PC Discussion Thread - All PC related in here.

[echo1 0]

It is a very good drive, unless you have experience with that particular drive, I'd recommend the Samsung one, if they're the same price, you might as well get the one with more capacity. And if you don't might spending a bit extra, the Samsung F1 is better (750GB/1TB)

320GB is fine hehe, it's all I want. Seagate has priority though, as I like their drives and the supplier is right 300m from my place hehe.

I don't know about you, but I always find that my data somehow expands to fill the hard disk it is on. Then again, if you have your heart set on it, fair enough

Just got myself a new keyboard today; one of these. Its a modernized version of those old "clicky" IBM Model M keyboards. If anyone is looking for a real good keyboard, I heartily recommend it. They're bloody noisy though >.>

[kmossco 9]

It is a very good drive, unless you have experience with that particular drive, I'd recommend the Samsung one, if they're the same price, you might as well get the one with more capacity. And if you don't might spending a bit extra, the Samsung F1 is better (750GB/1TB)

320GB is fine hehe, it's all I want. Seagate has priority though, as I like their drives and the supplier is right 300m from my place hehe.

I don't know about you, but I always find that my data somehow expands to fill the hard disk it is on. Then again, if you have your heart set on it, fair enough

Just got myself a new keyboard today; one of these. Its a modernized version of those old "clicky" IBM Model M keyboards. If anyone is looking for a real good keyboard, I heartily recommend it. They're bloody noisy though >.>

I already have an external 500GB Western Digital HDD and a 100GB HDD in my old laptop. So it reaches already almost the 1TB mark lol. 320 is plenty enough for the use my PC will have.

Btw I hate those keyboards, but that's because I am used to laptop ones and hate the "bold" ones. I have my eyes on Logitech's Ultra-Flat Keyboard, and others alike.

EDIT: There is Speed-Link Verso Slim keyboard too.

[Murtok 0]

...I will post again and let you guys in on how it goes Tuesday.

Two days late but I am back with a sitrep.

I'll recap on my new stuff:

Asus P5N-D

Intel Q6600

VisionTek 4870

The P5N-D's BIOS is almost the same as the P5N32-E's. Overclock ability is about the same, perhaps better. On the up side, it does feel a bit quicker on reboots and cold starts as well as applying BIOS changes. On the down side, the Nividia 750i NB is too hot. I don't have a laser temp probe but my guess is it's in the 70-80*C range. I've never had a NB that was too hot to touch, which happens to be the case here. I can read the NB from the BIOS (50*C) but it reaches far higher temps after mounting a disk and running 3D. Fortunately for me, Asus sends a NB fan with the mobo. Although, instructions indicate that the fan is only to be used in a water cooling scenario (claims airflow will disrupt CPU fan's ability to function properly), I said screw it. I tossed the fan on and watched the temps like a hawk. The NB now runs at an acceptable 42*C and I'd guess 55*C under load. Not too much I can say about the Q6600 that hasn't already been said. I am on air cooling at the moment just for burn-in purposes. As soon as I can get some more 3/8" tubing, I'll be mounting my modified Zaleman Resorator and proceed oc'ing. I am aiming for 3 GHz, at least. That shouldn't be much of a problem since I lucked up and New Egg sent me a G0 model.

The 4870's stability is rock solid. Very little to no tearing and puts life back into old textures (or maybe it's just me). I did run into one issue. While crawling through ATI's Catalyst controls, I checked the temp on the card. +70*C!?! Under no load? Perhaps this card was designed to operate at such temperatures but my Moma taught me that 70 is too high, regardless. Alas, this one was an easy fix. After creating an ATI profile, one can navigate to an .xml file (Vista: "Users\User\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles"), open it with a text editor and change the fan control values from automatic to manual and set the desired speed to about 40%, then active the profile. Anything over 40% makes the card sound like a hairdryer. Card temps are down to 45*C at idle and top out at 60*C under load. After which, I oc'd the ram to 1000 MHz and the core to 600 MHz with no noticeable temperature change.

I normally play Arma @ 1920x1200 w/ 2000m view distance. This setup is nice BUT at this resolution, there will be no +30fps walks in dense forest. I have “Lowplants†installed and that helps a bit, but I'm still stuck at a combination of medium, high, and very high settings. Don't get me wrong, it looks great. I only have 2 GB of memory at the moment, albeit the fastest DDR2-800 made (as far as I know) with timings at 4x3x4x9xT2. To run full settings I'd guess I'll need 4 GB of memory and another 4870. What do you guys think?

