Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

**Topcat** · 12-09-2014, 01:21 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

I gave my wife an Asus ET2203 all-in-one. I found it in the trash a couple years ago in mint condition, HDD was bad. Has ran 24/7/365 for a couple years now, no issues. For what she does on the computer, its more than she will ever need. C2D CPU, 4GB ram, win7 pro.

**Th3_uN1Qu3** · 12-09-2014, 01:33 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Well, when you're talking about family (or in this case, about somebody that may become family in the future), there are two aspects.

1. It has to be stable and low maintenance (those are the same things i look for in a girlfriend, but that's a different topic altogether

). That's top priority. It's very very bad news for you if that machine fails soon afterwards due to an ugly hack you did inside.

2. It has to be nice looking, so they can brag about it to everyone else, that will find you more work.

I think i built a desktop for a girlfriend of mine once, back in high school, but her dad paid for it. Since then, nope. I have sold or given away some of my stuff to friends, and fixed another girlfriend's computer a couple times last year, but that's about it.

Girls and business (in this case, IT, but it can be anything else) don't mix, at least not for me. Especially when she's got someone else in the family that works in the same area, it's better to just leave it as it is. I learned the hard way that this is the best course of action.

Or if you do... do the absolute best you can and make sure it won't break down again anytime soon, and demand some nice treats for it.

**Compgeke** · 12-09-2014, 02:11 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

I gave my mom an Athlon X2 tower as that's all she ever needs - she doesn't do anything but facebook, email and occasional word processing. Giving her an i7 like I use wouldn't be of much use as the tasks won't make use of it.

I would honestly just go with whatever suits what they do, sometimes you might need 8+ gigs of ram but they'll never use more than 3.

**Uniballer** · 12-09-2014, 03:00 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

I gave up on building computers for my wife years ago. She uses Macs and iPads at school (she has been in 4th grade for 25+ years), so she wants the same stuff at home. All I do is make sure that her computers that make it home get backed up.

**ratdude747** · 12-09-2014, 03:45 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

It had a couple of handmade wire assemblies and a custom breakout board but everything is solid.

**diif** · 12-09-2014, 05:08 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Swap out the Raptors for one or a new pair of SSDs. Make sure it has a blue LED, and stick in something borrowed.
Unique, hand built by hubby and romantic.

But like Unique says, must be aesthetic and reliable.

**SteveNielsen** · 12-09-2014, 05:25 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

When my wife and I got togehter I made her a PC exactly like mine and bought her a new computer desk. That's when I had money.

Now we use what is available to us for free, either through discards or gifts from people upgrading. I fix, we use.

Presently:
Hers is 2.9GHz P4, 1.5GB RAM, onboard graphics, running Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS.
Mine is 2.8GHz P4, 3.3GB RAM, ATI Radeon AGP, running Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS.

She doesn't do anything besides the usual online stuff, email, Facebunk, some music and video although I should stuff a bit more RAM in it for her but she is very happy with it as is.

I do the experimenting, researching, fiddling and playing older games like UT2004 on my PC.

At this time I am grateful to have what we've got. I just gotta figure out why I keep having trouble with SATA drives on this GX270. I think it is the sloppy crap SATA data cable connection on the motherboard working loose. Maybe I'll hot-glue that fucker and see.

**SteveNielsen** · 12-09-2014, 05:26 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Originally posted by diif

Swap out the Raptors for one or a new pair of SSDs. Make sure it has a blue LED, and stick in something borrowed.
Unique, hand built by hubby and romantic.

But like Unique says, must be aesthetic and reliable.

The Blue LED is THE MOST important part.

**ratdude747** · 12-09-2014, 06:25 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Originally posted by diif

Swap out the Raptors for one or a new pair of SSDs. Make sure it has a blue LED, and stick in something borrowed.
Unique, hand built by hubby and romantic.

But like Unique says, must be aesthetic and reliable.

It has two 7200 WD 160 GBs. No money or desire for SSDs.

