What did you do to your computer today?

[Power5]

Nice dude!! I wish I had some spare cash. Last time I looked they were ~$400 I can't believe they are just over $300 now!

Thought tax season was like Christmas for most people. I got this in anticipation but when I get my return I am thinking of another one, a dual monitor arm and a nw gpu.

[Minker17]

Bought a Mac Mini. So far I like it.

[PhReE]

Thought tax season was like Christmas for most people. I got this in anticipation but when I get my return I am thinking of another one, a dual monitor arm and a nw gpu.

Already got my tax return a while ago. All of that money went towards stuff for my daughter to be born in August!

[Sean A]

Cleaned it

[Minker17]

Bought a Mac Mini. So far I like it.

Only came with 2gb of RAM. Having iTunes and Chrome open with Pandora and a few tabs it was using 75% of it. So I just got in 8GB of RAM for it.

[efrie]

Best video card for ~ $150, what's your vote?

[BRealistic]

Best video card for ~ $150, what's your vote?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3107-3.html

AMD Radeon HD 6850 or GeForce GTX 460- whichever is cheaper.

(tho you might score a rebate on an HD 6870)

If your PSU is weak, you might go for an HD 7750 since it runs off the PCI-e slot power.

[efrie]

I'm thinking of upgrading one of my systems a little bit, don't want to go crazy, but I've got the itch.

Anyways, here's what it's running now:

Athlon II X4 620 @ 3Ghz
4GB DDR3 (2GB x 2)
Asus M4A77TD Motherboard
Radeon HD5670

I think I'm gonna throw these things into the mix:

Antec P280 Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129179

Cooler Master 700W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817171054

XFX Radeon 6850 1GB 256bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150573

Should give it quite the boost. Do I really need more than 4GB of RAM? I never use all of it (W7 64bit) as it is right now. Doesn't seem like it'd make that big of a difference.

[A.Wilder]

I turned my PC on this weekend. First time in a few weeks. Compared to my step son's, it's a POS!

[Hostile]

My new keyboard came yesterday, a Logitech G510.

[Angry_Birds]

Built a test ESXi box to replace the 4 old Optiplexes I had at home:

i7 3930K
32GB RAM
2x 256GB Samsung 830 SSD in RAID 0

The best part is that work paid for it so I basically got whatever the **** I wanted.

[theuean]

Nice. What RAID card did you go with? I'm in a position where we're rolling out esxi to clients who bought servers just for data redundancy purposes (OS hooped? *blink* there I restored the image, you're good to go) but, most clients opted in for the cheapest HP ML350 G6 they could get which has software RAID which is a no go with vsphere.

[Angry_Birds]

Adaptec 5805:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816103098

[Angry_Birds]

What did the clients say/do when they discovered that ESXi (at least with working RAID underneath it) was a no-go?

I'm very lucky to have a salaried 9-5 and not deal with the BS that comes along with consulting or working for an MSP. I still have to do a little bit of nagging to get anything purchased, but I love coming to work with friendly coworkers and not irritating customers.

[Westylifestyle]

Just enjoyed my new hackintosh rig...woot!

[theBOYER]

Upgraded my wife's intel core 2 duo Black 13" Macbook (2006 model). doubled the ram to 2gb (Kingston oc2-5300 667MHz). Replaced the 128gb HDD with a Crucial M4 128gb SSD and installed OS X 10.6 (she was still running 10.4.11 on the previous HDD). Replaced the cracked/broken keyboard (upper cover). Macbook is running fantastic now.

[efrie]

This thread is old, so I thought I'd give it a boost. Doesn't have to be today.

In the last month I got a 6950, gave it the BIOS of a 6970. Got a new PSU and a new case. Here's the outcome:





AMD II X4 620 @3Ghz
ASUS M4A77-TD
4GB DDR3 @... It's been a while
Gigabyte 6950 @ 6970
Rosewill 700W PSU (bite me)
Antec 300 case

Big upgrade for me, I'm loving it.

[morbs_gt]

I picked up an aspire one to carry around while backpacking in latin america, almost got mint 14 setup with all my favorite goodies.

2, well 3 important things left:
-figure how to get it to boot from sdcard
-mousepad not active by default, i have to fn+F7 at every boot, no way to simulate fn keypress on boot
-display brightness always on max and draining battery life. Can't script anything to edit wmi classes, while the values change the screen remains on max setting :S

Getting googlesketchup to run under wine at the moment.

[dr_spock]

Replaced the stock cooler with a water cooler.




I accidentally yanked the processor out of the socket while trying to remove the heatsink. The old thermal paste was like glue.



Everything still worked after putting the processor back into the socket.

[efrie]

I'm flying from San Fran to Denver in FSX because I feel like looking at mountains... Does this count?

[Hostile]

Ordered one of these, should be here in a few days.



It's replacing my 6870s in CrossFire, one of which I'm giving to me dad to upgrade the GTX 260 in his Dell XPS.

