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On February 16 2014 05:37 KwarK wrote:
Successfully emigrated but my old computer won't power up. I have a UK to US plug adaptor but when I put it in the big a green light near the power socket on the PC lights up and an orange light on the mobo lights up but the computer itself won't power up and those two lights fade. Everything was well padded and there is no visible damage or unseating of wires so I'm thinking it might be a problem with the wire itself. The adaptor itself has no ground pin if that's relevant. Is it worth ordering a US power lead for my computer? And what does those lights coming on and then fading mean?
Huh. Is the power cord connected to the power supply in your computer? (As in, attached permanently?) I would think you should be able to swap the cord for a US layout (assuming it's the standard three pin input at the back of the PSU, I could be wrong) and have it work.
Look at the back of the power supply. Look for a switch that shows 115 or 230. Like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
With the computer turned off and unplugged from the wall, check to see that the switch is on 115. If it is, switch it to 230 and then back to 115. If it's not on 115, that's your problem, or at least part of it.
If you have no switch, then odds are it's auto-switching.
After that, I recommend re-seating everything. It may look fine, but you can never be too sure.
edit - sniped by Skyr, although I did take the time to get a picture. 
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United States43557 Posts
On February 16 2014 05:54 skyR wrote:
I assume your power supply is old and has a red switch on the back to set voltage? Europe uses 230v while America mainly uses 115v so make sure the switch is set to 115v.
How come you're a wizard?
tytyty
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United States43557 Posts
Thanks also to felisconcolori who also solved my problem. You're both gentlemen and sirs.
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United States43557 Posts
and I've got my old pc set up, no more help needed until all the bits of my new one arrive in the post
You guys provide an amazing service here in this topic.
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I'm just a peanut gallery; skyR, Ropid, and Cyro are wizards.
Speaking of, if I were going to add 2 more 140mm fans to my Fractal Arc Midi R2 (and maybe another fan on my Noctua U14S heatsink, so three), what would be good fans to look at getting? Bling optional, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy some glow inside the case.
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"Which fan?" is a pretty generic question without more qualifiers than wanting some glow. There's all kinds of price and speed / noise ranges. Also, 3-pin or 4-pin? Intake (which positions?) or exhaust?
For a generic mid-high cost range option, there's Phanteks PH-F140SP.
http://phanteks.com/PH-F140SP.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709024
I think the fan blades, motor, bearings, overall shape, etc. are the same as this reviewed by SPCR:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page4.html
If you want something of similar speed and noise levels as the stock fans, you might want something closer to 1000 rpm though. This shouldn't be way out of line at 1300 rpm and a smoother / superior design though, just with significantly more airflow.
Possibly something else could have better performance for exhaust where there's little restriction.
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I just purchased a Dell XPS 8700:http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-8700/pd?oc=ddcwgp2103&model_id=xps-8700
I know the majority of folks here like to build their own computers. I'm curious to know if this was a bad buy. I'm assuming I may have payed a premium, but according to some things I've read, because large manufacturers have gigantic economies of scale, they can offer products for cheaper than building your own gig (contrary to popular conception, although I don't know if this is true).
I've read a ton of arguments, mostly revolving around the premise that for lower-mid quality computer builds, it's cheaper now to buy from a large manufacturer. If you're buying high end (think alienware), you'll end up paying more than building your own. Is this true?
To be honest, I only purchased this because they offered a method of paying about $50/month. I wouldn't have had nowhere enough the money to pay this all at once, nor would I have had the money to purchase a ton of parts and build my own gig, even if it was for significantly cheaper than what I purchased.
For $50/month, it seems like a pretty good deal. Or is it?
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If you don't have a Windows license than yes low-end prebuilts in most cases will be less expensive than building it yourself.
But $1700 isn't low end at all.. Low end is like under $500. Most prebuilts above $500 is pretty bad unless you completely ignore quality and warranty.
Financing is never a good deal unless the rate is 0%...
