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Tinkicker
May-19-2015, 07:46
Not made of money so I am buying bits every month.

So just ordered:

BitFenix Shadow Full size tower. basic black block. Not interested in a big brand something that costs £200 and looks like a space federation stormtroopers codpiece.

Corsair Builder 750w PSU.......... Should do the trick with a few watts left over to run the fans ect. I may have to see if there is room for a second PSU if not. I have a few 500w ones kicking around from old PCs. just can't justify to the missus spending £100s on a big ass PSU when I have some lying around and some reasonable electrical skills. Will have to keep a close eye on watt (phnarr) is happening, luckily on exceeding the 750w continuous rating, the Corsair PSU is programmed to shut down rather than blow and spike the components, giving a little peace of mind. I guessed about 600 watts for the cpu and gpu in everyday use, leaving 150w for the fans, usb and drives. Am I close?

Asus Z97 pro gamer motherboard with slot 1150 for i7. The allegedly enhanced LAN ability is no use to me being wireless, but it apparently has a first class built in audio capability. Was going to go down the separate soundcard route, but if it really is a top class setup, this will save me hassle of taking up a slot needlessly and of course the price of the card itself.


Next month it will be RAM and a watercooling system suitable for i7 and maybe some other small parts.

Month after, hopefully the i7.

and then by Xmas, the ASUS Geforce GTX980 GPU

Edit. Intel core i7 devils canyon cpu I eventually settled on comes in with an average power consumption of 150w, not the 300 I guestimated. Happy days. Downside is I may have gone OTT with the choice of cooling system. Hey well at least it will be cool.

Credit for the info goes to Toms Hardware and their superb tests and reviews.

Volunteer
May-19-2015, 13:28
Good project. Keep us updated. :thumbsup:

Tinkicker
May-19-2015, 13:51
Quick question...

Is there any operational advantage in buying a single 16gb DIMM over 2x 8gb at the present, other than leaving a slot clear for another 16gb in the future to make 32gb, or would it be better with 4x 8gb DIMMS to eventually make 32gb?

New Mainboard will not handle more than 32gb of RAM. I usually keep my PCs for quite few years and keep updating them until it is clear that a quantum leap has taken place and upgrades are no longer feasible.

My current mainboard has reached this point.

Chivas
May-19-2015, 19:05
I've already updated my computer, but waiting until the VR headsets are released before making a GPU decision. AMD and Nvidia are doing a lot of work preparing new VR Hardware, Software/Drivers.

Infinity
May-20-2015, 00:34
Quick question...

Is there any operational advantage in buying a single 16gb DIMM over 2x 8gb at the present, other than leaving a slot clear for another 16gb in the future to make 32gb, or would it be better with 4x 8gb DIMMS to eventually make 32gb?

New Mainboard will not handle more than 32gb of RAM. I usually keep my PCs for quite few years and keep updating them until it is clear that a quantum leap has taken place and upgrades are no longer feasible.

My current mainboard has reached this point.

I think theoretically 2x8 may give you better memory speed than 1x16, at least that was the case for my system. Don't know how big an effect in practice.

ATAG_((dB))
May-20-2015, 03:15
And from now on learn to type and interact with your keyboard, switches and J/S with your eyes closed :thumbsup:

Tinkicker
May-20-2015, 03:25
I think theoretically 2x8 may give you better memory speed than 1x16, at least that was the case for my system. Don't know how big an effect in practice.

Thanks for that. Some time since I built a pc from the ground up. In fact not since windows 98. Usually buy a new pc that meets my needs at the time and upgrade as required. This is why I am specifying reputable brand, high quality parts now, rather than taking a gamble on unbranded bargain basement stuff. It may have to last several years.

Not doing the new box route this time because I dont want to find essential parts that the manufacturer skimped on, causing headaches later. My current pc when new was a marvel of miniturisation until I wanted to fit a Asus geforce 650 gpu into the case.... the thing was bigger than the oe case. Hence the full tower and ATX mainboard specified now.

Anticipating windows 7 installation problems even though I am keeping the old hdd. Haven't decided whether to go solid state for primary drive with the original for storage only and only keep clod and windows on the solid state or just keep my oe drive.

Since my pc came with windows 7 preinstalled and without a product key or recovery disc, I need to download jelly bean to get my key from the registry. Hope to god it will reinstall on the new pc without problems. Dont see why I should have to buy it twice.

