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Originally posted by thror:
Ressurecting. And a question.

I am planning to build/have built a desktop for myself in the next few months. I am looking for some reliable places online to find parts, and quite possibly some instructions. I know the basics, but a 'checklist of things to have' would be nice. I'm planning for windows 7, smaller hard drive (100GB is plenty for me), 4GB RAM, Intel dual core processor, Nvidia vid card, dvd drive. Suggestions are welcome.

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Instructions - Your individual parts actually come with extremely detailed instructions if you need them. Otherwise, simply Googling what you are trying to do usually works. You can also feel free to ask on here for help.

Shopping - Check out Newegg, they have fast shipping, good prices and stock (for the most part), and great customer service. General shopping around on "the internet," of course, is recommended. You can sometimes hit some great deals.

Processor - if you're building a lower-end machine for browsing and other such business (which I suspect you are, since you say you only need a 100gb hard drive), then I'd go AMD. While Intel has the most powerful processors and the best value-for-money packages, AMD has the best budget solutions. Check out the Athlon II X2 240 or the Athlon II X3 435.

Video card - ATI Radeon facecrushes Nvidia on all levels. Do not buy Nvidia.

DVD Drive - Pioneer is known for having very reliable and reasonably priced drives.

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Originally posted by thror:
Actually AGM, im hoping to put together a mid-high level machine for games. The thing about the hard drive, I DONT PIRATE STUFF, so I dont need 500GB of free space that never gets used. The machine im on now is 5 yrs old, came with a 150GB hard drive, still has 100GB free space. And 3 different people have stuff on it.

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Oh ... didn't think of that. Lol.

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Originally posted by OGB:
Looking for a good wireless mouse and keyboard to go with my Dell Insipron. Any suggestions?

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Was figuring maybe they just forgot to add something back in? He was in a huge rush, but yeah it's annoying as hell. It can't be the headphones or mic, because the mic works in my friend's computer, and so do all the pairs of headphones we've tried.

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Originally posted by Shadows:
Sort of feel stupid... but here goes. So, everything was fine with our computer, but for some odd reason my mom had my uncle reformat it. So, after doing so, the little holes for where you'd hook up headphones/microphone now all of a sudden don't work.

Was figuring maybe they just forgot to add something back in? He was in a huge rush, but yeah it's annoying as hell. It can't be the headphones or mic, because the mic works in my friend's computer, and so do all the pairs of headphones we've tried.

Btw, I'm running vista if it matters. Any help would be appreciated.

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Likely this happened because you do not have the proper sound card drivers installed. Does your computer have any sound? if it has sound through speakers it could be that you are using a generic driver rather than the one designed to work with your hardware.

The best thing to do is find out what kind of sound card you have and download the latest driver from that sound card.

have you ever gotten the error : Can't find element position...

I got this:
Can't find element position, atts=({name:/^\s*invertButton\s*$/, value:/^\s*Invert\s*$/, type:/^button$/})

what does it mean, why can't it find it? NE help is greatly appreciated.

~Myy

__________________
"I intend to Live forever, so far so good"

"I wish my first word was 'quote', so when I die I could say 'un-quote'."

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Originally posted by TheMidnightBomber:
Likely this happened because you do not have the proper sound card drivers installed. Does your computer have any sound? if it has sound through speakers it could be that you are using a generic driver rather than the one designed to work with your hardware.

The best thing to do is find out what kind of sound card you have and download the latest driver from that sound card.

Also, if you updated to vista from some other windows version, there is a chance that you have the same driver and it's just not fully vista compatible. Downloading the newest driver should still work.

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Sorry about that man, my work schedule is terrible at the moment. But yes, my computer does have sound, but only through the speakers.

And the computer came with Vista, so it wasn't updated from a different version.

Anyways, I'll try what you suggested and let you know how it went. Thanks a lot of the help.

EDIT: All the correct/updated drivers are currently installed. I talked to my friend, and he told me that I should just try and completely reinstall my card/drivers, and he said I might have to go back to an original version. Any thoughts?

I checked my system information and only have 512 MB Internal Physical Memory (RAM). Does that mean I can't play them on my PC?

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Originally posted by ryan2754:
So I was looking to buy EMpire Total War or Spore for PC today. I noticed, however, that the requirements for each game are a 1GB and 768 MB RAM, respectively.

I checked my system information and only have 512 MB Internal Physical Memory (RAM). Does that mean I can't play them on my PC?

