general fa
I am planning to custom build a computer for my dad and would like some info on where to start.
Thanks.
its going to be a work computer. He has an older one, but it doesn't stay on very long without jamming or freezing, and fifty bars is too long to wait for it to load up.
Answer
Check out:
http://www.maximumpc.com
This is a great magazine with a lot of helpful articles on how to build computers.
I have built many many computers and here is some advice for you:
1). What do you want your dad to be able to do with the computer? Are you also building this computer for yourself?
Consider that the software options are just as expensive as the hardware ones are.
2). Decided, AMD or Intel processor. How much speed, power and performance do you want? AMD is more cost effective, and I would choose AMD any day over Intel, because the performance is transparent at high GHz speeds, like 2.5 - 3.8 GHz, Intel is more expensive and I don't see any reason why to buy Intel when all you do is get a slight performance increase on some kind of computer rating method like Sysmark. Take the money you would have spent on an Intel processor and buy more with an AMD processor or invest the difference in something else, like more RAM or a bigger hard disk. You must choose a processor before you can do anything else. Look for Ghz speed, front side bus and especially L1 and L2 cache sizes, both important in a really powerful computer.
2). Once you have decided which processor to buy, then you start to look for motherboards that will run that processor. Thus, if you choose an AMD processor, you will be limited to motherboards that run that processor, specifically, the SOCKET TYPE. I never go for the most expensive or the cheapest. I go for somewhere between, usually on the higher end but not THE most expensive. Asus, Gigbyte and MSI are my three choices always. I stay AWAY from Intel motherboards because Intel motherboards are not Intel's main interest, their graphics chips are lousy. Your motherboard is going to DICTATE exactly how the computer performs, so don't be CHEAP about it. I would say $150 - $250 for a really good motherboard with all the goodies.
You want 6 - 10 SATA ports, 6 - 10 USB ports (the more the better), excellent onboard sound, so identify what kind of sound you get for the money. Usually 7 - 8 channel, HD is current. You want at least a dual core and maybe quad core, but just realize that most software does not access 4 cores yet. And PCI slots are important, at least 2 - 3 of them, for an alternate sound card, an ethernet card. You need at least 2 such slots. The motherboard should accomodate a minimumof 4 Gigs of high speed RAM, DDR2 800 Mhz at least. Go to Asus, Gigabyte and MSI sites and study all the motherboards, study the specifications and so forth. You can download the motherboard manuals and study them with a PDF reader like Adobe Reader BEFORE you decide to buy.
These are the two most critical decisions you can make.
3). Power supply. Decide on the biggest and best you can buy for the money. In this day and age, I wouldn't buy less than a 600 Watt power supply. Do NOT use a cheap taiwan or chinese power supply that will burn out the computer in 6 months. If you buy a case with a power supply, just throw the stock power supply away and consider it junk. I alwasy buy ANTEC power supplies (http://www.antec.com). They cost between $100 - $200 but they are worth the investment. Solid and will not fail you.
3). Decide on an external box. Consider how many positions there are for hard disks. Three or four is the minimum, and up to six slots for a 3-1/2" hard disk or two.
It is better to space them apart so they cool better than to have them all jammed together.
4). How much RAM? As much as you can afford, the highest speed you can get for the money and the lowest CAS Latency (the lower the nuumbers, like 4-4-4-8 vrs 4-4-4-5, the -5 is better than the -8). Stick with the better RAM, like Crucial, OCZ, Patriot, etc. Make sure you that you visit the actually manufacturer sites and get the latest idea of RAM performance and specs. Make sure, by downloading the motherboard manual, exactly the kind and speed of RAM that the motherboard takes. You always want to buy PAIRED RAM sets, all from the same manufacturer. So if you buy a set of Gig Memory (2 gigs) make sure they are paired so the timing is correct and does not cause you problems. I like the memory sticks that already come with a cooler to keep the chips cooled down. In case you buy four gigs of RAM, you will need two pairs of 2x1Gig.
3). I hate to say it, but I would stick with XP Professional for an O/S and forget Vista. Just look at how many people have tried Vista and hate it. It sucks when it comes to playing music, all kinds of DRM management that prevents you from copying or playing your music. Stick with XP Pro, which can only access two cores not four and only about 3.5 Gigs oout of 4. This is the drawback. Only Vista will access more than two cores on a processor and more than 3.5 Gigs of RAM. So you have to decide for yourself which is going to work. Just realize that Vista has problems, despite the ability to access more RAM and more processors.
