What Have You Done Today - (Computer Version)

  • Thread starter tlowr4
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I was able to purchase myself a new LED TV monitor today. I got myself a 22-inch LED TV capable of 1080p from Element Electronics. This device has component jacks. That is a first for me since being so used to composite jacks. I hooked in the VGA cord from my PC to my new TV. It has one HDMI jack and one VGA jack. I may consider getting an HDMI hub so I could possibly be able to use HDMI input from other devices and be able to switch between certain devices. Being the experimental type, I thought about ways I could utilize my new sort of TV/monitor setup in my room. I must admit it's very cool having a dual monitor setup. I made the TV my new monitor because the power cord isn't long enough to go from my power strip to the top of the dresser in my room. So my new TV is now my new PC monitor and TV. I moved my PC monitor to the top of my dresser, and it is connected using the HDMI port of my PC to the DVI port of my monitor.

For now, I have my current PC monitor duplicating my TV monitor. So in other words, if I were to play a game or a video on one screen, it will show up on the other screen playing at the same time and at the same rate. What I possibly want to eventually do is use the other monitor for basic PC usage and even to use as a second screen to exclusively test any games I may develop at higher resolutions. Or I may use the other monitor simply to display any programs I may develop while using my primary display to develop programs/games on the fly. Also, I could exclusively use one monitor or the other to use for playing my OUYA. I am not too worried about sound, so I still may use my Bluetooth earbuds to listen to sound/music even though there is lag of up to about one second or a half of a second using my Bluetooth earbuds with the OUYA.

My impressions of my new Element LED TV are fairly positive. Setup was rather simple and with very acceptable sound quality. Picture quality is very nice, but my PC monitor was a bit better in sharp and rich pictures. I think I'm going to enjoy this dual monitor setup. It will be even better once I find a configuration I could work with from time to time.

And THAT is what I did today. :)
 
I must say it's pretty cool to have a dual monitor setup. I sometimes alternate between having the PC monitor as being my second monitor either for basic PC work or to use in an extended display between monitors. So I have become a bit more comfortable using the Windows 8 Charms menu to switch between duplicating displays and extending displays. Only thing I really changed for the PC monitor was to set it to its Energy Saver setting, because I noticed my PC monitor was rather bright. I was also able to have my new TV be more compatible with the Dish Network receiver in my room. I basically now just use the TV remote simply to switch between HDMI (which I use for my Dish receiver, PlayStation 3, and OUYA) and VGA (which I use for my PC).

Besides my PC, I found out I could port over files to my Hisense tablet PC using OneDrive and File Manager. I even set it up to have files from my very old Google Drive.. So I could use material saved on OneDrive and Google Drive to download from there to my tablet PC. It is just a few ways to port over files without having to have my devices hooked into my PC.
 
Just made a usb fan... pretty shoddy job though as I screwed up the connections (didn't really twist that well on the power side) and cuts out (like it just did now) but squeezing it seems to fix it..

I wanted to put a rheostat on it to control it, but I think I'm just going to buy a Cooler master U3 (Oh, I have a laptop by the way), as I only happened to find this fan earlier today. I had one on my desk for the longest time and said I would make one, but never did, and about a week ago I threw it away.... I could've had two.

Another problem is... it's too loud... I don't know where this one came from but it's about 1200 rpm I think, seven blades too...
 
Swagger897
Just made a usb fan... pretty shoddy job though as I screwed up the connections (didn't really twist that well on the power side) and cuts out (like it just did now) but squeezing it seems to fix it..

I wanted to put a rheostat on it to control it, but I think I'm just going to buy a Cooler master U3 (Oh, I have a laptop by the way), as I only happened to find this fan earlier today. I had one on my desk for the longest time and said I would make one, but never did, and about a week ago I threw it away.... I could've had two.

Another problem is... it's too loud... I don't know where this one came from but it's about 1200 rpm I think, seven blades too...
Click to expand...
Try soldering the connections instead of just twisting them together.
 
I learned a few days ago that you CAN put composite cables into component jacks. So today, I put that to the test by jacking in the AV cables of my PlayStation 2 into my new LED TV. Lo and behold... it worked! The white and red cables go into the white and red ports, and the yellow composite cable goes into the green port of the component jacks. Composite cables may not give you fancy pants visuals and such, but it's nice to know I can play some of my older systems and older games on my new TV even with AV inputs. This may give me a chance to play old games again and probably blog about them.

