Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

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ian
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Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

Lets get started shal we!
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: Ians future topic of AWESOME!

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

ian wrote:I'll probably make it 'the computer and tech purchases / reviews / discussion / advice thread...
LOL I just made a buy thread. Nice timing.

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Re: Ians future topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

This was made 2 minutes before your thread... STOP COPIES ME!!! :lol:
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians future topic of AWESOME!

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

It takes me about 5 minutes to type a sentence on the tablet, so I might have started it before you.

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Re: Ians future topic of AWESOME!

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

This can be your general PC stuff thread.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

Yesterday I did a simple mobo swap!



I took the board on the left (Gigabyte X58A-UD7) and cleaned it up (IT WAS FILTHY). I got it all shiny and new. and then spun around on my chair and knocked it to the floor via the cabinet with the fan and shot glasses about 10 minutes after this photo was taken.

It survived and has replaced the board on the right (Gigabyte EX58-UD4P) in my future all purpose storage PC

Not a significant upgrade. both good boards, especially the one I tried to smash, and both running i7 920's.
BUT: the UD7 has USB3 ports
2 FIREWIRE ports (even though one video camera is fucked and one is missing as it turns out)
4 Sata 3 ports and a total of 10 Sata ports (UD4P only has 8 Sata 2 ports)

Now I have to plug in the front panel again (including audio, USB, firewire and the power lights and switches) ALL AS INDIVIDUAL PINS.. Which aren't labeled to a standard.. or long enough to plug the last pin in when the others are in.. THANKS THERMALTAKE!!!
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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ian
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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

MSY have the LG 27MU67 4K monitor I've had my eye on since November for $579 :D
It was too much at $799 and $699, Last week it dropped to $629 and I was was going to make a move. Today I am.

I'll probably do a review. This will finally get me off my ass to finish MY computer
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

Browsers look like shit! Windows looks Awesome! Colours are great, black is a little light and I have to update ALL of my games to even try it :lol:
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

Play Donkey Kong on it.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

Close.. I played HL2.. I will find the shittiest looking game ever to play..
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

More on this monitor...
What they've done right:

The stand. height, angle, and tilt adjust and if you wanted, this monitor goes into portrait mode too. The footprint is a bit big, but it's solid and well made and has a cable management loop at the back.

The touch buttons. Normally I'm opposed to touch buttons on monitors because EVERYONE fucks them up (Dell and samsung, I'm looking at you) but these ones actually work when you press them, even if the menu isn't as good as other monitors, the fact you can actually get to where you want to be easily is a welcome change.

Inputs.. It has 2HDMI inputs, 1 DP and one mini DP. LG provided a mini DP to DP cable so if you have either mini or full size on your device you can connect right away and also included an HDMI cable.. both of usable length. and what I like most of all is the lack of other gimmicks.. No 10 million connections you will NEVER use.. and no stupid USB hub which I have never once used on a single monitor.

3 year warranty.. I've never needed to go for warranty on a single LG product.. but it's nice to have. in the box is a bunch of support options, addresses, emails, phone numbers ETC ETC.


What they've done wrong:

The menu.. it's a small menu, but finding where you want to be is just more of a pain in the ass than anything from benq, samsung and AOC.
It took me almost a minute just to find the freesync function to enable it.

The monitor comes plastered in stickers.. Telling me about the energy star rating, features, another one about the energy rating..
I would have sworn it was designed for demo or display if it wasn't factory sealed. And when you try and take them off, it left residue which I then had to clean. (I only took off the big energy star rating one and left the others)


I'll add more about it as I keep using it.. but at this stage, I'd only suggest someone buying one if they want it to game on.. and even then you'll need some pretty beefy video cards to use it.


And I'll say this,I can't go back. I took a risk on this monitor, It's the first screen of any kind that I have bought without inspecting working in a shop.. Seeing it next to my TN 27" benq monitor (which was the best looking TN panel when I got it) is just night and day. Full HD now looks like complete ass that should be relegated to TV's!
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

I'm taking an awful risk here Vader!

I've decided to go with 2 5TB WD blues for the primary storage of my computer. My history with WD has been 3 new drives (500GB, 1TB and 1.5TB) and lets just say I've experienced a greater than 50% failure rate (1 and 1.5 both died within a year) I'm getting them to save $50 from the seagate ones I was going to get. Sure they have half the cache, and only operate at a piddly 5400RPM, BUT they're just for video and photo storage, I have an SSD for boot and will for games as well so MEH..

plus with the savings I can get alcohol so I won't get angry if/when they die!

By comparison.. my new Seagate drives have been barricudas 80GB, 4 320GB's, 2 500GB's 2 1TB's and 4 2TB's.. so 13 drives in 12 years (not to mention all my 2tb externals), with a single failure on a single 320.. which seagate fixed for free, within 2 weeks, and kept my data.

