Hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like a CPU cooler, and i'm pretty sure there's a brand of coolers called Ultra. Hang on to that, it might be useful.
If you look from the side, I'm guessing it looks somewhat like this?
Pretty sure it looks like that yeah, except I think the fan is facing down because the mobo is mounted to the side.
Yeah, CPU cooler. Be careful taking it out - it may be stuck to the CPU, old thermal paste sticks like shit to a furry blanket.
But, if it seems to be in functional condition, then no reason to toss it. A good cooler is a handy thing to have - I use a noctua NH-D14, it's a fucking giant brick of a thing, but it keeps everything nice and relatively cool.
Me, looking at mobos: "The fuck is that? The fuck are those? Do I need this?"
1. The only things you need to check - will this motherboard have socket that fits the CPU I intend on buying. 2. Do I want a separate audio card if not look for the better audio solutions if using headphones. 3. Do I have an M.2 SSD or want one in the future.
But, if it seems to be in functional condition, then no reason to toss it. A good cooler is a handy thing to have - I use a noctua NH-D14, it's a fucking giant brick of a thing, but it keeps everything nice and relatively cool.
Wow that thing is literally a brick, I always look at it and wonder if it will fit in a case and then remember I still have my current cooler. If I were to get a new tower cooler today I would probably get the D14 or the U12s. The RAM clearance is really quite good, the clips are easy to deal with and the fans are freaking silent.
thanks for the tips guys, I found a combo on Newegg for an i7 and a mobo. Graphics card will probably be down the line but this at least gets me to where I can upgrade it.
Few more things. The cooler may or may not be compatible with the new cpu. If you think you might want to SLI at some point, make sure you have the right amount of pci-e x16 slots.
When I was looking at mobos about 5 years ago, you had to look for usb3 and sata 6gbit but those are probably pretty standard by now.
Mostly no, just check that it has a lifetime warranty which is now standard. Common memory companies I trust - Mushkin Corsair G Skill Hyper X
There are many more but I've used the above in overclocked systems fine.
Speaking of, I've never tried overclocking before, never really felt the need, but you mentioned the Asus Z170 boards earlier and how they automate overclocking. I've already ordered this ASRock board since they were offering a combo deal with the i7 CPU I ordered, I was just wondering if the Z170 would be worthwhile.
I would personally go for the Z170 because both Skylake and at least the next 2 generations of Intel CPUs will use the same socket (1151). Z97 is finished, no more CPUs.
I would recommend this board as a rock solid fairly affordable board. It is slightly more expensive but far less likely to die (motherboards I tend to go for Asus usually and very occasionally the higher grade MSI and Gigabyte boards, however this is only personal preference and bias that has built up from building computers when not plugging things in correctly could bread all your components).
I only bring this up because I WAS going to go with the Z170-A but that would require a 1151 CPU when I have already purchased a 1150 CPU, and Newegg only allows replacements on the CPU I bought (dunno if it is just for that or for processors in general). So for now I'm stuck with the processor and therefore the board I bought with it, but hey, that's life.
So I'm reading Amazon reviews on Nvidia graphics cards and like 80% of low star reviews are just bitching about fan noise. I don't care about fan noise, it'll probably be drowned out anyway because there's a tv in the room.
Okay, I officially hate Windows 10 now. I tried reinstalling it after I put in all the new hardware, but after 4 hours it wasn't doing anything (that I can tell, monitor is blank) so I tried to restart. That didn't do anything so I unplugged it for the night. Still nothing after 24 hours so I unplugged the hard drive and still nothing. I don't know what the fuck 10's problem is, but I swear to god if I've bricked my BRAND FUCKING NEW system I'm gonna be royally pissed.
Okay, crisis averted for right now, it seems the computer just stopped recognizing the video card. I'm putting Ubuntu back on and I'm gonna figure out my next move after updating drivers.
