What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

  • Thread starter tlowr4
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Good idea going with the z77 mobo, great upgradeability there. Samsung SSD's are meant to be good too, and you went with a decent size too. I made the mistake of going with a 30gig drive for my boot drive and it filled up fast even when I was putting programs in my HDD.

Edit: I remember Pakos story now, and yeah I would suggest going with at least 120gig
 
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DQuaN
Finally placed an order for an upgrade. :)

Cost was a major issue but I've gone with a Z77 mobo so I can upgrade in the future.



3rd Generation Intel® Core i3 3220 3.3GHz Socket LGA1155

Corsair Vengeance Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

MSI Z77A-G41 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) Motherboard

Novatech PowerStation Gaming 600W Silent ATX2 Modular Power Supply

Samsung 830 Series 64GB Sold State Hard Drive

I already have a gaming case, data drives and a GTX570 to go in.

Thoughts?
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If you can squeeze a few more $$$ for your build, I would highly suggest a larger OS drive. Unless you really like data management, even 64gb will fill up faster than you think. I only say this because I thought my 60gb would be big enough, then surely my 80gb would be large enough. Well, my OS drive is now a 240gb SSD which allows me to spend more time doing what I need to do, and less time figuring what I can delete or move around to make room on my system drive.

Just a thought. :)
 
^ Very true, I bought a 120gb ssd thinking it would do me fine for OS and most programs and I am now having to be careful when installing programs as it is quickly filling up.
Heres some suggestions as I don't think that 60gb ssd will be big enough.
128gb Sandisk £60 Sandisk 128gb SSD
240gb OCZ Agility 3 £115 Agility 3 240gb
 
Thanks for the tips guys. Unfortunately the order is already on it's way so no turning back now.

Pako, I already do lots of data management. It's an old habit from when I built my first XP machine with a 10GB data drive! :lol:

All documents, pictures, music, games, data and most programs will be on different drives.
 
shmogt
I only got this cause it was $100 off on sale for one day. New it would be bad but again not my computer and used for tiny work so should be fine which using Gmail and chrome it is fine. If you have literally any suggestions of an i3 computer for $300-330 or close please tell me. Right now I'm debating buying more ram so it has 8gb. The crashing is what I'm most worried a bit tho.
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Don't bother upgrading the memory. It sounds like the Asus software is slowing the processor down(That is uninstallable but check for other laptops before you do that).

I was a bit wrong in my last post. Sorry. So far I've found this laptop. Quad core CPU and in new condition. You would have to see if it's in any local stores. The only laptop I saw with an i3 just outside your budget is this one.
 
nick09
Don't bother upgrading the memory. It sounds like the Asus software is slowing the processor down(That is uninstallable but check for other laptops before you do that).

I was a bit wrong in my last post. Sorry. So far I've found this laptop. Quad core CPU and in new condition. You would have to see if it's in any local stores. The only laptop I saw with an i3 just outside your budget is this one.
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Thanks I wouldn't of thought of Walmart. For bestbuy its pretty good deal for price but refurbished I'm always worried it started as a lemon, they fixed the problem that broke but who knows what else wasn't installed right. Main problem is these with tax are gonna end up being like $100 more than the crap one I bought. I stopped all the dumb Asus programs from starting on login and it helped a bit. Turns out there is a performance mode which now allows me to play 480p videos at full screen without issues lol.

In terms of crashing I was doing a avg anti virus check in I assume the slow mode and that's when it crashed. Maybe it wasn't powerful enough to handle it due to the slow mode or a avg codec was wrong, I don't know. I used it a lot to help me install Ubuntu on a old computer I have and it didnt crash so maybe it's ok. Main thing I'm thinking is does it really matter if it can play HD video when obviously my grandma will never be doing? The cheapness of it is what is making me try to justify keeping it lol.
 
bergauk
Created a Powerline Network in my home for my gaming PC which was at the other end of the house and had terrible wifi connection. Went with this kit. http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?categoryid=1658&model=TL-PA411KIT It supports QoS and has ridiculously high transfer speeds. I'll be testing out everything in a bit to see what it's like for gaming. Should be a massive improvement over wifi though.
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Nice I got a different brand but exactly the same specs because my ps3 can't pick up wifi. My router is in the top corner of the house and the ps3 is literally in the opposite corner of the basement. Would like to know how they worked out for you. Mine do work even tho its so far but it's not super consistent and data speeds are far below a true wired connection.
 
