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stormhawk31

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  1. Now, on one other subject: Cable management. Can anyone help me out with cable management best practices? As you can see from the pics I posted, my cable management situation isn't HORRIBLE, as I've taken care to try to properly route wires, etc. But, it's not exactly beautiful, either. I'd like to know about the best ways to manage cables, and also, sleeving. Every beautiful system I've ever seen has the wires sleeved in these braided cables that make them all the same color and make them not look so...cheap and cheesy. Can anyone help me with that kind of thing? Thanks!
  2. Annnnd....here's what the thing looks like now. The weird slime on the front of the case marring that finish is the inevitable result of having toddlers. I think it's milk...? The green and gold memory in the case has got to go. I'm trying for a theme here, and that... irks me. LOL
  3. OK, so...I had a decent system built and running when, out of the clear blue, my power supply, motherboard, and processor all blew. I think it may have been a lightning strike, but that hardly matters now. Then, when I went to get new parts, I dropped my case and destroyed it. Grrr... Anyway, after getting over my initial shock, I decided that this would be a good opportunity to upgrade, and this is what I have now: Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming Processor: AMD FX-8320 RAM: Patriot 16gb 1300mhz Video: 2X MSI GTX 960 2gb, in SLI SSD: SanDisk 128gb Storage: 1 Internal 3tb HDD, 1 Internal 1tb HDD, 1 Internal 750gb HDD, 1 External 3tb HDD, and 1 External 1tb HDD (nothing in RAID) Drive: 1 Internal Blue Ray writer Power Supply: Corsair CX 850 M Cooling: 5 120mm fans (not counting the OEM CPU cooler and the power supply fan) Case: Antec P-100 This thing runs REALLY quiet and yet plays most games on ultra high settings (The new Tomb Raider is an exception. I can only play that on high without running into frame rate issues). Now here's the question: I have an aftermarket MSI CPU cooler on the way. (I want to stick with air cooling, as water cooling introduces too many possible points of failure for me.) I was hoping to find MSI branded RAM, but no such luck, so I'll have to find another company that has a similar color scheme. But, what I want to know is, aside from replacing the video cards eventually, what more can I do with this thing? Also, the whole point of this site is overclocking; can anyone walk me through this (for both CPU and RAM)? I have never overclocked ANYTHING before. I want to milk as much performance out of this beast as possible.
  4. Guys? Any other suggestions?
  5. Ok. I have a couple of issues that I'd like to solve, with a single system, if I can, so I could use some advice. I currently have ~ 9 tb of storage space on my main system, divided between: an external 1 tb drive, an external 3 tb drive, an internal 4 tb drive, and an internal 1 tb drive (and an internal 120 gb ssd, but that's just for my OS, so it doesn't count). Unfortunately, because of the way my storage capacity has evolved, I do not have a RAID setup, and my files are scattered all across my various drives. I know where mostly everything is, but it's a pain to go searching through different drives to find things, and I have NO redundancy. Additionally, I have NO way to back anything up, because all of my drives are in use for various things, and I can't back up to any of my drives without losing data stored on the target drive. Plus, all of this is connected to my main PC, which is serving as gaming PC, HTPC, and general purpose PC. It really has become quite the cluster. I'd basically like to keep my main PC with about 1 or 2 tb of onboard storage - enough to play games and such, and that's about it. My computer has plenty of power. It's not "high end", but it's decent - MSI mobo, 6-core AMD processor, 16 gb RAM, GTX 760 graphics. I have no trouble playing pretty much any game I want, watching HD video, doing light video editing... But I want to build a separate device to which I can move the lion's share of my storage. I want that device to be able to stream HD video to anything on my network (2 Galaxy phones, a laptop, my PC, a Chromecast, and anything else my friends and family happen to bring by), have enough space to back up my existing files and the new ones I'm constantly adding, and also to host a website I'm thinking of putting together, should I decide to go that route (it's just a site for a small group of close friends, not something for massive public consumption). I'm not doing any home automation right now, but at some point in the future, I might, so it should be able to do that as well (although, if necessary, I can omit that task and build something else down the road). My current plan is something like this: lay hands on an old system (easy) and yank out anything unnecessary inside it, crack open my external hard drives and pull out my internal 4 tb drive, buy 2 more 4 tb drives, RAID them, and stuff the ~15 tb that'll give me into the old system (the drive from my external 1 tb and my current internal 1 tb will go into a RAID 0 in my current system). I want to set up a RAID that will preserve the bulk of the 15 tb I'll have, and allow me to add more as I need it. I have a gently used GTX 660 I can throw in there if necessary (not sure if I'd need it or not, but it's there), and, for servers, you really don't need anything very fancy for processors or RAM (dual or triple core processor and 4 gb of RAM SHOULD suffice, right?). What I need from y'all is advice on configuration, parts, software. I could also use advice on things to look out for, and I'm definitely open to alternatives. I have a pretty small budget on this, most of which is eaten up by the 2 new drives, but I have a bit of wiggle room if I HAVE to use it. The other thing is, I have to figure out some way to move all my data around while doing all of this, without losing any of it, so suggestions on that would be appreciated as well.
