A couple of great and easy to use websites for different desktops builds (budget and performance):
Choose my PC
Logical Increments
Aha!
An upgrade thread after many years.
I recently had to travel away from home for a year and so got myself the i5 version of this.
https://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/K551LN/
I just installed world of tanks a month or so ago and it runs it with graphics maxed out without problems.
COst me the equivalent of around 800 USD.
For Gallifrey! For Victory! For the end of time itself!!
Nice to see we have a few computer nerds here.
I started this thread as a musing about my recent project. I downloaded the maintenance manual from Dell and took my laptop apart. Then went to Wikipedia to check the different versions of the CPU in my laptop. The original Banias CPU went as high as 1.7GHz. It was followed by the Dothan CPU built on a smaller process which helped it to attain higher clock speed. I searched on the internet on the topic of upgrading Banias CPU and found out the motherboard made for Banias can handle Dothan without any problems. The only catch is the Dothan has to run on 100MHz bus, not the more advanced 133MHz bus.
Where do we all go to find old stuff on sale? Ebay of course. I looked on Ebay for old Banias and then Dothan CPUs. The 2.1GHz Dothan was the highest it ever went, but they are $40 each. The next step down at 2.0GHz is widely available at $10. That last 100MHz clock speed is not worth 3 times the cost. The money is better spend elsewhere like doubling the RAM ($25).
This laptop is still a pretty good machine running Windows 7 Basic. I use Portable Firefox 30 as browser. Add Portable OpenOffice and Portable Sumatra PDF reader. And we have a computer that can still do 80% to 90% of everyday needs using salvaged parts and free software. The only thing that's a little hard to come by is Windows 7 Basic. It's normally OEM only. I have an MSDN account so I have an evaluation copy.
Not bad for an 11-year old laptop.
Last edited by gunnut; 18 Oct 14, at 05:25.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
Amazing something this compact and at that price can have this much graphics power. PC graphics have come a long way.Originally Posted by bolo121
Yes, nearly all games nowadays can be run on medium settings.
For Gallifrey! For Victory! For the end of time itself!!
Found something interesting about Windows 7. The idle load seems to be much higher than XP. It stresses the hard drive. Maybe it's indexing or constantly swapping cached files because my old laptop has only 1GB of memory. The 4200rpm drive in my laptop was BURNING HOT!.
I switched it to another drive with XP installation. The drive is 5400rpm, and logically should run hotter. However, the laptop was cool while idling.
I think I will stick with XP for now. Maybe the 4200rpm drive has some issues... Both are Hitachi drives. I'll do some more tests in the future when I can get my hands on more obsolete IDE drives.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
You might want to turn off the windows search service.
Windows 7 works better when it has a minimum of 2GB of RAM. 1GB should be enough but you know puts strain on the old machines. RAM gets issues too after a while. Also I would suggest you to switch your HDD's. That should take care of the Windows 7 issue.
BAH! No dice. I switched out the Hitachi 4200 rpm drive with a WD 5400 rpm drive and installed the same Windows 7 Basic on it. It still gets extremely hot. I guess I am stuck with XP until I can increase RAM to 2GB, which is not that cost effective.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
GN after a certain point, time spent at some point will outweigh money saved.
Just get on amazon and buy a decent sub $250 laptop.
For Gallifrey! For Victory! For the end of time itself!!
I know. I have plenty of computers. It's just a project to see what I can do with it.
It still browses the web just fine, albeit a bit slow. I'll probably leave this at my friend's place so I can browse the web when I visit.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
i'm taking advantage of the recent Black Friday sales on Newegg to build a new desktop.
i've had my dell inspiron 530 since 2007 and the fans are starting to get very creaky. over the years, i've put in more RAM, a new power source, and in 2012, upgraded the videocard (radeon HD7800)...but there's limits to what the upgrades can do.
upgrading now to a i5 4690K (skipping what, 5.5 evolutions of microarchitecture?! kentsfield --> yorkfield --> nehalem --> sandy bridge --> haswell --> haswell refresh), from 3GB to 16GB of RAM, and getting a samsung SSD.
this is getting my nerdy senses tingling. great deal for ~$600 all up, case and everything.
now it'll be that 2012 video card that will be the bottleneck. well, next year i think i can pick up the GTX 970 for cheap...
any advice for a newbie computer builder?
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov
Alas these days I am in charge of a voracious little organic cash destroyer (otherwise knows as my son) so my upgrade days are behind me.
Here are a few things I learnt along the way.
Buy an anti static strap and secure it to a nearby metal object.
Dont skimp on the power supply, get yourself a quality one with bronze efficiency rating at least. I prefer seasonic PSUs myself, they are rock solid.
Search out a roomy comfortable case with easy ergonomics to work with and good airflow.
Consider getting one of the various new water coolers on the market, they are very quiet and a good idea for future overclocking.
Last edited by bolo121; 29 Nov 14, at 04:22.
For Gallifrey! For Victory! For the end of time itself!!
All of the above and resist the urge to retouch the thermal paste or wiggle the heatsink. If you try to readjust the position of your heatsink on the processor once your squished down on the thermal paste, it might lead to bad thermal contact.
Also, try to plan out the order of your component installations so you don't block screw ports, clips, etc for successive components.
Make sure that what ever case you get, it gets sufficient airflow to your HDs as well as your CPU and GPU. I don't think the SSDs are as sensitive to heat, but I've had a HD die due to heat related issues.
If you have everything set in place, all the obvious connections attached and your computer still won't turn on, check for a loose screw shorting out your mobo.
Probably the most annoying part was trying to find out where everything connected to the mobo.
Set up went well. Of course, I just realized that to install Windows in my new 64 bit system I needed to have a Windows installer program from a 64 bit system as well. Getting it via USB now as I have no optical drive. Thus the caps from my IPad's autocorrect feature....
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov
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