4). Buy the best PCIe graphics card you can afford. nVidia has problems with their higher end cards, which is little known except to those who have had the problems. I would stick with ATI cards. You only need one PCIe express, card so SLI boards are a waste of time, if your dad is just going to use the computer to access his email and write simple documents. If you are going to build this computer for yourself and you want to play games, then you will need to consider if you want more than one graphics card.
Buy the biggest hard disk you can afford. I prefer Western Digital or Maxtor, Seagate is more expensive. I would go with at least 2-500 Sata III disks, giving you 1 teribyte of hard disk. Use the Primary Hard disk for the operating sytsem only and the secondary hard disk to install all the other software on. I would not have more than one parition on each hard disk, a primary partition and not get into making mutliple partitions on a hard disk.
5). Decide on your CD/DVD burner. I would choose Pioneer as my first choice, stay away from SONY which has proprietary problems. SAMSUNG is also good and nLite is also good.
6). Spend $10 and get a 3-1/2" floppy drive. Most people will tell you its a waste, but there are times when you DO need to have a floppy drive. It's only $10, you can afford that!
7). I would just get a cheap set of speakers to begin with - maybe the $29 - $39 range and see how much sound you really need to have.
8). I like and have used ergonomic keyboards, Microsoft has a really nice one for $65, including mouse, this is the ergonomic keyboard 4000 series. You get the mouse with the keyboard.
9). I would consider a minimum 19" LCD but go for a 22" if you can afford it.
10). Printer - Go for an All in One type. I prefer EPSON photo printers myself, but its just a matter of choice and money.
Ok, so there ya go.
Check out:
http://www.maximumpc.com
This is a great magazine with a lot of helpful articles on how to build computers.
I have built many many computers and here is some advice for you:
1). What do you want your dad to be able to do with the computer? Are you also building this computer for yourself?
Consider that the software options are just as expensive as the hardware ones are.
2). Decided, AMD or Intel processor. How much speed, power and performance do you want? AMD is more cost effective, and I would choose AMD any day over Intel, because the performance is transparent at high GHz speeds, like 2.5 - 3.8 GHz, Intel is more expensive and I don't see any reason why to buy Intel when all you do is get a slight performance increase on some kind of computer rating method like Sysmark. Take the money you would have spent on an Intel processor and buy more with an AMD processor or invest the difference in something else, like more RAM or a bigger hard disk. You must choose a processor before you can do anything else. Look for Ghz speed, front side bus and especially L1 and L2 cache sizes, both important in a really powerful computer.
2). Once you have decided which processor to buy, then you start to look for motherboards that will run that processor. Thus, if you choose an AMD processor, you will be limited to motherboards that run that processor, specifically, the SOCKET TYPE. I never go for the most expensive or the cheapest. I go for somewhere between, usually on the higher end but not THE most expensive. Asus, Gigbyte and MSI are my three choices always. I stay AWAY from Intel motherboards because Intel motherboards are not Intel's main interest, their graphics chips are lousy. Your motherboard is going to DICTATE exactly how the computer performs, so don't be CHEAP about it. I would say $150 - $250 for a really good motherboard with all the goodies.
You want 6 - 10 SATA ports, 6 - 10 USB ports (the more the better), excellent onboard sound, so identify what kind of sound you get for the money. Usually 7 - 8 channel, HD is current. You want at least a dual core and maybe quad core, but just realize that most software does not access 4 cores yet. And PCI slots are important, at least 2 - 3 of them, for an alternate sound card, an ethernet card. You need at least 2 such slots. The motherboard should accomodate a minimumof 4 Gigs of high speed RAM, DDR2 800 Mhz at least. Go to Asus, Gigabyte and MSI sites and study all the motherboards, study the specifications and so forth. You can download the motherboard manuals and study them with a PDF reader like Adobe Reader BEFORE you decide to buy.
These are the two most critical decisions you can make.
