Building my own new pc

[tinabina22]

I am taking a computer hardware course, which at the end we will be building a PC. For obvious reasons I would like to build it to my own specs. I want lots of memory and speed. I will be using it to run my small baking/photo enhancement business, and do my photo shop. I save a lot of photos, emails, letters, I only occasionally play games, etc.. What would you suggest for the PC in this case?

Thank You
Tina

[RickyTick]

Hi Tina. Welcome to the forums.

What type of software do you plan to use?
What games do you play?
What's your budget for this build?
Will you also need a monitor, mouse, and/or keyboard?

[tinabina22]

I'm not sure on the software, monitor or mouse. Those are all things plus much more I need help with. Budget doesn't really matter but it is going to be a personal computer as for the games, I just play simple games on a web-site like king.com. But yes I am going to need everything from scratch.
Thanks Tina

[RickyTick]

If you're planning on doing a lot of photo work, then you need to make sure you have plenty of processing power and ram.

If you're playing simple games like you said, then you don't need to dump a ton of money in a high-end video card.

It's also important to know when you will need to start purchasing the components. If you can wait until after April, you should go the Intel Sandy Bridge route.

You should also start looking at cases and get an idea of what appeals to your tastes. I could make some suggestions if you like.

[tinabina22]

I do a lot of photo work, not much gaming and I have to put this together on May 7th. I would deeply appreciate ANY suggestions you may have.

Thanks again
Tina

[RickyTick]

Well, it all depends on whether or not the Sandy Bridge motherboards and cpu's start shipping in April as promised.
Something like this
cpu--Intel i7-2500
mobo--P67 from a major brand like Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI.
ram--8gb (2x4gb) of DDR3 12800
psu--80%+ efficiency and 650 to 750 watt. Corsair, Seasonic, Antec brands
gpu--GTS450
SSD--Crucial RealSSD C300 128gb
HDD--Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB

For a case, here's a few that I like a lot.
Antec 300
CoolerMaster RC690
CoolerMaster RC692 CM690 Advanced II
Lian Li PCK62
CoolerMaster Centurion 5

[tinabina22]

Thank you so much, this will be very helpful. Maybe if you here they are shipping Sandy Bridge motherboards you could let me know. Anything else you might think of also.
Thanks again
Tina

[tinabina22]

The parts above will all fit with one another? Also I am going to need a monitor, I'm thinking flat screen, a keyboard and mouse, I'm thinking wireless. Any suggestions?

[RickyTick]

Everything should fit together fine.

Here's a nice ram kit. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231440

This is a nice compromise on price and performance. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236090

Not a big fan of wireless keyboards and mice. Look at something from Logitech or Microsoft.

[tinabina22]

How do I make sure if I get a keyboard with the extra application keys that they will work with my system? How will I get the information from my old PC to my new one?
Thanks for all your help
Tina

[RickyTick]

The keyboard should just "work" right out of the box. It will probably come with a disc with drivers and software that you can load too.
What information do you want to transfer over to the new pc?

[tinabina22]

Photos, letters, email addresses etc., microsoft works office information, card studio information, generally my saved things, small business things. I have two small businesses; one is a home bakery, one is a office, photo, cards and such. I have a lot of information on my desk top and my laptop which I would like to all get unto my new desk top.

[RickyTick]

That's all stuff you could save to a disc or thumbdrive or external hard drive. You should consider something like Carbonite.

[zburns]

A comment but a very important one!! What Ricky says regards your present files is correct. I was going to do a post to the effect that you should consider a 'external hard drive' as a back up; do the back up once or twice a week. You have so many files that are important and the quanity of files will only grow. At some point on the present computer, you are likely to have a hard drive failure due to age. On the new computer, there are probably good odds that your new hard drive will not fail for some years but you have to measure that 'good probability' against the consequences of losing everything stored on the new hard drive.

I am in the same position and I am presently setting up an external backup; I have a three year old hard drive, no backup, but lots of files that I just cannot lose!

[tinabina22]

I would also need to make sure the same programs I used originally to make them are also installed on the new PC to have them work, correct? And if I installed or purchased updates versions would they also work?

Thanks again

[zburns]

Hi Tina: Here is a link to Windows that is a good starting point to get answers to your question. Having not done it myself, I am reluctant to try to tell you how to do it; but it does appear you can move 32 bit apps to a 64 bit computer assuming those apps were running on a reasonably late version of Windows. You could always go with Windows 7, 32 bit OS, but that is certainly not the trend and I would definitely not recommend doing that.

Here's the link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/32-bit-and-64-bit-Windows-frequently-asked-questions

[tinabina22]

I'm referring to say Hallmark, photo explosion, works. I would need these also installed on my new pc to be able to open anything that was created in these programs correct? One other question pertaining to my new build. I want to include a new all in one printer. I will be taking a digital photography course this summer and want a good all in one printer that has the capabilites to print photos at a professional level. Any suggestions?

