Built a new PC

J

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
After much hemming and hawing, I finally gave in and replaced my computer. This motherboard has given me problems from day one with various issues ranging from random cooling and voltage problems to random memory issues. The processor would speed up and slow done and so would the fans. The BIOS wouldn't always save settings and would forget them when the machine was unplugged. I replaced the processor, power supply, fans, and anything else I could think of, including the battery. Then finally the last problem to give me heartburn happened most recently. All of a sudden the memory installed didn't always add up to what was supposed to be there. Oh it worked on the first day then the board missed 16GB of RAM, bringing the total memory down 8GB. The next day it was fine. Wait a minute! What's going on?

I did the usual troubleshooting thing with the memory, testing each DIMM individually in each slot separately, thinking that it was either the slots or the DIMMs. The DIMMs all tested fine. After I replaced the power supply, the same problem with the fans remained. Finally I couldn't deal with the CSO I had, so I replaced the parts. I was able to salvage the RAM, case, DVD drive and hard drives.

So anyway after this big to-do, I gave in and bought parts from New Egg. I did go a bit overboard, maybe, but being in the mood I am I needed something to boost me up a bit and keep me busy.

The motherboard is an Intel Z77REK
Processor: 3770K 4.5GHZ Ivybridge
Chipset: Z77
Memory: 16GB - same memory from old machine
Video Card: GTX680 --- Top end, why not!
Hard drives: 3x - 1x1TB, 2x2TB --- from old system
Case: Corsair --- from old system.
Built-in Sound.
Sony DVD +R R/W --- from old system.
USB 3.0

Anyway, the build went together fine. The board powered up right away and Windows 7 and everything installed without a hitch.

John
 
Thanks :)

The system runs really quietly compared to the old beast and really cool. The new devices are really power efficient with the new cooling profiles. I know the system is quite capable of being overclocked, but I'm not sure if I'll ever try that. I'm too scared to wreck anything right now! :D

John
 
Great system.
Here is what I built and am very satisfied with it. I might add another monitor sometime later.

CPU...........Intel Core I5 3570K
Motherboard...Asrock Z77 Extreme6
Graphic.......EVGA GTX 670
Mem...........16mg Gskill 8Gx2
PSU...........Rosewill Capstone 650
SSD...........Plextor 128G
HD............1Tb
DVD...........LG
OS............WIN 7 Home Preium
Case..........Cooler Master HAF 932 full tower
display.......Dell 24"
 
Last edited:
kin3 said:
Great system.
Here is what I built and am very satisfied with it. I might add another monitor sometime later.

CPU...........Intel Core I5 3570K
Motherboard...Asrock Z77 Extreme6
Graphic.......EVGA GTX 670
Mem...........16mg Gskill 8Gx2
PSU...........Rosewill Capstone 650
SSD...........Plextor 128G
HD............1Tb
DVD...........LG
OS............WIN 7 Home Preium
Case..........Cooler Master HAF 932 full tower
display.......Dell 24"
Click to expand...

Very nice. Your system is very similar to mine. My power supply is a little more powerful since I had replaced a 650W with an 850W because my old system was a power hog. You have a nice case. I bought mine last year because the motherboard I had previously was an extended ATX board that would not fit in the HAF 932 case I was using before. My nephew will get that when we build his 'new' system for him for his birthday.

What's cool about PCs is you can reuse parts all the time if they're in good shape. having these parts on hand, saved me quite a bit of money because I didn't need memory, case, power supply, dvd, or hard drives. :)

I have dual displays. I bought these over time. The newer one is a 27-inch Samsung and the other is an older 22-inch Samsung I bought 4 years ago.

@Whitepass. The new Intel boards are fully overclockable and totally unlocked. They even have the settings available right in the BIOS.

John
 
Sounds like some great computers you guys have.
I have a question about video cards, maybe you can give me some advice.
My computer is a Dell XPS 435 with 16 megs of ram and a CPU 1.7 that is 2.57 ? speed. And an AMD video card not sure of the model# I only run trainz 2012 and also Railsimulator 3013. Lately I noticed in running trainz when I go into driver the engine names on the side of the engines are not quite in focus at first and it seems like all the scenery takes a while to show up also.
Eventually they do clear up and look ok.
Does this sound like my video card is not handling the game graphics?
Or do you think it may need an upgrade?
Any Ideas.

Thanks for your time.
Bob
 
Bob,
The cpu+gpu types/sizes are need to knows before any conclusions can be made.
I'd open the comp up and clean any dust out from the fans and cooling vanes, it may help.
 
Hello Fran
My Processor is a Intel Core i7-920 8mb L3 cache 2.66 Ghz
And my video card is a VisionTek Radeon HD 5670 2GB memory
And 16 megs 3ddr super duper memory.
And the inside of my tower is as clean as an operating room:)

This is my first Amd Video card.
I'm looking at a Nvidea 550 TI or 660 CARD now I have to see how much power my power supply is.
 
System looks ok, psu size ? 500 watt+ ?
When in driver have you tried the main menu (top left) then options, you can alter things from there to ease the load on the system. Draw distance for eg.
 
JCitron said:
Thanks :)
The system runs really quietly compared to the old beast and really cool. The new devices are really power efficient with the new cooling profiles. I know the system is quite capable of being overclocked, but I'm not sue if I'll ever try that. I'm too scared to wreck anything right now! :D
John
Click to expand...

Hi John,
Sounds like a great machine, but I'm a bit confused. In your first post you say; Processor: 3770K 4.5GHZ Ivybridge. My understanding is those CPU's come off the shelve clocked at 3.5ghz & you can overclock them to 4.5+ghz. So if yours is running at 4.5ghz, you must have already overclocked it...

