The Computer Thread

@Shaggy: I was responding to your claim that nobody needs more than a 1080p screen; do you see a claim that such resolutions require a Mac? There wasn't one. With the exception of the super-high-res 15" laptop screen they just launched, every resolution available on a Mac is available on a PC to my knowledge. Heck, I have one of the older, DVI-port 1920x1200 Cinema Displays hooked up to a Windows 7 machine at work. It's pretty nice.

On the DNS Changer virus thing, it is a big deal even over here. We got the advisory from the FBI saying that machines with it (servers, etc) are getting the plug pulled, and if your system is affected you may end up losing your data and access to the internet. So check. (which I am going to do as soon as this is posted)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/07/06/tech-dns-changer-virus.html

http://www.cbronline.com/news/fbi-warns-computers-with-dns-virus-will-be-blocked-from-internet-050712

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170393/Malware-meltdown-Heres-avoid-losing-internet-Monday.html

And here is a site that will tell you if you are affected.

http://www.dns-ok.ca/

Which, thankfully, I am not. Woooot.

Meanwhile, more on Apple.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/07/apple-pulls-out-of-epeat-green-registration/

which means even the hippies will start hating them.

edited 8th Jul '12 9:33:51 AM by TamH70

I'm a hippie, and I already hate them.

I thought so. I'm pretty much expecting to do some gaming, but I mostly play older games or games that have (relatively) low requirements.

There's a number of laptops you can get for about that price point, but don't expect eye-dropping graphics or quality materials. It'll feel cheap, and it won't run high-end stuff. It will have a warranty, and it will be new, though.

So starting from scratch with about a $400 (Or Less) budget to build a Gaming PC, Where should I start?

Noted that the budget does not include the Monitor, Speakers, Mouse or Keyboard since those can either a: Be gotten cheaply or B: Can be gotten later.

edited 10th Jul '12 6:20:13 PM by stevebat

A good monitor is almost $100, but okay.

Go with:

• i3 2100 ($90 at Micro Center)
• ASRock Pro4 ATX ($70 at Micro Center)
• 4 GB RAM ($20 anywhere)
• Cooler Master Gladiator 600 Case ($50 at Micro Center)
• Inland Gold Series ILG-400-2 400 Watt ATX Power Supply ($22 at Micro Center)
• XFX Radeon 6850 ($120 at Newegg).
• Insert hard drive here

$372 total, without tax. Can play Skyrim on ultra.

Add $100 for the operating system. Unless you pirate Windows.

Add $100 for the monitor.

edited 11th Jul '12 1:25:52 AM by Shaggy

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You'd go out of your way to acquire Windows?

I mean, I've heard of Pox Parties, but this is ridiculous.

Windows isn't a virus, it's just necessary to game.

You get your copy of Windows, download it, then download 7 Loader within thirty days.

edited 10th Jul '12 7:00:56 PM by Shaggy

I forgot to mention that I have a copy of windows 7 lying around (College has it's benefits, Microsoft's student goodies program is one of them)

Making my i7 build seem positively overkill.

Case arrived today, so the missus and I will be doing the physical part tonight, except hard drive. We'll fire it up and see if BIOS recognizes everything withough issue. Then we can tackly swapping her laptop's Windows 7 hard drive into it (I have two 2.5inch drive caddies so it's not a problem) and have fun reloading pretty much every single driver. But since I hear that Windows 7 has wonderful driver support, shouldn't be too bad.

Then it's migrate the Minecraft Server to that and run it.

Then I inherit a drive-less old laptop to do crazy stuff with. Might play with Linux for a bit, or Backtrack...

You have yourself a very good computer for very cheap! Congratulations!

i7 is overkill, unless you're running a Minecraft server. I'd say Lubuntu or Mint Linux, those are my favorite distros.

edited 11th Jul '12 12:48:54 AM by Shaggy

Linkies?

Bestbuy, Walmart, Target, they're all over the place.

So we slapped the hardware together - the case is a Thermaltake V3 Black, includes a 440-watt power supply (which we may upgrade if we run a high-end video card later on). The Asus Rampage II Extreme mobo dropped and screwed in without a problem. Dropped in the i7, ensured that the top of the chip was sparkling clean by rubbing it down with isopropyl and a lint-free cloth (twice), and mounted the stock i7 heatsink and fan (comes with thermal grease already pre-applied. Then, because the mobo didn't come with documentation (used), I had to look up where to plug in all the case front connectors for power, power light, HDD light and reset button. The rest was simple. Slapped in 16GB of RAM, slapped in my ancient ATI Radeon 9250 video card into the SINGLE PCI slot, and that was it for the time being.

