Tech General Chat

[Pico]

Sounds good, about the title change, to me Xcomm. Maybe not specifically "Random Chat" because I know I'll get it mixed up with "Random Questions" and post in the wrong thread a bunch of times

I did think there was already a bunch of pinned threads in this area, which made me feel like this wouldn't be popped up there.

And as for the warez one being merged into the Read Before posting thread, makes sense. Chances are if they're going to read any pinned thread first, it'll just be that one.

 

@I hear you on that. I know there's been a few tech things I've done that I never posted about. Like when I swapped out the LCD screen from my broken Zune (first gen, it just kept shutting off after the loading screen) into my brothers Zune which had a cracked screen. Those little f*ckers can be a bitch to work with, but I did it, lol!

[Star-Lord]

Sounds good, about the title change, to me Xcomm. Maybe not specifically "Random Chat" because I know I'll get it mixed up with "Random Questions" and post in the wrong thread a bunch of times

I did think there was already a bunch of pinned threads in this area, which made me feel like this wouldn't be popped up there.

And as for the warez one being merged into the Read Before posting thread, makes sense. Chances are if they're going to read any pinned thread first, it'll just be that one.

 

 

This would be an awesome idea. Good Luck Pico

[Pico]

Soooo... I picked up some thermal paste from Radio Shack... clean off the old stuff, apply the new sh*t. Attempt to re-seat the heat sink... and since the people down at Intel some how think a couple little sh*tty plastic clips are sufficient, I need a new heat sink. One of the clips broke off... and in my rage I chucked the f*cking HSF at the ground and broke another clip. I don't understand what the f*ck could be going through their minds when they decided to make sh*tty plastic clips instead of just using good old fashioned screws. f*ck, if it's cheaper use plastic screws... but these clips are f*cking retarded.

They never stay tight enough to go in the holes in the mobo, and if by some wonderful act of god they actually make it in the hole, good luck extending one with out it popping another out of the whole due to the uneven pressure... if I could meet the guy who designed them I'd literally punch him in his f*cking face.

 

So... I'm stuck on a sh*tty old PC with an AMD 2800+ and 512mb of RAM. And since I've installed Windows 7 on it, the resolution is off because they don't have any updated graphics drivers to support widescreen. And it's so slow I can't even watch youtube videos. f*ck me.

[Cursed]

When I built my brothers e5200 system for him I had a bit of trouble attatching the heatsink with those ridiculous clips. As soon as I got one side in, the other would pop back out. Even now I don't think it's on perfectly, but as long as it doesn't fall off and keeps it cool I don't mind.

[Pico]

Like before I assumed it was on good enough, but it probably could have been a little tighter. And with the heat problems I was trying my best to get it on as tight as possible... and so many tries with the clips not going in properly just was too much I guess

 

So hopefully I can save up for a decent one that screws in...

 

Oh, and thanks for the pin. I'm assuming you did it Xcomm? Took me a minute to find it, I though it some how got bumped down to page 2, I was confused for a minute there

How about changing the poll to "How retarded are Intel clip on heatsinks?" Lol...

 

edit: I'm looking at these two:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...8-223-_-Product

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...8-019-_-Product

 

The second one, being larger, obviously will provide better cooling. Especially seeing as it's got a larger fan PLUS a higher max speed. What bothers me is that it's a 3 pin, so you have to use the analog speed controller

They're both like that... and I hear the finish on them is less than desirable... so I might have to lap it which would be annoying. And as I thought, I'd have to remove the mobo to install which sucks, but it beats the sh*t out of those sh*tty clips!

 

Anyone have experience with a Zalman HSF? They seem to sell well.

Now, I just need to find an extra $50...

 

I'm aware this post contains more smilies than legally permitted.

Edited December 8, 2009 by Pico

[3niX]

Well...

 

 

How retarded are Intel clip on heatsinks?

In fairness, socket A coolers were even more retarded.

