What to look for when shopping around for new pc

[zeropointbug]

BP-Revo, ya I am a WD guy myself for the last few years as they are quieter and faster, but the latest drives from Seagate (who bought Maxtor, yes horrible, but they are still there own quality) are the fastest available, and are actually near silent too, but it also depends on the SATA controller on the motherboard. Also, the ATI media cards are better than NVIDIA ones at the moment, I am not a fanboy, I just get what is the best overall value as far as performance/price/overclocking ability goes. I am currently using a Radeon 5770 wicked little card, very little power usage and can crunch anything you throw at it.

Overall, the PC I built there is a sure fire way to get top notch performance for everything but gaming.

[Gee]

Sorry guys. I feel like I asked a question and ran out on you. Life got busy but has returned to no life again. Some great info from everyone. I appreaciate everyone input and I agree with Jerry the that was a funny poke! lol. I am a little ashamed to tell you I work in the IT field, have for long time. I am stuck in the server room and basically have been getting paid good money to be the server/network grunt that only pushes buttons or runs a cable anymore. In the beginning my counter part and I tried to keep all the duties and permissions that went with our admin accounts. Was a losing battle and after a couple of years not winning. We gave into the idea of getting paid the same to do a lot less work. We now delegate to our counter parts in HQ to do the work we use to and to let us know when they have it completed. We then inform the clients it is done and take credit for a job well done. It takes some practice to sleep with your eyes open, keep the head bobs to a minimum all while resting one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse. I have lost touch with the desktop part and like my rcs piece them together with what is on hand. Sometime I am lucky and find some decent parts in our trash can at work. Thus, the reason I have no experience with a mac. I really need to combine my data onto a couple large hard drives. I have over 15 hard drive but have only managed to get 11 of them connected up at a time and still have a dvd writer attached. This is my current setup and has survived for some time. It's due to be blown by the air compressor again. Damn thing get's blown more often then I do. The links and info for doing it myself will help a lot. I think I can remember how to put one together, but had no real idea what was the best option to get for a desktop. Thanks again.





Freeze, your's looks all dressed up for a big night on the town. If you ever decide to cut the cords with it, let me know. I know just the DVD/VCR Recorder that would love to show her a good time.

[rawfuls]

BAD GEE

If my dad saw that on my desk, boy he would... well, yell at me...

That's a damn messy comp! And I thought my case needs some work (cable management)...

Whew, looks like you could use a new, larger case!

I didn't even know a motherboard could support 11 drives... wtf

[squeeforever]

Originally Posted by rawfuls

I didn't even know a motherboard could support 11 drives... wtf

I'm guessing a combination of USB adapters, using the SATA ports on the mobo, and PCI SATA cards is how he managed 11 drives.

Freeze, if you had to guess, how much is on those 11 drives? You could probably condense most of it on one or two 1 or 1.5 terabyte drives. You can get a 1 terabyte drive from GearXS for somewhere around $80.

[rawfuls]

Ah, true.
Yeah, I can see a sata to an adapter.
Meh, that's one computer that's a beast.
Watch all the 11 drives be 10GB besides one 30GB :P

[Gee]

Rawfuls it kind of like auto mechanic. The last thing he want to deal with when he gets off work is another car. The last thing I want to deal with is cables or any home pc problem. I do not tell anyone I know outside of work that I know anything about computers anymore. Soon as they know that the only time you hear from theml. I got a problem with my home computer. Too bad. This is my home cable management style. The patch panels and switches at work look sweet. Very professional and tight cable management, but at home..... f it, I got other things I would much rather do. lol


Squeeze ftw. The extra mobos and some usb to sata/ide adapters. Throw in a extra ps with the green and black jumpered to power the other drives. Got a couple fans from some old ML530 servers to keep them cool when they start gettting too warm. We all know heat kill electronics.

Can't remember the last time I actually spend money on anything related to a pc. It had to of been one of the usb to ide adapter. But we had those fail at work and once I dug them out of the special trash can at work. I got them home and found it was faulty power cords. Once I found the problem I fixed any of the ones at work the were having the problems also. So far I haven't found anything larger then a 500mb hd in the garbage at work. Last time I was looking at buying a hd those tb sizes were close to 200 bucks. They are down to 80 now? That's a good price.

I got two 80gb hard drive that are used for an OS. One's on standby and the others running the show. It get's a virus or goes down the other get slapped in to take over. The rest are just storage drive for data backups, DVD movies, music, pictures, etc. Got a couple 500gb, couple 400, and couple 320s, 1 250 and the rest are 120gb drive. I do have a 4gb hard drive but haven't found a reason to hook it up yet. lol Maxtor, Seagate, and WDs make up the melting pot and they are all accessable by my account from my pc or the other two older pcs that are on my lan. One out in the garage and the other I keep up and running in the kitchen nook so people (neighbors and friends) don't ask to use this workstation. They can use it to access the net or whatever from it as a with a guest account. Oh, and this older pc is setup for two flat screen monitors and two tv's all independent from each other. Kind of a cool setup. I found the picture that is in the picture to be just a little small for my eyes. Decided to put the old tv to use. The two ATI cards I got installed in here have teh svga output jack in addition to the dvi out connections and the sound system runs through my Sony 7.1 surround sound receiver. Like the auto mechanic sometime I do mess around with the engine in my own car. Just to see if it can be done really.

