P.C Building

[LutonSpurs]

That's my potential build. Thinking the 2GB graphics card should be ok for minecraft, steam games and some photo editing.

 

[billyiddo]

How much could you build a budget PC for? General home office work and Internet browsing mainly, maybe used as a media hub/streaming HD movies/Audio, not a massive gamer, but would like the option to play the odd GTA/FM

And is it possible for a novice to put one together?

That list you've put together Luton is that better than what I could pick up off the shelf for the equivalent price?

 

[LutonSpurs]

How much could you build a budget PC for? General home office work and Internet browsing mainly, maybe used as a media hub/streaming HD movies/Audio, not a massive gamer, but would like the option to play the odd GTA/FM

And is it possible for a novice to put one together?

That list you've put together Luton is that better than what I could pick up off the shelf for the equivalent price?

For a non gaming machine you could do it for £300 if you want but if you want to game a bit and in the future it is worth getting the bits which will make it easier to keep upgrading.

The list I put together from the shelf would be tough to do unless you use someone like Freshtech solutions but I am actually treating this as a fun project for me and my nearly 10 year old boy.

What's your budget?

 

[billyiddo]

I don't really have a budget at this stage, just seeing what my options are - if for the same money I can build a better machine than what I can buy off the shelf then I think I'll go that route, however I've never built a computer before, though I have changed drives over and added/replaced bits over the years and think I'd be ok.

A non gaming machine which I could then improve further down the line should I choose to play games would be ideal, for arguments sake a budget of 300-400

 

[Notmegov]

Sorry to Hijack this thread, being looking to build myself a gaming pc for a while but my budget has been shrinking a little recently then i spotted this. It looks good value to me, what do you lot think? So far no bids for £350 just around the corner from me as well. I could upgrade the GPU card at a latter date.

• Intel i7 3770K, with aftermarket Duel Fan Heat Sink, Average Temps 25-40°C even under load.
• 1 TB SG Drive, 7200rpm
• 8Gb's Corsair Vengeance RAM, 1600MHz
• ASUS Motherboard, solid board, good for overclocking and room for upgrading
• GTX 670 MSI Overclocked edition, 1150MHz core clock under load
• Corsair 750CX Power supply, plenty of power for upgrading.
• Zalman Case, 3 additional case fans for great air flow, with temp gauge for CPU on digital display on front of the case (Blue Lighting).
• Windows 10 Ultimate installed

 

[Yiddo]

Papercut has pretty much got the same set up as me. My PC cost me around £450 including Windows 7, mouse and Keyboard and can pretty much run most games on 1080p on high settings are 50+ fps.

• CASE: BitFenix Comrade Midi-Tower

• HDD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003

• CPU: AMD (Piledriver) FX-6300 3.50GHz (4.10GHz Turbo)

• MEMORY: 8GB (2x4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600MHz CL9 DDR3

• GFX: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X

• MOBO: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P

• PSU: EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply

Building a PC can be easy depending on what motherboard you get. It's pretty self explanatory with the motherboard being marked where to put what.

 

[antonybontot21]

. I am travelling to Canada to explore the industry that I work in (I am a computer engineer). I plan to visit Ontario and Alberta including the cities of Toronto, Calgary, and Edmonton. In addition to visiting these cities can someone please recommend where it would be useful to visit in order order to find companies hiring computer engineers?

 

[Papercut]

I went into this project with some real determination and hit a brick wall when it came to connecting all power cables (I've been electrocuted in my time and I also didn't want to blow up the system!). Finally got a couple of hours spare last month and went for the jugular. When it flies, it flies (I haven't gamed on it yet) but then there is this stuttering and occasional freezing which is peeing me off...

I removed the ram and reseated - still a problem.
I have the OS (Win 10 64 bit) booting from an SSD and a currently blank 3.5" secondary drive. I've unplugged the secondary drive and it appears to be working so far (I've gone into sleep mode, turned off, etc and all good). Is there a chance that the slower secondary is causing the issues? I do have the bios booting from the ssd and then the 3.5".

I have written to Gigabyte as they have a beta bios update which may or may not be form my motherboard (conflicting info).

I got a tad heavy handed on the thermal paste but want to thin this out as a last resort (the third party CPU fan is a bitch to take off).

Any ideas chaps?

Thanking you.

EDIT: Unfortunately started to freeze again (I blame Milo's post in the Paris thread ) so not the HDD (3.5") it seems. I've not made any particular changes to BIOS so perhaps that?

 

[Trixster]

Check you have used the correct sata port for the ssd, some mobo's have two versions (asmedia & intel for example) and the boot drive generally tends to want to be on intel. Also, drivers come into play there too if on non-intel.

Likewise, chipset software installed?

Oh, and your bios ideally should be set to ACHI not IDE

 

[scaramanga]

Are the drives on separate SATA and and power cables? If they're chained on the same cable that can cause slowdown

EdIt, I mean separate from each other. Obviously you're not using the same cable for data and power!

 

[Papercut]

Thanks both for your input. Scara, oooh... I think I did use the same power, gotta check it. Gigabyte came back with suggesting I Update bios to the beta version (though it looked like a lazy suggestion). Back tmrw. Cheers

 

[LutonSpurs]

Make sure you have fast boot turned off if you are booting from SSD, that always causes issues.

Anyway what Scara said.

Mine ran like a dream but the sound was messed. Constant hissing from front and back ports, Realtek drivers were installed and all seemed correct but still no sound. So I have sent the Mobo back for warranty repair as it really can't be anything else

 

[Dicko]

Where's the best site for getting equipment? I need to set up with a couple of monitors, keyboard and docking station etc.

I'm currently looking on ebuyer. Are there better sites out there?