Topic awaiting preservation: Smokin Computer Bits (Page 1 of 1)

So eh...

My power supply went *pop* last night and filled my room with a rather strong stench.

I replaced it... but the computer wont boot. I dont think it even trys to access the floppay drive. As much as I don't want to believe it... Is there any way to test if it is just mostly dead or if it is all dead?

When I power up, the hard drives and fans start spinnin... but the sound card just emits a quiet *buzzzzzz* and nothing else happens. Oh, and the fan on the CPU starts ah spinnin too.

so foo.

WHY ME? WHY NOW?

Scarey stuff eyezaer. The only way I know of... is to just start swapping out everything... one at a time.

This happened to a friend not so very long ago... power supply went poof... and the only thing he salvaged was the video card and ram. Everything else was toast. a 30 & 80 gig HD....cd cdwriter...dvd player...mobo of course... it was ugly. Not meant to rattle you but be prepared for the worst.

It was some 1 cent diode that crapped out...and let loose what my friend described as 'Illegal amounts of electricity."

Good luck... let us know how you make out. Having recently lost 10 years worth of stuff... I know what you're going thru.

Can i delete that post please?

heh... yah... yah...... I was planing on buying a DVD burner this weekend and backing up the important files... um... but... yah.

The computer was not on when this happened so i am hoping my hard drives are safe.

This may be an important bit but.... The computer did not shut down right, so i clicked it off on the back end. When I switched it back on some 8 hours later, it went boom. S

So I hope its okay in there.

Yeah...I'd check you didn't accidentally alter the voltage switch while you were back there. I had that happen to me one. The computer was off when it went boom, but some joker deicded to switch the voltage from 240 to 120 (or 110, can't remember which), and hwen I turned it on it couldn't handle the amerage and went boom...saved all the hardware though, becuase the external power relays hadn't been switched on yet. When you ocmputer turns on it sends power from a capacitor on the MoBo through to the power supply, which activates the internal startup sequence and activates the relays that send full power through to your components They were closed when it went boom, so nothing else got fried...but after the mobo the video card is next in the power sequence...hope that's all that's been fried, if anything. They're not that expensive to replace...if you're unlucky you might have lost an IDE controller, or your Floppy Drive controller, but hopefully the surge didn't get too far...

If the mobo is out... I need to replace it with someting that runs something better than my 800mhz chip...

So hardware!

I have always used Abit boards and Pentium processors... seem to work best with video editing...

Also Serial hard drives are on the horizon... sounds sweet...

Whats your thoughts on powerful systems?

I know some of you have recently upgraded... What are your specks?

What should I look for?

I've had several ASUS motherboards of various types and also several GIGABYTE boards...and neither of them have streered me wrong. I'd personally say upgrade your processor to a good 2.8 - 3.2 GHz with hyper threading, which means you'll need a fairly recent motherboard which supports hyper threading.

A couple of a gigbytes of RAM is always nice to look at...

Video editing...now, for that you'll need a pair of very large HDDs...I personally have 2 x 120GB drives

God I wish I had the money ot upgrade my system again...I've only got a 2.26 GHz, 768 MB of RAM....

we've talked about my system at the office before yeah? 3ghzHT P4 with a gb of PC800 RAM 500mhz fsb I think? I dunno if I mentioned that you can actually do other stuff while you render a movie, how bout dat baby?! Old habits and fears die hard tho, I usually walk away and let it render still =D

Jason

I am kinda down... (not really its just a computer) but i just started to think, hey! I probably would not ever upgrade if it didnt go boom... know me. woohoo!

Yah... I have gotten by with two raided 40 gig ata100 drives... just do short videos and then delete em.

All the info on anandtech and tomshardware is a bit much. I read a bunch then go oogle and foo.

I will probably go talk to some local computer guys... see what they want to sell me.

But yah, 3ghz... starting with one gig of ram... to be upgraded at a later date...

