Microsoft Keyboard is rubber dome switches, they’re alright and 90% of people are totally happy with them. The Corsair is a mechanical keyboard. It’s got microswitches for each key. It makes them a lot more expensive, but (In my opinion) they are much better to type on and there are more options because of the different types of switches(kind of like Sanwa v. Seimitsu). The Corsair is nice, but I’d also take a look at the Ducky Shine 3. You can get them in a bunch of different LED and switch options. If you want a keyboard with LED’s, they’re the best.
Not red LEDs in this one(in the video, you can purchase them with RED LEDs), but you can get a look at the effects:
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Speaking of rubber dome, I finally got to try out a MadCatz S.T.R.I.K.E.7 at the XSplit offices the other day and the keys do not feel anything like mechanical switches. The spacebar in particular felt like it had no resistance whatsoever, the guy who showed it to me literally said that the spacebar would get you killed.
Mechanical keyboards are great, they will long since outlast your PC build and several rebuilds. A good Mechanical Keyboard will outlast a good Steel PC case.
There are still old IBM model M keyboards (they are mechanical) from the 80s that still works fine.
Mechanical keyboards also offer ALOT of customization options. You can replace keys with other color/style keys, or even custom key caps.
Example WASD Keyboards will custom make what ever keyboard key you want, They will laser engrave keys with any text symbol from a number of fonts or engrave the key with your choice of images.
I ended up going with the Corsair K70 Vengeance…Man this keyboard is nice. The K95 had all what I needed but it was white LED, wanted the red theme to match my pc.
I have a Ducky keyboard with brown switches. I forget the other details. My question is how do I go about cleaning the keys, remove them all and just use soap? And the inside. Not to be gross but I’m a hairy dude all the way to my fingers and it’s a jungle under those keys.
clean the keys with a mild soap, dish soap works well enough.
Under the keys, Hit the key board with compressed air to blow out skin, hair and other debris followed up with a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol for anything stuck on.
my laptop every time i power on and log in it shows a black screen maybe for like a min or two before every thing shows up, just wondering if i should leave it or do something
Well, I’m looking to build a HTPC for gaming and media stuff. I was going to just wait for Steam Machines but SteamOS looks trash so I’m just going to built my own. I’m looking to make something in the $700-$750 range. I’ve been researching parts to get but I’m wondering what should I put the most money into?
Well we got a budget that is good.
You want a HTPC style system.
We need to list all the requirements of a good steam box.
We also need to consider are you doing Windows or Linux box as that also effect where you cash goes…
I built a decent HTPC box for under 400 before, so a $750 is doable.
Since you got a tight budget I saw stick to AMD, as their dollar to performance ratio is better than Intel (Intel having a higher overall benchmarks on stock CPUs)
For budget reasons I would ignore the FM/FM2 sockets for the older AM3/AM3+ sockets, and the AM3+ sockets are significantly cheaper.
I also stick to the Micro ATX form-factor, great size for the HTPC crowd but still allows for PCI-e Video Cards.
Mini -ITX form-factor starts going back up in price again. The difference in size is the difference between a Nitnendo Wii and a 80’s VHS player.
But I think you can fit something the size of a 80’s VHS player in your entertainment system.
You can also cut down on your budget by only getting 4GB of ram, you never fully utilize 8GB for gaming (at this time) and you have a budget.
The MicroATX allows for normal sized drives, so a regular desktop sized 3.5" HDD would be fine. As you are going with a Steam Box, optical drives are all optional.
I took some time to come up with what I might pick for this project, this is by no means what you have to take. Just an example build and what you might expect
If it just started out of the blue, what did you just install?
If over time, welcome to windows degradation… There are some things to speed it up with normal maintenance, shutting down some of the unneeded programs at start up (type MSCONFIG in the run box or from a CMD line)
It happens to just about all windows machines… a clean install brings it back to that just brushed feeling it had when new usually. There is a rare chance that it is having a hardware issue but unlikely if it runs fine otherwise.
By the way… the power of this video card wasn’t understated.
Even though my CPU is holding back slightly, all settings on ultra and cruises with insane FPS… granted I am running 1920x1080 with my monitor but WOW…
I havent even tried pushing it more either… under load temps are around 60 Degrees… it will then boost the gpu until it hits where I tell it to (82) but there is still a lot of room to grow.
slowly over time i’ve had this laptop for awhile now. there is no hardware issue, it run likes normal with no problems, last thing i installed was steam but that was 3 years ago
Best to eliminate the easy to do stuff first, eliminate easy to fix causes before you get to more difficult to target areas.
