAKB drive out of the water ;)
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2010
    omegaman7, Nov 7, 2010
    #612
  13. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    5400rpm drives are really slow as boot drives, trust me. If you're going to buy something that big for your OS, unless you're willing to sacrifice speed you'll want the 2TB Caviar Black, and they're pretty pricey.
     
    sammorris, Nov 7, 2010
    #613
  14. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Yeah, i don't mind paying a bit more for a boot drive. The Black isn't too steep actually, it's £112 exc VAT at Misco at the moment. I'll continue replacing the other 500GB drives for now, it'll be a few months before i'm in a position to need to swap out the boot drive anyways, i have enough spare space across all other drives to juggle data around 'til then (plus i'll have a few more 2TB drives in by then which eases the juggling until the final data moves are needed). I can just use a WD20EARS for an external backup of the boot drive, or i suppose i can just use a few of the spare 500GB drives to back that up, the data on there will be fairly static anyways which means juggling a few 500GB drives isn't too inconvenient, or more than likely i'll just be done with it and plump for a WD20EARS as they're so cheap.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2010
    creaky, Nov 7, 2010
    #614
  15. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    omega, blame bush 2 for the later time change as "supposedly" it was to save oil. right & another pink cow flew by. some of our provinces or parts of don't do the change at all.
     
    ddp, Nov 7, 2010
    #615
  16. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Well £112 + VAT as opposed to £59+VAT like the Green drives, it is practically double :p
     
    sammorris, Nov 7, 2010
    #616
  17. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Indeed, but i don't pay VAT or shipping, plus it's still cheaper than the most expensive hard drive i ever bought, a cavernous 8GB drive i paid £120 for (and drove for hours to get!) back in the mid 90's :eek:
     
    creaky, Nov 7, 2010
    #617
  18. omegaman7

    omegaman7 Senior member

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    I think I'll stick with the green drives for now. I haven't had the problems that other reviewers have had. Either I got lucky, or most of those reviewers don't know what they're doing. Mine has been running for nearly 2 months straight, with zero issues. And at half the price, it's a no brainer.
    Looks like the WD2001FASS is getting almost equally negative reviews. I find this rather curious. I suppose the WD1001FALS was questionable at the start though too...
     
    omegaman7, Nov 7, 2010
    #618
  19. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Haha, 8GB would probably have been late 90s. The 13GB in my PC we bought new in 1999 was about as big as they got.
     
    sammorris, Nov 7, 2010
    #619
  20. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    theonejrs, Nov 10, 2010
    #620
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