Topics

1

Living Room / New SSd in an aging PC

« on: November 23, 2018, 05:44 AM »

Built my PC approximately 4 years ago and I'm just now getting around to adding an SSD to boot it.

I thought about installing a 500 GB SSD and cloning my C: drive, which is over 3.8 gigs full. But then I started thinking that I should be able to save money, buy a smaller SSD and download Windows 10 to the new drive because Microsoft uses the motherboard's model number and serial number as a reference for the product ID (I originally upgraded from Windows 7 Pro to 10 Pro).

Am I correct in thinking that?

So, my plan is to buy a 250 GB SATA SSD, dedicated to nothing but booting the OS and a few programs. Currently, I have 3 internal mechanical HDD's that store over 100 Steam games and years worth of pictures, videos and documents.

I'm thinking of buying this drive. Thoughts? Suggestions? Care to berate me for waiting so long to modernize my PC? (I have thick skin, so fire away).

Specs:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3

• CPU: Intel i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz

• OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bit

• GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series

• RAM: 8 GB

• PSU: 650W

2

Living Room / Building Another Budget Gaming PC...

« on: June 17, 2014, 12:47 AM »

...and I hope I don't embarrass myself as much as I did last time.   

A few years ago, with the great help of a bunch of people here, I built a quality i5 Sandy Bridge based PC that still rocks today.

Now, my brother wants me to build him a budget gaming PC and here's what I've got, so far:

AOC 27" monitor

Antec One case

Gigabyte H77 motherboard

i5 3570 CPU

Corsair Vengeance 8GB RAM

Radeon R7 260X GPU

Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD

LG 24X DVD burner

Corsair 600W PSU

My brother has about a $1200 budget and this is what I've thrown together, so far.  One thing I am aware of is that the motherboard supports Crossfire but the video card doesn't appear to be Crossfire ready.  Is that a problem? 

Everyone feel free to critique, streamline or tell me to completely toss everything out and start completely over.

Thanks for the help.

3

Living Room / Help With a Graphics Problem for Charity

« on: April 10, 2012, 04:41 AM »

I have a co-worker, who's 6-year-old nephew was diagnosed with Histocytosis, a rare disease that doctors can only try to treat as a type of cancer.

He's on chemo and limited radiation and the doctors and scientist know little about his ailment.

She wants to make wrist bands or necklaces on a 1X1 inch of wood, with a dark blue ribbon and sell them, with all proceeds going to the awareness of this rare childhood disease.  You might have seen her, as the Today Show promoted the cause, a few months back in New York.

She asked me to help, even though I know very little about graphic design, so I thought I'd pass this to you.

She needs a dark blue ribbon (as she compares it, Cookie Monster Blue) on a white background.

I thought I was pretty smart and downloaded a blue ribbon and loaded it up on Paint.Net.  For some reason, it's printing a black ribbon.  Otherwise, under every other basic program, it has a black background.  I dunno.

Can somebody just make the ribbon print out as "Cookie Monster" blue and the background white?

I've attached a Paint.net source.

Thanks, in advance.



Thank you and I appreciate your help in the awareness of a rare disease that's affecting these small children.

4

Living Room / I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« on: March 25, 2012, 09:42 PM »

Hey everyone!  It's been a while since my last post but I've occasionally lurked around.  Matter of fact, last time I posted, you guys helped me buy my dream PC.  Here's that thread.

I had that PC built for me but I've learned quite a bit since then and want to build my own this time.

As last time, I'm going to be buying (nearly) all my parts from Global Computer, since I'll get a discount from ordering through my employer.

First thoughts and opinions/suggestions are quite welcome:

*I think I'm going to go with a quad core processor, thinking dual-core will soon be as obsolete as single-core.

*I have a crashed 500 GB Seagate HDD that I will send back for a replacement, under warranty, saving money.  I laugh at the HDD shortage of 2012!

*My wife is in college and I'm going to try to buy a student discounted version of Windows 7 Professional 64bit.  I don't know how that works, as of yet.

*I want a fairly competent gaming PC.  If my PC can run games reasonably well, I figure it can do darn near anything else with ease.  Plus, I like games!

*I have an approximate budget of $1000.00.

I know all that is still pretty vague.  Basically, I'm wanting a gaming PC for $1000 and I want to build it, not only to save money but for the learning experience.

One other thing I learned from my subscription to MaximumPC is that the AMD GPU's doesn't support PhysX that's included in cool games like Batman:  Arkham City.  So, I guess I'll go with nVidia.

Any preliminary suggestions?

Thanks to the wonderful folks who helped me buy my current PC.  I can't believe it's been six whole years ago!  Other than a few HDD failures (and a replaced PSU, which I suspected as the culprit) it continues to be a wonderful machine.

Thanks to Mouser for a wonderful site.  By the way, I still have that PM you sent me to donate to your site.  I apologize for never getting around to it.  It will be done shortly, I promise.

Thanks, everyone.

5

Screenshot Captor / Problem with IL2 (Flight Sim) Screenshots

« on: October 28, 2007, 03:03 PM »

Hello everyone.  I fly online with a group of gentlemen (and a lady) with IL2:  1946.  We fly our missions and, once the mission is over, have to provide screenshots.  If this is confusing to you, check out our mission reports page and you'll see what I'm talking about. 

The game has a built-in recorder that I use to replay the mission and take shots at different angles.  Also, the game, itself, has a built-in screenshot taker that keeps all the screenshots in the root directory.  I prefer to use screenshot captor, though, because I can have it put all my shots in a folder of my choice.

The problem is that lately, a number of screenshots have been corrupted (possibly).  I'll take a screenshot of myself blowing the wing off an enemy plane, but when I exit the game and look at the shots, some of them show an empty sky and the ground...no planes at all in the air.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with screenshot captor or a problem with the game, itself.  One question, though.  Do you think I should pause the mission track, take the screenshot, and wait a few seconds before un-pausing the game?

Any suggestions?

EDIT:  I have v2.32.02 of Screenshot Captor.

6

Living Room / Windows XP Pro and SP2

« on: October 27, 2006, 01:51 PM »

Hey fellas,

I received my new computer (ref to this thread) and have XP Pro installed.

After OS installation, I did a Windows update and got all critical updates.  For some reason, SP2 didn't display as a critical update.  So, I searched microsoft for SP2 and downloaded it.

When it gets to the point of installing the update, I get an installation error: "C:/windows/system32/ftp.exe is open or in use by another application."

Should I reinstall XP and go for the SP2 update immediately before any other critical updates?  Do I need SP1 before SP2?

Thanks again for your help in the previous thread, guys.

7

Living Room / Buying New PC. Suggestions?

« on: September 28, 2006, 07:19 PM »

What suggestions would you fine people make for me to purchase a PC?  Difficulty:  My budget is around $500.00.

Listening to Clark Howard on talk radio, he's just about discouraged me from Dell.  What do you guys think?

8

General Software Discussion / Watermarking Videos?

« on: January 15, 2006, 04:00 PM »

Hello good people!

I am a moderator of a great website (www.golom.com not to be spamming, though).  The admin there has sent me on a task to find a freeware application that will allow him to place a watermark on videos. 

These videos will be original content and not taken from other sites, unlike ebaumsworld.com's unethical practices.

Thanks to all of you in advance and, by the way, you have a great collection of software here.  I'm going to mention your site over on Golom's, if you don't mind.