PC Building Guide and Discussion #13

[SniperHF]

I've done the power removal, have not done battery removal, so I'll give that a shot tonight.

I know that I'll never use that USB C port again.

Also FYI do yank power before removing the CMOS battery. You will lose all your motherboard settings and such so write them down if you customized anything.

 

[God King Fudge]

This issue just survived a full, fresh WIN10 install. Gonna pull the battery tonight, but I'm guessing the MOBO needs to be RMA. Just got the thing at Christmas time.

 

[SPV]

I'm so clueless now about tech; I just found this deal on my work website & have been considering getting a decent computer for home. I have the major console games already, just looking to play a few games with mods; like Skyrim, Planet Coaster, and probably a few others. Is this a pretty decent rig? And can I hook it up to my 4K TV, or do I need a monitor.

Alienware Aurora
9th gen core i5 9400
16 GB hyperX DDR4
GeForce GTX 1660 6GB

 

[Commander Clueless]

I'm so clueless now about tech; I just found this deal on my work website & have been considering getting a decent computer for home. I have the major console games already, just looking to play a few games with mods; like Skyrim, Planet Coaster, and probably a few others. Is this a pretty decent rig? And can I hook it up to my 4K TV, or do I need a monitor.

Alienware Aurora
9th gen core i5 9400
16 GB hyperX DDR4
GeForce GTX 1660 6GB

Good budget build. Should be able to run your games well.

You can hook up to your 4K TV absolutely, but don't expect to run the games in 4K with that rig (takes a ton of horsepower). You may have to mess with the settings a bit, but I recommend running games at 1080p full screen. Your TV should be able to upscale it fairly well, and it should look fine from couch distance. I do this sometimes when I swap my PC over to my TV.

 

[SPV]

Good budget build. Should be able to run your games well.

You can hook up to your 4K TV absolutely, but don't expect to run the games in 4K with that rig (takes a ton of horsepower). You may have to mess with the settings a bit, but I recommend running games at 1080p full screen. Your TV should be able to upscale it fairly well, and it should look fine from couch distance. I do this sometimes when I swap my PC over to my TV.

Thank you!

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

What do you guys think for a blackout design?

System Builder

 

[Bruins4Lifer]

What do you guys think for a blackout design?

System Builder

Maybe a bit much for a mobo just to avoid RGB, but it looks pretty good.
I'd get DDR4-3600 with CL16 instead of CL18. If the Ripjaws V fit under the NH-D15 get those, if not maybe another kind that has lower clearance.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Maybe a bit much for a mobo just to avoid RGB, but it looks pretty good.
I'd get DDR4-3600 with CL16 instead of CL18. If the Ripjaws V fit under the NH-D15 get those, if not maybe another kind that has lower clearance.

I also chose it because apparently compared to other MSI boards, it cools very well and has a pretty large feature list. Plus, it has a LED debugger, and god I love those so much.

Do you mean these ones?

G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory

 

[Bruins4Lifer]

I also chose it because apparently compared to other MSI boards, it cools very well and has a pretty large feature list. Plus, it has a LED debugger, and god I love those so much.

Do you mean these ones?

G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory

yep, those are the ones. Not sure little RAM clearance you get with the NH-D15, but I'd confirm first before ordering. pcpartpicker doesn't give clearance warnings for the big air coolers that overhang the memory slots.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

yep, those are the ones. Not sure little RAM clearance you get with the NH-D15, but I'd confirm first before ordering. pcpartpicker doesn't give clearance warnings for the big air coolers that overhang the memory slots.

I went back to the Corsair ones due to the RAM clearance. The thing about the D15 is that to fit the Ripjaw V sticks, I would either need to raise the fan by about 11mms or I would only go with 1 fan. I'll just take the shorter RAM.

 

[sigma six]

I believe the D15s is 99% of what a D15 is, except it accommodates taller RAM. I have the NEO sticks and they are pretty tall but there is lots of room.
Not sure if it comes in black though.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I believe the D15s is 99% of what a D15 is, except it accommodates taller RAM. I have the NEO sticks and they are pretty tall but there is lots of room.
Not sure if it comes in black though.

Isn't the S just a single fan instead of 2 to help with taller DIMMs?

Also, I think this might be the final build I'm going to be doing for it. Not sure if I should buy this now or wait for the summer when the 4th gen Ryzen comes out.

System Builder

 

[Bocephus86]

This wasn't own thread worthy so I figured I'd ask here: I have a plan to do some serious spring cleaning next week during some time off. I have been carrying around a few old laptops and an old desktop for years. My town has an electronics recycling place at the dump, but I'm also super paranoid as a person: If I remove the hard drives from each machine, there's nothing personal than could be recovered by someone, right? I'd rather not spend the time trying to boot all of them (some of which haven't been booted in years, and might not) to wipe them when I can remove the hard drive in a minute (especially since I don't care if anything breaks).

