building the kid a low-end gaming PC for xmas
Meh, the new games he wants to play on XBox with his friends. This system is for LOL and SupCom and I may play Neverwinter Nights with him and maybe we'll fire up D&D Online and see if my old account is still on there.
I am hoping the underpowered video card can handle the 3+ yo old games. It should be able to handle that.
Also just got him another 8GB Ram when I was generally upgrading the other systems in the house, so that brings it up to 16MB RAM. If the video card is completely useless, I'll drop a couple bills on a nice one.
I spent about 20 minutes today explaining to him the components of a computer as well, what the CPU does, what the tiny little lines on a circuit board are, the difference between memory and storage (always bugs me when i hear peeps use those words interchangeably), so he knew what we were putting together today, and why. When he gets it for xmas it'll be pretty fun.
Edited By GORDON on 1414377664
I am hoping the underpowered video card can handle the 3+ yo old games. It should be able to handle that.
Also just got him another 8GB Ram when I was generally upgrading the other systems in the house, so that brings it up to 16MB RAM. If the video card is completely useless, I'll drop a couple bills on a nice one.
I spent about 20 minutes today explaining to him the components of a computer as well, what the CPU does, what the tiny little lines on a circuit board are, the difference between memory and storage (always bugs me when i hear peeps use those words interchangeably), so he knew what we were putting together today, and why. When he gets it for xmas it'll be pretty fun.
Edited By GORDON on 1414377664
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Oh, and how nice it would be to have young eyes.... he was telling me the order of colors on resistors that were like 1mm long. He asked "what is the thing with the purple red and yellow stripe..." and I had to have him point it out because I could barely see anything.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
"what is the thing with the purple red and yellow stripe..."
Ahh. the good old 720k Ohm resistor. Working with surface mounts are fun, especially soldering and desoldering them. Luckily my eyes are still good enough for the most part, but my workbench has one of them lighted magnifying lenses that really helps a lot.
WORLD CHAMPIONS!!
Back to actual updating on the hardware: Turned the thing on last night after the kid was in bed to load up the OS and stuff.... all seems to be well. After Win7 was loaded and the drivers installed, first thing I always do is launch Windows Update. 162 updates, 700MB... damn. Anyway, while installing somewhere around update 150, blue screen crash.
Shit.
But, rebooted, restarted the updates, and they all went in fine. Have spent 7 or 8 hours loading games and shit, no problems. I am drawing a blank on the performance numbers.... the video card was only like .3 points from the max score, so it should be ok. I think the lack of a dedicated power source on the video card is due to its only having 1 DVI port, and no SLI. If I want to add a second monitor I need to see if I can get it to work through the HDMI port.
So all in all, a good system for the price.
Shit.
But, rebooted, restarted the updates, and they all went in fine. Have spent 7 or 8 hours loading games and shit, no problems. I am drawing a blank on the performance numbers.... the video card was only like .3 points from the max score, so it should be ok. I think the lack of a dedicated power source on the video card is due to its only having 1 DVI port, and no SLI. If I want to add a second monitor I need to see if I can get it to work through the HDMI port.
So all in all, a good system for the price.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Followup:
The system is high-performance enough for what he uses it for.... but the thing sounds like a damned jet engine. Very loud.
I wont be buying any more of these "pre selected components" PCs in order to save $50. They unloaded a superloud case on me.
Edited By GORDON on 1443902978
The system is high-performance enough for what he uses it for.... but the thing sounds like a damned jet engine. Very loud.
I wont be buying any more of these "pre selected components" PCs in order to save $50. They unloaded a superloud case on me.
Edited By GORDON on 1443902978
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."