TommyNation Gaming Rig September 2012 (NOR)
Looking to upgrade your rig or build a brand new one from scratch?
Check out my recommended gaming rig for September 2012 (for under 10 000 NOK), from Dustin Home Norway.
Remember to add an operating system (I recommend Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit), any accessories and a monitor if needed. Generally, I recommend sticking with Logitech for accessories and Samsung or BenQ for monitors.
You do not need to add: A good soundcard is built-in to the motherboard, CPU fan is included with the CPU and the R4 chassis comes with two good fans included, and has a built-in 3-speed fan controller supporting upto 3 fans.
Go green! Why did I choose the slightly more expensive AV-GP variant of Western Digital 3TB harddisk? Huge storage with much better performance than the slightly cheaper options. Check this review by StorageReview.com for some impressive AV-GP benchmark results.
Still have cash to spend?
If your main priority is gaming: I’d spend it on replacing the GTX 660 graphics card with a GTX 660 Ti or GTX 670 – preferably the OC or SC editions for some added performance boost.
If your main priority is video editing: You may want to add another SSD to use as a “scratch disk”.
This is just a suggested setup, I’m not affiliated with Dustin Home. An additional 99 NOK for shipping takes the total price of this gaming rig to just below 10 000 NOK.
Last update 23.09: Replaced SSD with Intel 330 Series, replaced PSU with CM Silent Pro M2 520W, replaced GeForce GTX 660 OC with GeForce GTX 660 TI SC. The 660 TI is superior to the standard 660, and SC (“SuperClocked”) cards from EVGA can be overclocked more than standard versions.
How-To: Upgrading the WiFi on the ASUS E45M1-I DELUXE
My media center has an excellent ASUS E45M1-I DELUXE motherboard, based on the dual-core AMD Fusion E-450 (aka “Zakate”) chip. This motherboard has a built-in AMD Radeon HD 6320 graphics chip which can render full HD content just fine.
The only problem is that the WiFi card that comes with the ASUS E45M1-I DELUXE motherboard lacks support for the 5GHz band.
The ASUS E45M1-I DELUXE is a Mini ITX (6.7×6.7 inches / 17×17 cm) card, which I’ve stashed inside an old Silvestone Sugo SG05 case to make a decent media center PC for cheap. I’ve replaced the single 12cm case fan in the front with a silent Noctua fan and used an SSD instead of a regular harddisk, all in the name of silence.
Being the DELUXE edition, it comes with an onboard wireless card, which is connected by two wires to two antenna connectors sticking out at the back of the case (by the IO shield).
It all sounds great, but there’s a problem: the WiFi card that comes with the motherboard doesn’t support the 5GHz band on my wireless home router.
Read on to find out exactly why this is a problem and how I fixed it!
Battlefield 3: Armored Kill Launch Trailer
The Armored Kill Launch trailer was released today:
Click here to watch more official Battlefield 3 trailers.
How To Turn Off The Prompt For Active Content When Opening Local Files In Internet Explorer
I just ran into this little issue when testing a small JavaScript, where Internet Explorer came up with this annoying little pop-up on the bottom of the page every time I wanted to test a new change in the code:
Unless I clicked “Allow blocked content” every single time, JavaScript was simply disabled.
That’s just no good…
Website Owners Getting the AdSense “You have rejected ad requests, which will result in lost revenue” Message
Update: This issue is now marked as “RESOLVED”. Here’s the official word:
Update (11am, August 31): The issue with our notification system has been resolved. If you’re still seeing an alert in your account that you have rejected ad requests, please follow the instructions in the Help Center article linked from that alert to resolve the issue. Thanks for your patience as we resolved this.