[Shashman 0]

Yeah the only bad comment I've seen made about the 4870 is its temps and power consumption, but then again, the GTX280 is no better.

Perhaps you'd consider a 3rd party VGA cooler to replace the stock one?

[Murtok 0]

Since I have an A/C window unit the extra noise from the increased fan speed has gone unnoticed, so far. As long as the stock fan continues to perform under modified parameters, I see no need for a 3rd party solution. Who knows, the fan might die at an early age since its now running almost twice its normal speed... I'll let you guys know if it craps out; though, I don't really foresee that happening within a few years.

[billybob2002 0]

Hmm, I like my new setup. On the CS:S video stress test, I get 229 fps with everything on max. Not bad considering I used to get like 9 fps with everything on the lowest setting. Too bad my eyes can only see 30 fps....

[Shadow NX 1]

Little update on my stuff, PC still not working, just reiceived my Gigabyte mainboard and Corsair Dominator ram to find out  i need to buy even more things... :/

Old CPU cooler wont fit new bord so i need to get a new one for AM2+ boards and the best thing is the ram slots are so close to the cpu that things get problematic and the fact that the Corsair Dominators have long fins on top that make the modules even higher dont really help there

Board info

Picture of Board

Pic of Rams

Any ideas?

I was thinking of giving the Zalman CNPS9500A LED a try but i have a feeling that it still is too wide and will conflict with the high rams.

Link to info

Can i move the ram to slot 2 & 3 and still get dual channel working?

I read about that but isnt the colouring of the slots because you should always place two modules in the same colour to get it work at full power?

Or should i simply just use the red slots with two rams for now?

Btw, i know i was told that the ram wont work with that cpu but after 7 other people told me the opposite i was thinking i give it a try at least.

From what i gathered the combo should work but the cpu will limit the gain from the 1066Mhz Rams a lot.

However if i upgrade in the future then at least i dont need to exchange rams.

[echo1 0]

Btw, i know i was told that the ram wont work with that cpu but after 7 other people told me the opposite i was thinking i give it a try at least.

From what i gathered the combo should work but the cpu will limit the gain from the 1066Mhz Rams a lot.

Do you mean trying your old Athlon 64 with the new motherboard? They use a diferent socket to AM2 (the Socket 939) so it won't even fit into the new motherboard...

Quote[/b] ]Can i move the ram to slot 2 & 3 and still get dual channel working?

Nope, it would have to be sockets 3 & 4, but if I recall correctly, you have to fill slots 1 & 2 first before they work. Could be worth trying though.

Quote[/b] ]Any ideas?

I was thinking of giving the Zalman CNPS9500A LED a try but i have a feeling that it still is too wide and will conflict with the high rams.

If you need a third party fan, I've seen this one recommended in several places. Then again, the stock AMD AM2 cooler is pretty good (admittedly it was one being used with a Sempron I put into someone's PC, but it was damn quiet, even when it was on its faster speed) so unless youre doing a lot of overclocking, I'd try out the fan that comes with the CPU before spending money on a fan you may not need.

[Shadow NX 1]

Athlon 64s are on the support list for the board and afaik the AM2+ sockets can fit everything from Athlon64s to Phenoms.

About the Fan, yes heard good things bout Scythe but also looks bit thick around the waist for what i need

Would take a stock AMD one for now if i had one but when i ordered my PC few years ago it came with a Thermaltake Golden Orb cooler instead of the original one... and the Orb wont fit to the new mounting.

[echo1 0]

Athlon 64s are on the support list for the board and afaik the AM2+ sockets can fit everything from Athlon64s to Phenoms.

Your new board would support socket AM2 Athlon 64s. If your old board used DDR1 RAM, then your Athlon 64 is of the Socket 939 variety (there were never any Socket 939 chips that supported DDR2, or AM2 CPUs that supported DDR1, the whole point of AMD introducing the new socket was to bring in support for DDR2). Socket 939 is incompatible with Socket AM2, there are different pin layouts as well as the RAM issue. If you have seen anywhere that specifically states that they have got a Socket 939 in a Socket AM2 board, I'd love to see, it would be news to me.

[Shadow NX 1]

Right now it all makes sense, darn, you should have mentioned the sockets earlier.

