The 'Lets build a PC!' thread

[Fokakis79]

I heard windows 10 will be gaming friendly at least that is supposed to be a part of the announcement that is coming up soon.

[mumboking]

I have enough parts to build a working PC!
[img width=288 height=512]http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll222/mumboking/Photos/DSC_0365.jpg[/img]
I can't build it today though. Not enough space and time.

The PSU is not in the picture, as it's still packed away somewhere.

[nupoile]

I have enough parts to build a working PC!

Woot!

I was given a "super tower" when i was in high school. I always called it a server tower. I was told it had been one (or part?) of the schools servers at some point in time. By the time i got it it was already ancient.

I don't remember if it ended up getting thrown away or is still buried in a closet.
Would a 20(+?) year old tower still be useful?

Might be good for building a retro rig with Windows XP for 90s/00s games if it has decent specs for the time.

While you can get away with DOSbox for older stuff, nothing beats having a period-era PC for Win95 and old XP.  Some things just don't run right.

I really love all this PC talk.  Everybody giving specs for their rigs.  Man, it's just great to see.

I think we need to start a different thread on old PC's, showing them off and upgrading them, that would rock.





The Windows 8 thing,

I don't get the dislike for it. We've had it since it was just Windows 8, now we are on 8.1.  The complaints people had seem to be not an issue on 8.1, at least to me. Sure, the start menu is different but not annoyingly so. It's ran really smooth for us. It's certainly more well behaved than the Win 7 laptop we also use. The few games I've had issues on (it's only been a couple) seemed to be programmers fault and not Windows. Google searches have always fixed any game related hiccups quickly. I like it. I would try and dissuade anyone from choosing Win 7 over Win 8.1. The upgrade from Win 8 to 8.1 was free, it sounds like upgrading to Win 10 will be free too.

My wife uses Win 8.1 for work all day long plus for playing games, I use it for.....uh.....playing games. It's great. Stop being internet people and just like it.


 

[Fokakis79]

Thanks nupoile!

[bombatomba]

The Windows 8 thing,
I don't get the dislike for it.

I just erased about three paragraphs of bitter oaths with the intention of breaking it down to two points:

1) IT hates it because they have to deal with the fallout.  It was just too much for Joe User to swallow in one gulp, and MS knew it.
2) It should have been sold at greatly reduced cost with the intention of making the next OS free for consumers.  MS makes more than enough with fees in the commercial industry to make this happen (fees that most people wouldn't believe).  Instead they conceded more ground to their competition and raised the price of Win7.

Personally I don't care that much, as I am a functional Linux user.  The two Windows machines in my home are so because that is the COA they came with.  The only one I wouldn't change is my wife's laptop, because she would just throw the thing out the window after a few days in frustration.  Well, maybe not, but it would cost me a ton of grief getting her acclimated to the darn thing, knowing that within a few years I'd have to do it again with the next one.  Plus Windows just talks too much over the network.  Talktalktalktalk.  It's like one of those annoying people at a long checkout line who can't stop complaining how long the checkout line is.

[nupoile]

I just erased about three paragraphs of bitter oaths....

Okay, I have to admit I don't know about it from the IT side of things.

[mumboking]

I built my new PC yesterday. Took a few hours for Memtest86+ to do three passes:
[img width=512 height=288]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5VW10KIQAA31Ik.jpg:large[/img]
Yeah, this is underclocked 2133MHz RAM. It defaulted to 1600MHz 11-11-11-??-?? 1.6V, but I changed that to 1600MHz 8-8-8-24-2N 1.5V.
[img width=512 height=288]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5V5rHmCEAASsvj.jpg:large[/img]

I tested it using Ubuntu from a Live USB. I'm impressed! It handled 2160p video on YouTube rather well (I'll only use 720p normally, 1080p if full screen.).
For fun I decided to try a WebGL game called BananaBread. I first heard of it a few years ago, but it popped into my head when I was thinking of ways to test the system.
I've just tried it on this computer (using the "Hanger" map on high res) and it runs around 10fps. That's pathetic, compared to the 35+ on the new build.
According to lm-sensors on Ubuntu, it idles around 32°c and doesn't seem to go over 50°c!

Not sure when I'll actually put a hard drive in it and install Windows though... I have to clear and clean the space around where it'll live.
I also might need a new PSU for it, as it turns out that the 520W PSU I thought we had was actually a 450W PSU. I might go for a 600W-650W modular/semi-modular one.

[Fleach]

Over the Christmas holidays I ordered myself a new video card, an SSD, 8GB of RAM (nice upgrade from my 4GB),  and a new cube case.

This was the first time I built a computer; my first attempt ended in frustration and I took all the components to the local computer store to have them do the work. For the second go at building a PC I made sure I had the whole day to work. Everything was actually fairly easy. I took pictures of the old case and hardware for reference and had to text Bil a couple times with questions but other than that everything was very straight forward.