I think windows is likely to be the serious headache of the build.

Winger
May-20-2015, 05:41
Hi, did TF give a statement about VR support yet?

Tinkicker
May-20-2015, 11:39
Hi, did TF give a statement about VR support yet?

From what has been said before, not going to happen; certainly not on Version 5. I guess they have bigger fish to fry and not enough time to do it all.

As far as Clod is concerned, I'm really only hoping for Oculus CV1 to have a simulated VR setting included as per 3DTVs that have a limited 2D to 3D upscaling mode and would hope that has simple head tracking, but no idea if even that is feasible without TF input.
For Clod, it's a case of suck it and see. I am sure other flight sims are being developed with VR in mind.

I have no doubt that TF will have had many discussions on the subject and will probably have many more. It may not even be doable without access to the base coding. I may price up the cost of a supply of Benzedrine tablets and post them to the TF members. I am sure they don't need to sleep as much as they do. :D

Typical TF member if my dastardly plan succeeds Mwahahaaahaaa. Hmm that zombie has a disturbing likeness to elvis presley.

http://zombieexperiences.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/zombie-experience-shopping-mall-home.jpg

:D :D

Team Fusion volunteers are doing a fantastic job and it would be wrong to expect everything from them. I am grateful for the time they do devote to Clod; merely in order for us lesser mortals to enjoy a very superior flight sim.

Tinkicker
May-20-2015, 13:31
Gone mad and ordered an Intel i7 4790K devils canyon processor - 4th gen, just can't afford the newer stuff at £800 a pop. Also ordered a coolermaster nepton liquid cooler with 240mm rad and dual fans.


Missus said go ahead, stick it on the CC and it doesn't matter if I wait while next month. Have not told her the running total is up to £600 yet. Nice evening, may have a few beers outside and tell her then.

She wont be too mad cos i'm off work with a hurty hand - second degrees burns to two fingers and a thumb and she feels sorry for me. A sorry work incident involving a 12 litre diesel engine jumping on its mounts, a bad solenoid connection, a difficult to access starter motor, 24v, over 2000 amps available and all going through a small piece of welding rod I was holding. 10 degrees C to bright yellow heat in less than a second.
wont be doing that again. :(

So in summary, bits ordered so far:

Bitfenix Shadow full tower case.
Corsair CX750. 750w psu.
Asus Z97 pro gamer mainboard.
Intel core i7 devils canyon cpu.
Corsair H80i GT water pumper.
Asus DVDrw drive.
Startech 3.5" internal card reader.
Startech USB 3.0 expansion card. (Already had it in a drawer, unopened).

£600 spent so far. Really am done for the month now.


Edit: stupid mistake number 1.

Looking closer at the specs for the case, it appears that the top of it is not a removable lid covering a top vent, but solid sheet. My radiator will have nowhere to mount, so I'm just going to have to dust off my sheet metal skills, cut out the top, mount the rad and fabricate a top grille.
Damn, just didn't want the hassle of cutting tin.
At least I have 165mm above the mainboard to play with.

Edit 2

Attempting to cancel the cooler,may have caught it before it dispatched. If so I will have to fit a big air cooler. At least the cpu draws half the power (with much less heat) than I expected.
Didn't really want to mount a big chunk of metal onto a thin mainboard.
If it failed to cancel, then its out with the cutting discs..

Edit 3. Managed to cancel the big radiator and settled on a corsair H80i GT water cooler with 120mm radiator.
Loads of 120mm fan mounting points to choose from in the case.
Bullet dodged.

Winger
May-21-2015, 11:29
Gone mad and ordered an Intel i7 4790K devils canyon processor - 4th gen, just can't afford the newer stuff at £800 a pop. Also ordered a coolermaster nepton liquid cooler with 240mm rad and dual fans.

http://media.bestofmicro.com/9/G/399508/original/cooler-master_nepton-280L.jpg


Missus said go ahead, stick it on the CC and it doesn't matter if I wait while next month. Have not told her the running total is up to £600 yet. Nice evening, may have a few beers outside and tell her then.

