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ace72ace

Zaino, I put that $hit on everything
1,242
71
I've been building machines for 15+ years now, have a house full of them. Gaming was my primary motivation when I was younger, but now with PS3/Xbox360 providing a much easier route, my enthusiasm has waned. No longer do I read all the hardware review forums etc, and learn about the latest CPU cores, overclocking tweaks, fastest memory & hard drives etc... Just not enough hours in the day.

But now I need to do the 'last' upgrade on my going on 6 yr old PC, a very good for it's day Asus p5b-e, 8gb ram, and a quad core (core 2 duo family) CPU. The single 1TB hard drive isn't going to cut it for HD vid editing, and I really prefer just 1 big C: drive. Of course I could just add extra drive's, there's plenty of room in my ATX Lian-Li case, but as stated, I want just 1 big ass drive.

So I bought a nice Seagate 3TB drive only to find out that I'm most likely out of luck as the mobo chipset I have is so old that it's unlikely to handle anything over 2.2TB because of the lack of EFI/UEFI bios. The final bios update available for my board only addressed being able to 'properly recognize' drives over 1TB, and I haven't been able to find any examples of anyone reporting installing a 2TB+ sized drive on the p5b-e.

So this leads me down the road to plan B, get a hard drive controller card that has drivers I can load on install, and cross my fingers and hope that Win8 can recognize the controller card + the card bios menu (much like your olde fashioned SCSI cards - remember them?!) that will allow me install the OS on a single bootable 3TB partition. I could mount the drive on my existing Win7 install, and use disk management to format it as a 3TB GPT drive and hope that the Win8 installer can recognize and handle it with the help of the aforementioned sata controller card with updated bios and device driver...

So I read through all of this;

http://www.pcworld.com/article/235088/everything_you_need_to_know_about_3TB_hard_drives.html

In a perfect world I could find a post online where someone lists the controller card they used, what driver worked ( the card manufacturer or Windows native), what brand HD ( newer models have their own advanced firmware, esp the hybrid drives that have some flash memory to increase flash performance like the Seagate Momentus - I have 2 already), and how they formatted the drive & partition size & type. So far, not much luck finding such a post, looks like I might have to blaze my own trail.

On the bright side the controller cards are only about 25$ unlike the old SCSI cards that were hundreds of dollars back in the 90s.... So I'd be interested in any and all feedback on this. At least it's a nice to have, and not gotta have, as I can just reformat the existing WD 1TB drive that has win7 on it, and use the 3TB drive as a data drive, but I'd rather have the option of keeping the existing install intact on the 1TB drive and let my sons continue to use it, and I could have my own private install on the 3TB drive.
 

ace72ace

Zaino, I put that $hit on everything
1,242
71
Zaino just made it shiny and smell better, but that's another story... The PC nutters will understand, yes, it's almost like a whole diff language being a 'techie'.
 
KYBOSSLS said:
Sounds like French to me, I have a handy cap on this subject, over 50!
That's no excuse, you're probably the same age as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. ;)
 
1,255
2
GA
I have been building my own PCs for about 15 years too. I have the closet full of old obsolete parts that I will never use again to prove it. ;) I have slowed down on upgrading and building new machiines. I have had my current rig for about 3 years now. The hardware capabilities have outpaced the software. It is definitely a lot cheaper and easier to build a new system than it used to be. Remember when you used to have to worry about setting all of those jumpers on the mobo? I seldom upgrade componenets now but replace the system. I don't buy the systems in the store because you know they put the cheapest crap they can find in it. I have the philosophy now of buying a decent laptop for web surfing and building high performance desktops for gaming. I want to upgrade my video card to HDMI and connect my desktop to the big screen and sound system for gaming and watching Netflix.

If you are having compatibility problems make sure your MB firmware and drivers are up to date. When the manufacturers make major changes in components they usually change the sockets and connectors so it will not fit.
 
CaliMR said:
The last PC I built had a PII and a Voodoo video card

LOL
I still have an old Voodoo card up in the attic from a build long ago.
Have been building my own since pre 286 days & Bulletin Boards before the explosion of the WWW.
Should have switched careers then.....
No more time anymore to keep up with the computer technology, my recent computer purchase was an off the shelf. Did upgrade the power supply & video card though :) My last gaming build lasted us since '02.
 