3). Power supply. Decide on the biggest and best you can buy for the money. In this day and age, I wouldn't buy less than a 600 Watt power supply. Do NOT use a cheap taiwan or chinese power supply that will burn out the computer in 6 months. If you buy a case with a power supply, just throw the stock power supply away and consider it junk. I alwasy buy ANTEC power supplies (http://www.antec.com). They cost between $100 - $200 but they are worth the investment. Solid and will not fail you.
3). Decide on an external box. Consider how many positions there are for hard disks. Three or four is the minimum, and up to six slots for a 3-1/2" hard disk or two.
It is better to space them apart so they cool better than to have them all jammed together.
4). How much RAM? As much as you can afford, the highest speed you can get for the money and the lowest CAS Latency (the lower the nuumbers, like 4-4-4-8 vrs 4-4-4-5, the -5 is better than the -8). Stick with the better RAM, like Crucial, OCZ, Patriot, etc. Make sure you that you visit the actually manufacturer sites and get the latest idea of RAM performance and specs. Make sure, by downloading the motherboard manual, exactly the kind and speed of RAM that the motherboard takes. You always want to buy PAIRED RAM sets, all from the same manufacturer. So if you buy a set of Gig Memory (2 gigs) make sure they are paired so the timing is correct and does not cause you problems. I like the memory sticks that already come with a cooler to keep the chips cooled down. In case you buy four gigs of RAM, you will need two pairs of 2x1Gig.
3). I hate to say it, but I would stick with XP Professional for an O/S and forget Vista. Just look at how many people have tried Vista and hate it. It sucks when it comes to playing music, all kinds of DRM management that prevents you from copying or playing your music. Stick with XP Pro, which can only access two cores not four and only about 3.5 Gigs oout of 4. This is the drawback. Only Vista will access more than two cores on a processor and more than 3.5 Gigs of RAM. So you have to decide for yourself which is going to work. Just realize that Vista has problems, despite the ability to access more RAM and more processors.
4). Buy the best PCIe graphics card you can afford. nVidia has problems with their higher end cards, which is little known except to those who have had the problems. I would stick with ATI cards. You only need one PCIe express, card so SLI boards are a waste of time, if your dad is just going to use the computer to access his email and write simple documents. If you are going to build this computer for yourself and you want to play games, then you will need to consider if you want more than one graphics card.
Buy the biggest hard disk you can afford. I prefer Western Digital or Maxtor, Seagate is more expensive. I would go with at least 2-500 Sata III disks, giving you 1 teribyte of hard disk. Use the Primary Hard disk for the operating sytsem only and the secondary hard disk to install all the other software on. I would not have more than one parition on each hard disk, a primary partition and not get into making mutliple partitions on a hard disk.
5). Decide on your CD/DVD burner. I would choose Pioneer as my first choice, stay away from SONY which has proprietary problems. SAMSUNG is also good and nLite is also good.
6). Spend $10 and get a 3-1/2" floppy drive. Most people will tell you its a waste, but there are times when you DO need to have a floppy drive. It's only $10, you can afford that!
7). I would just get a cheap set of speakers to begin with - maybe the $29 - $39 range and see how much sound you really need to have.
8). I like and have used ergonomic keyboards, Microsoft has a really nice one for $65, including mouse, this is the ergonomic keyboard 4000 series. You get the mouse with the keyboard.
9). I would consider a minimum 19" LCD but go for a 22" if you can afford it.
10). Printer - Go for an All in One type. I prefer EPSON photo printers myself, but its just a matter of choice and money.
Ok, so there ya go.
My computer keeps shutting down! help?
Q. my computer for the past few days has been shutting down randomly, usually shortly after i turn it on. it's a compaq, windows vista, not sure if that helps but i thought i'd add the info. i checked and everything is plugged in good. i used the restoration CDs and restored the whole computer so it's back to the factory setting but it still shuts down shortly after it's turned on. it also won't restart, it'll just shut down and i'll have to manually turn it back on. please help? what could be wrong?
Answer
The most common reasons for a computer to shut down is:
...1. The power cord is frayed. When it heats it will "cause and open circuit" and shut the computer off until the cord cools down. Make sure the plug is properly connected to the wall and computer.
