How has your main computer evolved?

[TechGeek]

My main computer has a LONG backstory. My mom used to have an old $2000 Gateway computer. It was built in 2002/2003 I think. It was used until 2013 when the PSU and motherboard cooked. Laptops for Less built what was to be my main computer. My mom used it as a replacement PC, but it was unstable as all heck. BSOD's, lockups, random GPU hardware timeouts(onboard GPU, nothing else), the list went on. Because of that, my dad got her a replacement PC. Another Gateway, but brand new. Ran Windows 8, but M$ forced Windows 8.1 on it. I got the old computer. As said, unstable as all heck. One day, it froze for the zillionth time, and I kicked the computer 2 or 3 times. Killed the old Western Digital Caviar Blue 160GB IDE drive in there. The OS was on a Toshiba or a Seagate 1TB HDD. The computer saw a quadrillion OS reinstalls as well. I think I reinstalled Windows after the HDD failure, but IDK, this happened in early 2014. That summer, I was using the computer, and the old Gigabyte G41MT-S2PT motherboard(took me 20 seconds to remember that) shorted. Little arc sound, and the computer reset itself. I killed the PSU(turned off rear PSU switch), and turned it back on. I booted the system, and got back to whatever I was doing when the motherboard shorted. About 2 weeks later, the motherboard shorted. AGAIN. I let it run for about 5 retries, and shut the system down. Powered it back up, and it unexpectedly shut off. Hit the power button again. Tried to let it boot. It turned off again. Restarted it, and entered the BIOS. STILL turned off. Well darn. The motherboard's bad. So I start looking for motherboards, and I settle on a Asus H81M-C/CSM motherboard, and buy it. It finally gets here, and I put it in. Go to install the CPU... annnnnd the CPU is incompatible. The new motherboard's CPU socket is LGA1150, while the old motherboard's CPU socket is LGA775. So back to Newegg I go. I settled on an Intel Pentium G3220. I buy it, it gets here, and I put it in, complete the repairs, and try to boot. IT DOESN'T BOOT. Hours and hours of troubleshooting later, I give up. I guess it's the RAM, and the computer gets taken to a repair shop. 2 weeks later, I finally get the PC back, annnnnnd... IT WAS THE RAM. The computer finally gets put back into service. Later, in late 2014/early-mid 2015, my mom's computer gets struck down again. We use Panda Global Security, and they released a bad update. Deleted tons of things. I thought is was a Windows glitch(it's happened many times before) and it wasn't. Eventually, we cut our losses and reinstalled. Or tried to. The screen would fade to black. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. We took it to the same place that my computer was repaired at. They said that the motherboard was bad AND the HDD was bricked... the heck? A motherboard, HDD and case replacement later(new motherboard did not fit case), and the computer was back in service. My computer didn't have a card reader, so I got that as well as the old HDD. The HDD was fine(low-level formatted just fine) and was put into service as well as the card reader. Now run through the rest of 2015 and into April 2016, and it's upgrade time. I get 2x Western Digital WD2003FZEX drives, an Intel Pentium G3258, a Blu-Ray writer, a 128GB SanDisk SSD, and 8GB of GSkill RAM. Installed 4/2016. Skip ahead 3 months and I finally decide to upgrade again. Getting an MSI motherboard, a new case, and a 5.25 inch to 3.5 inch bay adapter(case has all 5.25 inch bays). Ordered yesterday(7/12/16) and to be delivered. All parts being pulled will go towards a fileserver PC. And so that's how my main computer's evolved.

[ddscentral]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

My first PC was a 300 Mhz Mendocino Celeron with 32 MB RAM and a S3 Trio 3D GPU. Built in 1998 or 1999 (don't remember exactly). This system had a couple of RAM upgrades (to 64 MB, then to 128 MB) and a HDD upgrade (a 20 GB Maxtor, which only lasted a few months) during it's lifetime.

In 2004, I got a new system, an Athlon XP 2600+, 512 MB RAM and a Radeon 9550 GPU. This system had a couple of HDD upgrades and a RAM upgrade (to 1 GB) during it's lifetime.

In 2007, I built a new PC, an Intel Q6600, 2 GB of RAM and a Geforce 8800 GTX GPU. This system had many upgrades during it's lifetime:

more RAM (first to 3 GB, then to 6 GB),
a new case (Antec Nine Hundred, which replaced a cheap HEC case),
a new GPU (Radeon HD 6950),
more HDDs (over 6 TB of disk space)
an SSD (OCZ Vertex 3 120 GB),
a new PSU (Corsair TX850 V2, which replaced an 600 W FSP Epsilon with bad caps).

