OK, so this is a kinda sorta desktop question. I found this link for building a multiple arcade game system. I'm going to build my own cabinet and controls. I have an old tower with Windows XP on it already. It's an eMachines that is probably 7 years old. It has a 200 GB HD, cd burner, 2nd cd-rom drive. I'm thinking of getting rid of the 2nd cd-rom drive and the cd burner since I don't really need them. Also, I'd like to yank the 200 GB HD and upgrade it to something much larger. I'm planning on running MAME, Atari, Intellivision, PS1 and PS2 emulators. The PS1 and PS2 ISOs are fairly large, which is why I want to bump up the HD space. Can that be done fairly easily? Would it be a good idea to upgrade the motherboard and processor? I want to say the tower is a 2.6 ghz AMD chip. Not sure what the video card is. Or, am I better off just starting from scratch and building something specific for this application?
What you do depends on whether you want to spend money. Frankly, I would not touch the eMachine. Either use it as-is (add a USB external drive for storage), or scrap it and buy something a little nicer/newer/smaller/quieter. The eMachine is likely to be a power hog, and maybe noisy depending on the model you have. Pretty much irrelevant if you will be powering it down when not in use, but maybe a problem if you want to leave it on 24/7. A newer small form factor desktop, maybe a scratch-and-dent, refurbished, or used model would net you some performance while simultaneously being quieter and lowering your power bill. The reason I recommend an external USB drive is because, when the machine finally kicks the bucket, it's nicer to have something with all of your stuff on it that you can just grab and move to a new box. If I was going for the gold here, I might consider something like this: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856102001</a> Still needs a hard drive & memory so it's not going to be particularly cheap, but it's a cool little box that'll be light on power and silent.
OK, so that little unit has 3 USB ports and an HDMI out. I could plug the HDMI out to a flatscreen. The USB ports would be for an external drive and the controllers? Then the 2 x 204 pins for memory and the expansion slots if I wanted to use an internal harddrive?
Yep, you could just use an internal mSATA drive, or maybe an SD card (I didn't look to see if it supports SD cards) to install the OS. All the ROM/ISO storage could be on an external USB drive.
If I steal the harddrive out of the eMachines computer, can I use the Windows XP that's loaded on it? I don't need any more operating system than that.
No. First off, the full sized drive in your eMachine won't fit. Second, you can't just move a hard drive to a different set of hardware. In Windows XP, it'll cause it to immolate itself in a fit of rage over its displacement from familiar surroundings. In Windows 7 and later, it's a little more forgiving but I still find it to be somewhat unstable.
Any chance a friendly Idiot out there could put together a list of components for a solid desktop for me? I'm hoping to spend not much more than $400, I can get all the parts from NewEgg (because there really isn't shit in the way of computer stores in my area). I need something that I can work from home on for a few hours at a time - the work software can be pretty processor-intensive. I'd also like a better-than-integrated graphics card so I can play a little Fallout 3/NV in my downtime, but it doesn't have to be a world-beater. I've got a monitor/keyboard/mouse so that's no big deal. I can put it all together, I just don't know what exact parts to get. Case: Plain is fine Hard drive: Bigger is better Needs a wireless networking card, that's a non-negotiable. Everything else, I leave in your much more capable, intelligent and handsome hands. Thanks in advance!
Hey folks, posted this in another thread but here seems more appropriate. Looking at assembling a gaming pc to hook up directly to my 1080p HDTV (40 in). I've done a lot of research and read reviews but still have so many questions: 1. i5 4690K Haswell seems to be the verdict on the best processor for a purely gaming system. Does any one have experience with the AMD Vishera 8-core? Is the i5 worth the extra? 2. I know that an SSD will allow me to boot up the OS and games super quick, but will it make a difference once its all up and running? 3. How well would an SLI setup work for an HDTV? Would it be better to just go with a gtx 780 ti? Thanks in advance.
I'm tired as balls and not current for gaming hardware configurations, so someone else can get questions 1 and 3 - but yes. Your computer writes and reads a shitload of stuff to your primary operating system disk - doing that faster equals better, Especially if it's a windows machine. Dollar for dollar, SSD for your OS disk is the best upgrade option you have. It's just expensive, or going to be tight on space with a lot of games installed, and VERY tight on space if you store music or video media on the same drive.
