First Computer You've Owned?

[mzungu]

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE

 

[WalksWithChrist]

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE

 

[higherFaith]

I prefer a post like this to one of the "it's so easy" variety.

Geeks like details!

Well considering my AMD box just died on me, I haven't been able to get to much.

Details? May as well detail this.

AMD 64 Opteron CPU, standard fare with a GHZ clocked in. 256 megs of DDR RAM and my 2 SATA drives. Both were counted at 160GBs and 256 as master slave respectively. The system kept freezing and soft resetting, so I thought I had a failing drive, turns out it was the PSU, thing wont turn on now. I could have burned out the CPU as I did the last one due to over work but it's hardly unlikely, this is AMD, not some stupid little Intel Cel D. So now I have 2 SATA drives I cannot do anything with because my backup system only supports IDE discs. Even with a SATA to IDE cable for the mboard I'm still left with one encrypted (I could go into details but unless you know about encryption and computer security, waste of time), and one mirror drive. Suffice it to say, it's down unless I get a new PSU for it.

Now I have to do my hacking, debugging and compiles on an x86 CPU rather than my x64 CPU. Yeah, wonderful. Anyway that's as much detail as I think I want to go in, have fun.

WARNING NOTE:
Before you get any ideas, "hacker" means "programmer", someone who commits illegal activities is a "cracker", they like to call it "hacking" it's not "hacking". I work with cryptographic software and programming C, FORTRAN, 64 ASM and odd bits and bytes. I work with UNIX, Linux, BSD's, and Hurd (when I can be bothered). That's it. Don't call me a cracker, thanks.

 

[WalksWithChrist]

Well considering my AMD box just died on me, I haven't been able to get to much.

Details? May as well detail this.

AMD 64 Opteron CPU, standard fare with a GHZ clocked in. 256 megs of DDR RAM and my 2 SATA drives. Both were counted at 160GBs and 256 as master slave respectively. The system kept freezing and soft resetting, so I thought I had a failing drive, turns out it was the PSU, thing wont turn on now. I could have burned out the CPU as I did the last one due to over work but it's hardly unlikely, this is AMD, not some stupid little Intel Cel D. So now I have 2 SATA drives I cannot do anything with because my backup system only supports IDE discs. Even with a SATA to IDE cable for the mboard I'm still left with one encrypted (I could go into details but unless you know about encryption and computer security, waste of time), and one mirror drive. Suffice it to say, it's down unless I get a new PSU for it.

Now I have to do my hacking, debugging and compiles on an x86 CPU rather than my x64 CPU. Yeah, wonderful. Anyway that's as much detail as I think I want to go in, have fun.

WARNING NOTE:
Before you get any ideas, "hacker" means "programmer", someone who commits illegal activities is a "cracker", they like to call it "hacking" it's not "hacking". I work with cryptographic software and programming C, FORTRAN, 64 ASM and odd bits and bytes. I work with UNIX, Linux, BSD's, and Hurd (when I can be bothered). That's it. Don't call me a cracker, thanks.

New PSUs are relatively inexpensive. Of course anything is expensive if you can't afford it!
I replaced my PSU, CPU, mobo and RAM recently. It was an "involuntary" upgrade due to the PSU frying the motherboard when it died.

I had forgotten the roots of the term "hacker". Thanks for the reminder!

 

[higherFaith]

I had forgotten the roots of the term "hacker". Thanks for the reminder!

I just dislike being called a criminal for claiming to be an actual hacker, can become quite annoying. I'm a programmer.

Looking at doing Zilog Z80 assembly actually. Embedded programming work.

 

[Algol Omega]

My current system is a bit in shambles, but yet operational nonetheless. But I can say one thing's for certain, none of my friends nor I are willing to buy another Asus mobo again. The P6X58D is a PoS, and that's saying the least about it.

But nonetheless, it is still my pride since I did buy everything piece-by-piece and put it together only for myself. Previously, I've been paid to build or repair computers for other people while buying mine premade.

Anyways...