Even though the case has 'cable management', it looks pretty messy! There are a lot of cables tucked round the back though so it could be worse!

img1328nv.jpg
 
Doesn't help the fact that the hard drives are pointed towards the motherboard. Back 7-10 years ago you had to worry about thick IDE cables getting in the way.
 
shmogt
Nice I got a different brand but exactly the same specs because my ps3 can't pick up wifi. My router is in the top corner of the house and the ps3 is literally in the opposite corner of the basement. Would like to know how they worked out for you. Mine do work even tho its so far but it's not super consistent and data speeds are far below a true wired connection.
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So far in artificial tests it shows to have relatively low ping, and in real world gaming I'm getting the most stable experience I've ever had. I used to have 38 ping in League of Legends with wifi, I still get it with Power Line.
 
bergauk
So far in artificial tests it shows to have relatively low ping, and in real world gaming I'm getting the most stable experience I've ever had. I used to have 38 ping in League of Legends with wifi, I still get it with Power Line.
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Ya I found the same. It is somewhat slow but not noticeable in actual use. It says 500mbps max and I'm getting about 11mbps. My max download Internet is 25mbps anyway so roughly half is decent. Wifi was 1-3mbps.
 
Well tonight I setup and configured my NAS box using an old P4@3.2ghz and 4x2TB hard drives in a raidz which is basically a JABOD raid but software driven. With 8TB total HD space, I have 5.4 TB of actual usable storage with the rest used for parity files for redundancy. I am using FreeNAS for this and it is AWESOME! What a great piece of software. Not only does it support multiple types of RAID configurations, it also provides services for Apple, Unix and Windows shares, user and group security policies, email warning and maintenance reporting, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring and tests, and a whole host of other useful protocols.
 
Yesterday I installed a printer driver on my brother's computer so he can print wireless to the printer and then I dusted my laptop out. Temperatures pretty much dropped 20F after that.
 
shmogt
Ya I found the same. It is somewhat slow but not noticeable in actual use. It says 500mbps max and I'm getting about 11mbps. My max download Internet is 25mbps anyway so roughly half is decent. Wifi was 1-3mbps.
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Well, I'm getting 1:1 ratios on my speed. It was 12Mbps Down and 1.5Mbps Up on wifi, and it still is. There was something wrong with my wireless card though as it would routinely drop connections all the time. So having that same speed and stability is great.
 
Oh right. I bought a casecom 6788 for £30 and I wish I had gone for a higher quality one.

It has cable management holes but there aren't enough, and the room behind the motherboard tray is like half a cm so I can barely fit any cables behind there.

Edit: In the past few days I have: Upgraded my GPU to a GTX660Ti by Gigabyte
Upgraded my ram to 12 gigs.
Changed the terrible fan in the front of my case to one that can be hooked up to my fan controller, aswell as changing the airflow in my case abit.
Installed a few games, Far cry 3, Black ops 2, and soon to be Assassins creed 3. Far Cry 3 looks absolutely stunning.
 
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Took my water cooling loop apart, replaced the hoses, took apart the CPU heatblock, cleaned everything, added new hose and coolant.
 
Grayfox
Took my water cooling loop apart, replaced the hoses, took apart the CPU heatblock, cleaned everything, added new hose and coolant.
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I've been putting this off for a long time. Holding out for components to just die and force me to do it :lol:
 
I just got my new case, the NZXT Switch 810, I'm about to transfer my computer into it, make sure I didn't break it in the proccess, and then watercool it. I've already got my 360 rad in the top with the fans all ready, just need to wait for my tubing and a few adaptor fittings because my pump doesn't use G 1/4 threads unfortutunately.

Edit: Its all in, after a scary moment when I turned it on and the fans span for a moment, then stopped, and nothing else happened. But I changed the 4 pin extension from the one that came with the case (it was actually an 8 pin extension) and changed it to an ugly, non sleeved version and thank goodness it worked.
 
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Well, I changed the POS 2.80 Celeron on a really old laptop I got for free to a 3GHz P4, got rid of unnecessary programs and files, updated it and defragmented the HDD. When the 2 1GB memories I ordered get here it should run fine, at least for everyday tasks.

Kudos to Toronado for helping me with some advice.
 
Well I haven't done anything yet because I don't know how but i plan on figuring out how to get my s video port to work on my ubuntu computer. Right now it only outputs black & white and the screen constantly scrolls non stop.
 

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