AMD Phenom II x2 555 Unboxing Video

Here is another unboxing video, this time of my amazing CPU. This CPU is awesome if you are on a budget and you can survive with a dual core, unless you unlock it of course.

RAM unboxing video up!

I got these for really cheap at Newegg and they have been working wonders. I'll soon get another 4gb to have a total of 8gb.
Sorry for the crappy quality didn't think it would turn out this bad.
Enjoy!

PC Info

Ok guys, I've been playing Skyrim all day today, and even though I only get about 25 FPS on the lowest settings and 800x600, I've been having a blast. Now it's time to stop procrastinating and write a post about my long awaited computer.

Elite 430 Case

AMD Phenom II and GSkill Badges

No cable management whatsoever, I'll try to fix it when I get my GPU.

OK so that's pretty much how it looks, now let's take a look at the performance, which I value way over looks.

So the CPU came stock at a dual core 3.2GHz, but I easily unlocked the disabled cores and overclocked to 4.2 GHz. However temps were reaching 56C Idle, so I brought it down to 3.6GHz, for now. At the end of this month I'll be getting my Cooler Master Hyper 212+, so I will probably go around 4GHz at most, just to be safe. 

The voltage seemed a bit high, but everything is stable so far.

Why you should buy a Black Edition Phenom II

It is so easy to overclock! Just by changing the multiplier in AMD overdrive, increasing the voltage slightly and messing around a bit, I overclocked in a heartbeat.

That's it, I just increased that Multiplier Slider, and bam, 3600 MHz

Now, what I absolutely despised about building my computer.

1. Installing Windows 7 was hard to do, I had to connect the IDE cable from my old desktop and power them both on, and put the old one on top of my new one, because the IDE cable wa a bit short. I can't really blame that on anything besides my not wanting to buy a CD drive. 

2. The Windows 7 disk I burned, did not work, I had to change down the burn speed to 1x, reburn it, and it finally worked, although it took a while to burn it at that speed

3. Drivers

3a. Could not connect to internet at all; had to download LAN drivers from my motherboard's website from another computer and bring it to the desktop, but even then, only wired works, gotta figure that out before I move my computer away from the router.

3b. I had to install the AMD Graphics drivers 3 times before they finally worked. But they were easy to use, and I had no games to play while using it, Skyrim was downloading, so it didn't even really matter.

3c. The mouse suddenly stopped working, had to connect it to my laptop, and reinstall the drivers to get it functioning again, but not without 3 restarts

4. Headset didn't work, when I plugged it into the headphone jack, only the headphones worked, and only the microphone worked when I plugged it into the mic jack. Might be something wrong with the headset, but I have a spare webcam I used for a mic

Other than that, I'm loving my computer! I can play Team Fortress 2 without any lag, and on lowest settings I'm playing Skyrim at 20-30 FPS. Boot times are faster than what I would expect of a 5400RPM drive, but then I guess it will be dramatically improved when I get an SSD. 

One thing is that, it's sometimes loud. Just at random some of my fans start picking up more speed and get louder. There was one 10 second period where every fan was going faster than intended, and it sounded like a jet engine, but that never happened again, and these random speed increases seem to have stopped for now.

What's left to buy:

• GPU, 99% going to be Sapphire 6850
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Heatsink/Fan
• Coby 2.1 Speakers
• 23" 1080p monitor
• Crucial M4 64GB SSD
• Either 500 or 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD once prices drop
• Another stick of 4GB GSkill RAM, if it seems like I need it
• Better Keyboard and Mouse, I can survive with the mouse, but this keyboard's going to give me carpal tunnel soon because of its shape
• More games!
• A Lamborghini

Alright hope you guys enjoyed this long post, gonna be writing a lot more long posts like this soon.

PC is working!

Well, I went to Fry's yesterday with my dad to buy my case, and when we went, he lent me $50 to buy a power supply. It was the same brand, Antec, so I was kind of reluctant at first, but it all worked out in the end. Well we got home, I plug in the power supply, nothing. Right before I suited up to go bomb Antec for their second defunct PSU, my dad, an electrician, wanted to try something. He said just flipping on the switch for the PSU won't open it, you need a motherboard connection to switch it on. Well that's exactly what we did, and it worked. My old one was probably not DOA either, I was just stupid enough to think that it would turn on completely just by flipping the switch. Well now after a good night's rest, we're installing Windows 7. I'll get some more pics and info later.
I also successfully unlocked the 2 dormant cores, so now I have a quad core CPU, but I didn't check if it's 100% stable yet, but once I get into my OS, that's the first thing I'll do.

