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Buying a new pc
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 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Orpheus on Thu Mar 3rd at 3:22am 2005

floppies are so cheap, take up no room and use no resources. if you use it once you got your money back. anyone who doesn't include one in a new PC is a fool IMO.

to me it would be like getting a new set of tires and telling the store to hold the air.

[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Tracer Bullet on Thu Mar 3rd at 3:23am 2005

? quoting satchmo
Unfortunately, I don't have enough hydrogen fuel. I do, however, have high-grade plutonium. I just need a bit more to be enough for fusion.

Plutonium is a fissile material that is only used as a trigger in an H-Bomb. You also need tritium, not simple hydrogen...

[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by satchmo on Thu Mar 3rd at 5:52am 2005

Yeah, Orph. I am obsessive about not having redundancy, in everything I do. So to have a floppy drive in my computer that I use only once makes as much sense as putting empty soda bottles in the chasis for me. Yeah, the bottles use no resources, but they're useless and concenptually annoying.

I am just wondering whether it's possible at all to set up a SATA drive without a floppy drive. It might be a challenge, but I am up for it.

I am even considering of buying a small (around 40 GB) EIDE HDD. It'll cost just a little bit more than the floppy drive, but it can at least store stuff and be somewhat useful. I can use it to store the entire Win XP OS and use the SATA drive as a slave.
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Crono on Thu Mar 3rd at 6:42am 2005

? quote:
Yeah, Orph. I am obsessive about not having redundancy, in
everything I do. So to have a floppy drive in my computer that I
use only once makes as much sense as putting empty soda bottles in the
chasis for me. Yeah, the bottles use no resources, but they're
useless and concenptually annoying.

I am just wondering whether it's possible at all to set up a SATA drive
without a floppy drive. It might be a challenge, but I am up for
it.

I am even considering of buying a small (around 40 GB) EIDE HDD.
It'll cost just a little bit more than the floppy drive, but it can at
least store stuff and be somewhat useful. I can use it to store
the entire Win XP OS and use the SATA drive as a slave.



Then there wouldn't be a purpose of using the floppy drive at all since you could get drivers for the SATA drive online after installing the OS

That is, unless SATA acts like RAID (which doesn't make sense and isn't likely) [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by satchmo on Thu Mar 3rd at 6:52am 2005

Another alternative is to use the existing USB ports and put the driver on a flash memory drive. I don't know whether Win XP is going to recognize flash disks during the installation process though.

I have the driver for the SATA controller already. It came on a CD with the motherboard. My problem is to get it into the computer before I have an OS fully installed. It's a chicken/egg dilemma--can't recognize the drive without a driver, but can't install the driver without an OS being loaded first.

Whatever it takes, I'll try to avoid installing the floppy drive. I know I'm stubborn, but that's my middle name.
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Crono on Thu Mar 3rd at 8:04am 2005

Whatever. I can't imagine that you don't have another computer in your entire house that doesn't have a floppy you could borrow for 20 minutes, unless the computer you're using now doesn't belong to you or anyone in your family or household. [addsig]



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 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by satchmo on Thu Mar 3rd at 12:56pm 2005

After pondering about different possibilities all day, I may have to resort to yanking out the floppy drive of my current computer and transplant it into the new one (if only temporarily). The IDE idea isn't great, because I have to go back and forth with master/slave settings, and the setting labels are just so small and hard to read on the drive. /me goes blind trying to read them.

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions.
[addsig]



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 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Orpheus on Thu Mar 3rd at 1:16pm 2005

I wasn't trying to be an ass satch, but i also cannot help but think of all this trouble you may have avoided by installing your useless A drive in advance.

as i said, its cheap, and if you use it even once you got your money back.. in this case IN SPADES!

/runs

[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Crono on Thu Mar 3rd at 5:10pm 2005

? quote:
After pondering about different possibilities all day, I may have to
resort to yanking out the floppy drive of my current computer and
transplant it into the new one (if only temporarily). The IDE
idea isn't great, because I have to go back and forth with master/slave
settings, and the setting labels are just so small and hard to read on
the drive. /me goes blind trying to read them.

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions.



You could have been done by now. Quit bitching and go do it. [addsig]



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 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by satchmo on Thu Mar 3rd at 11:49pm 2005

It's done! Finally, after a long late night and lots of manual reading and helpful tips from the SnarkPit forum, the new computer is born. It weights more than 10 lb, so it's definitely on the larger side for a newborn. Can you tell what a proud father I am?

After spending half-an-hour trying to dismount the floppy drive from my old computer, I gave up and brought it next to my new computer. Instead of transplanting it to my new chassis, I just hooked up the data cable and the power cord from the new computer into the old one. Surgeons often do this type of in-situ transplant, and I guess I stole the idea from them.

However, there is something erotic about the "coupling" of my two computers. I was mildly aroused looking at them, with one standing and the other one lying on her side. I couldn't resist but to take a photo of them together. Below is a picture documentin the conception of my baby.


[addsig]



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 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Orpheus on Fri Mar 4th at 12:05am 2005

we all almost think of ourselves as expectant fathers.. so satch, what are the stats of this babe you are arousing? [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by satchmo on Fri Mar 4th at 12:18am 2005

Athlon XP 3200+
1 GB PC3200
Radeon 9800 Pro
200 GB SATA HDD

I only got the OS installed so far, so I can't provide any frame rates for games yet. I have to work tonight, so I might have to finish the software setup tomorrow.
[addsig]



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 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Myrk- on Fri Mar 4th at 12:22am 2005

The only hard part of building a PC is applying a good layer of paste to the processor and the heatsink. Most people are fewlish monkeys when they do it and do a crap job. Takes about 10 minutes to do it properly.

If your using a sata drive as your primary be warned, its a complete bitch to do. Alot of loading drivers and s**t to make it work and alot of bios fiddling.

As for that screen Korn, its not a greatly known make of screen, so chances are it may have a fair few dead pixels...

[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by Orpheus on Fri Mar 4th at 12:34am 2005

now i heard you want a very thin even coat of paste between the heat sink and the processor.

i would make certain on this point as its the most heat generating thing in there..

good luck, and I'd be highly interested in seeing the madonion bench scores

for the record, mine were:

05 score- 2083
03 score- 4397
01 score- 16,169

my machine:

3500+ 64bit 939 pin
asus a8v-deluxe
512-pc3200
256 meg Radeon 9800 pro running at 409.5 and 310.5 MHz

[addsig]



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 Re: Buying a new pc
Posted by satchmo on Fri Mar 4th at 12:58am 2005

? quote:
Alot of loading drivers and s**t to make it work and alot of bios fiddling.


You can say that again. It took me three days to get the SATA driver issue sorted out.

I wasn't sure about how much thermal paste to apply, so I squeeze a small amount and hoped for the best. It's definitely enough to interface between the processer and the heat sink. Almost everywhere I read, an excess amount of paste should not be harmful anyways (souce: AMD site).
[addsig]




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