I still upgrade myself, but I don't have the patience to research all the parts for a full build. My current PC I upgraded the PS and video card and maxed the ram, that is about it. I have run modified bios and played around a lot at one point in optimizing registry and such but then I got out of school and had no time for that kind of stuff.
 
PC here, though with the coupons and smart shopping, I usually do better at the Dell Outlet than I could putting it together myself and since I am buying for a family, I usually buy there and then customize the video card and maybe the power supply.
 

PeteInCT

#LS-378 - So many Porsche's, so little time....
Moderator
2,848
14
Connecticut
You probably won't like this comment ;D (being a dyed in the wool PC guy myself and a career IT exec) but I'd consider going Mac for things like video editing. Recently my laptop bit the bullet and the cost to repair was more than it was worth. I was getting real tired of Windows based machines that bog down over time because of the massive amounts of garbage collected in the Registry and the CPU overhead of proper virus protection. From my background in IT I am aware of the challenges of the Windows platform with regards to multi-tasking. Since the Mac OS is based on a derivative of Unix I decided to bite the bullet, especially since there are many options for popular program compatibility. The down side is these machines come at a premium vs. what you get on a PC. The good news is that they are extremely fast and manage many simultaneously running programs better than Windows does IMHO. No virus issues right out of the box and they pretty much don't don't crash (outside of hardware issues that can plague any computer). Video editing on my iMac using a hyper-threading 3.4 Ghz quad core Intel i7 chip with 8Gb of RAM is just as fast as it can be. We still have a strong Windows 7 based machine at home for business use (mostly for remote connectivity where VPN connections only work under Windows and require the IE browser). And right after I bought that machine MSFT comes out with Windows 8 - it never ends.... :eek:

-Pete
 
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The only computer I "built" needed an 80 column card. That should tell you how long ago that was! Still have the computer and play the ORIGINAL Castle Wolfenstein and the Ultima series from time to time. ::)
 

PeteInCT

#LS-378 - So many Porsche's, so little time....
Moderator
2,848
14
Connecticut
Wolfenstein was the bomb! I'd play that if I could find it somewhere. I remember playing that with my 21 yr old son when he was a young whippersnapper ;D
 
PeteInCT said:
Wolfenstein was the bomb! I'd play that if I could find it somewhere. I remember playing that with my 21 yr old son when he was a young whippersnapper ;D

They had it as a free iPhone/iPad download for a while.

The original game that I remember really liking was Gato, which I played on an AT&T PC6300 (Olivetti). Just to maintain my microchannel heritage, I still have a running IBM Model 80.
 
Fat Boss said:
The only computer I "built" needed an 80 column card. That should tell you how long ago that was! Still have the computer and play the ORIGINAL Castle Wolfenstein and the Ultima series from time to time. ::)

Those were both solid games, I had Wolfenstien on an Apple IIe with the green screen. There was an air combat game that I played a lot too, I think it had a name similar to Air Wolf but was with planes... the name escapes me though. But the best old games I remember (though they were on early Macs so not as old) were the original Dark Castle and the 2nd one. I loved the noises the enemies made when you chucked a rock at them. I failed to find an emulator when I looked a while back.
 
PeteInCT said:
Wolfenstein was the bomb! I'd play that if I could find it somewhere. I remember playing that with my 21 yr old son when he was a young whippersnapper ;D

You can play for free, online, right now:
http://www.wolfenstein.com
 
derrrr
you might enjoy this article then:
http://kotaku.com/5817303/in-memory-of-the-original-castle-wolfenstein-the-one-that-wasnt-in-3d
 

ace72ace

Zaino, I put that $hit on everything
1,242
71
I have a macbook pro, and a few linux boxes, and an old Sun dual proc ultra2 with dual creator 24bit gfx cards... If I had the money I'd already have a 27" iMac with a monster external drive hanging off a thunderbolt port. Right now this windows box should be fine for basic editing until such time as I can get the iMac.
 

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