Got my Computer Stuff... but....

I am almost to the point of crying right now. So I got home and found my box on my doorstep. Excited, I ran inside and unboxed everything (videos of unboxing coming soon) and was so confident I didn't even open a guide on how to build a PC because I remembered everything I needed. I opened my motherboard and set it on its box. Then I took out my CPU and installed it and the heatsink/fan. Then I took out my RAM and easily installed that. Then came the enemy of this story, the Antec 550w Power Supply. I happily took the little demon out of it's box and started installing all the power cables. I brought my whole setup to the TV and attached it to the motherboard via HDMI cable. I decided to try to connect my HDD to the computer and succeeded, which means I won't need that adapter. I was happy, and I connected the PSU to the wall. Extremely excited, I slowly pushed my hand towards the on/off button. I closed my eyes and flipped it open. 

NOTHING!

THE POWER SUPPLY WAS DEAD ON ARRIVAL!

Now I have to go through a painstaking RMA experience to get a working PC. 

And what sucks even more is every single other part could be defective, but I won't know because without the PSU there is no way to test other parts. So I could get the power supply back and have to send in my CPU or something, unlikely, but it could happen.

Well here's some of my pictures of my pseudo-computer right before I turned it on-wait I didn't ever turn it on.

I don't have my case by the way, which is why it's like this.

 Well, hopefully the second part isn't defective, or else I will probably start cutting myself.

Well, sorry for all the delays, but unless ^ happens then I will have at least one good post by the end of next week.

Finally Ordered my PC!

Well, after weeks of delays, I have finally ordered my PC
Here are the final specs:
AMD Phenom ii x2 555 BE (going to unlock to 4 cores)
G Skill 4GB 1333 DDR3 RAM
Biostar A880G+ MotherBoard
Antec BP550 Plus 550w PSU
Cooler Master Elite 430 Case
I'm also getting 2 80mm MASSCOOL fans and 1 120mm blue LED Rosewill fan
Also, a Laptop HDD to IDE adapter so I can use my laptop Hard Drive as my main, until I get a SSD
I was going to get a 500GB HDD but with that flood in Taiwan, Hard Drive prices have skyrocketed, so I will make do with 224 GB until HDD prices go down to about $50 for 500GB like they were before.
I'm also going to get a Sapphire Radeon 6850 for $150 next month, but I'll still have about $100 left over, so I have two options for next month.
1. I buy a 64 GB SSD and put all my OS files for ultimate boot speeds
2. I hold on to it and get a monitor the next month, hopefully a 23 inch 1080p

Depending on how much money I have next month, I probably can buy the monitor later and still buy the SSD at the end of this month, so #1 is my preferred choice, but I want to know what you guys think. Please rate my system and tell me if I should do 1 or 2!

And another thing that sucks, the adapter thing for my HDD has 3 day shipping instead of the 2 day shipping everything else has, so I won't be able to use it until Monday, unless UPS has a change of heart and brings it early :)

Pics coming soon, and I will most likely be playing Minecraft, TF2, L4D, and those types of low graphics games until I get my GPU.

Expect a lot more posts next week, and happy 11/11/11!

Grand Theft Auto V Announced!

I know most of you have probably already heard this but I decided to write a post anyway.

Well, I'm excited for this game. I didn't really get to play GTA IV so much but I thoroughly enjoyed San Andreas and Vice City. 

Everyone has been waiting for the new GTA, and after Rockstar released two new games, Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire. 

I began to lose hope that a new Grand Theft Auto would come out, but I've regained my faith in Rockstar again. Not much to say about the trailer, but the game looks much prettier than IV and hopefully they add more graphics mods like GTA IV.

Again, there isn't much to say, and I'm still not sure who in the trailer is in the main character, but I know Rockstar will make an amazing game like always!

By the way, I'm sorry for the short posts lately, I've been having some problems ordering my parts, but as soon as I get it, expect more reviews and longer posts!