Attn Fen: All the dirty details!

Ok don’t get to exited Fen I’m not about to trump your new toy, this PC was bought and modified to use as a media centre for the family not as a gaming rig, I’ve not even put a gfx in yet the onboard is good enough for what I need at the moment.

Started with this

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225760

I did look at Overclockers they had a couple of very good bear bones but this one had a better board with the chip I was after, and the 1000g hard drive is nice though I’d have preferred it to have been 7200rpm.

As soon as I’d checked it over and made sure it worked I got rid of crappy Norton & McAfee before they could do any installing (I use Avast it’s free and brilliant),Then ripped out the pathetic 250w psu for a Corsair 500w (Why do they put these cheap unprotected psu’s in these machines? if the psu goes it can take everything with it!), added a stick of 2gb Kingston ram to bring it up to 5gb total, and put in a duel tuner TV card, so now I can use the 360 as an extender via Windows 7 Media Centre and can watch and record digital TV on the xbox and it records to the PC hard drive - clever stuff! - and as it’d a duel tuner I can record two channels at the same time, it’s very easy to use and playback is perfect.
(Already have a digibox recorder but it’s full of neighbours and daytime tv! This ones for Me!)

Anyhow my old AMD Athlon 64 3700+ was nearly 6 years old and this chip knocks the socks off it, I’ve not tried any games yet but apparently it can do Starcraft2 and WoW with the onboard at resemble settings, lol I’ll believe that when I see it, I keep updating RoM just to see how it runs but haven’t got to the end of the patching yet, I’ll let you know.

Nice things that came with it apart from Window 7 which I like, is the MS Office10 trial it turns out that word & excel are free to use so long as you don’t mind adverts popping up on the bottom right corner, (good for the for the kids homework). Also the card reader is useful and 12 yes 12!! USB’s and also the HDMI out is handy, and the onboard sound is exhalent.

Now on a side note I’ve a beer matt copy of CS4 running, but it’s not fully compatible with Windows7 64bit but runs fine in 32bit, also trying to get PS5 running, the same disk worked on XP but again there seams to be a prob with W7!!
Do you use any Adobe graphics programs with Windows7, I know you’re into design?

I've wondered what media centre pc are used for and I guess that answers the question. Nice set up, it looks like you'll be making better use of your tech than I am.

I'm afraid I can't help you with the photoshop problem, I have a PS CS3 beer mat but it's on my laptop which is what I'm using for work stuff. My PC is really just for entertainment and I want to keep beer mats off of it, for the moment anyway. I was thinking of trying it earlier today so you've helped answer my question of will it work.

It'll be good to play with you on RoM again, if you decide to play it, if the PC really can run it.

I use CS4 for Oblivion texturing etc and it runs fine on Win7.I`m on a 64bit machine and have to install both versions (32 and 64 )as some add ons are not compatible with 64bit,especially the one I really need,the .dds reader.I dont know why you`re having issues with the 64bit version.

Adobe did admit incompatibility with 64bit in W7 and say the only advantage is a slight increase in speed, but I can’t even get it to open, I can see it in the first programs folder and it has the application icon but it errors whenever I open it, The 32bit version is in the programs 86 folder (why dose W7 have 2 programme folders?) and works as it should so I’m not that bothered as I’ve got the same functionality that I have at work, but I only installed Photoshop 4 & Acrobat pro so I could try uninstalling and load the whole CS4 suit.

But it’s Ps5 I’d like to get working, I’ve only just started using it at work and it has some really nice new features that would be fun to play with. But I get the exact same error that I get with 64bit Ps4, can’t remember what it is its something like “0ac0000a”? I know the disc works though because I had it working on my old rig with XP.
I‘d install XP on the new one as a second OS if I could find the Install disk.

Win 7 only has 2 program folders if you use 64bit,the normal folder is for apps that run in 64 bit,the (86) folder is for apps that are not 64bit capable.

I would try installing the full suite and see if that makes any difference,you may be missing some comparability files but not sure on that.

More boring stuff for fen

What a headache choosing a gfx is! You set a budget then think for only £30 more I can have something better so you look at them and then think ok but a few quid more will get me xxxx and so on and on and on.

After much head scratching I went for an ati HD5770, I rally wanted a GTX460 but they still have problems with random blue screen on Windows 7 that drivers haven’t sorted yet, and I didn’t want to take the risk, shame as it’s a monster card when it works, but at £150 was kinda beyond my budget of £100 but I was suffering that a few quid more syndrome.
Still the 5770 is in the middle of the high performance chart on Toms Hardware and will out perform my old AGP card by miles.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-009-HS whoops link gone all sold!!

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/his-hd-5770-iceq-5-turbo-1gb.html

Should arrive tomorrow.

I know all about the few quid more syndrome, I was going to spend £500 to £1000 and then it went up to £1800 till I was talking down into something less crazy. Still went £259.91 over (They over charged me by 1p, I'm looking into legal action).

The ATI cards of that generation I believe were better than the Nvidia cards, Nvidia I think (Last I heard) are better in this gen but not by enough that it really matters. If you ever wanted to go over the top you could always get a second card if your motherboard and psu and case space support crossfire. I'm going to get another 570 when my wallet recovers from it's near fatal wound.

Got a drive caddy on the front of my tower, I always wondered how easy it would be to add another HD, it turns out very easy thats another 1tb added
its mainly for the media center, you'd be amazed at how much room a few weeks of Necrap Ozzie soap operars and diagnosis murder take up.

what no prisoner cell block h?

forum rule324 clearly states 'no mentioning girlie programs, ironing or bloody bingo'
i think we can let you away with diagnosis murder as it's got that bloke from mary poppins in it

I like Diagnosis Murder, haven't watched it in ages. I've watched just about every episode of Mash but I caught an episode recently and I wouldn't mind watching that again.

Glad to hear adding new HD's is easy, I'm going to be making Youtube videos with my nephew soon and I'm thinking I'll need a large HD for that since about 30 minutes of video is around 10gb's, might mean putting my HD cage back together, I took it out for better air circulation since I didn't think I'd need another HD.

Good point Thank you 9 for showing me the error of my ways, and doing the edit before the head master got to see it.

In all honesty I didn’t need another hd but there was this gaping hole behind a flap below the cd drive. If I see a hole I have to fill it.