and today i have mostly been...

[Welly]

Wot, post on a proper computer forum?

Mmm, yes, err, may I suggest a title?

"please take the piss out of me and then start suggesting stupidly expensive equipment that I don't need"

The stuff I know about pooters could be written on the end of a matchbox, steve you already seem to know quite a bit so hopefully jonsowman's postings seem reasonable. I suppose the key thing is having matching/compatible equip and to keep it all simple.

If you wanted you could post a new thread in a kinda "this is the PC I'm building" way and attract comments?

[steve_earwig]

I dunno, I thought it would be better to keep all my cr@p in one place

I was investigating posting on Tom's Hardware but it had a "read this first" thing for asking newbie questions on new builds, with links off of that for stuff I had to read first, and links off of that for more stuff I had to read first What I did read is, according to them, the memory is the wrong voltage for the cpu, so I stuck in one of the recommended ones and the voltage on that was wrong too...

[steve_earwig]

I knew if I looked for long enough... http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=138281

In other news, the yoyo didn't go wrong today The snow didn't melt and now there's even more coming down Oh and I went to the clinic today for more tests, one for some marker in my blood that's a sign for swelling which was negative (huh?), another x-rax of my sinuses to see if the infection came back, which was also negative, and to drop off a cup off my early morning micturation for them to play with (you should try this, from the chemist get a very small plastic container, one with a very fiddly lid. In the morning the first time you take a wizz let the first bit go, then try to wizz into the little cup making sure that a) it's a decent amount and b) you don't over fill it and wizz all over your hands, you'll soon realise you can't actually see how much is in it down there. Then fit the lid without spilling it and/or crushing the container out of frustration). I won't get the results for that one until Next Friday. Whatever they are

[jonsowman]

Totally understand not wanting to post on OcUK etc, people can be a bit quick to criticise.

I don't think you should have any problems with voltages - all DDR3 ram is 1.5V with the exception of "DDR3L" which is a specifically low voltage version (and I've never seen it used anywhere!). So as long as you stick with DDR3 stuff you should be fine.

[steve_earwig]

Nah, I know that was ballcocks anyway as it even said the memory in the support list for the motherboard was wrong. That's the Internet all over though, if you look hard enough you can find someone telling you black is white...

I feel guilty about saying this after all your help but.. it's all gone tilt as my father has offered to bung me some cash towards a new pc and my brother reckons he's got a copy of WIndows 7 64bit he can send me ALL CHANGE!

I'm still having that case & motherboard though

[jonsowman]

No problem! Having 64 bit Windows doesn't really change anything - everything we've talked about will still work. Depending how much extra you want to spend, I would personally look at going for a better CPU (maybe a Core i5) and a dedicated graphics card.

Upgrading to 8GB RAM is probably pointless right now, but on the other hand memory is very cheap at the moment.

I think your existing choice of case and motherboard are good

[Welly]

In the morning the first time you take a wizz let the first bit go

I made the mistake of wizzing the very first bit in the bottle and nipping the lid up sharpish.............popped it in a bag and thought nothing of it.

Later, upon presenting the "I definitely would" nurse with my sample I whipped out this bottle of cloudy wizz/jizz

She sent me away to "try again"

[steve_earwig]

The cumputer stuff will have to wait until I can get my wife to find time to ring the computer shop up to see if they can get the stuff they have marked as "not stocked" or if it's merely because they can't be bothered to update their website

I have a spreadsheet, it's all stuff that appears to be compatible, so if they can get it I can just send it off to them (otherwise it'll have to come from here, there and everyhwere )

One thing I have noticed is my old ASRock board had a list if compatible AGP cards, while this T77 doesn't, am I to take it anything goes?

ASRock Z77 PRO4-M
Intel Core i5 3450
Kingston DDR3 8GB 1600MHz (2x4) HyperX, KHX1600C9D3
Fractal Design Core 3000
WD Blue? 250GB SATA3
LG GH24NS SATA Bulk DVD 24x
ASUS GT610-1GD3-L

The list is substantially improved now and comes out at about 400 quid. If it's all available...

In the meantime have some snow pictures:

Top of the high road here, on Monday morning after we had more than 2 feet of snow:








Scooter in the snow:












The battle with Mary Paw continues...







Don't look up

This morning I've been up to my house to check the heating etc. It was fine but there was no way I was digging a space out of the car:







The neighbours said I should be wearing wellies but I already found that when it's above your knees all that happens is the wellies fill with snow.

[jonsowman]

The Z77 board has a PCI-Express (PCI-E) x16 Generation 3.0 slot for graphics cards. Generation 3.0 is backwards compatible with all previous generations, so any card that fits PCI-E x16 will work nicely. Almost all graphics cards in the last 5 years have been this format, the older ones (PCI and AGP) are pretty much obsolete and quite hard to find.

Here's an example to show the connector (not necessarily recommending this one): http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=2298

One thing to be aware of with graphics cards is that they are often physically quite large, it's best to check that it will fit in the case and not get in the way of other components before ordering

[steve_earwig]

Thanks The graphics card says it's PCIE 2 so I was wondering...

the older ones (PCI and AGP) are pretty much obsolete and quite hard to find.

I've got one going spare now (actually I've got 3 but I'll hold on to them for spares because I look after a few other P4 machines)

I've read that some graphics cards are long enough to give problems in some cases but I couldn't really see the physical size of this one being a problem because it looks scarcely longer than the slot in the pictures. Hold on, here's a Core 3000 review http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/fr ... iew,7.html and they reckon anything up to 11", the ASUS card I'm looking at is 6.5" so it'll be lost in there

That case just looks better and better, I damn well hope I can get hold of one here

[lozz]

Lol, @ the pictures of the dogs,

Was the picture of the dog with the big teef a photo shop ?

[jonsowman]

PCI-E 2.0 cards will be fine. Just be aware that the motherboard supports 3.0 if you ever want to upgrade in the future.

I agree, doesn't look like you should have any issues with physical space

[steve_earwig]

Lol, @ the pictures of the dogs,

Was the picture of the dog with the big teef a photo shop ?

Nah, I had the camera on "snow mode" in the hope it would take better pictures (something else approaching the end of its service life ), I think it slows the shutter speed down so his head's just a blur. It looks a bit like he's got his head on upside-down too

[lozz]

Lol, @ the pictures of the dogs,

Was the picture of the dog with the big teef a photo shop ?

Nah, I had the camera on "snow mode" in the hope it would take better pictures (something else approaching the end of its service life ), I think it slows the shutter speed down so his head's just a blur. It looks a bit like he's got his head on upside-down too

lol, ihonestly thought you'd photo shopped that,.

iwas talking about the lil black dog, Teef onit look like ice i cles lol,

[Welly]

Great pics there steve, what are your plans for your place? I think you stay mostly at 'her indoors' place, err, indoors, like...