There you have it. Oh, and the game I was using to test this all out? Gran Turismo 4. I even tried to fiddle around with a few extra settings. However, I was unsuccessful trying to play with Progressive Scan or HDTV settings. I figure I probably need component cables for any real fancy graphics settings.
 
I just upgraded my desktop from a GTX760 Super Clocked to a GTX970, thanks to getting a good deal on the card from a friend. Dunno what I will do with my old card though...
System specs:
desktop_specs_05-15-15.jpg
 
Installed my new 250GB SSD and the GTX980 today. Bit of a back and forth with the SSD, had it accidentally plugged into one of the SATA M slots and it wasn't properly recognized. Have it in one of the SATA3 slots now and it's finally being recognised as it should. Started a Windows7 installation on it but had to leave for university before it was finished :indiff:

I'll have to install all the drivers, PCARS and GTAV on the SSD when I get home. And afterwards I'll be enjoying PCARS in all its glory :D
 
And today I installed an additional 1TB drive:
IMAG0300_1.jpg

Next I will probably get an SSD for Windows and my important games. Also will upgrade my PSU in the coming months.
 
Trying to figure out options to get a gaming box for a tight budget...


Gahhh, I'm getting super confused with graphics cards. Currently in China, there's a major online retailer (jd.com) that is having a sale on. Which is making all the other online retailers start their own sales as well.

Now, I've been debating a Steam style box (basically) for the tv as I can't be bothered to keep playing the games on my trusty laptop (even though its still impressively able to play it) for the last few months.

I keep finding GTX750 for low prices as well as a 250 + 260, but not keen on the actual specs of it. Then up pops an 960. Now, I have a feeling its less than a 970, so I check the price for that 970. 220 smackers or so. Although that's way outside of my current budget. So 960 seems a possibility, seemingly around 120 quid to 175 quid..... till I see an R9 280X series card for 150 or thereabouts.

My main question is, even though I'm currently restricted to a 1080p resolution, I still kinda want to have a card that wouldn't be taxed too much to play medium or above on that resolution. I believe that all the cards mentioned above would find that easy (within reason).

CPU wise, I've not been following the Intel route as its really a little confusing trying to work out which one would be suitable and not leave something out, CPU and motherboard wise. I do know that there's a possibility for an i3-4160 or a variant on that as it leaves an upgrade path for the future to an i5/i7. However.... just for an 1080p game box, I can't really see an CPU being a limiting factor in this case. For using AMD, generally was planning on an 860K as one is available for 40 quid. Spied an FX 8350 chip for 95 quid as well. For me, reason for going the AMD route was generally cheaper CPU and motherboard combo to try to get some balance.

Thoughts?
 
Can I get some comments and suggestions on this build as a second PC (not a replacement for my current one) please? But before you respond, let me justify the CPU and motherboard choice first...

1. I realise the G3258 is far from ideal, but both it and the supposedly not great H81M-P33 are so cheap that I would have no problem shelving both when I need to upgrade to be able to keep playing newer games.
2. The motherboard does support overclocking, despite not being a Z chipset.
3. I want to play older or simpler games on it, the type that don't take advantage of four cores. The G3258 has better single-core performance than my 2500K so I expect when it's overclocked to ~4.4GHz it'll have no trouble running such games.
4. The cooler might seem like overkill since you can apparently reach 4GHz on the stock cooler, but a) I want to go higher than that and b) if/when I do get a quad-core I could use it to cool that, too.
5. The ultimate goal is to have a compact, more energy-efficient PC I can take with me when I move out. My current 4.5GHz 2500K/GTX 680 full ATX tower is great and all but that's only because I'm not paying the bills where I am now...!

But, if you guys can recommend a cheap (£50) Mini-ITX motherboard that supports overclocking or a mATX/Mini-ITX case without optical drive bays that isn't much more than £40, I'd love to know about them.

Edit: About the power supply: PC Part Picker says this system with an i5-4960k and a Z97 motherboard will want about 291W, which I assume is slightly overestimating it. According to this, the stock i5 voltage is very conservative so with some manual tuning you can get it to run at 4.4GHz at the same voltage as stock, so the power draw doesn't go up that much; 450W should therefore be ok for an overclocked i5 as well as an overclocked G3258. Does that sound right?

@Submerged, maybe you should have a look at that link. It seems like most people agree that an overclocked G3258 is a better choice than an i3-4160, mainly because it overclocks so well and the lack of hyperthreading isn't a big deal for gaming. Also:

Submerged
However.... just for an 1080p game box, I can't really see an CPU being a limiting factor in this case.
Click to expand...