 

 

[Star-Lord]

Pico - Those Zalman HSF are one of the best CPU coolers out there. If you do decide to get one of these make show you have enough room to install it. Otherwise you may have to remove the motherboard to install it. A install vid on the link below, so you can see the installing process, before you buy.

Zalman

 

@3unix - I would find socket A coolers quite simple to install. The worse time I had was with a SSF heat-sinks from back then when I use to have a Pentium 4. Because just like Pico mentioned above, my machine at the time also had similar hard plastic clips attached to the mobo which broke off when I tried to replace CPU. Their was no way to repair the broken clips after-wards. So I savaged anything I could and threw the board away.

 

Congratulations! Pico on the pinned

[Pico]

Thanks for that link pcguy, looks a bit easier than most people made it seem. It'll definitely help if/when I get the HSF.

 

I've got some more bitching to do. To start, I have a T-Mobile G1 running Android. I've rooted and am running a popular ROM, Cyanogenmod. It has a setting called Compcache which uses the SDcard to speed up the phone... I enabled it last week and got siginificant speed boosts. Then just the other day it started slowing down. Yesterday it kept locking up completely... then it wouldn't boot. In the bootloader it couldn't read the SDcard, so I took it out, put it back in just now. It loads up and runs smooth, except it won't open any apps saved to my SD card... I think it's pretty much dead

Which sucks because the way my phone is set up, I HAVE to have an SD card and I don't have any spare ones anymore.

All of my electronics are slowly breaking on me... this computer is so slow it's not even funny. It's almost out of RAM, I keep getting pop up messages telling me that.

[Exkabewbikadid]

 

All of my electronics are slowly breaking on me... this computer is so slow it's not even funny. It's almost out of RAM, I keep getting pop up messages telling me that. 

It's inevitable. I think my system drive is about to die. My pc is stable and I'm not getting any disk errors or anything, but when I empty the recycle bin or open files, it slow to respond sometimes and the drive makes a loud click. I've had about 5 hdd failures in 7 years from different brands, so I find it laughable when I see fanboys go at it over freaking hdds. "Seagate is sh*t and WD rules!" f*ck you, they're all basically the same mechanical parts and susceptible to failure.

 

I thought about replacing it with a 300GB WD Velociraptor, but I don't think the minimal performance increase is worth the extra money. I just wish SSDs were much cheaper by now.

 

 

And I forgot to delete the poll up there...

[Cursed]

Cough Xigmatek Pico Cough

 

I agree that the brand of a hard drive makes virtually no different to reliability. In the last ten years I haven't had any hard drive go on my PC and I've had loads of brands. The only failed hard drives I have is a 10GB on a laptop I got for free and a 20GB Maxtor I got for free from school. They're both old so it's to be expected.

[Pico]

I agree too, that the HDD brand doesn't really make much of a difference. Most of the bigger brands seem to make quality parts.

 

The only major HDD quality problem was with the 7200.11 Seagate Barracuda drives whcih had firmware problems. And which, btw, I had a 1TB one... which just died after right before 1 year. But, it's got a 5 year warranty and if what I read is true, they will due a free data back up since the data is intact and the bad firmware is their fault. But I'm not 100% on that.

 

Also, I have some movies and tv series on there which I acquired in less than legal ways and I'm cautious at asking for a back up on that. Do you guys think Seagate would pay attention to te data? Would they report it or just say they can't copy it... or just not care?

I've also heard they can be a bitch to deal with trying to replace the drive... of course those posts were all made during the initial peak of drive failures. I just need to get my lazy ass on the phone with them and take care of it... but it doesn't really matter right now since my PC is currently a 30lb paper weight...

[Exkabewbikadid]

 

Also, I have some movies and tv series on there which I acquired in less than legal ways and I'm cautious at asking for a back up on that. Do you guys think Seagate would pay attention to te data? Would they report it or just say they can't copy it... or just not care?

