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So, over the last few months, my friends here on RMW, and some of you who saw my status as well, knew I was working on building a new PC. Well, I finally finished. It's a glorious triumph of quiet operation and good specs, while not breaking the bank, so to speak. So here's how it went and to be clear, I started purchasing items on March 3rd, so it's been a while. Here's what originally wanted for my build:
Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Motherboard
Intel Pentium G4560 3.5Ghz
8GB ( 2x4GB ) Crucial 2133 DDR4 RAM
AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB Video Card (eventually updated to RX 570 or 580)
Corsair 450W 80+ BRONZE Semi-Modular Power Supply
Any decent 240GB SSD
TESSRACT DeepCool Case (simple mATX case)
March
I got my motherboard and CPU on this month. I had bought the Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H motherboard and Intel Pentium G4560 3.5Ghz. Great combination and would be a nice way of getting me to a modern system. Sad part is that when you're on a budget, you can only get one or two parts per month. Still, we trudge on.
April & May
Nothing happened during this time frame due to financial problems, but once June came along, things got better.
June
I was finally able to get everything else, however, during April and June, the Eth mining craze came along, so getting an affordable AMD Polaris card, such as the RX 470/480/570/580 was impossible. I skipped it and got the Zotac Geforce 1050 Ti OC Edition, dual fans, which while not being as good as even the RX 470, was still a good buy since even they are starting to go up in price slowly. Due to some financial help, I was able to get the RAM, power supply, which came last, and case, which I swapped out for something with some blue lighting. I was ready to build. I had a copy of Windows 7 Home ready to go and all the essential parts, so I built it and turned it on. Stayed on for one second, if even that and turned back off. Made sure all the cables were plugged in properly, try again, same result.
I went on google to see what might be the issue. Seemed like it might be the power supply. I unplugged all other parts to see if it would turn on, but got nothing. Unplugged the CPU power cable and left the main power cable on. Success! So, I figured the power supply was to blame, called Corsair, they told me to send it back to Newegg for a replacement and hopefully it should work. Took a WEEK before I saw it, but I got it, eventually, in July. All of this happened at the end of June.
July
When I finally got the new power supply, plugged it in...exact same result. I knew then that it was the motherboard and was dismayed. The motherboard has been out of the return policy for quite some time, so I decided to just bite the bullet and send it to Gigabyte to get it RMA'd. They have been taking their sweet time, so I was getting bitter and angry, when all of a sudden, I get a check in the mail from my previous college, DeVry. Actually, it was from the Federal Trade Commission. Apparently, there was a class action lawsuit, one of which I guess I had opted in to way back when without really thinking about it and forgot all about it. Well, when I got it, it was just what I needed. I deposited the check, as soon as the funds were available, I ordered an Asrock B250M Pro4 and it got here on the 13th. Finished my build, got Windows 7 Home installed and was happy.
Fast forward to yesterday when I got Windows 10 Home installed. The upgrade was smooth, but then a glaring issue occurred. When I overclocked my video card with the MSI Afterburner software, Guild War 2, my current MMO of choice, was blocked from using the graphics hardware. I was understandably upset. I returned the card to factory settings and it was fine. GW2 was able to use the card again. Needless to say, having bought hardware, but not being able to use it how I wanted without Windows 10 throwing a fit was angering me. Still, I pressed on. A friend of mine suggested I not use MSI Afterburner and she was right. I went back to Firestorm, the GPU utility for Zotac cards, and it worked! I got it overclocked and my games were able to use the overclocked card. Happy again.
To better show my build, rather tan just talk about it, here are some pics of it.
Sorry if a couple of pictures are sideways.
This isn't, however, my final build. I intend to add 8GB more of RAM, replace the video card with something beefier down the line, replace my main 500GB 7200RPM SATA hard drive with an M.2 SSD and add RGB lighting strips. I also plan on replacing any drive under 1TB with drives that are 1TB or larger. Here is my current configuration:
Asrock B250M Pro4 Motherboard
Intel Pentium G4560 3.5Ghz
8GB ( 2x4GB ) Crucial 2133 DDR4 RAM
Zotac Geforce GTX 1050 Ti Dual Fan OC Edition
Corsair 450W 80+ BRONZE Semi-Modular Power Supply
TESSRACT DeepCool mATX Case w/ blue LED fans
I will be updating this when I add on to the build or change anything. Thanks for checking this out and thanks to all my friends for showing me encouragement and support during this build. You guys are awesome!
Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H Motherboard
Intel Pentium G4560 3.5Ghz
8GB ( 2x4GB ) Crucial 2133 DDR4 RAM
AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB Video Card (eventually updated to RX 570 or 580)
Corsair 450W 80+ BRONZE Semi-Modular Power Supply
Any decent 240GB SSD
TESSRACT DeepCool Case (simple mATX case)
March
I got my motherboard and CPU on this month. I had bought the Gigabyte GA-B250M-DS3H motherboard and Intel Pentium G4560 3.5Ghz. Great combination and would be a nice way of getting me to a modern system. Sad part is that when you're on a budget, you can only get one or two parts per month. Still, we trudge on.
April & May
Nothing happened during this time frame due to financial problems, but once June came along, things got better.
June
I was finally able to get everything else, however, during April and June, the Eth mining craze came along, so getting an affordable AMD Polaris card, such as the RX 470/480/570/580 was impossible. I skipped it and got the Zotac Geforce 1050 Ti OC Edition, dual fans, which while not being as good as even the RX 470, was still a good buy since even they are starting to go up in price slowly. Due to some financial help, I was able to get the RAM, power supply, which came last, and case, which I swapped out for something with some blue lighting. I was ready to build. I had a copy of Windows 7 Home ready to go and all the essential parts, so I built it and turned it on. Stayed on for one second, if even that and turned back off. Made sure all the cables were plugged in properly, try again, same result.
I went on google to see what might be the issue. Seemed like it might be the power supply. I unplugged all other parts to see if it would turn on, but got nothing. Unplugged the CPU power cable and left the main power cable on. Success! So, I figured the power supply was to blame, called Corsair, they told me to send it back to Newegg for a replacement and hopefully it should work. Took a WEEK before I saw it, but I got it, eventually, in July. All of this happened at the end of June.
July
When I finally got the new power supply, plugged it in...exact same result. I knew then that it was the motherboard and was dismayed. The motherboard has been out of the return policy for quite some time, so I decided to just bite the bullet and send it to Gigabyte to get it RMA'd. They have been taking their sweet time, so I was getting bitter and angry, when all of a sudden, I get a check in the mail from my previous college, DeVry. Actually, it was from the Federal Trade Commission. Apparently, there was a class action lawsuit, one of which I guess I had opted in to way back when without really thinking about it and forgot all about it. Well, when I got it, it was just what I needed. I deposited the check, as soon as the funds were available, I ordered an Asrock B250M Pro4 and it got here on the 13th. Finished my build, got Windows 7 Home installed and was happy.
Fast forward to yesterday when I got Windows 10 Home installed. The upgrade was smooth, but then a glaring issue occurred. When I overclocked my video card with the MSI Afterburner software, Guild War 2, my current MMO of choice, was blocked from using the graphics hardware. I was understandably upset. I returned the card to factory settings and it was fine. GW2 was able to use the card again. Needless to say, having bought hardware, but not being able to use it how I wanted without Windows 10 throwing a fit was angering me. Still, I pressed on. A friend of mine suggested I not use MSI Afterburner and she was right. I went back to Firestorm, the GPU utility for Zotac cards, and it worked! I got it overclocked and my games were able to use the overclocked card. Happy again.
To better show my build, rather tan just talk about it, here are some pics of it.
Sorry if a couple of pictures are sideways.
This isn't, however, my final build. I intend to add 8GB more of RAM, replace the video card with something beefier down the line, replace my main 500GB 7200RPM SATA hard drive with an M.2 SSD and add RGB lighting strips. I also plan on replacing any drive under 1TB with drives that are 1TB or larger. Here is my current configuration:
Asrock B250M Pro4 Motherboard
Intel Pentium G4560 3.5Ghz
8GB ( 2x4GB ) Crucial 2133 DDR4 RAM
Zotac Geforce GTX 1050 Ti Dual Fan OC Edition
Corsair 450W 80+ BRONZE Semi-Modular Power Supply
TESSRACT DeepCool mATX Case w/ blue LED fans
I will be updating this when I add on to the build or change anything. Thanks for checking this out and thanks to all my friends for showing me encouragement and support during this build. You guys are awesome!
