Thinking of getting a new rig

[muckshifter]

... take your time, you have till 8pm to get it ready.

 

[Taffycat]

... take your time, you have till 8pm to get it ready.

Lol... steam (the hot sort, not the angry sort) will be coming from my ears again

 

[Taffycat]

That's the unpacking done...I've taken some pix for posterity!! New beastie front:

Rear end:

Extra bits that were in the box:

The keyboard/mouse - didn't get a choice about these, of course. (Will be using my own Logitech G500 mouse and A4Tech keyboard - once I get a KVM sorted out.)

 

[V_R]

Ah nice, Thats not a bad motherboard - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-401-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261

and a Gainward GPU.

Can't complain to that.

Pics of the inside would be great, would like to see how tidy it is.

 

[muckshifter]

WoW! a nice wee beastie you have there.

Now we know what make MB & GC yous have.

... only 7hrs to go.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Looking good

 

[bootneck02]

Great looking PC TC enjoy

 

[EvanDavis]

All those pics, but where's the fricking OS disk

 

[floppybootstomp]

All those pics, but where's the fricking OS disk

Perzaklee. That crossed my mind too.

 

[Taffycat]

All those pics, but where's the fricking OS disk

Perzaklee. That crossed my mind too.

Very easily explained my dear Holmes ... I hadn't broken the seal on the outer pack, (which doesn't look very interesting, covered in labels, etc. on one side of the box, and masses of tiny small-print, legal stuff on the other...) when I took the pics. (Still haven't opened it actually... because I spent most of the day rummaging around for cables (I thought I had, but didn't! Plus researching KVM options...)

Then, I discovered that the power cable is a bit short and won't reach either of the surge-protection blocks (where other two PCs plus peripherals are plugged-in.) These are awkwardly situated, so I'll need to crawl around behind the desk and re-arrange the layout a bit.....

I'm somewhat phobic about spiders. What have they got to do with anything, I hear you ask? Well, I suspect there might be one lurking in that corner, despite having previously evicted it, plus its leggy-relatives by judicious use of the Dyson!

This season, we've had an influx of them. They just keep appearing everywhere. No matter how many times I vaccum, they materialise again overnight! .............The Sainsbury's delivery man rescued me from one of them recently. When I answered the door to him, I suddenly noticed I had "company" on the wall above the door just waiting the chance to bungee-web down my neck or whatever!

But I think I've digressed just a bit. Please excuse me.

Anyway, those awfully nice DPD chappies are going to deliver an ethernet cable and a DVI to HDMI adapter. The latter, is for the old Vista PC. You might recall, many posts above, I mentioned buying an HDMI selector from Asda in order to share the monitor between the two PCs(?) So until I can properly sort out a good KVM switch, I thought I'd use the selector as a temporary solution.

It won't allow me to use both PCs simultaneously apparently - one will have to be powered off, before I can switch the display. Not ideal at all, but possibly better than having to keep switching cables and what not.

When I open the disc, I shall be sure to take another piccie

 

[Taffycat]

Hope peeps won't mind, but could I please refer you to a problem I'm having? It's outlined HERE. Thought I'd better put it into a separate thread, to avoid confusion. Thanks very much.

 

[bootneck02]

Hi TC I believe that you have a SSD card on your new PC I read this advice on another site about looking after the SSD and thought of you, here it is:-

How to Extend the Lifetime and Make Better Use of Solid State Drives (SSDs) in Windows 7 PCs

Updated 3. September 2012 - 22:45 by v.laurie
Are you one of those who has a computer with a nice speedy SSD? Then you will want to take good care of it and do everything possible to use it efficiently. Because of the generally smaller size and the fact that the lifetime of SSDs is limited to a finite number of reads and writes, there are some special considerations for using SSDs. Here are tips to reduce wear and tear on your SSD and ways to use the limited space better. Please note that there are differences of opinion about some of the possible steps to take and I have indicated this where appropriate.
Make sure TRIM support is enabled
Because SSDs cannot write over existing data without first erasing it, a special feature called TRIM is needed. Windows 7 implements TRIM natively but older versions of Windows do not support it. This is an essential feature and is usually turned on by default in Windows 7. But just in case, here’s how to check if TRIM is enabled:

1. Open a command prompt with elevated privileges (this link explains how)
2. Enter this command: fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify
3. If a message "DisableDeleteNotify = 0" is given, then TRIM is enabled. If the message says "DisableDeleteNotify = 1", it is disabled
4. If necessary, enable TRIM by using the command: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

Disable scheduled disk defragmentation
The structure of SSDs does not benefit from the standard Windows defragmentation and is normally disabled for SSDs. To make sure, here is the procedure:

1. Open the Disk Defragmenter from Control Panel or by entering “dfrgui” (without quotes) in the Start search bar
2. Make sure the SSD is marked “Never run” in the Disk Defragmenter interface

Less critical but often desirable tweaks
Here are some tweaks that help free up space and cut down SSD traffic. They are useful for many systems but may not apply to all users.