That depends on the game. Anything busy or simulation-heavy will tax the CPU a lot; Arma 3, GTA V, Euro Truck Sim 2, Gmod and probably Minecraft (it was really badly optimised last time I checked) are good examples of games that need good processors. It's not a bad idea to expect to upgrade to a quad-core in the near future if you want to play newer games, they're considered to be the ideal for gaming builds. As things get bigger, more complex and more reliant on multiple cores, as they are starting to, a quad core will be essential. I really doubt Fallout 4 or MGS V will run well on dual core processors, but who knows?
 
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@neema_t, with regards to Euro Truck Sim 2, I can run that on my current laptop pretty well at the laptop resolution, 1366x720 with an AMD A8-3500M. Although I noticed that its a quad core (I supposed) so that works with your statement.

With regards to your build, its certainly something for me to consider, just need to work out what I can actually buy and whether its equivalent or not. And not going too crazy with the budget, of course.

I assume you're sticking with a 250GB SSD as you won't be filling it up too much? Not quite sure if you were expecting to have a small SSD and then put a bigger HDD for the games in it instead? Additionally can use it to stream.

I've been debating what to do for the Windows OS system. Its an interesting situation as I can only seem to get an Window 8.1 which can only be downloaded from the Microsoft website(!) or try and find somewhere to get an Windows disc. Steam Linux isn't yet that advanced in my opinion to guarantee it working out of the box.
 
Submerged
I assume you're sticking with a 250GB SSD as you won't be filling it up too much? Not quite sure if you were expecting to have a small SSD and then put a bigger HDD for the games in it instead? Additionally can use it to stream.
Click to expand...

Frankly I think I'm over the days of hoarding games. I used to have all of my games installed at once but that was awful because my PC was constantly downloading updates for stuff I'd never realistically play, and having too much choice meant I spent more time choosing what to play than playing anything, which is dumb. Instead I think it's better to be disciplined, only download things you want to play and play them until you get bored and want to try something else. Unlike a lot of people I've also at least tried most of my Steam library, out of 690 games I only have about 110 in my 'not yet played' categories and most of those are sequels to other games I haven't played yet.

This is what my current 256GB SSD has installed on it:
Windows 7 64-bit
Grand Prix Legends (10GB with all the mods)
Borderlands 2 (and all the DLC)
Borderlands The Pre-Sequel
Broforce (tiny)
Fallout: New Vegas (and all the DLC)
Grand Theft Auto V (~60GB)
Grid Autosport
Just Cause 2
Kerbal Space Program
MGS V: Ground Zeroes
Metrocide (also tiny)
My user folder with 5 years' worth of game saves
Other programs like AVIDemux, 7Capture, etc.

And I still have 53GB left! Given that the proposed build can't run GTA V without a quad-core, I never play Borderlands: TPS and I have no idea why Grid Autosport is on there, I would have about 130GB free which is more than enough for most of my other favourite games. Sure, it would be a tight fit with most of my favourite games, my iTunes music and space for browser downloads, screenshots and ShadowPlay recordings but if I'm careful to clear the latter three out or back them up regularly, but it's doable. If it turns out to not be doable, another 256GB SSD would alleviate the problem a great deal, a third would be even better. Given how much they've come down in price since I bought my 840 Evo I wouldn't be surprised if a good SATA 256GB SSD costs £50-60 by next year. Of course we'll be on to PCI-based storage by then, though.
 
neema_t
Can I get some comments and suggestions on this build as a second PC (not a replacement for my current one) please? But before you respond, let me justify the CPU and motherboard choice first...

1. I realise the G3258 is far from ideal, but both it and the supposedly not great H81M-P33 are so cheap that I would have no problem shelving both when I need to upgrade to be able to keep playing newer games.
2. The motherboard does support overclocking, despite not being a Z chipset.
3. I want to play older or simpler games on it, the type that don't take advantage of four cores. The G3258 has better single-core performance than my 2500K so I expect when it's overclocked to ~4.4GHz it'll have no trouble running such games.
4. The cooler might seem like overkill since you can apparently reach 4GHz on the stock cooler, but a) I want to go higher than that and b) if/when I do get a quad-core I could use it to cool that, too.
5. The ultimate goal is to have a compact, more energy-efficient PC I can take with me when I move out. My current 4.5GHz 2500K/GTX 680 full ATX tower is great and all but that's only because I'm not paying the bills where I am now...!