Drug it over to our monitor, plugged in an old PS/2 keyboard I had lying around, and fired it up. YAY, BIOS works. BIOS has a temp monitor for the processor, sat around 37 Celsius for about ten minutes straight. Of course, the Processor is pretty much doing nothing at this point - no hard drive containing programs and any of that mess.

Powered down after sifting through BIOS for awhile (lots of options to tweak stuff in there), and found out that I don't have any SATA cables, and only a single IDE 40-pin cable.

CRAAAAAAAAAAP. Also, I lack really small Torx bits to get the unwanted 2.5 drive out of the drive caddy. The caddy allows you to slap a 2.5 drive into a 3.5 drive bay slot. Beefy, probably acts as a heat sink as well.

So, trip to Walmart. No cables, no Torx bits smaller than T10, which is the smallest I have anwyay. Probably needs a T8 or something like that.

The missus is going to run to Bestbuy to scrounge for a SATA cable and some small bits. Probably will tackly swapping out the hard drive herself, including installing the thing and firing it up. I'll probably come home to her gaming on it already - provided that the video card supports her game...

This thing will be running a Minecraft Server, so I'm not upset at having to buy an i7 processor.

Alright I need some tech support. I've been using a borrowed Windows7 computer for the past few months. And I will be returning the computer to it's owner soon. But before i do that I need erase the history of my activities.

I already know how to delete the search history, and I found a command line( del What i need to know is there a way to clear the information stored in windows Drop Down lists;preferably all at once.

Ccleaner - http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

Hijack This - http://www.filehippo.com/download_hijackthis/

Also run every anti-virus and anti-trojan program you have installed a few times just to make sure that you get any nasties that you may have picked up.

Ignore anyone telling you to use Evidence Eliminator. It is shit and it costs a lot of money as well.

Well, I got my new desktop cobbled together. Apparently, Windows 7 does not play nice-nice with the ancient Radeon 9250 chipset, so it's just a 'default PCI adapter' right now.

Also, and more concerning, is that it only sees 4GB of the 16GB I have installed - four 2GB sticks, and two 4GB sticks. Going to play with slot combos to see if that clears it up, might use only the four 2GB sticks.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/radeon-prer300-xp.aspx

try that and see if you can get your 9520 running properly.

Also if you are running 32-bit versions of Windows 7, you may never get your System Properties dialog to show all that memory. The most it officially supports is 4Gb, and you won't even get to play with that as around 750Mb is taken up by the Windows 7 installation itself.

64 bit. And we're buying a new card today, so it's not a big deal - Asus motherboards appear to be rather finnicky. I'll have a chance to play with combinations tonight.

Remember when Apple withdrew from that EPEAT recycling standard?

They reversed their position on it. http://mashable.com/2012/07/13/apple-backs-down-on-environmental-standard/

Good for them.

Nah. It is a u-turn of an unpopular policy by an increasingly unpopular company. I would have more respect for Apple if they had stuck to their guns.

I'm starting to get rather unsatisfied with my desktop and laptop's respective levels of performance, and I'm considering learning how to build my own PC.

Problem is, I don't really have any real-world resources to learn from, and I don't really feel comfortable making such a sizable investment based primarily on things I learned from the Internet.

the thing I'm mostly trying to do is get reliable knowledge of what each component of a PC does, and how to put one together that won't combust when I turn it on.

Tom's Hardware Guide is a good primer for the pc builder.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/

it has massive amounts of reviews, comparisons and how-to-build articles.

http://pcpartpicker.com/ is neat, too, and I used that in researching for an i5 build (that obviously didn't happen, due to a free motherboard locking me into only i7 processors, lol). There was another guide someone posted up here, a visual aid tiered in budget ranges. So you can pick a budget, say, 500 bucks, and it lists stuff that supports that tier of build. Shop around, and you can get parts under their default price points, saving money.

, — I use this on a regular basis.

@ptvnum 11 — If you use four sticks of memory, they all have to be identical.

Well, that limits me to either buying more than four sticks at once, or using either 2 4GB sticks or 4 2GB sticks. Either way, only 8GB. Previous owner of mobo sais he got it to run 12 with the RAM he gave me. I'll play around with it. Sounds like 8 is easily done, but getting the last 4 will by finnicky.