As long as the HDD isn’t clicking or making any weird sounds, you should be fine for a while. Yeah, post your upgrades and that and I’d be glad to help.
Alright thanks for the info. Yeah I’ll post everything this weekend. Rabbit, I’m just looking at my empty case right now drooling.
What kind of case is it again?
Azza Triton 401
I’ve come to realize building a computer is just like building a fight stick. It’s simply not cost effective to build your own anymore. That, unfortunately, makes me want to build one even more, as I seriously need to reup damn near every computer in my house. I think the fastest thing I have in the house is an Athlon II (can’t even remember the clock speed) on Win7 Ultimate and 4gb RAM. I won’t even mention what other rigs I’ve got in the house. Suffice it to say, one can be used as a home media server and the others, well, donation time is in order.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one. Building a PC yourself can save you hundreds on the low end, and thousands on the high.
High end, possibly. Low end? Can’t see it. EIther way, I still want to build one though!
You already got good answers, just don’t forget to back up anything important. Your current drive and the brand new drive you get to replace it are both just as likely to shit the bed at any time. They never die when you don’t need them anymore. 
Depends on how you think about it. For low end to midrange stuff it’s often more affordable to buy a system, even for some “high end” stuff. To me though, reliability trumps up front cost, and manufacturers are using a lot of questionable components in (especially) low end and even in more expensive PCs. To get the best components you still need to build it yourself, or buy it from a place that will build a list of stuff for you.
many many thank yous darksakul. Im gonna take your advice and not get a poop psu. i hope to post a picture in a few weeks
Pretty much what I’ve been seeing. As with anything, you get what you’re paying for. For me it’s just a matter of balancing what I really use the computer for and what I want to spend. I mean, an overclocked i7 and a huge graphics card sound great, but I’m not doing any gaming any time soon. BUt I would like to build a decent rig so if I do change my mind I’ll have something decent to work with.
I guess the first place to start is which camp to go with, AMD or Intel. AMD always comes in on cost, but most of what I’ve read seems to show for most things the Sandy Bridge chips outperform them, even with fewer cores. On the one hand I don’t want to start out the gate behind the curve, but on the other handif I’m not doing that much heavy lifting how much would it matter?
Depends on your budget and exactly what it is that you’d like to achieve. With the exception of the i series, Intel and AMD are neck and neck, and that changes depending on the day of the week. I highly recommend both, though AMD is a little cheaper where as Intel has a little more power. Now that isn’t always the case, but you can generally bet on that every time.
What I would do is get a nice MOBO that has the room to upgrade. AMD or Intel doesn’t really matter, its like Ford vs Chevy. Chocolate vs Vanilla. There are multiple tiers of CPUs that use the same socket type in each chipset, so you can save money by getting a cheaper CPU now and upgrading later if you need/want to. Same goes with video cards. Hell, I have a GTX 480 in my pc, and instead of upgrading to a new card, I can just drop another one in there and run them in SLI because my MOBO allows it.
I do consultation as well as full on builds, and I’m currently giving SRK members a discount because I love you guys. Also, my site needs content. So if you decide to put something together let me know. I promise I don’t charge Alienware prices.
Thanks for the heads up. I do want to build something just to say I put it together myself, but haven’t balanced out the price/performance ratio yet. I always look at the bare bone kits at TigerDirect and have a Microcenter 15 minutes from my job, so getting parts isn’t a problem. Figuring out how to spec everything is a different story.
In my head I was going to take my wife’s super old, super slow P4 based box, toss everything in it, get some inexpensive mobo/cpu combo and toss something together for my 10 year old to do his homework on and whatever silly online games. Nothing serious or expensive at all. The Athlon II based machine I have in the basement still hums along (I was given the assembled barebones kit from my IT guy; i just changed the cooler, added a gigabit card, more memory and a bigger drive), but I think I’d start from the ground up on this build. Not sure what to do with this machine just yet.
With commentary!
Main Gaming Rig: the-hive
Mobo: ASUS P5E-VM DO
CPU: Intel Q9550 @ 2.83 GHz (LGA 775 but still going strong)
GPU: PNY GTX 560 Ti
RAM: 6 GB DDR2-800
PSU: OCZ StealthXStream 500W
Case: Antec 300 (every ghetto gamer’s case)
OS: Windows XP/7, K/Ubuntu
New Gaming Rig/Miner 1: machalite-miner
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T @ 3.3 GHz (because Bulldozer is ass)
GPU: Sapphire HD 5850 x 2 in CrossFireX
RAM: Patriot G2 Black Edition 16 GB DDR3-1600
PSU: PCPNC Silencer 910W (everything you hear about PCPNC is true)
Case: BitFenix Shinobi Window - White (one of the nicest cases under $80, totally love it)
OS: Windows 7
Miner 2: morris-miner
Mobo: MSI 870-G45
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 @ 4 GHz
CPU: Sapphire HD 5830 x 2 in CrossFireX
RAM: Patriot 8 GB DDR3-1333
PSU: OCZ Z series 850W
Case: Fractal Design Define R3 (non USB3 revision)
OS: Windows 7
I got morris-miner for $500 with another 2 GB stick of RAM, a Sempron 140 and a 5850.
Miner 3: rustshard-miner
Mobo: Gigabyte MA78LMT-S2
CPU: AMD Sempron 140 @ 2.7 GHz
GPU: Powercolor HD 5970 (single core processor with a single-slot dual GPU for the mismatch of the century)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB DDR3-1600
PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 (yes, an mATX case can hold a 12" GPU)
OS: Windows 7
I don’t have my other miners off-hand, these are just the machines that are in my room.
Should I build a new computer around this time, or should I wait for Ivy Bridge or even Piledriver to release? My computer is quite old and is slowly dying on me but it can still run a bunch of the current games on the market (as long as it’s not as intense as Crysis…)
Currently running on:
Windows XP Professional
AMD Phenom X4 9650 2.3 GHz
ATI Radeon X1950
4 GB Corsair DDR2-1066
80 GB HDD + 500 GB HDD
PSU and case are forgettable and I don’t remember the motherboard (although I think it is an old Asus).
Are you on AGP or PCI-E for your video card?
Check if your board is AM3 compatible. You may be able to avoid an expensive overhaul and breathe new life into your system until Ivy Bridge/Piledriver.
GPU is PCI-E. The real problem is that it’s my motherboard and PSU are slowly dying. If I were to upgrade, I would replace pretty much everything except my hard drives.
I’ll echo what’s been said already RE: PSUs and advise you to spend a bit more to ensure you get a decent power supply. Most pc problem that are not an inherent hardware defect end up being caused by trouble with the power output (no surge protectors, failed attempts at overclocks/overvolts and power failures). Any PSU you may buy now will still work with your current pc, so it may be wise to replace it now before the whole thing croaks, and shop around for the rest of the parts at your leisure… But if you want a new rig now, go midrange (ie. i5 2600 + 6850, for example) and you’ll be plenty fine for the foreseeable future.
For the motherboard dying: what are the symptoms? Does it fail to boot randomly? Gives you some error code?
Given that Bulldozer was a dud, I wouldn’t count on Piledriver being exceptional. Also, given that Sandy Bridge is good as hell, the price difference between it and Ivy Bridge is probably going to be pretty steep despite small gains in power. I say go for Sandy Bridge now, or wait until Ivy drops and the price goes down on Sandy. Unless you’re an enthusiast who NEEDS every last ounce of power I wouldn’t sweat it.
Is it ok if i ask for some help in this thread about some computers issues i’ve been having lately? I asked in the other thread but never got a response 
There’s no harm in asking