Thanks man. I'll likely get an HDD for actual storage and just have the SDD do the OS and whatever handful of games I happen to be playing.
I feel like I am checking a thousand things that don't have anything to do with anything. I keep working on all these "solutions" that take a domino effect of other things and I get nowhere. I can't seem to get any consistent suggestions from Google either. So . . . I got that stupid Ransomware virus, Cryptolocker. I was able to remove it and the files that show up with it. About 1400 files were infected. Some of them were my project files and some of them seem to be various program files. For the projects, like if I open a document, image or AutoCAD file that was infected (encrypted), I can just pull the backup file from my backup. I think all of my programs and applications are working correctly, but I don't know for sure until I try to launch something. But, here are the two issues I am having: 1. Dropbox is no longer working correctly. The tray icon just constantly says "connecting." (And anything I copy to my Dropbox folder does not show up in my Dropbox checked from other devices.) I tried re-installing Dropbox, and I've tried checking for other conflicts. Dropbox support suggested that anti-virus or firewall restrictions are preventing the connection. I tried disabling av, and even turned off the firewall completely temporarily to see if that worked. No dice. I have Dropbox in the allowable list in my firewall settings. Support indicated I needed to allow Dropbox to have access to ports 80 and 443. I don't know how to do this manually. Does the Windows Firewall allowable list automatically do that, or do I need to configure something manually? Also, why would this have changed from before? I ran Malwarebytes, Roguekiller, and Rkill to get rid of the virus. 2. When I reboot my computer, as it starts into Windows, it makes several "warning tones" - not the single "bloop" that I've heard before, but a "bl-doop" trumpet (I know, that's tech talk right there), but those tones are not associated with any warning messages. With the exception of Dropbox, everything seems to be running normally, but I don't like unexplained warning tones. Something feels wrong. HP P7, Windows Home 7 Premium, Intel i3 3.3 GHz, 6 GB RAM Just thought I'd throw this out there in case somebody knew a simple, obvious fix.
I am assuming the "it" is Windows 7? I haven't had to do a re-install of Windows since XP days. But, back then, it never went well, and usually cost me a lot more time and effort, and usually more conflicts that I couldn't resolve for several applications. So, I will try that as a last resort. Thanks.
I just don't trust any box to be clean after that kind of infection... shit always seems to be wrong afterwards, just like you're seeing with your DropBox. If a re-install of DropBox isn't fixing the problem, it sounds like it could be something on a Window's level that's been hacked or modified or wiped out. The hackers could have swapped in their own version of any number of Window's elements, like keyboard driver, or network stack, that could be totally sending them all of your information even after things have been "cleaned". So seriously, my recommendation is to re-install Windows. I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's the only way to be sure that there are no leftover elements from the infection. Again, just my two cents on the matter.
Depending on how your Dropbox is setup, there's a possibility that Cryptolocker hosed your files there too. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-r ... on#dropbox
Nett is right on for this. For major infections like this, virus cleaning software should be used to get your system in a functional state to back up your files to an external drive. Then the system should be nuked and re-installed. It's just not worth the headache. The nature of virus cleanup means that it's really easy to corrupt system files or cause applications to stop working. For small adware infections or whatever, it's fine to just clean it out and keep plugging but I rarely find the system to be fully stable after a major infection from a sophisticated virus.
I know this is an old post and I highly doubt it's useful at this point, but if you still have a copy of the encrypted files this: https://www.decryptcryptolocker.com/ site really does work depending on the variant of cryptolocker. It's a free site hosted by FireEye and Fox IT which are some security firms. Just figured I'd toss it out there. Do note that this doesn't work for newer variants like cryptowall and such.
Cryptowall wasn't broken the way that Cryptolocker was, unfortunately. There's no decryption mechanism currently.
http://store.antec.com/isk-series/isk110-vesa.html# Why don't you go with a mini-itx case like above? You can build your own computer from there. Get a AMD APU and you will have a nice little computer.