Smoking PC.....hmmmm not good.

GizmoGorilla wrote on 3/16/2004, 10:03 AM

So Im rendering the other day, thinking all is starting to come into place with the video/dvd stuff when suddenly a puff of smoke from the pc, then silence...in the middle of heavy IO. Blew a power supply which then fried the motherboard and who knows what else. Was only a 250W ps so I think that had a little to do with it. Long story short, I think I'll build one from scratch this time. Any thoughts on what I should avoid, with respect to making this machine a video/audio box. Im thinkin' P4 @3.0GHz either msi asus/intel mobo....500W ps too...

tia
Norm

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 3/16/2004, 12:12 PM

Sorry to hear about fried board, Norm. Is it anything a good surge suppressor could have prevented?

Regardless, the prospect of building your own PC vs. buying one off the shelf has been discussed here and, from what I understand, unless you're pretty tech savvy (not that I doubt you are) it's hard to come out ahead, cost-wise or tech-wise.

HPs are a great value and rarely meet a piece a software they don't like (in addition to having firewire and USB jacks on the FRONT of the computer -- which blesses my heart considerably).

And, if you don't mind plain vanilla, you can find some great deals at: http://www.pricewatch.com

In fact, even if you're building from scratch, there are some great deals on parts there.

Regardless, hope you get your machine up and running again soon!

GizmoGorilla wrote on 3/16/2004, 12:46 PM

Dont know about the surge suppressor. I think I may have just pushed things too far, or there was an electrical flaw just waiting to happen. I know I probably will spend a little more doing it by piece but I'll look into it anyway. My box was already pushin 4 years old. An old timer by industry standards, so it may be a blessing in disguise...the reading begins....

Norm

ADinelt wrote on 3/16/2004, 2:10 PM

I have an MSI mainboard with the VIA 4-in-1 chipset which apparently causes problems for Studio users.

But then none of us are Studio users anymore... right????
;-)

Al

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/17/2004, 2:16 PM

I just built a new PC for $1800 that Dell wanted $2500 for and I used better parts. So at the high end, it pays to build yourself. It’s a solid performer for both Screenblast MS3 and Vegas 4+DVD. If you don’t do 3D modeling with OpenGL applications you can get a much cheaper video card. (OK, ok, I admit, I use it for gaming too but I do use it for Ulead Cool 3D Production Studio and Cinema 4D CE6 and it works great) You probably don't need the Platinum version of the Audigy card either. I’m a musician (keyboards) so I wanted the breakout box.

Here’s my parts list:

PC Case: Antec PlusView1000AMG
Power Supply: Antec True480BLUE
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-8KNXP
CPU: Intel P4 3.0GMHz FSB 800Mhz
Memory: 1GB of Kingston HyperX PC3200 (2x 512MB)
Video Card: ATI 9800 Pro (ATI Radeon)
Hard Drive 1: Maxtor 160.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS 8MB cache (IDE)
Hard Drives 2: Western Digital 160GB @ 7200 RPMS 8MB cache (SATA) for video capture
DVD Burner: Pioneer DVR-106D
Sound Card: Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum w/break out box
Case Fans: CoolerMaster Blue 80mm Neon LED Fan (x5)
Operating System: Windows XP Home

I bought all the parts at newegg.com. If you’re looking to spend only $500 then you’d be hard pressed to build something cheaper than Dell, HP, etc. They have the best prices on the low end.

If you don’t want to build and don’t like getting crippled proprietary parts from Dell or HP, then visit a custom builder like PCNirvana or ABS Computer. They use stock parts that you can always expand on later. The PC I build looks exactly line this one from ABS Computer. They were way cheaper than Dell but I still saved about $200 off of their best price by building it myself.

My second choice for a motherboard was the ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe. I selected the Gigabyte because it had more storage options but it was a hard choice between that and the ASUS. Good luck.

~jr

GizmoGorilla wrote on 3/18/2004, 7:50 AM

Well its done.
Bought an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, with intel P4 3.0GHz, and 1G ram. Dont know how many more storage options the gigbyte has but the asus supports 8 USB2, 2 firewire, SATA/PATA, and has a raid controller. Good enough for me. Also went with a new 160G sata drive and a honkin 460W powersupply. The rest of the hardware will be salvaged from the old box. Im thinking about making use of the raid controler. Maybe configing for raid0, to do strictly video capture as this was one of the uses cited in an article I read on raid, claiming good transfer rates for streaming video. The real "fun" is now going to be setting everthing up from scratch, but the end result will be worth it....hey maybe studio8 will work now... maybe I should stop using the cd as a coaster? :)...nah... :)

Norm