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Mark

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Everything posted by Mark

  1. Up here (Quebec, Canada) gas is $4.60 a gallon (that's canadian dollars for a US gallon which is 3.78 liters). Or $1.22 per liter as we have it. I drive a Jeep and it's horrible on gas, especially in the winter...
  2. Hmmm, Interesting, especially for folks like me with a near-full SSD. I must have the update installed because I can see the options in Disk Cleanup ; I could retrieve close to 5 Gigs right now, with unneeded updates and Service Pack backups... If I'm reading them correctly, the risk is more for folks who would want to roll back far behind and would no longer have those updates present. I'm tempted to do an image right now and just clean out those 5Gs... but Santa may bring a bigger/faster SSD soon, so why rush into it... lol
  3. Don't think I had any updates last week or this week, Just did a manual check and none to be found/offered. Office 2013 (365 - University) installed. Win7 Home Prem. Which update(s) is so big, Ron ? Jeez.. that's a lot !
  4. Ok then. When I read your reply I just thought... well, this is a security oriented forum, and the OP asked a hardware related question in the "General Chat" section. Of a security oriented forum lol. So I thought I had some wiggle room, or, as it turned out, room for error. I think the OP knows he's just getting ideas/opinions from security minded, well-intentioned folks I built my present rig two years ago and it has a 3770K, but it's running at stock clock because I'm a big chicken and it is the main family machine, heh. I do have some cooling from a Xigmatek Dark Knight, but I'm still too much of a chicken to fool around with the clock. I'm happy with overall performance (SSD, 2x8GB DDR3 sticks). The 3770K was on special when I bought it, so I didn't waste any good money going with it instead of a locked processor. I'll build a new rig in a year or two, when SATA Express and/or M.2 PCIe are well established. Oh and DDR4 as well, which is just starting to emerge. About the PSU : I know this is a sensitive subject for many ; I merely recommended a certified, quality unit without going into the nitty gritty.
  5. Oh, I did miss that. Had you been reading this topic for a while ? @malwarebytesmemeber : wouldn't you know it, the Core i7 3770 you want doesn't even fit on the Z97 motherboards because the socket is different. I kinda missed that small detail, oopsy It wouldn't fit on a Z87 board either. Socket for Ivy bridge is LGA 1155,. while Z97 and Z87 have LGA 1150. So... does the Haswell i7 4790 (or 4770) look better now ?
  6. Yeah sorry, *mobo* is an acronym for motherboard. "Z97" is a motherboard platform for Intel processors (or a class if you will), so all mobo manufacturers sell Z97 cards. When I built my machine two years back, the Z77 was the new class. The one you are looking at is a *gamer* grade Z97 board, which means it has more features than a regular Z97. The reason why I mentionned you should get a Core i7 4790 (Haswell architecture) instead of a 3770 (Ivy bridge architecture) is because the newer Z97 motherboards were built to get the most out of the new Haswell processors, so you would be slightly ahead on performance and upgradability with the 4790/Z97 combination ; you might find it interesting to read up on the Z97 evolution. If you insist on getting the i7 3770 regardless, then you may want to consider a different motherboard, something in the Z87 class for instance, because the Z97 is somewhat of an overkill for Ivy bridge processors (IMHO). As far as RAM goes : Gary's mod requires a minimum of 512MB while 1GB is recommended. Minecraft requires 2GB minimum, and 4GB is optimal. You should be more than fine with 8GB system memory, especially if you have a graphics card with 2GB of onboard RAM or more.; Those who need 16GB or higher are those who do a lot of video editing / transcoding, heavy photo editing or CAD program usage (AutoCad, 3D Studio Max, etc...). You could start with one 8GB stick, and upgrade later if you feel you need more. As far as the graphics card goes : read, read, read... Because they evolve so fast, you must read reviews to determine what you need. As far as AMD vs nVidia : it's been a close battle for years, so one or the other, really. As far as the power supply goes : there isn't much difference in price between a 600W or a 800W unit, especially when you find a good deal. Go with a certified, efficient unit; they are more expensive but well worth it. If you downgrade your choice of graphics card, then I would use the calculator I linked to earlier to determine how much power you really need.
