Cheap mATX case?

Got my Antec Fusion Remote case and got my HTPC setup installed in it Sat.

Nice case. Looks like a high end piece of audio equipment. Very quiet (plus my PSU has a fan speed control on it), great air flow. My mATX board fits in it fine, looks like it could take a ATX board (though probably a smaller one). Space for 2 HDDs and 1 optical drive.
The LCD on this case is a bit tacky looking, not a crisp, clear display. Plus it scrolls constantly. The software for it lets you have news feeds, scores, etc scrolling all the time (like a CNN scroll) but I shut that all off and just have the date & time showing. but I can't make it a static display. Lowest option is a 1 pixel scroll.

The included remote works fine with Win 7's Media Center and Media Player but I have all the same controls with my wireless keyboard (which has a built-in trackball) so I don't need/use it.

Overall a nice case. If Antec ever gets a nicer LCD in it I'd give it 5 stars. 4 for now.

Sam

 

I have a huge problem, I installed my 2 more GB of ram the other day, BSOD a couple of times and in task manager I noticed that my CPU goes to 100 % and does not come back down it just stays there.. Any ideas whats going on?

 

I re installed windows and cpu usage is back to normal FOR NOW lol. I'll update on any changes.

 

Thats kind of odd but you got it sorted out so it's all good

Are you showing all of your RAM?

 

Yeah it's like 3.25 Gb, But I haven't upgraded to 64 bit yet, I don't know if i still want to. But yeah It was really odd, Idk if it had anything to do with paging file and the fact that my HD was REALLY FULL, I reformatted and put a lot of stuff on an external HD and Everything seems to be fine now.

 

I know XP will give you low disk space warnings in the task bar when HDD space gets low. Haven't seen what it does in 7 yet.
Is the new 2 Gb same brand/speed as what you already had? Sometimes mixing brands/speeds/timings is better served by going into the BIOS first and checking the memory settings.

Got a deal on Newegg yesterday- 4 Gb (2x2Gb) DDR2-800 for $89. Grabbed 'em for the HTPC.

Sam

 

Yeah I got the same stick as the other, I don't really like the idea of Mixing different brands and such, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to but I guess I'm just picky. Id like to find a better Hard drive than my 80gb ATA maxtor, I have about 100.00 to spend.. But the gf might kill me...

 

***** this is a big thread!!! :-D

As for the HDD, Western Digital 1TB is one of the best.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136534

How much space do you need?

Or just want the max space for the $$$$?

 

I'm into games and Movies, So the more space the better BUT 1tb would probably be plenty.

Forgot to add, Being a gamer, Higher transfer speeds would also be a plus..

 

What would it take to bring my HDD score from 5.3 up to like 6.5 or more??
More than what I have?? $100.00 lol.

 

No, any SATA II 3Gb/sec hard drive will probably max out around 6 on the Win 7 WEI. I have a 640Gb caviar blue on my HTPC and a 1Tb caviar black on my X3-720. Both give 5.9 as WEI scores for the hard drive.

The only high scores I've ever seen were some 7.7s with people using SSD's. Western Digital VelociRaptor SATAs may be over 6, don't think I've seen a WEI score for one though.

So $60 would get you a 500-640Gb SATA, a 1Tb is $100.

Sam

 

5.3 to 5.9 Not too impressive in my opinion anyway But in the matter of disk space 80GB to 500 plus that'd be great, I'd still like to see a 6.0 to 6.5 or more in the HDD score though lol.

 

It's more a matter of theoretical vrs real world. Like I have a gigabit LAN home network setup but file transfers between my computers rarely get above 60mb/sec. And that's after tweaking the adapter settings on each machine.

Now $100 will get you a 32Gb SSD. Put Win 7 on that and your WEI hard drive score goes up over 7.

Sam

 

Hmm 32 GB SSD, Higher transfer rates, But less space, If i got that and used it as my main drive, put windows 7 on it, That would make the OS and what ever else on That drive run a bit faster?? But what ever's on my slave drive would make no difference?? Like Games, there nearly 10GB each, I wouldn't be able to put them on the main drive. I think disk space over transfer speed would be the better deal for now, But Good to learn what i can about transfer speeds and such now so in the future when I decide to get an HDD with higher transfer speeds I wont have to ask about it again rolleyes

 

I think I'd go for an SSD if I was getting a new laptop. The SSD (with no moving parts) uses less power, generates much less heat and would improve the performance.

