Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Det. Bullock on July 05, 2016, 03:59:42 pm
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Since the ten years old laptop I use at work tends to slow down to a crawl whenever I dare putting on a podcast or a youtube video in background while also running Office 97 and we had an old dead micro-atx Acer desktop PC, I played a bit at finding the cheapest components that didn't look like they were made of tissue paper:
https://www.e-key.it/prod-cpu-amd-a4-4000-2-core-30ghz-socket-fm2-1mb-hd7480d-65w-boxed-38519.htm (https://www.e-key.it/prod-cpu-amd-a4-4000-2-core-30ghz-socket-fm2-1mb-hd7480d-65w-boxed-38519.htm)
https://www.e-key.it/prod-scheda-madre-gigabyte-ga-f2a78m-hd2-socket-fm2-amd-a78-ddr3-usb3-51668.htm (https://www.e-key.it/prod-scheda-madre-gigabyte-ga-f2a78m-hd2-socket-fm2-amd-a78-ddr3-usb3-51668.htm)
https://www.e-key.it/prod-ram-ddr3-corsair-value-1600mhz-4gb-1x4gb-cl11-15v-48474.htm (https://www.e-key.it/prod-ram-ddr3-corsair-value-1600mhz-4gb-1x4gb-cl11-15v-48474.htm)
https://www.e-key.it/prod-hard-disk-interno-35-western-digital-caviar-blue-1tb-7200rpm-64mb-sata3-32828.htm (https://www.e-key.it/prod-hard-disk-interno-35-western-digital-caviar-blue-1tb-7200rpm-64mb-sata3-32828.htm)
https://www.e-key.it/prod-alimentatore-pc-corsair-vs450-450w-atx-80-71796.htm (https://www.e-key.it/prod-alimentatore-pc-corsair-vs450-450w-atx-80-71796.htm)
Good enough?
Or can I do better?
Keep in mind that I live in Italy so I prefer either this shop or Amazon.IT for the components.
Also, this APU I chose has thermal paste pre-applied on the stock heat sink, right?
I live on a small Island so if it comes out that I need to buy thermal paste only after I'll order the stuff that might be a bit of a problem...
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Amico. Come stai? Come è Silvio Belusconi? Egli ottenga le donne di oggi?
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I wanted to try with a SSD build (since in other places I posted this everyone told me to put in a SSD) but E-key had only fairly old SSD models so I went with Amazon:
https://www.amazon.it/Corsair-CP-9020095-EU-alimentatore-certificazione-80Plus/dp/B00LMBQD3O/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467777072&sr=1-2&keywords=450w (https://www.amazon.it/Corsair-CP-9020095-EU-alimentatore-certificazione-80Plus/dp/B00LMBQD3O/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467777072&sr=1-2&keywords=450w)
https://www.amazon.it/Corsair-CMV4GX3M1A1600C11-Select-Modulo-Memoria/dp/B009CILPRI/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467778569&sr=1-4&keywords=ddr3+4gb (https://www.amazon.it/Corsair-CMV4GX3M1A1600C11-Select-Modulo-Memoria/dp/B009CILPRI/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467778569&sr=1-4&keywords=ddr3+4gb)
https://www.amazon.it/Asrock-FM2A68M-HD-Scheda-Madre-Nero/dp/B00QTP118U/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467776745&sr=1-1&keywords=FM2A68M-HD%2B (https://www.amazon.it/Asrock-FM2A68M-HD-Scheda-Madre-Nero/dp/B00QTP118U/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467776745&sr=1-1&keywords=FM2A68M-HD%2B)
https://www.amazon.it/AMD-A4-4000-GHz-Socket-AD4000OKHLBOX/dp/B00CB2MT1S/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467776887&sr=1-1&keywords=amd+a4-4000 (https://www.amazon.it/AMD-A4-4000-GHz-Socket-AD4000OKHLBOX/dp/B00CB2MT1S/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1467776887&sr=1-1&keywords=amd+a4-4000)
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00LMBQD3O/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H (https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00LMBQD3O/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H)
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B01FJ4UL2S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1I0WA5OXHTGPB (https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B01FJ4UL2S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1I0WA5OXHTGPB)
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B014I8SIJY/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H (https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B014I8SIJY/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H)
https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00110LK7K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H (https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B00110LK7K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H)
The SSD is more or less 20 Euros more than the HDD with a less than a quarter of the storage capability, I'm not really persuaded.
