New Computer

I spent the last 12 hours assembling and struggling with my new computer, discovering the joys of everything from poorly applied thermal paste to improperly connected memory to not-entirely-plugged-in SATA drives.

But at last, I finally live in the world of the SSD, with 32 gigabytes of RAM.

Right now, my computer is installing Windows 10 (huzzah for free OS upgrades), and while it still has my old video card in it (and likely will for several months), it is otherwise up and running.

Comments

[Alsvid]

32 gigs of ram? Jellomad over here with my 8 gigs. I have room for more, though.

What kind of CPU did you get? As an AMD user, I reserve the right to get huffy if you got an Intel.

[Secret_Brony]

Are you using the same license (key) of Windows 10 as your last computer? If so, the license is tied to the old motherboard (Just like 7 and 8) and you will have to contact windows support to activate it. Thankfully you can do this from within Windows 10, and they are pretty good about transferring the license. Normally....

[Honey Mead]

What do you need 32 gigs of ram for?

[Alsvid]

4062574

Future proofing. He intends for it to last six years.

[Spectral]

32 GB? Are you doing video editing? I've got 16, and I don't know what to use it for. SSD's are amazing though, especially how quiet they are.

4062572
I thought this only happened with certain motherboards (mostly in pre-built business computers), where the license is coupled to the motherboard itself. Also, I thought those were untransfarable.

[Alsvid]

Pity he didn't do a pictorial step by step commentary of his work like I did on my blog when I assembled my computer.

[Secret_Brony]

4062592
When you register Windows (7, 8 or 10) it saves the hardware (motherboard mostly) information to that license/key. Doesn't matter what type of motherboard it is. The benefit to this is that it means you don't need the key to do a clean install of Windows 10. The down side is that if you upgrade the motherboard you can't activate Windows.

Microsoft does let you transfer the license/key if you contact them. The only expectation being OEM versions of Windows (pre-built PC's). But even then its not uncommon for them to bend the rules.

[Honey Mead]

4062590
... you can always add more later and the prices will only go down.

[Kryssi]

I never thought there’d be a song about CPUs, but I suppose there is. And by the best pasticher, to boot.

[Titanium Dragon]

4062572
Amusingly, I am using the same key, and Microsoft was 100% fine with it - it let me activate my new computer without any problem at all.

4062604
32 gigs of RAM cost only $100. And I actually do use Photoshop and do a lot of multitasking, so 32 GB is actually potentially appreciable.

[Alsvid]

4062631

I figure you probably aren't using CORSAIR EXTREME GAMER EXTREME MLG PRO memory, either, so 32 gigs ain't all that expensive.

It's cheap to put together a powerful machine these days. I, like you, am still using my old GPU and old HDDs, but once I replace those...hoo, boy.

[FloydienSlip]

I'm actually looking to build a computer in the next three months. Would you mind sending me/posting here the list of parts you chose? Still looking for just the right setup...

[PresentPerfect]

I'm jelly ;_;

[Corejo]

Now for some quality-of-life improvements for that snazzy Windows 10, if you fancy any of the below:

-get Bing2Google for your preferred browser so you can 'Windows key > google search' straight from your desktop
-right click that taskview thing and send that shit to Tartarus
-optional 'dark theme'
-download VLC Media Player, because Windows 10 doesn't come with DVD-playing software
-you're probably one of the everybody (including me) that does pretty much everything with Google Docs, so you might not like this one, but OneDrive is useful for setting up your music, as it syncs with Windows 10 and, if you're like me, with your Windows phone, too, to stream all your music
-if you bother with this, get the Groove Music app off the Windows Store, as it also syncs and is 100000x better than iTunes
-if you have multiple computers, set up a Homegroup for data transfer, as the ethernet cord data transfer program in Win 7 no longer exists
-open File Explorer > click on 'view' on the top > click Options on the top right > Open File Explorer to 'This PC'
-this folder should by default have all of the items listed in the following suggestion already, but if not, just follow the next suggestion to add them
-right click desktop > Personalization > Start > 'Choose which folders appear on Start' > keep File Explorer and Setting set to 'on' and set the rest to off and then pin their respective folders (or don't) to your File Explorer for clean organization of your Start Menu

That's all I can think of for now. Hope you like some of those!

[insertfootinmouth]

4062746 Dude, who doesn't use dark theme? We're all edgy here.

[Corejo]

4062781
They actually updated the windows to be a very light grey a few months ago, so now the normal theme is actually bearable.

[Icy Shake]

4062746
Launchy? Alt+Space to open programs (in combination with .BAT files, directories too) from anywhere, mouse-free.
Also, if you don't like the new Photos application for viewing image files (I like it for .gifs, but that's it), you can activate the old Windows Photo Viewer.

[insertfootinmouth]

4062787 Dark theme is still better, imho.

[Horse Voice]

Gotta love that new computer feeling.

[Oliver]

4062574

I'm not sure how Windows 10 handles this, (back in Windows 7 you had to do some registry tweaking to achieve the same effect) but in Linux, all the memory not occupied by actual programs is used for disk cache. Lots of free, seemingly unused memory has a profound effect on performance in some usage patterns.

[Nali]

Welcome to the modern age, enjoy the speed.

#still using the same monitors though so it doesn't feel THAT new

Ultrawides, man. They'll cure that feeling real fast.

[ultra1437]

4062592

SSD's are amazing though, especially how quiet they are.

If your spinning-disk hard drive is the loudest thing in your computer, then you're most likely running with very few to no fans. That means cooling under heavy load is going to be an issue.

I built my own computer back in feb 2012, and it's not loud, but you can hear it idling. It's a gaming box, so when the fans really kick on under load, it tends to sound more a jet engine than a computer, but I've got noise-cancelling headphones, so it's not too big a deal. It's also not loud enough to activate my voice activation on my mic when I'm on Discord or Skype.

For the record, the only thing I've done to this computer is upgrade the video card from a GTX 570 to a GTX 980. Still runs like a dream.