Bus speed seems to be important... I think my system was around 66hz or something silly like that... and it is all confusing.

righto man on the front side bus, that makes all the difference in the world, and the hyperthreading is a nice kick as well. Tell you the truth tho, I'm a definite hardware layman and I got so many new goodies at once with that machine that it was impossible to tell what made it all go faster.

you do good to go to Tom's I think, and nax does well with his money, you should bother him in a mighty way

Jason

i am drooling over this.

I sure as heck dont have 2500 to spend though. I dont need a case or a monitor... and i hope some of my cards and my harddrives also work... Any thoughts?

[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 10-20-2003).]

WooHoo!!!!

I *just* got around to poping my C drive in my other computer, and the files are all there. I could not boot from the drive though, on this computer... dunno why. But my data on this drive is safe. the other 2 drives are on a raid on a pci slot... and this computer is abit slow to test them. geez... its already been 6 days. I am starting to miss her, a little bit.

That's a neat sound card. I believe I have the Audigy 2 already though.

Actually, I don't...

Heck, I'd by it just for that cool drive bay dealy!

Try going to www.pricewatch.com and check for computer prices. See if you can't find something cheap there to order or get a local retailer to match theprice.

For a Intel motherboard look for an Intel's i875P chipset a.k.a. "Canterwood." or a i865PE chipsets a.k.a. "Springdale".

The Springdale and CAnterwood are the code(?) names of Intel's newest chipsets for motherboards and have a number of nice improvements such as an 200 Mhz(effective 800Mhz) Front Side Bus and more internal traffic routes(a simple way to explain it) then the older motherboards for improved performance.

The newer motherboards have more goodies then a trick-or-treat bag so I won't go into them here.
The Springdale and Canterwood support dual channel DDR400 memory. So you will see you best performance with TWO sticks of DDR 400 of equal size(ie. 2x DDR400 512 mb sticks) in the machine. But this only adds 5-15% extra go in tests so it is not an must to do this. But if you want to do an upgrade of the system adding a second stick of equal size is a good investment. But at $70 for a DDR400 512 mb stick I would say get two. Anything faster then DDR400 won't help unless you plan on overclocking the system.

Use the search function http://www.pcstats.com/ here for many motherboard reviews. I find this to be a very helpful site for hardware decisions. www.tomshardware.com is also good for the same.

If you want to go with an AMD machine I would suggest an nForce2/3 motherboard but unless you have the cash to burn on an nForce3/Athlon FX-51 Intel gives you the best go around for video editing. But an nForce2/Athlon XP is cheaper then anything Intel offers.

Buying Suggestions
The Asus P4P800, equipped with the Intel 865PE chipset (Springdale), is a very copetitive motherboard out performing the more expensive Canterwood chipset due to some MB specific tweaks. Asus is a good company and I have seen their boards do long term heavy workloads with no problems.
A P4 2.8 with hyperthreading is the best money to performance CPU from Intel.
DDR RAM is dirt cheap so why not get 2x512?

Hope this helps.

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 10-24-2003).]

You will prbaly need to make the drive the master on the main cable, likly where your current boot drive is, to boot from it. Changing the boot order in the BIOS will accomplish the same and not require you to make as many hardware changes. Neither method should damge the current drive if done properly and can be fixed by moving the drive back or seting the BIOS back to what it was before.

Moving a drive that has an OS installed on the one system and moving it to another system can be more hassel then it is worth since the OS is often left trying to run the old drivers on new hardware. With different motherboards this is particularly troublesome.

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 10-24-2003).]

hmm... this is interesting.

Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz HT 200 MHz $ 637
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz HT 200 MHz $ 417
Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz HT 133 MHz $ 401
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz HT 200 MHz $ 278
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz 133 MHz $ 262

I have been using computers at school with 3.06 processors... and they are quite nice. I am not sure about the bus speed.

*drools a bit*

P5's are gonna come out soon... Need computer now though... this all stinks.

Thanks for the info tj333. verrrry iiiiineresting....

share theose prices with Jones, he was looking at a p4 3.06 ht for something like 1100?!?!

Jason

[This message has been edited by JKMabry (edited 10-25-2003).]

A 3.06 Ghz P4 would have a 533 Mhz(133X4=532) front side bus in it.
Since the P4 has a quade pumped FSB, meaning it sends information 4 times per clock cycle, you will see the FSB labeled as 133 is the same as 533. the same for 200 and 800.

