Post your PC

[floppybootstomp]

Each to their own Flopps.

Well yes............... and no.

This is a subject that always makes me roll my eyes, so to speak.

Let's state this:

Every make of hard drive has failed.

As I've often said before, the reliability of the hard drive purchase of your choice will not depend on the manufacturer's stamp on the case but rather:

1) The factory/plant where it was made.

2) The quality of the materials used to make the disk.

3) Luck.

I've had every single make of hard disk fail on me except - Maxtor, which is probably just luck as I know of many people who have had Maxtor hard drives fail on them.

The make of drive that's failed the most on me is Western Digital.

Human nature being what it is though once a person experiences a brand failure he or she will then probably boycott that brand. Now if I were to do that, I'd be limited to Maxtor drives wouldn't I? So perhaps you can see how senseless the argument is about one drive being more reliable than another.

All people do is forward their own personal experiences when the question is asked and never, ever, does a clear picture emerge as to one brand being more reliable than another.

Myself, I look at three factors when buying a hard drive: price, quietness and warranty.

Which is why I like Samsung even though I've had one fail on me (successfully and quickly rma'd) and yes, Maxtor drives are a little noisy compared to their peers.

Sometimes, a manufacturer will get it completely wrong, as with the IBM Desk Star drives around 8 years ago, they failed by the thousands. Hitachi took over the IBM disk franchise as IBM could not recover from all those failures, their sales just tailed off.

Lots of people won't buy Hitachi drives now because of that fiasco but I do, they're fine drives (see my sig).

The only drive I've not heard of failing is the Western Digital Raptor drives, they have a five year warranty. They're good, but they're noisy. Of course some will have failed, I expect somebody on this forum will be able to tell me of such an occurence.

And that is why I do get a little irritated when some folk go dissing a hard drive manufacturer because, really, they're all just as bad/good as each other when it comes to reliability.

 

[floppybootstomp]

My machines

Main machine, the one in my sig 'Shiny Beast', in my living room:

Machine number two 'Andromeda' used for Video encoding and editing, audio editing and CoD 1 cos I can't get CoD 1 to run in Vista (this machine is XP Pro):

To the right, AV stuff. At the top, two VCR's one connected to the other by SCART, for copying video cassettes (this sometimes helps restore old damaged vids, oddly); the PVR I bought from Big Pockets; Toshiba DVD player; Tascam CD Player/Cassette Deck and a NAD Receiver.

The NAD Receiver goes through the stereo speakers and is independent of computer setup, it has flying phono leads to take line level signal. This means I can test/repair most audio items conveniently.

The Tascam CD Player/Cassette deck, the DVD Player and my turntable go through an AV switching device (that little black box on top of mini chest of drawers) for recording from onto computer. (The CD player is handy to record CD analogue signals from those CD's with stubborn protection).

The DVD Player connected to the computer is convenient for recording short video clips from DVD.

And at the bottom is a variable 30 volt DC Power supply and a dual beam Oscilloscope.

And the other little black box on top of the one speaker is a phono/RIAA preamp stage for the Hitachi Direct Drive turntable.

On top of the other loudspeaker is a Pinnacle 'Dazzle' video capture device which plugs into a USB port and works very well indeed. The silver VCR is plugged into that.

And finally machine number four, in spare room, I've forgotten what I call this one, lol, but it's the Socket A machine with swappable hard disk caddies so's I can run Win 98 and mess with Linux.

 

[psd99]

niceee but one question 4 machines and how many users?

You do keep it tidy dont ya
or did you tidy up for the pictures?


out of machine 1 and machine 2 which monitor do you like the best?
I think they are both Samsung I think my monitor is similar to machine 1.

questions questions questions

i should take pictures of my setup now

 

[floppybootstomp]

niceee but one question 4 machines and how many users?

You do keep it tidy dont ya
or did you tidy up for the pictures?


out of machine 1 and machine 2 which monitor do you like the best?
I think they are both Samsung I think my monitor is similar to machine 1.

questions questions questions

i should take pictures of my setup now

I have answered this question several times but...

Four machines, one user.

The cables aren't tidy but the rest is as normal, I don't like clutter.

Briefly:

Machine one: Vista, Games, Work, Office.

Machine Two: XP Pro, AMD Dual 3.2Ghz; Video capture/decoding/editing; Audio; Older Games

Machine three: Purely a media machine, full of mp3's and DivX Movies.

Machine four: Swappable hard disk caddy; socket A; Win XP; Win 98; Several flavours of Linux as and when the mood takes me.

Of the two monitors, I favour them equally. 24" is nice and big but the 22" just pips it on quality.

 

[Madxgraphics]

Oh don't get me started on the NOISE they generate!

Gosh it's worse than a screaming wife!

You clearly haven't been in the same room as my other half when she screams to make a statement like that have you..?

 

[psd99]

why what do you to do her? Torture her or pleasure?

Well Flopps do you find yourself using programs like VNC or remote desktop to control the computers remotely?

 

[Madxgraphics]

why what do you to do her? Torture her or pleasure?