I used this system until around 2012.
I then upgraded to what is my current system by replacing my old mainboard, CPU and RAM for an i7 2600K and 8 GB of RAM.
This system so far had three upgrades: a RAM upgrade to 16 GB, a liquid CPU cooler (Corsair H80) and a new GPU, an R9 290X.

[dmill89]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

My current main system has a really short backstory, I just built it in April specs as follows, I upgraded the ram as few weeks after the initial build from 16GB to 32GB because it was on sale (I didn't really need 32GB, but it was cheap so...):
CPU: Intel I7-4790
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB DDR3-1600 (2X8GB) (upgraded to 32GB 4X8GB)
Video Card: Sapphire Nitro Radeon R9-380 (4GB)
SSD: Crucial BX-200 240GB
HDD: Toshiba HWD110XZSTA (1TB 72000RPM)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212-Evo
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910W
Case: Cooler Master HAF-932
DVD-RW Drive: Samsung SuperWriteMaster SH-S203N (re-used from old system)
Blu-Ray-RW: LG SuperMulti-Blue BH12LS38 (re-used from old system)
Misc: Memory Card Reader
OS: Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit

For my previous main system which this replaced it was built in 2009 with the following Specs:
CPU: Intel Core2Quad Q9450
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45C-UD3R
Ram: Corsair Super-Talent DDR2-800 4GB (2x2GB)
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD4850
Sound: Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty XtremeGamer
Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper Z600R cpu cooler, 120mm case fan(rear), 80mm case fan(front)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
Other Drives:Samsung SuperWritemaster DVD RW, 3.5" floppy, Memory Card Reader
Other Cards:TV Tuner/Video Capture Card
Case: Antec Solution NSX4480B case
PSU: Antec TruePower Quattro 850w
OS: windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit)

I then upgraded the GPU from a Radeon 4850 to a Radeon 5870, added a Blu-ray drive (moved to my new main system), added an 128GB Samsung 830 SSD for a boot drive and upgraded the RAM from 4GB (2X2GB) DDR2 to 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 (yes, the Gigabyte EP45C-UD3R supports both DDR2 and DDR3), and a USB 3.0 card.

Prior to that I had a Dell Inspiron 530 with a Core2Duo E6300, 2GB DDR2-633, 320GB HDD, DVD-RW, and Nvidia GeForce 8400GS, 300W PSU, and Windows Vista (which was upgraded to 7 almost as soon as 7 came out). I upgraded the HDD to 1TB, RAM to 4GB DDR2-800, GPU to a Radeon 4850, and PSU to 500W, most of these "upgraded" parts were later robed for the 2009 Core2Quad build.

Before that I had a Gateway, don't remember the exact model, but it had a BTX motherboard (remember those?) with a Pentium 4 3.0GHZ socket 775, 1GB DDR, Radeon X300, 250GB HDD, DVD-RW drive, Tuner-card, and Windows-XP. This was later upgraded with a Radeon X1600, and 2GB DDR.

Prior to that I had an HP Pavilion (Don't remember the exact model) with a Pentium 3 933mhz, 256mb SD Ram, 40GB HDD, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, and Nvidia TNT2, and Windows Me (yuck). Being an HP this was by far the most problematic main PC I've ever had (and the only one that needed major hardware repairs), after about 2 years the motherboard died and had to be replaced (I remember the replacement was a Biostar, but not sure of the model), The Maxtor HDD died after around 3 years and was replaced with a Western Digital. The PSU died and was replaced with an Antec Smart-Power 300W (the cap issues with these weren't known at the time, but it lasted until the system was retired), and it probably went through 3 or 4 56K modems (poor shielding?). In addition to the repairs the ram was upgraded to 512MB, and GPU to a Radeon 9200.

Prior to that I had a Packard-Bell Platinum Pro XXII(my first PC) Pentium-MMX 166mhz, with 32mb Ram, 3.2GB HDD, CD-Rom, and Windows 95.

[ratdude747]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

Here is my history of Main rigs (not including older side projects as my memory is hazy). It's a bit long, be forewarned.

