Real speakers of excellent quality are not expensive.
BIC America DV62si Bookshelf Speakers (Pair, Black) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006JPDI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_1h71yb63CJ3XF
“not expensive” is kind of subjective.
And it’s not so much that the speakers I have are shitty, its just that they sound kinda flat and I’ve had good luck getting surprisingly good sound quality out of cheaper pc speakers. I could just use the headphone jack but really I’d like to add additional speakers rather than just replace the ones I’m using now. Maybe I’ll just keep an eye out for better ones at the thrift shops so I don’t end up breaking anything.
You can get crazy good speakers at a thrift shop. Speakers from the 60s or 70s connect with the same two wires as brand new ones, and sound just as good or better. just a wooden box with some woofers and tweeters.
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I have some old computer speakers wired into a receiver in my workshop. That said the original amp and stuff has been removed so that they’re just typical 2 wire 8ohm speakers and I only did it because all the parts were lying around and I wanted to listen to some music.
I used to buy a lot of audio gear at pawn shops, the ones around here frequently priced things based primarily on looks, so 70s and 80s gear was always cheap ($30 for some nice speakers, $15 for a rackmount eq, etc.)
Soo, gaming pc kinda got borked. In the middle of playing Overwatch it just froze up, went to a black screen and wouldn’t turn off. Unplugged power and when I turned it back on it was just stuck on an orange light with nothing on the monitor. I tried taking out the cmos battery but no luck. Looked into the error lights and most of the threads were about it blinking but this was solid. I realized there were other error code lights on the front. The first set suggested that it was a bad motherboard, so I unplugged a bunch of shit and now it’s giving me the light suggesting a bad cpu, with the recommendation of trying to reseat it. Now I don’t have any thermal compund, because I don’t normally build pc’s. Should I get some new thermal compound to replace the old stuff when I do reseat it or just go ahead and check it out now? Honestly at least if it is the cpu that is dead that’s not much more than if my mobo died and it’s a lot easier to swap out.
Just leave the old gross paste on for testing and replace if it works. As long as there’s a heatsink on it with some contact it should be able to run for a few minutes for testing, especially if it’s an Intel chip you won’t hurt anything. Check the pins / pads for gunk while you have it out. I’d also check the board for swollen capacitors if you haven’t already, that’s more common and can cause similar behavior.
[quote=“Burritoad, post:67, topic:288, full:true”]
Just leave the old gross paste on for testing and replace if it works. As long as there’s a heatsink on it with some contact it should be able to run for a few minutes for testing, especially if it’s an Intel chip you won’t hurt anything. Check the pins / pads for gunk while you have it out. I’d also check the board for swollen capacitors if you haven’t already, that’s more common and can cause similar behavior.
[/quote]That said, it might still be worth picking up a tube, because seriously, it’s like a tenner for a tube of Grizzly, Arctic silver, GC-Extreme whatever, and it’s enough to last you a long time, assuming you’re not over-applying.
Over applying is a big deal. Years ago a friend was under the impression that more = better and slathered it on like peanut butter. His CPU fried not long after because there was so much it became an aggregate insulator.
[quote=“panfriedmarmot, post:69, topic:288, full:true”]
Over applying is a big deal. Years ago a friend was under the impression that more = better and slathered it on like peanut butter. His CPU fried not long after because there was so much it became an aggregate insulator.
[/quote]Fucking hell, he’s lucky he didn’t just blow it straight away with a short. Being as filled with metal and such as it is, thermal past is pretty conductive.
No kidding, all it takes is a thermal paste to be connected with the board and the processor to get a short, even if it just happens on one corner. This guy had it on every corner and side. Lucky is damn right.
When I was working in a computer repair shop we would see a lot of people building their first gaming PC and not able to boot. One of the most common issues was thermal paste under the CPU, just a glob in a corner or something. I’m still not really sure how you manage that. My general feeling on thermal paste is that people are entirely too obsessed with it. I never saw a significant measurable difference between any reasonable application method (no flooding) or brand (no dielectric grease). It is generally speaking not conductive enough to damage anything but can cause things not to work for more complex reasons mostly related to capacitance and pull-up / pull-down.
The other 2 common issues were board standoffs (in the wrong holes or missing entirely) and bent CPU contacts (like someone dropped the corner of an Intel chip into the LGA socket).
I think we posted and discussed this awhile ago, but this is the final say on thermal paste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2MEAnZ3swQ
TL;DW: Use the paste. Brand doesn’t matter. Use enough, but not too much.
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[quote=“Apreche, post:73, topic:288”]
TL;DW: Use the paste. Brand doesn’t matter. Use enough, but not too much.
[/quote]And also don’t use the stupid liquid metal ones, they perform essentially the same, but they’re 10X more hassle to apply.
Just get the Noctua, put a pea sized puddle, put on the heatsink, spin under it’s own weight then start screwing down evenly till no more ratcheting and it’s done.
Shouldn’t need to reapply unless your computer goes off for ages and it somehow dries up (if there is an air gap).
There may be a few degrees difference between each but the top performers are all within a few degrees of each other.
Good 3rd party coolers come with their own paste.
I’m trying to install an AMD Radeon HD 7750 from Gigabyte.
I did everything it asked for–I upgraded my power supply and installed the drivers. However, every time I try to power on the computer, I get No Signal, so until I can get this issue resolved, I’m using my old graphics card for the moment.
The weird thing is that this graphics card works fine in another computer, so there’s clearly nothing wrong with it, so why won’t it work in mine? My best friend (who’s marginally better at this stuff than me) thinks there might be something we can toggle in the BIOS, but we have to idea where to start. Any ideas?
This graphics card is on the slightly older side, you will want to turn off secure boot in your advanced startup settings in your bios and switch it to legacy startup / boot / mode.
So eventually I’m going to be leaving my home when I move in with my fiancée, and I’m not taking my PC with me. But the 980 I have in it would be wasted as my father only plays 20 year old WWII strategy games and occasionally browsed the internet. So what would be a good video card to put in it so I can take the 980 and put it in whatever I build next?
- Will be hella cheap, hella good, and last your dad a long time.
Ryzen 1700X get!
Gigabyte K7 board get!
Waiting on my DDR4 sticks and my Kracken X62.
Wavering on cost/benefit of an m.2 SSD still.
Will probably load everything into my existing case for now, then upgrade to custom case once fab is done. Design is getting close. Need to get the kraken in hand to mock up my proposed layout.
Good luck with that non- Intel/NVidia setup. I see some blue screens and fires coming in real soon.