I've also heard they can be a bitch to deal with trying to replace the drive... of course those posts were all made during the initial peak of drive failures. I just need to get my lazy ass on the phone with them and take care of it... but it doesn't really matter right now since my PC is currently a 30lb paper weight...

As far as the legality of the contents of a drive goes, I don't think Seagate is interested in reporting potential copyright infringements. They'd have no real proof that they aren't just back ups and I'm not even sure if they can legally do anything other than move the data. I'm really not up to speed with these things though.

 

I personally never bothered trying to get my failed drives replaced under warranty because by the time they failed, newer drives had greater capacities at a lower cost. Plus I'm like an anti-packrat. I try to reduce clutter and maintain the same functionality when possible, so I don't want a bunch of 3.5" drives that can't hold much lying around.

 

 

[Pico]

Yeah, but this is a 1 year old, 1TB drive! 7,200rpm, 32MB cache. About as good as it can get, aside from SSDs or Raptors speed wise, and about as high capacity save a few 1.5 and 2TB drives out there.

And my thoughts exactly, they probably can't do much about the data besides just transfer it. Otherwise it'd probably be a type of invasion of privacy thing. I know I saw a show on a hard drive repair/data recovery company and the only thing they HAD to report was child pornography, straight to the FBI! I guess I should hope Seagate is the same way. I'm not some f*cking sicko, it's all just TV shows and movies.

 

Off that topic, just cleaned out my parents computer. They smoke in the computer room and holy sh*t could you tell. Caked on, nicotine soaked dust caked on tons of the components and even parts of the mobo! Luckily this HSF was a screw on type so it was easy as pie to take off and put back on... it's running much, much quieter now. Hopefully the Arctic Silver paste I applied will strengthen up a bit. The temps range from 47 at idle and low use, to 58 under heavy Flash gaming (it's a P4). Nothing nuts, but it could be a little lower I think.

 

Oh and f*cking awesome update on my computer... my brother is spotting half the HSF for my computer, seeing as he uses it more than me, and is fronting the other half. So a Zalman 9700 is on my way!

Should have it Thursday or Friday, so I'll be able to put it in by the weekend. Let's just hope it'll fit in my case It should, I think my case is about 8-9 inches wide.

[Slamman]

There are so many nightmare Heat Sink Fan coolers out there, about the first Super 7 or 370 motherboard, the spring latches were terrible designs, and then they came up with even harder ones for the P4 and Hyperthread Dual cores, 775 sockets, etc.

I've seen a number of them, some are easy to get off and hard as hell to get back on. I don't see the point in making them difficult as all hell... The tension should be about the same either way.

 

Has anyone suffered a fate similar as mine, the mobo won't power up after you had normally used it? I keep suspecting the front panel switching was mucked up somehow, or cursed on the used eMachine, but it's a rash of dead mobos with the Dell GX series as well, they give you an amber power light on the case, that's it!

 

Run some scenarios past me if you encountered one and you suspect how it was damaged? I figure electrical surge or storm when there was lightning could be one.

[Pico]

Never had any mobo problems, let's hope it stays that way.

 

Back too heat sinks though, while looking for mine, I've noticed a lot use the clips I had problems with, or some other clip system. How hard would it be to make it a standard to have the mobo companies put a screw in bracket behind their mobos? Even if it meant a slight bump in cost per mobo, it'd allow heat sinks to be much simpler and eventually cheaper.

On that note, my HSF should be here in the mail any time now... sadly I've got to go to work before I can install it... can't wait to get home and pop that sucker in!

[Pico]

I hate to double post after like 13 hours of my last post, but I'm too f*cking excited.

 

Got my Zalman HSF in today... took about 3 hours to unhook everything, pop out the mobo, get the heatsink in (took the longest!), rehook it all. Then about another hour getting it all running properly (driver problems). It hasn't crashed! I've run games, CPU stress tests... nothing will crash it so far! I think I'm in the clear....

And the best thing? Remember it was running at 80-85*C per core? Well it's running at 33-39*C during normal Firefox usage! OMFG! Amazing... with the case open it was running 10*C cooler, but I obviously can't just leave it off.

