Sorta mentioned it, but there's a tradition I guess so: CAS!

What's Hot
MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
Computer Acquisition Syndrome! 

During the last month I have acquired two new(*) computers.

HTPC in the living room sitting next to an xbox which makes so much more noise it's almost ammusing

image
Intel G850 Processor
Gigabyte H77N-Wifi Motherboard
64gb SSD from Sandisk (seriously fast and seriously cheap, check it out if you've for a SATA computer you want faster!)
2gb 1333 DDR3 RAM (was 4 but secondhand RAM isn't as reliable as you'd hope!)
Fractal Design Node 4 case
Corsair 420W Modular PSU

image

If you're wanting a small-ish computer for internetting, movie watching and emails then I seriously recommend a set-up like this all in was less than £300 monies I think, and while I got the chip second hand, and it's far from top of the line, it's been capable of running a couple of video bench marks albeit at speeds that don't translate to awesome game play - but plenty for film watching.

Cables could have done with being a little longer so they could be more neatly routed away into the very nicely made frame - but half of that issue was down to the PSU cables being the length they are, so I'll rectify this when I get some time/money

Aaand a gaming PC

image

Intel i7 3770k CPU - top end of the 1155 consumer CPUs running at 3900Mhz with 4 cores and Hyperthreading - virualisation hoooo!
Asus P8Z77 - M Pro - mATX motherboard for overclocking features
Corsair 8GB 1866Mhz DDR3 - by chance colour coordinated with the motherboard
XFX 7950 3GB GPU. - Farcry 3 Blood Dragon at 1080p on Ultra with 4x AA and still runs great - plus these cards are supposed to overclock REALLY well.
Corsair 620W Modular PSU
Asus V247H 24" LED Monitor

Now, currently it's in an old tower case I had laying around. there's a LOT of wasted space, so I really want to try making a case that's much smaller and neater... and with fans - this case has no working fans left... the bearings had ground down to nothingness and they wont even turn... so in order to keep things cool the side is off and a 12" desk fan is assisting.

All but the RAM arrived last week on Friday - in three separate deliveries which added up to

image
(edited out the Sofa That Time Forgot... )
And then on Tuesday (just 5 days after the delivery estimate!)
image
...

I've mentioned on other threads that I had "issues" with the gigabyte board - still recommend it if you're building a small livingroom PC. mITX is TINY! And this thing has so may connections it's fantastic... if however you see a P8Z77 - M Pro board on ebay for £35 you really should go for it and wont be dissapointed at all! (I wasn't!)

Then among all the CAS there was BAS (Book Acquisition Syndrome) so now my Nerd Learning Library looks more like this

image


(*)One has a second hand cheapie CPU and RAM
0reaction image LOL 1reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom

Comments

  • bertiebertie Frets: 13564
    ITIL foundation........... god that brings back memories.............
    just because you don't, doesn't mean you can't
     just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    Seen it as a requirement for an IT support job - so pointless as it probably is I thought I'd get it and read it at least
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • bertiebertie Frets: 13564
    edited August 2013
    for a support job ?  yes it probably is.   Its all about service managment  -  IT support 'operatives'  tend to ignore all things ITIL  :D
    just because you don't, doesn't mean you can't
     just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    I've had an IT Training sales rep tell me it's not worth doing (even though it was something they could sell me!), but then as I say, some employers think it important...
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    More Computer Acquisition Syndrome.

    Bought a new case this week - then spent more than two hours moving my motherboard and components into it - two hours?! How?! It's funny you should ask actually...
    Extreme cable management!
    Forever frustrated by cases without options for cable management I've never really bothered before, so with this one I wanted to make it look awesome! And I rather think I did. Only one cable isn't as nice as I want - and that's because it's got to past the PSU to get to where it's going, so a little stickier outier than I's like - though not exactly offensively so.

    Case is one of these:
    image
    Still need to change the CPU fan before I'm happy photographing it yet though (nasty stock Intel cooler)

    I also bought some of these
    image Which are pretty damned awesome at being surround sound (not brilliant for stereo music...) and even the box is a minor work of art in its construction

    Now I'm going to begin ripping my entire CD collection into FLAC so might be busy... for days.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Looks really cool ............now  what does it do?
    www.maltingsaudio.co.uk
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    Well the case has whole sides... so it keeps things out... and has working fans so keeps the innards cooler without having to point a 12" floor fan into the case, which in turn frees up more space next to my computer. Also has usb and headphone ports at the front so I don't have to scrabble around at the back for stuff.

    The headphones are 7.1 surround sound ones with a squillion drivers in each side which do a very good job of make sound sound like it's coming from a specific direction - and even though the onboard sound is supposedly not good for driving them it's doing a pretty good job on Battlefield 3. They also have a microphone though apparently I'm quiet on it, was adjusting levels for ages before I realised that they isolate from the sound of the world so much I was alertnating between shouting and whispering so I have to adjust my own levels I think
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    Hmm... possibly a faulty fan...

