Move to Florida finished

Hey Gang,

Just finished the move to Fla, and everything is still in boxes ( except my computer ), but the most important thing...well one of...I have my ISP up and running

Congrats on a safe move. *thumbs-up*

MAX!!!!

I'm so glad your back man, and congratulations on the move! So how you liking the new digs? Pretty sweet? Hopefully it's not too hot down there. TFN is rolling along nicely, you need to sign up for the BETA testing that starts on Halloween!!

Welcome back brother.

Nice to see you back, man.

Welcome back dude and have fun unpacking all your boxes

Welcome back, brother!

Hey all, yeah Z the new digs are nice...photos below I'll sign up for the TFN testing later today, or tomorrow...have to run and get new tag for the car, new Drivers license etc, etc so a busy day ahead

New residence...damn sunshine...a lot for a vamp to handle, good thing I'm an elder haha




Garage full of Boxes




New Computer room AKA "The Man Cave"

Man those pictures are GREAT!! Beautiful home, and you're growing your own Palm tree, that's freakin awesome!!!

Your 2 car garage is huge! And I like the Kompressor, that's sweet. Still got the N. Carolina plates too lol.

Nice man cave too, I especially love the webpage you had up when you took the picture, lol. We both have Fallout 3/Oblivion sitting on our shelves. And I noticed you have a notebook that says VTM Bloodlines hand written, is that a printed out manual for the game or something? Maybe a walkthrough?

Maximus first picture reminded me of those "The Sims" houses

That VTM Bloodlines hand printed notebook is full of the 'original' PDF game manual printed out, Camarilla edition manual also printed out and various tips, strategies, inane and innocuous memorabilia of things related to VTM and Bloodlines and of course a few ahem...cheat codes as well Pretty much everything a Bloodlines player ( or myself ) needs in one single place The Purple notebook is virtually the same stuff for Oblivion, plus maps and the rather LARGE book next to that is for F03 What you don't see, is to the right in the lower right book case...that is packed FULL of other games that don't get nearly the attention of the what I call the BIG 3, Oblivion, F03, and Bloodlines which is what I spend most of my time playing.

The Sims houses...LOL Philosopher...your aren't falling that far from the mark! The whole community we're in has about 4-5-6 different home models in it, randomly placed, but still...everything looks pretty much the same, except for the paint colors. I can live with that, as the inside will be completely different and totally ours

Arg...forgot to add, drove all the way to the Tag office...closed due to Columbus day! Another trip is necessary

We are SOOO similiar in styles, as those are my Big 3 as well, FO3, Oblivion, and Bloodlines. I don't play Oblivion anymore because of the choppiness outdoors, it drives me nuts, but FO3 and Bloodlines runs really smooth with my latest system, no hiccups. Thats awesome that you have made your own books for those games, I should do something like that. I REALLY need to get on the ball with the TFN Game Manual, I haven't even started it yet, ACK!

Ya know, he's right it does look like a Sims House, a very nice Sims House. Sorry to hear about your trip to the BMV, stupid Columbus Day, I had no idea it was today.

Welcome back, Max

or should I say Andrei? The garage door, and the main entrance on the left of it reminded me of 609

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Awsome. What part of Florida? I lived in Clearwater near Tampa for about six months.

Welcome back!

Childe of Malkav wrote:

Welcome back, Max

or should I say Andrei? The garage door, and the main entrance on the left of it reminded me of 609

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Thanks Childe

Rudest wrote:

Awsome. What part of Florida? I lived in Clearwater near Tampa for about six months.

Welcome back!

Spring Hill area

Cool. Cool. I miss Florida, so much to do. But. I've grown kinda reclusive since then anyhow lol.

Your comp looks bad ass. Mine is held together by duct tape.

Rudest wrote:

Cool. Cool. I miss Florida, so much to do. But. I've grown kinda reclusive since then anyhow lol.

Your comp looks bad ass. Mine is held together by duct tape.

Thanks! I'm like Z, I've been making my own computers for over 10 years, the last one I bought way back then cost me over $2500.00 and it was obsolete within 6 months. So then I started figuring out how to build and upgrade my own machines...which sure beats paying the outlandish prices and getting the generally inferior quality parts that you get when buying commercial PC's.