She wont be too mad cos i'm off work with a hurty hand - second degrees burns to two fingers and a thumb and she feels sorry for me. A sorry work incident involving a 12 litre diesel engine jumping on its mounts, a bad solenoid connection, a difficult to access starter motor, 24v, over 2000 amps available and all going through a small piece of welding rod I was holding. 10 degrees C to bright yellow heat in less than a second.
wont be doing that again. :(

So in summary, bits ordered so far:

Bitfenix Shadow full tower case.
Corsair CX750. 750w psu.
Asus Z97 pro gamer mainboard.
Intel core i7 devils canyon cpu.
Coolermaster liquid cooling system.
Asus DVDrw drive.
Startech 3.5" internal card reader.
Startech USB 3.0 expansion card. (Already had it in a drawer, unopened).

£600 spent so far. Really am done for the month now.


Edit: stupid mistake number 1.

Looking closer at the specs for the case, it appears that the top of it is not a removable lid covering a top vent, but solid sheet. My radiator will have nowhere to mount, so I'm just going to have to dust off my sheet metal skills, cut out the top, mount the rad and fabricate a top grille.
Damn, just didn't want the hassle of cutting tin.
At least I have 165mm above the mainboard to play with.

Edit 2

Attempting to cancel the cooler,may have caught it before it dispatched. If so I will have to fit a big air cooler. At least the cpu draws half the power (with much less heat) than I expected.
Didn't really want to mount a big chunk of metal onto a thin mainboard.
If it failed to cancel, then its out with the cutting discs..


Hi, why dont you just wait? Skylake is just about to be released. Also you have quite some timw before the CV1 comes. Just save the money and buy your gear once the CV1 is here.
This way you get the best bang for the buck.
Ill do it that way. Until then my current rig will suffice.

Tinkicker
May-21-2015, 13:06
Hi, why dont you just wait? Skylake is just about to be released. Also you have quite some timw before the CV1 comes. Just save the money and buy your gear once the CV1 is here.
This way you get the best bang for the buck.
Ill do it that way. Until then my current rig will suffice.

WAIT? :stunned: when swmbo has released the purse strings? Got to strike while the iron is hot, less she welds it shut again.

Tinkicker
May-23-2015, 08:27
After much reading it appears as I first thought, that Windows 7 is going to be a major problem.

Apparently OEM copies preloaded onto the PC at the time of build are fixed to that particular make and model of mainboard and will not work if installed onto another PC even if you swap over the hard drive and use the repair disc utility / clone the disc image onto a new drive and try booting from that.
The retail version also does this, so if you want to build new, or upgrade the mainboard and CPU of your own PC, then you will need another copy of win7.


Buggerynation. Microsoft really have you by the balls. I have seen cheap copies of windows 7 on amazon, 50% cheaper; but the results are mixed. Just not worth the risk.

A retail copy is £70. Another expense I was hoping to avoid. :grrr:

Unless someone out there knows a fix via cloning the disc image or even using the OE hard drive? It stinks having to pay for something twice that should be able to copy over.

EDIT: it seems likely that since Windows 10 is out in July it would seem to be a bit of a no brainer re a new copy of windows 7 or just get windows10. just hope 10 has no real compatibility issues.

On a happier note, some stuff has arrived. Its like xmas.

Case.
PSU.
Card Reader.
DVD drive.
USB 3 expansion card.
Mainboard.

Surprised to note that the DVD player came without a SATA cable and not in a retail box, just in a plain amazon box and plaggy bag; the tag on it said it was part of a bulk consignment. Still a pack of 3 SATA cables was less than £3 delivered. I expect windows (spit) will come up with a suitable driver for it.

[img]https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8819/17814007318_5ea69afb76_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/t9arKd)

thee_oddball
May-23-2015, 17:23
just an FYI for the future concerns about PSU, there are a lot of what we call re-branders out there and corsair is one of them, some of there stuff is good other stuff is OK.
your best choices for PSU's are Seasonic,Enermax,Delta

the CX series is made by CWT which is ok.

here is a data base of who makes what.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page447.htm

Tinkicker
May-24-2015, 04:58
just an FYI for the future concerns about PSU, there are a lot of what we call re-branders out there and corsair is one of them, some of there stuff is good other stuff is OK.
your best choices for PSU's are Seasonic,Enermax,Delta

the CX series is made by CWT which is ok.

here is a data base of who makes what.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page447.htm


Thanks for the info. I have found during the planning of this build that it can be an absolute minefield and I have devoted many many hours to researching decent products to include and which will give me a big bang for the buck. Obviously not top notch, but reasonable quality. How people afford to spend £3000 on a GPU, then go on to fit two of them is beyond me. I had an absolute max ceiling of £1500 including the rift, and now with the windows problem and allowing a small buffer fund for other unforeseen issues, cables ect, it looks like the total will be somewhere around that mark.