None of the LEDs are blue but I have every other color (green, yellow, red, and a multicolor in the card reader). My other rig is all blye minus one of the optical drives... but I'm not so sure I want to give up my SLI Opteron rig (although it also looks "nicer" and would probably be more "feminine").

I see where you are going, but this is no wedding dress... but it is my 2nd most "custom" rig I've done and the most still running ((V2.5 was more modded but is half dead and ATM a PSU donor).

---

Topcat, I swore you built your wife a workstation, or at least one that she primarily used... But I may be misremembering.

**SuperDuty** · 12-09-2014, 07:05 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

I think the first rule is, build it according to their needs. What will she uses her computer for ? Not many people need a workstation, has she any use for a machine like that ? Only gamers need mid range and high range video cards or more than 4Gb or RAM. Heck even 2Gb is sufficient for most basic uses.

Not for my "significant other", but I'm building a new computer for my father for Christmas. He's been rocking the same machine for nearly ten years, replaced it last month with something I had ready, not any younger (from Athlon XP to Pentium 4 C) only because the VRM failed. He doesn't like change but now it's time for him to have something a lot more modern, convenient and economical. His use is very simple, eBay, some flash games, scanning/printing stuff, that's about it.
So I'm doing a noiseless mini ITX computer, based on an Atom D2500 motherboard, 3Gb of DDR3, a 120Gb SSD, onboard video (GMA3600 is weak but it should fit his needs) and a 19" screen. I'm sure he'll love the responsiveness of the SSD.

**Sweet & Spicy** · 12-09-2014, 07:18 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

I will be fine with whatever he chooses to give me. I am a very patient user of slow computers. I used one at one point a computer that took ten to thirty seconds to load a page before it fully "woke up" and started running normal speed. I was fine with this, as it gave me time to write more on my homework or whatever I was doing.

LED color is one of the least important things, really. Heck, if I don't like the case, I can paint it with a nice design with heat-resistant paint. Ok, may not actually do that, but you get what I mean. Besides, if I was someone for whom looks were top priority....I wouldn't have fallen for Ratdude. He is the hottest guy on the planet (to me), but he is nowhere near the standards of a "conventionally handsome" man... and I love that. Seriously, it is what is inside that counts, the speed, reliability, and functionality elements, like cooling and noise. I can make it pretty if I want pretty, I just need it to work.

**ratdude747** · 12-09-2014, 07:28 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

^It's not slow... Like I said, I'd feel OK rocking it for a main rig if it wasn't for my nicer unit already built (I bought this one originally because it was dirt cheap and I needed something else to keep me busy).

And please Do NOT paint this thing... while it may be somewhat beat up, one just doesn't deface a Supermicro case like that... if you plan to do that, then I may HAVE to give you a POS...

**Th3_uN1Qu3** · 12-09-2014, 07:32 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Agreed to the above, minus the RAM part. At least 4GB RAM is sensible nowadays. Windows Update alone will eat all the RAM in a 2GB system when it wants to do its job (usually at the most inconvenient of times), and unless the system is also running a SSD, such a situation will make a typically snappy and useful computer, VERY slow.

Also the power consumption and noise of a computer is to watch when it's for family, your girlfriend, or other people you are close with - some of them may be a little extremist/biased to "go green" or have family members which support this mentality. In this case, the example above of replacing a Pentium 4 with a new generation Atom with DDR3 is a very good idea.

Call me an asshole, but i'm very reluctant of doing any deals for friends, neighbors or family. I've always, always, always had to do extra work for free when selling (or even giving away) stuff to them, and you may argue with or even lose a friend who has otherwise been nice to you because of something like this. It's always been trouble and some of them still owe me ("sales" turned into "i'll pay you when i get my salary" - repeat every month). Or worse - "I know i still need to pay you for the computer, but something broke on it - could you please fix it for me and i'll pay you when i can?".

