The New Machine Part 4 (Final) The Cost

Now we come down to the cost of the whole build. Here is the amount I spent to get the build done. The prices are from the local shop. A few discounts here and there.

As a comparison and just to frustrate myself. The prices on say a website like www.newegg.com . In bold and red. Prices are as off October for simplifications purpose, because prices change everyday.

My Local Shop  vs Newegg.com 

Walk-in vs Online

Photo from Chodhound

Battlefield : Bad company 2 problems

So after setting up almost everything, I'd thought I'd take a spin at a game. So I tried out BFBC2. Really good performance. Playing the single player campaign, everything was fine. Until the game would just start freezing. Temps were good. Must be a bug. Yes it was, checking the net and forums it seems that everybody well almost everybody had this problem. It made the game unplayable. It would freeze randomly, at one point almost 4 to 5 times in 20minutes! Very very frustrating.

Some suggested to disable the onboard Realtek Audio. It worked, but playing a game with no sound is ridiculous. Changing the Directx mode to version 9 from Auto in the config file worked for a temporary solution. So when the patch came out a 2.6GB ( oh how ridiculous that is ) I thought it would actually fix things out when I switched it back to Directx Auto. Nope. Still had the problem.

The problem was, I was still using the old drivers from the CD that came the HD 6870. So, got the new drivers off the Asus website, Version 8.84.9. And it fixed the problem.

All good now.

LED No signal detected

Now the system posted, there were no red led's on the motherboard. I have tried everything disconnecting the power cables. Removing the cmos battery and resetting the jumper.

It's a Samsung S19A300N 18.5 inch LED. For hours and nothing, all I get on the screen is No Signal Detected. "Digital" hmmm, but I'm not running a digital connection, I'm connected to the VGA port at the back of the LED and using a vga to dvi adapter on the card. I am running ANALOG.

So went looking for a dvi cable somewhere in my boxes. Tadaa, there is display. So what was causing the problem then?

I remember during initial configuration of the LED display, I manually set the input signal as Analog. Hey, I'd prefer something than it being set on auto. Not here.

Changed this setting to AUTO, so whenever you turn it on it will look for signals on both inputs. Whichever is present. Setting it on Analog/VGA manually, you will run into this problem of the LED looking for a digital signal when there is none connected. Samsung Samsung.

Installing Win 7 and the System Reserved Partition

Ah, it has been awhile since I've installed any Operating System be it Windows, Linux, BSD or Solaris :) .

Nothings change much I guess, or so I thought. Popped in the Win 7 DVD and yes things have changed a lot. The setup was too easy and too simple, lol just a few clicks and it started installing. Huh, copying files already. Nice.

I just didn't like the partitioning part. The 100mb system reserved partition, reserved what? Nah nah nah I'm not having that. So after scourging the net, I found the method to remove it. Restarted installation and went to console then used diskpart, walla  all done.

Steps shown on the link, Removing Win7 System Reserved Partition during Installation .

Basically I set up, 80GB for Win7+Programs and the remainder as data partition. Done.

The New Machine Part 3, Justifications.

Why oh why and why. 

Justifications, don't you just love the word. Reasons, explanations and causes. Why I chose the parts, the reasons behind it. The decision making and planning. The mistakes and oversight and constraints.

The reasons, I needed a new computer, a refreshed and up to date system. The old machine had no more upgrade path in terms of available parts and cost wise. So it was acceptable that a new machine be built. The design and decision making were based on a criteria I have accustomed with. Not fanboyism.

The New Machine Part 2 Old vs New

My old machine was an Athlon XP system. Yes I know it's old ( around 2002/3 ), but it's still alive and kicking. Excluding blown power supply, one burnt ram slot and because of the blown psu incident the cmos can never save it settings anymore ( Need to get a new plcc bios chip ) .

Just some brief specs below.

Athlon XP 2300 processor

MSI K7T266 Pro 2 RU (KT266A chipset with raid.)

Geforce 2

SB Live 5.1

500w psu

Win XP pro

17 inch CRT

And etc etc, old huh?

The New Machine.

The Machine

Hi, welcome to my blog. So after years of not upgrading from my old pc, I've decided to finally assemble a new pc this year. And here's my diary I guess. Or perhaps a long term review.