It's spending time again. This time I am thinking of getting a new processor, motherboard, 8Gb memory and PSU. I don't have a great need for massive processing power and the current set up is pretty much doing what I need it to, it's just become a little unreliable and noisy.
I need a couple of USB3, 4 USB2 but most important at least 6 SATA ports, with at least 2 being SATA III. Also onboard Gigabit LAN and sound. I have a fancy graphics card so that's not needed.
So I reckon this lot will do - it comes in around £320 which is a bit over what I really wanted to spend but manageable.
Processor Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Socket 1155 Quad Core £188
www.cclonline.com/product/73989/BX80637I53570K/CPUs/Intel-Core-i5-3570K-3-4GHz-Processor-6MB-L3-Cache-5GT/s-Bus-Speed-Boxed-/CPU0102/
Memory Kingston HyperX Savage 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Desktop £53
www.cclonline.com/product/157364/HX316C9SR/8/Desktop-Memory/HyperX-Savage-8GB-1x8GB-Memory-Module-1600MHz-DDR3-Non-ECC-CL9-240-pin-DIMM-Unbuffered-1-5V-Intel-XMP/RAM1963/
Motherboard ASRock B75 Pro3 Intel Socket 1155 Motherboard £56
www.cclonline.com/product/129508/B75-PRO3/Motherboards/ASRock-B75-Pro3-Motherboard-Core-i7/-i5/-i3-Socket-1155-B75-ATX-Gigabit-LAN-Intel-HD-Graphics-/MBD0776/
PSU Any of the sub £20 here. www.cclonline.com/category/415/PC-Components/Power-Supplies/attributerange/150/0-450/
What does the team think? Would I be just as happy with a cheaper I3 in a socket 1150, which would bring the price down somewhat?
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Don't get a cheap PSU, they are nasty and often have very unstable voltages, what is worse they often lie about the rating. For that spec I would go with the Corsair CX430, they cost around £35 and are generally good quality.
You keeping your old hard drive? If not I would buy a Western Digital Black, they are a bit more expensive but they do make a difference to the performance and they tend to be more reliable.
Again with the motherboard, nothing wrong with the AsRock units but a little more buys you an Asus or a Gigabyte board.
Why you looking at 1155 boards? They are out of date now, go with the Ivybridge 1150 even they are now old but still a lot newer. Ivybridges are slightly quicker but also run a lot cooler.
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Thajs Rats. Yep, I have a Samsung Pro 512Gb SSDs C drive and two other SSDs which I don't need to replace. Must admit, I thought 1155 was the newer!!
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Is an easy mistake to make, the 1150 processors are probably a bit cheaper too.
If you get one of the 'K' i5s you can over clock them to speeds well in excess of 4Ghz and they still run very stable and cool.
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>> it's just become a little unreliable and noisy.
Define unreliable? A reinstall of Windows might sort that. You've got to reinstall for the new build anyway.
And which bit is noisy? I'm guessing PSU fan(s) or CPU fan. Or another system fan.
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PSU is noisy.
I think I was hit by some virus which, as I regularly image my C drive, didn't really impact too much.
But I then found a problem with a little used Lightscribe DVD drive - deffo a hardware problem. When I had the suspected virus above, I had a nightmare trying to boot from the Macrium or Ghost DVDs. I took a drive from a different computer to restore the system and reconnected he Lightscribe one afterwards, but was getting peculiar hangs and reboots. So I disconnected the drive and it's been fine since. A second hand drive is on it's way.
I also think my mobo or memory has a problem as it is taking ages to POST and get to the Windows boot screen, and is massively over-reporting memory.(8348Gb anyone?). I just realised today the clock is wrong so maybe it's just the CMOS battery which needs replacing.
But you might remember from previous posts I have a frequent desire to SPEND. :-)
btw I rebuilt in about Nov. I now image weekly, as Macrium is so easy, and keep the original immediately-post-build image, last week's image, plus the last one I have ever successfully reverted to as "Last Known Good". I am probably deluding myself then that a new mob/cpu/memory it will just fix everything. But a rebuild is not the end of the world, I know exactly where my data is and so it doesn't faze me.
