Rated: 92.73% (11 votes)
Loading ...Xmas Suprise!!!
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
As some of you know, I got myself engaged last month, so I wanted to make my fiances pressy extra special! He’s been wanting a LAN PC for all the time I’ve known him, and over time his PC has been getting to the point of becoming unplayable. So the perfect pressy? A new PC!
Now looking at his PC, most could be scrapped, but he’d a good graphics card (7950 GTX) so I just need to get it out without him realising… So I kinda stole it out his PC and put a semi-dud 7600GT in it - lol - he thought his PC was about to die days before xmas!
I then ordered up his parts from work and ordered a few pieces from Kustom PCs
- E6750 (partially donated by my colleague)<br />
- 2GB Adata DDR2 800mhz<br />
- Gigabyte GA33-31M-S2L<br />
- Maxtor 160GB SATA (also donated)<br />
- Thermaltake 500W (my old blue LED fan 1)<br />
- Sony DVD-RW (also donated)<br />
- Silverstone SG01-Evolution case (KPC)<br />
- UV Blue spiral wrap (KPC)<br />
- 2x Blue LED 80mm Golf fans (KPC)<br />
- Noise dampening (KPC)</p>
Just some box peeks:
Started the build and all seemed to go smoothly, the case is an absolute treat to work with! Enough room for GTS (the hdd caddy prevents the 2nd 6pin connection but I suppose you could mount the hdd in the 5.25? and fit well - possibly an ultra?) Lots of handy little ideas in this redesign (CPC have a review of the old 1) and a nicer finish imo!
Here you can see I’ve mounted my mobo, CPU and other bits and pieces. The mobo was a bargain and has lots of connections - ideal if your looking for a media pc with on board GPU (I’ll be disabling this feature obviously) fire wire, plenty of USBs and usb headers with good on board sound. A good addition would be 1 of Creative’s new PCI-e1 sound cards which has almost all of the x-fi features at a much lower cost.
After cunningly stealing my fiance’s GPU it was time to test - would it power? Or would it blow up? Thankfully it powered but… the fans, especially CPU fan acted stranged. I obviously thought it was due to there being no RAM in the machine, so I put it aside until I could finish nabbing the other parts. But once again, the CPU fan played up, not spinning up until I rebooted the machine from a fully powered up state. Checked all over the BIOS but there’s nothing I can see stopping it.
Anyway, I finish installing Windows XP (he didn’t want Vista but that’s cool) and got all the drivers etc and installed Crysis (and extra special suprise and a gift from some friends to add to the big gift!). Gave it a quick test a w00t! It’s perfect! Played Crysis at high settings perfectly smooth at 1280×1024. Boxed it all up and wrapped it up with ribbons etc!
He was raging because I made him carry it home whilst he was dying to rip it all open! But it was ok, as Xmas day came not long after and he could open it all up. I’d been slowly but surely renewing his PC all year (New Saitek keyboard and Thermaltake Gamma pad for his b’day and his work gave him a new mouse - A4 Tech I think…) and the tower and monitor were all that was left to renew.
He was so delighted that he ran straight through with it and plugged it all in immediately grinning like a maniac. Then he sat down and the smile faded… was it broken? Did it not kick up? ……”but now the monitor’s too pish for me to see things or enjoy it!” *face palm*
TYPICAL! BLOODY TYPICAL! So you know what I did? I felt so disapointed for him that we went out boxing day monitor shopping! Found a beautiful LG 26? HD TV at £399 - but we decided to sleep on it. Walked 5m down the road next day and found the bigger better model for £50 less and 5yr screen cover! So wallet out and off home with a lovely new 27? HD TV for him to take home and play his PC and Xbox 360 on!
Only problem now is I can’t get him off the damn thing…. >.
Rated: 100% (7 votes)
Loading ...#@$%*” GFX!!!
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
Ok, my reason for upgrading was because all of a sudden my fps dropped - this was all around the time steam updated. I sorted the problem with steam and it was fine. Updates and died. Fixed it again and I never saw any new updates but it fell on it’s @55 again…
I played for months trying with different resolutions to make it happier and if I dropped to lower res’s with details it was worse, very laggy overall. So I dropped the SLI machine for a new machine and temp used 1 of my 7600GTs to get it all up and running.
It was all great and tried with some CSS on low res (1024×768) and it played happily for a few hours after work, then all of a sudden, GFX errors all over the place. Thought it was the driver, maybe I forgot to update it. But no, I had with the latest version.
Tabbing in and out solved the problem only for it to return after a quick run round the map. Rolled back the drivers and monitored temps - 50c idle. Didn’t seem too hot to be honest… Tested it all when my fiance was up cause it was spinning irraticly by just an MSN popup logon showing!
Opened up the monitor, 47c. Put on CSS and put the w/s format on (1280×800) and he played CSS. Nothing, no issues… Hadn’t done the wierd laggy thing in GH3 either that night. Then just as he was about to leave, it happend and it got worse almost immediatly. Temp - 64c after <5mins playing.
