Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 8:09 pm
by Ron Manager
Well, I've had the side off and cleared out quite a bit of dust. Also ran it with the side off to see if I could spot anything amiss, but both fans seemed to be running smoothly. As I said in the original post, it doesn't make that noise all the time so I'll just have to wait and see. Guess I'll need a new PC sooner or later though, but even with the help of you guys I don't think I'd be up to building one myself (Nice idea though). In general terms, what could I expect by way of improvements in a more modern one? Thanks again for all the help; much appreciated.
Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 11:38 pm
by scot-canuck
Hmm I could always write a tutorial, I have photos....somewhere
In general terms:
better response times
lower power consumption
quieter (especially hard disk drives, which is what I think is causing your noise issues, had a chance to back up your stuff yet? )
the above is all dependant on components, computers are essentially modular, bits all fit together one way and one way only (apart from the front panel connections, but those arent too hard to figure)
essentially everything fits into a case, into that goes the motherboard / mainboard / mobo then everything else is plugged into the motherboard
biggest thing to keep in mind is
ATX motherboard in an ATX case (most are ATX, though there are still some others out there like BTX) - it will say in the description of the product though
Correct processor for the motherboard (ie intel processor -> socket 775, 1366 AMD -> socket 754, AM2, AM2+, AM3)
correct ram for the motherboard (DDR2, DDR3) (
www.crucial.com/uk is pretty handy as it know what memory will fit which motherboard and I think they still do free shipping, always nice
)
seems daunting, but the satisfaction of having built your own PC is immense and you learn a LOT in a short space of time, and once you know how PCs go together, learning to service them is easy, always something new to learn, its just a matter of patience and thinking.
Rough estimate for a PC anything from just under £300 (for what I would class as bare minimum and not obsolete) to well over £900 (specced out gaming "rig")
Plus you get the components you want rather than cheap tat that PC World and Tesco buy in bulk.
One last tip, buy the best monitor you can and learn to adjust it properly, your eyes will thank you for it. (I mention it, as I'm always shocked at how many people never take the time to set their monitors properly (usually garish by default) and it doesnt take long to set)
A good site for bits
www.tekheads.co.uk (fave site, never let me down yet, service quick and phone support excellent in terms of stock availability
)
Some ok sites
www.scan.co.uk (not on my fave list as they "forgot" to dispatch a £900 order...wasn't a happy man, other people tell me they are "normally" ok though)
www.eclipsecomputers.com
www.ebuyer.co.uk (good prices, useless customer service)
Sites to avoid
www.dabs.com ( they have NO phone support and they use THE worst courier company in britain - HDNL (home delivery network Ltd......to call them a useless shower of s**t would insulting to useless showers of s**t
) )
Plus advice is around if you need it.
I would definetely say give it a try
Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 11:52 pm
by thescruff
My Packard Bell laptop make a lot of noise under full load, and that's definitely the hard drive.
Keep all my data on a remote, and plug it into anyone of 5 computer via the USB cable, including the mac.
Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 12:45 pm
by Dan Robinson
This sounds like a dying hard disk... I would back up straight away.
I use a service called Carbonite - you choose your folders and it continually uploads it to a couple of data farms in the US.
You get a free trial period, but I had sooo much data that it expired before it had finished uploading.
Still it is not expensive and downloading the data is much faster than uploading - plus you never have to think about it.
Mind you a 7 year old PC is pretty obsolete.
Building one is very easy - but from the sounds of it you don't use it for high end games or CAD so a basic off the shelf model should do you fine.
You can perfectly serviceable machines for a couple of hundred - remember you already have a functioning monitor and keyboard so going for a basic rig may save you a few quid.
Mind you I wouldn't be without a twin monitor setup now - having 44" of screen to play with makes working and watching films a doddle.
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:58 am
by Ron Manager
Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I need a spot of advice on backing-up. Never done it before, but I bought an external hard drive last weekend. Tried for the first time last night, but got a message that I also needed a three & a half inch floppy disk. Is that correct? Didn't think anyone used the old floppies any more, or if you can still even buy them. Thanks for any further help.
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:49 pm
by dave.m
Ron,
First thing to do is print this post as it is a bit long but well detailed.
Forget what it says about a floppy.
Plug your USB Hard drive into a USB Port.
When it is running, click My Computer -> Right click on the icon of the new drive -> Click Properties ->
Is the file system showing as NTFS? If so, click OK and make a note of the drive letter eg. (D:)
If the file system is not NTFS click OK
Right click the icon again and click Format... -> In File System select NTFS -> Tick Quick Format -> Start.