  7. I totally agree. However, the more recent and demanding games do run better with the most powerful (expensive) hardware. I'm no gamer, so I'd have to rely on some reading here and there to get into the mood. Getting the right system for the budget is a balancing act. In this case here, the CPU is two years old and not unlocked (Ivy bridge), and the more modern Haswell Core i7 4790 is clocked quicker and performs slightly better, for roughly the same price as the Ivy bridge Core i7 3770. The Z97 mobo is optimized for Haswell processors, so if it were me... I'd probably go Haswell. The new PCIe M.2 SSD slot on Z97 boards is promising (near 1000MB/s Read and Write speeds), but I've read that few drives are available (M.2 PCIe) and it may be too soon to run an OS smoothly from them. Bummer. SATA Express is on the way, though a bit slower than PCIe, it is way faster than SATA rev.3. Some Z97 boards offer both options, plus the regular SATA rev.3 ports of course. I'd get a 800W (minimum) PSU for this particular build. Because the CPU is locked, I wouldn't worry about buying an expensive CPU cooler, but I would get something better than the stock Intel cooler (Ivy bridge and Haswell can run pretty hot). The screen listed above is an expensive touch 21.5" IPS panel (roughly $500) ; this eats into the budget in a big way, so I'm guessing it is really needed. 16GB of decent DDR3 sets you back roughly $170 these days ; 8GB gets the job done for most home users/gamers though (even 4GB... but we won't get into that, heh). When I built mine 2 years ago, RAM was cheap (less than half what it is now) and SSDs were expensive. It's reversed today...
  8. Me again. I shouldn't get up at all on monday mornings... brain is stuck in neutral. That graphics card doesn't draw 400W, it is specced for a 400W (minimum) PSU. It makes a big difference. Consumption under load is roughly 115W. I would still use the online calculator to get an idea of total power needed, especially if you add a lot of components into that case. Edit : Reading your components list again, I realize you want a Radeon R9 290X graphics card, not an R7 (the R7 is the SSD...). So, this card requires more power indeed, as in a 750W minimum PSU depending on added components. The link you provided doesn't take me to any card, so could you check again and post the correct link please ? I found a few R9 290X cards but they vary a lot in price. Here are some examples : http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8871754&SRCCODE=CANWSHOPBOT&utm_source=Shopbot&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=cse&scpid=19&scid=scsho1161064 http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150700&nm_mc=OTC-sho6b0tCA&cm_mmc=OTC-sho6b0tCA-_-Video+Cards+-+AMD/ATI-_-XFX-_-14150700
  9. Oh I forgot. Having a card that draws a minimum of 400W means you'll probably need a bigger PSU. There are calculators out there : http://images10.newegg.com/BizIntell/tool/psucalc/index.html http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/ I looked for the that Radeon graphics card from canadian online resellers and am having a hard time finding it right now...
  10. May I ask why you chose the Radeon R7 SSD ? And what size do you want ? I'm asking because : a) Canada Computers has them in-store only (not online) if I am to believe their website, and b) you might find a cheaper drive with equivalent performance from Crucial (the MX100 series) or the Samsung 840 EVO series. NewEgg (Canada) has the 512GB MX100 for $229 right now and Amazon (Canada) lists it at $224 ; last friday, NewEgg had it for $209. If you can wait just a little bit, hang on until Black Friday and you'll get nice discounts on a lot of components (hopefully). The day is November 28. Cheers,
  11. A colleague's friend got a call a few days ago : same setup, but Verizon instead of Windows (or Microsoft). LogMeIn instead of Team Viewer. Looking for system errors, etc... They do this from crowded call centers, hence the background noise.
  12. Yep, they sometimes like to install protection themselves, at a hefty price. They also like to *desinfect* (= format) computers, for a hefty price, so installing Malwarebytes would in fact hurt business down the road. Perhaps samuraigary could ask this person to show up here and let us all hear what he has to say
  13. I wasn't computing in the Windows 3.1 days so I missed that. I believe you though, haha. I think W9 won't be the big success that a lot of folks are expecting from the cycle we've been accustomed to (one great system and then a dud, then one great etc...). W8 is definitely a dud, but the way MS thinks right now, the focus (obsession ?) on mobile will still be very present in W9 I'm sure. Let's dream for a second that we'll somehow get an option to work from a full Desktop again ; what could it bring that would make us forget the W7 Desktop experience ? We need something big to beat W7, and I'm not sure the current management has what it takes to deliver that in time for 2015... I hope W9 is good enough though.
