[BUILT] Building a New PC to develop games on

[Setekh]

@nehon said:
mhhh i didn't read the whole post, but in your picture there is no graphic card, isn't it?
Not completely sure, but I think this could cause your problem, plug the graphic card and try again.

There's no ram ether xD tho it should start to beep once you start the pc.
Anyway make sure you set up the power cables in the slots correctly. Also if that doesn't work, get your cpu for a test, you might have fried it XD

[Empire_Phoenix]

Power supply and one fan directly at the psu , nothing else…



Then connect with a metal bridge the green cable (pin from psu) with one of the black.

If the psu does not come to live, tis is most probably dead.

(-> green on earth is telling the psu to run)



(Only do this for a few seconds, some psu cannot deal good with running without any noticeable load.)



Also once you got it to work, spend like 2$ more for these

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUDuzteDekLvy-QNcmI_MZFbnvQ-3SUBNZpSdZ08WA-OjQsefhFkHCKOw

They really help to make the pc more reliable since cables cannot get into fans on transport, or touch some pins on the motherboard

[pspeed]

And I almost hate to mention this because it’s pretty basic but I like to be thorough and have built about 20 PCs without this issue…



Modern power supplies generally have a toggle on the back but it’s actually the mother board that turns them on through the push button on the front of the case. If the case’s push button isn’t properly wired to the motherboard then no amount of pushing will cause the PC to come on.



And I only mention this because I knew someone who put it all together, flipped the switch on the back, and never realized they needed to push the button on the front (which was already hooked up and everything).

[wezrule]

@pspeed you are a genius <333 I had the power led and power switch on the wrong way round :facepalm: Fans are spinning!!! although i hear no beeps, time to connect everything :D, if that fails will listen to your help about the PSU @EmpirePhoenix thanks guys for all your help, i may be needing it again :P, hopefully not though <333

[wezrule]

sweet it turns on, i see something on the screen!!! so exciting :DDDDD <333

[Empire_Phoenix]

Boom ^^

[aaronperkins]

From the photo you took. Looks like you are missing RAM.



But if the screen is turning on, I guess you figure that out already.

[sbook]

Glad you got it working!! Those motherboard front panel connections suck… Every time I build a box I have to stare at the cables and the PCB to make sure I’m putting the cables in correctly.



there’s also the dumb trick of just using a screw driver to touch the two PWR pins… That ones always fun and you’ll look like a mad scientist

[madjack]

So @wezrule is a noob at putting computers together.



Oh, just to make sure I’m twisting the screwdriver in the wound, I had to buy this last Friday (old keyboard was skipping keys and/or suddenly repeating keys 10x. It was time.) Here it is.



http://www.logitech.com/assets/31330/4/gaming-keyboard-g510.png

[pspeed]

@madjack said:
Oh, just to make sure I'm twisting the screwdriver in the wound, I had to buy this last Friday (old keyboard was skipping keys and/or suddenly repeating keys 10x. It was time.) Here it is. :D

http://www.logitech.com/assets/31330/4/gaming-keyboard-g510.png

Ooooh... it even has the proper key layout for the ins, del, etc... and the backspace and back slash too.

[pspeed]

@sbook said:
there's also the dumb trick of just using a screw driver to touch the two PWR pins.. That ones always fun and you'll look like a mad scientist ;)

Just be careful when you do that. I destroyed parts of a mother board by accidentally dropping a screw driver onto it while the machine was running.

[sbook]

@pspeed said:
Just be careful when you do that. I destroyed parts of a mother board by accidentally dropping a screw driver onto it while the machine was running.

Heh that could definitely pose a problem.. I'm always surprised be how much abuse these parts take.. They're still delicate but I've definitely had a few situations where I was still pleasantly surprised by something working.

[pspeed]

@sbook said:
Heh that could definitely pose a problem.. I'm always surprised be how much abuse these parts take.. They're still delicate but I've definitely had a few situations where I was still pleasantly surprised by something working.