I started with a "vbox" K6-2 based rig that was my dad's hand me down in middle school. Then I was on an AMD athlon based Compaq (pre-HP buyout) that a teacher gave me. I then ran another k6-2 rig with a 5.25" floppy (4H project) with a powmax case from hell. From there I tried to build a dual-P3 on a tyan board, which failed (and led me to find/join BCN). I tried again on a dual P3 rig based on an AMI EATX board of some sort (there's probably a thread on it), then a P4 based Dell Optiplex. From there, I was running another Athlon rig (this one XP T-bred), then swapped boards for my first supermicro, a PDSGE with a P4 Prescott. From there I got a different case and popped a Pentium dual core in an intel dp35dp board I was gifted (thanks kerijane), and that rig came to be known as Ratdude's Main Rig V1.0.

It is at this point that all of my builds except for servers, laptops, tablets, and less-than-useful side projects (Various HTPCs, boxputers, etc.) were given "main rig" designations. Also at this point is when I transitioned to College; Main rig V1.x lived on through at least my Freshman year (IIRC).

V2.0 was my second Dual-CPU rig, and the first that was a decent build. It was based on a freebie Supermicro X5DAL-TG2 (Thanks Topcat!), which also happened to be the board in the first server that ran this very forum. It went into the case of V1.x, which was a surprisingly good fit. Over time it receieved many updates, these being graphics cards, more RAM, different sound cards, and finally different HDDs before it was superseded. For a while it was in pieces as V3.0 used a lot it's parts, but they later came back. Then, due to some failed SLIC modding (and a bad BIOS setting), it sat dead for over a year, only for me to obtain a good BIOS chip from Supermicro and fix the bad setting. It currently exists as V2.5, and all that has changed is the Optical drives (one died, the other moved to V4.1), firewire card (one with extra power), Sound card, RAID card) and HDDs. Still the slickest x32 AGP system you will ever find.

V3.0 was originally based on a Tyan S2885 that was gifted to me by the late Junk Parts. Since it was EATX and my last EATX build was ages before (the p3 AMI board) in a hacked up junk case (which in turn had been long scrapped), I bought a new Supermicro case. It used many of the parts in V2.0, which was part of the reason for going ahead with the build. However, there were major problems, and after another k8W board (thanks shovenose), the main issue was found to be with the AMD AGP to Hypertransport chip's lack of drivers for anything other than Windows 98, 2000, and Xp x32 (yeah, no x64 or linux support for the first opteron platform... thanks AMD ). I then bought a Tyan S2895 and some Nvidia Geforce 8600's to make it V3.5, returning most of the missing parts to V2.0 (and remaining missing parts were replaced, making it V2.5). Later, it received an ex-V2.0 sound card (Creative X-fi OEM card with a HDA header added) which replaced a TV tuner I wasn't using. It also received a better RAID card (3ware 9500 to 9550, this happened to a lot of things around that time), a better 1st optical driver (BD-ROM/DVD RW lightscribe), and a pair of Geforce GTS 250's. Sadly, this incarnation died last month, when the CPU 0 VRM cooked and V5.0 began pulling parts (and the case) from this. However, just like before, many of those parts happen to be coming back, and with the aquisition of a Supermicro H8DCI board, this rig will be coming back from junk pile to live again as V3.8. Thank goodness, because it was a nice rig that ran well up until it fried (minus the headache caused by PSU issues, bad caps never sleep )

V4.1 was never meant to be a main rig, but since Topcat gave it's thread a Main Rig designation and since this rig served as a main one on a temporary occurrence or two, I'll talk about it here. V4.1 was a complete unit scored for peanuts on ebay, with a Supermicro case and X6DAE-G motherboard. However, my SLIC mods once again bit me in the ass, and with one of the USB headers half fried, I scored an X6DA8-G2 mainboard to run in it instead. I also added a RAID card (9550, now 9650) and a decent GPU (PNY Geforce 9800GT EE) and threw in the kickass PATA lighscribe burner from V2.0 (which was presumed dead at the time). I also designed and had milled a custom circuit board to break out the ribbon cable for the front LEDs and Switches (which I later redid and had fabbed through OSH park); this was to allow me to reroute the LED light to my RAID card. Like all of my rigs since V2.0, it received an AFT card reader, but I'm mentioning it because in order to accomodate the large case I made custom USB header cables, which IMHO turned out very nice. I also threw in 8GB of RAM (now 16GB) and a pair of Engineering Sample Irwindale Xeons, which proved unstable (and also led to over a year of troubleshooting), which have been swapped for a pair of 3.8GHZ Irwindales. For a short bit it had different HDDs but as of today I'm swapping it back (for V3.8). It may be a 2005 system (with a 2009 GPU) but it runs great and once I swapped the CPUs it's been a real treat to use. Down the road I may look into putting some SAS drives (and card) in it as I have a very well cooled 8-drive bay (not hot swap though).

