Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[Cortexian]

Just tell them it stopped working and you have no idea why.

Once you identify the problematic component of course.

@Others: He mention power surges, those are usually not caused by the PSU, but by the electrical source. The PSU is likely what saved whatever components are left, but testing it can't hurt I suppose.

[samnwck]

Tested the PSU, all good, though it is difficult to tell if it is really the case because it was an intermittent issue. and at one point one while testing the PSU something began to smell very... Burny... But I quickly shut it off and was unable to replicate the event later...

At this point I suspect the easiest course of action would be to complain to ASUS (mobo) and Corsair (PSU) to try and warranty them out/have them test them for functionality and then go from there. Maybe complaining it's hurting my business will quicken the process of RMA'ing them.

[arbiter901]

Anyone's opinion on these?
I'm trying to keep a hot AMD FX 8350 as cool as possible for the already hot days here, while on a budget.

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Black.../dp/B003YVJJ5Y
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-..._cd_al_qh_dp_i
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-.../dp/B000O8JZIG

[Warsaw]

Giant HSF on motherboards has always bothered me. I like the closed-loop water cooling system I bought for my PC; idles a little high at 35, but under load it never breaches 50 and rarely goes above 47.

[InnerGoat]

Oh, ok.

[Dwood]

Anyone's opinion on these?
I'm trying to keep a hot AMD FX 8350 as cool as possible for the already hot days here, while on a budget.

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Black.../dp/B003YVJJ5Y
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-..._cd_al_qh_dp_i
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-.../dp/B000O8JZIG

Did you pick which HSF combo to go with? I got the Cooler Master with the 4 heatpipes on it. The CPU stays cold as ice.

[Dwood]

As a bit of a PSA announcement, if you're building a new computer, DDR 4 has an official launch date, and according to newegg crucial is the first stick brand to market. Obviously, it's really expensive right now but it does seem as DDR3 is on its way out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...rder=BESTMATCH

[Bodzilla]

how good is the DDR4 comparatively?

I've been doing trial and error to solve my PC problem. the only thing is i've had to buy the parts to do it ;(.

Next stop is either mobo, Ram or CPU which basically means i gotta do a full upgrade sigh.

so is the DDR3 worth waiting for?

[Dwood]

According to the spec sheet DDR4's speed bottoms out right about where DDR3 tops out at, and consumes like half the power while allowing for 16 GB single sticks. It's hella expensive per stick right now though.

Other than that, I have yet to hear of any reviews. I assume arstechnica or techreport will have a benchmark for DDR4 as soon as it launches later this month.

[Zeph]

how good is the DDR4 comparatively?

I've been doing trial and error to solve my PC problem. the only thing is i've had to buy the parts to do it ;(.

Next stop is either mobo, Ram or CPU which basically means i gotta do a full upgrade sigh.

so is the DDR3 worth waiting for?

Bandwidth increases, but latency also increases for these launch modules. It's a good thing for servers looking for higher density.
As always with RAM transitions, don't buy new things just because of new memory. If the CPU/mobo that you're looking at has a DDR4 chipset, get DDR4. The theoretical higher clockspeeds are nice, but they aren't exactly here yet at what would be considered a decent latency.