I would still head over to MS config and see what you can get rid off there. Make sure your system not running too much in the background and do a defrag if you haven’t done one of those in a while. Run your Anti Vitus and Anti-malware software, delete, clear out temp folders and old unneeded files. Clean your internet Cache ect…
Also it wouldn’t hurt to update Windows and any Drivers.
I had a similar issue with my laptop, turned out I had a nasty piece of malware snuck its way inside and I dig it back out with Malware Bytes.
Ok, thanks! I’ve been looking at Intel stuff mostly, but if I can get the same performance for less, then I guess AMD will be good.
I’m probably going to get a HTPC case and a Blu-Ray Drive, and probably go for 6 GB of RAM and get a controller with any leftover money. I’ll be using a TV and have a mouse and keyboard lying around to use sometimes so that saves some money.
I’m also deciding whether I should go with Windows 7, 8, or maybe go with a Linux distro. I do know that Windows means more games but I also heard that since many distros are lighter, games run a little better. Windows 7 is what I currently use (takes ages to boot up though) and haven’t tried out Windows 8. I like the visual style of 8 but I don’t know how well Metro/Modern UI will work on a TV and whether or not I want to have to use all of Microsoft’s junk.
I’m in the process of redoing my home theater setup as well, so space is no problem. I’m switching my huge, old receiver with a much smaller one and changing my TV stand thing with a different one (so I can choose one based on the space that I need).
Also, the two things that I have the least experience with in computers is the fan and power supply. How am I supposed to figure out which fan or power supply I’ll need?
So the bottom line is if I were to go with stuff similar to what you recommended, substituting in 6 GB of RAM, what’s the performance like? What kind of things can it run? Anything it’ll have trouble with? And what OS would be best for a build like this?
Since 4 GB ram is the minimum requirement, and most games doing use that much ram, 6 GB ram wouldn’t hurt. More ram will not hurt performance, its like you have the PC more space to do its work in.
Think of your ram as your scratch paper for doing math, with not enough scratch paper you have top erase old stuff you write down new info. In the PC world everything gets erased and rewritten anyway on Ram.
The Upside is there more room to do it all in.
I prefer Windows 7 for gaming, but OS is up to you. A Fresh Win 7 install takes like 15-20 seconds to boot depending on your boot drive. Its even quicker with a SSD.
As for the Power Supply? Well you can take the rest of your part list, look up there max watt drawl, add it up together and that equals to your minimum size for your Power Supply. I often use a online calc to figure out the minimum PSU wattage, I usually jump up to the next highest PSU wattage category. Like if I need 350 watts I go with 400. This si something I encourage to do your own homework on. Tom Hardsware have some good articles. But I always go with a higher Watt ratting as the safe bet.
As for Fans? Thats a tough one, I lately been going for Noctua fans for there combination of Low noise and high CFM, but they are PRICY about $25 per 120mm fan.
You would want to balance Price, Low Noise and good CFM, without knowing what size fans you will actually need is tough.
Ok well I’ve found some parts that looks pretty good to me.
CPU- AMD FX-4130 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard- Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard
RAM- Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage- Western Digital AV-GP 1TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
VIdeo Card- Gigabyte Radeon HD 7790 2GB Video Card
Case- Silverstone GD04B HTPC Case
Power Supply- Cooler Master Elite Power 460W ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive- Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer
OS- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Pretty much all I would need after this is a controller (don’t know if I should go for a Dualshock 4 or wait for the Steam Controller…).
I don’t know if I went overboard with some of my part choices and picked parts that are much more than I need. Case looks cool and is a good size with all the features I need but I don’t know if it’s more space than I need. Power supply may be too much or too little, I don’t know (the wattage differed depending on the calculator I used so I just picked something that was more than both of the calculators said). I was contemplating getting a Geforce GTX 650 Ti Boost but from what I’ve seen, the card I picked has similar performance (better in some areas than the GTX) for cheaper. I picked 8 GB of RAM because it wasn’t that much more expensive than some 4 GB I found.
Total prices for everything have been around $650-$730. So will these be fine? Any problems or things that I should cut down on?
For the PSU it better to go over than under.
Best case scenario the PSU dies if the PSU is not up to snuff, worst case scenario is everything gets fired.
