Posts by Robert Rodriguez2

mellowtiger83 said:They’ve got three similar builds listed on Craigslist, roughly in this order: $333, $500, and $567.

I'd say maybe $1700 because of the case🙂. First impressions are everything—it's just pure marketing fluff.

Are all three of those setups coming with a full Peripheral set? I doubt it... an SSD alone could easily run up to 400-$150...

Joseph Allen71 said:And you have no idea. 🙂
After all the garbage I've dealt with over the last six months, bumping into you and the rest of this crew actually restored my faith in people. I can't even remember the last time I ran into someone willing to lend a hand without looking for a handout.
Thanks, everyone. Seriously.

So you actually doubted us 😬?

Joseph Allen71 said:Right now, money is tight. That extra seventy bucks felt like a massive deal to me, especially since I had to swap out both old drives for new ones.
I’ll give credit where it's due—the guy at Instar was actually pretty fair. He offered some better drives and power supplies for a bit more cash, but $600 was my absolute limit.
Honestly, everything worked out great in the end. A buddy of mine played Chess and basically messed with me because I didn't think to call him by his name, but after the new setup, he's hooking me up with a new rig featuring an i5 processor and an R7790 card, which is total overkill for what I need.
He bought it for his kid; the kid's been making enough lately to afford a beast, so that PC has just been gathering dust for about a year.
If you look closely, I'm a wealthy man, even if my wallet is completely empty. 🙂

you'll be able to play Chess in multiple tabs then :O 🤣

Joseph Allen71 said:Yeah, it's fine.
So you're saying I need a new drive and a full OS reinstall?

Based on what you're saying, yeah, you've got a problem. That big old hard drive is basically a dinosaur at this point.
If you don't need massive storage, just grab a 120GB SSD specifically for Windows and your main apps. It'll run for about $150

If you actually need space, just stick an old-school mechanical drive in there. Something under $133 1TB—it’s only a few bucks more than the 500GB ones.

mellowtiger83 said:Enough with the jokes. I just got a rig with the exact same symptoms as yours—it takes forever to boot, and even when it does, you have to wait five minutes before Windows actually works. I ran HD Tune; it didn't find any bad sectors or corruption, but the speed test is a disaster. It starts at 2MB/s, peaks at 70MB/s, and averages maybe 20-30MB/s. Basically, the drive is dead; you can actually hear the physical grinding inside.

Your diagnosis is probably right 90% of the time, but did you try booting from a different drive? You said you have two.

You can't just generalize like that. That's what diagnostics are for. Just because one PC acts this way doesn't mean it'll act like Joseph Allen71's.

Run some tests first, then draw a conclusion. 😬 🧐

I've dealt with PCs showing these exact symptoms where the issue was the motherboard, or the power supply... once, it was just some stupid antivirus software.

So, without diagnostics, 🕺

mellowtiger83 said:Hold up, you and Apple Trinitron besties now? Better watch that Trinitron before the screen starts acting up.

Grab yourself a Ryzen first, then go check out that link while wearing a sock on your head.🙂

just living 186 miles 🤔🤔

Joseph Allen71 said:I'd try some chemistry experiments with my son when he's having a good day, but my wife won't let me out of her sight anymore. 😳

Got it, will do.
I'll say hi to the wife when she gets back; her daughter just dragged her off for some girl talk over coffee.
And don't be a jerk—if you're coming to Washington, D.C. next time and don't hit me up, I'm coming to find you and pull your ears. 🙂

Haven't been around for a while, since April.☕
And don't think you're special enough for me to rush over there.😬
I'm just working constantly; days off are basically non-existent.😲

Joseph Allen71 said:Alright folks, thanks for the advice and for being willing to help an IT illiterate idiot like me.

As soon as this junk started acting up, I thought my best bet was just taking it to the local landfill. Thanks for showing me that sometimes I actually know what I'm talking about.

I'll just let this thing run until it dies; no sense throwing money at old scrap metal. Now that I've got a taste for it, I'm eyeing that other thread. If any of those rigs are still for sale after New Year's, I might just pull the trigger.
If not, expect me back here with another "help me" post. 🙈

*Yeah, Trinitron, that's directed at you. 😛

🐔
let me know when you decide to buy a new PC🙂

and say hi to the wife for me... haven't seen her in a century 🕺

Joseph Allen71 said:If I can scrape together maybe $500-$600, I’ll fix it. If not, I'll just let it run until it dies, then grab something like this or whatever after New Year's. Honestly, mentally I'm already committed to Intel. 😳
SSD could have waited for better days.

The power supply... it's an MS PRO 550W ATX P4 and it's about 5 or 6 years old. Don't kill me, I don't remember exactly when the warranty expired, but I dug through all my paperwork. Either way, if it starts screaming at me, I was planning to "sell" it to the local scrap yard.

Pre-built rigs are a hard "no" for me.
Better to build from parts. Most shops will throw in free shipping if you spend over $1000. Only reason I'd suggest an Intel PC right now is because their CPUs have integrated graphics, whereas those Ryzen chips don't.

mellowtiger83 said:Man, obviously there's gonna be questions about the GPU. We get the chip itself, but the speed gap between DDR3 and DDR5 is massive. Yours is basically 95% slower just because of the memory, even if it has a ridiculous amount of VRAM!🙂

For what he's doing, the card's memory doesn't matter at all, especially since he isn't gaming.
As long as it puts an image on the monitor, nothing else matters.

Listen, Joseph Allen71, regardless of whether you fix this or buy a new PC, you need an SSD. I picked one up about two months ago and it’s a game changer.

