build

Computer Shenanigans, New Build

Jeff, , , Leave a comment

As some of you may know, I have been having a ton of computer problems lately. It started about three weeks ago, when my system would hang (re: lag/freeze every 30 seconds) inexplicably during normal operations. These got so bad to the point where I couldn’t even make it out of BIOS without the whole thing freezing on me. After extensive troubleshooting (and mistakenly getting a new graphics card), I finally pinned down the problem on my faulty motherboard, which conveniently decided to give up on me almost exactly 3 years after my 2nd build (7/23/2010). Of course, thanks to Moore’s Law, the LGA 1366 CPU socket has already been discontinued for some time, which meant that I not only needed to replace my mobo, but my CPU as well. I ended up picking up a new mobo, CPU, graphics card, and case for less than $500, and brought in my old RAM, PSU, DVD drive, and hard drives to complete my 3rd PC build:

The system has been up and running since Friday night without a hitch, and with minimal performance decline relative to my old build (I was running an i7 which is a quad-core processor, versus i3, which is a duo-core). Overall, this is a budget PC build with some legacy high-end parts thrown in the mix, and I’m quite happy with the result. Obviously, I can’t multitask to the degree I did before, but all things considered, if I assume that this build carries me over another 3 years (I’m hoping for more than that), then I’m essentially paying less than $15 a month for my system, whereas that same number was much higher before due to the high initial cost of my 2nd build. The lesson here is that in an age where technology is still advancing so rapidly, it doesn’t make that much sense to pay for a premium build.

Here are some pictures from my latest project:

 

Interesting/nerdy fact: I named my 3rd system WOLVERINE because although it’s much cheaper and smaller than my old system (RAI), it still pulls the same amount of weight, much like an actual wolverine. I didn’t even realize that I happened to build it on the exact same day that the new Wolverine movie came out in theaters in the U.S. Now if that’s not fate, I don’t know what is.

My RAID 0 Experiment

Jeff, ,

My trio of Samsung Spinpoint F3s (triplets! :)) arrived in the mail yesterday, and needless to say, I was super excited to put them into my rig right away and configure a 2 TB RAID 0 (known as striping) as my boot volume. The whole thing went very smoothly; save for a few hiccups when I tried to load up the RAID drivers, I was able to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 in half an hour. My current set up is a pair of F3s in RAID 0 (boot volume), and two separate 1TB drives (the 3rd F3, and my original WD Black) as pseudo storage/back-up drives. I originally thought about doing a RAID 1 (mirroring) with my two remaining drives, but then realized it was overkill, especially since I don’t need the redundancy at the moment. I am, of course, making regular backups of my boot volume, since RAID 0 is more prone to failure (if one drive in a RAID 0 setup fails, ALL the data is lost). My rationale for opting for the 3 F3s instead of, say, a SSD is mainly price. Sure, I could have gotten a 60 GB or maybe even an 120 GB SSD for around the same price, but the Price per Gigabyte for and SSD is still ridiculously high at this point. I’d rather take 3 TB of storage capacity for now and wait until SSD technology further improves and prices begin to drop. I also couldn’t bring myself to spend about the same amount of money for one WD 300GB velociraptor. And plus, I wanted to play around with RAID :D.

I’m including a screenshot of a disk benchmark I conducted in EVEREST, comparing my RAID 0 setup with my F3 and WD. Needless to say, the average performance for the RAID volume is significantly better than the single drives (I’m consistently getting 2oo+ MB/s read averages). In fact the figures are about double the single F3 benchmarks (save for the buffered read), which is to be expected. On the whole, these improved times haven’t been too noticeable. My bootup is about the same (maybe 1 or 2 seconds faster?) Programs seem to run snappier though, with Photoshop CS5 loading up in seconds (would take at least 10 on my older computers). File copying (where RAID 0 excels) has also sped up noticeably. I haven’t installed all my games yet, but I’m interested to see if there are any noticeable improvements in that area…I’ve heard the main perks of a RAID 0 setup is faster loading times. I think this is a significant advantage for people who play intensive online FPS games. The half second you gain from a “faster” (less-laggy) respawn may make a difference in performance!

(click for larger image)

PC update

Jeff, , ,

Two weeks later, and my PC is still running smoothly; most of the time it’s only using 1-3% of CPU. Needless to say, I’m impressed. I guess I’ll eventually OC the processor some time down the road, but it’s definitely not something I need to worry about at the moment.

I’ve installed Crysis (the so called “computer killer” of games), and despite it being the most racist game I’ve ever played (basically, you’re fighting against the NKoreans in the game, but they made all the AI look the exact same…I think David and I discovered only two different types of faces so far, different characters were just given different hats or accessories, LOL), everything still runs great at max settings.

On another note, I’ll finally be dragging my lazy ass to see Inception this weekend. I know, I know, it’s long overdue, but the fact of the matter is that I usually just tell myself that I can always download the movie later haha.

My new baby’s specs :)

Jeff, 2 Comments
Motherboard ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58
CPU Intel i7-930 (quad core)
Video Card SAPPHIRE TOXIC 100282TXSR Radeon HD 5850
RAM CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB)
Case COOLER MASTER HAF 922
Power Supply Corsair 750-TX
DVD Rom Drive LITE-ON Black 24X
CPU Cooler ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 32MB Cache

Well, it really could not have gone more smoothly, save for the “duh” moment where I completely forgot to plug in the 8-pin connector from the power supply to the motherboard. My new computer is running Windows 7 and every game on max settings extremely smoothly. I learned a lesson from my last build that you never want to skimp on your graphics card, and I definitely don’t regret shelling out a bit extra for a quality card this time around. I expect this build to last me through the next 5 years a least, notwithstanding a few upgrades that I may consider, e.g., getting a WD Raptor hard drive to speed up the OS.

I’m going to continue to use the new system heavily for another week or so just to ensure that there are no underlying issues, and after that, I’ll send in the necessary rebates and write my reviews on Newegg.

Not dead, just busy (with a hint of laziness)

Jeff,

So I must be a bad person for not updating at all in July yet (there goes that promise to blog every week…). Truth be told, I have been pretty busy, although not so busy that I can say that I honestly haven’t had time or opportunity to blog. I am not like most typical bloggers. Sure, I occasionally enjoy talking about how my day has gone (or how this month has gone, haha), but that kind of bogging is more of a kind of release for boredom than anything else (hence the massive posting spree when I go to China). I am more of a newspaper columnist than a serial blogger in the sense that I need some kind of stimulus, some sort of significant event to make me want to get off my ass and proclaim loudly, “Yes. Now THIS is something worth writing about.”

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update

PNC bank is retarded. Rejecting one of my payments after I ordered the parts for my new computer. Then they tell me to call them but it’s after their service hours. Shouldn’t there be a 24 hour service for transactions issues? Outrageous.