Building a new PC

[D3luxe]

I need a new computer for college, since my current computer is starting to get pretty outdated. Here's the specs of my new PC that I'll be ordering the parts for tomorrow:

Case:


Gigabyte P45 Dxxx Mobo
Geforce GTX260 superclocked (626core/2106memory 896MB)
Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2.83GHZ) processor
630W PSU
4gb DDR3 1600mhz ram
320gb SATA drive
320gb Western Digital passport external HD (school files kept here)
1tb external HD (everything else kept here)

Should be pretty sexy
What do you guys think of it?

[Shmoo]

Seems sexy to me, but I'm not a computer-building expert, lol. Just be careful with it at college!

p.s. Do you have a laptop? b/c if you don't, you might want to get one instead.

[D3luxe]

Updated the first post, I changed the processor from the dual core e8400 to a quad core q9550..

Anyway, yeah I know I gotta be careful with it. It's not horribly expensive though and the apartment I'm in (I'm sharing it with 3 other people..) has 4 individual rooms with 4 individual locks so I'm the only one that will have a key to get in, so it should be alright.

I have an old laptop (5ish years), but I really won't be needing one. While I'm in class I'll be working on the computers in class, and for my homework the desktop will be cheaper/better than a laptop anyway.

The reason for this is because I'm going to school for Digital Animation, so it's pretty graphic intensive.

[Coldstone]

Overall its ok, the processor is quite expensive and you could take a look at the different videocards that are available.
Two things i recognised on first glance:
#1 you need DDR2 ram for this comp and probably look for a high qality PSU, even 500 is better than no name 630
#2 i would never go external drive only for important files. The drives usually get a hit every now and then so this can make them less reliable. My strategy for important data. Have the data on an internal drive and backuping it once a week or every two weeks with True Image on two external drives, one of them put away afterwards as it is only for storage. Seems a bit oversecure, but external drives dont cost that much and when you lost 2 years of important work data you will feel how hard it is.

[D3luxe]

The PSU is a Rosewill PSU..That's a good brand isn't it? I don't know much about PSU's.

As for the important files - I'm very used to that, I've had a couple die on me. I have a spare 300gb internal drive sitting here at my house that I'm gonna throw in as well, so I will have my important school files on both the external (To transfer to/from class) and on the internal drive - I should be set.

As for the RAM...I can't run DDR2. The mobo only supports DDR3. Why would I run DDR2 anyway?

[Coldstone]

You should post which Gigabyte P45 Mobo you want, as most only support DDR2 and the ones who use DDR3 are very expensive and dont really give more performance. Only the T series P45...T support DDR3 and please forget about the C series which offers both, but isnt really good at all.

Edit: and another edit, if you really wanna use DDR3 why not go for a core i7 920 and GA-EX58-UD3R which at least here doesnt cost much more than the Q9550?

[Zerrin]

Thats hot. I'd fuck it. Only thing i'd add is moar ram if you are going with vista but all in all sexy.

[Shmoo]

Originally Posted by Zerrin

Thats hot. I'd fuck it. Only thing i'd add is moar ram if you are going with vista but all in all sexy.

4 gigs is fine for vista, any more is just pointless. anyways, windows 9 is a free upgrade from vista, and I'm pretty sure it isn't as demanding as vista. idk though.

[SlashDotDash/.-]

Listen to shmoo. He's from the future. Windows 9 eh?!

[D3luxe]

Coldstone - this is the one I'm planning on getting:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP45T-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
and it's only $130 ($110 after MIR)...seems like a good enough but cheap enough mobo for what I need.
Every other mobo is around the same price for the p45 series

Its got plenty of ram..however, if I do find it's not running like it should, I can easily upgrade to 8gb. I have 2x2gb sticks going in right now, and theres 4 slots on the mobo

Lol @ shmoo and slash. Windows 7 is the upgrade, not Windows 9. And I already have the Windows 7 RC so that's what I'll be running. I run it now on my current computer (single core 2.4ghz, 2gb ram) and it runs it with ease.

[D3luxe]

I pretty much redid the whole thing..Here's the new specs

Case:


eVGA 750I Mobo
Geforce GTX 275 (633mhz, 240 cores, 2268mhz memory, 896mb memory)
Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2.83GHZ) processor
550W Coolermaster PSU
4gb Corsair DDR2 800mhz RAM
320gb SATA drive
320gb Western Digital passport external HD (school files kept here)
1tb external HD (everything else kept here)

[Shmoo]

Originally Posted by SlashDotDash/.-

Listen to shmoo. He's from the future. Windows 9 eh?!

WOOPS I meant Windows 7. lol.

[D3luxe]

After an assload of problems, the computer STILL isn't up and running yet..Argh, this is one of the more troublesome builds I've done..

First, I ran into a major overheating problem (cpu hitting 115*c)
After I fixed that, I found out that my GTX275 was DOA, it put out absolutely no video. I had to RMA that and I'm currently waiting for it to get back.

In the mean time, I have been running the PC with my old 7600GS video card in. Due to the GTX275 having such high requirements I actually had to get a different PSU too, which is a 52amp 650w Corsair PSU.

Now of course it'd be no fun if the PSU actually worked right away, would it? I put it in and everything boots up fine, but my computer has been randomly freezing up. Like completely frozen, have to hard reboot.

I've ran several tests on the ram, reinstalled windows onto a different HD, done a bunch of different tests. Nothing has fixed the crashing problem.

Now, I threw one of my old PSU's in (since I don't have the GTX275 in atm I don't need as many amps, so one of my old PSU's works fine), and look at that - no more freezing.

