The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Deadrum33,

This one is a real odd-ball. It's about the size of a carton of cigarettes, but not quite as long. Best price I found for an aftermarket so far is $81 + Tax & Shipping. This one is only 5 years old!

Russ

 

I'll vouch for that. For a time, I ran the wd1001FALS as a boot drive. Major difference compared to the AAKS/AAKB drive. I currently use the AAKB along with a 250Gb deskstar. It actually does ok as a boot drive. But the only application that generally runs on that machine is BD rebuilder. Sometimes I'll run Nero vision or Convert X though So it's not too mucked up with useless softwares LOL!

Russ, I would not call THIS GX270 a mini tower. It's about as big as my secondary is. My secondary is a Mid tower. Decent size.

 

The Dell's hard drive is approaching the end of it's usefulness. I had to run chkdsk /r in order to put the blue screen to rest LOL! It found errors and fixed them. I wonder how much time the drive has. I informed my buddy about it. Looks pretty old. I'd estimate around 2003.

 

ddp,
This one lights the power light when you plug in the AC power. no blown caps either! The CPU and Power fans do not run. nothing makes a sound. No blown caps either. Dell calls it a GX270 Small Form factor Desktop. Here's a pic!



Note the squirel cage blower that sucks air through the heatsink on the CPU, and the funny looking PSU on the right side of the pic!

My faithful 160GB Seagate has finally bought the farm. I went to boot up the computer the other day, and it booted up fine, but all the desktop access file information is corrupted, so it won't let you access anything. Click on any icon and the hourglass just sit's there and runs. Except for Firefox, which everybody seems to have a problem with right now. I tried the new, 3.4 and 3.5, so I'm forced to use IE (which Sucks) until Mozilla sorts out the problem. Maybe I'll give Google Chrome a try!

Russ

 

ddp,
No I didn't. It's not wprth pulling apart. I can replaace the whole computer for about $70. It's not worth my time or effort!

BTW! AD is not letting me reply to a post, only from the Reply box. At the bottom of the posts, there is only Report!
Russ

 

Oh! There is a Reply button at the end of my posts though!

R

 

I forgot to mention that I was using Internet Destroyer (IE)! Once I got SP3 installed, firefox is working OK again! Had me scared. Everything is working fine now, as long as I don't use Everest, which puts some strange noises in the sound. No glitches to be found anywhere. The only bummer is I need to save up for a new Boot Drive. The 250 works OK, bur I would prefer to leave it split 50-50, and I do like three drives for DVDRB/CCE. One for the system/DVDRB software, one for the Work Folder, and one for the output Folder. No more acting sluggish like it was doing before!

Russ

 

Yah, Multiple drives are definitely good with rebuilder. At the very least, I use C:\ for the obvious program, X:\ for the source Y:\ for the working and then back to X:\ for the output. Yes, I work the crap out of X:\ drive LOL! It is the youngest of my WD1001FALS drives Most the time though, I have 4 drives in the process. Program, source, working, and output. Really depends...

I finally noted something about a bug going on. I've wondered about my Velociraptor having a bad connection. I believe I just ruled that out. I just witnessed 2 times now, that the main C:\(velociraptor) lags at exact 15min intervals. Which suggests that I have malware on my system. Because I'm unaware of any windows processes that behave in this fashion. Besides, I shut processes like that off. I've been streaming a lot of netflix videos. Which is where I first noticed the lag. I noticed at the lag, that the hard drive would make a very busy sound, for a brief moment. It happens at exact 15min intervals. And since it happens while playing games on other sites, it rules out netflix/silverlight. Guess I'll be running a check before beddy bye LOL! Gotta love deductive logical reasoning XD

 

I'm sure glad the PC motherboards aren't like PS3 motherboards. In that I mean the ribbon cable interfaces. Man are those clips fragile! I was being gentle, and the darn thing broke. I stripped a PS3 down completely, and could not find anything visually wrong with it(aside from a trivial burnt area). My guess is the GPU is dead. No video signal, and the system won't run for more than a second or two. It's preventing startup. I've heard $ony repairs consoles for cheaper than new cost. I'll probably take that route.

That broken clip sure makes me thankful for IDE connections, and Sata!

 

LOL Sony consoles are a nightmare to work on hardware-wise. Very familiar with their fetish for easily broken parts.

 

The comparable Gigabyte board is out of stock, and I need a board for a computer I'm rebuilding for somebody. The Asus has a 3 yr warranty. The MSI has only 1yr. I'm curious what you guys would do?
Linky

 

I'd probably say the MSI. You're more likely to lose more in RMAs with the Asus over those three years than you are just throwing the MSI away if it breaks after a year.

 

I can't condemn Asus forever LOL! You think they won't change indefinitely? It should be noted, that the guy buying this system is a casual user, not an enthusiast. So the board isn't gonna be super stressed. Though the guy does want to play the forthcoming "Driver: San Francisco".

Looks like the gigabyte version is becoming scarce too Everybody but ebay seems to be sold out! And amazon is too expensive!

 

Oman7,

Hands down this is the better of the three by a wide margin. It's the best selling motherboard GigaByte makes! It won't be out of stock long, and it's more often then not on sale. Mine was on sale for $59! It's the best low cost AMD board on the planet! Great Motherboard!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394

Russ

 

THat's the board I want, but it's discouraging paying more for it, when I just seen it going for 69.99 shipped before the weekend! No wonder they're sold out LOL! I guess I can tell the guy to be patient. Perhaps they'll get more in today or tomorrow. They are hot sellers apparently.

Or i'll simply buy the one on ebay that I saw. Not sure if there's a warranty though Wonder if gigabyte would honor the warranty of an ebay sold used board.

 

I bought a supposed new board on ebay. The one we've talking about: GA-MA785GM-US2H.

Russ, thank you for changing my mind. I had to pay 79.99shipped, but it really is worth it. I'll just tell the guy it's gonna cost a little more for it than I thought xD

 

Oman7,

GigaByte doesn't care where you bought it. They go strictly by the Serial Number. The only exception would be if you bought a Motherboard that was old from a retailer. It's the only time that they will ask to see the invoice for it, and Gigabyte will honor it!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Thanks for the info russ. And the guy doesn't mind paying a little more. He's anxious to play with it LOL!