Usually I can put together a new build, for about 60% of what a comparable web, or store bought machine would cost me, and usually have better quality components inside the machine when I'm done

Maximus1 wrote:

Usually I can put together a new build, for about 60% of what a comparable web, or store bought machine would cost me, and usually have better quality components inside the machine when I'm done

You must teach us this forbidden art, ancient one

Be careful, or Gateway and Dell will order a hit on you.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Maximus1 wrote:

Usually I can put together a new build, for about 60% of what a comparable web, or store bought machine would cost me, and usually have better quality components inside the machine when I'm done

You must teach us this forbidden art, ancient one

Hmmm...that would take up a whole thread, and I'd have to post about 30-40 pictures to illustrate what I was talking about, otherwise I would Truthfully putting a PC together isn't really all that difficult Philosopher, except perhaps for the first time doing so, after that it's not much more than doing certain steps and paying attention to detail. Z could teach you how as well, but short of writing up a detailed walk-through, you'd have to be with either of us for some hands on experience. It usually takes about 2-3 hours ( after the first one ), to put a new machine together.

The first thing you have to do is decide what "type" of computer you want to build, and how MUCH you want to spend. Example, a PC used for mostly office work doesn't need the same types of components inside as a gaming Rig. There is no need for high end graphics GPU's, no need for high end PS's ( power supplies ), no need for TONS of Ram etc, etc..hence such a PC will be cheaper to build than a gaming rig.

When I build a PC for myself since I'm a gamer, I start with picking out my mobo ( motherboard ) and CPU. I read reviews on the capabilities of the different Mobo / CPU's that I am interested in and then pick the "Best Bang" for the buck that is highly rated. I usually use ASUS mobo's as I have yet to have one just "die" on me, but sometimes I may use another mobo, under certain circumstances. CPU's...AMD usually more Bang for the Buck, but Intel if you can afford the comparable or better Intel processor over AMD can be a bit more stable...though that probably isn't quite as true as in the past. As in most things CPU and Mobo choices is mostly a matter of personal tastes, and stuff you've had good luck with using in the past.

Next step, pick out how much SPACE you want your PC to have ( Hard-Drive ), probably a bare minimum of 250 gigs, 7200 RPM, more if you have free cash lying around to burn...you can NEVER have enough disc space LOL. If your REALLY flowing in the cash, then go for a newer solid state drive, as the transfer, write, seek rates are insane compared to a mechanical drives, removing much of the PC's bottleneck for throughput. Plus another advantage of these newer drives is they generate MUCH less heat than traditional hard-drives and have no moving parts to fail.

Ram is next...whatever the highest speed ram that you can afford to get, that works with the Mobo you've picked out. Also with Ram, MORE is better If your using XP 2 gigs is what I'd use, Vista ( ack...Vista sucks ), 4 gigs, and with Win7 I'd use 4 gigs or MORE ram...6-8 gigs better.

Next...choose a Graphics card...not much sense trying to go cheap here on the ram, get a card with at least 1 gig of ram, your games will run TONS smoother, due to more textures being able to load and not switch out from virtual memory quite so often...less wear on your hard-drive this way as well. If using Nvidia, as I am prone to do ( nothing at all wrong with choosing ATI ), get a dual slot card that exhausts heat right out the back of your PC instead of dumping all that heat from the GPU right back inside your comp case. Oblivion used to run like garbage on my last build, and when I installed a newer card with 1 gig of ram on it, my stuttering while running around outside became almost nil...still had "some", as it's the engine's fault, but it became FAR less with the 1gig card. My last card had 512 meg, and I couldn't believe the difference the extra Ram made!

Power Supply, get one rated for at least 100 watts, over your full expected load of your completed PC when running something intensive like a high end game. I prefer Corsair Power supplies, but that's just me

Heat is usually what kills most PC's ( besides virus's and power spikes ), so pick a case that will have good ventilation and that you can mount 120mm case fans that move a LOT of air, so that everything inside your PC runs as cool as possible. Nothing will cause more issues for you then your components getting too hot. Speaking of getting too hot...make sure to get a good quality "after-market" CPU cooler, as the stock ones that come with retail CPU's are usually "barely"adequate at best, or outright junk at cooling down a PC's cpu. If your building a liquid cooled PC ( not recommended for a first build ), then the equation changes as you can drastically lower PC temps this way.