Offcourse, the late Athlon 64 came in 939 and AM2 variants and my old K8N neo4 was a 939...

[Lepardi 0]

Hmm, I like my new setup. On the CS:S video stress test, I get 229 fps with everything on max. Not bad considering I used to get like 9 fps with everything on the lowest setting. Too bad my eyes can only see 30 fps....

Your eyes can see well over 70.

[MehMan 0]

Can anybody help me setup a remote desktop connection?

I've got this kind of a setup:

modem -> router(1.1) -> wireless router(11.1) -> me

the regular router has no port blocking, but the wireless does, but I enabled port forwarding for some ports for use with tightvnc, but that didn't work. the wireless connection is also using a WPA connection, but that shouldn't matter as I'm making a VPN straight to my PC and not anything else. At work I'm having problems trying to connect to my PC so I could do some modding when I get some slack time. Any help? Using remote desktop or tightvnc is an option.

EDIT:

no wait, I had to telnet to my wireless using a backdoor to find out the admin pass that my bro set. Now I've got the port forwarding setup correctly.

[billybob2002 0]

Hmm, I like my new setup. On the CS:S video stress test, I get 229 fps with everything on max. Not bad considering I used to get like 9 fps with everything on the lowest setting. Too bad my eyes can only see 30 fps....

Your eyes can see well over 70.

Damn! I always though it was 30 for some reason. Anyways, I was able to overclock my E7200 to 3.1 ghz using the stock cooler. Not too bad.

[echo1 0]

I have seen 30 or 60 as the limit in varying places. The absolute limit of what your monitor relays is equal to its refresh rate. A 60Hz monitor can support up to 60 FPS, a 75Hz monitor up to 75FPS and so on. Of course, when a benchmark is calculating average FPS, it counts what the computer is outputting, not necessarily what you are actually seeing on your screen.

[Shadow NX 1]

Just another lil question, i know that AMD tried to fix the TLB bug by introducing the B3 stepping on the Phenoms with 9x50 marking.

I also know that most Mainboard manufacturers added a fix from AMD to their Mainboards that acts as workaround for the TLB bug on older Phenoms, however that seemed to create quite a loss in performance differing on certain aplications.

So my question is if i have a mainboard that has the workaround included and use a Phenom with B3 stepping will the performance still be affected because the workaround is active or  will the board automaticly not use it when a B3 version is used?

Didnt found a answer to that one so far.

--EDIT--

Seems all mainboards with the fix should have a option for it in the bios settings, one less problem then.

But will take a while to find out because the last missing bit for my setup is the cpu and my wallet has a hole from all the other things i exchanged before... :/

And while were at it, should i worry about the very high power demand of the late Phenoms like the X9850?

I installed the Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 550W and i wonder if that will be enough with a hungry phenom and a HD4870 that both are quite demanding...

[echo1 0]

ShadowNX:

Check this out. If its around about 500W or less you should have no problems.

(Unrelated)

Yesterday I acquired a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB disk, the one I and a few others have been recommending as the drive to get recently on this thread. My last drive, a T166 500GB Samsung drive is being sold to a relative who needs more hard drive space. I havent used it that much, but it's extraordinarily fast, even compared to the last generation model. It is able to load up Windows in about 5-10 seconds (I copied over my previous installation of Windows rather than reinstall, although a lack of fragmentation could explain it), it's also rather snippier in games and the like. I think it might be slightly louder than its predecessor, but its still a really quiet disk compared to other models.

Getting it to work wasn't so much fun - my motherboard (an Abit AV8) has a first gen SATA controller (a VIA 8237R to be specific) that doesn't get along well with newer drives. I tried downloading the utility from Samsung's support site to change to 1.5Gbps mode, but this had no effect. To cut a long story short, I searched the internet for a long while and found someone who accidentally discovered that Samsung's software has a bug in it, and you actually have to select the 1.5Gbps -> 3Gbps mode as opposed to the 3Gbps -> 1.5Gbps mode. The software is located here. Note that this is not relevant to 99% of computers made within the past two or three years - I tried this disk out on two other computers without any problems, I just posted it here in case anyone has the same problems as me and is looking for a fix.

[Infam0us 10]

Hi, quick question ... how hard do you have to pull those pins out of your Hardrive to make it a slave. I've pulled them so hard with tweezers the end snapped off (Thankgod it was a practise one! Is there an easy way to get them to come off that I'm not getting?