    By possibly I mean intermittently being noisy and registering on CPUID HWMonitor as running at 56784RPM Which I'd have thought would make the case move around the room
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6378
    http://www.quietpc.co.uk ; -  this is a good place for silent fans & coolers ;)

    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

    Feedback
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    Found that QuietPC are often quite expensive and rarely seem to have stock of the stuff that looks any good
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Emp_FabEmp_Fab Frets: 24209
    How the hell haven't you got an IT job yet ?  We've got blokes with us on £25k and a car who could barely be trusted to find the 'on' button without ringing someone for support.
    Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
    Also chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    You know, I got worried with the two PCs I built these last couple of months...

    The HTPC one had "issues" with the motherboard. Now, it turned out to be a BIOS issue - which none of the internet had a suggestion about, not even on the Gigabyte tech support pages. Once it had turned itself on and off a few times it realised that the BIOS was smegged and corrected itself. But the fact that I couldn't seem to diagnose the problem (was happening on two different motherboards...)... was happening with two different PSUs - even tried different ram. Got me worried that perhaps my fault finding part of my brain just didn't work.

    Then there was an internet issue with the HTPC as well. Installed windows, installed all the motherboard drivers... right... go. Hmm the internet seems broken. Internet Explorer rejected ANY security certificate - which meant that as Google Chrome downloads from a secure server it cancelled the installer as soon as it got going. I went through every single security option. I turned the firewall off, put the security settings on IE to off, even went through the registry with a fine tooth comb. Used another PC to get online and it turns out that SOMETIMES IE9 when it appears as an automatic install as part of a windows installation or update it can be totally unusable - solution uninstall IE9. Now IE9 installed as part of Windows 7, and I was on the phone with an IT type friend who had been one of a two man team who deployed Win7 on over 1000 machines and he only had suggestions of stuff I'd just done and had never encountered the issue I had.

    Issue 3 took so much less time to sort - internet connection settings kept changing to "connect through proxy" at first I thought "virus!" but virus checker found nothing... more generic malware? Well it wasn't putting an address for a proxy server so if it was to steal my data then the coder was a bit crap. Malware checker found nothing. But it happened on start up so I went to msconfig and found a program with no corporation listed in its details... hmmm... google time! Turns out it's a malware program (well done AdAware for missing that) which does indeed screw with your connection settings. 

    First two problems were really frustrating, all normal logic just didn't seem to apply, experts had no clue (was told the PSU was the cuplrit in the motherboard issue so many times I got tired of explaining that it was fine with a different board and a brand new PSU had the exact same issue). Thankfully the second issue had been encountered by enough others that it was easy to find a solution when I realised what the problem must be (and the frustration of telling a friend 4 times it's not UAC because it's not turn on...)... so the third problem reaffirmed that thinking things through logically and being methodical does work in normal situations.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6378
    Myranda said:
    ... so the third problem reaffirmed that thinking things through logically and being methodical does work in ALL situations.
    Fixed it for you.

    Otherwise we're back to Voodoo and "Hit it wiv a 'ammer"
    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

    Feedback
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    It didn't help with the motherboards - both of which were fixed by letting them turn on and off for enough times to realise they were running crap BIOSes (though clearly had some ability to fix themselves - they were turning themselves off before the post so I couldn't change settings myself)... methodical and logical work had nothing to offer on that one...
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • guitargeek62guitargeek62 Frets: 4066
    edited September 2013
    Emp_Fab said:
    How the hell haven't you got an IT job yet ?  We've got blokes with us on £25k and a car who could barely be trusted to find the 'on' button without ringing someone for support.

    Too true! I've just done a 1-year internship for internal support at level-1/2, it's a simple enough job if you have a bit of IT knowledge and a good helping of common sense (& customer service skills). There were some guys there though that really were just filling seats, frakkin useless at the best of times!

    FWIW, I got sent on an ITIL v3 foundation course in January - I found it pretty useful given that the company I'm with* are very much structured around it's framework. It's not that important if you've already worked in IT, or if you don't intend on moving into Service Management etc at some point. Still, like you say, a lot of employers & agencies seem to expect it now so what's the harm in adding it to your CV? It opens up some good courses at the next level of ITIL too which could be more useful in future to you.


    *It went well. I'm going back there as a project manager in May after my final year exams are done & dusted! :D
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • MyrandaMyranda Frets: 2940
    I now have enough hardware that there's very little generic stuff* I can't learn - can manage about a dozen virtual machines before starting to worry about processor usage and if just keep on throwing virtual machines on I don't know what my limit is at the moment... and unlike my previous set up it wont fall over with just one virtual machine running

    Even got a usb wireless dongle capable of packet injection coming in the week... so is just a case of slogging away with learning while saving for exams so I can have certificates now. Have been told the CompTIA ones are a bit pointless - but on the other hand, they seem like reasonable practise, are cheap and you don't have to re-do them every now and then...

    *Still need to pick up a Cisco switch/router so will be trawling the ebay sea for cheap ones

    If I don't end up with a shiny new IT job out of this effort then IT recruiters suck... ;)
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
Sign In or Register to comment.