  14. It makes sense the way you put it. From my perspective, the paradigm shifted somewhere early in the Vista stint. I started *home computing* late Win95 early Win98. I could easily run AutoCad (v14) from the Win98 machine that had only 128MB of RAM and a 500Mhz Athlon processor, with Norton antivirus in the background of course. That was a beast When XP rolled out, a lot of the older hardware was capable of running it. The hardware race was slow to progress, with processors gaining only 100Mhz every other month and RAM prices staying through the roof for a long time. Vista was the game changer I think. PC sales started to level off in favor of tablets so the PC hardware makers had to kick it up in a big way. Boy did we see improvements and price drops. I honestly think that if SSDs had been cheaper sooner, we'd have seen much less PC sale decreases over the past few years. The SSD is possibly the new game changer, getting PCs up to speed with tablets. Too little too late, maybe...
  15. Hey cats Yeah exactly, the hardware step from 9x/XP to Vista was enormous and many thought they could simply upgrade to Vista. Nope. Microsoft didn't help either by lowballing the requirements when Vista came out. Manufacturers sold way too many machines with *minimum specs*, to try and keep prices down. Fast dual cores and new quads were available but expensive and RAM wasn't cheap either, IIRC. During the Vista years, processors really progressed and so did HDD transfer speeds (from IDE to SATA I, II and then III). RAM got much quicker (SDRAM to DDR1, 2 then 3), and cheaper. So by the time W7 rolled out, a lot of us had much more power available than the minimum W7 specs required. That made the W7 launch a whole lot easier for MS and manufacturers.. because you could now buy power PCs for less than $1000, or a decent one for $500. I have W8 installed on two machines, but I don't use it much. I tweak it to run like W7 and that way it's fine (on non touchscreens). I did have to use a third party shell, which is kinda ridiculous­. Hoping W9 will bring full Desktop functionality back as an option for those of us who still use computers to get real work done... Edit to add : main machine here has W7 [/Rant]
  16. No worries catscomputer, you're not alone. I ran Vista here on my main box for about 3 years and enjoyed it lots. I had purchased a new rig with enough horsepower at that time (quads had just come out). I was a little apprehensive so I installed XP alongside as well (multi-boot). Turns out XP accumulated dust. Windows 7 is a *lighter* Vista, both are very similar in many aspects. I never had one problem with Vista here, even before SP1. You are correct though that Vista requires more robust hardware than W7 to run freely. I can't blame many-many Vista users for complaining, mostly because manufacturers were shipping Vista desktops and laptops with insufficient RAM and slow processors, so the computing experience became very painful. As in 3-4 minutes to boot to the Desktop type thing. I saw many Vista Basic machines with 512MB of RAM, and Home Premium equipped ones with 1GB, which is way inferior to what was needed. With slow single core Celerons or Semptrons. I tested such machines and wanted to throw them out the window... This wasn't all Microsoft's fault, but Vista did hit the streets with real high power/resource requirements and computer manufacturers underestimated this badly. Those with decent hardware didn't experience Vista the same way.
  17. I haven't looked hard because all my machines get updates as they come out, but... does anybody know how to quickly spot, say, a W8.1 install that doesn't have *Update 1*? Is there a warning to update or else ? I'm asking because I look after a bunch of machines for friends/family, most are W7 but more and more are W8.1. I'd hate to have to check for a specific update just to be sure the system isn't a sitting duck... This applies to IE11 on W7, too.
  18. Not sure if you were referring to my link to "Europa" on the hukulele, which has Santana in the title but no Carlos in the video ? Santana wrote Europa, and Brittni Paiva covered it. Great arrangement and sound, in my humble opinion. Great melody from Santana. Here's another classic (oh yeah...) played by Brittni Paiva, alongside the master... and don't mind the first 80 seconds, it gets better quality wise :
  19. Blues lover myself (emphasis on blues guitarists !) YT takes me places. I like that. Stumbled onto a hukulele player from Hawaï. Very good player. I just never knew a hukulele could sound like this. Sit back and enjoy...