[BRealistic]

Man, ram has been kicking my ass.
I took all four four gig sticks of ram out of my new pc, then added just one and made sure it popped into the slot fully... rinse, repeat.
Finally got it to boot up with all 16 GB of ram.
Wow... make sure you really seat your ram.

[efrie]

You know, I've been curious about ram as well, but honestly, I'm running 4GB of some good stuff (2GBx2) and I haven't had a hitch.

I got that 6950 and updated the BIOS to a 6970. I'm running a smooth 80-120FPS in BF3 which is fine for me.

I thought about more ram, but until I start bottle necking I don't see me buying it.

This is W7 64

[BRealistic]

You know, I've been curious about ram as well, but honestly, I'm running 4GB of some good stuff (2GBx2) and I haven't had a hitch.

I got that 6950 and updated the BIOS to a 6970. I'm running a smooth 80-120FPS in BF3 which is fine for me.

I thought about more ram, but until I start bottle necking I don't see me buying it.

This is W7 64

I got good ram! Muskin Enhanced Blackline!

And I also have an HD 6950.... you must have a very early one if you were able to flash the bios to a 6970.
Most retail HD 6950s can't be changed to a full 6970 with a bios flash.. but you can unlock the extra shaders.. (per what I read googling this a while back)

[nathanjohnz]

I have a 3.2 GHz with 1Gb ram and 500Gb Hard disk. I do some work of graphic designs using the software's like Photoshop, coreldraw, 3Ds Max, some videos making software's. Whenever I render a Model in 3ds max my computer temperatures have got 75 C to 80 C I am very afraid of it please help me what can I do with my computer to make it cooler.

[nathanjohnz]

I have a 3.2 GHz with 1Gb ram and 500Gb Hard disk. I do some work of graphic designs using the software's like Photoshop, Coreldraw, 3Ds Max, some videos making software's. Whenever I render a Model in 3ds max my computer temperatures have got 75 C to 80 C I am very afraid of it please help me what can I do with my computer to make it cooler.

[efrie]

Simple answer? Better thermal paste and more fans.

[dr_spock]

I have a 3.2 GHz with 1Gb ram and 500Gb Hard disk. I do some work of graphic designs using the software's like Photoshop, coreldraw, 3Ds Max, some videos making software's. Whenever I render a Model in 3ds max my computer temperatures have got 75 C to 80 C I am very afraid of it please help me what can I do with my computer to make it cooler.

Where are you seeing the 75 to 80 deg C? Processor, system board, graphic processor card?

My ATI Radeon HD4850 runs at almost 100 deg C under gaming load.

[BRealistic]

I have a 3.2 GHz with 1Gb ram and 500Gb Hard disk. I do some work of graphic designs using the software's like Photoshop, Coreldraw, 3Ds Max, some videos making software's. Whenever I render a Model in 3ds max my computer temperatures have got 75 C to 80 C I am very afraid of it please help me what can I do with my computer to make it cooler.

Give us more specific specs.

CPU
GPU (graphics)

IF Windows PC, go to control panel-system to get system info.

The programs you mention usually push the ram well past 1 GB... and the OS uses the harddrive as ram when that happens, which slows the PC way down.

[PhReE]

Clean the fans. Also note that 75 to 80c is well within specs and not really an issue. Many people don't like their systems running that hot but honestly it is not even close to where it would cause damage.

[nathanjohnz]

Thank you so much all of you guys. I am afraid of my computer when is goes on 80c. Now I am sure its not a big problem. I will clean my PC Fan and also use a cooling paste.

[Robstr]

Break out the canned air, disassemble the thing a bit and clean in out.
Those temps, even if they are safe, are too high for a stock system.

I accidentally yanked the processor out of the socket while trying to remove the heatsink. The old thermal paste was like glue.

AMD really needs to move to LGA. You're pretty lucky you didn't lose a pin.

Man, ram has been kicking my ass.
I took all four four gig sticks of ram out of my new pc, then added just one and made sure it popped into the slot fully... rinse, repeat.
Finally got it to boot up with all 16 GB of ram.
Wow... make sure you really seat your ram.

Motherboards often gets sketchy when you put memory in all 4 slots. Especially if you're trying to run fairly aggressive timings or frequency. It can be a dark art to get it working correctly.

[dr_spock]

AMD really needs to move to LGA. You're pretty lucky you didn't lose a pin.

I agree. I was trying very hard not to break a pin. Replacing a broken FX-8120 would have costed $150.


Ordered a Cosair M60 mouse today.

[nathanjohnz]

Hooked up my kill-a-watt meter to see how much power my comp is pulling...

Managed to break 200w when playing BF3, with an i3-2100, HD6850 video, etc.

Also gave my case a cleaning and shining

Loving my new case, Antec P182SE limited edition:

That's really superb case. I think now I need to change my computer case.

[BRealistic]

That's really superb case. I think now I need to change my computer case.

Does it also make toast?