Welcome, guest. Register to remove this message!

[SureShot]

I am currently eager to buy this... With my current average rate of a little over 23 photographs a day, this will store them all until I am 72 years old.

Why the 1TB one? It's not particularly cost-efficient compared to the other three. And if you're not going to use it for anything but your photographs, you won't be using it in 40 years' time anyway - USB won't be around for that long.

That was an example calculation only. I will be storing lots of other things on it too, like DVDs and music. I am probably also going to use it as a backup of my internal HD.

You do have a point though, I'd save money by buying two 500 GB ones. There are two disadvantages though:
(1) They are two physical devices. This means double the physical space consumed, and double the USB ports used.
(2) It introduces a physical barrier between their disks. I am forced to live with two 500 GB partitions and cannot combine them into one 1 TB partition.

1) Stack them on eachother or side by side, a USB hub gives you more USB ports.
2) Also add's security that if one fails then you still have half on the other !.

But really isn't that a luxury problem !?.

This post has been edited by SureShot: 3 January 2008, 16:15

[Protek]

I ended up beating the dead donkey and bought a PCChips M860 mobo with a preinstalled AMD Athlon 64 socket 754 cpu for 69 euro. It's AGP only and socket 754 is pretty ancient, hence 'beating the dead donkey' expression. Would've liked the new cpu only solution better since WinXP is going to have a hard time digesting the new mobo. Well I think there are some advantages in Athlon 64 over Athlon XP.

This post has been edited by Protek: 5 January 2008, 20:42

[Protek]

Well. the Athlon 64 2800+ turned out to be a Mobile Athlon XP-M 2800+. It's still a 64 bit K8 core though. Took some tweaking but the system is now up and running - and appears to be working stably. Hopefully thiis will get me by for a year or so.

[Protek]

Still a bit confused about the processor, I tried updating my bios, which then went south and I ended up with a dead machine. First time for me, every other bios update that I've made has worked ok. I probably should've done it in dos but I don't have a real floppy drive to boot the thing. Gladly I found a Finnish site that reprograms and sells readily programmed bios chips. I opted for a replacement with the new bios sw for 12,50 €. Re-programming would've been 11 € and I would've had to send my chip there so it was faster and cheaper to get a replacement. The new chip should arrive today. Kudos for Eliitti-Insinöörit for fast service! While my machine was already open, I removed the CPU cooler and was now sure that the CPU is a Mobile Athlon XP-M. I decided to get a real Athlon 64 (3200+), which should also arrive today. I have to pick out a better cooler too, since the cooler that came with the mobo upgrade package is loud and the quality isn't that good either. The upgrade turned out not to be so cheap after all but I still think it's reasonable considering that I don't have to get a new graphics card. And I suppose I should get something from the XP-M, when I sell it.

[Protek]

Have to say that this will definitely be the last mobo upgrade package that I will buy.

I came to realize that the mobo is missing the frame around the socket where the cooler clamps should be attached. In manufacturer's site the mobo is shown to have such frame but this upgrade package has the cooler screwed straight into the screwholes where the frame should be screwed in. Not much point in contacting the retailer because they don't build the bundle. Have to see if I will go through the trouble of contacting the manufacturer straight.

[SureShot]

Have to say that this will definitely be the last mobo upgrade package that I will buy.

I came to realize that the mobo is missing the frame around the socket where the cooler clamps should be attached. In manufacturer's site the mobo is shown to have such frame but this upgrade package has the cooler screwed straight into the screwholes where the frame should be screwed in. Not much point in contacting the retailer because they don't build the bundle. Have to see if I will go through the trouble of contacting the manufacturer straight.

Man that sux bigtime... That's why I for my primary PC always buy new stuff to (most of the time) skip any problems or issues that might occur.
It's so annoying ending up with spending as much cash as it would have cost to get some new stuff.

[Protek]

Have to say that this will definitely be the last mobo upgrade package that I will buy.

I came to realize that the mobo is missing the frame around the socket where the cooler clamps should be attached. In manufacturer's site the mobo is shown to have such frame but this upgrade package has the cooler screwed straight into the screwholes where the frame should be screwed in. Not much point in contacting the retailer because they don't build the bundle. Have to see if I will go through the trouble of contacting the manufacturer straight.

Man that sux bigtime... That's why I for my primary PC always buy new stuff to (most of the time) skip any problems or issues that might occur.
It's so annoying ending up with spending as much cash as it would have cost to get some new stuff.

Yeah, well going from AGP to PCI-E is such a big investment that I'll rather go the whole nine yards with it (new case, PSU, etc.). But I should be able to make due with this one for some time, since I don't buy new games for PC anymore. FS2004 runs nicely on this one. I might just get a quieter fan to the cooler.

Edit: Found a cooler with an appropriate mounting frame from Arctic Cooling. Going to pick one up after work. Hopefully the frame will sit nicely to the current screwhole mounts so I don't have to take the mobo out for the coolers own mount.

This post has been edited by Protek: 17 January 2008, 12:40

[Gemini Prime]

I have an Imac with a 2.1 GHz G5 processor and 1.5 GB of SDRAM. And a keyboard with a mouse. Of course I have OS X, cant stand Windows, too ugly and complicated (and rather dated, Vista is the same as OS X except we had it for years). And as all Mac users I dont care about the hardware, it looks good, works really well and is cool. Thats all I want.

For my need for games I have a PS3 and a PSP. Works fine, I dont have the patience to play games with a keyboard and mouse anyway.