 

Soooo... thank you Zalman!

[Cursed]

Glad to hear it all went okay Pico. When I was looking for a new cooler I was thinking of a Zalman but then I read the reviews and saw the motherboard had to be removed and it was quite hard to fit the heatsink. I couldn't be bothered with that so I went with the Xigmatek S1824 instead. Although it was quite cramped to fit and hook the bracket on.

 

If I ever change motherboard, I'll definetly be putting the Xigmatek on before putting it in the case. It's a good cooler though, much better than the AMD stock and it looks nice too.

[Pico]

I know I said it took me long to put it in, but that's stopping for a couple cigarette breaks, and to eat dinner. And I was watching a movie while doing it

If I got down to it and did it quickly, it probably would have only taken an hour and a half. And that's the first time I've ever removed a mobo, and I couldn't remember where some of the wires went when putting the mobo back together, lol.

 

The worst part about the Zalman install was the metal brackets. They are basically "spring" loaded, in that they are a metal material that is bent upwards and is screwed to bend it straight creating a tension to hold it in very firmly. It makes me confident it will stay in nicely. I looked at the Xigmatek, but didn't like the look of it. And the Zalman is all copper (cooling components, anyways). Now that the mounting brackets are in and I understand how the metal brackets work, it'll be easy to remove and put back on.

 

And it's still running great here! I noticed I forgot to hook up the exhaust fan after my last post... plugged it in and my temps dropped to 25*C at idle! And it's about 31-33*C using FF. Swwwwweeeeeeet! Maybe I can try to overclock now...

 

edit: Oh yeah, it's funny people complaining about noise from this thing. I used my decibel app on my G1 (which I find to be very accurate). With the only noise in the room coming from the computer it's 45-46dB on lowestspeed, and 47-49dB at 100%. That's a 2 to 4 decibel change which is "barely noticeable" to "clearly noticeable" but not nearly "twice as loud" according to a chart here: http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html

So, yeah, a really quiet HSF, imo.

Edited December 12, 2009 by Pico

[Cursed]

Nice temperatures. I'm not sure whether a full copper heatsink would really affect my temperatures with the Xiggy being a direct heatpipe contact. I spent the morning cleaning out my PC, even with the dust filters on my Antec 300 it attracts dust.

[Pico]

Yeah, dust can be a bitch. I clean mine out every 2-4 months so it doesn't build up to the point where I can't easily spray it off.

 

I remember seeing this material for car intakes. You wrap it around the intake filter. It's made of a material that allows good airflow but keeps everything as small as water atoms out. So basically the wholes are big enough for oxygen (ie, air) to get in. I can't remember the name of it, but I'd love to see how good the air flow is on a CPU fan, I wonder if it'd work alright. Then all I'd have to do is wipe off the material as dust builds up on it, no opening up the case.

[Slamman]

Dust off the top is not just the only thing to observe and deal with. I had my bottoms and case sides get pretty "hairy", also note that cleaning a PCI card or other slot card is not a joy. I use damp paper towel. Unplugged and away from current they can get damp and still work. After some years, they MAY rust!

[Star-Lord]

Congratulations! Pico, you made my day. I was worry whether you had enough clearance to install the HSF, but I see you removed the board - smart thinking. Isn't it fun to disassemble/reassemble? That's my favorite part of the building process.

BTW: I didn't realized you've edited your post till now my bad.

[ptiko]

I was wondering when would be good time to upgrade next year?

 

Im expecting some price cuts in the new year, and near the release of the i9 and Nvidia cards, whenever they are.

[Ryan]

I was wondering when would be good time to upgrade next year?

 

Im expecting some price cuts in the new year, and near the release of the i9 and Nvidia cards, whenever they are.

By upgrading what are you talking? Whole new PC, or just upgrading an existing one?