Finally, we have my fastest rig to date, V5.0. This was based on a Supermicro X7DWA-N with CPUs and RAM (good ones too) that topcat was retiring (THANK YOU TOPCAT!!!) and was, just by chance, received 1 week after V3.5 fried. Likewise, it was built originally using most of the same parts; in fact, all that changed (or added) was a USB 3.0 Card (and AFT PRo-37U 3.0 card reader), TV tuner (which was originally part of V3.5), Supermicro AOC-USAS-H8iR SAS RAID card, and removal of one of the GPUs and sound card. Not long after, I found a deal on 4 146GB SAS 15K drives, which replaced a set of 74GB WD raptors dating back to V2.0, Cooling was an issue though, as the FBDIMMS required more cooling than that case could muster, so I moved everything to a Supermicro SC745 case, to which I added a pair of 900W PSUs. That was a bad call though, as the PSU fans made Rolls Royce Trent Jets sound like purring kittens. After a switch to a newer 720W psu module (which is still kinda loud when running) and a different set of coolers (thanks again to Topcat) to allow the air duct to fit (which is the main reason why this case can cool the RAM enough), this system is finally stable. However, I will be upgrading the GPU soon as with the V3.8 project coming up, I want my other GTS 250 back (also, this rig deserves a better GPU).

There is one more rig that I will briefly mention, and it currently has no name. It's a combo of the case/PSU from that old PDSGE from the first paragraph (which in the mean time had been my parent's main rig, until the board fried, my only SM to die for good ever) and some spare parts that resulted from experiments used to find a fix for V2.0/V2.5. It's technically not complete, as it has shit for optical drives and I need to make some custom USB header cables for the card reader. It also doesn't have a home, so it's not in any rush. But since it resembles my other main rigs, for this post, it counts as one.

So there's the evolution of my main rig, going from middle school to present. I don't upgrade very often, do I .

[TechGeek]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

snip
HDD: Toshiba HWD110XZSTA (1TB 72000RPM)
snip

Are you kidding me 72K RPM!?

[Topcat]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

Are you kidding me 72K RPM!?

Holy typo, Batman.... get real and relax.

As for PC progress or regress over the years, look through my threads. My builds have always been documented here.

[TechGeek]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

Motherboard arrived today.

[ozzy214]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

Well to be honest I started with webtv. You know the set box that plugs into the tv so you can surf and check email? My father was strictly against computers. I dont know why. Scared of them, conspirancy theories.

Well used that and a friends computer. Eventually in 2005 rented a computer from a rental store.

Was a hp with a amd processor. No clue what size, specs nothing.

After sitting for a few weeks and paying 50 a week (guessinh) I sat down and decided to build a computer. I did my reasearfch and decided to order all new parts.

I dont quite remeber the board, but think it was asus . It was definetly a socket 939 amd with a 3200 or 3900+ single core. I alos paid for 350 cash for a 6800 bfg o/c edition vid card. Had 4 gigs of ram.

Hung onto ti for a few years, then sold. Has a msi sli board but that burned up. Sold the RMA.

Then my parents sicne I was without a computer waiting for the RMA in 2007 bout me a asus p5q se plus.

I have had it eversince. Upgraded vid from 6800 to 8800gt to 7700 ati which I still own. Was runnign a e6300 for the longest time. Then last yeat a e8400 for it. Now a q8300. I also got it maxed with 8gb ram for the most. Board says it will take 16gb ram, but it was hard to find the 8gb ram that was stable and allowed the q8300 to boot. Cant overclock the q8300, btu still good enough.

Thats about it over the years from when I was 18 till now 36.

I dont upgrade often and dont really game other than retro consoles. Only pc game I addicted to was Hellgate London! I would play 12 horus a day non stop lol!

So all I really need. Now I recycle surplus computer equipment so there is tons of parts to play with if I get board!

But still after almost 10 years that computer is fast enough for all my needs! Including COD Zombies LOL

[TechGeek]

Re: How has your main computer evolved?

Case arrived today, have yet to test the system.