[MEGATHREAD] Personal Computer - Updated builds thanks to Logical Increments

[Mr.jacksaunt]

That's incredible
Is there a video we can watch?

Found one just from a search right now, but it's not a very in depth video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiot-L5h3ZE
Also it wasn't mentioned but the winning time was 6:38.

[Ad Bot]

[Perlin Noise]

Took me about 20 mins to build my machine.

[Wedge]

would i have to solder resistors onto a molex 4pin cable to make a fan run slower?

Don't know if anyone else has answered this one yet but I'll go ahead and tackle it.

That's definitely one way of doing it. People actually sell cables with resistors already attached for you if you don't feel like soldering. It's a trivial thing to do and if you have resistors lying around you can basically do it for free* yourself if you've got the tools already.

You need to use tiny resistors though. If you throw a standard 330 ohm or 1k in there you'll basically an unusable slow fan. If you look at the cable I posted earlier, you can see they're using a Yellow-Blue-Black resistor (46 ohm) resistor.

A better way of doing it might be using a variable resistor, that way you can go in and change the value when you want without having to desolder anything. If I were going to do this I would go with the POT1KA potentiometer off of this webpage: http://www.futurlec.com/PotRot.shtml . They're logarithmic potentiometers so they will give you fine control over the low values, and it's a 1K pot so you can get get the fan going really slow or basically turn it off. It's also a 1/2W pot so it should have no trouble dealing with a bit of current. The knob is easy enough to adjust by hand so you won't have to use a screwdriver every time you want to adjust them. The down side is that it's got quite a bit of metal on it so you need to make sure to insulate all the metal parts so they don't short anything on your motherboard, secure it well, or do all of them. Also they're 55 cents each, when you can get plain old resistors for less than a cent each.

I just went ahead and bought a fan control panel for my desktop. I've got 5 120mm fans and this controller looks okay and gives me good control over the fans. This is the model I'm using: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005C31G30/ Unfortunately it will stick yet another LED on your desktop, which might be a problem for some people.

* Resistors are so cheap they're practically free, and you can always rip them out of old electronics.

[ultimamax]

Found one just from a search right now, but it's not a very in depth video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiot-L5h3ZE
Also it wasn't mentioned but the winning time was 6:38.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bAkdarHsjtA

[Aphtonites]

It's about a £30 difference if you build it yourself, so I guess it isn't too bad. Buying those bundles is a stupid idea though, since you can spend 5 minutes doing it yourself.

Well stuff, it just got discontinued yesterday!

What I think I'm going to do is buy the parts on their own and build it myself.
But I'm not sure about it's AMD FX-4100 CPU though, do you guys have any good alternatives?

[Momentum]

what resistance would i need to slow down a fan to make it less noisy? would it vary on the fan and RPM?

[beachbum111111]

Were can I get the release preview of windows 8?

[Titanium Man]

But I'm not sure about it's AMD FX-4100 CPU though, do you guys have any good alternatives?

an AMD alternative or Intel?

[Headcrab Zombie]

Still needing help on this

Depending on the order I add the two drives, it'll either say "BOOTMGR missing" or something along the lines of "Invalid boot device, insert proper boot media into selected device, and press any key"
I've replaced a hard drive in my raid before, I just popped it in, made the array, marked it for rebuild, and everything worked fine. I'm doing the same thing this time and it doesn't work.

[KoopaScooper]

Assuming that the Windows 7 or Vista Repair/Installation disk lists your operating system, you could try running a startup repair, or do it manually through the command line using "bootsect.exe /nt60 (DRIVELETTER):", then "bootrec.exe /fixmbr". If it still doesn't work, try using bootrec with the "/fixboot" option instead.

[Aphtonites]

an AMD alternative or Intel?

Either.
I'm kind of biased against AMD after hearing about how some of their CPU's aren't reliable, are there any really good amd ones above 3.1 ghz?

[Jerome]

i just got this mouse at best buy for like $30, pretty good

[Kumquat]

Oh man
Im getting a new 3770k for $150
This is great.

[Headcrab Zombie]

Assuming that the Windows 7 or Vista Repair/Installation disk lists your operating system, you could try running a startup repair, or do it manually through the command line using "bootsect.exe /nt60 (DRIVELETTER):", then "bootrec.exe /fixmbr". If it still doesn't work, try using bootrec with the "/fixboot" option instead.

I'll look more at the installation disc later but I think it just put me right into installation.
As for command line, how would I get to it from the error message?

[KoopaScooper]

The installation disk does not put you immediately into installation, it asks if you want to install or repair an existing installation. You'd have to select to repair, select the Windows installation, login (if needed,) and select Command Prompt to get to it without booting. For bootsect, you should probably use the drive letter from the installation selection window, but it shouldn't hurt anything if you do it to something else.