Casing: XCLIO Windtunnel SECC ATX Full-Tower
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Motherboard: Asus P6X58D Premium (Next month, I should have it replaced with a EVGA 141-GT-E770-A1 motherboard.)
CPU: Intel i7-950 3.07GHz (32 kilobyte primary memory cache, 1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache, 8192 kilobyte tertiary memory cache)
RAM: 6GB DDR3-SDRAM Dominators (1600MHz) (I plan on getting a second pair by the end of 2011)
GFX: MSI Geforce GTX480 (I'll be trading it in near-summer probably for a GTX 580, and get a second one by Christmas.)
HD: Samsung F3 1TB
HD2: Samsung F3 1TB
PSU: XFX Black Edition XPS-850W-BES 850W (With the 2nd GPU, I'll definitely get a Thermaltake Toughpower W0133RU 1200W by then.)
Optical Drive: Pioneer Blu-Ray Burner
Speakers: Logitech G930 (I'm about reading to chunk my Logitech X-540 speakers, they're another POS.)

 

[DeathMagus]

My current system is a bit in shambles, but yet operational nonetheless. But I can say one thing's for certain, none of my friends nor I are willing to buy another Asus mobo again. The P6X58D is a PoS, and that's saying the least about it.

Strange. I've had no problems with my P6T Deluxe.

 

[Algol Omega]

Strange. I've had no problems with my P6T Deluxe.

1. You may very well be the exception... maybe God just blessed you with it?
2. I've no personal experience with the P6T Deluxe.

Nor am I very optimistic about the motherboard change; apparently, there's a lot of reported problems with the X58 north chip not working well with the Dimm2 and Dimm3 slots. (Do a search.) But since it is EVGA, I do have some newfound hope.

 

[davidkiwi]

The first one I owned was an XT (the predecessors to the AT) in maybe 1986. I think they were something like 4.77 kHz, no hard drive just 5 1/4" floppies. Can't even remember the memory, maybe 256kB.

But the first time I tried programming was one afternoon in 1984 when a friend brought around something that existed then, maybe a Commodore 64? Whatever it was we spent the afternoon writing a BASIC program that drew a "cannon" shape at each bottom corner that we could tilt, and some kind of "power" indicator, so we could fire at the other guy with different trajectories.

I remember loving it, and a year or two later started training in programming after years of doing all kinds of other jobs. I'm still programming, though to this day business systems never seem as exciting as that first crude game. Funny, a year or two back when I first wanted to play with Silverlight I wrote the same simple game to figure the basics of that technology. Couldn't resist!

 

[higherFaith]

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
...
CPU: Intel i7-950 3.07GHz (32 kilobyte primary memory cache, 1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache,

Why would you use an Intel CPU on a 64 bit OS? Maybe it's just me and the hatred I have for Intel CPU's, but personally I would go for a good solid 64 bit CPU from AMD.

 

[DeathMagus]

Why would you use an Intel CPU on a 64 bit OS? Maybe it's just me and the hatred I have for Intel CPU's, but personally I would go for a good solid 64 bit CPU from AMD.

Why not? Two falls ago when I built my desktop, the i7 really outperformed anything AMD had to offer. Of course, I paired it with an ATI card, because bang-for-buck they blew Nvidia away.

 

[Algol Omega]

Why would you use an Intel CPU on a 64 bit OS? Maybe it's just me and the hatred I have for Intel CPU's, but personally I would go for a good solid 64 bit CPU from AMD.

1. Nothing I've read (everything from Tomshardware to OCN, and so on), said anything about Intel's i-series being any less solid per 64-bit processing.
2. I originally was going to go for either the Asus Rampage III Extreme, one of Gigabyte's motherboards (I can't remember since it was discontinued), or the EVGA motherboard I linked earlier. My priorities are the GPU first, MB second, RAM third, and then the CPU.

If the X58 chipset continues to give me problems, then I very well will try an AMD motherboard/CPU system.

 

[Willtor]

Why not? Two falls ago when I built my desktop, the i7 really outperformed anything AMD had to offer. Of course, I paired it with an ATI card, because bang-for-buck they blew Nvidia away.

The Nehalems have 3 memory channels. I use one in my office and it flies. I do parallelism, and I used to have a trivial parallel memcpy() algorithm that I used to show the pitfalls of memory bandwidth saturation. But when I got this computer it was no longer a good example. On 8 cores, it only started to reach its bandwidth limits around 6-7 cores, and it wouldn't be obvious to an audience that the problem wasn't scheduling overhead.