I only have a 128mb and 256mb on the video cards. Does having a 512mb video card help a lot by freeing up you processors?

[rawfuls]

Originally Posted by Gee

Rawfuls it kind of like auto mechanic. The last thing he want to deal with when he gets off work is another car. The last thing I want to deal with is cables or any home pc problem. I do not tell anyone I know outside of work that I know anything about computers anymore. Soon as they know that the only time you hear from theml. I got a problem with my home computer. Too bad. This is my home cable management style. The patch panels and switches at work look sweet. Very professional and tight cable management, but at home..... f it, I got other things I would much rather do. lol

Very true, once upon a time I told someone, well, my mom did, and now everyones emailing me about computer questions.

I never answer em, why? Because I "never got it"....

[JERRY2KONE]

Originally Posted by rawfuls

Very true, once upon a time I told someone, well, my mom did, and now everyones emailing me about computer questions.

I never answer em, why? Because I "never got it"....

GEE just looking at your PC setup is stressful. Ya know if you got one of those Terrabite drives and combined everything that is important to you it would really make things much easier for you and it would only take up the space of the tower itself. Just a thought.

My best friend is an IT geek and we trade off for his PC skills and my mechanical skills. I help him out with his cars and he takes care of my computer needs. Otherwise the only people he deals with are his own family. Its a crack up watching him deal with his sisters telling them that the PC is working just fine so it must be the operator who is the problem.

[Gee]

Originally Posted by JERRY2KONE

GEE just looking at your PC setup is stressful. Ya know if you got one of those Terrabite drives and combined everything that is important to you it would really make things much easier for you and it would only take up the space of the tower itself. Just a thought.

My best friend is an IT geek and we trade off for his PC skills and my mechanical skills. I help him out with his cars and he takes care of my computer needs. Otherwise the only people he deals with are his own family. Its a crack up watching him deal with his sisters telling them that the PC is working just fine so it must be the operator who is the problem.

It's not bad the way it is. At work we have several network drives connecting to the desktop G:. H: I: N: M: W: plus maybe one or two local drives C: and/or D: it's just a matter of remember what is were. It can be thought of as having all your eggs in one basket. Everything stored on a single drive and if that drive goes so does all the data to an extent. There ways to recover it depending on what happens but the worst case is it is totally gone. I would love to have a large hard drive to back up the data I have on the smaller drive that I feel is important onto. I would still run the seperate drive even if I had one large drive. Old school I suppose. I still use DOS when ever I can to copy data through batch files.

When I first got into PC tweenty years ago. I wasn't a geek or the stereo type and people didn't relate the cowboy boots and belt buckled, beer guzzling, pool playing, always had a new joke guy as a person that worked on computers. There were the pretty girls I tried to impress and helped, several friends and co-workers I would help out just because I thought I could. So everyone puts thier time in helping out with others person pc problems just becasue hell we all like to help people out. The hardest part is getting someone to ask for help. The exception is the home computer. No challenge finding someone who will ask for help there. This thread for example lol It changes after a while. The home computer is a different beast all together vs a place that has corparate computers set up to a standard. You have the same software, setup the same way, running on the same hardware platfrom form cubicle to cubicle. Consistent from one workstation to the other. The problem on one is the same on the other and fixed in the same way. Home pcs ran the gammet from TSR80s to the 3' tall tower 386 power house that had a cdrom and a zip drive for backups. Different software, drivers, you don't know what the hell they installed or did to the pc or when it was working properly the last time. Just a pita and always took longer to fix then what you figured it would. I just found it easier to skirt around the quesitons of what I did for a living and found the person was more then happy to talk about themselves then to hear about what I actually did. The one word every loves to hear more then any other is their own name. We all like to talk about ourselve no matter how humble we are. Once I was told that I found it was easier to get laid listening intently to the female that was about to steal my heart then taking about writing code in Basic. If they did find out and ask a question about it. I would let them know I don't know what could be the problem but would check into what it might be while I was at work and offer to get the next beer.

See look how I ramble on talking about myself. Sorry, it would appear that I am in a rambling mood and should probably go find something more productive to do. lol



Taking my own advice and signing off for a while, but wanted to say thanks for the input from everyone and your willingness to help out.

Guy

[squeeforever]

Originally Posted by Gee

It's not bad the way it is. At work we have several network drives connecting to the desktop G:. H: I: N: M: W: plus maybe one or two local drives C: and/or D: it's just a matter of remember what is were. It can be thought of as having all your eggs in one basket. Everything stored on a single drive and if that drive goes so does all the data to an extent. There ways to recover it depending on what happens but the worst case is it is totally gone. I would love to have a large hard drive to back up the data I have on the smaller drive that I feel is important onto. I would still run the seperate drive even if I had one large drive. Old school I suppose. I still use DOS when ever I can to copy data through batch files.