Oh dear…. the upgrade wasn’t as urgent as I thought… it was the card dying… 
SLI meant the other card was saving it’s brother’s butt from the errors I had just now. Sure enough, swapped the cards round and it works a treat with no errors. V-ram dead.
Not amused… that card is barely a yr old… BFG can have it right back! However, what concerns me most, is this is what happend to my fiance’s card, my card, and possibly my next card as it’s only 300 down the line from my 1st card!
I suspect it may give up the ghost soon too, but who knows… It’s too late for an 8800, but too soon for next gen. Not a good position… until then, my 7600GT #2 will have to work it’s little heart out on this Dell 24″ or else it’s not games for over a month!!!! 
Rated: 95.56% (9 votes)
Loading ...Bringing New Life!
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
New life…. new power…. these all suggest it’s time for a new look! I decided to treat the case to a little make-over 
The new parts being high end, I decided water cooling would be the way to go, however, my case wasn’t exactly designed for such purposes, it’s more a…. well…. “server” than a beast…
So yeah, I decided to get her a little metal cut, and give her a few accessories to kit her out for the new personality!
(new cut and trim)
Lovely. She looks better already. Although she needs something else…. my favourite thing…..
~ CABLE MANAGEMENT!!!! (with style…)
- Pics of the new wheels coming soon -
Now that the case is more suited, let us test… THE BODY!!!
…………IT’S ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!!! And installed Vista ready for use in less than 20mins - lovely!
Rated: 90% (8 votes)
Loading ...The Teardown
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
And so it breaks my heart to tear this old girl apart but her time has come!
Let the destruction begin!
My 2x 7600GTs… the power behind my 24″ monitor…. I’ll miss them the most
My life saving PSU…. minus the blue LED fan (bleh)
And so it is the end for my sweetheart…. but I know the rebirth shall be far superior!
Rated: 94% (10 votes)
Loading ...A Sad Goodbye…
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
And so it’s been over a year for my skt 939 PC. It’s served me well, and I would keep her going, but the added extras after I built her have been a bit too much work the ol’ girl, so it’s time to retire. Had it not been for the 24”, Windows Vista Ultimate and most of all, the crappy Steam updates, I’m sure she’d keep going at a champion pace.
My order for new parts arrived the other day :
1x Asus Maximus Formula SE
1x Intel E6750
2x 1GB Adata 1200+ DDR2
1x Samsung Spinpoint T501 SATA
1x Enermax Infiniti 650W
1x Sony Labelflash SATA DVD-RW
As an added extra I also got a Canon MP510 - customer return so it’s on the cheap!
These I’ll add to what I’ve already got:
1x Thermtaltake Eureka Case
1x Samsung Spinpoint T501 SATA
1x Swiftech H220 Watercooling Kit
1x Logitech 5.1s X-530
1x Dell 24″ Monitor
1x MS Sidewinder + Thermaltake Gamma Pad
1x Saitek Eclipse (Red)
I think that’s all the important bits out of the way…. So more piccies!!!
Rated: 96% (10 votes)
Loading ...When Cable Tidying Gets Outa Hand!!!
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
Tidy cables are nice n’ all, but I think I took it too far this time…
Small Black - My keyboard, mouse, LED mousemat
Big Black - My monitor leads including its inbuilt USB
Red - My 5.1 Speakers, front wall mounts - this also applies for the rear speakers so as no one trips on the cable
I’d a little bit of the big black wrap left over so I used it to hold the wires together in places where they didn’t naturally group, including the power cables, making it look like 1 cable, whilst still having the ability for quick changes.
I dread to think how I’ll finish my internal cables on the new build…
Rated: 96% (10 votes)
Loading ...Under-estimated Power of 7600GT’s
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
Alot of people turn their noses at the suggestion of a 7600GT, and most magazines will rate it poorly, but is it truely such a bad card? It may come accross as being biased opinions, but I wish to disagree.
On my many paths of upgrading, I changed many things to do with my PC. With my PC now complete and stable, what more could I want? Nothing, until these gorgeous 24″ Dell monitors came into work…
 Now, alot of you are going to point out that a 24″ runs at 1920×1200 and immediately think, “pfffft it’ll never run that!”. However, I’d like to surprise you 
 My 2 ickle baby 7600GT’s already proved themself worthy in benchmarking, can they do it for real? Well, lets try Oblivion! Using a modded SLI profile based on the game I get smooth perfect playback with AA and AS on. Same for TDU, however, I notice in both games HDR fails to succeed. This is mostly because my card lacks this feature, but with smooth frame rates, how can I argue?
 I don’t find HDR too important right now, so the lack of HDR doesn’t bother me much. In terms of money, the cards worked out good value (around £140 for the pair tops). I know in future I’ll need the HDR aswell as a bigger “oomph” from my cards, but for now, I’m happy with all that I have.
A big monitor, smooth playback and next month - the internet! w00t!!!
Rated: 90% (10 votes)
Loading ...My Month Of Woes!!!
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
Well just as we thought we’d everything spot on, disaster was to strike. My PC had been built with a nice shiney 600W PSU seeing as how I’d be doing SLI in a month or 2’s time. Great idea, and after almost 3 weeks trying to get my PC together to get home, everything seemed dreamy.
