starkers starkers

Well Shaunna's Puter Finally Shat Itself

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Well Shaunna's Puter Finally Shat Itself

...despite all my best efforts to the contrary

from WinCustomize Forums

As the title suggests, Shaunna's desktop PC went guts up and is in dire need of some replacement parts to get it up and running again.  I've ordered the necessary parts and hopefully they'll be here later today so's I can rebuild it for her.

Yeah, it has been acting up intermittently for quite a while now, so I wasn't at all surprised that it decided to kark it yesterday.... tho I reckon it was a stubborn bastard for not dying sooner and saving me endless hours of pulling my hair out trying to fix it.  Every so often it would refuse to boot and I'd have to put in the installation disc to perform a start up repair, which sometimes resolved the problem.  More often than not, though, I'd have to do a complete OS install after ensuring the HDD's were still showing in the BIOS.... damned things would disappear and I'd have to jump through hoops to get them to register again.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, the last time the HDD's went off line I couldn't bring them back so figured I'd stop wasting my time trying to fix the temperamental bastard.  Now I tested the drives in an external case and they check out okay, the PSU is fine and the graphics and sound cards are okay also. I'm guessing the current CPU is probably okay as well, but it appears the mobo is pretty much shot, and thus the RAM and CPU will need to be replaced for compatibility reasons... DDR3 and such.

These are the items I ordered:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-D3 Motherboard, AM3+, 990+SB950, DDR3, PCIe 2.0, RAID, SATA3, USB3, ATX"

CPU: AMD FX-4100 4-CORE BLACK EDITION CPU, 3.60 GHz, ,Total L2 Cache 4MB, L3 Cache 8MB, Socket AM3+, 95W

RAM: Kingston KVR1333D3N9/4G - 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz, CAS9  x4 = 16Gb

On a budget [under $300AUD] that's not bad at all, power and speed-wise, and to give it some extra grunt I'm going to pull the secondary SSD from my rig and install it in hers to house the OS [Win x64 Home Premium].  Yeah, with her Nvidia 9800GTX 1Gb GPU, Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium Xtreme Audio soundcard and 2Tb of storage, it'll be a more than capable machine that should suit her needs.

Here's hoping that Shaunna will be happy with it.

90,936 views 37 replies +1 Loading…
Reply #26 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting yrag, reply 25
I use to know the answer to this, but refresh my memory. Is that a step up or down?
End of yrag's quote

2 guesses...... JAFOCHECK

Reply #27 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Well....from a geographical standpoint, it......

 

....on second thought, nevermind.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #28 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Sheesh. My poor head is having flash backs of a time when 200W was normal, 250W was really adequate and 300W was screaming. I hazard to guess what is in that XT box sitting in the corner there happily running it's web cam (I even asked it to work on some graphics today because it has a program that won't run on Vista or 7) I bet it is not over 250W but maybe only 200W.

 

It's Monday now. What's the verdict?

Reply #29 from WinCustomize Forums Top

What time is it in OZ?

Reply #30 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting LizMarr, reply 28
It's Monday now. What's the verdict?
End of LizMarr's quote


He is still working on it  I neeeeeeeed a new  psu now grrrrr damm pc's  ...... The PSU    has got incompatible plugs  for the mother board .

Quoting Uvah, reply 29
What time is it in OZ?
End of Uvah's quote


it is 2.32am  Tuesday morning

Reply #31 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting mrs_starkers, reply 30
The PSU has got incompatible plugs for the mother board .
End of mrs_starkers's quote

Well it's not so much that they're incompatible, the 12v ATX on the mobo is an 8 pin but the PSU plug is only a 4 pin and doesn't seem make the connections correctly.  I've used 4 pin plugs on 6 pin sockets before without issue but this setup just isn't powering properly for some reason.  When I push the power button the PC starts up okay but it doesn't stay powered up.  If I wiggle the 12v ATX plug around it will stay on, but as soon as I release the pressure the PC powers down again.

Oh well, with a new CPU, RAM and mobo it's probably deserving of a new PSU anyway... I'm thinking an AcBel 800W.  I've had mine going on 4 years now and it hasn't missed a beat.  Anyhow, it depends on availability and what else they have that comes within the budget.

*EDIT*

No AcBel PSU's in stock.... have opted for the Gigabyte 800W ODIN GT Power Supply, 140mm Fan, PCI-E(6+2) Pin, 6x SATA, Software Control, SLI-Ready, 80+ Ce...  instead... and it's $10.00 cheaper.

Reply #32 from WinCustomize Forums Top

YAY!!!!!!! I am up and running with my pc and all the new parts work well  I am so happy ....... THANK YOU BUBBY  now time for serious wall paper making hehehehehe

Reply #33 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Glad to hear it's fixed. Good on ya, starkers!  :congrat:

 

Vitamin k for starkers!

Reply #34 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting DrJBHL, reply 33
Glad to hear it's fixed
End of DrJBHL's quote

yes me too it is so fast wow i cant believe how fast  it is . rendering  is like if you blink  you would have missed it :grin:

Reply #35 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting mrs_starkers, reply 32
THANK YOU BUBBY
End of mrs_starkers's quote

My pleasure, I'm just sorry it took so long, but with various inconveniences and things no going according to plan it was unavoidable.

The thing is, it is a more than decent machine and you will enjoy using it for many years to come... :)

Reply #36 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting mrs_starkers, reply 34
it is so fast wow i cant believe how fast it is .
End of mrs_starkers's quote

 

The saddest thing about computers is how quickly new-found speed becomes slow through its familiarity.....;p

Reply #37 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Jafo, reply 36
The saddest thing about computers is how quickly new-found speed becomes slow through its familiarity.....
End of Jafo's quote

In this case, though, the novelty of new-found speed will take longer than usual to wear off... given Shaunna has been reduced to a piddling netbook for a while.  And fast, I'll say it is... boots in about 27 - 28 seconds and it very zippy loading proggies, etc.  In fact, it is nearly as fast as my 1100T six core.