Author Topic: Coming up with a computer wishlist, need help - BUILT... WITH PICS! (Read 14962 times)

Pugnate · « **Reply #80 on:** Wednesday, March 07, 2007, 02:38:28 PM »

Nicely done. I like how your pics tell the story. I take it the uCode error is no more?

That monitor looks sweet.

scottws · « **Reply #81 on:** Wednesday, March 07, 2007, 03:10:26 PM »

Yeah, I took care of the uCode problem. When I used Asus' tool to update the BIOS the first time, I chose to update it from the Internet. It downloaded and flashed version 601. The current version is actually 1002. So I downloaded it and flashed it manually.

I wonder if I'll be able to overclock it at all. My RAM is DDR2 800 with 4-4-4-12 timings. I checked, and the BIOS had it set at 5-5-5-15 so I changed it to 4-4-4-12. Well, it wouldn't boot. It showed the Asus splash screen, but I couldn't access the BIOS or anything. The optical mouse's light never came on and the keyboard wouldn't respond. I had to clear the CMOS. Right now everything is set at its default except that I turned off the JMicron IDE controller.

It's weird to have a system where I used zero molex power connectors and zero IDE connectors. Everything is SATA. I wish my PSU had modular wires. I have these two absolutely huge bundles of unused wires just folded up at the bottom of my case. I wish I could remove them.

The system isn't silent, but it's a whole lot quieter than my old one. I'm really, really happy with the results.

scottws · « **Reply #82 on:** Thursday, March 08, 2007, 01:05:45 PM »

Wow, the CPU is this thing is just so much faster than my old AMD Athlon XP 2400+. It used to take 4 hours to encode a 2 hour movie with XviD. Looks like it's going to take about an hour on this machine. Nice!

Edit: Correction! 52 minutes.

[3/8/2007 2:41:01 PM] Running first pass.
[3/8/2007 3:06:41 PM] Duration was: 25 minutes 40 seconds

Pugnate · « **Reply #83 on:** Thursday, March 08, 2007, 01:24:50 PM »

haha my transition was from a 3800 and I was flabbergasted by the difference. Not only is this thrice as fast as the 2400, but can take twice the load!

scottws · « **Reply #84 on:** Thursday, March 08, 2007, 02:09:57 PM »

I just ripped a CD. The LAME encoder usually ran at 4-7x realtime on my old PC. It's running around 23x now.

Quemaqua · « **Reply #85 on:** Thursday, March 08, 2007, 06:55:49 PM »

Nice! Mine is a lot more sexy than yours, but it turns out that mine is inconvenient as all get out when it comes to the guts. Your box looks a hell of a lot more user friendly. Mine is just built oddly. Mounting HDDs is a freaking nightmare, almost as much as unmounting them. In hindsight, a giant black box with lots of room would certainly have been the better route.

scottws · « **Reply #86 on:** Thursday, March 08, 2007, 08:36:15 PM »

I didn't know you built a new computer. Are you talking about your gaming laptop you built?

Quemaqua · « **Reply #87 on:** Thursday, March 08, 2007, 10:39:10 PM »

Heh, no. This was the desktop I built to replace the laptop after it... melted.

Pugnate · « **Reply #88 on:** Friday, March 09, 2007, 05:41:47 AM »

Yea your harddrive melted right?

Quemaqua · « **Reply #89 on:** Friday, March 09, 2007, 08:24:36 AM »

Mobo. For some reason there was a single spot on the mobo that refused to cool down. It would just heat up and not cool off, so the thing would shut off after a few minutes of use. I looked into replacing it with some lesser parts so as to use less heat, but replacing the mobo would have been too expensive. It was like $700.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #90 on:** Friday, March 09, 2007, 01:06:52 PM »

Very nice. I like the clean black case.

Looks like you're ready for Stalker now... or do you not care anymore?

Pugnate · « **Reply #91 on:** Friday, March 09, 2007, 01:18:41 PM »

Well he's preordered it so I hope he cares.

sirean_syan · « **Reply #92 on:** Friday, March 09, 2007, 01:19:41 PM »

Well good then. I sorta stopped following a couple of the gaming threads so it 's easy for me to miss some of that stuff.

It's good to know that at least one of us will be able to enjoy a couple of these newer games as they should be enjoyed.

Pugnate · « **Reply #93 on:** Friday, March 09, 2007, 01:42:40 PM »

Quemaqua · « **Reply #94 on:** Saturday, March 10, 2007, 11:13:29 AM »

I hope I can. My system is still pretty good, though it's definitely aged faster than I'm comfortable with.

Pugnate · « **Reply #95 on:** Monday, April 02, 2007, 04:09:55 PM »

Hey Scottws... tomorrow is my sister's birthday so my dad and I are financing a new system for her. Wheee... don't have a huge budget though.

Am going to go with a P965 mobo. Was initially going for a G965 because it had integrated video, but just found out that only the P965 will support quadcore.

BTW Scottws, you can download a bios update that will allow you to go quadcore at a future date, so you will be able to reuse that mobo should quadcore be of any use.

Also the quadcore will go down from $999 to $520 on April 22nd.

And in August it is going down to $250, so yay.

Hey how are you enjoying your rig?

scottws · « **Reply #96 on:** Monday, April 02, 2007, 09:11:19 PM »

Dude, it's pretty awesome. Again, my favorite aspect is the quietness. Although the fast response times to virtually anything I do are welcome as well.

scottws · « **Reply #97 on:** Sunday, November 02, 2008, 03:39:29 PM »

I happened upon this thread again and tried clicking on a few of my heatsink links to see what the differences were. For some reason, due to an error on my part or a change at Newegg, one of the links took me to the 2 pair of 1GB OCZ DDR 800 RAM DIMMs with ATi heat spreaders.

What was once $209.99 is now $45.99. Man, sometimes it just sucks when you see stuff like that.

Xessive · « **Reply #98 on:** Sunday, November 02, 2008, 08:18:45 PM »

Dude, I just saw the photos of your new system as I was reading through this thread. Sweeeet! I love how sleek it looks!

News:

Author Topic: Coming up with a computer wishlist, need help - BUILT... WITH PICS! (Read 14962 times)