  20. I'll be the one who gets this back on topic :-P I upgraded a W8 laptop last night. I had some difficulty getting the 8.1 upgrade to download, but it finally did on the 4th try. A nice surprise (these are rare, heh) : Update 1 (or W8 SP2 as I like to call it) was included in the package. No wonder the size of the 8.1 upgrade (or SP1 in my book) was just North of 3.6GB MS didn't do this at first, but quickly decided it would be more efficient this way. No kidding... Another reason for doing this and I'm not sure we've discussed it in this thread yet : those with 8.1 who do not update to "8.1 Update1" in the next few weeks will stop receiving updates completely by May (of this year !). Yes, this means that those without Update 1 will have a dead W8.1 (end of life) in 2 weeks or so. Funnily, those with W8 only have support until January 12 2016. Go figure ! No really, this is more absurd than anything I've seen from MS. Imagine those in the entreprise field who are deploying 8.1 right now (and they don't have Update 1 rolled into the package) ; how are they supposed to rush into yet another rollout (Update 1) so quickly ? How many machines will be running on unsupported 8.1 and for how long ? Nice going MS... Edit to add : Steve posted about the mandatory Update 1 in a separate thread >>> https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=146157
  21. Look at the shipping cost : $10.49 Not such a deal after all..
  22. We're well beyond that point now, GhostMotleyX. They put the Start button back with the 8.1 upgrade. Or so they say. It's a very limited button, with some right-click options (left click it and you're on the Metro screen). You might have meant a Start Menu, a real one like W7's and prior. That's where the arrogance kicks in (in my opinion). They don't want you to have a Start Menu. They want you to use Metro, so you won't buy other iOS or Android equipped devices ever again. If you become familiar (by force) with Metro, you'll want all your devices in one ecosystem. Right ? That's their Plan. Not just Metro, they want you to use the MS Store, to sell you apps ; they can't sell apps to those who use the Desktop exclusively (like me). They also want you to use a MS account instead of a local account. With a MS account, they'll try to push you to save all your Documents to the cloud (hello SkyDrive), so you'll end up paying for storage space when the free limit is reached. Whoopie. For my non touchscreen computers, I'll have my Desktop, Start button + Start Menu and my local account. If I have to install third party shells and gizmos to get there, so be it. For the next few years, my main system is and will remain W7. I have a few W8 installs, because I got them for $15 and I like to at least try the new stuff.
  23. Thanks... I'm the big Linux noob. My bro wanted a supported version as much as possible (for the noob friend). So I went testing a few flavors. The old Acer has a Broadcom BCM4318 wireless card, which is not included in 'nix systems because the drivers aren't open source. You gotta go get 'em, but you need firmware first. Big fun for the noob, heh. Big surprise, I got Mint 16 Cinnamon to work decently (I think). I installed on the Windows partition, no funny business required. They'll run it dual boot for a while (with XP), to see if they like it. I really like this flavor, I must say. Lubunto is kinda nice and light as well, but refused to load on the Acer for some reason. Linux Lite I tested and liked as well (another friendly lightweight). Gonna play around in VMWare, to get some skills (finally).
  24. John, Thanks for the post. I do agree. I've met a few of *them*, including my mother-in-law. She emailed me on April 8 asking if her laptop had XP, and if it was going to suddenly stop working like she had read about in the news. Oh lordy. Good thing she has W7, and I insisted she had support until 2020 on that one. Then she asked me about one of my sisters-in-law (her daughter) who does still run XP. Good thing we visited a few weeks ago and I offered to shop for her next box, soon. I'm off the hook :-P That icon thing (yeah, I have a hard time letting go, haha..) : I agree with almost whatever reminders they feel necessary, though too many would quickly become irritating and may push some away - for good. I say do it, but don't hijack the tray icon for the purpose of scaring people. The tray icon needs to be a monitor, not a nagging reminder about the end of the world.. I'll get off my soapbox if/when they give XP MSE users their icon back. Because it's hijacked. Love that word
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