The Platoon ultimate rig chalenge.

[MiStA PePPa]

Well, my current pc has pretty much crapped out. I'm not sure what is wrong exactly, but I've tried everything to fix it. Every time I boot, I get the missing hal.dll error. Now this happened to me before and all I had to do was do a reinstall of Windows. But now, for some reason, when I boot from the windows cd, it will go through loading all the components and after it says "setup is starting windows" I get a stop error. Most of the time it's different too. I think it has something to do with hardware, maybe the mobo.

I'm actually using the broken pc now. At a friends house, I found this boot disc called BartPE (Preinstalled Environment) It has network support and I can use firefox. Nothing else works at all. For now, I'll be using it to surf the web.

[FritzDaKat]

So, there were a few changes and addons in my cheapo-box,

#1 PowerSpec v100 with a 3.33Ghz Celeron D$299.00
#2 Slapped in 2Gb of Corsair pc5300 $84.99
#3 Popped inan eGeForce 7600GT 256mb pci-e card $89.99
#4 Tossed the 300W supply in favor of a 600W Ultra  $79.99
#5 Added a 74Gb WD Raptor $149.99

So $704.95 and it runs COD2 maxed out in SP with no lag, ARMA is ok with all set to low and visibility at 1000'ish but I have yet to start tweaking and such so we'll see how it goes after I Rivatune and so forth. I'll keep ya' updated.
(yea, I know theres alot more titles out there that would put a serious hurting on this box, but the MOBO will accept a core2 duo and theres definatly room for improvement on the vid card, maxed out the ram thou )

Oh yea', All from Micro-center, 1 stop shopping.

[MiStA PePPa]

Well I'm sorry to say I have caved in and ordered my computer. After going about 2 weeks without even being able to use BartPE to boot, and my 360 is in the shop, I can no longer take the boredom. I went online at a friends house and found CyberPowerPC.com and ordered this:

*BASE_PRICE: [+645]
CAS: ($20 off Mail-in Rebate) X-Discovery Mid-Tower Case 420W W/ WINDOW & Temperature Display (Blue Color)
CASUPGRADE: NONE
CS_FAN: Default case fans
CPU: (Socket AM2) AMD Athlon(TM)64 X2 5600+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+94]
CD: (Special Price) 18X DVD+/-R/+/-RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
CD2: NONE
CABLE: None
FLOPPY: NONE
FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR)
FAN: AMD ATHLON64 CERTIFIED CPU FAN & HEATSINK
HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+16])
HDD2: NONE
IEEE_CARD: NONE
KEYBOARD: NONE [-7]
MOUSE: NONE [-2]
MODEM: NONE
MONITOR: (Labor Day Special only $99) 19" TFT LCD Monitor Display [+99]
MONITOR2: NONE
MOTHERBOARD: (Socket AM2)MSI K9N4 SLI-F nForce 500 SLI Chipset DDR2/800 SATA-II RAID MBoard w/ Dual 16x PCI-Express
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Value Select or Major Brand)
NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition w/ Service Pack 2 [+89]
PRINTER: None
PRINTER_CABLE: None
PRO_WIRING: None
POWERSUPPLY: STANDARD CASE POWER SUPPLY
RUSH: NO; READY TO SHIP IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS 24/7 LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
SPEAKERS: 600WATT PMPO SUBWOOFER STEREO SPEAKERS
TEMP: NONE (AS SHOWN)
TVRC: None
USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
UPS: None
USBHD: NONE
VIDEO: NEW!!! NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO2: NEW!!! NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEOCAMERA: NONE
WNC: NONE
WAP: NONE
_PRICE: (+934)

I don't think it's bad. Any comments?

[DaSmerg]

Other than going with AMD over Intel (some sort of cost savings?) and letting somebody else build it for ya, looks pretty good.

The only adder with any kind of urgency IMHO...another HDD so you can get a lil RAID action going on.

[MindlessOath]

raid? what for? redundency? cause you wont get any major performance boost out of it unless you go with a raid card... onboard raid adds the slightest bit of performance that is usually unseen and can often hinder other operations making it a loosing situation for most. just a marketing feature.

[FritzDaKat]

Hey MO, any particular suggestions on a raid card or will any suffice? Gonna double up on the 74 Gb raptors next week

[DaSmerg]

Do a little research Fritz.  MO's stipulation might have been true, but it isn't necessarily so now-a-days.  You could be throwing bucks at something you really don't need.

If you're running a mirror array (RAID 1), yeah, a seperate card is something to really look at though (transferability of your RAID 1 array).

[MindlessOath]

raid cards are generaly to expensive because they  are used for buisnesses' mostly, so that makes them have less market, making them cost more. not to mention most of them are 64bit pci interface cards.

its true that most if not all motherboard manufactures put raid on the motherboard as a selling feature and its not going to benifit unless you use the redundency feature only... its only good for redunency and a waste for speed.  

a raid card will be the only benifit in going raid0, but the benifit to a destop user is so minimul because the prices are so high on most of them.

your right a set of raptors using raid0 would be pritty sweet, but if your going to use the onboard raid, your going to make the performance of those drives to take a dive.  they are good enough on there own usually.

a site i often visited for performance specs on enterprise hardware like raid cards and eithernet nic's (for buisness servers of course) is www.digit-life.com - i belive they still have all there old reviews still, most of the raid cards they focused on were ide interface - but i havent visited the site in the last year so mabe they have new reviews, im not sure.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&q=sata+raid+card+review

[FritzDaKat]

Come to think of it, I may have to skip it and go onboard after all. I was mainly hoping to reduce the friggin load times between maps in neverwinter nights 2 BUT then I'd loose the pci slot I need for the vga cooler. DOH! Thanks n-e way for the advice.

[MiStA PePPa]

Here's a concern of mine: Is anything going to hold this rig back? Is the CPU going to be able to handle the full SLI advantage I'm getting? Is the PSU powerful enough?

I guess I'm just nervous and the expected shipping date (the 17th) is not making my life any more enjoyable. I mean what the fluk am I supposed to do while I wait? I have no computer at all except for on campus, and when my pc decides it's going to turn on without a BSOD. I'm freaking out. I sent my 360 in for repair. Maybe I'll take up darts.

[DaSmerg]

You should be fine and a happy PC gamer peppa.

I think you are going through what is commonly refered to as withdrawl