I can tell the 3.06 has a 533 FSB since if it had a 800 FSB it would be an even 3.0Ghz and the only FSB speeds at 3 Ghz are the 800 and 533.

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

Intel just made a good sized price cut on friday to compete with AMD new CPUs. AMD made a smaller one.

But the new Pentium does seem to rather far off as of yet with the only new advancement being the P4EE that has 2Mb of on board cache that will be out in mid to late November for around $925.
The Prescotte(The next big change in Intel chips) will be out in January/Febuary for around $5-600.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12359 http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12013

Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz HT 200 MHz $ 394
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz HT 200 MHz $ 270
Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz HT 133 MHz $ 255
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz HT 200 MHz $ 212
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz 133 MHz $ 185

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

yah! I saw that price drop... couldent believe it. SWEEEEET!

So, say I was to get the above system... what kind of video card should I go with? I have a 19 and a 17 incher. Would hate to let one of them go to waste..... And what is that weird white rectangular plug on the back of newer video cards?

Just one more question, what do you think I should do about a heat sink?

OK...strange white plug.

That's a DVI port, it's what flatscreen LCD monitors use. But most video card with DVI ports also come with a DVI to RGB convertor so that you can plug two monitors into the one video card. As for a good video card...the latest nVidia GeForce Card or the latest Radeon card are always good...

Heatsinks...well...If you really want you can get a larger heatsink and fan assembly for your processor...and I recommend a number of case fans. I have 4 currently running on my system, and it never gets anywhere near the unsafe working temperature...

I wouldn't get the Geforce5800, get the 5900 instead. The 5900 is what the 5800 should have been.
Other then that I can think of any video cards that you shouldn't get.

Unless you are playing games, CAD, or want some nice features on you card you can make do with anything better then a GeForce2.
For features the Radeon All-in-Wonder is one of the best ones.


For fans all you really need is a front and rear intake to go along with the heatsink on the CPU. Unless you plan to do some overclocking...

For as heatsink something in the $40-60 range is usualy good. Look around for some reviews and you should be able to find a low noise one as well. Just make sure that it is for the right socket type.
You are going for a P4?

Review artcle that compares a number of HSF combos. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=794
__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 11-03-2003).]

thank you!

I kinda understand some of this now...

one more question though,

what is the difference between say,

a 512 stick of Corsair TwinX XMS DDR400, and a 512 stick of Crucial DDR400, becides the price tag?




[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 11-09-2003).]

Usualy the only difference is that one can overclock better and is sold at a premium to people who want to do so or comes with heatspreaderd, a heatsink for the RAM.
Also some RAM can runs with lower latency times. Such as 2 latency setting instead of 2.5 or 3. This doesn't make a lot of difference in the overall performance of the RAM.
"CAS Latency The ratio between column access time and clock cycle time. CAS Latency 2 (CL2) offers a slight
performance increase over CAS Latency 3 (CL3). "

Also RAM can be ECC or registered. ECC means it does a parity check on the onformation going through the RAM and registered means it has been tested to ensure it workes. This little bit helps explain some:
"Registered RAM is always ECC because if you pay extra for Registered RAM, you're almost certainly the same
type of customer that gets ECC RAM, but not all ECC RAM is registered. to have more than 1 GB of RAM in your
system withoug progressive loss of performance, you need to use Registered RAM"
So if one stick is registered or ECC it will cost more then the other one. ECC is a bit slower but more stable. You should see if you motherboard supports either of those types before you buy it.

The Crucial has a higher latency and does not have heat spreaders.
The Corsair is guaranted to go fast with low latencies and has heat spreaders.
Both Corsair and Crucial are good RAM companies from what I have heard so either one should be a good buy but go with the Corsair if you want to overclock the system.

some links:
http://www.techdictionary.com/
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1364087,00.asp
RAM reviews http://www.amdboard.com/ddr400.html

edit:The stuff in qoutes are links from the linked pages.
__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 11-10-2003).]

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 11-10-2003).]