Once all the parts were in place it was the moment of truth...

[img width=700 height=933]http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o736/Fleach/-923794248_zpsny0dt41v.jpg[/img]

It works!

Then it was time to put on the finishing touches, hook up all the peripherals and admire a job well done.

[img width=700 height=758]http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o736/Fleach/2015-01-01%2019.12.07_zpsij3slhvg.png[/img]

It's so boxy. I like it!

[img width=700 height=933]http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o736/Fleach/20150101_191024_zpsw8rf4m9v.jpg[/img]


The breakdown of the new parts are: Gigabyte GTX 760 OC video card, Corsair Vengeance 8GB RAM, Corsair Air 540. The SSD is being restocked by the NCIX warehouse.

[bombatomba]

[img width=700 height=393]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c394/bombatomba77/20150110_100640_zpsknoby2lr.jpg[/img]



Okay, so it's not really mine.  At least not forever.  The salesman at work accidentally ordered one too many for a customer, and told me I could borrow it for the weekend (or so).  Pretty sure he wants it, as he has a pretty wicked virtual reality setup at his house.

[mumboking]

[img width=512 height=384]http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll222/mumboking/Photos/DSC_0515.jpg[/img]

Hmm... What's this?

Unfortunately, Ubuntu 14.04 doesn't have the drivers available in the repositories.
I could use a different way of installing them, but I don't want to do it those ways.

The funny thing is, it performs way worse with the 970 than with the on board graphics, at least without the NVidia drivers installed. The reason for that is because there's no 3D acceleration with the open source drivers it's using.

[bombatomba]

Unfortunately, Ubuntu 14.04 doesn't have the drivers available in the repositories.
I could use a different way of installing them, but I don't want to do it those ways.

The funny thing is, it perform way worse with the 970 than with the on board graphics, at least without the NVidia drivers installed. The reason fot that is because there's no 3D acceleration with the open source drivers it's using.

Doh!  Stinks that they don't have the drivers in the repo.  I've installed the drivers on the website before, but half the time I've suffered catastrophic crashes and forced to recover in command line.  This was in Linux Mint, though, and not in my current OS of choice (Manjaro).

That you don't have 3D acceleration with the Ubuntu nouveau driver is surprising.  Does anyone know if the Ubuntu driver is different than the one offered in Manjaro (i.e., the AUR)?  Mine even has a little Nvidia icon next to it, and I'm pretty sure I get acceleration with it.  Not nearly as good as the proprietary Nvidia driver, but not bad either.

[noiseredux]

woah I missed this thread when it first started. I'm a perpetual upgrader haha. Currently my build is...

i5-4690k
ASRock Z97 Xtreme3
16GB Kingston Fury HyperX Red
Zotac GTX 970

250GB Samsung EVO SSD
3TB WD HDD

all of this is in a Rosewill Blackhawk case which I added a Cooler Master EVO Hyper 212 cooler to, along w/ a Pioneer bluray drive. I've got this dual-outputting to the Acer 23" LED monitor at my desk via DVI and mirrored to my Toshiba TV at my couch via HDMI. This way I can easily switch between keyboard/mouse (WASD mechanical, Logitech G502) at my desk, or Xbox 360/Xbox One controllers on my couch.

Anyway, I love building PC's and I've actually assembled 5 or 6 in the last 2 years for myself and others. I just find the process really rewarding, and will def be glad to help out in any way I can in this thread.

[mumboking]

Doh!  Stinks that they don't have the drivers in the repo.  I've installed the drivers on the website before, but half the time I've suffered catastrophic crashes and forced to recover in command line.  This was in Linux Mint, though, and not in my current OS of choice (Manjaro).

Yeah... That's why I'd rather not install drivers through other means.

That you don't have 3D acceleration with the Ubuntu nouveau driver is surprising.  Does anyone know if the Ubuntu driver is different than the one offered in Manjaro (i.e., the AUR)?  Mine even has a little Nvidia icon next to it, and I'm pretty sure I get acceleration with it.  Not nearly as good as the proprietary Nvidia driver, but not bad either.

By default Ubuntu will use the open source video driver Nouveau for your NVIDIA graphics card. This driver lacks support for 3D acceleration and may not work with the very latest video cards or technologies from NVIDIA.

The latest driver available in the repos is 331, whereas 343 or higher is required for the 970.
lspci reports the card as "VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 13c2 (rev a1)"

[noiseredux]

oh and here's my desk:

[img width=700 height=393]http://i.imgur.com/8zlhX8J.jpg[/img]

[mumboking]

I could have just edited my post, but this doesn't hurt...

Currently my build is...

i5-4690k
ASRock Z97 Xtreme3
16GB Kingston Fury HyperX Red
Zotac GTX 970

That's similar to mine.

i5-4690K
ASUS Z79-C
8GB G.Skill
MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4G

I only have the stock cooling and a DVD burner though.