[echo1 0]

That is rather odd, any time I have had to remove one of those, I did it with my finger nails. The only reason they'd give resistance is if they got stuck somehow.

[Shadow NX 1]

ShadowNX:

Check this out. If its around about 500W or less you should have no problems.

(Unrelated)

Yesterday I acquired a Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB disk, the one I and a few others have been recommending as the drive to get recently on this thread. My last drive, a T166 500GB Samsung drive is being sold to a relative who needs more hard drive space. I havent used it that much, but it's extraordinarily fast, even compared to the last generation model. It is able to load up Windows in about 5-10 seconds (I copied over my previous installation of Windows rather than reinstall, although a lack of fragmentation could explain it), it's also rather snippier in games and the like. I think it might be slightly louder than its predecessor, but its still a really quiet disk compared to other models.

Getting it to work wasn't so much fun - my motherboard (an Abit AV8) has a first gen SATA controller (a VIA 8237R to be specific) that doesn't get along well with newer drives. I tried downloading the utility from Samsung's support site to change to 1.5Gbps mode, but this had no effect. To cut a long story short, I searched the internet for a long while and found someone who accidentally discovered that Samsung's software has a bug in it, and you actually have to select the 1.5Gbps -> 3Gbps mode as opposed to the 3Gbps -> 1.5Gbps mode. The software is located here. Note that this is not relevant to 99% of computers made within the past two or three years - I tried this disk out on two other computers without any problems, I just posted it here in case anyone has the same problems as me and is looking for a fix.

Thanks a lot for the help mate... once more

Judging by the calculator it is as i feared and the planned Phenom 9850 will cause a need of over 100 watts more than the PSU has.

Damn you AMD!  

Time to sell something on ebay i guess...

Sucks as i really liked the Be Quiet PSU because it really is close to not heareable.

---EDIT---

Dont be as stupid as Shadow kids and choose four socket CPU ( thinking they meant four cores ) and thus get extremely high results...

With one socket CPU selected the needed watts are pretty low, phew.

[MehMan 0]

Well a month has passed and the money is in, first thing I ordered is a nice big 22" screen, Samsung 2253BW, I've read some reviews, although short they offer a bit of insight and it sounds awsome. Now with a starting capital I can start planning what to build, so I could sure use some recommendations. I haven't done much more thinking since the last time but I do have some framework:

-motherboard: help needed. Something with two PCI slots. Or at least one.

-CPU: Q6600 range at least, but a quad for sure. Anything better in that price range? +50€ at most.

-GFX card: HD4870 perhaps, or 4850. 9800s don't look too pricey and look pretty good for their buck. Yay or nay?

-RAM: I'm clueless here, I'd just need some 4gigs at least, something that leaves room for furter upgrades. Are the 2 gig sticks ok?

-HDD: prolly a 500gig one, not sure which one. No clue here either. WD is still good right?

-PSU: err, I guess around 600W should be more than enough for this and further upgrades. Anything special to look out for?

-Cooling: any good fans to suggest? Or nice zalmans? something that's really silent. Currently I have to keep the PC open and the fans at max revs and it doesn't keep it nearly cool enough and it sounds like a jet engine. So I could really use something silent.

-Case: well, anything here.

Also another question regarding cooling of the PC: ok the front sucks air in, the the CPU fan, what is best, that it blows air in, or it blows air out?

[Lepardi 0]

Well a month has passed and the money is in, first thing I ordered is a nice big 22" screen, Samsung 2253BW, I've read some reviews, although short they offer a bit of insight and it sounds awsome. Now with a starting capital I can start planning what to build, so I could sure use some recommendations. I haven't done much more thinking since the last time but I do have some framework:

-motherboard: help needed. Something with two PCI slots. Or at least one.

-CPU: Q6600 range at least, but a quad for sure. Anything better in that price range? +50€ at most.

-GFX card: HD4870 perhaps, or 4850. 9800s don't look too pricey and look pretty good for their buck. Yay or nay?

-RAM: I'm clueless here, I'd just need some 4gigs at least, something that leaves room for furter upgrades. Are the 2 gig sticks ok?

-HDD: prolly a 500gig one, not sure which one. No clue here either. WD is still good right?

-PSU: err, I guess around 600W should be more than enough for this and further upgrades. Anything special to look out for?

