The Computer Megathread

[Rusty]

Wow, that is stuff for the price. Are prices really that much worse in England?
That case was low end. It's a cheap case. Looks =/= quality.
Only on to a SSD flash drive, not a USB stick..
USB is really slow compared to SATA, even SATA 1 or IDE.
That motherboard is an AM3 board, meant for AMD processors. You have an Intel processor that requires a separate chipset, architecture and socket. Totally different.
Listen, what's your budget in pounds? I'll get you something good.
Don't be too hard though.

I have a £650 budget but I'd only like to spend £600 of it so I have £50 for fans, coolers, a disk drive, a sound card and stuff. (What else would I need?)

[Ad Bot]

[Coolio]

>messing around with power switches on dead computer
>it boots
>hear hard drive make that noise and all lights are working
>"oh my god yes"
>shut it off
>try it again
>works
>hook it up
>freezes booting windows
>shut off
>now freezes at bootscreen or just does the same think as before
>that feel when you'll never get enough money for a new build
>that feel when if you do, you'll never be able to build it
>feels bad man

Anyway, I'm going to try to see if my other computer has the same ram as the one I'm using. I think they both have DDR2, but I'm not sure. I think the computer I'm using is a year or two older than my other computer.  (2001 on this, 2004 on the other one)

[Ethan]

I have a £650 budget but I'd only like to spend £600 of it so I have £50 for fans, coolers, a disk drive, a sound card and stuff. (What else would I need?)

1. Fans usually come with the case. You don't really need more than 2, and 2 usually come with the case.
2. Coolers come with the CPU unless you buy a OEM CPU.
3. Disk drives are like $20 USD, so like what, 15 pounds? I can include that in the budget.
4. You don't need a dedicated sound card these days unless you are actually making and mixing music. The onboard ones support 7.1 HD audio and some are even better.

>messing around with power switches on dead computer
>it boots
>hear hard drive make that noise and all lights are working
>"oh my god yes"
>shut it off
>try it again
>works
>hook it up
>freezes booting windows
>shut off
>now freezes at bootscreen or just does the same think as before
>that feel when you'll never get enough money for a new build
>that feel when if you do, you'll never be able to build it
>feels bad man

Anyway, I'm going to try to see if my other computer has the same ram as the one I'm using. I think they both have DDR2, but I'm not sure. I think the computer I'm using is a year or two older than my other computer.  (2001 on this, 2004 on the other one)

They should be DDR then, not DDR2. DDR2 is pretty recent.

My computers from 2005 ish all used DDR.

Anyway, you'd be able to build a computer. It's just a jigsaw with 7 pieces. Albeit you have to be really careful, and the CPU heatsink can be hard to push down, but that's it really.
The videos on YouTube are really awesome for guides.

[e-maxx]

when ever i use HDMI on my monitor it doesn't fill the screen up i be usin' a ATI readeon 5570HD

[Ethan]

when ever i use HDMI on my monitor it doesn't fill the screen up i be usin' a ATI readeon 5570HD

Does your monitor have speakers?
The only difference between HDMI and DVI are that HDMI transmits sound in the same connection.
DVI presents no loss of video quality as it is a digital connection. It either transmits at highest quality or doesn't transmit at all, unlike an brown townog connection like VGA, which has varying degrees of quality determined by all sorts of things, like cable quality.

[e-maxx]

Does your monitor have speakers?
The only difference between HDMI and DVI are that HDMI transmits sound in the same connection.
DVI presents no loss of video quality as it is a digital connection. It either transmits at highest quality or doesn't transmit at all, unlike an brown townog connection like VGA, which has varying degrees of quality determined by all sorts of things, like cable quality.

OK DEN

[aludane]

when ever i use HDMI on my monitor it doesn't fill the screen up i be usin' a ATI readeon 5570HD

ok. Go to the bottom right corner and find thr CCC (Catalyst Control Center) icon, it's in the running services tray).


It might not even say it's Catalyst Control Center so right click on it and see if it shows anything to do with graphics cards.

There is an option which changes screen GPU scaling (you can change it to fix the whole screen).

Tell me once you found it.

[Ethan]

Just wanted to add: This is another good reason not to buy expensive HDMI cables. They rip you off by saying they give you way better picture quality and they charge you like $100 (at least over here) for the same length as a $10 one. There will be no difference, apart from maybe the connections won't be as reliable, but hell. You're not playing jump rope with it, right?

[HerpaDerp]

Does your monitor have speakers?
The only difference between HDMI and DVI are that HDMI transmits sound in the same connection.
DVI presents no loss of video quality as it is a digital connection. It either transmits at highest quality or doesn't transmit at all, unlike an brown townog connection like VGA, which has varying degrees of quality determined by all sorts of things, like cable quality.

yay. luckily i had a dvi cable with my monitor, so I game really good. :D


Problem though, my system is really slow weirdly, it takes a while to start up, and is slow on log in, sometimes the system dies and lags every frame. Help?

[Ethan]

yay. luckily i had a dvi cable with my monitor, so I game really good. :D


Problem though, my system is really slow weirdly, it takes a while to start up, and is slow on log in, sometimes the system dies and lags every frame. Help?

Run a chkdsk. Is it all of a sudden or has it been gradual? Are you able to partition a small amount and try a fresh install?

[HerpaDerp]

Run a chkdsk. Is it all of a sudden or has it been gradual? Are you able to partition a small amount and try a fresh install?

Damn 200GB of files lost D:.

But I think it's been happening after lots of installs, I've run ccleaner and everything, when I first built the computer it was as fast as lightning, now it's all slow, I'm thinking it may be software related.

[Ethan]

Damn 200GB of files lost D:.

But I think it's been happening after lots of installs, I've run ccleaner and everything, when I first built the computer it was as fast as lightning, now it's all slow, I'm thinking it may be software related.

That's what I'm meaning.
If it's software related, we can determine that with a small partition of about 20GB or even an old hard drive, and then you can tell if it's the hardware or software.
If it was all of a sudden, I'd say run a chkdsk or similar. It won't affect your files.

[aludane]

e-maxx, if you can open the Catalyst Control Centre and find this:



Open Scaling options and change it to correct the view.

[e-maxx]

YEY

[Ethan]

It can also be called AMD VISION Engine Control Center as of late.