When finished close down the windows.
Start your browser and:
Download SyncToy, a free microsoft program, from:
http://tinyurl.com/2cu9fh
Install it and the open it.
Click 'Create New Folder Pair' (at the bottom).
In 'Chose the folders',
Under the Left Folder, click Browse
Click C: Drive -> click Documentsa & Settings
It should show C:\Documents & Settings
Under the Right Folder, click Browse
Click the Drive letter of your external HD
Click 'Make New Folder', name it "Docs & Settings Backup" -> OK -> Next
Select Echo -> Next
Name it Ron's BackUp 1 -> Finish
Click Preview then once it has shown what it will copy, click Run
When complete click Close.
Click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the systray (next to the clock) and unplug your ext HD. You have backed up all your Documents and settings BUT not your operating system, that is a different thing altogether, and with a 7 year old OS you don't need to worry about it.
dave
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:03 pm
by Ron Manager
Hi Dave. Many thanks for such a detailed response, and my apologies for not being able to reply sooner. Looks to be just what I needed, so I will give it a whirl. Cheers.
Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 4:37 am
by popeye67
You can pick up hard drives for 25-30 quid and its probably that on way out, as for building one i wrote these on my blog wont put a link up some forums dont like it, give us a shout if you want me to add the pics.
So you want to know how to fix computers don’t we all, well the best place to start is with a computer that isn’t even broken yet, when it comes to learning about computers you can’t beat having a go at building your own, whether its building one with all shiny new parts, or collecting a pile of bits no one else wants and nailing them together to form something you can be proud of, even if nobody else in their right mind would give it houseroom, if everything goes to plan and it works straight out of the box you’ve obviously done something wrong so take it all apart and start again, the idea isn’t to get it right first time the idea is to learn.
If you do have problems look on the bright side, everyone else has got problems as well which is actually a good thing for you, most peoples homepage on their browser is google and if yours isn’t it should be, type in what your problem is and a few seconds later you will find there are hundreds if not thousands who have had the same problem, unless its something really weird like your computer has been possessed by the devil I guarantee its happened to someone else, and actually I googled that as well and apparently you wouldn’t be the first person to have their computer taken over by a demonic entity.
Another thing you will need is something called networking, not the networking that connects computers together the making contacts sort of networking, back in the old days it was known as finding someone daft enough to lend you something with absolutely no guarantee they would get it back in one piece, the simplest way to diagnose a fault is simply swapping out parts one at a time with a computer that’s working and preferably borrowed just in case you mess things up, this method not only saves money it also generates more work for the future, just deny all responsibility and whatever you do don’t offer to fix it on the cheap they will only get suspicious, you tend not to have many friends doing this, but what the hell you spend all your time on the computer anyway they’re not going to miss you, and remember your aspiring to be a computer repair technician and they’ve never got any friends.
When it comes to choosing CPU’s remember six months ago a core 2 quad was considered to be the dogs wotsits, now it’s a has been everyone wants a core i7 and in six months time that will have been bettered either by a new stepping version or the new octo-core i7’s, chasing the state of the art ideal becomes very expensive when the goal posts keep moving, a couple of years back a gaming computer without an athlon chip would have earned you nothing but mockery from fellow gamers, they are past their best for games but for day to day general computing they are excellent, and if they get any cheaper they will be paying us to take them out of the shop, in twelve months time the same will be true of core2 duo and quads, whatever chip you decide on, the good news is they are pretty much bullet proof as far as wear and tear, virus’s and even overclocking are concerned as long as you keep them cool, the one thing that can and will damage them is you, if you damage the pins the chances are it will never work again no matter how hard you try to straighten them so be careful, I’m a great believer in swapping suspect items for parts that are known to be working, the one exception is the chip put it in carefully lock it down and leave it alone.
As for choosing a motherboard don’t limit yourself, most sata boards have ide and floppy connections anyway, most have four slots for memory and considering the prices at this moment ddr2 would seem the obvious choice, a couple of 16x-pci-e slots will come in handy even if its got onboard graphics, and don’t forget the socket type, on most boards the socket type LGA775, Socket 939, Socket 478 etc are printed on the board and stamped into the socket itself, and if the heatsink has fallen off it’s a Socket AM2.
Graphics cards are like cpu’s if you want the best your gonna pay, go for a mid to low range card unless your planning on playing high end games you will never notice the difference.