I did come across a full tower case already fitted with a 750w PSU online for under £50.........I gave that one a miss. :D I have had one PSU of unknown provenance fail a good number of years ago and it spiked the mainboard, so am a little wary of them now.




Break



Due to possible windows problems ect, I have now decided to leave my current PC totally intact and usable, so it looks like I'm in the market for a HDD with solid state and good storage capacity. I have a couple of external drives I can swap programs over with.

I am drawn to a Seagate 3.5" 1tb hybrid drive. Don't keep music or other files on it, everything that is a keeper, other than games is backed up to and played from external storage. My current 320gb is only 50 - 75% filled.

Also looking at 2x 8gb of Hyper X Fury 2400mhz RAM. Edit: that would be hyper X Savage, fury is 1866mhz.

And of course the ASUS STRIX GTX980 GPU.

If i am leaving my current PC intact, I need a wireless card too....

Its certainly a more complex task than in windows 98 days, with a lot more to think about.

anyone got anything to add, spot any glaring mistakes or can offer better alternatives to the above, then please sing out.


Anyone else thinking of planning a build and like me, are not particularly computer savvy these days (although was really into it 20 years ago, but forgot 99.9% of it), keep an eye on this thread. I don't pander to my ego, so you will be made aware of any pitfalls, stupid mistakes, complete screwups and instances of magic smoke getting released from the wires. Helping others avoid these pitfalls is more important than any attempt to look competent on here, in my eyes at least....

Scary to think that a current mediocre graphics card and mainboard has more computing power and storage than my then stratospherically high end build of a pentium 3 CPU, 512mb of PC100 Ram, CD writer and a 13gb hard drive. I dread to think what it would have cost in todays money, but in those days I wore a shirt and tie and flew light aircraft, not a pair of overalls and a flight sim.

thee_oddball
May-24-2015, 13:53
SSD
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7pd512bw

Tinkicker
May-24-2015, 14:13
SSD
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7pd512bw

Thanks for that. Unfortunately my wallet can't stretch that far. I'm possibly a couple of hundred over my agreed price ceiling already all things being equal, assuming that win10 is likely to be £150 a copy and the rift £300.

Holding fire on the gpu and windows in the hope they will fall in price in the new year.

The windows thing has really thrown the cat among the pigeons, all that careful research and costing... ..

Still. The new gpu alone will make a huge difference over my 650ti. On performance comparison, given a score of 100 points for the Strix, my current 2 year old upgrade card to whizzbang graphics speed adds up to...............a whopping 18 points.

I guess I am going to notice a bit of a difference from my athlon x4, 650ti and a mind blowing 4 gb of ram.

thee_oddball
May-24-2015, 14:36
Thanks for that. Unfortunately my wallet can't stretch that far. I'm possibly a couple of hundred over my agreed price ceiling already all things being equal, assuming that win10 is likely to be £150 a copy and the rift £300.

Holding fire on the gpu and windows in the hope they will fall in price in the new year.

The windows thing has really thrown the cat among the pigeons, all that careful research and costing... ..

Still. The new gpu alone will make a huge difference over my 650ti. On performance comparison, given a score of 100 points for the Strix, my current 2 year old upgrade card to whizzbang graphics speed adds up to...............a whopping 18 points.

I guess I am going to notice a bit of a difference from my athlon x4, 650ti and a mind blowing 4 gb of ram.

is that your current rig?

how much money do you have left and what are the priority items?

Tinkicker
May-25-2015, 03:12
is that your current rig?

how much money do you have left and what are the priority items?

Priority is running oculus rift seamlessly and a certain amount of built in futureproofing to ensure the next generation of games will still play without modding further for a few years.
I have a very poor rural internet connection, so no matter what I do at my end, I know the results so far as clod online are concerned will be limited by this. I will still experience warping, droputs etc.
Typically in the past,I have bought the minimum required to run my latest must have game and had to upgrade with every subsequent next generation of games.

Stormrider
May-26-2015, 14:09
And of course the ASUS STRIX GTX980 GPU

Well that is something you won't regret.The card is up to the task of playing Clod, rather big but sooooooooo quite.I costs enough money, but it is worth every € I spent for it.:)
17399

Tinkicker
May-27-2015, 08:39
Got the silly comedy dressings off my burnt paw now, got those natty lightweight rehydration dressings on instead and time is weighing heavily on my hands.....idle hands ect.

