PC Building Guide and Discussion #14

[flyingkiwi]

Last year during the first lockdown I built a new sff PC and brought over my old 1060 after a visit to my home country. All was going fine until one day it wouldn't display past BIOS, like I could boot into BIOS but anything else would just lose display signal. I assumed and got advice it was just my old 1060 finally giving up, so I meant to part out and sell everything else and just grab an Xbox Series S and gamepass (I'm broke in grad school now haha).

That was almost a year ago.

Tonight I'm going to try and reinstall Windows as a last ditch effort, and if that fails then open it up and re-seat all the parts etc. If that doesn't work I'll try and source another GPU to test with and see if I can find what the real problem is. If it really is the GPU then that's it for me with PC gaming for a long while I think. I just don't have the money.

EDIT: Windows reinstalled. So far so good!!

EDIT: Let's see if it'll survive restarting after updates.

 

[Commander Clueless]

Last year during the first lockdown I built a new sff factor PC and brought over my old 1060 after a visit to my home country. All was going fine until one day it wouldn't display past BIOS, like I could boot into BIOS but anything else would just lose display signal. I assumed and got advice it was just my old 1060 finally giving up, so I meant to part out and sell everything else and just grab an Xbox Series S and gamepass (I'm broke in grad school now haha).

That was almost a year ago.

Tonight I'm going to try and reinstall Windows as a last ditch effort, and if that fails then open it up and re-seat all the parts etc. If that doesn't work I'll try and source another GPU to test with and see if I can find what the real problem is. If it really is the GPU then that's it for me with PC gaming for a long while I think. I just don't have the money.

EDIT: Windows reinstalled. So far so good!!

EDIT: Let's see if it'll survive restarting after updates.

Any luck?

 

[flyingkiwi]

Any luck?

So far so good! Updates mostly done and it's alive. I was messing with Hackintosh on my last install so I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the problem rather than my graphics card. Still waiting for game downloads to finish to give it a real test.

 

[Osprey]

It's actually rare for graphics cards to die. Most of the time, they're just overheating and need maintenance (new fans, new thermal paste or new thermal pads) or the issue is really with another part of the system (ex. MB, RAM, PSU, OS). It sounds like you had the latter. Most people who talk about their graphics card "dying" could likely fix it and get it working again if they bothered to try. It's good that you put in the effort to get it working instead of giving up and selling off everything for parts.

 

[flyingkiwi]

It's actually rare for graphics cards to die. Most of the time, they're just overheating and need maintenance (new fans, new thermal paste or new thermal pads) or the issue is really with another part of the system (ex. MB, RAM, PSU, OS). It sounds like you had the latter. Most people who talk about their graphics card "dying" could likely fix it and get it working again if they bothered to try. It's good that you put in the effort to get it working instead of giving up and selling off everything for parts.

Yeah in the back of my mind I knew I had to test everything first, I'm glad to know it's still going. With this PC I had a power supply blow up (Corsair recall), and after transporting the card without its box I was probably too ready to accept another hardware problem.

I regret not doing it before my last trip home, I could have comfortably sold off my old 4690k based system that is still sitting happily in my childhood bedroom.

But now that I know everything works I'm kind of on the fence about selling it all anyway, while I can still get a decent return. Grab a Series S and pocket the rest of the money. But on the other hand, if my laptop goes south at least I have a backup machine, and I can't really afford a replacement to the spec I'd like.

I just wanna play NHL.

 

[God King Fudge]

So I've started monitoring the temps on my CPU and I've noticed that there's up to a 20 degree difference in what's reported in the built in reporting system and what I see in Speccy.

This was snapped during Control with max settings, max Ray Tracing and 144hz. Last night when I was looking at both, my Omen temp was showing 85 and my Speccy was showing like 62.

Which one should I believe here? If I'm following the Omen reporting, I feel like I need to add a fan or two. If Speccy is right, I'm not concerned at all.

 

[Osprey]

Don't use Speccy. It's way out of date and you don't want to use out-of-date programs because they can give inaccurate results on systems that post-date them. Most people currently use and recommend HWiNFO.

 

[Apex Predator]

I’ve always thought about getting a PC for gaming but don’t know if it’s worth spending money on. I don’t have as much time to play games like I use to. I would mainly use it to play sports games and RPG games like Skyrim, Fallout, Etc. Not sure if I should just stick with my PS5 for those or get a PC.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Man 1440p monitors are so damn expensive. I'm not willing to buy one of those no name Korean/chinese brands and all the name brands are like 4 hundos canadian

 

[flyingkiwi]

I’ve always thought about getting a PC for gaming but don’t know if it’s worth spending money on. I don’t have as much time to play games like I use to. I would mainly use it to play sports games and RPG games like Skyrim, Fallout, Etc. Not sure if I should just stick with my PS5 for those or get a PC.