• Disable hibernation
  This is primarily for desktop systems where you need to save the space that hibernation uses. See this previous tip for instructions on managing hibernation. The speed of an SSD means quick boot ups so the time-saving aspect of hibernation is less useful. However, laptop owners may wish to keep hibernation for the power management features.
• Move personal folders to another disk
  Considerable space can be freed up by moving personal folders like (My) Documents, Videos, Pictures, and Downloads to a second hard drive. See this previous tip for instructions.
• Move or reduce the page file (virtual memory)
  There are a variety of opinions about the correct size for a page file. It depends on how many applications you keep open, how much RAM you have, and other factors. If you have at least 4 GB of RAM, I think that a 1 GB page file on the SSD is sufficient for average users, especially if you add a separate page file of several GB on any second drive that you have (not a partition, a separate disk). Power users may want to make the SSD page file larger. Details on managing the page file are at this link.
• Disable indexing
  Whether or not to disable indexing for an SSD is a hotly argued subject. The article at this link is in favor; the article at this link is against but recommends moving the index folder to another disk to free up space. Details on managing indexing are at those two references.

And there you have it. By using these tips, you’ll prolong the life of your SSD and keep it lean and efficient.
Thanks go to Gizmo for suggesting this topic.
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This tips section is maintained by Vic Laurie. Vic runs several websites with Windows how-to's, guides, and tutorials, including a site for learning about Windows and the Internet and another with Windows 7 tips.
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I hope this helps

 

[Taffycat]

Thank you very much Bootneck, it was awfully kind of you to think of me. This article will indeed help my "learning curve." (I have already begun to read through some of the links, and I shall continue later ( ...right now, we have to take one of the cats to see the vet.)

 

[bootneck02]

( ...right now, we have to take one of the cats to see the vet.)

I hope the pussy is OK after the stress of a visit to the vets

 

[Taffycat]

I hope the pussy is OK after the stress of a visit to the vets

The vet had to keep him overnight, as he (vet, that is,) needed to perform a surgical procedure. As a dog-owner, I'm sure you'll get the picture, if I say impacted glands, rear-end.... It isn't so common in cats, and not quite so easy to treat, requiring sedation, etc.

All being well, we can collect him later on. I'll not really be able to relax until he's safely home again with the others - they're all wondering where he is.

Thanks for the good wishes.

 

[bootneck02]

I hope all goes well TC and he is back safe and sound later today.

 

[V_R]

Little bump.

How the new PC performing TC?

 

[Taffycat]

Little bump.

How the new PC performing TC?

Hi there V_R

I've been thinking of updating this, but was hoping that one little thing would iron itself out first.... As you might expect, the PC is certainly fast and I'm generally very happy with it - except - it has an annoying whine ...(anyone tempted to say "just like the user"...? lol.)

At first I wondered if it might be a fan but I'm now not so sure and wonder if it might be the (mechanical) HD? The whine only seems to be evident when I'm gaming. As the on-screen action intensifies, so does the blasted whine. It seems to correlate directly to the amount of flashes, bangs and general mayhem taking place in the game. (Suppose it could also be a graphics card fan(?) although it seems a tad loud to be that.)

As you know, I plan to re-install Windows, but haven't done that yet. There are a couple of reasons for my tardiness; first, one of the cats needed a surgical procedure, (which actually went well, but I'm a worrier, so felt a bit distracted until I was certain he felt better.) The other reason has been my enjoyment of GW2... any spare time I get, tends to be spent in there... (In mitigation, I also wanted to be certain that I would be able to re-download the game client again, without any hitches. There were one or two reports of download 'glitches' recently (according to some of GW2's forum threads.) Think it has all been sorted now though, so I really have no excuse - other than my complete addiction to the game!

With the re-install in mind, I've not downloaded or installed anything other than Windows updates, an e-mail client, new graphics drivers and game updates etc., so it's still pretty much 'as new.'

So to sum up, the PC is actually running very smoothly, and the game runs like quicksilver ... if only there wasn't the accompanying whine when things get exciting.

 

[muckshifter]

My bet is on the graphics card fan ...

... nVidia did away with the auto-fan-control in their driver, no idea why, it's now "supposed" to be automatic. I've had 3 cards since they changed this, and non of them went auto. Oh, and one whined so much when it got hot, I had to replaced it, it really was driving me nuts.

Go get MSI Afterburner ... you only need to concern yourself with the Fan Control bit.

Give it a try.

 

[V_R]

Could be coil whine too, the 670's do that.