Memory the more the better but ive run Vista on 512mb without problems, stick to the standard cheap memory unless your going to frame it and hang it on the wall.
The PSU has to be powerful enough to run everything so check on the link below, but unless you’re a gamer with multiple high end graphics cards and peltiers for cooling it doesn’t have to be all that big, forget the big numbers and look for quality go with a power supply with a more modest rating from the likes of Enermax or Seasonic etc., rather than buying a million watt power supply with a guarantee written in crayon.
Antec Power Supply Calculator
Hard drives for me the bigger the better, but I wouldn’t recommend you rush out and buy a 1Tb hard drive for two reasons, in my eyes hard drives seem to get more fragile the larger they get, better to get two 500gb drives if they are roughly the same price as a 1Tb drive, that way you can buy them one at a time and play around with raid arrays when you get the second, also if one dies on you you’ve still got 500 Gb to play with while you send the other for replacement, oh and remember to switch off the power before plugging molex connecters in, or just check their the right way round, the hard drive wont go BANG! but it wont make any other noises either if you don’t.
Optical drive’s is it worth getting anything less than a DVD/RW/DL Lightscribe.
Case yeah why not, as time goes by you will find most of the innards hard drive optical drives etc will actually be hanging out of the case messing up your desk as you keep swapping stuff around.
OS has got to be windows hasn’t it, hasn’t it, well for me Vista does just fine but i have tried Linux and didn’t find it any worse than reverting back to XP, then again cant think of many things that are worse, might even have another bash at it this weekend, as for windows 7 there are ways Vista could be made better but your not going to find them there, I personally wouldn’t have it given me it lasted a matter of weeks before I reinstalled Vista, the main decision you need to make is retail or oem, if you plan to keep the motherboard and not upgrade it oem is fine but if you plan to upgrade your board at any time consider the retail version, you could download a copy off sites like uTorrent or emule but be warned, it wouldn’t surprise me if most of them are uploaded by a certain Mr William Gates, you want to test your anti virus and anti spyware nows your chance.
Talking of anti virus and spyware, everybody seems to believe they have virus’s despite the fact they are running every anti virus and anti spyware known to man, and every registry cleaners, and every pc tune up they can find, they think their computer is infected because its running slow, duh what the hell do you expect with all that running in the background all the time.
If you’ve got any questions, ask someone else.
And remember If it ain’t broke – YOUR NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH.
There are many good reasons to build your own computer from scratch, you get the computer you wan’t not the computer some salesman who probably knows less about computers than you do wants to sell you, the computer can be tailored to your specific needs, you can utilise second hand parts and upgrade them as and when funds allow, but the main reason for doing it if your on this forum is to learn.
The first thing you will need to do with the aid of the motherboard and manual if youve got one is determine where to place the brass standoffs in the case, dont be tempted to add any extra ones all you will succeed in doing is shorting out the board against the back of the case, and install the I/O plate that came with the motherboard at the back of the case, for someone building a computer for the first time it might be better not fitting the motherboard just yet, fitting the cpu is a lot easier when its not bolted into the case and some heat sinks are nigh on impossibe to fit when the motherboard is fitted, fit the power supply in the case if it didnt come pre-installed and route the cables roughly to where they will eventually go, fans can be fitted to the case and wired up to the power supply, optical drives and hard drive can also be fitted not forgetting to set the jumpers, if you are useing one ide ribbon connector to connect the optical drive and the hard drive set the optical as master and the hard drive as slave or set them both as cable select and make sure the optical drive is at the end of the ribbon, better still mount them on differt ribbons and set them both as master, if you have sata connect the optical to sata one, main hard drive with the os to number two, you can normally find the jumper setting printed on hard drives and optical drives or go to the manufacturers website, you should route the cables to the drives but dont connect them just yet.
You You will struggle to fit some aftermarket HSF full stop, trying to do it when the motherboard is fitted is damn nigh impossible.
While the motherboard is still out of the case place it on the cardboard box it came in and fit the cpu, most motherboard sockets have a lever to lock the cpu down, lift it up and the retaining plate if it has one, now you will be able to see the socket, normally there is an arrow marked on one corner of the socket that matches one on the cpu, being extremly carefull not to touch the any pins on the cpu place it into the socket so the little arrows line up, if the pins are damaged while you are fitting the cpu the chances of straigtening them and the cpu working are somewhere between slim and non existent so be careful, when the chip is in place lock the lever down, swapping parts between computers is an easy way of fault finding but the cpu is an exception when its in leave it alone, while your at it you might as well fit the heat sink fan as long as it isnt going to hinder you fitting the motherboard, remove any plastic films placed on the hsf to protect the mating surface, if it already has thermal paste just fit as per the instructions if not apply a very thin coat of tim to the cpu and a little blob in the middle and fit the heat sink, connect the fan wires to the motherboard and its done, also the memory can be fitted if your only using one stick of memory it doesnt really matter which slot you use, if you are using more match the sticks to the slots of the same colour, now you can fit the motherboard.
