The last time I did anything serious with my PC, I moved its guts from one case to another.
Didn’t change anything.
Windows wouldn’t boot. At all.
I had to reformat the primary HD and reinstall Windows.
Lost a whole weekend.
NEVER AGAIN.
I used to enjoy it. Now I’d rather have my time.
Yeah its something I actually look forward to! I can’t wait for my Ryzen 3rd gen build next year.
It’s been years since I built one from scratch, and I really did enjoy the process. Until it came time to fire it up, and nothing happened. So I can totally understand…
…because what should have taken a few hours ended up taking the entire weekend, tracking down the problem. Turned out it was a simple omission on my part (can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was stupidly simple). I would do it again if I had to, but I’m getting too old to be that frustrated again.
Thing is, I had built computers from scratch before without any trouble at all, but the idea of making one simple mistake causing me so much grief kind of put me off.
I still like to do the occasional upgrade though (PSU, video card, memory, additional hard drive), and these days, you pretty much need to know how to do that much. But upgrading those things is fairly foolproof, and generally goes off without a hitch. Primarily because I tend to upgrade just one thing at a time, so if something doesn’t work, it’s far easier to track down.
I find that the key to success is to test at increments. E.g., test to see if the comp will post with just the MB, CPU, and 1 stick of ram plugged in. If that works, add the hard drive and boot. Then start adding the rest, one stage at a time (e.g., the rest of the ram, the video card, then the rest of the drives), testing at each stage.
Taking this approach might add 15-20 minutes, compared to sticking it all together and getting it right the first time, but you never end up wasting a whole weekend. I find it takes 3-5 hours, usually.
So I drove all my parts over to the shop. Really like the place. Lots of technicians, really nice folks, look like they know what they’re doing.
So as I’m listing all the parts out (both to make sure I remembered them all, again) and to let the technician know what’s there, I said I had a 2080 Ti.
He says, “In my gaming rig, I just put in a Titan, because it’s actually made for gaming, while the 2080 is made for designers.”
“It kind of is made for gaming.” I said.
“It kind of isn’t.” He chuckled.
We had a laugh and shook hands. It’s good to know I left my parts with folks who are as passionate about this stuff as I am. ;)
Yeah, that’s reassuring, that the technician doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
As long as he can put tab A into slot B I think Brian will be all good.
Oh I agree he’s totally wrong, but it was just a funny interaction.
The conversation would be correct if he said Volta. Weird.
Designers? Like fashion houses, such as Gucci? Or did he mean developers?
He meant 3D modellers who would actually find the ray tracing features useful.
He was probably just teasing you about the fact that no games actually use the new features yet.
That’s how I took it.
Sheesh. If somebody is paying you to do a job, just do the job.
Sounds as if he almost wanted a debate.
It’s still there too. Ugh.
I really hope I didn’t make a horrifically bad decision.
They are probably playing games on it.
I mean they are testing it for stability. ;)
Just because it takes 3-5 hours doesn’t mean they have time to do it right away. Did you ask them for an ETA?
Don’t let us harsh your mellow.
Everything will be just fine.
Hey, at least the guy you gave it to is a gamer, so he’s probably had a fair amount of experience with these things.
They close in 30 minutes. We’re about to drive down there.
Did they call? What if its all over the table when you get there? :p