-Cooling: any good fans to suggest? Or nice zalmans? something that's really silent. Currently I have to keep the PC open and the fans at max revs and it doesn't keep it nearly cool enough and it sounds like a jet engine. So I could really use something silent.

-Case: well, anything here.

Also another question regarding cooling of the PC: ok the front sucks air in, the the CPU fan, what is best, that it blows air in, or it blows air out?

Case Antec P182, has excellent cooling by default.

PSU Corsair HX520, for HDD a WD 640GB or T166 500GB would be good.

RAM doesn't matter that much just get 4GB of some 800MHz sticks with at least 5-5-5-15 latency.

Motherboard I'd suggest an Asus P5Q Pro, CPU is good if you overclock it, not so sure what cooler would be the best for it.

For GFX card definitely a HD 4870, or if on a tight budget then a 4850.

[Deadfast 43]

Get something with P45 chipset. I have MicroStar P45 NEO2-FR with the same configuration (Q6600, HD4870, 2x 2GB Kingston) and I have no problem with it.

Fan? The stock fan on Q6600 is good enough for start (OC'd to 3GHz, temp under 45C)

If you want something quiet the fan on the 4870 is gonna be the problem.

If you wish to OC the card but yet keep it cool the fan's gonna be really noisy.

[echo1 0]

-motherboard: help needed. Something with two PCI slots. Or at least one.

Motherboard: If you want something really cheap but quite fast, I'd recommend the Gigabyte P31-DS3L. If you want to spend a bit extra though, I'd recommend upping to Gigabyte's EP45-DS3L which has Intel's P45 chipset as opposed to the lower end P31 unit of the first board.

-CPU: Q6600 range at least, but a quad for sure. Anything better in that price range? +50€ at most.

-GFX card: HD4870 perhaps, or 4850. 9800s don't look too pricey and look pretty good for their buck. Yay or nay?

-RAM: I'm clueless here, I'd just need some 4gigs at least, something that leaves room for furter upgrades. Are the 2 gig sticks ok?

-HDD: prolly a 500gig one, not sure which one. No clue here either. WD is still good right?

-PSU: err, I guess around 600W should be more than enough for this and further upgrades. Anything special to look out for?

-Cooling: any good fans to suggest? Or nice zalmans? something that's really silent. Currently I have to keep the PC open and the fans at max revs and it doesn't keep it nearly cool enough and it sounds like a jet engine. So I could really use something silent.

-Case: well, anything here.

Also another question regarding cooling of the PC: ok the front sucks air in, the the CPU fan, what is best, that it blows air in, or it blows air out?

Ok,

CPU - Q6600 is the best to get in that category. With Intel's new chips just around the corner, spending more money on CPUs that will soon be outclassed is pointless.

GFX - Yay for the HD4870.

RAM - Bare in mind that if you are using Windows XP or Vista 32 bit, only about 3GB of the 4GB will be usable. If you intend on sticking to 32 bit operating systems, and you desperately need to shave down the price of your system, 2GB would suffice. That said, if you do get 4GB, it wont cause any problems, and it will be good future proofing for future versions of Windows etc.

HDD - Samsung's Spinpoint F1 1TB is the best at the moment. If you want something cheaper, their T166 500GB model is also a good choice, and is something like half the price of the 1TB model.

PSU - You need to ensure you get a good reliable PSU from a good reliable company. A good one in the 600W region is Corsair's HX620. If you are thinking of another model, please ask about it here before you get it, there's nothing worse than a bad PSU!.

Cooling - A good case will solve a lot of your cooling woes. I'm not sure what the stock fans that come with the Q6600s are like, but if they are not sufficient, an Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7, or a Zalman cooler would do the job. Zalman also make GPU coolers if your HD4870's fan is too hot. Im not sure if they have a model that specifically supports the HD4870 yet.

Case - My standard answer here is the Antec P180. However, there are plenty of good cases out there. I'd suggest reading into it.

@ShadowNX:

Bequiet have bigger PSUs, I do believe they make a 850W model. Does wherever you bought the 550W one sell that too?

[MehMan 0]

Hurr, I think I found a part of the problem with my shitty cooling. The CPU fan was blowing in, not out, shitty setup. dust and all, testing with a closed case now and the temp is lower than with the open one. Still high though, 60°C. But I'm testing it decoding video and audio. Might throw in a render so I can see how it chokes.