My computer gave up/help me build a new PC

[tyler]

It's been having weird problems lately and now it's locking up completely after 15-20 minutes. I'm gonna get a new mobo, more ram, and a new cpu. Suggestions anyone?

Not sure what the problem is exactly so fuck it, I'll replace all the important stuff. It's a 5+ year old budget build anyway. I've got an Nvidia GeForce 660 which isn't great but should be fine still.

So as a result of this I won't be on Steam for a bit. Meaning no gamedays from me @Egan fyi

@Idolon I should still be able to finish judging assuming I can get my PC on long enough to copy or post my currently written reviews

@phi now's your chance to try running game days...!

Anyway, if you want to save me some time and recommend some new parts, that'd be awesome.

 

[Geit]

You sure the power supply hasn't kicked it? Seems the most likely thing to need replacing after 5 years.

 

[tyler]

Pretty sure... The psu is about a year newer, and the mobo/cpu are overheating I think. I should replace those anyway so I'm starting there.

 

[DonutVikingChap]

Not sure how much RAM you have already, but boom.

Btw, I recommend getting an SSD if you want your computer to feel like new. (unless you have one already)

 

[tyler]

I have one but might get another. I might do RAID too. I'll look at your list later, thanks.

 

[Werewolf]

Pretty sure... The psu is about a year newer, and the mobo/cpu are overheating I think. I should replace those anyway so I'm starting there.

So cool them down?

 

[tyler]

No. They've been fine for years. Additional cooling isn't going to solve the underlying problems. It might be cheaper short term, but that's not the route I want to go.

 

[Hyperion]

You really should know why your PC is acting weirdly before you do anything else

 

[tyler]

You really should know why your PC is acting weirdly before you do anything else

Normally, yeah. That's the advice I would give to others, too.

But I actually built this computer in 2009! At the time, the parts I got (CPU/motherboard/gfx card/etc) were already a year out of date and basically on liquidation sales. In 2007 this computer would have been about $1500. In 2009, when I built it, it was closer to $800 (including monitor, case, other stuff that doesn't need replacing). I consider it a miracle it can play any game released after 2010. (Though I did swap in a slightly better graphics card in the last couple years sometime).

All my problems cropped up after W10, which means one of two things:

1. It's either related to W10 (in which case my options are downgrade back to 8.1, or upgrade my PC to handle it) or it isn't related to W10. If it's related to W10, I'd rather just upgrade. I am not the kind of person that hides from the future.
2. If it is not related to W10, it means one or more of my shitty components is finally biting the dust, and needs to be replaced.

Now, I could try swapping out each part and doing tests, or I could just rebuild the whole damn thing since it's basically a piece of shit. I don't have the financial crunch I had several years ago, so the simpler and faster solution is to just order new stuff. The way I see it is whatever the problem is, it isn't necessarily worth addressing directly because pretty much everything could or should be replaced regardless.

I don't have other parts laying around to swap in and out, either. I have an old PSU, but it's not a high enough voltage (came with the case).

So I'm just buying essentially a new computer.

Not sure how much RAM you have already, but boom.

Why these? It's too much work to pay attention to PC parts for me. I don't know a lot, but I know enough to ask why you chose these.

 

[ibex]

Why these? It's too much work to pay attention to PC parts for me. I don't know a lot, but I know enough to ask why you chose these.

I assume he choose the 6600k because it's the latest and greatest of the i5 series ('k' for overclocking if you care about that). You could go i7 for the extra cores, but that would probably put you up another $100. He choose the motherboard to match it because when intel makes anything new they have to force you to use a new CPU socket. New i5's use LGA1151 socket, so that motherboard matches it. Beyond that I would assume he choose ASUS because of motherboard manufacturers ASUS and Gigabyte are probably top quality. That motherboard also seems to be a sort of top line with SLI, Crossfire, and DDR4 support.
The CPU cooler is your standard "I want somewhat better than stock". Ram is probably the cheapest DDR4 he could find ( I like Corsair's LP [low profile] look, as well). I don't know if you really need components as powerful as this, but this is basically the best of i5 CPUs with boots to match.

edit: I want to add: if you don't care about top of the line or whatever and just want a small update, you can probably knock 50-75 off if you got for an i5 46-- with matching motherboard probably a h97 (or z97 if you are looking to overclock). And then you would probably be looking at same cooler and DDR3 ram, which will may cost about the same as DDR4 these days.

 

[Ælement]

My experience with motherboards is limited, but the asus H97M+ that i'm using right now has performed really well so far.

It has a clickable BIOS interface and is rather cheap ($118 in Denmark. Very likely to be much cheaper if you're in the US) and compact. It does not, however, support CPU overclocking. I matched it up with an i5-4460 for this reason. Fairly sure non-k intel CPU's are cheaper anyways, so there's that.

Dunno what GPU you should get. I chose a GTX 970 when i built my machine 2 months ago (since i had some noise issues with my old Radeon HD4870 and wanted to try out both fabricants), but since then, it has been revealed that Nvidia's GPU lineup lacks the hardware to support certain DX12 features properly, and has to emulate it via software.

It might be worth looking into AMD's current/last lineup for this reason.

 

[tyler]

My GPU is older but I'm fine not upgrading that. Good to know about DX12/AMD, though.

 

[DonutVikingChap]

I assume he choose the 6600k because it's the latest and greatest of the i5 series ('k' for overclocking if you care about that). You could go i7 for the extra cores, but that would probably put you up another $100. He choose the motherboard to match it because when intel makes anything new they have to force you to use a new CPU socket. New i5's use LGA1151 socket, so that motherboard matches it. Beyond that I would assume he choose ASUS because of motherboard manufacturers ASUS and Gigabyte are probably top quality. That motherboard also seems to be a sort of top line with SLI, Crossfire, and DDR4 support.
The CPU cooler is your standard "I want somewhat better than stock". Ram is probably the cheapest DDR4 he could find ( I like Corsair's LP [low profile] look, as well). I don't know if you really need components as powerful as this, but this is basically the best of i5 CPUs with boots to match.

edit: I want to add: if you don't care about top of the line or whatever and just want a small update, you can probably knock 50-75 off if you got for an i5 46-- with matching motherboard probably a h97 (or z97 if you are looking to overclock). And then you would probably be looking at same cooler and DDR3 ram, which will may cost about the same as DDR4 these days.

Pretty much.

 

[tyler]

Thanks. I had another friend look at it and he said it was a good list so I guess that's what I will do!

 

[tyler]

I know everyone cares so here's an update:

Picked up all the parts today, sans the CPU fan because the store was out but they're getting some in from another location by tomorrow, hopefully not too late in the day. They did a POST test in store so I should be fine as soon as I get the CPU fan. Instead of 8GB of RAM I got 16GB because... well, they were out of the other stuff.

If I had been less busy this week and called ahead to the computer store here, I'd already be done, and could have still run gameday... too bad, sorry everyone.

I remembered earlier that I'm probably going to have to reinstall or repair Windows, which is worrying me a bit, but if things don't work I'll borrow my boyfriend's computer and make a boot drive to get it all working.

SOON

 

[Tuaam]

Maybe you could check your cooling?