Evil PSU’s of DOOM!!!!!
My dreams were sharply woken by my PC when I got it home… By the PSU none the less… Indeed, my new PC had just blown! It refused to power on again, and my heart sank all the way to the bottom of my stomach. Just to be sure, I tried another mains, only for it to blow again…
Luckily, I accidently brought home another 1 of those PSUs thinking it was my box. It was all I had to try, so a switch was made. Clenching tight with eyes shut as I push that on button, I dreaded to think what would happen. Would it power? Would it go bang? ….so I pressed it nervously ….power!!!
I took the supply back round with me next day, and they couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it to be honest. 3 weeks and no sign of flaws. So they tested it whilst I was at school, and on my return I was asked if I’d done anything to it. I said I hadn’t, and asked why. Well, my PSU just about nearly killed the PSU tester and gave the 2 the fright’s of their lives.
I stuck with the PSU I had, and dared not move my PC even an inch until I got a new 1, which was to be my Thermaltake 500W with TWV. Lovely thing, except for the blue fan (doesn’t go well with a red pc!)
    
Now that the PSU was sorted, onto the GFX card!!! My nice shiney new BFG 7600GT had arrived and was ready to fit in my machine. I eagerly put it in, updated drivers, went to switch on SLI option and configure but – no SLI?
I posted around 30 emails back and forth with nVidia tech team for support, and no one could help – ASRock were even worse for support, until someone from nVidia checked out what my instruction manual said with a member of ASRock further up. It wasn’t good news…
The board was never updated past v81.92, which was before my 7600GT was released. 7800’s, 7900’s, you name it, but no 7600 or 7300. This made my board useless for SLI. I was not amused…
So once again, back to the workshop, another punted machine. Finally someone explained to her that skt939 could support dual core, but just without DDR2. So guess what? Back to skt939!!! More waiting time for parts, and with there now the cease of skt939 chips, it was going to be even harder!
So I ordered a nice 4600+ X2, last of it’s kind for 939 (lol though packaged with an FX cooler by mistake), 2GB OCZ 2.5L DDR400 (it was £1 cheaper than Adata at that time, and none of us clicked it was the low latency fancy edition) and a Foxconn motherboard with garanteed SLI. All smooth again, all cushy… a little too cushy…
Yup – you guessed it – something was about to die! This time, my HDD. My old WD 5400rpm 120GB HDD packed it in wiping itself repeatedly. So now a 200GB Maxtor had to be fitted in and started over.
Now I was pretty damn exhausted and fed up, I wanted a working machine! After finally finishing the machine, I eagerly benchmarked with 3DMark03. We all nearly hit the floor – 23,000!!! That was higher than the 7950GTX that was benchmarked the week before (15,000) on the AM2 version on my machine. Finally, something good out this disaster! It only took almost 6 months to get us up and running!
Rated: 97.78% (9 votes)
Loading ...The Little Case That Turned Huge!!!
Elemental Dragon ¦ Bex
So you’re all probably wondering about the title? Well, it all began with my 1st proper upgrade. I got my 1st good machine in the end of 2004 – a gift from the council – cash to build me a suitable machine to do heavy graphics work brought home from school.
It was elite then, originally an AMD Athlon 3.7, 512MB which was soon swapped for 2GB, a skt939 Gigabyte K8 Triton motherboard with SLI and a BFG nVidia 7600GT. I sadly couldn’t afford a big fancy 7000 series card, as I’d only £375 to build an up-to-date tower with. However, with my SLI motherboard, I could pair another card up to gain some extra power when I needed it.
It was the year before that I’d caught the computing bug, and I really wanted a fancy case for my PC, but as I couldn’t afford much, my hopes of a case that I really liked were dampened. But, not all hope was lost, as after much scavenging, I found a neat case (Well, it was neat at the time lol) with a nice red cathode for £10 in Glasgow! Ok, so the door was broken on it, but with a little handy work, it was easily fixed.
This PC worked like a dawg until around August, 2006, when I began to feel the need for a dual core CPU. However, in the confusion of the new AM2 chipset with DDR coming out, I was told I’d need to change socket and punted my machine that day to someone desperate for a build. I didn’t sell all of it though, I kept my HDD and GFX card, in hope it’d save me some money…
By now, I really wanted a nice small form PC, as they were very much in at the time. So I came across the ideal case, but I never came across the micro ATX SLI board that I so dearly needed to save cash.
Time was now running short, and I really needed a PC, so we ordered some nice AM2 parts, a 4200+ X2 (that would be replaced by a 4800+ when they came into stock). Now time for a shiny case. I was saddened at the loss of my first elite case, but knew it’d be worth it…. if only the cases I wanted had been in stock!!!
This is where the fun starts, as all the nice Thermaltake cases were no where to be found. 1 left after my final alternative choice was sold. So I took a chance, was told it was really nice, not to big either, just like the Tsunami but round door. Oh how we were wrong, as we both almost passed out with laughter and disbelief when the box with my case came out. My case? The Thermaltake Eureka – at the time – largest case out on the market….