Started putting it together to pass a little time.

Fitted PSU. mainboard, CPU. DVD drive and usb 3 expansion card so now have 6x USB 3 ports. Silly mistake found out... totally forgot to order a fascia panel adapter for the 3.5"card reader in order to fit it into a 5.25" bay; never crossed my mind or the reader would be in too.

Moved the exhaust fan from the back of the case and made it into an intake fan at the front, so I have 2x intakes at the front and intend to fit the Corsair rad at the rear upper where the OE fan was and make it an exhaust fan. Looking on the forums it only made around !/2 a degree C difference to the cpu core temp when using it as exhaust rather than the recommended intake set up.

Still waiting for the water cooler, expecting it by Friday, but hoping today. Thankfully my case allows access to the back of the cpu part of the mainboard to fit the hold down bracket without taking it out again.

So we come to silly mistake 2...

After much genuflecting, bobbing and weaving at the central heating radiator chrome fittings next to where I was building it; to discharge any static build up before touching the components, got the mainboard in without incindent, then looked in the shipping box and found a fascia panel that goes over the rear case connections, Dammit, it goes in the case before the mainboard, so with much more OCD like touching of the central heating, took the board out and put it back in with the panel in place.

Still lots of bare slots in there that need filling and sata plugs plugging in..........







[url=https://flic.kr/p/to1nTw][img]https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7751/17970669280_2c13063173_z.jpg

Stormrider
May-27-2015, 08:54
As I can see, you have already built in the motherboard in the case.I allways put the CPU with cooler first on the motherboard before placing it in the case.It much easier tot oversee if everything is attached good in place.Especially with Intel CPU, they can easily be placed wrong and damaged .The result is that it doesn't recognises all the ram inside anymore.[emoji31] A few friends of mine already encountered that problem.

Verstuurd van mijn S50

Tinkicker
May-27-2015, 12:31
As I can see, you have already built in the motherboard in the case.I allways put the CPU with cooler first on the motherboard before placing it in the case.It much easier tot oversee if everything is attached good in place.Especially with Intel CPU, they can easily be placed wrong and damaged .The result is that it doesn't recognises all the ram inside anymore.[emoji31] A few friends of mine already encountered that problem.

Verstuurd van mijn S50


Thanks for that Stormrider. I see now what you mean.

Mistake 3 of the day.........

A couple of hours after my previous post, the liquid cooler arrived in the post. Proceeded to fit it and got the twin fans and radiator mounted as per the instruction booklet, then proceeded to fit the pump unit to the CPU, also as per the booklet. The inner fan casing is very close to the pump unit and I had a little trouble getting it slotted in. Then I found I could not get to all the pump unit holding screws. so took it off again. During this screw up, I found that I had smeared the thermal paste a little, not much but not really happy with it smeared, so have ordered a tube of paste and will redo the thermal compound when it arrives. Not worth the risk.

In the meantime I removed the inner fan unit and had a dry run assembling it all. Fitted the pump unit with no problems and fitted the fan after with no problems.

So now it has a water pumper....... I think the hardest bits are over now, the rest being comparatively easy to fit, just clip in and tidy up the wiring. Then :faint: windows 10.........

[url=https://flic.kr/p/tCPV45]
[img]https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7782/18138375326_7d0148f74d_b.jpg


Waiting game now while I save my pennies for the gpu, hdd, ram and the os.

Oersted
May-29-2015, 17:30
Thanks, very informative. I think I'll pop by this thread when I get my new rig! - I'll wait till CV1 is out, tho...

I won't build it myself but get this company to do it: www.alternate.be

Tinkicker
May-30-2015, 03:51
just an FYI for the future concerns about PSU, there are a lot of what we call re-branders out there and corsair is one of them, some of there stuff is good other stuff is OK.
your best choices for PSU's are Seasonic,Enermax,Delta

the CX series is made by CWT which is ok.

here is a data base of who makes what.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page447.htm


Been looking up more tests and reviews for this psu in light of your post and your unspoken concerns. :)

When I bought it, I was reading customer reviews and coming across the odd forum post on toms hardware. The general consensus overall where the web spiders were taking me; was that the psu was ok, even if regarded as entry level, but fine for the job in hand and great for the price.