Amico. Come stai? Come è Silvio Belusconi? Egli ottenga le donne di oggi?
Dude, I don't know if it's you or the translator but your italian is kinda rubbish.
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The SSD is more or less 20 Euros more than the HDD with a less than a quarter of the storage capability, I'm not really persuaded.
For a low-end build like this and given your stated use-case (that being normal office work), an SSD is probably the single most important performance enhancement you could have. The added responsiveness will make the whole system much faster than it would otherwise be, and if it turns out that you do need more mass storage, adding in another HDD later on will be easy and painless.
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The SSD is more or less 20 Euros more than the HDD with a less than a quarter of the storage capability, I'm not really persuaded.
For a low-end build like this and given your stated use-case (that being normal office work), an SSD is probably the single most important performance enhancement you could have. The added responsiveness will make the whole system much faster than it would otherwise be, and if it turns out that you do need more mass storage, adding in another HDD later on will be easy and painless.
I have to spend as little money as possible*, in fact I'm trying to salvage a 200gb HDD from my brother's old laptop while it's not much for storage it's free at least.
I'm trying to inspect the case better, I fear the usb ports on the front may not be salvageable with all the dust the thing took while in storage.
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Believe me, an SSD makes such a massive difference to the way a PC feels to use that I would only leave it out if there's literally no other choice. That being said, it is hard to argue with free stuff, even if it's going to be a bit of a bottleneck for your system's performance (Laptop drives not being known for their massive speeds and all).
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If you can't salvage that HDD, I definitely recommend the SSD as well. 250GB should be more than enough for a Office + Internet PC, and the speed is almost as fast as RAM, which means that even when Chrome decides to eat your memory up, you won't even notice the computer is using the HDD as memory cache. Otherwise, you will notice. Big time.
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I would also note that unless you still have your Office 97 install media, then your best bet for an office suite will be LibreOffice, as MS office from 2K on got increasingly bloated. Office 97 is actually smaller than LibreOffice installed, but if you have lost your disc for it, LibreOffice is free and not much larger in install space; and it will still let you save in office document formats.
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I would also note that unless you still have your Office 97 install media, then your best bet for an office suite will be LibreOffice, as MS office from 2K on got increasingly bloated. Office 97 is actually smaller than LibreOffice installed, but if you have lost your disc for it, LibreOffice is free and not much larger in install space; and it will still let you save in office document formats.
Having the install media is not a problem nowadays, also if I install libreoffice my father and my brother may not get used to it in case they need to use this particular computer.
I have been having problems with the monitor however, I've been trying using it with the HDMI plug on my father's laptop and while it worked it looked... fuzzy, for lack of a better term, even when I finally managed to up the resolution to 1080p, I still have to scertain if it was because of the crappy Intel graphics or because that LCD TV had some wrong settings, I'm hoping it's not the screen that's inherently garbage.
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I have been having problems with the monitor however, I've been trying using it with the HDMI plug on my father's laptop and while it worked it looked... fuzzy, for lack of a better term, even when I finally managed to up the resolution to 1080p, I still have to scertain if it was because of the crappy Intel graphics or because that LCD TV had some wrong settings, I'm hoping it's not the screen that's inherently garbage.
One thing to check is what the actual resolution of the panel is. There are many TVs out there that claim to be capable of displaying 1080p, but only use a 720p (or 1366x768) panel. If it is a genuine 1080 panel, then you might be forced to live with it; TVs, with their larger pixel sizes, are never going to be as crisp as a PC monitor (most of which start at something like 90 DPI).
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I would also note that unless you still have your Office 97 install media, then your best bet for an office suite will be LibreOffice, as MS office from 2K on got increasingly bloated. Office 97 is actually smaller than LibreOffice installed, but if you have lost your disc for it, LibreOffice is free and not much larger in install space; and it will still let you save in office document formats.
I know there was a tiny Office 2K3 portable build floating around somewhere. Pretty small, too, like ~79MB or so. Of course you would need a 2K3 license, and you should scan such a package before using (VirusTotal.com maybe).