[RickyTick]

We use an HP Photosmart printer. It does a very good job, but those dang ink cartridges are expensive.

[tinabina22]

Thanks, I now have an HP all in one 5160c and am very happy with it so mabye I'll just stick with this one :^)

[tinabina22]

One of my class mates is having major issues and I would like to copy and paste her problem here if I may. If it isn't something you can help with maybe you can advise on where she might be able to get assistance.
Here is her first and second post with her problems attached:

I have a wonderful laptop scenario for everyone, if anyone wants to take a shot at it, ;-)

My 2 year old laptop crashed! How? I don't know, it was working great one night and the next morning I turn it on [from standby] and my Mozilla wont load...it churns.
The whole thing locked up so I shut it down and then... [dun dun dun!] it won't even load the bios. It churns some more. I tried safe mode and safe mode with networking and it starts loading system 32 files and gets stuck on the same file every time. Then I tried to repair with the OS disk and it wont load.

I haven't changed anything recently, the only thing new was my boyfriend doing taxes with HRBlock that night before.

Also, I ran a virus scan earlier that day, of the entire computer.

This just in!!!!:
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-19703_102-508463.html

Check it out! Tis not a virus [thank god!] and it can be fixed, hopefully. I am running on Vista, fyi

--------------
Two hours later of reading this forum and doing other digging around on Google...
So I am learning this issue has been consitant from November 2010 and still going today.
I have read that some people have success and other people don't. Also, some people lose their HDD and other lose their wireless. The AVG people insist it isn't an AVG problem but then they say the way to fix it is to disable files from starting up by renaming them. I have pulled out 1/3rd of my hair in the last two hours and now I am trying to decide the next step. One is to download the rescue cd [that not many reported even helping]. The other idea would be to go into the command prompt and disable the files from there but guess what... I just tore my eyelashes out trying to get that to load nothing happens. THUS, AVG has made, yet another, mortal enemy. If we were samurais from the 18th century I would challenge to a duel of swords but unfortunately due to modern times it isn't possible. If it was though....
Any advise would be great.
Thanks for all your help
Tina

[tinabina22]

Sorry to keep asking questions but you seam to be so good at answering them I can't help myself.
An Alienware m9700i-R1 that my cousin used to play World of Warcraft and more general computing tasks. He says it stopped working during a session one day and now the screen wont turn back on. Any advise on that one?
One more thing then I'll leave you alone. I'm considering getting a PDA for keeping track of appointments and such but what is the difference between a PDA, notebook, tablet, PC tablet and would I work on them the same way I would a regulare desk top or laptop or would I need different specs, tools etc...
Thanks so much you have been very helpful.
Tina

[RickyTick]

One of my class mates is having major issues and I would like to copy and paste her problem here if I may. If it isn't something you can help with maybe you can advise on where she might be able to get assistance.
Here is her first and second post with her problems attached:

I have a wonderful laptop scenario for everyone, if anyone wants to take a shot at it, ;-)

My 2 year old laptop crashed! How? I don't know, it was working great one night and the next morning I turn it on [from standby] and my Mozilla wont load...it churns.
The whole thing locked up so I shut it down and then... [dun dun dun!] it won't even load the bios. It churns some more. I tried safe mode and safe mode with networking and it starts loading system 32 files and gets stuck on the same file every time. Then I tried to repair with the OS disk and it wont load.

I haven't changed anything recently, the only thing new was my boyfriend doing taxes with HRBlock that night before.

Also, I ran a virus scan earlier that day, of the entire computer.

This just in!!!!:
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-19703_102-508463.html

Check it out! Tis not a virus [thank god!] and it can be fixed, hopefully. I am running on Vista, fyi

--------------
Two hours later of reading this forum and doing other digging around on Google...
So I am learning this issue has been consitant from November 2010 and still going today.
I have read that some people have success and other people don't. Also, some people lose their HDD and other lose their wireless. The AVG people insist it isn't an AVG problem but then they say the way to fix it is to disable files from starting up by renaming them. I have pulled out 1/3rd of my hair in the last two hours and now I am trying to decide the next step. One is to download the rescue cd [that not many reported even helping]. The other idea would be to go into the command prompt and disable the files from there but guess what... I just tore my eyelashes out trying to get that to load nothing happens. THUS, AVG has made, yet another, mortal enemy. If we were samurais from the 18th century I would challenge to a duel of swords but unfortunately due to modern times it isn't possible. If it was though....
Any advise would be great.
Thanks for all your help
Tina

I would uninstall AVG. Here's how. http://www.squidoo.com/uninstallavg
Then install a more friendly anti-virus program like this. http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/mse.aspx
Hope that's helpful.