The sensible answer is probably not to bother if you don't have too much time to put into it, unless you need a new computer anyway.

There aren't as many sports games on PC either (no NHL or MLB for example), and hacking and cheating tends to be a problem in those that are. And with all the price and supply issues going on, it's not exactly easy of even possible to buy or build an equal spec PC for the same price as a next gen console. Since you already have a PS5 I'm not sure what else you'd gain, unless you are interested in any of the Microsoft exclusives, and in that case an Xbox (either series) would probably do you fine.

What's keeping me on PC at the moment is that I love the process of building itself. If that's something you're interested in trying and money really isn't an issue, then I'd go for it.

 

[TJ21]

Anybody here swapped to Windows 11 and have any input? I'm up for the update, but based off everything I've read it seems to be a mixed bag, and might just hold off until the kinks are worked out. That being said if it's fairly stable as is, just wondering if there's any real reason to not upgrade. I'm focused more on the performance aspect rather than visuals, as the UI changes don't really bother me too much.

 

[guinness]

Anybody here swapped to Windows 11 and have any input? I'm up for the update, but based off everything I've read it seems to be a mixed bag, and might just hold off until the kinks are worked out. That being said if it's fairly stable as is, just wondering if there's any real reason to not upgrade. I'm focused more on the performance aspect rather than visuals, as the UI changes don't really bother me too much.

I have it on my officially unsupported laptop.

It's ok, weirdest thing to me, is MS borking some right click functionality, like on the taskbar or in Explorer. Some things I do like, such as cleaning up settings, and the start menu changes don't bother me, but I'm not a heavy start menu user, as I'll just type and search instead.

Otherwise, it's an OS, it does OS things. It's 10 with a bit more polish, but some of the hand holdy things are annoying at times, but I feel that MS always tries that with every new OS, which can be jarring as a long time user.

In terms of speed, it's fine and I haven't had many major issues with stability, although they have pushed out updates since I initially installed it too, and those have cleared up some of the issues I initially had.

Edit: if you're happy with current setup, don't necessarily update, but if want to tinker, deal with some new quirks, go ahead.

 

[flyingkiwi]

I just wanna give a shout out to my mum who at over 60, just disassembled her first PC with only me over the phone to guide her.

I'm gonna sell what's left of it. My 4690k + Z97 mobo + 16gb ram together, and the 550w fully modular PSU separately.
4TB in drives I'm keeping and converting to external storage as soon as I can get my hands on them, and the GPU is already in my PC here in France.

I did a (bad but I like it) custom Portal paint job on the case, I don't plan on using it again but I'm not sure if I should sell it or anyone would even buy it.

 

[The Kingslayer]

So...I want to take a stab at building a PC. Its pretty intimidating but with some free time for the next while I want to learn something new. I admit my understanding of computers is beginner level. The basic. Turn on. Shut off. CTRL+ALT+DEL etc.

I intend on purchasing a Lian Li mini snow white case as I intend to have an all white build with the cool lights that I see on these YouTube channels. Im not much of a PC gamer (Always console) but I want to be able to game with ease if I decide one day to do so. Im looking to spend $3000 CDN give or take. I will also need WIFI as my router is very far from my room and running an ethernet cable isn't an option so I assume the motherboard will need to have that or is that something I can add onto the board?

Any helpful links to purchase the items I need will be of great help as I go on this quest

 

[Mikeaveli]

So...I want to take a stab at building a PC. Its pretty intimidating but with some free time for the next while I want to learn something new. I admit my understanding of computers is beginner level. The basic. Turn on. Shut off. CTRL+ALT+DEL etc.

I intend on purchasing a Lian Li mini snow white case as I intend to have an all white build with the cool lights that I see on these YouTube channels. Im not much of a PC gamer (Always console) but I want to be able to game with ease if I decide one day to do so. Im looking to spend $3000 CDN give or take. I will also need WIFI as my router is very far from my room and running an ethernet cable isn't an option so I assume the motherboard will need to have that or is that something I can add onto the board?

Any helpful links to purchase the items I need will be of great help as I go on this quest

PC Part Picker is a great website to help you plan out your build. It will help you stay on budget and make sure your parts are compatible. As for Wifi, there are motherboards that come with it and there are also PCI-E cards you can install to get wifi if your board doesn't have it. You can use the filters on PC Part Picker to only list motherboards that have wifi if that's what you want.

 

[SniperHF]

My #1 tip for Wifi is to try and get a card (or board with an integrated Wifi) that comes with or allows for an antennae that can extend to at least the top of the case or even better the top of your desk. Your signal will thank you.

Basically you want something like this:

Not like this:

 

[Osprey]

So...I want to take a stab at building a PC. Its pretty intimidating but with some free time for the next while I want to learn something new. I admit my understanding of computers is beginner level. The basic. Turn on. Shut off. CTRL+ALT+DEL etc.