[Thunderclash]

Okay, I have finally completed purchasing all components and built my PC, but the graphics card seem to be dead (the LCD display is reporting "no signal detected"). Bummer! Or, at least, I think it's the graphics card. Both the graphics card and motherboard are brand spanking new PCI Express 2.0 compliant, and I'm unable to do a full diagnostic until I've tried a replacement card (all my old cards are AGP ones... ). It could well be the motherboard, but I'm convinced it's the graphics card since the motherboard is powering up and a green indicator light is lit. Cue myself ordering a new graphics card. If that doesn't work, I have two good graphics cards and a faulty motherboard.... Nooo!

Anyway, here's the complete setup:

Cooler Master Cosmos case (almost 20 backbreaking kilograms, when it's empty... ).
OCZ GameXStream 850W power supply unit.
Asus P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-P @n motherboard (X38, DDR3, 1333FSB, PCI Express 2.0, 7.1 HD-Audio, WiFi).
OCZ EB PC12800 1600MHz DDR3 2 x 1024MB.
Intel Core Duo E6850 3.0 GHz 1333FSB CPU.
Zalman CNPS9700 NT CPU cooler.
Samsung SH-203BEBN S-ATA DVD Multi Writer.
2 x Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB S-ATA2 hard drives (these will be run in a RAID1 (mirroring) setup.
Asus GeForce 8800GTS 512 MB PCI Express 2.0 graphics card.
BenQ FP241WZ 24-inch LCD display (S-PVA panel).

Oh, and I'll be running XP Pro and Vista Ultimate in dual-boot. And, if I'm crazy enough, perhaps try out Linux as well.


Knut Ingar

This post has been edited by Thunderclash: 21 January 2008, 20:08

[SureShot]

Nice setup Thunderclash.

I'm too slowly beginning to upgrade my PC, but I'll take it in small steps at a time.
First I'll get my GeForce 7900GTO SLI config replaced by a Gainward BLISS GeForce 8800GT 1GB Golden Sample 650/1900Mhz graphics card to 2399Dkk... just waiting for my paycheck to clear before getting it.
CPU, Motherboard, Ram I haven't considered yet... perhaps it's time for some Intel for a change, maybe a Q9450 or a cheaper E8400, probably the latter, not much use for Quad core at the moment.
Harddrive ? mm maybe it's time to move on from IDE to SATA

[palaste]

Harddrive ? mm maybe it's time to move on from IDE to SATA

I'd say it is. When I plugged in this computer's SATA hard drive I was amazed at how easy it is. No need to worry about jumpers at all. The motherboard supports four SATA devices and currently I'm only using one.

[predaking]

some new hardware for me too!

24" BenQ full HD monitor (no digital input though)
asus 8800 gtx
thermaltake toughpower 750w psu (<16db)
steelseries 4d mouse pad (awesome!)

The real reason for the upgrade that we plan to get a full HD projector "some time in the future". To be able to clone the video signal in a practical way, we will need a full HD monitor as well. And that means we'll probably need a better graphics card to display the high resolution - which in turn needs a more powerful psu. Kinda lame reasoning, and a lot of money spent when we won't even get the projector for quite some time.

[SureShot]

some new hardware for me too!

24" BenQ full HD monitor (no digital input though)
asus 8800 gtx
thermaltake toughpower 750w psu (<16db)
steelseries 4d mouse pad (awesome!)

The real reason for the upgrade that we plan to get a full HD projector "some time in the future". To be able to clone the video signal in a practical way, we will need a full HD monitor as well. And that means we'll probably need a better graphics card to display the high resolution - which in turn needs a more powerful psu. Kinda lame reasoning, and a lot of money spent when we won't even get the projector for quite some time.

Why not have settled with a 50% cheaper Galaxy GF8800GT (almost as fast) or perhaps a cheaper yet GF8600GT ?. Also depending on what you have in your PC of hardware (many HD's etc), a quality 460watt PSU with a two rail 12v1 12v2 20amp output would suffice.
Anyhow that setup will give you some gaming performance over the projector screen, which I'm sure it's also to be used for

This post has been edited by SureShot: 22 January 2008, 11:28

[Thunderclash]

some new hardware for me too!

24" BenQ full HD monitor (no digital input though)
asus 8800 gtx
thermaltake toughpower 750w psu (<16db)
steelseries 4d mouse pad (awesome!)

The real reason for the upgrade that we plan to get a full HD projector "some time in the future". To be able to clone the video signal in a practical way, we will need a full HD monitor as well. And that means we'll probably need a better graphics card to display the high resolution - which in turn needs a more powerful psu. Kinda lame reasoning, and a lot of money spent when we won't even get the projector for quite some time.

Thermaltake PSU's are usually not very silent; is that the manufacturer's rated noise output? Be careful when you put Thermaltake PSU's under load; they can change from slightly silent to significantly "wooshy".


Knut Ingar

[predaking]

Why not have settled with a 50% cheaper Galaxy GF8800GT (almost as fast) or perhaps a cheaper yet GF8600GT ?. Also depending on what you have in your PC of hardware (many HD's etc), a quality 460watt PSU with a two rail 12v1 12v2 20amp output would suffice.
Anyhow that setup will give you some gaming performance over the projector screen, which I'm sure it's also to be used for

I got the 750w psu because a) it has received good reviews for low noise, and with such a small load it shouldn't be a huge problem anyway, and b) I may decide to upgrade to SLI at some point. I got the GTX because I got it at a pretty good price - about 2500kr. I only have an AMD x2 4200+ processor though, so it may be a bottleneck for the card anyway.