 

Believe me, you have no need for an i9. 6 cores and 12 with Hyperthreading. That's overkill. Their going to be well over $1000 when released. Probably closer to $2000.

[ptiko]

By upgrading what are you talking? Whole new PC, or just upgrading an existing one?

 

Believe me, you have no need for an i9. 6 cores and 12 with Hyperthreading. That's overkill. Their going to be well over $1000 when released. Probably closer to $2000.

Im after an i7, I just hoping the prices will drop abit when the i9 comes out.

Im also after an ATi HD5870, I assume they will drop it price when the Nvidia cards come out too.

 

Im just after a new mobo, CPU, ram and Graphics card

 

What I have in mind is a i7 920 and ATi HD5870. Im open really to what mobo get. The EVGA x58 is one on my mind.

I have no idea what ddr3 ram get.

 

I have everything else

[Ryan]

Motherboard: EVGA X58 SLI LE LGA 1366 Motherboard - $239.99

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.66GHz - $288.99

Graphics Card: ATI Asus HD 5870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 - $409.99

RAM: Corsair XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 - $174.99

 

Total=$1113.96

 

That quite a bit of money, but your getting all good quality stuff. The components your asked for aren't exactly the cheapest things out there either. If you go with a build like that though, I'm sure you'll be happy. I have a smiler machine and I'm quite pleased with it.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Unlimited

[ptiko]

I know its going to cost a fair bit, but I always use my PC for everything. After Christmas, my birthday and Ive sold my PS3

I should be able get the parts mid January >: )

[Pico]

Stuff like that should be put in the Random Question thread.

 

@Slamman, don't use water! Use alcohol, the highest percentage you can get. It'll evaporate quickly allow you to use the device quicker and won't leave any residue that could cause problems or rust over time.

 

@pcguy, thanks! I'm glad it worked out well, too.

 

So I got two laptops from my Aunt. They both had tons of problems, there's an HP Pavillion dv6000 and dv6500. I told her how much work and cost would be involved to fix both and she just said keep them for parts. So the past two days I've ripped them apart and made a single working one. It's got the AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 @ 1.9Ghz and the 2GB RAM from the dv6500, but the rest is basically the dv6000. I wish I could have used the mobo from the dv6500 as it had 8400M integrated graphics, the dv6000 is only an Nvidia 6150. But, it all works well now, for the most part. I had to install Windows 7 because the previous Vista install was corrupted and I couldn't get it fixed.

 

The only real problem I have now is the battery... it won't run it! I've only tried it with one battery out of the two, will try out the other one soon. It will say it's got 100% charge, so I'll unplug it, About 5-10 minutes later it shuts off. turn it back on and it says it's only got 19-21% charge. Still enough as to where it shouldn't just shut off, but it is so something serious is probably messed up. I'll be troubleshooting it for a bit... at the least it works when plugged in! Nice to have a laptop...

[Cursed]

That's pretty good for a free laptop, I dare say it beats the two Inspiron 7500s I was given . As for cleaning PCI cards, I always go with a dry artists paintbrush, even if alcohol is save I just wouldn't want to consider using liquid on computer parts. Even with the paintbrush I'm a bit nervous about ESD.

[Pico]

I was using a brush to clean out the fans on my parents PC when I was giving it a thorough cleaning... I was really tempted to brush the crusted on dirt from the mobo, but was too afraid of ESD as well.

 

I just popped in the other battery... Windows 7 is saying I should replace this battery, didn't say this on the other one. It stayed at a 26% charge while plugged in. I just unplugged it when starting to make this post, it's already down to 22%... I want to upgrade the drivers but I can't seem to find them anywhere! HP support says to use the install or repair CD...

Obviously I don't have that. I can't believe I can't just download the ACPI drivers...

 

ninja edit: Well, as I was typing it went down to 21% then quickly flashed 22% then the number dropped to something I couldn't read, I think 6%, that's what it's saying right now. It then went into hibernation, which is set to kick in at 7%. Damn HP and their sh*tty battery problems!