This morning the web crawlers took me to a site where they put one in a dungeon and tortured it, the results were not great and centred around a bunch of cheap capacitors on the secondary side. The crawlers then seemed to enjoy finding me bad reviews.
Like anything else that has enthusiasts, pc building has its fair share of component snobbyness by some people (it was clear from the test article that the tester hates corsair products) and you do have to sort these sorts of post out from the genuinely objective ones.

However, taking everything into account, it appears that I could have spent a little more and got a far better psu.

So knowing what I know now, would I have bought the CX 750?

Probably not. But I have it now and will see what the future brings. I am sure it will work, but for how long.....it has a 3 yr warranty and if it lasts the full 3 yrs, I will be happy.....as long as it does not spike my components if it fails.

In summary, anyone looking to buy a psu, you could do better than a Corsair cx750 apparently for not a lot more cash.


After much humming and aaarhing, I have finally decided to go with a Samsung 240 gb solid state drive, less power consumption ect and much faster. I can transfer my game files ect via Ethernet cable or wirelessly once I got Windows up and running.
Everything else can go on my external drives. Will not bother with a mechanical slave hard drive fitted internally. I think 240gb should be enough, esp since my original pc will be still in action, just need another desk for my man cave.



The waiting is the hard bit.......

Tinkicker
May-30-2015, 08:13
Thanks, very informative. I think I'll pop by this thread when I get my new rig! - I'll wait till CV1 is out, tho...

I won't build it myself but get this company to do it: www.alternate.be


Glad you are finding it interesting....

When I decided to start this thread I was pretty adamant that I did NOT want it to be the type of thread showcasing how good or how competent I am on PCs (I am not competent or good, just muddling through best I can using the last fragments of 20 years out of date knowledge).

I wanted to put down my experiences, from first thoughts about ordering the hardware and the reason why I chose a particular item, budget considerations, how I did my research, buying the equipment and ultimately showcasing problems I encountered.

I am sure many looking in on this thread may be considering doing the same thing and if just one person dodges a bullet because of this thread, my stupidity and my bringing the resultant problem to everyone's attention, then my appearing to be a right wally will have been worth it.

Thanks also to the people behind the scenes who are keeping me on the straight and narrow via PMs. Most helpful and kind of you to do it.

Of course, so far as clod is concerned, all this may be for nothing. Only time will tell.
I have heard through the grapevine that rift hardware is ready to ship, but the software is the reason for the holdup. This software is what I am pinning my hopes on.
Maybe, just maybe it will allow the rift headtracker to map onto the clod cockpit views macro and enable rift as a dual screen showing identical images in 2d. Of course I hope for more than that, but have no expectations.
If not, then I am sure the next generation of combat flight sims will be rift enabled.

Winger
Jun-03-2015, 08:43
Ill personally keep saving until the day i receive my "you CV1 shipped" mail. And THEN i will order the best parts my money can buy by then.
I am guessing it will be something like that:

GTX980TI SLI
Skylake K-Variant CPU 4.0 GHz with matching mainboard
16GB DDR4 Memory
256-515 MB M.2 SSD
The rest will be reused from my current system.
Until then my current system will suffice.

I hope to get everything for something like 2000-2500 Euro.

IMHO buying now is too early and only recommended for peoplr with a system that needs a refresh badly.

4./JG26_Adler
Jun-03-2015, 15:29
-snip-

Since my pc came with windows 7 preinstalled and without a product key or recovery disc, I need to download jelly bean to get my key from the registry. Hope to god it will reinstall on the new pc without problems. Dont see why I should have to buy it twice.

-snip-

Use the slmgr /disarm command to disable the product key before you install on the new HDD (or SSD). This has saved my arse in the past.

EDIT: I have also used an OEM product key on a different mainboard. I did this with Win7 Home Premium before I moved over to Win7 Ultimate.

EDIT 2: Just to clarify, to my understanding product key branding on the mainboard is more of a thing for Win8.

Brewnix
Jun-10-2015, 12:31
Use the slmgr /disarm command to disable the product key before you install on the new HDD (or SSD). This has saved my arse in the past.

EDIT: I have also used an OEM product key on a different mainboard. I did this with Win7 Home Premium before I moved over to Win7 Ultimate.

EDIT 2: Just to clarify, to my understanding product key branding on the mainboard is more of a thing for Win8.

Hello JG26_Adler.. was wondering about this command slmgr /disarm. Where is it thanks

Brew

Otyg
Jun-11-2015, 11:04
About OS you can buy windows 7 on ebay. i did and it was about half price :thumbsup:
fun thread!

