What hardware are you going to buy in 2011?

[veK]

I'm not changing games every day. I don't have that much time to play anyway. It would have been nice though to have all games available all the time. But I can live with occasionally copying a few games. I'm not moving the data all the time so I don't worry about the SSD wearing out too quickly. I'm just happy now I won't have to put in a HDD (besides maybe my 2,5" I use for data in the external enclosure right now but which is absolutely super silent and not vibrating whatsoever and is being used all the time anyway). Because besides those negative aspects (noise, vibrations, heat, being slower...) I don't want a HDD in my computer running all day long when I don't really need it all the time. That's also why I have 2x1TB lying in my drawer with a lot of data on it which I only put into the PC (using this: http://www.sharkoon.com/?q=en/node/1281 ) when I'm backing up files or need something I don't have on my 2,5" 500GB HDD (which I basically call "Cache").

Unfortunately I couldn't get the mainboard I wanted because it's still not available and no new date has been set so I cancelled it and ordered a different one. Most of my hardware should arrive tomorrow or on thursday except maybe for 2 other parts (which I don't need to run the PC though). So hopefully I can build the PC then and install everything this weekend. I just hope nothing is broken or causing problems of any kind.

[athanasios]

Good solution. I use a rack for my old IDE HDDs. Ideal for portable stuff (seems everything is cracked to become portable nowadays) and not only: You can install whole OSs on different disks (FreeDOS, HAIKU, MenuetOS, Syllable...)

[veK]

Well I'm back now at my alternative solution which was a 60GB OCZ Vertex2 and one of my 1TB Samsung HDDs for all the games. I HAD a Crucial C300 256GB though but I had a lot of trouble with it. Last night I could at least finally confirm that indeed the C300 was the problem. I've read about the same problems from other people on hardware forums. It looks like it has something to do with the latest firmware 0006. Unfortunately you can't backgrade the firmware. And the problem might occurr more often with the ASUS P8P67 mainboards although I've read the same complaints from other users with different systems. Basically what happened was this: first of all I could not get the SSD working in AHCI mode when connected to the SATA 6GB/s ports. Win7 would recognize it and install itself but after the first reboot a disk read failure would appear. No problem with IDE mode on the 6GB/s ports though. On the SATA 3GB/s ports the SSD would also work in AHCI mode but why bother which such an expensive piece of hardware which is supposed to be used on a 6GB/s port. But worst of all... no matter which setup, driver, port or cable I used... I had micro lags and freezes. Firefox would sometimes just stop for a few seconds (typing, bookmarking...) or the mouse would freeze in Excel and stuff like this. It was pretty bad in games obviously because suddenly out of nowhere the mouse wouldn't move anymore for 1-5 seconds. Try shooting enemies now! After spending so much time researching, reading forums and testing I was pretty sure the SSD was the problem. So I tested the system with a superslow 5400rpm HDD from my laptop (the one it came with) and I didn't have those lags and freezes. Obviously the HDD was very slow but it was slow all the time... no freezing and crap like that. So today I mailed the C300 back for refunds and bought a OCZ 60GB at a local store. I just finished setting everything up now and the system is running without any problems or lags so far. I put the 1TB Samsung into the drive bay so when I'm not playing any games I can just take it out of the computer which is very nice. Everything else I bought is working perfectly and I'm also happy with the case. I can hear the fans but I expected them to be much noisier. So for now I'm okay with them and don't see reason for an immidiate change. I haven't done any CPU overclocking yet because obviously I have been busy the last 3 days with this annoying C300 issue.

[Andrew]

Bought 1tb caviar green ($53). Same one I had already purchased a year ago. Bought usb extension cord and SATA cable.

Bought Asus RT-N16 router for $90. Supposed to be real nice with dd-wrt. It's huge, a bit bigger than my eeebox nettop.

[veK]

DDWRT is nice with any router it supports ;)

I'm currently looking for a new mouse. Mine is still good but it's just too small for my hands when playing games. Unfortunately no mouse has conviced me yet. Too bad they don't sell the MX1000 anymore :(

[veK]

Meh... that's what I hate about selfbuild PCs when every part is new: had some trouble since yesterday with some nice BSODs. PC crashed twice a few hours ago then. Fortunately I coulld find the cause rather easily: RAM. Also very fortunantely Memtest86 responded with a crazy amount of errors right at the beginning. Of course the faulty one was the one I tested last but I'm glad it was the memory itself and not the board. Good thing I ordered 4x4GB I guess because now I can return one of the 8GB kits and still have the PC running with the other 8GB. I'll get the money back though instead of new RAM because honestly 8GB is quite sufficient and I only ordered 16GB because the prices are so low right now. But I can use that money for something else like some more games or a new mouse if I find a good one.