Erm no comment

 

[psd99]

mmmm

 

[floppybootstomp]

Well Flopps do you find yourself using programs like VNC or remote desktop to control the computers remotely?

Nope, they're networked.

 

[psd99]

same here
but I do use my laptop to control my desktops often

definetly very lazy

 

[psd99]

okay everyone here goes

Above you see what my setup looks like. Last month i've spent 2 thirds of my life in this room! It was meant to be lilac colour on the walls but ended up being purple. I always wanted a light peach/white colour on these walls! That's a chiftech tower. Still with the old socket A I can't afford nor see the point of upgrading yet.




This is my laser printer. Last printer I had I jacked from the university I went to. They were throwing it away so I saved them the hassle. She was a good printer, small compact and very quick but sadly she died. So I got this Cannon instead bargain price TWENY QUID! I knew this bloke who worked in Staples in Harrow and he saw this in the 2nd hand section. It's got a SCRATCH on it, but it works wonderful best buy of 5 years for me. He even chucked in a cable for me , you see the blue one?

Also there is my subwoofer. It's been blasted so hard last few years. It cost me close to £300 about 5 years ago now. This system was the dog's bullocks at one point.




Right here we got my Sky box. We recently got Sky + in the main room so I hooked this little baby up to my PC. It runs on the sound from the Logitech head unit you see there. My pride and joy. It's got coaxial, 3 leads and Optical on the back of this thing. I've plugged in my main aireal into the back of this Sky box RF in and then RF out goes into the back of my TV card. Can you beleive that that little RF out cable sends digital signal through it and supports sound from the Sky box? I COULD NOT!

I also got my Seagate external drive sitting there looking sexy




this is a little more close up I love my 7up! Can you see that device on the left hand side of the monitor? It's a 7 port USB hub. So handy you can plug in USB cables rather than going behind the desk. Probably my best buy recently so handy and cheap.




I hate cables that are messy. So I endeavor to keep cleaning them up. As you can see they are cable tied. I got the main plug from my computer plugged into the wall. The rest of the plugs run off of that surge protector I got. Very handy and makes it all look so much more neater. It looks good but it took me AGES to sort this mess out. I had to leave some slack there so that I could move the PC around a bit.

Yellow cable is coaxial for my sound got it cheap from ebay and the blue cable is from Harrow. it's for my printer





what you see above is two cables as most of you will know. HDMI and Optical cable.
What are they for? My Xbox 360! Currently not in this room. HDMI cable cost me a coupe of quid as did the optical cable. I use my Xbox in this room sometimes because my family don't like me hogging the TV for my Xbox in the front room. I've been looking for an extra power supply so I don't have to keep moving that. All I would need to move is the Xbox itself.




OOPS! I forget to change this picture around. You'll have to move your screens sideways. Well this is my Chiftech tower from the side. When I do plan my upgrade i'm going to get the Cosmos tower

 

[psd99]

Well if you take away my printer, case and sky box and of course apart from the walls.

My hardware is colour coded i.e all grey/black/silver

 

[Waynos_Face]

Nice setup mate

For those messy cables

http://www.iosss.com/shopping/review.asp?prod=1333&org=G&gclid=CP_HkbzS8pQCFQuJ1QodXktqrQ

 

[psd99]

Nice setup mate

For those messy cables

http://www.iosss.com/shopping/review.asp?prod=1333&org=G&gclid=CP_HkbzS8pQCFQuJ1QodXktqrQ

thanks

that'd be the icing on the cake for me

 

[psd99]

Flopps that NAD device how good is it?

What one is it?

I was talking to geezer from work he said they are the dog's bulloks!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Flopps that NAD device how good is it?

What one is it?

I was talking to geezer from work he said they are the dog's bulloks!

It's very good indeed. Used to be my Mums for almost twenty years then she changed her sound system to something more suiting an audio-visual setup and gave the old receiver to me.

It's a 7140 model; 40 wpc; FM/AM with 5 presets for each; phono (turntable) input switchable mm/mc; and inputs for CD, tuner, aux and tape.

I do have a NAD 3030 amplifier for sale atm, the first amp NAD ever built around 1977, 30 wpc, wooden case, something of a collector's item, they say nothing has sounded as good since that first one.

I used to have it in my kitchen at my old place but really don't have any use for it now. I'm asking £60.00 for it but haven't advertised it yet, will probably put it on E-Bay.

 

[psd99]

It's very good indeed. Used to be my Mums for almost twenty years then she changed her sound system to something more suiting an audio-visual setup and gave the old receiver to me.

It's a 7140 model; 40 wpc; FM/AM with 5 presets for each; phono (turntable) input switchable mm/mc; and inputs for CD, tuner, aux and tape.

I do have a NAD 3030 amplifier for sale atm, the first amp NAD ever built around 1977, 30 wpc, wooden case, something of a collector's item, they say nothing has sounded as good since that first one.

I used to have it in my kitchen at my old place but really don't have any use for it now. I'm asking £60.00 for it but haven't advertised it yet, will probably put it on E-Bay.

nice man sounds good flopps

im just looking though these posts