Last edited by: smokie on Sat 7 Feb 15 at 23:55
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just change your psu look to me that the culprit, get a reliable make like corsair as rats has mentioned, get one that cover enough wattage for any additional upgrades you might require.
try and down load anti malaware program to detect and kill viruses, defrag your hd, idf they are ssds move the paging files to a mehanical drive, update your windows, clean the inside of the pcc making sure its free of dust, check the fans are blowing cool air.
also check the registry of your windows, that might need a clean up, if you need to spend on hardware then go for the latest mobo cpu combo.
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Thanks Sajid
Folks here who know me of old know that I do get itchy to spend on technology. Most of the stuff in your second para is already dealt with, except I am paging to an old SSD (but not seeing any issues). But quite honestly if I could return the boot up speed to what it used to be then the current rig does everything I need. So maybe I will try with the PSU and see what happens.
btw I bought the gubbins to build the Raspberry Pi security camera yesterday, looks a fun bit of kit but after a bit of familiarization I don't want to just copy stuff from instructables but I cannot think of any truly practical for the Pi. Is anyone else here doing much with them?
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>> ... but I cannot think of any truly practical for the Pi.
>> Is anyone else here doing much with them?
FWIW the latest version Pi 2 model B (£25 from RS) will be able to run Windows 10 (free):
blog.ebuyer.com/blog/2015/02/microcomputing-with-the-raspberry-pi-2/
Last edited by: Focusless on Mon 9 Feb 15 at 10:41
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That's a bit annoying, I'll have to return the B+ to Amazon for a refund then., when it arrives!! I don't think I'm bothered about Windows 10 but the new one seems to be massively more powerful.
I ordered some other bits with it too, including a PIFACE interface - which maybe won't work I suppose. I think I'll just ship the lot back and start over - I'm in no rush for it.
Thanks for the heads-up.
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Might need to sign up:
dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support
I think if the Pi had been around 35 years ago I would have loved it and spent all my waking hours playing with it. Great toy for those who are inclined.
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Anyone - presumably Windows for Pi is native ARM code. Will there be any ARM versions of apps that it can run? Or are most Windows apps these days .NET rather than native code, so will run under Windows whatever the host machine architecture? Perhaps MS are hoping that this sort of thing will trigger a shift to .NET apps (if it isn't already happening)?
EDIT: I was forgetting there's lots of Windows phones with non-Intel chips running Windows apps
Last edited by: Focusless on Mon 9 Feb 15 at 11:49
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>> I don't think I'm bothered about Windows 10 but the new one seems to be massively more powerful.
It is. Quad core CPU vs. single core. And they are slightly faster. They say it's 6 times faster. That assumes you're using all of the cores. Double the RAM too.
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... and same price. Given I've not even received the thing I will request a swap. Had I had it a month or two I'd have had to put up with being miffed. :-)
I'm only seeing this as a hobby to plonk around with but I may as well get as good a spec as I can.
btw It was your post to instructables that really put me onto it but tbh the projects as they stand are not really that exciting on their own - and the security cam which I'm getting the bits for will not last very long.
But I'm hoping I can think up something half useful to combine it with learning other technologies and skills when I have the time (i.e. when retired!!). Something like this weather page, which would probably be a good kind of project to bring together a number of skills which I'd need to learn. billinghamweather.com/wxabout.php
(NB I'm only aware of this as I worked near there for a bit and the locals told me it was just an amateur - but the site now has quite a long list of credits!!).
Last edited by: smokie on Mon 9 Feb 15 at 12:42
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Raspberry Pi 2 is camera shy. Apparently if you take a photo of it with the flash on it will turn off. Wouldn't happen in a case I guess. It's odd that its sensitive to a camera flash though.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31294745
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Haha I like the Raspberry man's humour
- "Raspberry Pi creator Eben Upton told the BBC the glitch was an "unintentional educational bonus"."
- "If I had to pick a bug in the Raspberry Pi, excessive sensitivity to paparazzi is the one I would pick,"
Not sure Apple would get away with his ""We have no real plans to fix it"
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>> Not sure Apple would get away with his ""We have no real plans to fix
>> it"
That is a standard Apple response. Along with "You are holding it wrong" and "Of course it bends"
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 9 Feb 15 at 16:34
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You *have* fallen out of love with all things Apple.