I hope this computer is for work because it's pretty poorly optimized (aka wasteful) for a gaming computer.
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
Yea $1700 for a stock system with an r9 270? Given the quality of parts (mobo, psu etc) probably used, you could probably build better for half of the cost for a gaming system
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$7200 actually at $50/month.. ridiculous LOL. Even at $100 per month, it's still $2300. Just save up 1.5 years and you'll have a much better computer and components that you will carry through onto multiple builds.
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
$7200 actually at $50/month
Even at $100 per month, it's still $2300
Dunno why you'd want a stock haswell quad core and half of a high end gpu (lower-midrange build) with trash secondary components for even a fraction of that price
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$7200 actually at $50/month
Even at $100 per month, it's still $2300
On February 16 2014 16:11 Cyro wrote:
So, I wondered the same and was interested into what's going on here (never bought anything in monthly payments so have no idea about this).
I'm not sure I'm understanding this correctly:
I clicked somewhere on that Dell page and read that they'll charge no interest on your account balance for the first year. It starts with the second year if you are still in debt at that point.
That PC is $1600 and you'll have paid off $50 * 12 = $600 in the first year, so the remaining balance in the account is $1000 starting with the second year.
The Dell page says their interest rates work out to 20% to 30% annual percentage rate. Typing $1000 and 30% and $50 monthly into a credit card debt calculator results in paying 29 months for a total of $1404.
(used this site: http://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/credit-card-payment-calculators.php)
So it'll overall be 12 + 29 = 41 monthly payments of $50, and about $2050 total.
I have no idea if that's how it works, but I don't like it and that $2000+ result I got for that PC makes me sick.
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It's only interest free if you pay the amount back in full within a year otherwise you are charged interest on the full amount starting from the date of purchase.
I just got my numbers from Dell's tables, not sure how they calculate it. If you input this stuff in a financial calculator, assuming 30% APR is compounded monthly (for simplicity sakes, I'm sure they compound daily) then you would be paying almost $4000 if you elect to pay $51 per month to pay off the balance.
It's just really stupid to be financing small purchases like a computer...
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Dang.. Alright, looks like I've made a bad decision. Ill plan on payin it off in exactly a year to not pay interest. Thanks fellas
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Well it was definitely overpriced, however if you pay it off so as to not pay interest and maybe buy/sell some some parts (so as to tailor the rig for your needs) you could mitigate the damage.
First off, what are you goin to do with that rig? Only gaming? Some streaming as well? Encoding? In this post I'll assume you want a rig primarily for gaming at 1080p.
Do you know what motherboard is in there? Same question about the power supply.
Does your warranty die if you sell off parts you don't need?
You're in the USA right now, which that the prices on AMD cards are inflated. R9 270 is one of the best mining cards because it doesn't consume much power compared to its hashrate. I'm not telling you to mine, rather, wait for the prices on the R9 270 to rise and see if you can't sell yours at a good price as well. In a few months it might be severely overpriced in the USA. A 270 is worth like what? 200 bucks? If you sell it for more than $300 you have yourself a deal. It's worth $200, so selling at $300 makes you $100 profit, you can then use that cash to get a GTX 760 or GTX 770 (AMD cards will obviously be overpriced still). A GTX 760 is high-ultra settings at 1080p, a GTX 770 is ultra settings at 1080p. R9 270 is a notch under the GTX 760.
For reference, a reference R9 290 should be selling at about $400. Due to the mining craze, a reference R9 290 is like $600 at the moment. It's pretty overpriced for gaming, though people mine with these cards are willing to pay $600. The same thing might happen to the R9 270 (it's already somewhat overpriced but I think its price will raise even more in the near future), in which case you can sell 270 for more than it's worth (for gaming). You have to sell your 270 to a someone who will mine with it.