Thanks.

 

[SniperHF]

If I remove the hard drives from each machine, there's nothing personal than could be recovered by someone, right?

Removed HDDs and you're fine.

 

[Osprey]

This wasn't own thread worthy so I figured I'd ask here: I have a plan to do some serious spring cleaning next week during some time off. I have been carrying around a few old laptops and an old desktop for years. My town has an electronics recycling place at the dump, but I'm also super paranoid as a person: If I remove the hard drives from each machine, there's nothing personal than could be recovered by someone, right? I'd rather not spend the time trying to boot all of them (some of which haven't been booted in years, and might not) to wipe them when I can remove the hard drive in a minute (especially since I don't care if anything breaks).

Thanks.

An adapter like this is super handy for these types of situations:


(Image is a link)

Simply plug the USB cable into whatever working computer that you have now, connect the hard drive from the old/dead computer, pull any files off and then wipe. Note that there are some like this that don't have a power cord, but those will work only with SSD or laptop (2.5") drives. 3.5" desktop drives need more power than USB provides, so it's probably better to get one of these adapters with a power cord, unless you know that you'll never need it for a 3.5" desktop drive.

 

[Bocephus86]

Thank you both very much, makes me feel better about finally clearing out the old tech I've been moving around with me for far too long (though the desktop I built as a high school kid is going to be hard to toss out...). I do have one of those cables but unpowered for SSDs, actually was recommended here a few years ago when an ex fried her PC and wanted to try to recover 100s of pictures and some recipe files (and it did that job, I earned a lot of bonus points the day that worked).

Thankfully there are nothing on the drives that I would want to keep, maybe some old stuff from my desktop since it was from High School through college, but I started backing up important files to external drives about 10 years ago.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

So after 6 years I am finally upgrading some major components of my PC. Graphics card I am trying to keep for a little longer, but the CPU and motherboard are looking like they need to be updated.

This is my current build:
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
G.Skill Sniper Gaming Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2 GB WINDFORCE Video Card
SeaSonic M12II 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply

I am wanting to add this CPU to my build, but it seems like no motherboards are compatible:
Intel Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor

Not sure if there is something else I have to switch out for a compatible modern motherboard.

 

[SniperHF]

Not sure if there is something else I have to switch out for a compatible modern motherboard.

If you're using a compatibility checker, you'll need to input DDR 4 RAM.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Anyone have an idea of how expensive it would be to get an equivalent to a next gen console?

 

[ArGarBarGar]

If you're using a compatibility checker, you'll need to input DDR 4 RAM.

I'm not seeing that. Where would I find that?

Oh will I have to upgrade my RAM as well as I have DDR 3? The compatibility error is saying it requires a 288 pin connection and my current RAM has 240.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I'm not seeing that. Where would I find that?

Oh will I have to upgrade my RAM as well as I have DDR 3? The compatibility error is saying it requires a 288 pin connection and my current RAM has 240.

Yes, any motherboard compatible with the 9600K will require DDR4 RAM.

 

[SniperHF]

So after 6 years I am finally upgrading some major components of my PC. Graphics card I am trying to keep for a little longer, but the CPU and motherboard are looking like they need to be updated.

This is my current build:
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
G.Skill Sniper Gaming Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2 GB WINDFORCE Video Card
SeaSonic M12II 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply

I am wanting to add this CPU to my build, but it seems like no motherboards are compatible:
Intel Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor

Not sure if there is something else I have to switch out for a compatible modern motherboard.

Yeah you need a full new base if you're upgrading Board + CPU + RAM.

Also looking at your parts, I'd upgrade the video card before the rest of it. i5s are showing their limitations now but a 770 is pretty crusty at this point especially a 2gb version.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Yeah you need a full new base if you're upgrading Board + CPU + RAM.

Also looking at your parts, I'd upgrade the video card before the rest of it. i5s are showing their limitations now but a 770 is pretty crusty at this point especially a 2gb version.

The reasons I didn't look into a video card yet are because:

1. They are expensive
2. I have had no issue playing games at reasonable settings with that card, and considering I likely have to upgrade my CPU anyway, I would rather keep that card trucking along for a little while longer.

 

[Dick Sledge]

I got a new m.2 for my laptop today because I needed more space for games.

For the life of me I can't get this thing initialized or create a partition. I've tried multiple times in CMD. New Simple Volume is grayed out when I right click.

All I see is...

Disk 1
Unknown
476.94 GB
Not Initialized

Anyone that knows a fix it would be greatly appreciated. I've been googling and youtubing for a few hours and I can't get anywhere.

Edit: Now after a restart it's not showing me the disk space. It just shows

Disk 1
Unknown

Not Initialized

Edit 2: Now it's now showing up disk management at all. Still showing in the bios

 

[SniperHF]

I got a new m.2 for my laptop today because I needed more space for games.

Sounds defective TBH. I'd just return it.