havent bought a computer from a manufacturer in years. has dell conformed to the atx standard power supply yet?

 

Got tired of chasing memory issues and occasional BSODs from one of my workstations due to RAM issues and just ordered a new 8GB RAM setup. Once again, picked from the QVL for the Asus SabertoothZ77. Hopefully this batch will be issue free.

Current two-stick 8GB passed 24 hours of MemTest, but I ran them together as they were already installed and I never had a good chance to take the machine offline...

Will run MemTest on each stick separately on the new stuff coming in.

ordered:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820104173

 

Here's a Hackintosh I built for my friend in December..




Only cost $1200 and hasn't had a single error message or hiccup

 

nice!


Wait a minute... That's not a 27 inch iMac...

 

new sticks have gone 4 days now without a single BSOD. Tested them each for an hour (2 passes) on MemTest86. Now, what to do with the 2x4GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance that may have been the cause of my heartache...??

 

Corsair V. sticks has always caused my issues. I usually stick with GSKILL now. I RMA'd my sticks back to Corsair and they send me two RAM sticks broken in half. When I call there tech support/RMA service they tried to blame it on me. Then they said OK we'd issue you a shipping label and never got one. Called again, they tried to say I did something, and then said they would send me a shipping label, still nothing. So I just threw them away lol-- never had a problem with my Corsair H100i or any other of my Corsair products until the Vengeance.

 

Wow, surprising to hear. originally I bought them based on lot's of good reviews. Unfortunately, they are over a year old and doub;t Corsair would even care at this point. I bought a set of 2x4GB and also a set of 4x8GB and the 8GB ones are doing fine in a different machine. Not sure what to do with the two Vengeance sticks... will probably stick them in a drawer with a label that they are bad.

 

Did a minor refresh on my 5-year old Core i7 computer:

- updated video card (Radeon 4870 HD --> Radeon 7770 HD) so I could run three monitors,
- updated SSD (120GB --> 240GB) so I could have more space
- updated heat sink (stock Intel --> Corsair H55 Hydro) to quiet and cool
- replaced a couple of the fans with quieter versions from the Silverstone Syscool line

Results: awesome.

Love the triple head (had to get an active DisplayPort to HDMI adapter to do it as well), it runs a lot quieter, restore of the system SSD from my Windows Server went flawlessly, and my CPU temps went from 60C at idle to 38C.

Hope that means I'll get a few more years out of this beast.

 

Well, 2 weeks later and not a single BSOD with the new RAM.

FU Corsair...

 

The G.Skill I popped in mine when I did it (I can't even remember now) has been aces. In fact, over the last few months I think I've powered down just a couple of times, and that was for some nasty storms.

 

I only use Gskill RAM these days. I've never had a problem with them.

 

I got the Kingston based on price/reviews, but will give GSkill a shot next time.

 

All about who manufactures the chips they use anyway.

 

this. GSkill all the way, never had any problems with them.

A-DATA is pretty good too.

 

For anyone in the market it looks like Crucial M500 drives are on sale. Picked up a 240GB for $109 from B&H. Decent drives for the money and I especially like the hardware encryption feature.

 

Just rebuilt my HTPC, all new components, and just ordered a new vid card today. Can't wait for it to be finished and displaying 80" of HD

 

^XBMC? You running Gotham already?

 

 

http://xbmc.org/

Very popular HTPC OS. Newest release is called gotham. I am still running eden version on the AppleTV. Not sure I need to upgrade...

 

What couch-friendly UI are you using for your HTPC?

And I actually have a few questions for you PC guys...

I've been gaming (CS:GO) lately and the iMac just isn't cutting it. While I get over 100FPS the 60hz 27" IPS panel just isn't what I need. So I've been looking to build a cheapish gaming machine that will net me over 200FPS and I'll pickup a 144hz Asus 24" monitor.

So I asked all my buddies if they had any old hardware they'd be willing to sell. Sure enough one of my old friends has an i7 920, an Asus P6T Deluxe, and 12GB triple channel DDR3 1600 that he isn't using and is willing to give me. Score.

So I have three questions. *Note I'd build around the donated cpu/board/memory with the intention of upgrading those three components later.

1) I've been looking at the 770GTX. Do you think the older i7 920 will bottleneck that too much? Note, the board is PCI e2 and the that GPU is PCI e3.

2) i7 920 and a 770GTX. What PSU should I be looking at? GPU says 600 minimum. So what wattage and what brand? I've been reading the EVGA are good? 850 watts?

3) Any small but awesome cases you'd recommend? I've been looking at the Corsair units...

 

gotchya, I had looked into that a while ago, but couldn't remember what it was called. I may have to throw that on my HTPC, I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate on it.

 

An i7 should be plenty to start on, especially with 12 GB of RAM, the PCI 2 will clock you down a bit, but if you plan to upgrade the board in the future, get the vid card you want, so you don't have to buy twice, and see how it performs. As for PSU's, I'm a huge fan of thermaltakes, they've served me quite well, my buddy likes Kingwins. As for cases, it depends on how small you're looking for. I got an awesome thermaltake case for my HTPC, but recently got an Ultra gaming case for my dad's build and was quite impressed with the quality.

 

I HIGHLY recommend XBMC.

Once you get that setup and perfect nothing else even comes close.

And thanks for the tips.

 

Well the cheapo board that came with the barebones that I bought to rebuild the HTPC doesn't power the CPU I put on it, so I ordered an Asus to replace it. Oh well, at least the whole thing was cheap

 

So I rebuilt my HTPC again last night, hopefully for the last time. Swapped the crappy underpowered gigabyte board that came with a barebones bundle that I bought a while back out for an Asus micro-ATX and it powers my FX-4170 quad core at 4.22 GHz instead of the 2.8 I was getting from the stupid gigabyte board. Snapped a couple quick pics, nothing special, also grabbed a pic of my new 3 GB DDR5 Saphire video card, going to use the HDMI Audio to plug into my basement surround sound and projector/80" screen

The case
IMG_20130613_234847_zps977bc1fc.jpg

New board
IMG_20140611_203925_zpsgvybzqtn.jpg

New card
IMG_20140611_203932_zpsuktvt5ts.jpg

 

oops forgot about this thread last night.

picked up that crucial 256gb SSD deal from slick deals.. but forgot i dont have any way to mount it in my case

 

Why such a video card for a HTPC? Emulators?

 

Mainly just wanted the HDMI Audio, but since I needed a new vid card, figured I would buy something good. Plus it was on sale

 

Ahh there ya go.

 

That thing is huge!

 

My HTPC is a Mac Mini Server

 

I have my ssd just sitting on the bottom of my case.......no big deal

 

There's no room on the bottom of mine. Too many cables.

 

That's what she said

 

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...View&rrindex=1

 

 

Ohh I know of them and they're cheap. Just wanted to install it last night before I get lazy.

 

Mine has been sitting in the package for a month and a half, I hear ya

 

Mine is an Apple TV and a Chromecast.