Thinking about building a new PC, what's good these days?

"they"?

Are there no local computer stores in Boston where you could go pick up a monitor in person?

Probably. Either way, let's say I had gone with 16 GB of RAM and bought a monitor locally for half the price and therefore reduced shipping as well... I'd still be looking at close to $2700. Not enough of a difference to get worked up over.

$300 is chump change to you? Why do you live in the ghetto then?

You could also have spend 1500$ for a kick ass computer and then upgrade a few parts for 1500 or less in 2.5 years? (I'm sorry)

Yeah, it's for my photography business. And I already checked, if it's for 50% business, 50% fun, I can deduct 50% of the price as a business expense.

Not generally chump change, no, but relative to $3k it's almost negligible. These things are relative, you know. It's like if I bought a hot dog for $2 with a $10 bill and the guy gave me $6 in change. I'd be kinda mad if he refused to give me the other $2. But if it were something that cost like $100, I wouldn't really care about $2 lost somewhere.

It's on the list, probably for next year at the earliest or the year after. I can't do much without a license so there wouldn't be a point in getting a car now. The license is dependent on several factors, most importantly getting my eyes fixed, which I haven't done yet mostly because I'm scared of finding out they have to pop my eye out to fix it.

This... is a serious post?

What happened in 1985?

Back to the Future came out.

Also, troll computer.

I don't know, I think he really could use that power if he'll be manipulating 36 megapixel pictures.

Hm, having some problems with the new computer... I probably did something wrong somewhere. Here's a list of the problems:

1. The screen that says "Starting Windows" takes 5 minutes to get past. This is loading off the SSD. However, it seemed to run a lot faster before I plugged in the two additional hard drives. It is set in the bios to boot off the SSD first. The SSD is connected to SATA3_0 on the motherboard.

2. Installing new software (again, to the SSD) is incredibly slow. Some of the software that was bundled with the motherboard, DVD drive, and monitor just got stuck completely trying to install it. Fortunately, none of it is completely necessary to install, but still...

3. I cannot get an internet connection yet. I disconnected the ethernet cable from my laptop and connected it to the ethernet jack on the motherboard. It will not detect the internet connection. I'm considering putting the wireless card in and seeing if I can detect the connection that way.

Things that are working fine so far: All the fans are going, the CPU temp in the BIOS says it's only running at 43 C, the nVidia drivers and DirectX 10/11 installed without a hitch, even though they took longer than I would have anticipated.

Dumb question, but did you install the ethernet drivers?

Ah, maybe that's on the CD that came with the motherboard, the CD that locks up about 2 seconds after I open it.

I did just get a message about 2 devices with no drivers installed: SM Bus Controller, and USB Controller. The USB one is weird because my mouse connects with USB and it's working fine. I also have an external drive that connects with USB and it works fine, too. I have no idea what SM Bus is. Time to google I guess.

Also, look through the BIOS and make sure everything you want is enabled.

LOL, okay... SM Bus Controller is pretty much essential for the computer to work properly. Also, the CD motherboard program apparently does work, it just locks up completely for 3 minutes and then finally loads a list of drivers to install. Installing all that shiz now.

I just bookmarked this thread because i have an asus laptop and i'm thinking of upgrading soon. lot's of good advice itt

Make sure your drives are using AHCI rather than IDE. Made that mistake (pissed it wasn't defaulting to that) and had to reinstall windows.

I've made lots of mistakes, I just today realized I should hook up the molex power input on the motherboard because I have crossfired GPUs. Just fixed that.

I wish I knew shit about computers. I'm gonna have some good cash inflow coming in the next few months, and I need to upgrade from this 2006 Dell running Windows XP (go ahead and laugh). It actually runs alright but, you know.

I am interested in building (and therefore learning about) a computer. In the summer, school is out and I will have free time errday. I don't really do anything intensive like gaming (at all) or picture editing. I do work online with my 2nd job that uses software that relies on graphics. Actually, I'll go find the specs if anyone would want to help me out (I really don't know much, and especially about newer stuff and how much it would suit my needs).

Basically, I use my computer for that job and its software, internet, listening to music and watching movies/TV. I may create/edit/music at some point as well, so I want to think about that.

Specs my job requires (I have a feeling any computer these days meets these requirements, but my current one doesn't on the RAM):

 Windows XP (w/Service Pack 3), Vista (w/Service Pack 2), or Windows 7 (w/Service pack 1)
 2.0 GB of system memory (RAM)
 Single Core Processor at 2.4 GHz or Dual Core Processor at 1.8 GHz (manufactured on or after 2004)
 High-speed internet access
 Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1
 Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher

Actually, I do kind of understand RAM a bit, and I'm sure newer computers would have enough. Maybe I will be better off just buying a new computer from some company.