[athanasios]

IMO it is even worse with prebuild ones. You have to give it back to the shop, you will tell them RAM is damaged and they will reply we have to check it in our technical center, no PC for a week or more, and then they say we fixed it here you are and when you take it home something else is damaged!

[veK]

Yesterday I got a 2TB HDD as well as this nice thing which is pretty nice to control my laptop (which I currently use as a HTPC) remotely from the couch. The 3D mouse controls are still a bit strange but so far it works fine for the tasks I bough it for:

[Andrew]

Just ordered

Sceptre 23.6" 1080p 60Hz LED-LCD $200 for my bedroom. Hook up to my computer. It is going to replace 19" tube tv. Tube tv uses 5.2 watts shut off, and averaged around 60 watts. New tv supposed to use 1 watt off and 30 watts on. Quality is supposed to be average at best. Speakers useless (as with any new tv). As long as it works for 2 years, I'll be happy.

May also be used to replace downstairs tube tv if it fails (25", 70-80 watts on, 5.6 watts off).

[athanasios]

Very cheap!

[Mahdi]

Pre-ordered a 32 gb Blackberry Playbook from staples today. After the confirmation yesterday that it will run android apps (just not android marketplace) and getting a $50 coupon from staples I figured might as well order it now and if I decided I don't like it after getting it and playing with it, return it. Although I'm pretty darn sure this is the tablet for me.

I've had the worse month of my life and thought I deserved something for myself that I want but did not need.

[Andrew]

I ordered 1gb amd vid card for old desktop. Had no fan on it, and after hooking it up and running, it seemed to get hot so I rigged up a fan underneath it to keep real cool. $42 delivered to my door.

Reason I got it is that the old desktop only had VGA, and couldn't play 1080p (sometimes stutter on 720p). But now with new vid card can play youtube 1080p, and probably anything else. Can hook up to flatscreen tv if needed in future. Just need to slap in an old/cheap SSD for OS/apps, and it would be very nice HTPC (other than being normal case size and using 90watts electricity, compared to nettops that use 20 watts and size of hard cover book).

I'm glad RIM tablet come out, now means more competition. So now got Apple/Android/Blackberry competing. Dunno when windows tablets will be in stores.

EDIT:

Hmm, playbook has dual core processor and 1gb ram. That is good.

32gb for $600 at bestbuy

32gb ipad2 is $619 at bestbuy

So at least priced competitively with other tablets.

As long as you got wireless router for inside/outside house hooked up to server (desktop/laptop) to watch media, or I guess a lot of stuff is going streaming nowadays. Summary: make sure your wireless can handle throughput to tablet.

[gryphon]

Pre-ordered a 32 gb Blackberry Playbook from staples today. After the confirmation yesterday that it will run android apps (just not android marketplace) and getting a $50 coupon from staples I figured might as well order it now and if I decided I don't like it after getting it and playing with it, return it. Although I'm pretty darn sure this is the tablet for me.

Am I wrong or is the BB tablet still in closed review circles. I haven't seen any review of them buy some regular-Joe. Didn't you want to wait to be sure it's up to expectations?

[Mahdi]

Andrew: Playbooks processor is actually superior to Xoom's, despite them both being 1ghz dual core. The Xoom was on my list of possible purchases but... Well, I'll post more in the tablet thread.

Gryphon: My original plan had been to wait after release, read the reviews, and play with it myself before purchase BUT I decided to pre-order instead for the following reasons:

- I currently have no operating computer other than my work laptop - I need to get the fan in my personal laptop replaced and haven't found the time

- recently endured a life-changing event that showed me how nice it would have been to have a tablet the last month

- Because of the aformentioned event I do not have free time to go around reading internet reviews and playing with tablets in store

- Staples has already sold out of 16 gb pre-orders and all other pre-orders in some provinces, and the release is still almost a month away, so if I want one at all before the end of summer, have to order it soon

- Had a $50 coupon from staples that expired yesterday

- still have a couple weeks to play with it and read reviews before I am obligated to keep it. If I change my mind I can return it.

- Not a lot of other options for a tablet right now, other than the Xoom

- The Xoom has major issues, many of which will carry over to the new Galaxy Tab as they stem from Honeycomb

- Playbook will support Android apps, just not Android Marketplace

[Andrew]

Been on spending spree lately.