Tinkicker
Jul-18-2015, 15:22
About OS you can buy windows 7 on ebay. i did and it was about half price :thumbsup:
fun thread!


So did I :D

So got my case, psu, motherboard, cpu, cooler, card reader, dvd drive ect and added the above reconditioned licence copy of windows 7 home premium 64 bit,, added a samsung SSD, stirred in 16GB of HyperX Fury Ram, dropped in a splash of wireless card and nicked my old asus gtx650ti video card out nof my old machine (oldie still has the on board card so not disabled) and here i am typing on the bedroom floor with the result. a lot of work still to do re drivers and config as well as putting clod and the tf mods on here; and of course i still need the asus strix 980, but so far so good. CPU temp is holding steady at 31C and no leaks from the watercooling. Very quiet too even with the case sides removed.


I'd have a beer in celebration, but I'm on bleedin breakdown call this week :(


edit: just had it under stress with inteliburn on very high stress settings (100% load constant) for an hour and CPU temps hovered between 70 and 75C according to corsair link. Is this acceptable? Temps returned to 31 degrees in about 20 seconds.

PhoenixCNE
Jul-18-2015, 20:07
So did I :D

So got my case, psu, motherboard, cpu, cooler, card reader, dvd drive ect and added the above reconditioned licence copy of windows 7 home premium 64 bit,, added a samsung SSD, stirred in 16GB of HyperX Fury Ram, dropped in a splash of wireless card and nicked my old asus gtx650ti video card out nof my old machine (oldie still has the on board card so not disabled) and here i am typing on the bedroom floor with the result. a lot of work still to do re drivers and config as well as putting clod and the tf mods on here; and of course i still need the asus strix 980, but so far so good. CPU temp is holding steady at 31C and no leaks from the watercooling. Very quiet too even with the case sides removed.


I'd have a beer in celebration, but I'm on bleedin breakdown call this week :(


edit: just had it under stress with inteliburn on very high stress settings (100% load constant) for an hour and CPU temps hovered between 70 and 75C according to corsair link. Is this acceptable? Temps returned to 31 degrees in about 20 seconds.

Hi Tinkicker, do you have your cpu overclocked any? Only reason I ask is 75C seems just a touch high but hopefully someone with that particular cooler will chime in. I have the bigger brother (h100i) and am running a i5-3570k overclocked to 4.6. At idle my temps are similar to yours (34c) but on stress test the highest temps I saw were barely over 52c. I realize I have a bigger cooler but just didn't think the gap should be that big. The good news is thats a beast enough of a chip that it shouldn't see stress test type loads while gaming :) I just wondered so had to ask.

Tinkicker
Jul-19-2015, 17:07
Hi Tinkicker, do you have your cpu overclocked any? Only reason I ask is 75C seems just a touch high but hopefully someone with that particular cooler will chime in. I have the bigger brother (h100i) and am running a i5-3570k overclocked to 4.6. At idle my temps are similar to yours (34c) but on stress test the highest temps I saw were barely over 52c. I realize I have a bigger cooler but just didn't think the gap should be that big. The good news is thats a beast enough of a chip that it shouldn't see stress test type loads while gaming :) I just wondered so had to ask.

No overclocking but just downloaded realtemp and put the cpu under the absolute max load on intelburn to see what happened.
Realtemp was consistently recording temps a full 10*C less than corsair link was reporting with a scatter of around 4*C across the cores, 2 and 3 being the hottest at around 63*C. The reported cooler temp never went above 36*C, although I have little faith in corsairlink now.

I have set the throttle down point temp on the cpu to 90* with the overtemp alarm at 85*. The standard settings were around 100*C.

Real world use will never get close to the torture I just put my rig through, so Im fairly comfortable with my conservative max temp settings. I will likely never have an alarm in the real world.

Tinkicker
Jul-25-2015, 11:32
UPDATE:

Got CLoD and the TF patches installed today and gave it a whirl. Of course the ini files were blank and i had to set everything up again, pity I can't remember where everything was set up on the keys, but my muscles do unfortunately, so some very odd things happening to prop pitch ect when pootling about the skies.

Everything on full settings, of course my present GTX650ti won't exactly set the world on fire performance wise but after running the game offline for an hour, low level over towns (unlimited buildings and detail) ect, no stutters at all and speedfan logged the CPU temp at an almost constant 40C and GPU at 55C or thereabouts. Motherboard around 28C and all fans stayed pretty much silent.