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So I was looking to buy EMpire Total War or Spore for PC today. I noticed, however, that the requirements for each game are a 1GB and 768 MB RAM, respectively.

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Originally posted by ryan2754:
So I was looking to buy EMpire Total War or Spore for PC today. I noticed, however, that the requirements for each game are a 1GB and 768 MB RAM, respectively.

I checked my system information and only have 512 MB Internal Physical Memory (RAM). Does that mean I can't play them on my PC?

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Originally posted by TheMidnightBomber:
Just ordered all the parts for my first custom built PC. Expect a hysterical crying fix my Frankenstein box for me post in the near future.

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Originally posted by TheMidnightBomber:
Put it all together and everything works flawlessly on the first try. Playing LF Dead 2 on medium, best $500 I ever spent. NewEgg ftw.

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Honeymoon is over . I go to start up my brand new computer today, hit the power button and... nothing-No fans spin, pc makes not a sound. I try this a few times, unplug peripherals and try again... Nothing. So it was time to do research, after googling around for a little bit I came accross this fabulous guide in a forum:

http://www.bearblain.com/comp_wont_start.htm

Follow the instructions to the letter, which lead me to believe my motherboard had died. I was giving up hope, when I decided to try one last time.

The literature which came with my motherboard mentions that 4 spots on the main power connector are optional. My power supply is designed in a way runs with this and has a 4 piece unit that slides in with it to fill in the gaps, this time however, I leave the 4 piece in and the thing starts up like a champ.

It starts up. (emphasis)

My question is this, should I roll with it, or should I be on the safe side and have newegg's/intel's excellent customer service replace it? Also, could this be an early indicator of problems with the power supply? It was comparitively the cheapest component in the box, made by a company I've never heard of, although the reviews were sound.

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Originally posted by TheMidnightBomber:
My question is this, should I roll with it, or should I be on the safe side and have newegg's/intel's excellent customer service replace it? Also, could this be an early indicator of problems with the power supply? It was comparitively the cheapest component in the box, made by a company I've never heard of, although the reviews were sound.

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No initial boot is a common problem and usually is not the fault of the motherboard or the CPU. Incorrect wiring is most often the culprit, as was true in your case. So, if the PC boots, it's not either of those components' fault, and a replacement is unnecessary. The reason for this is because motherboard failure means true failure - "iffy" boards are almost nonexistent. I think you should be fine, but if you want to be 100% secure, replace your power supply. Buying a cheap PSU from an unknown brand is the wost thing you can possibly do - any computer site or tech will tell you this. The PSU makes everything else work, and a bad unit can blow and destroy your entire PC. ALWAYS go with a well known unit, even if it costs extra money.

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Originally posted by AlmasterGM:
No initial boot is a common problem and usually is not the fault of the motherboard or the CPU. Incorrect wiring is most often the culprit, as was true in your case. So, if the PC boots, it's not either of those components' fault, and a replacement is unnecessary. The reason for this is because motherboard failure means true failure - "iffy" boards are almost nonexistent. I think you should be fine, but if you want to be 100% secure, replace your power supply. Buying a cheap PSU from an unknown brand is the wost thing you can possibly do - any computer site or tech will tell you this. The PSU makes everything else work, and a bad unit can blow and destroy your entire PC. ALWAYS go with a well known unit, even if it costs extra money.

tl;dr - Don't be stingy when buying a PSU.

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Originally posted by puregoblinboy47:
Is there virus protaction that's better/cheaper than Norton?

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Originally posted by puregoblinboy47:
Is there virus protaction that's better/cheaper than Norton?

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Originally posted by AlmasterGM:
Free: AVG. Paid: Kaspersky. Personally, however, if you're a bit computer savvy, you shouldn't need any additional virus protection. The built in Windows Defender will take care of the basic stuff, and you can trust yourself not to be stupid and get any more advanced viruses.

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I agree with the notion that if you know what you're doing, you don't need additional anti-virus protection. However, that doesn't mean that friends or family members won't be able to give them to you.

However, I will warn you that AVG does some incredibly stupid things such as thinking that video games are viruses. It should know what Master of Magic and Sacred 2 are by now. Kaspersky is what we use at work and I am not impressed. To be honest, there is no great anti-virus program and you can't use more than one together because they don't play nice with each other. All this said, both are better than Norton but none of them are great protection against the traps of infected emails and illegal downloading.