Last night purchased:

2x120mm, 1x80mm, 1x40mm case fans (tried to get quietest versions)

antivibration screws and washers - my top 140mm fan seems to be vibrating

1x120mm and 2x140mm dust filter. Going to try and keep dust out of computer more, since I opened case and there was dust on cpu/back case exhaust fans. Now that summer coming up with my window open it means dirt road dust will be flying in. My old tower is red inside due to our red soil. Maybe put filters on it at some point (intake is on side of case, with 2 exhaust on back).

bunch of sata cables (2xsata6.0 data, 4pin power splitter, 3 pin fan splitter, 4pin->hdd data splitter)

1 foot cat6 ethernet cable to replace my ~6 foot ethernet. Got cat6 because much cheaper than any 5e 1 foot.

Other day I turned on 120mm side case fan and 140mm top case fan. Put modem and router on top of 140mm to cool them (modem would get burning hot, possibly cause connection problems). Only need 1 foot ethernet cable going from router to desktop, so this will eliminate lots of extra cord on floor.

[Mahdi]

Well, my blackberries trackball stopped working but it's still under warranty so a replacement phone is on its way, should be here Monday or Tuesday. Supposed to be the same phone but since I use (and prefer) the older model that they haven't made for awhile they may have to upgrade me. Will find out for sure when it arrives. Of course, before the trackball stopped working I ordered a new pouch for my 9000.

Found it kind of dumb myself. The only thing I need is a $10 trackball but it would void my warranty for the trackball to be replaced, so instead they give me a new $550 phone.

he micro hdmi cable I ordered for my playbook arrived yesterday. Only a week in a half/two and a half weeks until the playbook arrives... Had to cancel my pre-order from Staples thanks to them being dicks and ordered it from Best Buy isntead so I doubt I will get it on the 19th now. Best Buy gave me a date range of the 18th - 25th.

[athanasios]

Already bought 300m ethernet cable, had some to and already used 300m. I have to buy more. I am wiring all the house for ethernet and phone lines. Then I will purchase some meters for the TV antenna to add more plugs in the 2 bedrooms (missing). And all x3 for spare and future use. As I said for security reason wireless is a big NO for my area. Even with wired I am getting interferences. - Filters won't block air? Anyway, dust is a fest. Only simple solution: dismantle stuff and wash it and brush it. I hate that procedure but you cannot prevent it. You are lucky to have a red tower. Here due to pollution it gets black. Antivibration screws? What are they made from? Rubber? IMO they will help but not much if the fans are damaged and wobble. Sata 6.0 cables differ from previous ones? - Bought a 2 jack SATA (RAID) PCI card for my vintage PC which lacked SATA. Not 6.0, I guess it would be useless for it. Now need a SATA HDD. Is a SATA 6.0 backwards compatible with SATA so I can buy one?

[Andrew]

Do keep us informed how your ethernet whole house goes. I'd like to do that when I get a house, and know of someone who did the same thing when they built. Do you have a cord going from every room to a single room where your router would be at? In a closet? Don't forget to put a cord going behind where tv mounted to wall if you have one or will get one later.

My order came today. Yep, the antivibration 'screws' are rubber and very stretchable/flexible. Took 15 min to hook up to 140mm fan, mostly because motherboard/cpu was in way. I think they may have helped, but not sure. They seemed good quality (didn't break) and now fan is not touching the case at all.

They accidentally sent me 4 140mm magnet dust filters instead of 2. Was nice surprise. Fit good over my old tower air intake area. Do not fit over antec300 case due to grill sticking out of case. I did put a 120mm dust filter screwed next to fan.

Hooked up another fan to old desktop with twist ties, and changed what was holding up my vid card fan from antec300 dvd drive case cover to a cut up beer cup. Elastic holding them together.

http://i.imgur.com/u3Bm7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mUV99.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/nxKdN.jpg

SATA6.0 cables are needed in order to take advantage of SATA6.0 which my computer has. I don't have any SATA6.0 devices yet, but should by the end of the year (SSD). SATA6.0 cables do work with SATA3.0 devices and slots. Only thing to look out for is that they are a bit bulkier than old cables, so sometimes difficult to fit into motherboard depending on the layout.

You are lucky to have a red tower.

The tower is not red, it is black/grey. It has a bit of red tint inside due to dust from dirt road outside since our soil is red. I havn't cleaned inside. I should get compressed air.

