CRAP I hate building computers...

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:52 pm

When I didn't work in computers for a living it was fun, but now...

Decided to sit down and start putting together my 3200+ Athlon64 rig today (the one I bought at the AMD tech Tour) since I have a quiet day at home for a change.

This is my first experience building a rig with a mobo with the seperate ATX12v power connector. So of course I forget to connect that power cable and the thing spins the fans but no beeps and no joy. I spend a frustrating 20 minutes getting VERY aggravated until I realize my mistake (why the f%$# can't they have it beep some error code to tell you you've left it disconnected?).

All is fine now.

I SWEAR though, that the next time I need a new rig I'm buying a friggin' top of the line Dell and the hell with it.

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 4:20 pm

I SWEAR though, that the next time I need a new rig I'm buying a friggin' top of the line Dell and the hell with it.

Tis a sad, sad day when FP is too frustrated to build his own

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 4:29 pm

hehe...I have a nice fan for my a64 rig which has been sitting there since christmas.....pull the motherboard and figure out how to install it - that sounds like work...put in the later file

I also need to do a fresh install of xp since mine won't go beyond sp1... guess i will get around to it sometime....like when the system blue screens....i'm pretty sure it's hanging on an app for a tv card which is no longer there and which cannot be uninstalled (the app that is) without huntung down every trace in the registry and i'd rather be doing something else

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:00 pm

DAD: I've never really liked building rigs. It's always painful. That's why I won't build rigs for clients.

It's always been dramatically cheaper to build your own, so I've always built my own personal rigs, but I've also had a lot of grief with it over the years.

A Dell 8400 nicely loaded - is not all that expensive and it's damn nice system (it's identical to the Dell XPS gaming system with a slightly smaller PSU and without he fancy case). It's also the same mobo as their top of the line Workstation.

---------------
EDIT

Well I must say I REALLY like the new mounting system for the Socket 939 HSFs. Easy, secure, and it's almost impossible to put the HSF on crooked.

Sure is going to make CPU swapping REAL easy.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:55 pm

with the prices these days it is hard to justify the effort except dell wont do amd

my 3200a64 9800 pro 1.5mb is about 7-10% faster than my $499 dell 8300 3.0 1mb 9800 pro

when i overclock it to about 3600 level it becomes a noticeable difference, but then it gets hot, and i need to put the hs on ..yada yada

still have 2x4200sc 2.8 dells which have never blinked in 2 years .... just dust 'em out once in a while

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:40 pm

FP I understand where you are at. I used to be a gear head and loved messing with cars. Then I became a mechanic and made my living working on cars and grew to hate it. It ruined a good hobby for me when I made it my profession. I do make a little money on the side building or fixing computers for people but I am picky about who or what I will do just for that reason. I dont want to ruin another hobby.

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:50 pm

Cant be more true.

The system I jsut built is driving me nuts. Runs fine for a few hours then quits. then wont power on. it isnt heat, my guess is bad PS. Nope.

I got the mboard I did because it was the nicest I could find that still supported the AGP slot and I jsut got an x800XT AIW. Well, it is most likely the mboard so I went to Frys today to get a new one and cant find one I like. This sucks.

Sitting here on my blaxing fast laptop...but it is a laptop. LOL

Greg

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:36 pm

Quite true, making a hobby ones job makes one usually hate what was once a hobby.
I really have to motivate to work on my cars at home and you'll never see me doing a ground up restoration on anything (OK, maybe a chopper kit someday). It's another reason why I won't drag race anymore as I don't want to wreck my stuff, requiring more time, money and hassle to put it back together again.

I've never been thrilled by building PCs either BUT I'll admit that my PCs do seem much faster than the new store bought Intel based PCs we use at work. They're suppose to have 2.8 ghz cpus but they seem slower than any AMD cpu based PC I've built in many years. My parents bought a new Dell recently but it too seems slow to me.
So, even though I never like the hassles, I still think that we can build better PCs ourselves (excuding blazing fast laptops). My newest laptop is almost as fast as my desktop but was costlier too.

MegaVectra · Post by **MegaVectra** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:41 pm

I build between 3 and 10 a day.

Jim Z · Post by **Jim Z** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:00 pm

just to answer this:

(why the f%$# can't they have it beep some error code to tell you you've left it disconnected?).

The CPU's VRM is powered by that 12V connector. If you leave it unplugged the CPU doesn't power up, and can't execute the BIOS code which would generate a beep.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:22 pm

JIM: Yah, but you could easily wire a simple logic circuit to emit a tone or something. Or even use an indicator LED on the mobo. This mobo has (like most) a green LED to tell you the main PSU connector is connected, but not one for the 12V connector. Seems that would be a no brainer if only to simplify troubleshooting.

ANYWAY I'm impressed with this mobo/CPU. It's not all that much faster than my 32bit 3200+ (at least as far as games are concerned in subjective testing), but it runs WAY cooler. I'm not used to seeing temps in the high 30s/low 40s with stock cooling.

No problems so far. I cloned the old Lan rig's XP install and performed a repair install (too much hassle doing a clean install on that rig - it's all customized for LAN parties) and that went nice and smooth. Played some FEAR and DoD last night with no glitches (a pleasant exception to the usual tweaking hassles of a new rig).

The ATI x700 PCI-E I bought for it performs slightly faster than the 9800 Pro in the old LAN rig (although the x800 Pro AGP in my main rig still blows it away - still everything runs fine at 1024x768 which is all I care about).

I was sorely tempted to make this 64bit system my new main rig but I couldn't rationalize spending the money on an x800 PCI-E card, and I really don't want to screw around with the main rig for another year. It's too mission critical.

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:32 pm

well you just sold me on the x700 express. it sounds better then my 9600 so im sold.