My new (monster) PC!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Snowman | Discussion: WindowBlinds
Finally! After some 2 months without a proper working PC I finally got my new machine, and what a machine it is... wow...
Intel Quad Core Q9300.
8 GB DDR2.
Radeon HD4850 X2 w/2 GB DDR.
1 TB + 400 GB HDDs. (ain't running out space any time soon...)
Remote control for Windows Media Center.
Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit.
Windows Experience Index Score: 5.2
It's running oh so ever moothly, but sure wasn't a smooth start, no sirey!
It came with 'only' a Radeon HD4850, but I already had a HD4850 X2 at hand, so I wanted to swap the two.
But that turned out to be a 'complicated suggery'...
First of all... as with my other machine, the HD4850 X2 didn't fit onto the motherboard - the SATA connectors blocked it from being seated properly in the PCI-E slot.
The blue connectors on the left picture are the SATA connectors, the green slot is the PCIE, and the 4580 X2 covers somewhat well down over the (white) PCI slot....
On the right picture you can see how the 4580 X2 would be seated. That just doesn't cut it 
Here are the two GFXcards:
The 4580 X2 is about 25% longer that the 4580 that came with the machine. That in it self caused some problems. I had to remove a couple of brackets mounted beside the motherboard. Luckily they served no necessary purpose, so no harm in removeing'em.
The black cover had to go too... This proved to be in the way of the SATA connectors, so off with it!
Now it fitted properly! 
And off I went to install Vista. Sadly it's "only" Home Premium. I've been used to Ultimate so far, but the DVD had become too scratched to even be read. At least I got the option of choosing English as language! 
But.... after having battled with the setup and installing/uninstalling tons of software/drivers (it's incredible how much "garbadge" is being installed on these prebuild machines...) I dove into the Disk manager to partitionate the HDD.
Dunno what went wrong or what I did wrong, but the next time I rebooted......
"bootmgr.exe is missing
Press ctrl+alt+del to reboot"
Aw crap....
Luckily I had, for once, made the backup/recovery DVD's just before I started fiddleing with the partitions. I normally never make those.... 
Anyway... I had to reinstall Windows already after having had the machine less that 24 hours. New record!
But now it's been running happily for nearly 12 hours without a hitch!
The only nag I have come about is that no USB connection (memorycard/stick, external HDD) can be 'active' when booting. That prevents Vista, for whatever reasons from booting. Must be a 64 bit thing. Or what?
Here are some pics of the beast:
Outside:
Inside (with original GFXcard):
Outside, turned on:
Snowman is a happy PC-camper again!
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Reply #22 Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:21 AM
kaazz1337 reply #16
If you can't comment constructively, then say NOTHING.
messiah1
Exactly!
Cool rig Snowman, enjoy!
Reply #23 Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:35 AM
And Frogboy's been waxing lyrical about SSDs too.....so maybe it's a clever idea....
....ugh....bang goes the budget even more....
Reply #24 Thursday, June 25, 2009 9:11 AM
The 30 Gig is about $140 USD. Not sure what that works out to for you upside down folks. That doesn't seem too bad for the performance. How do you verify if your PC can use it?
Reply #25 Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:21 PM
My scores...[on a 32bit Win7] came out at...
Processor..7.4
Memory...7.7
Graohics....6.8
Gaming Graphics...6.8
Primary HD...5.9
Base score....5.9 [maybe I need to RAID] ....
Spelling..2.5 
Well, I guess you'd have to take up that matter with ACER......
And off course it could be better. But why buy the Concorde to cross if you could settle for an F16 fighterjet?
Good thing he picked it up...it will give him something to do during all those sleepless nights.
Hehe well CG, she's not that much trouble actually. She's pretty much sleeping through the night
Reply #26 Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:40 PM
you know some people just try to take away anothers joy
glad he didn't take away yours i like your set up snowman
Reply #27 Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:54 PM
Reply #28 Thursday, June 25, 2009 10:17 PM
That was great!!
Reply #29 Thursday, June 25, 2009 10:24 PM
For now (insert evil laugh here).
Really, I hope she does well.
It's just that I remember those 2am feedings with my son.
Reply #31 Saturday, June 27, 2009 9:17 PM
now you sound like my husband the boys were no problem
but when our daughter came along i heard every excuse in the book including yours men
Reply #32 Sunday, June 28, 2009 5:55 AM
sweeeet setup snowy! i love the case too!!! what is it?
Reply #36 Monday, June 29, 2009 5:06 AM
HG_Eliminator will have to take a trip to snows and swap my laptop for that... I wonder how far Id get before he noticed..
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Reply #21 Thursday, June 25, 2009 7:38 AM
That could be a bio setting in the boot options there Snowman.
Base score....5.9 [maybe I need to RAID] ....
No Jafo just get a HD that is going to run the OS at a faster rate. Like maybe a solid state HD here is a really good one you can get in a 30 gig range for just the OS.
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_vertex_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd
Not sure which or what vendor there would have this. But they say it is rated one of the highest. Not saying the highest -but one of them.
Very nice rig there Snowman - I for sure like the media stuff you have - very nice!