I'm pretty sure SATA6.0 is backwards compatible with SATA3.0. So if have SATA6.0 device (SSD/HDD) and plug into SATA3.0 motherboard, it will work. Same for SATA3.0 device (SSD/HDD) plugged into SATA6.0 motherboard. wiki

[athanasios]

Red: I was referring to the dust. Black dust from pollution is worse and harder to clean.

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One of the reasons SATA was made was to have thin cables to unclutter the space and allow better airflow. If they started to make them thicker it is ridiculous.

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I like those screws! :-) With those money I suppose you could buy a small box full of screws at a specialized store. But such stores you can't find near your house. :-(

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Router will be in the room I will use as my office/library and separate cords will go to every other room (network and phone-actually you can use the same type of cable for the phone). Also I will pass cables to the roof and maybe to some other places. All net. cords will go behind the TV set areas plus one for the desk in the children's room-I have only one son, but we thinking to have more in the future. ;-)

All net. cords X 3 for future usage (what I said before about SATA. ;-) will they increase the wires from 8 to 24?) or spare.

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I like your custom fixes in your PC and that can of beer! ;-) The fun is to use any material handy to do your job.

[athanasios]

Bought an 1.8 TB HDD:

Seagate ST2000DL003

SATA-III, 64MB, 5900RPM.

Even though I lack SATA III, this is a huge upgrade for my vintage PC (With a Sempron CPU overclocked at 2600+ which I bought for 2 euro from the junk market).

Funny: When entered controller's RAID BIOS-without altering anything as I have only 1 HDD hooked there so no RAID possible-after reboot HDD disappeared. Powered off and it was back.

Formatted whole disk on FAT32 to check for surface errors with my boot manager (more than half a day-0 bad sectors) and now formatted 1TB as NTFS (moved files from a corrupted disk*). Rest will be used for various installations (XP, 7, Linux).

* after deleting some useless stuff (youtube videos that would inevitably go down the drain and were corrupted) only one file failed to read/copy (of course some days ago I had revitalized the corrupted disk with HDD Regenerator). Argh I didn't want to reinstall the application as it was huge and with the many updates it would take hours. Couldn't find the corrupt file in installation files or web. Luckily I got a warez portable version package and got the file. ;-) Sorry dudes, not allowed to say which application, but the lesson is: warez stuff can be useful when the morons package their stuff in the installation files in way that you cannot unpack manually. ;-)

Now I am moving those files to the end of the partition to put the pagefile in the beginning and defrag it. Horrible job. MyDefrag is going like a snail. Still at 79% of operation after a couple of hours. Even corrupted disk didn't take so long to copy all those files from.

I was thinking of buying 2 1TB and use as RAID but my budget was strict: 100 euro.

So I spent 18 for SATA/RAID controller and 81.5 for HDD.

2 1TB would mean >50 x2 = >100 +18 = >118 out of budget.

Bought it from here:

http://www.pnpshop.gr/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=5952&category_id=10&manufacturer_id=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2

A ridiculous shop I'd say, but much cheaper and faster than brand name chains. Just imagine my surprise when I saw a note on the door : "I am in the store opposite". That was a cigarette, newspaper tiny store which the lady had to leave and lock to give my order. Family business. If it wasn't a lady I 'd recommend them to promote the hardware by giving as gift a packet of con***s! (just kidding) Anyway better this way than to buy from web and have to wait for a week or more to replace if something is damaged. I ordered in the evening and went and picked it the next day. In big chain stores it would be either more expensive or I would have to wait for 2, 3 or more days. Thanks skroutz.gr

[gryphon]

Just spend about 2 hours setting it up. Yet finally I have mine.. :-)

And then you really know you are a nerd when you buy this and this..

[Gruntlord6]

I am hopefully getting a job at bestbuy next week. Normally I wouldn't buy from them, but the employee discount is cost + 5% :).

[arnoldo]

The new google Chromebook is something I'm considering purchasing. It will be interesting to see whether having a virtual hardrive of information stored in "the cloud" will be the next big thing.

[athanasios]

How safe would that be for your sensitive data?

[arnoldo]

How safe would that be for your sensitive data?

Sensitive data would be probably safer stored on a separate device which is never connected to the internet. However, for stuff such as music, movies, and pictures it would be highly convenient to access data from any device connected anywhere to the cloud. Another thing I like about the chomebooks is the novel business model of having the option to lease it for $20 a month. Given that technological devices frequently become obsolete within a year of purchase leasing such items may be an advantage.