My 4S really struggles with WiFi and 3G where others don't, so I'm going to have to do something eventually. The thing I will miss if I don't go Apple is the dictation function; truly brilliant.
And there's no way I'm buying a 5S, they're already 18 months out of date. And I don't want a phablet-sized 6.
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>> You *have* fallen out of love with all things Apple.
>>
>> My 4S really struggles with WiFi and 3G where others don't, so I'm going to
>> have to do something eventually. The thing I will miss if I don't go Apple
>> is the dictation function; truly brilliant.
Available on Android. Google voice control is every bit as good as "siri"
I was never "in love" with Apple.
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I have a iMac and Macbook Pro because I like MacOS. I much prefer it to Windows. I had a first generation iPod Touch but when it came to getting a smartphone I found iOS too restrictive and the screen on the iPhone up until recently was way too small.
It's surprising how good voice recognition is on Android. I know Siri originally called on Apple computers in their data centre to do some of the processing. Probably not needed now. But Google does it all without a data connection. Google Translate with a data connection is quite good too. It's okay without data but even better at reading out messages with Internet connectivity.
It does make me wonder why Samsung smart TVs need to send voice data to a third party when the TV will be powerful enough to do voice recognition.
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>>Available on Android. Google voice control is every bit as good as "siri"
How do I set my Chi-pad up to do dictation for emails etc., please?
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Tap the mic icon to the left of the spacebar when the keyboard pops up.
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Edit - if you don't have a mic icon, its likely your version of android is not stock. (Likely being chi-droid) you can install another keyboard, like the Swype keyboard which includes integrated Dragon Dictation.
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Thanks. How do I do that?
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The Google (android) play store is your first port of call.
you should have an application icon to get access.
you are looking for this
play.google.com/store/search?q=swype%20keyboard
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Thanks. So if I install the app, then it will automatically supersede the default keyboard.
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should do, or it will be become one of the input options in settings to sleect as default keyboard.
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The ones I downloaded took you into the appropriate android settings so you could change them; none of them actually changed the settings themselves.
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Swapped the PSU, it certainly boots quicker when it boots, but booting sometimes stops at an early stage - when it is about to identify the processor. That's on a warm boot.
I have managed to break one my my Samsung SSDs 0- the plastic which grips the power has brown off (careless handling), luckily it broke inside the connector so I can still push it onto the bare pins. It seems to be working OK but a drop of superglue might make it more robust.
I am a bit deaf but Mrs says it is still noisy. however sticking her head inside the case, she cannot identify the course. So it can only be either the processor cooling fan, or the fan in the GPU, if I assume the new psu isn't faulty. Mind you, this is sitting upstairs on the floor, I am also wondering whether there is some resonance going through the floorboards. Will try it up on the desk later.
The other small mishap - I put the side panel for the case into the adjacent paper recycling box while poking around. I'm sure I moved it, but I can't find it. So it seems it may have gone out with the rubbish. Our dustman are real jobsworths when it comes to the recycling - if your cardboard sticks above the line of the box then they won't take it. And they won't take the normal rubbish unless it's in the council supplied blue sack. Seems they were happy with a giant piece of metal in the paper!!
I had another look at the Dell machine, it would be a good purchase but it doesn't quite meet requirements (insufficient SATA ports, and includes stuff I already have). But I am having a review of requirements, maybe I could take the opportunity to simplify my system.
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Just ordered:
HyperX FURY Series 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1866MHz CL10 DIMM Memory Module Kit - White
Intel BX80646I54690 - CORE I5-4690 3.50GHZ
Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard (4x DDR3, 4x USB3.0, 10x USB2.0, GBE, LAN, HDMI)
CiT Venom Mesh Gaming Case with Black Interior and 12cm Blue LED Fan
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So when all this stuff arrives, and bearing in mind my Win7 installation was new in November, would the team recommend a new Win 7 installation from scratch or just stick my C drive in and see what happens?
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since its a new m/b and cpu better to install fresh, as if you got the retail version you are allowed 3 times the installation of your windows 7 to be valid.
if its a oem then you are only allowed one installation, if by chance it is oem, just tell microsoft its not a new pc but you just replaced the m/b and cpu as the old one was faulty.
failing that then its buy another version of windows, unless the techies here have better ideas
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Desktop - time to upgrade - RattleandSmoke