Temp across all 4 cores remained within 5C of each other which is 20% of the allowable scatter according to intel, so my thermal paste must be doing the job and the CPU of relatively reasonable good quality.

Happy with performance so far, maybe room for a mild overclock in the fullness of time, no point in shelling out extra dosh for the K series if not; but no need at the moment. Just need the GTX980ti and the rift now.

Got a fancy lighty uppy gaming keyboard too now, so I can see the keys in the dark when the winter sun sets.

http://img01.cp.aliimg.com/imgextra/i1/754398417/T22nZIXclbXXXXXXXX_!!754398417.jpg

Absolutely knackered working the overtime to pay for it all tho. :ind:


This seems a lifetime ago:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8819/17814007318_5ea69afb76_z.jpg

Little did I know at the time that I would shortly be having 5 weeks off work with a badly burned hand, be headhunted by a prospective new employer and be working for him for a full 2 weeks, before it was all put together. Exciting times.

Tinkicker
Aug-26-2015, 10:53
Had it running awhile now, running win10, mild overclock - 4080mhz against std 4000 and its stayed stable thus far. In CLoD, flying over London low level, all settings and textures on max, 1920p, and the CPU does not go over 40 degrees C. The GPU does get up to around 50 -55 degrees though.

Think the GPU is the bottleneck now, so saving up for the GTX980Ti and then rift. I think it is then ready.

Unfortunately boaty and car stuff has taken priority at the moment.

Very quick though - boot up time is around 15 seconds and loading pages on the web is instant.

Its now my PC of choice and the old un hardly gets fired up anymore unless I want to view stuff on it over the network.

Tinkicker
Nov-27-2015, 11:55
Amazon knocked 70 quid off the Asus Strix GTX980ti GPU as a Black Friday deal. Fingers have been flexing for hitting that buy now button for months and the time is nigh. Trigger pulled and PC build will be complete. Was thinking of the MSI GTX980ti whichj is considerably cheaper; but having the Asus motherboard should mean no compatibility issues and much testing by the manufacturer. I hope.

Just waiting for Occ Rift now and some good combat flight sims to use it on.

Still hoping that some clever occulus trickery will allow the PC to see it in the same light as the hat button and enable me to look around the cockpit in CLoD, but not holding my breath.


Anyway, a new member of the pack is on its way....



http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OCUwrArvL.jpg

Tinkicker
Dec-06-2015, 04:16
Well the strix is now fitted and working. Spent about 3 hours yesterday on the servers giving it a good shakedown.

It was not a straightforward fit because it is a HUGE chunk of equipment that had to be shoehorned in adjacent to a lower drivebay to give a little more room for air to circulate. I had to tear out much of the cabling and reroute it around the card. Much better air circulation now though, as a result of this.
It is quite heavy too, exerts a worryingly high amount of weight on the pci slot and sags slightly. It really needs some kind of supporting bracket at the rear end but nothing has been provided.

Took a couple or three hours to fit including an enforced break when the missus twisted my arm up my back and frogmarched me into the bedroom......... Nope, nothing salatious involved; I should be so lucky, had to fit a pair of curtain poles for her latest flowery aquisitions to hang from. After much muttering, brandishing of spirit levels and drilling of walls, I could finish off my pc build.

So in use..... I never had any problems with my old gtx 650ti and can say there really is no real difference in performance ( which I will come to). It is noticeably smoother all round and does not suffer from stutters when flying low over cities. This with is all detail and graphics settings at max.
So to performance.
Unfortunately I'm now limited by the 32" Sony Bravia 3D TV im currently using as a monitor. 1080p and a 60hz refresh rate means that what I can see is a fraction of the actual output of the strix.

The card is very quiet and I can't say I have heard the fans run at all, unlike the vacuum cleaner experience with the gtx650.
Temps remained stable at 55 degrees all afternoon.

So there it is. Just waiting for Rift to come along.

Conclusion.

Great card, needs support for the pci slots and a card that will not fit anything other than a full size atx tower. Draws 300w so particular attention needs to be given to size of power supply.
No alarms and speed fan shows my corsair 750w is running nice and cool.
PC is now pretty much silent in operation, even when running CLoD at high levels.

Tinkicker
Jun-05-2016, 04:07
Can't link because on kindle, so bumped thread up to front page for Bazsmiles.