  6. You know...I've gotta say: the more I think about how I want to use my computer, the more I think I need to turn it into a hybrid network media device and cloud server, that can also do local things like gaming (although the games I tend to play aren't TOO taxing on system resources). I mean, I need MASSIVE storage - the more the better. Multiple tens of terabytes is not ridiculous. Seriously. But I also need it to talk to everything I own, and the things my brother and mother own as well (and remember, they're offsite). By this, I mean that where ever I am (living room, bathroom, work, Japan, some other country) I need to be able to watch or listen to what I want, how I want - on a tablet, phone, TV, laptop, someone else's PC, whatever, and the people I give access to should be able to do the same. I own a Chromecast, and I have it set up to run video files from my computer right now, but it can't play certain types of files, like copied DVDs. That needs to change, because I have my entire DVD library burned to my hard drives, which means about a third of my files won't play on my Chromecast. I also do a lot of writing, so I need to be able to open my writing files and get to work when the inspiration strikes, no matter where I am or what I'm using, in my house or out. And, of course, I play some games, almost exclusively on my computer, although I also have an Xbox 360 (and eventually, I'll have an Xbox One), so my computer needs to be able to run my games without choking when someone else is streaming a video or something. I know this is a lot to ask, but I want what I want. And it will be mine. Oh yes, it WILL be mine...
  7. Ah. LOL Sorry about that. I'll make sure this is right (and get specifics) when I get home and can check, but offhand: MSI mobo, AMD 8 core processor, 16 gigs RAM, GTX 650 graphics, (and now) 600 watt Thermaltake power supply.
  8. Yep. It was absolutely the power supply. I had to go out and buy a new one, and since I was short on cash, I had to buy a non-modular, 600 watt power supply, which is 150 watts less than my modular power supply. But, it works. Unfortunately, I'll have to buy ANOTHER power supply in the near future, because I'll soon have 10 4 tb hard drives, plus a 1 tb laptop hard drive, plus my 200 gb SSD, plus two graphics cards, plus 32 gigs of memory... My buddy recommends going to a 1000 watt power supply, and I think he may be right. And that's going to produce a LOT of heat. Anyone know where I can go to learn how to effectively cool my case?
  9. Here's the issue: if I shut my computer down for any reason, whether I do it through the Windows shutdown command, manually, of whatever, it will NOT turn back on, sometimes for days or weeks. If it's plugged in, I get power (I can see the green light on my video card), but nothing I do will get the damned thing to turn back on. I can't figure this out, and it's been happening for months. PLEASE help me!
  10. I have charter, and I believe it's 3mps.
  11. No, I want to let them open my movies file, pick a movie, and watch it, just as they could when I lived in the house. When I was in the house, I could be upstairs on my computer watching a movie, and they could open my file from the laptop downstairs, pick a movie, and watch it downstairs, because we had a home network set up. I'd like to essentially set up a home network again, except that one of the computers on the network isn't actually in the house. Know what I mean?
  12. Maybe y'all can help me with this one. All of my movies are on my hard drives. I recently moved across town, and I'd like to allow my family to continue to have access to my movies from their house. I've heard that there's a way to allow my family to watch movies stored on my computer from their home, even though my computer is across town in my home. Can anyone tell me what this is called and how I'd go about seeing it up? I have a couple terabytes of movies, and I'm really my family's entertainment hub. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
  13. Ok. Will try swapping to a brand new power supply when payday comes. We'll see if that fixes the problem.
  14. Ok. I finally built a system about 4 months ago. I was nervous about using an MSI motherboard, because I've heard so many bad things about them, but with the budget I set for myself, that was my best option. I was also nervous about buying a used Corsair 850 power supply, but again, budget. So. Everything was fine, system actually ran great, until we had a thunderstorm. Power in the house fluctuated, computer turned off, and would not turn back on. I'm thinking, great, blown motherboard. This sucks, but good thing I bought a warranty. Well, I get all the way to the store, get ready to pull my motherboard, when I decide to check it out one last time. I plug it in, turn it on, and boom! Everything's fine. So, I forgo the swap and head home. Three weeks pass, and everything's fine. Then, today, I turn the system on to watch a movie. I realize that the hdmi cord is still plugged into the Xbox, so I unplug it and plug it into the back of the system. Boom! Power goes off and won't come back on. I screw with it for a while, trying to figure out what the deal is, but nothing I do works. So, not wanting to hurl the thing against the wall in frustration, I walk away. A half hour or so later, I figure I'll give it one last shot. I plug it in, turn it on, and boom! It's all good. So, I plug the hdmi cord back in and get ready to watch my movie. But before I do, I decide to get my other hdmi cord and plug that in, so I don't have to keep switching from Xbox to computer. I unplug the hdmi cord and plug in the other one and boom! Power goes out again and won't come back on. As I sit here writing this, it's been over half an hour, and still nothing. I don't know what gives, fellas. The only thing I can think of is that the motherboard is some kind of twitchy for some reason and needs to be replaced. I don't think it's the power supply, because the light on the video card is on, so that's getting power. I really don't know what to think, except just how much I'd really like to drop this system off a VERY tall building. Thoughts?
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