The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

That is a good test but simple games like Fairway Solitaire, I think that is the one I use that I got from Reflexive, also work well and are very quick tests.

 

Thus my repeated upgrades to cooling. No guarantee, as anything can go south when OCing, but still a little extra insurance. Heat has so far been a non-issue since I moved to the UD5 board with the more capable cooler. *knock on wood*

Yeah no kidding. I haven't found a perfect stability test yet. Prime can only tell you so much, and IBT is hilariously unrealistic. I use Prime95 as a guidline, and my long-term test is practical usage. If it never gives me issues during operation, I'd call that stable. A few days of folding/SETI is also usually an effective gauge.

 

I would think if it makes it through SETI all would be good, that is some serious data crunching, unlike Prime95.

 

It's done 24+ hours of SETI unattended at this configuration. The biggest difference between something real-world and something like Prime95 is how they use memory. Prime puts more stress on the memory in certain ways than SETI or Folding@Home do, so SETI and Folding are much better real-world stability tests, especially for my gaming oriented machine. Gaming doesn't put extremely heavy load on the memory either, and doesn't produce near as much stress as SETI OR Prime95.

Also doesn't hurt that this cooler is comically overpowered...

 

Absolutely ;P

 

Galaxy S2 4G Touch continues to impress as a dedicated portable computer sans phone fucntionality. Also, it runs Windows XP quite well, except only generic built-in Nvidia video drivers. Enough where it's not choppy, but not enough to render video or boot 3D games. Runs direct draw quite well though. Had Diablo II booted and playing smoothly, though not very well given the controls available. Curiously, the ethernet drivers are available and can be sideloaded during the OS install. Still a useless interface without some sort of onscreen trackpad though for obvious reasons. Will be giving a format of Windows 7 a try and see how it does.

Installing desktop OS's works fine as long as you fiddle with them enough. Biggest technical concern they create is battery life. They weren't written very efficiently and sit there draining the battery at a hilarious rate just idling. In contrast, I can flash my backed up Android OS Ice Cream Sandwich image, and get well over a day of hardcore usage out of it. 720P movies, 3D and 2D video games, emulating Gameboy/GBA to play Pokemon(which it does quite a lot in lieu of a dead cartridge battery on my original), emulating PS1/N64 at full speed to play 3D games, reading ebooks, music, youtube, you name it. Turning off the cellphone radio in the unit, increases its battery life and performance greatly. Easily triple the standby time, and almost 50% more usage time on a single charge. Accomplished by an app that enables Airplane Mode but leaves the Wi-Fi radio active. Completely shuts off the cell service radio, which uses more battery than normal constantly searching for a nonexistent signal.

Really interesting and highly configurable machines! These are NOT the proprietary consumer electronics I grew up with. I'm doing some research into the possibility of loading a copy of Windows 8 Phone onto it, if the hardware can be supported. Would be an interesting experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo0gCljjEL4

I think full-monty Windows 8 would be too much for my device, small screen and all. Windows 8 Phone would be perfectly suited though, and can run lots of desktop software with some hacking and fiddling.


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My recent cooling upgrades on the main rig seem to have achieved the positive pressure I was looking for. Drastically more powerful fans did the trick. Currently has a fraction the dust build-up it did before. Really noticeable and needs much less cleaning. I smoke next to this PC a couple hours a day. Window open, but still it does create a cleaning nightmare, as unless I'm keeping an eye on it, the PC just sucks up every bit of smoke through the side intake. That doesn't happen anymore due to the positive pressure, so hopefully this change will help cut down on the sticky tar residue stuff develops well. Not a proud habit

Only thing in the PC that showed even a minor puff of dust when blasted was the radiator. All radiators are dust magnets so not surprising... just have to be detailed when blowing it out to make sure it doesn't start building up.

 

hey guys throw me some ideas out there on a new PC Monitors my Samsung 2493 HM is about ready to bit the dust, considering a 27" want to keep the res high ,this one is 1920x1200, thanks, looks like Asus or Samsung are the way to go

 

Dell U2412M any good?

 

its takes 5 or more mins to boot up when starting my machine and the blue light is flashing very fast.

looking at this ?

ASUS VE278H Black 27"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236295

229.00 209.00 after rebate Tiger Direct

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5552037

 

Yes, your monitor is going out on you. It could be caps but more likely it is the biasing transformers which you could maybe fix but would it be worth spending the time and money? Probably not...

Those are low res monitors this is what you might want to think about:

HP ZR2740W 27" LED IPS Monitor (2560 x 1440)

AURIA EQ276W 27" WQHD IPS LED Monitor (2560 x 1440)

 

that Auria reviews are all over the place , I'm sure its a great monitor though,but you can't find one. looking at the ASUS PB278Q in that res too ?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...OPT54bokL0CFcRi7AodsWsAIw&Q=&is=REG&A=details

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=225-4015

has anyone seen this one? ASUS VE278H Black 27" 1920x1080 for the price it looks good but just not sure i would be happy with the res after have this Samsung at 1920x1200 or maybe i couldn't tell the difference?

 

I have the Auria and it is great the only bad review that is valid is the glossy screen can be bad for glare if you are facing a window but for myself that isn't an issue. A personally won't buy a 27" monitor that is only 1080, for a 24" fine.

 

Indeed. I go any larger, I'll prefer a larger resolution as well. 24" 1200P is fine. But 27" borders on the necessity for larger resolution, in my opinion. At least on my desktop

 

24" 1080p is already quite low - the 'proper' resolution at that size would be 1920x1200. At 27" 1920x1200 is definitely on the low side, 1080p is basically HDTV-style pixel density, and not something I'd want to work close to.
On the other hand, 2560x1440 27" displays are a higher pixel density and very nice to work with, well worth the extra cost.

 

Good info guys yeah I think I will stick with the higher res on the 27" and go with the Asus or Auria if I can find one the Asus I can for sure,if i get an different video card with HDMI will there be a quality difference between that and a DVI connection?

 

G

 

It would be nice if 16x10 monitors (1920x1200) were more common but unfortunately they are less and less as the smaller formats 16x9's (1920x1080) are more prevalent. In a 27" at 2560x1440 the larger 16x10 format would be 2560x1600.

ZoSoIV, I think at the moment MicroCenter is the only place you can get the AURIA unfortunately but that may have changed recently. I most definitely will be getting another one as I'm going to run DUAL screen 27's for my office CAD/ADOBE machine.

HDMI is the lowest resolution transfer as DVI's and DisplayPort's are the higher resolutions output by video cards. If you go to NewEgg and checkout the spec's you'll see what I'm talking about.

March Madness is starting sooooooon...