If your worried about losing data or whatnot, I would simply have a harddrive (SATA because its clearly faster than IDE) for the OS and such, then have everything condensed onto one large drive set as a slave. Then, if your still worried about it, get two ($80x2 wouldn't be that bad for security and piece of mind) and run them in RAID1 config. Exact mirror of the first that way if one fails, you always have the second. If you go that route though, theres really no need for one for the OS and such though.

[squeeforever]

Originally Posted by rawfuls

Very true, once upon a time I told someone, well, my mom did, and now everyones emailing me about computer questions.

I never answer em, why? Because I "never got it"....

I hate it when that happens. My teachers laptop was having problems and I fixed it for her, then before I know it every teacher in the school is asking me to fix there computers.

[JERRY2KONE]

Originally Posted by squeeforever

I hate it when that happens. My teachers laptop was having problems and I fixed it for her, then before I know it every teacher in the school is asking me to fix there computers.

You just have to tell the first person that you do work for when he/she shares that information with others to tell them that you charge reasonably for your work. If there are hot teachers you can have some fun, and for those who are visually challenged money talks. In most cases people just do not know who to turn to for PC help, and for those places that do have PC servicing they charge through the nose for simple tasks, so jump on the band wagon and make yourself some side money under the table, or on the table if they look good.

[squeeforever]

Originally Posted by Gee

Last time I was looking at buying a hd those tb sizes were close to 200 bucks. They are down to 80 now? That's a good price.

Yup. Depends on which one you get, of course, but they can be bought that cheap rather easily. The Western Digital WD10EARS CaviarGP 1TB 64mb cache SATA II, yada yada would probably be my choice. Its more expensive than some 1TB drives, but well worthe the extra few $$. Its $117ish from GearXS.

http://www.gearxs.com/gearxs/product...ducts_id=12863

Originally Posted by JERRY2KONE

You just have to tell the first person that you do work for when he/she shares that information with others to tell them that you charge reasonably for your work. If there are hot teachers you can have some fun, and for those who are visually challenged money talks. In most cases people just do not know who to turn to for PC help, and for those places that do have PC servicing they charge through the nose for simple tasks, so jump on the band wagon and make yourself some side money under the table, or on the table if they look good.

VERY true. I graduated a couple years ago (and unfortunately none of the teachers were hot...), but next time a situation such as that arises, I will indeed make the most of it.

[Gee]

Yes, that would be the best way to go. The 80gb os drive I use are the sata drives. It is time consuming transfering data to a different HD. Usually a xcopy command or two ran in a batch file overnight. Even if it is from one sata to antoher sata connected to the mb the large files take some time.

On the servers were run the raid (raid5 I believe) through the array controller. Is that the same way for a desktop? Meaning you need a controller that can do it? Is it built into todays mb or is a seperate controller needed?

[BrianG]

I too have been shopping around for a new PC (half-heartedly though). Trying to determine goals and what I want out of it, I came up with this:

To be able to totally hand-pick your components that you can overclock, and assemble them yourself, shopping at Newegg, TigerDirect, etc is the best route. The trouble with this is you kinda have to know what works with what. Pretty easy, just read carefully. Also, the OS doesn't come with it, so that's an extra cost; which can be substantial if you want Windows. If I do this, I usually make sure to get components that aren't obsolete. Yeah, you can get a good price on a mobo, but it might only be capable of running the latest of a dead line of CPU socket type. Also, don't skimp on the PSU. Buy bigger than you need so you can upgrade the CPU, video, etc down the road.

Or, you can get an HP, Dell, etc system that use OEM stuff for a decent price. These systems work as-is but offer little to no overclocking. And from experience, any upgrading has to be done carefully because of mobo support and power supply limitations. Speaking of PSUs: these systems usually come with the bare minimum needed to run these systems from what I've seen.

Or, you can go to someplace like Alienware (which apparently is now run/owned by Dell) or IbuyPower (a place I've been looking at recently) and pick from a wole list of "aftermarket" parts. You might pay a little more, but at least everything works together guaranteed.

When shopping for the CPU, look for one that is at the sweet spot for price vs performace. This tends to be 2-3 models from the top. As long as the mobo supports the faster CPU for future upgrade later on (when the price becomes reasonable), there is no need to spend double the price for a marginally faster processor, at least to me.

As far as a MAC goes: My fiancee has one and it is pretty nice I guess. I personally don't like the way the OS works in general. Besides, it's just a pretty version of Linux anyway. It can run some games in a virtual environment, but that's just a PITA unless you like that kind of thing. You could also dual boot Windows and Linux/Mac, but that's a PITA as well. Mac-heads argue that they are better for graphics. I really don't see it because the same way overpriced (Adobe) software is available in Windows too. Mac heads also argue about the lack of viruses on the Mac. Well, I feel that's only because there are fewer of them out there and virus authors want to make the biggest effect with the largest computer base. And anyway, as long as you have a decent firewall and antivirus spyware protection, and don't do stupid things with the computer, it runs malware free. But the biggest thing to me is that there is VASTLY more software out there for Windows OS. Every time she wants to do something other than "work" stuff, we have to use my Windows PC because it actually does everything.