...2. The CPU is overheating. Either the gel between CPU and heat sink boiled away or the CPU itself is getting extremely hot caused by overclocking or sections of it have burned. OR the heat sink itself is not large enough to handle the heat produced by the CPU, (Usually caused by overclocking the processor). If this is a laptop then you may have to get another computer. You can replace the CPU in a desktop but I'd recommend buying a new computer.
...3. The computer itself is too close to a wall or warm area where it cannot get good air circulation. I like to elevate my laptop to allow the fans underneath to get a good cool air supply. I actually put water bottle caps under each foot to raise the laptop. I also set my tower (desktop) in a place where the fans can get plenty of air. Keep the tower about 6 in. to 12 in from any wall or cabinet.
...4. The internal fan(s) burned out. Hold your hand next to the fans to see if you can feel air circulation. Give the fans a shot of "canned air" to clean them. If you see dust fly everywhere then try to open the case and spray the dust out. If you do not feel the fan(s) turning then replace them.
...5 The Power Supply ("brick") is burned. If you have a laptop, this is an easy one. Pick it up when the computer shuts down. If it is too hot to handle then the brick is burned out and must be replaced. A desktop will have a power supply fan. If it is not running then the supply will get hot and automatically turn the computer off. Replace the PSU.
...6. A RAM memory module shorted out. The shorted out stick will cause the machine to overheat shutting it down. Take out one memory stick at a time and see if the computer will run considerably longer. The stick you took out is burned.
...7 The hard drive has shorted out. This will cause the machine to shut down also. You will know if the drive is going because it will sound louder than normal. You will also know if it is shorting out by touching it. It should be hot, but not hot enough to hold onto. If it is too hot to handle then you have found your problem. Replace it.
...8. The motherboard is burned out. Time to get a new computer.
...9. Unlikely but possible: you got a virus. If the machine allows you to and you have an anti-virus program, then run a full computer scan to see if you did pick up any viruses.
.......These are the main reasons for a computer to shut down. If you follow the 9 steps in order then you should be able to find the reason why your computer is shutting down randomly. If not then it may be time to replace it.
The most common reasons for a computer to shut down is:
...1. The power cord is frayed. When it heats it will "cause and open circuit" and shut the computer off until the cord cools down. Make sure the plug is properly connected to the wall and computer.
...2. The CPU is overheating. Either the gel between CPU and heat sink boiled away or the CPU itself is getting extremely hot caused by overclocking or sections of it have burned. OR the heat sink itself is not large enough to handle the heat produced by the CPU, (Usually caused by overclocking the processor). If this is a laptop then you may have to get another computer. You can replace the CPU in a desktop but I'd recommend buying a new computer.
...3. The computer itself is too close to a wall or warm area where it cannot get good air circulation. I like to elevate my laptop to allow the fans underneath to get a good cool air supply. I actually put water bottle caps under each foot to raise the laptop. I also set my tower (desktop) in a place where the fans can get plenty of air. Keep the tower about 6 in. to 12 in from any wall or cabinet.
...4. The internal fan(s) burned out. Hold your hand next to the fans to see if you can feel air circulation. Give the fans a shot of "canned air" to clean them. If you see dust fly everywhere then try to open the case and spray the dust out. If you do not feel the fan(s) turning then replace them.
...5 The Power Supply ("brick") is burned. If you have a laptop, this is an easy one. Pick it up when the computer shuts down. If it is too hot to handle then the brick is burned out and must be replaced. A desktop will have a power supply fan. If it is not running then the supply will get hot and automatically turn the computer off. Replace the PSU.
...6. A RAM memory module shorted out. The shorted out stick will cause the machine to overheat shutting it down. Take out one memory stick at a time and see if the computer will run considerably longer. The stick you took out is burned.
...7 The hard drive has shorted out. This will cause the machine to shut down also. You will know if the drive is going because it will sound louder than normal. You will also know if it is shorting out by touching it. It should be hot, but not hot enough to hold onto. If it is too hot to handle then you have found your problem. Replace it.
...8. The motherboard is burned out. Time to get a new computer.
...9. Unlikely but possible: you got a virus. If the machine allows you to and you have an anti-virus program, then run a full computer scan to see if you did pick up any viruses.
.......These are the main reasons for a computer to shut down. If you follow the 9 steps in order then you should be able to find the reason why your computer is shutting down randomly. If not then it may be time to replace it.
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