It took me quite a few of these to get the idea. As a kid it didn't matter much, because i did not really have a good idea of the value of money. Nowadays, when i'm the only one supporting myself, i'm hungry and i've got $10 left till some work happens to come my way - you can bet your ass i'm not doing any free jobs.

To put it simply, some people change when it comes to money or favors. You don't want to find out this way - trust me.

TL;DR version: PAINT IT PINK.

**Sweet & Spicy** · 12-09-2014, 07:47 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

I know that it isn't slow, I was simply making a point. I'm not picky when it comes to computers. NO, I will not paint it, I even stated that in my first message... again, just making a point... I would be too afraid that it would bubble or flake and I'd have to to it all over again, which would be WAY too much of a PITB. Not worth it. Hmmm.... removable stickers/rhinestones though.... TEASING, Love. I wouldn't do that.

Also, what does TL;DR stand for?

**SuperDuty** · 12-09-2014, 08:25 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Originally posted by Th3_uN1Qu3

Agreed to the above, minus the RAM part. At least 4GB RAM is sensible nowadays. Windows Update alone will eat all the RAM in a 2GB system when it wants to do its job (usually at the most inconvenient of times), and unless the system is also running a SSD, such a situation will make a typically snappy and useful computer, VERY slow.

I don't know, three years ago during my final year of fashion design studies, I used a Pentium M VAIO laptop with 1Gb of RAM with Windows 7 for a while, then quickly switched to 2Gb and never felt it slow, it never let me down and I used it for some rather heavy stuff : Photoshop, Illustrator, even 3DSMax when I had some spare time, it played HD videos and I could play Left 4 Dead 2 on it (with low graphics though) and my main rig already had an SSD and 4Gb of DDR3 so my comparison point was plenty fast.

**SuperDuty** · 12-09-2014, 08:37 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Originally posted by ratdude747

It has two 7200 WD 160 GBs. No money or desire for SSDs.

I just got a pair of Sandisk Ultra II 120Go for 50€/$65 each. They're not Samsung 850 but they good from the reviews I've seen. I'm sure you have some spare parts around you could sell and get a cheap SSD, it's really the best upgrade these days.

**ratdude747** · 12-09-2014, 08:53 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

^Not in a SM workstation... Compared to my Intel 520 in my laptop the array (hooked to an AMCC 9550sx-4LP) is not that much slower, maybe 20% or so.

Th3_uN1Qu3: This is different as this would be somebody in the same household, until I die! Less of an issue regarding perception and the ability to set and forget.

Rather, it would be more like I have my two rigs but this one would be primarily used by her.

Note that I didn't buy this specifically for her, rather I bought it and then realized thats what it might be good for.

I think the net result here is this is my monkey and the rule about opinions and assholes applies (we all have them, they stink, and they're full of shit). Don't like it (unless you're Jenn), tough shit, this is my marriage, not yours. Get your own spouse!

**c_hegge** · 12-09-2014, 09:41 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Basically, here's how it works in this family:

I get the best, newest rig. My parents get my previous hand-me-down rig, and my younger brother gets used as a guinea pig and gets mostly repaired hardware. His current PC uses my review sample Gigabyte LUXO X10 case, with a Dell s1156 H57 motherboard (previously cooked by lightning, but works OK with the Ethernet controller IC removed), a used GTS 250 GPU and a somewhat rusty looking Antec EA-500D PSU.

**goontron** · 12-09-2014, 10:07 PM

Re: Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Originally posted by c_hegge

Basically, here's how it works in this family:

I get the best, newest rig. My parents get my previous hand-me-down rig, and my younger brother gets used as a guinea pig and gets mostly repaired hardware. His current PC uses my review sample Gigabyte LUXO X10 case, with a Dell s1156 H57 motherboard (previously cooked by lightning, but works OK with the Ethernet controller IC removed), a used GTS 250 GPU and a somewhat rusty looking Antec EA-500D PSU.

yep. but my brother gets shit tons of storage because he torrents.(for me too)

Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

Buiding rigs for your signifigant other

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