And getting three sticks of RAM is pointless. For your needs, don't bother with used gear when you can grab a decent new setup for that kind of money. 🙂

Obviously, we're talking web browsing, movies, music—that stuff. If you were gaming, which I don't think you are, it'd be a different story. 😛

Your current rig is perfectly fine for those tasks. The problem is you can't find new motherboards anymore, and buying used ones is just asking for trouble. It's throwing money away.

You might still find some new CPUs that fit your current RAM, so if you just swap the processor and the board, you can pretty much reuse everything else.

mellowtiger83 said:Look, the truth is the gt750ti is surprisingly fast. But you can push a gt1030 way further with overclocking—you can really crank those clocks up!

You aren't going to see any real benefits from overclocking a 1030, period.😉

Dennis Lopez11 said:Thanks for the help. I'm also curious about how much the GPU actually matters for photo editing. THX!👍

The GPU is in there because that Ryzen doesn't have integrated graphics, so you need one regardless. And if there's enough room in the budget for a card that can actually run some games, why wouldn't you? 😁

Dennis Lopez11 said:So, I need to build a PC. $1667If I really have to stretch it, maybe an extra $30 or so, but only if it’s mainly for photo editing.
Also, I'd want some advice on monitors (what should I pick up?), but that's going to be outside this $800 budget.
Thanks!

One Asrock AB350M PRO4, AM4, mATX.
One 450W 80+ Bronze power supply from EVGA.
One MS Panthera gaming case.
Just one stick of 8GB Crucial DDR4 2400 MT/s CL17.
One 1TB Dell Latitude hard drive.
One 120GB Kingston A400 SSD, 2.5", 7mm. About $35 at Walmart.
One AMD Ryzen 5 1400 AM4, 3.2GHz, boxed CPU.
One Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti D5, 4GB GDDR5.
Total: $1780

Either go with a weaker GPU and a beefier CPU, or vice versa. It’s like choosing between a heavy engine and a light chassis—you can't have both at full tilt.
One Asrock AB350M PRO4, AM4, mATX.
One 450W 80+ Bronze power supply from EVGA.
One MS Panthera gaming case.
Just one 8GB stick of Crucial DDR4 at 2400 MT/s CL17.
One 1TB Dell Latitude hard drive.
One 120GB Kingston A400 SSD, 2.5", 7mm. It’s about $35 at Walmart.
One AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (6 cores, 12 threads, 3.4 to 3.6GHz boost, 19MB cache, 65W) in the box, including the Wraith Spire 95W cooler.
MSI GeForce GTX 1050 OC. It's got 2GB of GDDR5, a 128-bit bus, and runs at 1404MHz/7008MHz via PCI-E 3.0 x16. Comes with DP, HDMI, and DVI-D. Uses a single Noctua fan Cooler in a double slot design. Sold at Walmart.
Total: $1813

Futura. 😉

I'm leaning toward the MSI Tomahawk, B350
https://www.amazon.com/product/example1

https://www.amazon.com/product/example2

At first glance, I don't see any difference besides the color between these two

edit: - different slots

Got this printer as a gift, now I just need to hunt down some toner

Does anyone know where I can grab some generic cartridges for this thing?

I'm not running a printing empire here—maybe a few pages a month tops.

Justin Johnson8 said:Hey there...
I'm looking to put together a gaming rig for about $833, though if things are looking a bit tight, I could probably stretch to $3,000. I don't need a monitor, mouse, or keyboard—honestly, I wouldn't mind just using an old case from a buddy if it gets the job done. I'm basically looking for the cheapest way to get up and running. I mostly play stuff like Grand Theft Auto V or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare; nothing crazy. I don't need everything cranked up to Ultra settings, I just want the games to run at least decent or slightly above average. Thanks, I'm out in Chicago...

1 x MSI H110M PRO-VD (S1151, DDR4, USB3.1, SATA III, DVI, VGA, Audio, LAN) mATX
1 x Intel Core i3-6100 Processor, Coffee Lake, S.1151
1 x Patriot Signature DDR4, 2400Mhz, 4GB, CL15
1 x Fortron Hexa+ 400W, 80+
1 x MS PHANTOM midi tower case
1 x Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 3.5"
1 x XFX RX 560 2GB
Total: $1028

futura
Don't bother looking any lower than this.

Michael Richardson36 said:Hey there.

I need some tech advice.
I'm looking for a new office PC with Windows. It’ll mostly run Microsoft Office (365) and some basic apps that my current dinosaur of a computer struggles with, but I also want to throw AutoCAD on it. Not sure how much juice AutoCAD actually needs, so that's why I'm asking.

Should I build a custom rig or just grab a pre-built with Windows already installed?

If you're just doing 2D AutoCAD, you don't need a monster workstation. But if you're planning on 3D modeling, you probably won't have enough in your budget for that—speaking from experience, I've been working in CAD for 15 years.😁 )

Timothy Kim60 said:It was a decent buy, mostly because of the 5-year warranty and fair pricing, but calling them the best ever is a stretch. Honestly, the whole Intel SSD conversation is dead now since they don't really have a mainstream drive to recommend anymore. Their closest thing is the NVMe 600p, but its benchmarks aren't anything special. It doesn't make sense—you can almost grab a 240GB SATA drive for what you'd pay for their tiny 128GB model.

Exactly. Back when they were actually dropping new SATA series regularly, their testing was top-tier. They were basically the only ones running hardware tests as rigorous as Samsung's.

Alexander Moore67 said:just find me a review

They're all over the web. Check YouTube if you want videos. I'm not your personal search engine.

Alexander Moore67 said:Try finding me a single review where an Intel SSD beats out a Samsung one!!!

Look, technically speaking, Intel SSDs might be slower than Apple drives—I already said that—but when it comes to brutal testing and actual quality control? They’re the gold standard.