Yeah, in my case the tip of the screw driver grazed across some tracers on the board and blew out the whole I/O section. No more serial or parallel ports... or mouse or keyboard. A motherboard is the worst thing to have to replace, too... everything has to come out.

[madjack]

@pspeed said:
Ooooh... it even has the proper key layout for the ins, del, etc... and the backspace and back slash too.

Yes. I'm very happy with that new keyboard I'll admit.

The only problems so far are the adjustments I have to make. The other keyboard had vertical layout for the INS, DEL, PGUP, etc, but that's nothing. My biggest adaptation problem is with the ESC key. With ALL keyboards I've had up until now getting to the ESC key was as simple as sliding the left pinky finger to the ledge of the keyboard then slam down the ESC with the middle finger. But you can't do this with the G510. The 18 "G" keys extend the keyboard and the gap between the left side of the keyboard's normal keys and the G keys is narrow. So when you slide to the left you barely feel that you've switched to the G keys. Finally, the ESC key and the G3 key are right beside the other. I try to compensate to get to the ESC key but it's rarely working. For now. I'll get used to it though.

[pspeed]

@madjack said:
Yes. I'm very happy with that new keyboard I'll admit.

The only problems so far are the adjustments I have to make. The other keyboard had vertical layout for the INS, DEL, PGUP, etc, but that's nothing. My biggest adaptation problem is with the ESC key. With ALL keyboards I've had up until now getting to the ESC key was as simple as sliding the left pinky finger to the ledge of the keyboard then slam down the ESC with the middle finger. But you can't do this with the G510. The 18 "G" keys extend the keyboard and the gap between the left side of the keyboard's normal keys and the G keys is narrow. So when you slide to the left you barely feel that you've switched to the G keys. Finally, the ESC key and the G3 key are right beside the other. I try to compensate to get to the ESC key but it's rarely working. For now. I'll get used to it though.

When I "grew up" on keyboards, the ins, del keys were exactly as above. I've tried other configurations and always end up just searching for a keyboard with the proper layout because I think the vertical one is asinine. :) I'll have to watch how I hit the escape key from now on to see if I'd have a similar issue.

What does the little screen display?

[nehon]

@pspeed said:
What does the little screen display?

Various useless things :p
you can play audio files and see progress on it, you can play videos that are on your hard drive..(never got that one)....
The most useful thing i was using is that it can display who's talking when you have teamspeak or skype runing.... that's was when i was playing wow....
Some games can display some information too...but not something really useful...
BUT....you can go and "OMFG see my Keyboard.???? it even have a screen!!!!" :D

Keys lighting is the most useful feature of this keyboard IMO.

[madjack]

@pspeed said:
When I "grew up" on keyboards, the ins, del keys were exactly as above. I've tried other configurations and always end up just searching for a keyboard with the proper layout because I think the vertical one is asinine. :)

I've had the same problem. The last few keyboards I've had have been a constant "evolution" of trying new ways to confuse long-time keyboard users. I've resented that, but what can you do? If this is the only downside, you go with it...

Admittedly, it's far more easier to get back to the horizontal layout than to get use to the ESC key placement. ;)

What does the little screen display?

So many things... It comes with a panoply of applets (no, not Java applets) that can run on it. By default it comes with a Clock display, a countdown/stopwatch, CPU/RAM monitor. But, that's not all! The G510 has been made for gaming, so it supports most games on the market. When you install the software it'll scan your hard drive and find the games you've got installed (their algorithm for that is not that good actually, but you can manually add games) and "bind" the G keys to that particular games.

Alternatively, you can simply use the default G keys and assign whatever you want. ie: I've bound G18 to the windows calculator. You can also record macros directly into a particular G key. I haven't tried that yet so I'm not exactly sure what it captures. Keyboard only? Mouse? *shrug* I have no idea.

Finally, the Applet SDK is included in the installation. Meaning you could, if you wanted, make an applet that would run, and give info to players when Mythruna runs.