Probably need a sound card as well, as on-board ( motherboard ) sound ( though better than in the past ) isn't usually as good as something like a high end sound blaster card, or comparable sound card.

Once your get your machine assembled, you'll power up and then install your OS, then your Mobo drivers ( come with your mobo on a CD usually ), and then any other software that might have come with any of your other parts ( usually drivers of some sort, like a sound card driver for instance )

Here are some links with "how-to-guides" to get you started, and if you should choose to build yourself a PC, you can do worse than to order parts through the supplier I usually use found here:

http://www.newegg.com/


Guides:

http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/

http://www.buildeasypc.com/

http://build-computer.com/


Nothing is better for personal satisfaction as a gamer, than firing up that new HOT game you just bought, on the machine you just built yourself, hope you give it a try sometime Philosopher

PGM1961 wrote:

Be careful, or Gateway and Dell will order a hit on you.

Maybe

Nice write up Max, on the computer building stuff... I read the whole thing. I agree with everything Max is saying as he obviously knows his stuff. Really building your own rig comes down compatability while ordering the parts. Doing the research to make sure that all of the parts your picking out are compatible with each other, and it all starts with the motherboard.

Also each motherboard chipset (front bridge) will be designed for ATI or Nvidia, so do yourself a favor and get the corresponding video card for that chipset. What I mean is, if you have a motherboard designed for Nvidia, make sure to buy an Nvidia graphics card. I made this mistake about a year ago, I bought a motherboard (Asus I think) that had an ATI front bridge, and put my Nvidia graphics card in it, and it seemed to run fine.... sometimes. Started having strange video issues that couldn't be explained. The manufacturer said it was compatible, but I found out it was only "kind've" compatible. I took the motherboard back and got the same model but with a Nvidia chipset and everything ran perfect.

Yikes, I feel totally remiss for not mentioning such! Zer0 is totally right or course, you have to pick your graphics card based on what the mobo was designed to use when it was manufactured. Sigh...when you've done something a few dozen times, you just automatically buy the right things and components without thinking about such ...you just make sure the stuff your buying is "made" to be compatible before you purchase anything, it's just a "no-brainer"

In fact, if you don't want to be bothered with having to try and figure out your PC's load and power supply needs ( the total of all electrical power being used by ALL parts at any given moment ), just install at least a good quality 600 watt minimum power suppy, and if you don't do any SLI with 2 vid cards and use just a single card you'll probably be just fine IF your going to SLI ( 2 vid cards linked for more performance ) then I'd go with a 750 watt or more PS, as your power needs will increase. This is the PS that I am using in my current machine. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

I personally don't SLI, it just generates more heat, and with the higher end vid cards, with more than 1 gig of ram, isn't really necessary unless you want ALL the bells and whistles turned full on, with your games and want to get that extra few frames per second. Plus it's more expensive...you have to have an identical 2nd vid card to link together with the 1st, effectively doubling your GPU costs, and if your on a budget...this can be an issue IF money is no object, and you don't really care about the extra heat...then by all means build an SLI rig.

Don't let all the cables coming out of the PS freak you out, if you've never seen such before. Each cable has a function, connecting to a particular component inside your rig. Example, one cable with the 20+4 connector is your main power that plugs into the motherboard itself. Then you have cables that plug into "other" components, if you follow the guides steps, that I linked, it becomes fairly straight forwards Tie all the cables neatly together with plastic cable ties, when your done "plugging in" everything to keep the inside of your PC case clean, unobstructed and with good internal airflow.

A final note on PS's...don't go cheap here...think of it as the gas that powers an engine in a car...use cheap gas, you start getting knocks and pings and poor acceleration issues. Same is true with a PC's PS unit...use a cheap one and you'll be prone to getting irregular power being supplied to your components...and you'll have "issues" because of this, or your PS will just outright fail on you at some point due to it being "cheap" and trying to provide power to all your components, and maybe only "barely" being able to do so, gets stressed...and Kaput...you have a dead PS and a dead PC

If you follow all of the above Philosopher, you should have your new PC up and running in no time


I bet that vid issue you had was really driving you nuts Z, until you narrowed down the cause