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Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 13th, 2014, 8:04 am
by Das Forscher
I'm planning on building a new desktop. I don't follow tech developments at all, so after some pretty minimal research I'm just basing my choices on what has a lot of positive reviews and is decently priced. If anybody with more knowledge wants to waste a minute to skim my choices and give me a go/no go, I'd appreciate it.

Not interested in overclocking or bleeding edge tech, just want something to run modern games at high/moderate settings with high FPS.

CPU
mobo
GPU
RAM
SSD

The PSU I have right now is this thing. Am I right in thinking this should still be able to handle the new components? Also, it's almost exactly two years old now. I've read before that high quality PSUs will generally last about 4-5 years before getting worn. Is that about right, or should I replace it now while I'm at it?

Feel free to point out if I'm missing something obvious/have chosen something that will explode. Thanks.

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 13th, 2014, 10:49 am
by Stephen
Id start with gpu and fresh install of windows,

If you dont have ssd get one to

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 14th, 2014, 8:29 pm
by PRETENDICA
http://pcpartpicker.com will tell you the best prices for you the parts you picked. Who cares where it comes from if it's all free shipping, or when it comes, as long as it's all within a week, right? I've seen some pretty good deals on ssds lately, even 512gb for about that price, Das.

Edit: I sorted by ssd, 512gb, and the top of the list is a crucial mx100 512gb from amazon
It's $12 more than the one you picked.
(I got creative with the colors, or colours, for our Canadian friends.)

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 15th, 2014, 8:46 pm
by PRETENDICA
http://slickdeals.net/f/7062882-240gb-o ... d-99-99-ar

$99 after rebate These ssd deals are getting crazy. This model uses Toshiba drivers, I guess that's good.

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 16th, 2014, 2:09 pm
by Stephen
He already ordered a 840 pro and evga 760 sc

Samsung controlls the market now and they dropping prices like crazy

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 17th, 2014, 9:40 pm
by Das Forscher
Can't use the SSD yet cause my case is so old it can't mount 2.5" drives, so I'll be waiting til the new case gets here. I needed a new one anyways to help tame my mess of cables.

I did get a 760 and a 144hz monitor after talking with Stephen and it's awesome. Like really awesome. Looking forward to getting the SSD running but the visual difference is great, and what games I've tested so far run way smoother on the highest settings than they did before on ultra low with my 550TI.

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 17th, 2014, 10:59 pm
by Stephen
didnt know you got the monitor to lol

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 18th, 2014, 7:11 pm
by PRETENDICA
^^^ This. The OCZ would have come with one. :roll:


What kind of case did you get?

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 28th, 2014, 10:04 pm
by Das Forscher
Pre, I got a cheapo Carbide. The SSD didn't come with a bracket, unfortunately. I could've just bought one but I wanted a new case anyway, having one with cutouts makes cable routing way less messy and annoying. It's also way more roomy on the inside than my old case, despite having practically identical exterior dimensions.

I finally got the SSD installed yesterday. Got Windows running on it, installed a bunch of drivers, rebooted several times and had no problems. After I installed the GPU drivers, I rebooted again and Windows started doing automatic updates. Should've just waited, but I said fuck that noise and did a hard shutdown, figuring the worst that might happen was I'd fuck up the installation and have to do it again, but when I turned it on again I found myself where I am now. I can't boot at all if the SSD is connected to the mobo. Can't boot from the windows disc to reinstall, can't boot from my HDD Windows install, nothing. I get a blackscreen similar to the "start in safe mode" prompt, but the options are to start normally or start the install repair tool, both of which invariably result in a bluescreen seconds later. I tried enabling hot swapping so I could boot to the HDD, then connect the SSD and wipe it through disk management. My HDD install boots up fine when the SSD is unplugged, then Instantly bluescreens when Windows recognizes the SSD. It's bizarre.

Unfortunately my BIOS doesn't seem to have a disk formatting tool, which is weird because I thought all BIOS had that, so I guess I'm boned. Moral of the story is don't fuck around with Windows when it's updating, lest you brick your shiny new SSD.

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 28th, 2014, 10:55 pm
by madmattd
Try setting your SATA controller that the SSD is on to IDE mode (or try RAID/AHCI - they do the same thing for this test - if it is set to IDE now). Your bluescreen issue sounds similar to what happens if you install Windows in one mode, then change the mode in BIOS without doing a registry change in Windows first. Not sure if this will work given your other issues, but worth a shot.

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 29th, 2014, 10:05 am
by Stephen
also when ur hotswapping when in windows, do you have the power plugged into the same drive as hdd? if so are you plugging the power in to the ssd when windows is running?

ive had windows blue screen when hot swapping with power from same drive as windows, probably from voltage drop.


if neither suggestion works get that drive back to new egg while u still have your 30 days. just say it wasnt working at all

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 29th, 2014, 5:34 pm
by Das Forscher
I tried switching from AHCI to IDE, didn't make any difference...SATA was already set to AHCI before I even started with the SSD. I'll probably try messing with bios settings for a bit again before I send it back.

I'll try using a different power cable next time, I was feeding both drives with the same cable. I just had the SSD plugged into power but not connected to the mobo, then I was connecting to the mobo after booting on the hdd.

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 29th, 2014, 5:45 pm
by Molimo
Download Gparted Live. Put it onto a USB or CD and boot it.

You might be able to force a format on the SSD with this if it doesnt crash it.
I use this software alot to format or resize drive partitions.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/features.php

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 29th, 2014, 5:49 pm
by Stephen
edit: do you have the hdd hooked up when you try to boot to ssd? if so try with out
also check the boot order to make sure its not going to network boot or something

try clearing cmos if that doesnt work

if that doesnt work try updating the bios on the mobo

Re: Help me not fuck up my build please

Posted: July 29th, 2014, 8:50 pm
by Das Forscher
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Turns out stephen's hunch was right, I put the SSD on a separate sata power cable and that allowed me to hot swap it in after booting to the HDD. I wiped the SSD and reinstalled Windows, everything's going fine so far.