If yours is overclocked & running at 4.5ghz I would strongly recommend that you install a good quality liquid fulled/water cooled cooling system. Intel's "out of the box heat sink" is just not up to scratch if your overclocking to 4ghz plus....

Also make sure you have the "CPU Temperature control cutoff" (in CMOS) set to 80 or 90 so if your CPU starts to gets to hot, the system will automatically shut down, so you don't fry your CPU...

Cheers, Mac...
 
Last edited:
meatloaf747 said:
Hi John,
Sounds like a great machine, but I'm a bit confused. In your first post you say; Processor: 3770K 4.5GHZ Ivybridge. My understanding is those CPU's come off the shelve clocked at 3.5ghz & you can overclock them to 4.5+ghz. So if yours is running at 4.5ghz, you must have already overclocked it...

If yours is overclocked & running at 4.5ghz I would strongly recommend that you install a good quality liquid fulled/water cooled cooling system. Intel's "out of the box heat sink" is just not up to scratch if your overclocking to 4ghz plus....

Also make sure you have the "CPU Temperature control cutoff" (in CMOS) set to 80 or 90 so if your CPU starts to gets to hot, the system will automatically shut down, so you don't fry your CPU...

Cheers, Mac...
Click to expand...

Hi Mac,

No worries, nothing is going to blow up! It's not overclocked. It's running at the default of 3.8Ghz. I mistyped that, sorry! :)

I agree I would have done a lot more to cool down the system if I was going to max out the processor! I have the automatic cut-off in place anyway so the processor will slow down. The motherboard has all this built-in already for over-clocking dummies. I have no intention on overclocking the parts even if they're capable. Way back in my hardware technician days, the part-specs were drilled into my head. There's a reason why parts run at the speed they do. This isn't much different today, and as we know there are a lot of factors that can determine whether a part can be pushed or not even if they're meant to be. So, having said that, I'm keep everything at stock as I'm very pleased with the performance.

I loaded up Surveyor for the first time last night. There were no hesitations when switching menus, and I was able to click on placed objects easily when adjusting them. These were constant issues with my old system which would lag and chunk when I opened up the menus or tried to move something. In Driver I had nice performance as well. I tested Dx mode last night, and will try Open/GL tonight if I remember to.

John
 
Also building a new PC

Well this thread has kicked me into action, I needed to rebuild my Linux PC so I though as I need a motherboard and processor I might as well go for an upgrade of my main system. Its an AM3 board so anything better AMD wise would need an AM3+ Mobo, so I thought might a well go up a grade and try Intel.

Number 2 PC will be used for Multi boot Linux's / Win7 and shifted into the empty tatty looking case which I've just rescued from the garage.
Waiting for an [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Asus P8H77-V LE Z77, [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]i7 3770K 3.5GHz[/FONT], 16GB of Ram and a 120GB Ocz Agility 3 SSD for the boot drive to arrive, going to stick with my GTX460 for the moment and shift it, the Trainz SSD and my "work" drive into the new setup. Already got enough good quality power supplies so don't need to worry about that.
Got quite a few spare drives here I can use as well,
I ordered a copy of Win7 pro at the last minute as nearly forgot that I've run out of spare 64 bit OS's to put on it.

Interestingly the i7 now costs less than the Phenom 1090T 6 core I bought last year, ever get that ripped off feeling?



[/FONT]
 
clam1952 said:
Well this thread has kicked me into action, I needed to rebuild my Linux PC so I though as I need a motherboard and processor I might as well go for an upgrade of my main system. Its an AM3 board so anything better AMD wise would need an AM3+ Mobo, so I thought might a well go up a grade and try Intel.

Number 2 PC will be used for Multi boot Linux's / Win7 and shifted into the empty tatty looking case which I've just rescued from the garage.
Waiting for an Asus P8H77-V LE Z77, i7 3770K 3.5GHz, 16GB of Ram and a 120GB Ocz Agility 3 SSD for the boot drive to arrive, going to stick with my GTX460 for the moment and shift it, the Trainz SSD and my "work" drive into the new setup. Already got enough good quality power supplies so don't need to worry about that.
Got quite a few spare drives here I can use as well,
I ordered a copy of Win7 pro at the last minute as nearly forgot that I've run out of spare 64 bit OS's to put on it.

Interestingly the i7 now costs less than the Phenom 1090T 6 core I bought last year, ever get that ripped off feeling?
Click to expand...

Malc,

That's going to be a nice system. I initially was going to go witht that motherboard for my new build, but isntead went with the Intel. The price difference was $0.00, and the Intel had some nice reviews with it too, so it was a toss up. I know what you mean about that ripped off feeling, but sadly that's the way computer hardware is today. What was a decent everything last year at a good price will always be more expensive in many cases the following year. What's worse is you can't always resell the older stuff because no one wants it. I end up building older systems for my nephew or my dad who doesn't need the super gaming machine that we like. :)

John
 
Post #1 reminded me of a motherboard problem I had a few computers ago. I've built my own for years and the motherboard in question was fairly expensive but it seem to have a random fault that would cause a total and random lockup. After several weeks of persevering with it I finally bought a new board but different model, reused all the other bits and the problem went away. I guess it must have been the classic "dry joint" problem that electronics folk talk about. I think the board is still out in the garage somewhere.

My current computer is now 3 years old so I guess a replacement might be on the cards. Though I'm having problems getting excited about Win 8.
 
BD1 said:
Needs green LED's then it would be really Christmas'y looking !

I wish I knew as much about re-building PC's, it sounds great !
Click to expand...

Building a PC is easy.

For some more eye candy, heres a pic of my motherboard (taken from web, not my actual unit).

I like the clean look of having most of the components covered up.

asussabertoothp67intell.jpg
 
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