All in all, it has been a learning experience..I have to take my new Corsair PSU back to the store tomorrow to get it swapped out, and the GTX275 should be back Monday or Tuesday (The RMA just got to the warehouse today and was approved/ordered to be shipped out tomorrow)

Ahhhhhh

[yo1mcool]

I feel your pain.

When I built my pc (which was my first time), I put everything in and put it together.. then realized that the damn aftermarket heatsink had a back plate. So I took EVERYTHING out again, then of course I find out it didn't fit anyway, so I had to RMA/return that.

It took me like half a week to figure out where all the cords from the psu went, and how to keep it neat with all the extra cords. After that, I turned it on... seemed to work perfectly. Decided to install the OS, after it had to restart it no longer wanted to work and began to spew mobo error codes.

After all that, I re-did it all... and it worked fine. Grr, but happy too!

Hopefully when you get your new psu and gpu it works. Good luck.

Looks like a mighty fine machine.

[Hadriel]

My first pc build took me less than 2 hours to do. I already knew where everything went for some reason, and I actually didn't run into any problems. I installed the OS with ease and everything since then has worked. I still have that pc. It was so ahead of it's time back then.

[lord-underdog]

Originally Posted by D3luxe

The PSU is a Rosewill PSU..That's a good brand isn't it? I don't know much about PSU's.

As for the important files - I'm very used to that, I've had a couple die on me. I have a spare 300gb internal drive sitting here at my house that I'm gonna throw in as well, so I will have my important school files on both the external (To transfer to/from class) and on the internal drive - I should be set.

As for the RAM...I can't run DDR2. The mobo only supports DDR3. Why would I run DDR2 anyway?

It might be too late already, but rosewill is a terrible brand for anything that provides actual functionality....about the only thing i would buy from rosewill is a case, and that's if i was trying to build budget.

Get an antec power supply, otherwise you could end up burning down your computer.

Bfg/pny are good brands as well....they are of course graphics card manufacturers afterall... Back when i had my old pc i had a 900 watt bgf psu, and before that i had a 550 watt antec that wasn't cutting the mustard because of my two very hungry 8800 gts 512mb cards.

Anyways, my point being.

The antec psu actually pumped out more watts than it was intended for, the problem was that the capacitors inside of the psu weren't large enough to handle it so they were being drained and if anything major in my house got turned on (a vaccume for example) the computer would turn off.

so the moral of the story? if i ever buy another psu, unless it's on clearance and i get an incredible deal, will always be an antec psu.



ps. a side note, i loved my cooler master case. I got the thing in the mail and flipped out because it was so heavy, put it on the bathroom scale and it weighed 65lbs by itself.

[D3luxe]

Well, good news and bad news.

The good news is my computer no longer randomly freezes after I swapped the PSU out.

The bad news is my computer now randomly crashes. Completely. As if I pulled the power cord out, the whole thing just..shuts down instantly.

Now I get to sort this out..yippee. Still waiting for my video card to get here (it just got shipped out today from CA, so it should be here tuesday or wednesday)

lord-underdog - if you read the other posts, you'll notice I dumped the Rosewill PSU a while ago. Then, if you read some of the other posts, you'll notice the one I chose instead (Cooler Master PSU) wasn't strong enough. Finally, if you read my last post, you'll notice I instead have a Corsair 650w 52a PSU now powering my system. That is, it was before the random freezes occured.

[Coldstone]

Did you try running a temp diagnosis program? Does it happen under load? If it does, maybe the heatsink isnt totally plain or the thermal paste isnt all over the cpu or the case doesnt have good airflow. CPUs shut down fast if they get too hot.

Then other things to check: The mainboard shouldnt have direct contact to motherboard tray. The front fans should blow in, the back fans blow out. Check if all the small wires for reset and shutdown are put in correctly. Check if everything sits firmly in contacts.

Then there are some software checks you can make: First take i look in device manager if there are no questionmarks, then a look in event viewer, if it gives any hints what happened. Afterwards there are test programs like memtest for memory testing. and prime for heat testing

[D3luxe]

Originally Posted by Coldstone

Did you try running a temp diagnosis program? Does it happen under load? If it does, maybe the heatsink isnt totally plain or the thermal paste isnt all over the cpu or the case doesnt have good airflow. CPUs shut down fast if they get too hot.

Then other things to check: The mainboard shouldnt have direct contact to motherboard tray. The front fans should blow in, the back fans blow out. Check if all the small wires for reset and shutdown are put in correctly. Check if everything sits firmly in contacts.

Then there are some software checks you can make: First take i look in device manager if there are no questionmarks, then a look in event viewer, if it gives any hints what happened. Afterwards there are test programs like memtest for memory testing. and prime for heat testing

All of my temps sit comfortably at 42-45*c at idle, and none ever get over about 52*c at full load. The thermal paste and heatsink are both on solidly

My next suspicion is the video card, so I'm waiting for my GTX275 to get back from the RMA - it should be here wednesday. After I put that in if its still freezing/crashing I'm going to completely rip the system apart and put it back together, just to make sure theres no shorting out, misplaced plugs, etc.

There are no question marks in the device manager. There are plenty of "Critical" errors in the event viewer, however they all have to deal with "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly." which tells me what I already knew.

I ran memtest for 6 passes with no errors whatsoever. I havn't ran prime95 or the intel burn test yet since the temps stay low enough anyway.

The freezes/crashes all happen at completely random times. Sometimes it'll be as soon as the computer gets to the logon screen, other times it'll be after 3 hours.

[Coldstone]

One thing you could try, if it still is bad after you did put in your new card, check if every connector sits firmly, especially SATA cables tend to loose contact or be of bad quality. You could replace cables if you have some spare lying around