Once SSDs get to under $200 for 500Gb+, I'd start looking at them for my desktops. It took a few years for SATA to overtake IDE, it'll be the same for SSDs.

Sam

 

I see..

I Installed 7 x64 btw, I don't see much of a difference really I don't see what the big deal is cept if you want to have way more than 3 - 4GB ram. Speaking of which when i had x86 i had roughly 1GB less ram, Now that i have x64 I'm using 3GB ram plus put 1GB to the Gfx, Same settings as before plus 1GB more ram, I thought my ram score would go up but it didn't nor did my over all score.

 

Yeah my X3-720 is the only one I have 7x64 on. And I don't see much difference compared to my other PCs running 7x86. I run the 64-bit versions of Firefox (technically a beta called Namoroka) and Thunderbird email (again beta called Shredder). Don't see much difference between the x86 & x64 versions other than there is no 64-bit Flash player yet so you can't run video in x64 browsers. Which may actually make for faster browsing- no annoying moving ads & pop-ups.

Sam

 

Yeah, Figured that one out very quickly. The gf says My computer is running slower now with x64.

 

So i have a question,, If i put 6 - 8 GB ram in this, will only x64 programs be able to use that Or will 32 bit programs not be able to use any more than 3.5 - 4GB ram??

 

I could be wrong, but i'm pretty sure 32-bit programmes cannot use more than 3.25GB RAM.

 

Yup only 64-bit apps can make use of the extra memory.

Sam

 

I THINK I'm done updating my HTPC for a while. Added a Athlon II X2 240 2.8Ghz Regor. Got it for $50 (retail box not OEM) from a dealer buddy. I buy components from him when I'm doing repairs/upgrades on friends & co-workers systems and he'll throw me a little deal now and then.

Sam

 

that kinda sucks,, and my memory score with 4gb is only 5.9..

 

Bet it's nice to know someone like that. lol

 

But i guess that's because of my Ram's speed, 1066, and the 5.9 probably isn't changeable, or it is But it'll mean installing more ram which will be pointless because most apps are 32 bit and only use 3.5GB.

-->DDR3 1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066<--
This brings up a whole new subject, My ram speed is 1066, what should i be able to O.C it to, is it possible, does my board have an O.C option for ram? :confused , My CPU and GPU has O.C but it doesn't seem that i can Overclock very far, CPU 200, any higher and my PC wont start up, if it does it lets you know that overclocking failed and you need to change the settings back, GPU O.C's to like 500 - 600, Any higher and,, well same thing that happens when I O.C the CPU too high. This Rig doesn't seem very Overclockable..

 

My ram has 4 different options for speed O.C

400Mhz
533Mhz
667Mhz
800Mhz

Would it be a bad idea to use the 800Mhz option?

 

Bio, before you get into OC'ing you need to read up and learn how it all works, doing it wrong will put us right back to the start of this thread trying to find you new PC parts again.
If you have 1066 RAM (meaning clocking it to 800mhz will make it slower because it's already 1066mhz) and 4GB of it (3 usable) then I highly doubt you will be doing anything any time soon that will use it all, I have 3GB 667 and have yet to see it over 65% used.
Also OCing your CPU is a bit pointless at least until you have new GFX, otherwise your GFX will simply bottleneck your CPU and waste any extra power you have gained, not only does OCing shorten the life of your hardware, it's simply pointless when you OC it above and beyond the capabilities of the rest of your hardware.

It's upto you my friend by I strongly recomend you not OC anything until you have finished building your system.
And like I said, I also strongly recomend you read up and make sure you know what you are doing before attempting it.
There is a section here about OCing, very informative.

 

Wish I had bought that 4Gb memory kit from him now though. Am off today , figured I'd pop the new CPU and memory into the HTPC. Kept hanging on the POST screen. Took out one of the new sticks, booted fine. Put it back in-hangs. CPU works fine (made the graphics score in the WEI go up from 3.7 to 3.8, never seen a cpu change make that score change before)
Almost didn't buy these (Wintec Ampx 2x2Gb DDR2-800) cause I read a few reviews that had this problem, but a majority had no issues and the price & free shipping drew me in. Normally I always use GSkill, never had a bad one of theirs.

Now it's do I RMA it to Newegg for a refund (and pay shipping & a $14 restocking fee) or see if I can RMA the bad stick directly to Wintec and get it replaced. Does have a lifetime warranty.