24 Gb of RAM is overkill; I assume that you have 3x8 sticks of RAM in your rig. So perhaps you could sell one or two sticks of RAM. That might also get you some money. Maybe you could even sell all three sticks and buy a new set of 2x4 Gb. By selling 2x8 Gb, perhaps as much as $150+. ( clicky ). Most people don't need more than 8 Gb of RAM (if you do need more, you already know), so you wouldn't lose much doing this. That said, 2x4 sticks of RAM is better than 1x8, so it might not be a bad idea to ALSO sell the 8 Gb stick
If you're only going to game, then you might also sell your 4770 and get a 4670 instead (we're pretty sure that you won't be overclocking). You'd get a processor more suited to your needs and you'd make money in the process. Assuming you sell your 4770 at $310 and you buy a 4670 at $220, then you make $90. There are people out there willing to buy such a chip.
The general idea is that you trade the parts in your computer you don't need for something that suits your needs. Don't be pressed by time, sell your stuff on ebay or something for NO LOWER than a certain price (the price at which you'll be making a good deal). If someone buys, then you've made a deal, good. If someone doesn't, you keep using your stuff until someone does.
It'll be a hassle in general I'm guessing but all in all you might save $300-350, which helps a bit I guess. These are some options to consider, not saying that people out there will buy everything at the prices I mentioned here.
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On February 16 2014 08:10 Myrmidon wrote:"Which fan?" is a pretty generic question without more qualifiers than wanting some glow. There's all kinds of price and speed / noise ranges. Also, 3-pin or 4-pin? Intake (which positions?) or exhaust? For a generic mid-high cost range option, there's Phanteks PH-F140SP. http://phanteks.com/PH-F140SP.htmlhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709024I think the fan blades, motor, bearings, overall shape, etc. are the same as this reviewed by SPCR: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page4.htmlIf you want something of similar speed and noise levels as the stock fans, you might want something closer to 1000 rpm though. This shouldn't be way out of line at 1300 rpm and a smoother / superior design though, just with significantly more airflow. Possibly something else could have better performance for exhaust where there's little restriction.
My bad. It would be two intakes (I can put the stock fans I'm replacing as an intake on the bottom and an exhaust at the top) and the third would be part of a push-pull through the Noctua heatsink. Mostly wanting fans that are quiet, with bearings that will last.
Oh, and it would be 3pin fans.
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Those Phanteks seem to be great. There's various colors, 3-pin and 4-pin (PWM), and versions with a square frame or rounded frame with 120mm mount points. They are stronger than your current fans so they would be better for intake as that job is harder because of filters being in the way.
You should probably skip the second fan on the NH-U14S, just stay with a single one. The second fan does basically nothing on this particular cooler. The cooler also ships with a special version of the NF-A15 fan that can do 1500 RPM which you can't buy separately. The normal version only does 1200 RPM.
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On February 17 2014 05:40 Ropid wrote:
Those Phanteks seem to be great. There's various colors, 3-pin and 4-pin (PWM), and versions with a square frame or rounded frame with 120mm mount points. They are stronger than your current fans so they would be better for intake as that job is harder because of filters being in the way.
You should probably skip the second fan on the NH-U14S, just stay with a single one. The second fan does basically nothing on this particular cooler. The cooler also ships with a special version of the NF-A15 fan that can do 1500 RPM which you can't buy separately. The normal version only does 1200 RPM.
Good point - although the Noctua documentation suggests the "pull" fan be at lower RPM than the "push" fan.
As usual, wonderful responses. =)
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
You should probably skip the second fan on the NH-U14S, just stay with a single one. The second fan does basically nothing on this particular cooler.
I've heard of it giving gains that would be significant to me (more than on silver arrow going to third fan for example), like as much as ~3-5 degrees; but a lot of people don't care so much for that change. It matters more when there's a lot of heat going into the cooler, such as on LGA2011 or with delidded CPU (where you can put like 1.5x as much wattage into the cooler with the same temperatures and you start to get held back more by actual large amounts of heat)
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.pcfixzone.co.uk/images/DIY-PSU5.jpg)