I intend on purchasing a Lian Li mini snow white case as I intend to have an all white build with the cool lights that I see on these YouTube channels. Im not much of a PC gamer (Always console) but I want to be able to game with ease if I decide one day to do so. Im looking to spend $3000 CDN give or take. I will also need WIFI as my router is very far from my room and running an ethernet cable isn't an option so I assume the motherboard will need to have that or is that something I can add onto the board?

Any helpful links to purchase the items I need will be of great help as I go on this quest

Right now, it's extremely hard to find a decent GPU (graphics card) at a decent price, and you don't need one if you don't plan on gaming any time soon, so I recommend that you go with integrated graphics (i.e. a CPU with graphics built into it, aka an APU). AMD has the best integrated graphics, so I suggest going the AMD route and buying the Ryzen 5 5600G. In the future, once you decide to really game and want a better GPU, the current stock and pricing issues will hopefully be gone and you'll be able to easily buy one and add it to your PC.

As for the motherboard, I have the ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (WiFi), which comes with the good kind of antenna that SniperHF recommended, as well as the RGB that you want, and I really like it. It's an all-black board, though. If you'd prefer a board to match your case better, you might consider the ASUS ROG Strix B550-A, instead, but it doesn't come with WiFi, so you'd have to buy a WiFi card and antenna (like this one) separately. Regardless of the motherboard that you go with, if you do go with integrated graphics, make sure that the motherboard has DisplayPort and HDMI outputs on the back panel (because you'll need one or the other to connect your monitor/TV to). Both of those that I named do.

If you go with either motherboard (particularly with an AMD compatible motherboard), you'll want DDR4 memory and I recommend that you buy a 32GB (2x16GB) kit (i.e. a set of two 16GB sticks). FYI, there are ones with white heatsinks and RGB (like these).

Although the 5600G comes with a heatsink and fan, you might want a white one with RGB to match your case and look pretty, either a tower cooler (like this one) or a liquid cooler (like this one).

It looks like the case that you want doesn't come with a power supply (PSU), so you'll need to buy one. FYI, there are white power supplies (like this one).

Finally, you'll need a hard drive and I recommend at least a 1TB NVMe M.2 one (like this one).

 

[Hall of Faber]

Looking for some help. Wanting to play Madden 08 for pc. Game was made for a Xbox 360 controller drivers. Using a Xbox one controller drivers the game doesn’t recognize the button layout. Is there any program to fix this?

 

[aleshemsky83]

Looking for some help. Wanting to play Madden 08 for pc. Game was made for a Xbox 360 controller drivers. Using a Xbox one controller drivers the game doesn’t recognize the button layout. Is there any program to fix this?

They have the almost same button layout. You mean it doesn't recognize the controller at all?

 

[Hall of Faber]

They have the almost same button layout. You mean it doesn't recognize the controller at all?

Yes. The native game recognizes a game pad but doesn’t know what it is because the controller wasn’t released yet. I need a 360 controller emulator or something. Finding a good wired 360 controller is tough.

 

[guinness]

Yes. The native game recognizes a game pad but doesn’t know what it is because the controller wasn’t released yet. I need a 360 controller emulator or something. Finding a good wired 360 controller is tough.

3rd party? I've got several for my RPi 3, and they're fine.

 

[Osprey]

Yes. The native game recognizes a game pad but doesn’t know what it is because the controller wasn’t released yet. I need a 360 controller emulator or something. Finding a good wired 360 controller is tough.

This is what you need:

Xbox 360 Controller Emulator

Sorry for not seeing your posts earlier.

 

[Hall of Faber]

Thanks guys. I changed the Xbox one controller registry to Xbox 360 and that did the trick. Computers are pretty cool.

 

[PK Cronin]

I assume you're going to have a difficult time finding anything over 72", that seems to be about the max standard size most companies make.

There are definitely some companies out there making larger stuff. For example here's one company local to me that does up to 12' desks with what are supposedly heavy duty supports. I don't have any experience with their products though.

Shop Executive Desks and Office Furniture in Custom Sizes and Styles, Unique to your Workspace. — Northern Spy

No wobble of any kind. Heavy duty steel legs and frame with a solid wood desk top (or at least as solid as you would want it).

I completed my new desk a few weeks back. Ended up going with the Karlby countertop, a 74" and 98" with a floating look similar to this one:

I still have cable management to do but it's functioning great so far. Right now I have a 3 monitor setup on one side with a single monitor setup on the other. Pretty easy to do as long as you have the space for a 98" countertop to fit in your vehicle.

 

[chicagoskycam]

Do you guys have any thoughts on good video/photo editing software based on cost and performance? Thanks.