But, if you guys can recommend a cheap (£50) Mini-ITX motherboard that supports overclocking or a mATX/Mini-ITX case without optical drive bays that isn't much more than £40, I'd love to know about them.

Edit: About the power supply: PC Part Picker says this system with an i5-4960k and a Z97 motherboard will want about 291W, which I assume is slightly overestimating it. According to this, the stock i5 voltage is very conservative so with some manual tuning you can get it to run at 4.4GHz at the same voltage as stock, so the power draw doesn't go up that much; 450W should therefore be ok for an overclocked i5 as well as an overclocked G3258. Does that sound right?

@Submerged, maybe you should have a look at that link. It seems like most people agree that an overclocked G3258 is a better choice than an i3-4160, mainly because it overclocks so well and the lack of hyperthreading isn't a big deal for gaming. Also:



That depends on the game. Anything busy or simulation-heavy will tax the CPU a lot; Arma 3, GTA V, Euro Truck Sim 2, Gmod and probably Minecraft (it was really badly optimised last time I checked) are good examples of games that need good processors. It's not a bad idea to expect to upgrade to a quad-core in the near future if you want to play newer games, they're considered to be the ideal for gaming builds. As things get bigger, more complex and more reliant on multiple cores, as they are starting to, a quad core will be essential. I really doubt Fallout 4 or MGS V will run well on dual core processors, but who knows?
Click to expand...

Why not spend the money on upgrading your current rig instead?
 
Korza
Why not spend the money on upgrading your current rig instead?
Click to expand...

The main reason is that my brother plays a lot of DayZ and I'd quite like it if he'd stop using my PC for it, so I'm either going to sell my old one to him for the price of a GTX 960 or I'll just give him it minus the GTX 680 (which I really want to upgrade for the lower power draw) and 840 Evo.
 
Well, uh, things kind of escalated. I've got an i5 4690K, Z97 motherboard and an ASUS Strix 960 on the way. The RAM, SSD and case will have to wait until the end of the month though. The 450W PSU I ordered will probably be enough for now but I think capacitor ageing will cause problems, but I can worry about that later, maybe I can even recap it or just buy a new one and use the old one as a benchtop PSU. I bought an ATX breakout board years ago for that purpose and haven't had a spare PSU to use it with since.
 
Recently I replaced the optical drive with an HDD caddy on my old Dell Inspiron 1564 laptop. Now it has a 240gb SSD for its primary drive and the old 500gb HDD in it for the extra crap. Runs like new lol.
 
I wasn't going to order my new case just yet, but then I remembered I have about £60 in a pair of shoes I need to return so I did it anyway. It's a Fractal Design Core 1300, probably not the best case ever but for £37 it seems to be a good, compact, subtle-looking option.

I found out my new motherboard has a PCIe x4 M.2 port so I've been half considering an SSD to go in it, there's not much choice at the moment but Samsung do a 256GB one for £50 more than a SATA which is significantly slower, but then again the SATA is £77 so that's not far off two thirds more expensive, which is huge, and I've never felt like my SSD should be faster than it is, either.


Just out of curiousity, since I didn't find anything after hours of searching, does anyone know of any cases that don't feature any drive bays at the front of the case? I mean, like, I don't want any optical drives and I'm going to just have one SSD next to the power supply (there's a bay for one there) initially, so all the 5.25", 3.5" and 2.5" bays at the front (to the right of the motherboard as you look at it with the side off) are just wasting space. I think the case could be about a third shorter without those provisions, and then even if you do want more SSDs they can be mounted just about anywhere so it's not a big deal. Any ideas?

Also: Round SATA cables (for easier shaping), do they exist and are they any good?
 
Last night I finally decided to do something I've wanted to try, but have never really gotten around to doing: Fixing my dead computer. Sometime last year, right before my dad gave me his laptop as he was getting a tablet, I bricked my old computer that I got in 2010, and because some of the keyboard keys weren't working, I couldn't boot into USB. I planned to try and use a wireless keyboard that he had also gotten to fix this. Last night, using the functional laptop, I made a Linux Live USB and then booted in on the old computer, using the wireless keyboard in the BIOS to bypass the problem of the nonfunctional down key. I then started copying old files that I wanted to retrieve onto another USB, because while I couldn't boot into Windows on the old one, Linux could still read the file system. Once I finish retrieving all the files I want, I'll wipe out Windows 7 on the old one and maybe put in Debian or something. Back when the old one did work, I messed around with it a lot. Now I'll be able to mess with it again.
 
