Posts by mellowtiger83

Carl Nguyen2 said:I’ve got a PC that’s—well, at least seven years old—and I’m thinking about maybe upgrading it. Since I don't know much about this stuff, I'm hoping you guys can throw some suggestions my way. Is there actually anything worth upgrading here, or am I better off just buying a new machine?

Here’s what I’m working with:
Intel Core 2 duo E6550 Gigabyte P35-DS3
Gigabyte P35-DS3, s775
ASUS EAH3850/HTDI/512
DDR2 PC6400 Kingmax x4
Samsung HD321KJ 7200 + WD Caviar Green, 5400
Chieftec 550W
DVDRW NEC AD 7173A
Midi Chieftec DG-01BD-UW w/o P

Mainly, it's used for browsing, working in Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator, the occasional game (Hearthstone, emulators), and trying my hand at digital drawing with a tablet. I say "trying" because there’s at least a second or two of lag after every stroke with my Bamboo tablet. Maybe a better graphics card wouldn't be a bad idea so things don't stutter so much in Photoshop or when using the tablet—if that's even the issue.

I plan on installing Windows 7 on this. I’d prefer to buy parts from Micro Center, but I suppose I could survive using another shop if needed.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Quite simple: small upgrades make a massive difference.

Pick up a used Q8 or Q9 series processor on eBay for about $200.$133

Grab a used graphics card from eBay for around $500$200 and you have a functional machine—something like a 7770, 7790, 6870, etc.

Everything will run reasonably well. That Intel socket 775 generation is quite impressive; even today, those processors hold enough power. Keep in mind that almost any of them can be aggressively overclocked with ease.

$333 The upgrades I mentioned would work wonders. You could also pick up an SSD for maybe $100 and everything will fly.

Overclocked quad-core 775 series chips still handle modern games and newer graphics cards without much trouble.

James Gomez80 said:That’s what crimsonstag84 does for me. Much appreciated. 🙂

Those P4 builds are bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. Even on Craigslist, you won't find them going for much, $33, especially when you factor in the cost of the memory $67
.

Jeffrey Allen92 said:my conclusion was that this i5 from $467 was some kind of best buy, but now that I think about it, I might be wrong. Never mind then, just forget it...

A separate matter. If someone is working in photography and needs a case for ten high-capacity drives, they need those specific ten drives plus the configuration to support them. What would you recommend? I considered being frugal and not buying a motherboard with ten SATA ports, perhaps opting for a cheap one and adding a PCIe SATA controller instead, but I can't seem to find such a controller anywhere for sale.... I also looked at the Black Widow case, but I can't find any info on how many drive bays it actually has. I assume a photographer would need a large case for all those disks, and since the person is growing, they'll want something padded to dampen the noise. For the drives, I was thinking of suggesting these 5TB WD Blues; they're available at Best Buy for under a hundred bucks.

I work in photography myself, and I see absolutely no point in this!

Why ten drives? Two is more than enough—two just to run a RAID setup. Otherwise, one large single drive is sufficient. It would be wise to have one external drive for backup purposes.

Hey everyone. If this were just an issue with the resolution, logic dictates he’d at least see the BIOS POST screen before everything goes black. It would show up briefly, then cut out. I don't know, maybe I'm off base here, but that's how it seems to me.

That flickering at the monitor means you’re dealing with a signal drop—it disconnects and then tries to reconnect itself over and over. It’s just constant cycling. Could be the power supply. Or maybe just a loose connection. Give those cables a good once-over and make sure the card is actually seated properly in its slot.

A black screen on the monitor often points toward memory issues. You might want to try playing around with the RAM sticks—pull one out at a time and see if things change.

If it won't boot, try hooking it up to a different monitor. I suspect it might be a resolution issue, though I have my doubts; if it were just that, you’d likely see the initial BIOS splash screen before it went dark once macOS tries to load.

It is possible the graphics card has died. Try testing it in another PC. Alternatively, your power supply might not be delivering enough juice. Pay close attention to those variables.

I’m reading this and I honestly can’t believe my eyes 🙂 he he

Regarding science fiction, I certainly recommend the book Trifid Day. It’s a phenomenal piece of literature centered on an event in New York City; just imagine waking up to realize that 99 percent of humanity has gone blind while you alone can still see 🙂

As for those who prefer a good Thriller, Lee Child is a definitive choice, specifically his series featuring Jack Reacher. There are about eight books in total. Reading them, I find myself grasping the true meaning of freedom. The protagonist is a retired military specialist who wanders across America with nothing to his name but cash; if his clothes get dirty, he simply buys new ones 🙂

Here is a topic for discussion. I doubt it will survive long, but let us give it a shot.

I finished reading Michael Crichton's Timeline yesterday. It was a phenomenal piece of work. People have been nudging me to pick it up for quite some time now, and I certainly don't regret finally doing so.

Since the Knights Templar feature so prominently in those historical waters, perhaps someone here could weigh in? If you have read it, of course. I watched a film on the subject as well, though it didn't come close to the book; the novel is an entirely different experience altogether.

I am generally a fan of the Thriller genre, with a bit of sci-fi mixed in, so this felt like a fresh venture.

Sébastien Buemi? Who exactly are we talking about?

Jason Campbell70 said:Hamilton was driving slow?
Hamilton was putting down fastest laps on a twenty-something lap old ultrasoft, eventually securing the fastest lap of the race.
He would have pushed two seconds further, then left Ricciardo to respond.

It is somewhat akin to what Rossi prefers doing in MotoGP, except Rossi does it when he is trailing someone.

