The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Windows loading screen is basically all CPU and drivers, not much diskIO. The big difference is when you login.

 

I figured there was a logical reason for it to hang on that screen. Sometimes it's quicker than others. Beyond that screen though, it's fast. Photoshop loads very fast! I'd say 3 - 4 times as fast. I'm sure I'm not finished with installing stuff. And I'm already impressed

 

Make sure that it has the latest firmware. Some of the newer firmwares can have huge performance boosts compared to older firmware versions, granted the 128GB model improved more than the 256GB model.

 

Well this could be the problem!


On another note, my WEI is maxed for the hard drive Not that that is important...

 

Nice purchase Omega! Really nice performance as well. I wouldn't be too concerned about the driver date it shows. Most of that is simply the date at which the generic Windows driver was created. It would be a good idea to read up on the care and maintenance of SSDs because they do need to be treated slightly differently than HDDs.

Also, as suggested previously, it would be a good idea to see if there are firmware updates as SSDs can gain a lot from newer firmwares.

I might be getting an SSD myself soon as prices have dropped drastically. 60GB would be ideal for my OS. Currently 20GB free of my 60GB OS partition on the WD1001FALS. Partition is on the fastest part of the disk of course Always nice to have some GB free for a working space. Would be particularly nice for unRARing and working with the Gamebryo Construction Set which loads in ~12GB of content every time I start.

 

Plugged my SSD in and never looked back, it's been in there for what must be 18 months to 2 years now.

Also, really annoyed that afterdawn has no mobile support any more. The main page has been re-coded so it doesn't work with mobile browsers, and the mobile version of the page is read-only and doesn't have a reply box :/

 

That miffs me a bit as well. Used to browse and post with my iPad 2. Can still post using a different browser but mobile Safari is actually very good...

BTW rather enjoying my iPad 2. Had it for a few months but recently decided to sell my laptop. Haven't had a second thought since. Laptop was basically collecting dust lol. The iPad has everything I need for mobile computing. Games, music, movies, a web browser with some basic features. Very minimalist and quick to use.

Would be interested to see what Windows 8 is like because I'd be willing to go to a tablet for some more software choice. Android is nice and veyr powerful but your hardware limits what distros you get and can use so I'd have to buy a rather expensive one. Would be interested in a service plan with 4G for convenience but good 4G plans are rather expensive around here. All the good networks got bullied out of the area by my horrid former ISP

 

quote:

Also, really annoyed that afterdawn has no mobile support any more. The main page has been re-coded so it doesn't work with mobile browsers, and the mobile version of the page is read-only and doesn't have a reply box :/


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hey guys, I don't use that but I would agree, who is the main guy? locate him or her and start bitching one and all.

 

It's not something I would need at the moment but so many do and with AD being so progressive it doesn't make sense that they don't support/optimize for mobile browsers.

 

A review on newegg says it had the latest firmware. Not sure how they figured that out. Perhaps during boot, the firmware is listed. No software has yielded it for me yet.

The drive has dropped $50USD since I bought it Ah well. Perhaps my purchase influenced them

Perhaps some windows tweaks are in order

Speedfan reports 1.4 FW. (apparently 1.5 exists). Never updated a HDD before. I see no reason to do it at this time.

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Regarding LCD touch panel.
The Ebayer responded, and said that it lays over the old LCD, giving the touch function. So one COULD lay it on their desk, and simply guess what they're touching. He didn't speak very good english, but that's what I got from it 80USD is too much at this point, for updating an old 15" dell monitor. If I want to play Bejeweled better, I'll have to get an ipad!

 

SSDs are a whole other breed compared to HDDs. Don't treat them the same or else you might end up with a dead drive in a few months to a year. you should keep firmware updated and use the proper drivers as supplied by OCZ in addition to other such things as not having a paging file on the SSD and disabling indexing, among other tricks that should be done.

 

I disabled Paging for the SSD, and indexing. Thanks for the tips. I'm pretty sure I've heard those before, in my research

In my opinion, the drives should not be sold, if the firmware they're sold with can't hack it If there's a critical update, I'll strongly consider it. But since the process will erase my drive, you can understand why I'm reluctant

 

Yeah I moved my page file to my WD Green. Might sound like an odd thing to do but it really hasn't hurt performance, and saves the seek noise of having it on the WD Black.

 

I allowed all the other drives to have page. Doesn't bother me any. I hate to disable it completely, and have a Ram pig of a game, cause a crash/bsod LOL! I must admit, it's already quieter without the Veloci!

 

Firmware out of the box can be almost like using the drivers from the CD/DVD in the box of a new graphics card. Sure, there might be a few cases where it's up to date, but it usually won't be and using the older drivers can cause problems and inferior performance when it does work. I can understand the reluctance because you'd need to make a mirror of the drive and reload it after the update, but I'd really recommend ensuring that you have the latest firmware. OCZ's home web site has freely available tools for this.

 

Yah, I noticed their site has a multitude of tools. Thanks.

Installs are certainly much quicker. There's less lag in all cases. Extraction processes are obviously faster. I reinstalled GTA IV today. Played for about an hour. It took an hour to get it going though. Both Rockstar Social Club, and Games for windows live gave me headaches. Games for windows live is a joke! If GTA V is anything like this, I'll probably buy it, and watch for a cracked edition of the game. This is getting ridiculous... I had to update it 4 times, before I could finally play. No wonder people prefer consoles over computers LOL! I'll still take my PC thank you!

 

OM7---Agreed you should clone your partition and update firmware.

Everyone else---After piecing machines together from last generation parts, a friend wants to build a new machine with current hardware.

Whats a good CPU+mobo combo these days? A quick look at things and it seems like budget is i7 2600Sandy or 3770Ivy territory.

Any downfalls to the CPU's i just listed? Are there AMD alternatives that are equally powerful? I haven't checked a lot of benchmarks recently, so I'm not sure what a strong build for the right price would be.

Thanks for the help in advance.

 

Depends what you're doing. In the vast majority of cases there are no AMD CPUs to compare with either the 2600K or the 3770K, but in a couple of odd instances with video encoding an FX-8150 may prove a better option.

 

"Couple of odd instances" I lol'd LOL! You are right though.

It's an electrical beast, and single core performance is not very impressive. I'm definitely waiting on the next generation I sure hope it's a measurable increase in potential.

 

On the one hand I'm not holding my breath, but on the other I really hope it is, as no competition is never a good thing for the consumer - I'm really not impressed with Ivy Bridge, but so far out ahead, there's little reason for Intel to really do anything other than cut costs and save a small amount of energy.