My Core 1300 finally turned up...

Edited to make this post somewhat relevant:

So I assembled the parts that I have (which is everything except the RAM and SSD). Since it's my second scratch-built PC and I've spent a fair bit of time on my old one, routing cables and what have you, I had it all put together pretty fast. The problem is the side panels on the Core 1300 are paper-thin and, unlike the Define, are hinged at the front instead of slide-on with rails top and bottom which means if your cable routing is no good you'll have a very noticeable bulge... So after the ~15-20 minutes spent putting the parts together, I spent about an hour trying different routing configurations before I found one that works. I'm still not happy with it, but it'll do for now (which means it'll probably do forever). The airflow looks like it'll be good though since there's, well, there's bugger all in the front of the case except wires, unlike my Define (R3) which somewhat puzzlingly has this big, restrictive, 8-slot hard drive case right behind the front fans.

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with how light the thing is, it's just a shame it's not as small as it could be.
 
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Regarding my dead computer situation, I've not copied most of the files I want. Now all I need are a few photos and videos I want, which should only be a few gig. After that, I'll replace the dead Windows 7 with another OS. I'll probably get Debian, and maybe put on Windows again.
 
Long story short:
- New PC wouldn't POST
- Stripped and rebuilt the entire thing
- Turns out it was just badly seated RAM (duh)
- Boots from my old C drive fine
- Is super, super quiet
- The GTX 960 is a bit disappointing coming from a GTX 680 but it is very energy efficient. I'll see how it goes but I'm sure it'll handle my current favourites ok and will surely handle MGS V, which is the most important thing. But if the 960 Ti is released and isn't more than £200 while I'm still able to return the 960, though, I'll probably do that.
 
Wrote a bank program for Monopoly in Python. No need to bother with the paper money anymore :)
I also added functions for loans and interest, and I'm thinking about maybe adding taxes as well, I'm curious to see what it would do to the gameplay...
 
Monopoly bank script: The bank will now check the player's equity ratio before granting a loan :)

monopoly2.png


I think the game is getting too complicated though. Got rid of the paper money, but instead each player needs their own personal accountant :P

I guess more realism is not always better game design.
 
So now I'm trying to juggle the storage in my old PC to liberate the boot SSD for my new one. I've gotten as far as moving all the stuff I want to keep from the 2TB drive to the 1TB one so that's ready to be pulled, the 2TB is now host to my brother's ~600GB of DayZ ShadowPlay captures, then there's the old and probably about to die 128GB Crucial M4 (which is where DayZ, Arma 2 and 3 are installed so they have to stay put) and the super slow WD Caviar Blue 2.5" 320GB where I currently have Steam installed.

It seems like the 2TB is the best place for the OS given the assumed fragility and degradation of the SSD (it's from 2011 after all) and how slow the 2.5" drive is, but I have nowhere to copy the ShadowPlay videos to - should I get Handbrake to transcode them to YouTube quality to try and halve the size so I can back them up on the now-empty 320GB drive or should I just install the OS (Windows 7 64-bit) on the 2TB drive without moving the videos and hope it doesn't wipe everything?


Edit: So I just went ahead and installed Windows and had the system back up in only about two hours which seemed pretty quick, of course the "So you had to install Windows from scratch..." guide I wrote for myself last time helped - past me was kind enough to explain which files I needed, which I didn't and in what order they should be installed, he also included installers for IZArc, .Net 4.5 and a few other things. No actual driver files, though, that would've been too handy.

Anyway so I installed my old boot drive in my new PC but I don't have any RAM for it yet, I'll hopefully order that at the end of this week but money is a bit tight right now. I'll order a SATA extension cable with it because my SATA power cables both have 90 degree connectors on the ends and the 2.5" bay I've used is flat against the motherboard tray. I've used a cardboard spacer as a stopgap but it totally sucks.
 
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Ordered a Phantek Enthoo Pro to replace my old case (CM Elite). Moving my entire PC to the Phantek took only 3 hours, and spending 15-30 min troubleshooting. And wow the Phantek looks crazy nice! Since it's a full-factor case though it's extremely heavy to lug around, even without my PC in there. But for a $100 case this thing comes with literally everything: A nice accessory box with all the screws in there (huge surplus btw), you're able to detach some things off the chassis that would normally be attached with rivets, a PSU cover, and even a PWM hub! It's a little disappointing that the PWM hub is controlled by one sensor so you can't control each fan individually, but trying it out I was able to make the entire PC pretty silent.
 

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