Okay, I officially hate Windows 10 now. I tried reinstalling it after I put in all the new hardware, but after 4 hours it wasn't doing anything (that I can tell, monitor is blank) so I tried to restart. That didn't do anything so I unplugged it for the night. Still nothing after 24 hours so I unplugged the hard drive and still nothing. I don't know what the fuck 10's problem is, but I swear to god if I've bricked my BRAND FUCKING NEW system I'm gonna be royally pissed.
Okay, crisis averted for right now, it seems the computer just stopped recognizing the video card. I'm putting Ubuntu back on and I'm gonna figure out my next move after updating drivers.
Hiren's boot CD will propably be able to sort that out if you have - if you can get to the BIOS so that you can boot from a CD, you can blank the HDD, and try again.
And sometimes I have to learn to leave well enough alone. I had two HDDs plugged in when I reinstalled 10, and I think it put something very important on the second drive because it won't let me format it or put anything on it. I'm running repair on the first drive right now but Jeezy Creezy has 10 been a nightmare.
Here's how I did Windows 10 to make it not a nightmare.
1) While on Windows 7 I disconnected all drives except the OS drive. 2) Let it to the upgrade thing it wants. 3) Reset the PC completely with this method.
...get to reset by restarting your PC from the sign-in screen. Press the Windows logo key Windows logo key+L to get to the sign-in screen, then hold the Shift key down while you select Power Power icon > Restart in the lower-right corner of the screen. After your PC restarts, select Troubleshoot > Reset this PC.
4) Reset fucking everything. 5) Reattach my data drives just as regular old drives.
I just install it and enter whatever key I have. Worked almost every time.
That's not the issue though. Windows, in its infinite wisdom, decided to put the most important part of itself on my second drive and lock me out of 1TB of data storage.
Comments
If you look from the side, I'm guessing it looks somewhat like this?
But, if it seems to be in functional condition, then no reason to toss it. A good cooler is a handy thing to have - I use a noctua NH-D14, it's a fucking giant brick of a thing, but it keeps everything nice and relatively cool.
2. Do I want a separate audio card if not look for the better audio solutions if using headphones.
3. Do I have an M.2 SSD or want one in the future.
Asus has a pretty good site to essentially give you a shortlist.
Scroll down to "Choose a motherboard".
Unless we do away with SATA and only use M.2 / U.2 ports and PCI-E for all hard drives. Wow that thing is literally a brick, I always look at it and wonder if it will fit in a case and then remember I still have my current cooler.
If I were to get a new tower cooler today I would probably get the D14 or the U12s. The RAM clearance is really quite good, the clips are easy to deal with and the fans are freaking silent.
When I was looking at mobos about 5 years ago, you had to look for usb3 and sata 6gbit but those are probably pretty standard by now.
Common memory companies I trust -
Mushkin
Corsair
G Skill
Hyper X
There are many more but I've used the above in overclocked systems fine.
I would recommend this board as a rock solid fairly affordable board. It is slightly more expensive but far less likely to die (motherboards I tend to go for Asus usually and very occasionally the higher grade MSI and Gigabyte boards, however this is only personal preference and bias that has built up from building computers when not plugging things in correctly could bread all your components).
I think they stopped with 775 CPUs plugging into 478 motherboards.
That was a long ass time ago.
Okay, crisis averted for right now, it seems the computer just stopped recognizing the video card. I'm putting Ubuntu back on and I'm gonna figure out my next move after updating drivers.
1) While on Windows 7 I disconnected all drives except the OS drive.
2) Let it to the upgrade thing it wants.
3) Reset the PC completely with this method.
...get to reset by restarting your PC from the sign-in screen. Press the Windows logo key Windows logo key+L to get to the sign-in screen, then hold the Shift key down while you select Power Power icon > Restart in the lower-right corner of the screen. After your PC restarts, select Troubleshoot > Reset this PC.
4) Reset fucking everything.
5) Reattach my data drives just as regular old drives.
I did a reset on my OS drive, all I had to do was ask it to format only C in the installer.
Even the parents did it by themselves.
If you're having the above problems you would have the same problems with almost any OS or your drives or build was messed to begin with.