Sam

 

Ive been OC'ing all day, just got to this post lol. Anyway, My score went up 1 point, from 4.5 to 4.6, Using AOD to OC the CPU which claims to be fail safe and SAFE as well as GPU NOS to OC the GPU, Only thing I overclocked in bios was the memory, i set it to 800MHZ..

I don't wanna harm my hardware so, I guess i should stop overclocking???
Idk but it seems to be running faster this way, (everest) benchmarks were even higher.

But... I should set the memory back to 400 Mhz and stop using AOD and GPU NOS??

 

OCing prob won't do anything as long as you don't push it close to the max. I run my X3-720BE at 3.1Ghz (stock is 2.8) on the stock AMD cooling and it's fine (temp is usually 29C). Haven't tweaked the memory at all. ATI has an Overdrive in the Control center (for GPU clock, memory and fan speeds) but I haven't done anything with that.

As nedlamar stated until you get a faster vid card , OCing is basically having your system "hurry up and wait".

Ended up getting that memory to run after all. Did a BIOS update on the board and after the CMOS clear it booted fine with all 4Gb in.
The 2.8Ghz Regor cpu is a nice little puppy. Fast, runs cool (65watts,27C).

Sam

 

Nah, I don't OC anywhere close to max, maybe a notch or two less of mid way, if that... The only thing I maxed was the memory.

 

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/7963/gpunos.jpg
That's my GPU OC program that came with the Mo/bo.

Also, a question about my RAM, 400Mhz is it's default speed???
If so, does my board take ram with speeds any higher than that?

 

Nvm i kinda figured out what i wanted to know, My board takes Ram with speeds up to 1333, But the specs state that you Can OC to 1600, 1800, the ram sticks I have are 1066 I believe, I just didn't know that the 1066 speed was as low as 400Mhz, don't get me wrong, this Pc kicks *** compared to any other ive owned in the past.. Just.. Idk I'm power hungry, lol.

 

Hey don't get me wrong, it's your PC, OC'ing is fun and I always like to encourage people to experiment, it's the best way to learn, but it's not without consequences. I just wanted to make sure you know the risks.
While it is a bit pointless until you get better GFX, it's still fun. It's like trying to go faster on a bike. I think it's good you're not afraid to try things, just be careful lol

Seems like you've had some good results though, have a look at this thread and watch the vids, awesome!

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=215079

 

Yeah I agree, you're right, I always have learned the hard way, That's how I learned most of what i know. Gotta say though Ive learned a bit from these forums as well. There's risks in everything I don't care what it is, there are always risks lol, But you're right It is fun to experiment, I don't plan on doing anything major though.

 

The strangest thing happened today after learning of the GWSCAN hard drive software scanner from working on the emachines laptop, I ran the utility on my rig as well and the result come up with problems so i ran the extended scan, it came up with problems again AND fixed them.. After all of this something told me to re run the windows assessment tool, So i did and it came back 4.6, I thought that can't be right so i re ran it a few more times, 4.6 every time, It was 4.5 before and I only got 4.6 when overclocking, I checked to make sure i wasn't Overclocking and sure enough I'm not, So I thought now that my score is 4.6; If I OC it should go to 4.7, But it doesn't... WEIRD!! lol

Anyway that tool seemed to have fixed some hard drive problem that brought my score up one point, Are there any other programs like this for all my other hardware's?? It would really come in handy, Anything you recommend?

But i still find it odd that OC'ing no longer brings the score up.

 

Please start your own thread instead of hijacking an old one.

 

I started this thread..

 

Sorry.

 

It's fine, don't worry about it.

 

oddly it's back at 4.5 now..

 

I would recommend In-Win Case BQ656.
Link:
centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=75458

 

Thanks, anyone have any idea why after i used that program my score went from 4.5 to 4.6 but went back to 4.5 the next day after?

 

Is that 4.5/4.6 the hard drive score in the WEI?

Sam

 

WEI the whole score.

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/7600/86907852.jpg​

 

Now it's back to 4.6


http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/3692/89145100.jpg

 

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3920/96460614.jpg


there all different, this one is still 4.6 but Gaming graphics went up a point.

 

Is this onboard graphics or a video card? If onboard I'd guess overall system (chipset, cpu, memory) usage while the WEI is being run may give the changing results. Just a guess 'tho.

Sam

 

That's what I'm guessing, That my system performance is alternating, But is that normal?