Install the memory sticks in the matching colour coded slots or it won’t run in dual channel.
When fitting the motherboard be careful that the rear of the board is seated properly in the I/O panel and that no cables are trapped under the board and screw it down onto the stand offs, connect the main 20 or 24 pin connector and the 4 or 8 pin connectors, connect any fans that are to be connected to the motherboard, connect the optical and hard drives, if you plan to have more than one hard drive not set up in raid only connect the data cables for the main master hard drive that will have the operating system installed on it, windows doesnt like installing when more than one are connected up during the os install unless its in raid, connect the wires from the front panel to the motherboard next, the more you spend on your case the easier it will be to wire up the front panel wires, many have multi plugs that simply plug into the board, if you bought a cheap case you will have to go searching through the manual, teach you not to be so tight in future, and dont forget to wire up a small speaker so you will be able to hear the post beep codes.
Useing quick connecting blocks like these from asus and similar ones that you find on most half decent cases is a lot easier than connecting each individual wire one at a time.
if youve got onboard graphics and sound thats more or less it if not remove the expansion card blanlking plates in the rear of the case that corresponds to the slot they are going to be fitted in, offer up the cards to the slots on pci-e slots you will need to lift a little plastic lever that will break off the first chance it gets so be careful it wont do any harm if it does break off but its always nice to complete a job without breaking anything or so im told, if your graphics card needs an addisional power connector plug that in and move on to plugging in the monitor keyboard mouse and speakers and an ethernet connection not forgetting to reset your router.
Some graphics cards need an extra power supply, and yes i know it needs cleaning.
Well now its the moment of truth power up the computer and switch it on, check the fan on the heatsink is running and all the other fans are working fine, assuming nothing is on fire listen for any beeps, it should beep once on most computers, if there are lots of beeps and nothing on the monitor go back and check all the connections, if the computer boots up hit the delette key if nessecary to set the computer to boot from the dvd drive first if your using an old hard drive that already has an os on it, if its a new hard drive just put the windows install disc in the dvd drive and restart the computer and it will more or less install itself, you will have to choose the language and region, you will also have to set the time zone when you do check the time and date are correct, 99 times out of a hundred the time and date will be correct but if they are not your computer will not update untill it is corrected, if your installing vista and you can only afford basic but want to see how the other half live dont key in the activation code, it will ask you which version of vista you wish to install choose ultimate and thats what you will get, only for 30 days or if you tweak the setting 120 days then you will have to reinstall, but if your like me you will be reinstalling before that anyway, if not just enter the activation key and it will pretty much install by itself if a little slowly, when windows finally finishs arsing about testing your computer go into update and install all the important updates and restart your computer then personally i like to go back into update and turn it off but thats just my preference im not advising you to do it, go into device manager and update any drivers that need updating some of them can be found on the motherboard disc if you have one, also check the driver for your graphics card and sound cards are the correct ones, often windows will load the bog standard drivers and you will be wondering why your brand new super duper graphics card that cost you an arm and a leg is performing like something that cost a fiver in a secondhand shop.
If your going to be running a second hard drive switch off the computer and connect it up, if its sata just connect the power and data cables if its ide make sure the jumper is set correctly, if you have two data ribbon cables connect to the one your optical drive is on and set it as slave, or if your using cable select the plug midway along the ribbon, restart the computer, go into start and computer and your new hard drive will be nowhere to be seen but dont worry, come out of computer hit start and this time right click on computer, select manage, then storage, then disk managment, your new disk should now show up right click over toward the left side of the box, you will be given the option to initialise disc, then over toward the right side of the box right click and format new simple volume volume, when its all formatted it will show up in my computer and it can be used., screw the covers back on the case and your all done, any questions.
I personally have never used an anti static wrist band or mat while messing around with computers, if your worried about static use a wrist band, if not don’t blame me if you break anything.
Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 1:01 pm
by Ron Manager
Wow, thanks for all the advice Popeye. Sorry for not responding sooner, but haven't been on UHM for a while. Anyway, much appreciated Sir!