Any advice? (sorry for the hijack tech)

I recommend having a look inside your current computer and trying to figure out what all the parts are and what they do.

that's if you want to build one

Fuckity fuck. I know I could learn what they all do. I know the names of some of the hardware. But I have no idea what's relevant for today, and what I would need for my purposes. I don't think I need much, and am unsure if building a computer is worth it for me.

stfu : (

: |/

Wasn't trying to troll - that's legitimately what got me interested in building my own.

You don't need a hardcore PC, and you could build a satisfactory one very cheap, if you're interested.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, I am interested. I want to get acquainted with Windows 7 as well, and I'm starting to realize that I really just need the basics.

I was also thinking laptops. Not this necessarily, but I think the specs match up to my needs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834200407

Don't buy a Dell. Buy a lenovo.

here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246308

Yeah, that is pretty much what I want.

So uh, I am about to order this now using Bill Me Later. Good to go?

Cool man, I'm glad I was able to help

I have a company Lenovo Thinkpad T400, it's a tank. I'm sure you'll be happy with that one.

The internet problem and USB problems are both solved. Installing the motherboard drivers fixed that.

The startup process is still extremely slow, as is the process of installing to the SSD.

A couple new problems have cropped up. I have my old HDD from the previous computer with Windows XP in this one. This drive is definitely not SATA 3, so I have it plugged into one of the SATA2 connectors on the motherboard. The computer detects and r/w fine, except when I attempt to access the old My Documents folder on that. This is the folder that, unfortunately, is pretty much the whole reason I have the drive in the computer. It's where all my photography is that hasn't been published online yet or copied to backup, and it's also where my music collection is. The drive is set to E:, and if I use Windows Explorer to go into that, it basically craps out when I double-click on the folder for E:/documents and settings/Justin. It gets that green loading bar in the location that creeps ever so slowly, getting slow and slower until it appears to come to a stop just a notch before finishing. I had better luck using windows search and searching the drive for My Documents. It still took about 4 minutes, but I got in. I would be all set to copy the stuff I need, except for the other problem, which is:

My computer is not letting me access the new 1TB drive. The weird thing is that it seems to detect it just fine in the BIOS, and when I'm in Windows 7 and I load up the Device Manager, it lists it in the list of drives. And when I double click on it, Windows tells me that a driver is installed and says "the device is functioning properly" or something like that. There's another tab I can click that I forget the name of but it has a button called "populate" which fills in a list of details about the drive, such as the capacity of the drive. When I click that button, it correctly says the drive has ~953 or so GB total capacity, but it says 0 MB for available space and 0 MB for "reserved space" (whatever that is). When I go into Windows Explorer and click on "Computer" it does NOT list the drive.

I'm wondering if it is possible that the old drive, which is slower and has XP installed on it, is interfering in the proper functioning of the SSD and the 1TB drive. I guess if there are no other solutions, I can copy the essential data off the old drive onto the SSD, and then take out the old drive and hopefully the 1 TB will show up then, to which I can then copy the stuff I wanted to put on it.

Skyrim currently downloading from Steam. Should be done by the time I get home from work. I'll probably play for 10 minutes to see what it's like running at full settings, but then I gotta do the other stuff.

EDIT: Also tested Minecraft last night at maximum quality settings. It was totally smooth, even when jumping I couldn't see any sign of framerate in the movement of objects. I forgot to actually check the fps but it's definitely faster than I can detect with my eyes. Good to know that at least the video card, CPU, and RAM are working perfectly.

Did you check to make sure your drive was set to AHCI mode like Klem said?

Yeah, I did that in the BIOS.

Maybe when I get home tonight I will copy down all the BIOS settings and paste them here so you guys can tell me if I did anything wrong.

Was it already set to AHCI or did you have to change it? If you had to change it you might need to reinstall Windows.

Did you format your new 1TB in Disk Management?

Your old drive might have errors. You could try running chkdsk.

I think I did all the BIOS stuff before installing Windows, but I'm not 100% sure. How can I find out?

I did not format the drive. I assumed it came formatted but maybe not. I didn't have to format the SSD.

Under regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci and see if it's set to 0. It should be 0 if it was installed with AHCI.

You didn't have to format the SSD because the Windows install does that. You will have to format your 1TB drive under Disk Management before Windows will see it as a usable drive.

Okay, I will try both of those when I get home. I really hope I don't have to reinstall Windows... I'm assuming I would also have to reinstall all the software I spent last night installing.

ninite.com for that software installation, buddy. Doesn't have everything but it has a lot available.

I'm gonna wait to order it, I'd rather pay it in full right when I check out. I don't want it biting me in the ass 6 months later.

Good plan. I only ever buy this type of stuff when I actually have the money upfront.