There are other options. The keys are illuminated and you can customize the color. (M1, M2, M3 are used as memory so you could theoretically bind up to 54 keys in one profile and 3 colors). Coloring is real-time so you can see the result as you switch colors).

Actually, you should check out Logitech's site.

At about 100$, it's a great buy. Only downside is the 1 year warranty... You could also go with the G190, but at 200$, that's too steep for my taste and my wallet. That keyboard's screen is 256x256 in full color though. :)

[pspeed]

@madjack said:
Finally, the Applet SDK is included in the installation. Meaning you could, if you wanted, make an applet that would run, and give info to players when Mythruna runs.

I was thinking of for debugging... but sadly, my keyboard barely fits in the width I have on my desk as it is. The little screen would be no problem but the G keys on the left would completely cover the area I have for the mouse of the second computer.

[madjack]

@pspeed said:
I was thinking of for debugging... but sadly, my keyboard barely fits in the width I have on my desk as it is. The little screen would be no problem but the G keys on the left would completely cover the area I have for the mouse of the second computer.

Yeah, that's understandable.

As far as the SDK goes, iirc (and I haven't read much, skimming would be more appropriate) it uses LUA.

[wezrule]

@madjack damn you always hi-jacking my threads <3 but nice keyboard



This is my first post using my new computer!!!



So yh my problem was that i had mixed up the power led and power switch front panel connectors. When i turned the power supply on, the front power light was always on, i pressed it regardless and nothing happened. So after a few tests I thought i was one of the unlucky ones to get faulty equipment and had no idea what to do. I spent $1000 dollars on all this equipment, and felt really aweful. Asked for help and everyone was really helpful and comforting <33, and although other people had mentioned it already it was @pspeed who said most equipment was fine, and that the front button had to be pressed to get the comp going, while I had already tried that it made me investigate further, and I did indeed find the problem :), as simple as it was, had me crawling around for almost a day



Thought I would lay down my experience, as i’ve never owned a desktop and had no idea what i was doing, maybe it will help someone:

• The main thing when choosing a motherboard is that it only supports 1 CPU make, namely either: Intel or AMD, and there are also families of these CPU’s so make sure your motherboard and CPU are compatible
  
• There is an overwhelming choice of graphics cards, all 1GB varying from $20 - $200. You want to go with the more expensive one for game development
  
  
  
  Installing the computer. Here are my steps I would recommend:
  
  1 - Touch the case before touching any components!! i touched it and got a static shock, this would have blew up my components if i touched them before.
  
  2 - Don’t get nervous, I had never even owned a desktop computer before, had no idea what i was doing, even when I had spent all of my money and when it wasn’t working and everything was looking dim, I didn’t lose faith, I asked for help, and turned out to be something simple so keep trying
  
  3 - Put the motherboard on a nice insulated surface, if ur gonna move it, pick it up, don’t slide it
  
  4 - Put the CPU, and match the arrows, and slip it in, don’t apply pressure
  
  5 - Put the CPU heat sink fan on top and plug the fan in the CPU FAN slot
  
  6 - Put the power supply in
  
  7 - Put the motherboard in
  
  8 - Plug the 4 pin power to the CPU in
  
  9 - Plug the 24 pin power to the motherboard
  
  10 - Plug the front panel connectors in PROPERLY (white denotes -ve as i found out)
  
  11 - Press the power supply button on, then push the front panel button
  
  12 - Hopefully the fans are spinning, if not repeat from step 4 you may have made a mistake somewhere
  
  13 - Put the ram in (push hard!!)
  
  14 - Put graphics card in
  
  15 - Put disk drive in
  
  16 - Put Harddrive in
  
  17 - Attach all connectors
  
  18 - If everything went well it should boot up
  
  19 - Install your windows/Linux distro
  
  20 - Install all drivers for your graphics card (things will look a bit weird if u dont :P)
  
  
  
  This is just general steps, i also have a SSD cache all setup (thanks @EmpirePhoenix)
  
  
  
  Here are some pics of it during development:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Thanks everybody <3333 time to test this sexy b*tch out