And given the pace he maintained at the end, that ultrasoft tire had plenty of life left in it for quite a few more laps.
It is curious. If this were, say, Barcelona, after five laps that ultrasoft wouldn't be garbage; it would be the reason for losing several seconds per lap.

With all that in mind, I am still more fascinated by what Lewis achieved on the full wets.

I maintain my stance that Hamilton drove extremely slowly on several occasions quite intentionally; even you noted this in your live posts during the race.

Hamilton accelerated a few times simply to shake Ricciardo off his back, spooked by previous experience with Ricciardo's attacks. The fact that he clocked the fastest lap in those moments signifies nothing, because he would slow down immediately afterward. He was driving significantly slower than his true potential. It was quite obvious.

swifttiger75 said:It’s difficult to simplify things quite as easily as you seem to be suggesting. The race pace fluctuated constantly due to an excessive number of yellow flags in certain sectors, not to mention the VSC.

There isn't even any rhetoric involved here; it was crystal clear that Hamilton was intentionally driving much slower than his actual capability. It was plainly visible. Ultimately, Mercedes confirmed it themselves—this wasn't about pushing the limit, it was pure tire management and control.

He was only able to pull that off because overtaking opportunities are practically non-existent here. In Canada, for example, he wouldn't have stood a chance at doing that; this specific track simply allowed it.

Let’s be realistic: the only reason Perez had such a small gap at the end was because of those circumstances. In reality, Mercedes and Red Bull are at least 20 seconds ahead. At least.

stormybadger8 said:I missed the race because my house was packed with guests.🙂
But I was tucked away somewhere tracking the live commentary.😬
From what I gathered, he didn't just blow his chance at third; he likely threw away a genuine shot at winning.🤔

Anyway, he claims the issue was where he passed Massa and blames himself rather than the strategy.

I haven't gotten around to watching the replay yet, though I probably won't...
even right from the restart behind the SC, it seemed like a lively race so far.

A quick observation:
http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?p...Felipe%20Massa
It's evident that once Massa cleared out, he became significantly faster—about 6 or 7 seconds per lap faster. The question remains how much of that was due to Massa moving, and how much was simply better track conditions.

Regardless, compared to Hamilton...
http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?p...wis%20Hamilton
he actually lost about 15 seconds during that specific stretch behind Massa, which ultimately resulted in a larger gap than what he was trailing by at the end of the race.

You seem to have missed something. Vettel had a smaller gap to close after Massa until the end of the race, but don't forget that after switching to ultrasofts, Hamilton drove extremely slowly on several occasions because he was worried about tire degradation. He knew Ricciardo wouldn't be able to catch him, so he exploited that, aggressively accelerating and then dropping his pace at certain points. Perez was sitting around 7 seconds, then Hamilton would surge and push that up to 12 seconds over a few laps, repeating this pattern several times.

He was controlling the pace ahead because he knew he was going to finish on those tires. If he had planned to pit, he would have tried to go wild on faster rubber to pull away from Ricciardo.

To be clear, Ricciardo deserved the win. Hamilton faltered in those opening laps when Ricciardo pulled away from Nico.

By the way, Nico stated quite simply that he just didn't trust the car; he didn't dare push any harder.

Essentially, Hamilton was the only one with Ricciardo's pace; in terms of Race pace, he was actually faster. However, he opted for a strategy that both Jason Campbell70 and I thought was madness. Neither of us could have imagined the ultrasofts would last that many laps—honestly, even Hamilton probably didn't dream it. That’s why he drove so incredibly slow; Ricciardo nearly capitalized on it a few times.

That is precisely why Vettel managed to close the gap.

neonfox65 said:Maybe. He might have come out first.

The facts remain as they are. I could just as easily argue that Rosberg didn't actually lose those 11 to 13 seconds behind Ricciardo, or that Hamilton wasn't stuck. You seem to be overlooking the fact that Hamilton lost a massive amount of time. Even if there hadn't been a perfect pit stop to help Ricciardo—which is purely speculative—it wouldn't change much. The truth is, the pit stop screwed Ricciardo, Nico screwed Hamilton, and the qualifying session from the day before ruined everything when Hamilton had his one chance at a flyer.

Lewis Hamilton was practically begging for rain yesterday, just to see if that lightning-fast Englishman could actually handle the chaos when things get messy. On a side note, I placed a bet that whoever takes the lead at the start won't end up on the top step of the podium, and that the winner's margin will be less than six seconds. Wish me luck 🙂

The current situation in Monaco is looking a bit damp; there’s a light drizzle falling just two hours out from the green flag. That basically means we're looking at a start on intermediates. Expect pure chaos—a complete shuffling of the order, inevitable safety cars, plenty of contact, and pit strategy becoming the absolute deciding factor.

Ugh, the anticipation is killing me. I’m pulling for Hamilton to take it, naturally. If anyone actually knows how to dance a car through the rain, it's him. Vettel is also a serious contender, and Ricci shouldn't be overlooked either.

What did I tell you all about strategy!!

This brings back memories of the Senna - Mansell showdown in 1992.

Lewis Hamilton is intentionally driving incredibly slow; he clearly has a strategy to stretch these tires until the end. The proof is right there in the fact that Sergio Perez has already cut down his gap. It’s an interesting bit of luxury tactics, really—it’ll be tough for Ricciardo to find a way past him.

It’s a Hammer-style move. My apologies... uh, where did all that driving talent from Rosberg go? You know, back when people actually understood how to handle a car.