 

[sdmsanjose]

first computer that I remember was a 386 at a screamin' 40 mhz, We had Windows 3.1 and MS Dos.

That was my first also.

In 1995 I got a Windows 95 Gateway, Pentium 166, 16 MB RAM, CDROM
I thought that I would never need a bigger better computer.

Between 2000-2008 I had Gateway and Dell Windows 98 and XP
Office 2000 and 2003, Pentium 3 and 4-dual core


In 2010 I got a Gateway DX4831-01e
2.93GHz Intel Core i3 530
6GB DDR3 SDRAM
32MB (shared) Intel GMA HD integrated graphics chip
1TB, 7,200rpm Western Digital HD
Windows 7
Office 2010


Frankly for my use I see no great difference from the 2008, Pentium 4-dual core and the Intel Core i3 530.

I have not got use to the Office Word 2010 yet. Right now I like office 2003 better.

 

[higherFaith]

Why not? Two falls ago when I built my desktop, the i7 really outperformed anything AMD had to offer. Of course, I paired it with an ATI card, because bang-for-buck they blew Nvidia away.

1. Nothing I've read (everything from Tomshardware to OCN, and so on), said anything about Intel's i-series being any less solid per 64-bit processing.
2. I originally was going to go for either the Asus Rampage III Extreme, one of Gigabyte's motherboards (I can't remember since it was discontinued), or the EVGA motherboard I linked earlier. My priorities are the GPU first, MB second, RAM third, and then the CPU.

If the X58 chipset continues to give me problems, then I very well will try an AMD motherboard/CPU system.

AMD have been developing 64 bits for a while now. I run 64 bits on AMD. Intel are behind to me, I can see performance issues with Intel that do not affect my AMD box. AMD are cheaper too.

That was my first also.

In 1995 I got a Windows 95 Gateway, Pentium 166, 16 MB RAM, CDROM
I thought that I would never need a bigger better computer.

Between 2000-2008 I had Gateway and Dell Windows 98 and XP
Office 2000 and 2003, Pentium 3 and 4-dual core


In 2010 I got a Gateway DX4831-01e
2.93GHz Intel Core i3 530
6GB DDR3 SDRAM
32MB (shared) Intel GMA HD integrated graphics chip
1TB, 7,200rpm Western Digital HD
Windows 7
Office 2010


Frankly for my use I see no great difference from the 2008, Pentium 4-dual core and the Intel Core i3 530.

I have not got use to the Office Word 2010 yet. Right now I like office 2003 better.

Why does everyone use Windows?

 

[Willtor]

Why does everyone use Windows?

Games. That's why I use it. Those days are coming to an end, of course, as more and more companies apply over-the-top DRM. But I can't get most games I want to play for my Mac, and I can't get almost any of them for my Linux boxes (it isn't really worth mentioning WINE).

 

[pgp_protector]

...

Why does everyone use Windows?

Games, Software Selection, Software Development, and It works.

 

[DeathMagus]

AMD have been developing 64 bits for a while now.

I know - I was using 64-bit Opterons back in '05 or so to build workstations.

Intel are behind to me, I can see performance issues with Intel that do not affect my AMD box. AMD are cheaper too.

At least as of 2009, Intel's i7 line was completely trouncing AMD's Phenom II line in every benchmark test I found, without the AMD being nearly cheap enough to justify it. Perhaps they've improved their line since then, but the 2010 statistics didn't really come into play in 2008 when I built Melkor.

Why does everyone use Windows?

Access to the largest library of industry-standard software.

 

[Willtor]

Games, Software Selection, Software Development, and It works.

Games and Software Selection I can accept. I think Windows software development is not so wonderful (though, admittedly, it has improved even in the short time I've been developing, and it is better than Mac OS). I also think the "It works" thing applies to some people more than others.

 

[Dark_Lite]

it isn't really worth mentioning WINE

Why not? Wine works with a surprisingly large amount of big titles. I've been playing Fallout New Vegas through Wine since I got it on Christmas. Works almost flawlessly. World of Warcraft works perfectly, as does SC2. A lot of Valve games work under it as well.