So I'll give WD a chance again while having the backups on my surplus seagates (which I have a lot of ATM)
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

Finally in a position to buy the large SSD I've wanted for a long time now. 2TB samsung evo 850 $899.
BUT, a pair of matching 4K monitors seems nice as well. ($579) and then I'd have some money for new glasses and alcohol with a bit left over..

What will probably happen is, I will end up saving $3000 and still have not made up my mind.
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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ian
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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

I've sorted some files.. (all my videos) And I can say, don't bother with anything less than FULL HD on a 4K monitor.

Even 720P looks a little shit. :olol:
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

I can buy my new SSD tomorrow.. and go without smokes and alcohol for a week.

Not sure I can do that, so I'll hold off yet again.
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

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ian wrote:Finally in a position to buy the large SSD I've wanted for a long time now. 2TB samsung evo 850 $899.
BUT, a pair of matching 4K monitors seems nice as well. ($579) and then I'd have some money for new glasses and alcohol with a bit left over..

What will probably happen is, I will end up saving $3000 and still have not made up my mind.
I'm pretty close to what I thought I would do. have $2600 just sitting and can't make up my mind..

In other news. That computer I built as a media/NAS/Gaming/backup machine has been loaded with hard drives (and now weighs a trillion tonnes). The case and PSU are begging for more hard drives :olol: unfortunately, the motherboard has had enough. (10 drives)

The computer is currently running:
6 Seagate 2tb drives
2 seagate 1.5 tb drives
an OCZ vertex 2 120gb SSD
and a pioneer blu ray burner.

The case and PSU can still go for another 4 hard drives, so I'm thinking of getting a cheap raid card and 6 more 2 tb drives.

I am currently using this computer, and it's present 15 TB's of storage to rip Blu Rays.. Since actually playing the fuckers on a computer is harder than ripping the whole fucking thing in full quality and keeping it there..

(seriously, playing Blu rays on a PC is a fucking pain in the ass these days)
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

Wouldn't it be easier just to buy a cheap standalone bluray player or a PS3?

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ian
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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

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Dr. Zoidberg wrote:Wouldn't it be easier just to buy a cheap standalone bluray player or a PS3?
For me, the point of computers, was to make EVERYTHING easier than having a single item to do one thing..

before Blurays, My computer would do everything EASILY AND FAULTLESSLY. I have a PS3 here.. but fuck that, because it can't do communication, or web browsing, or even any other media playback properly. And my PC does..

And if my PC can't make playing blu rays easy, then it's blu rays that are the problem. not the computer...
I can rip 5 Blu rays in the time it takes to update to play a single movie..
So rip them all.. sell the blu rays and buy more hard drives :rofl:

Just to play Star wars and Deadpool on my pc was about 3 hours of fucking around.. those same 3 hours ripped 10 other movies... :owink:

I'll still buy the fucking things.. But I'll rip them and then sell them instantly before they lose too much value.
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

I purchased a bunch of tech for $60:
40GB PS3 (console only) working fine so I formatted, found some crap to bundle and listed on ebay. $36 with a day to go.
Noontec media player. Will be given to a friends dad because his TV only has RCA and he recently cancelled foxtel.
First gen ipad. screen just stays black. already on ebay and up to $10 with a day to go.
Asus gt620 1GB video card. sold for $20
3 LCD wall mount brackets.. listed on ebay for basically nothing and if they don't sell I'll throw them out.
and a Dell 2407WFPB monitor.. Which I actually wanted, has lots of inputs and PIP!!

so the cheap monitor I wanted essentially paid for itself.
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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Re: Ians CURRENT topic of AWESOME!

Post by ian »

Friends dad wanted to be rid of "old crap" computers, and since everyone knows I like fucking around with hardware I got given them. :olol:

PC1: a Core 2 duo (Didn't care about model lol) on an Asus P5E Deluxe mobo with 4Gb of corsair DDR2 800, a GeForce 9600 GT. with a 550 watt thermaltake evo blue psu in a coolermaster centurion 5.

PC2: A core 2 quad q8400 on an asus P5P43TD mobo with 4 GB of corsair DDR3 1333 and 4GB of Gskill DDR3 1600, an AMD 4350, 460watt coolermaster psu in a coolermaster elite 333 case.

SERVER!! THIS I WILL HAVE SOME FUN WITH, then see what it's worth.
Intel server board s5000vsa
4GB of ECC DDR2
Dual Xeon E5310's (quad cores)
2 80gb drives
2 160gb drives
in a smallish but heavy enclosure.

My plan with the computers is to clean them up, Throw the quadcore with it's 8gbs of ram into the centurion case (beautiful things BTW) and the 460 watt psu, and the 9600 and use it as a spare around the house.

Put all the other stuff in the other one and sell it on ebay. :olol:
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
-Two Interactive.

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