Off Topic Thread V2.0

ED E wrote: »

Over budget but lovely.

I'm not familiar with miniITX so what would be a good reliable board to go with this case?
It doesn't need loads of SATA ports as I have a Dell 8 port PERC card.

ED E wrote: »

I copied Serephucus with the C2750D4I, the entire build really.

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2750D4I

Its got 12x SATA, but you dont have to use em. Octa core, pulls 50W from the wall, snazy IPMI, dual GigE. If your workload is NAS + a little extra on top (eg Plex MS) then its a great build.

Thanks for that.
I'm starting to get put off now by the overall price of new case, motherboard and PSU when I already have mATX motherboard and PSU and just need a case.
I also watched this video of a Silverstone DS380 build

and I have to say, loosing one of the bays due to installing a RAID card is an absolute shame

So right now I'm leaning back towards something like the Arc Midi R2.
I've considered the Node 804 but the size and layout kind of weirds me out a little.

So been been using a coolermaster Quickfire TK (browns) mechanical keyboard for the last year and a half. Never had a mechanical keyboard before, but found it very satisfying to type on. Loved it really. But i hadnt realised how much i used the number pad.

Autocad (dimension entry) and Excel (where i use the arrows concurrently to entry) were the biggest problems.

So last week, after seeing a Quickfire Xt for a decent price on komplett, with brown switches i said i would give it a go!

Well it arrived today!



Havent had a chance to play with it yet, as the office is in a hape as prepping for painting tomorrow. Its a cheaper model than the TK i have, will have to see if the main drawback im listing below are worth the reclaimation of the numberpad!

• Loss of backlighting
• US Qwerty Layout
• Although build quality is good, it feels a bit cheaper than the TK (TK had braided cable etc.)

I've often considered just saying "**** it" and switching to a US layout keyboard... It would make buying more exotic ones a lot simpler. But then... it's US layout. :P

I used a Blue TK myself for a while. Considering picking one up again actually, as I hold my mouse close to centre, so it ends up bumping my current keyboard quite a bit. That, and I want to use Blues again. :P

Those TKs do feel really nice though, eh? I think it has something to do with them being that bit shorter too; less flex over all. (That and the giant chunk of metal underneath)

I was thinking of getting a Quickfire TK myself with the white leds. Don't have enough money just yet, but the fact that I'm saving makes me want to get the Corsair k70 to match my mouse.

Yeah I've heard of the problems actually, but apparently that's not the case with the new versions, the RGB.

game4it70 wrote: »

I believe the rgb have issues with the leds failing though.

Oh really? I was reading online that it was the first k70 models the non RGB, but I could be wrong.

Serephucus wrote: »

I've often considered just saying "**** it" and switching to a US layout keyboard... It would make buying more exotic ones a lot simpler. But then... it's US layout. :P

I used a Blue TK myself for a while. Considering picking one up again actually, as I hold my mouse close to centre, so it ends up bumping my current keyboard quite a bit. That, and I want to use Blues again. :P

Those TKs do feel really nice though, eh? I think it has something to do with them being that bit shorter too; less flex over all. (That and the giant chunk of metal underneath)

Go for it. All my home keyboards/laptops are US layout, everything at work is Irish/UK. Messes with your head for the first couple of days and then your brain just magically learns to flip back and forth. I guess it might be a pain if you need to type £ or € lots.

Seem to be having an issue with my pc, my internet connection comes to halt every couple of hours and my ping spikes into the thousands. This only happens on my pc, not on anything else in the house using the same connection. I've tried tethering via usb to my phone and the same thing is happening. Disabling and enabling my ethernet/wireless adapter is the only thing that solves the issue(temporarily). Malware and virus scans have come back clean. Any ideas?

ED E wrote: »

If it happens across adapters and connections then hardware and drivers are ruled out, its a layer above. Its something running on your PC, you arent perhaps running Avast?

Check Msconfig for any boot items that might have a network component.

I've disabled everything I can see that would have a network component and it still happens. It's starting to drive me mad.

Headshot wrote: »

Killer Lan?

Intel I do believe. I may have to bite the bullet and do a fresh install

Sitting on 4.6GHz now. I've stress tested for an hour and haven't encountered any errors or crashes.
The only issue I've encountered so far is that about 1 in 8 reboots doesn't work properly and I have to force shutdown the PC after it logs out of windows.

I never thought I'd get such a huge overclock (nearly 40%), nevermind doing so without having to touch the scary voltage dials. Maxing out at about 85C under load.

Be interesting to see what, if any, improvements I notice. Probably not playing many CPU intensive games at the moment, like CIV, but maybe SWTOR might show some improvements.

Hopefully this and the impending release of the new line of AMD cards is the bump my system needs to really progress into god-tier gaming.

The other thing is monitors.
With the recent problems with Asus' Freesync 1440p, 144hz IPS displays not quite living up to expectations, what's the best bet for gaming screens?
Is it best just to wait until Freesync gets sorted out or should it just be disabled?

Danger781 wrote: »

I've been interested in OCing my CPU but it seems like such an immense trek rebooting constantly to make adjustments in the BIOS. Might look into it next week while I have 3 days off. Which reminds me I've been meaning to buy some rubbing alcohol and reapply my thermal paste as it hasn't been done in coming on two years now. Where's the best bet to get some?

Remember looking around a few months ago. Popped into the pharmacy near my house, assuming a place such as a pharmacy would have some.. Your one at the counter looked at me like I had two heads.

I got this kit or something similar.

It actually was pretty quick in the end. It took about 3 hours, and another hour of leaving the PC alone to do a final stability test.

I used MSI afterburner to monitor temps, CPU-Z to keep an eye on my CPU speed and voltage levels and Prime 95 to do the stress testing.

That guide above is pretty comprehensive, but I think it's specific to my motherboard (ASRock Extreme 4 Z77 1150).

Good grief.

For a recent build with a cooltek x2 mid tower, the PC is over heating after four hours of blender use. I didn't put an extra fan at the back of the machine. Which one would be good to keep the machine cooler. Is it worth getting a water cooler?

It also has a low end i5, a 750Ti, a spare 700w psu I had spare, an SSD and HD.