Was a dumby now my computer is fried and need help picking parts or choosing a prebui

[Immitis]

Okay so i built my pc around 4 ish years ago (around late wod i think? Its been a while) and at the time i had bought a nice good quality surge protector because where i live you have power outages from storms and hurricanes at least once every couple months.

Here is where i made my horrible error. I didn't realize surge protectors had a lifespan so now its almost 4 years later and i come home from work after a nasty thunderstorm and find that my computer wont power up and my modem is also damaged so i cant even watch netflix on my playstation until my isp sends me a new one and am stuck using mobile data as my only means of internet, i guess all the years of thunderstorms and outagges made my protector into a glorified daisy chain

I cant pull up my exact part list for my old pc but at the time it was pretty decent i had a 980ti and a msi 99 with a nice intel.

My price range this time is around 1000

At that price would i be better off buying a premade or would i get more power building a new one?

I salvaged some parts from it but i dont currently have another pc to test them with to see if any of them are workable so probably best to just go in clean slate honestly

I dont need a monitor or anything since they all survived.

On my old pc i could still play virtually everything at a decent resolution and frame rate I'm not looking to overclock or anything i just want a decent rig for gaming

[Temp name]

You're never better off buying pre-built. Ever.

What resolution are your monitors? Do you do anything other than gaming? Just fill out the list in this thread: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-build-Read-me!

[SinAscendant]

You're never better off buying pre-built. Ever.

What resolution are your monitors? Do you do anything other than gaming? Just fill out the list in this thread: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-build-Read-me!

There are plenty of times where it's just fine to buy prebuilt if you know what you're looking for. Not having to buy an OS key already puts you ahead $140.

[prwraith]

huh who knew surge protectors had a lifespan

[Kagthul]

There are plenty of times where it's just fine to buy prebuilt if you know what you're looking for. Not having to buy an OS key already puts you ahead $140.

Or you could byt a completely legal key for 10-15$.

[hulkgor]

There are plenty of times where it's just fine to buy prebuilt if you know what you're looking for. Not having to buy an OS key already puts you ahead $140.

What?

You can buy legit keys for 10$\€, what are you on about.

[Mirishka]

You're never better off buying pre-built. Ever.

Eh, that depends on the person.

I've built a couple of gaming PCs myself (was kind of fun actually), but my most recent is a pre-built machine and it is an absolute monster. Would it have been a bit cheaper to build myself? Sure. But it absolutely blows any PC I've ever had out of the water, by a mile, so I'm more than satisfied with the money spent.

[Kagthul]

You're never better off buying pre-built. Ever.

What resolution are your monitors? Do you do anything other than gaming? Just fill out the list in this thread: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-build-Read-me!

I wouldn't say thats true.

You're almost always going to pay more, yes. But that doesn't mean the extra isn't buying you something worthwhile.

And, for a while there when GPU and RAM prices were kicked sky high (due to Miner demand and price collusion, respectively), you could actually get pre-builts from NZXTs BLD service cheaper than you could build them (because they were getting GPUs at their wholesale MSRP directly from companies before they could hit the market and get gouged).

If you're the type of person that just doesn't like working on his own computers (somedays, when im diagnosing something terrible, i think about perhaps making my next rig a pre-built), services like BLD are a good deal. You're only paying ~200-250$ over MSRP in total, and you get a comprehensive, shipping-covered warranty (no dealing with individual companies, NZXT just fixes it), same-day shipping, and very good build quality. And that's WITH them gouging you for full price on Windows (which i *think* you can avoid, i remember reading that you can call and ask them to configure it with Linux, and then you could simply install WIndows yourself when you got it, but ive never verified this).

And DEFINITELY if you're pinching pennies, then building it yourself is going to save you a significant amount of your budget (because while NZXT only charges you MSRP + 100$, they dont offer truly "budget" parts, so you're going to be up at 700-800 no matter what).

But its not a 100% truism that its always better to build yourself. Just depends on the circumstance and if paying the extra 100$ + full price for Windows is worth it to you to not build it yourself.

[Erous]

I wanted to add to this thread, that due to the area you live in, I would recommend that when you leave your home for lengthy periods of time, you turn of your PC and flip the switch on the PSU. It does ZERO harm to your PC to do this and would prevent a surge catastrophe like you're explaining.

[Logwyn]

There are plenty of times where it's just fine to buy prebuilt if you know what you're looking for. Not having to buy an OS key already puts you ahead $140.

I hope you are talking about using a free OS like Ubuntu.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay so i built my pc around 4 ish years ago (around late wod i think? Its been a while) and at the time i had bought a nice good quality surge protector because where i live you have power outages from storms and hurricanes at least once every couple months.

Here is where i made my horrible error. I didn't realize surge protectors had a lifespan so now its almost 4 years later and i come home from work after a nasty thunderstorm and find that my computer wont power up and my modem is also damaged so i cant even watch netflix on my playstation until my isp sends me a new one and am stuck using mobile data as my only means of internet, i guess all the years of thunderstorms and outagges made my protector into a glorified daisy chain

I cant pull up my exact part list for my old pc but at the time it was pretty decent i had a 980ti and a msi 99 with a nice intel.

My price range this time is around 1000

At that price would i be better off buying a premade or would i get more power building a new one?

I salvaged some parts from it but i dont currently have another pc to test them with to see if any of them are workable so probably best to just go in clean slate honestly

I dont need a monitor or anything since they all survived.

On my old pc i could still play virtually everything at a decent resolution and frame rate I'm not looking to overclock or anything i just want a decent rig for gaming

Did you try to unplug the computer from the surge protector then without the computer plugged try turning it on? Sounds silly but I've done this to a couple of computers to discharge the computer/board/psu. After the computer powered on and ran fine.

- - - Updated - - -

huh who knew surge protectors had a lifespan

They degrade base on the number of joules they've absorbed. About 2 to 5 years. If you have common power outages you should replace them every 2 years. A battery back up might be a good idea as well.

[Immitis]

huh who knew surge protectors had a lifespan

Yep me either, I'll definitely be swapping them out every 3 years now for safety.

I thought it over and ultimately i decided to buy a pre-built

Cyberpowerpc gamer master w/
amd ryzen 7 3600 3.6ghz
Nvidia geforce rtx 2060 6gb
16gb memory
240 gb ssd 1 tb hdd
Wifi and windows 10 64
For $962 after tax
I think my ram and hdd and sdd still work so i might be able to bump that up quite a bit so for that price it didnt seem much more expensive than building myself and seems to be better or at least on par with my old build.

My last build was green and black so i called it the dragon zord. This one is all rainbowy and flashy so ill name it the jawbreaker

Stimulus check for kumpoter achieved.

I do hope to build my own pc again in the future but last time when i built my baby it was very stressful and it took a long time and i was proud of having forged it up myself but for now ive got enough stress id rather just wait it out. Also power sources are expensive af right now

- - - Updated - - -

I hope you are talking about using a free OS like Ubuntu.

- - - Updated - - -



Did you try to unplug the computer from the surge protector then without the computer plugged try turning it on? Sounds silly but I've done this to a couple of computers to discharge the computer/board/psu. After the computer powered on and ran fine.

- - - Updated - - -



They degrade base on the number of joules they've absorbed. About 2 to 5 years. If you have common power outages you should replace them every 2 years. A battery back up might be a good idea as well.

Yep tried every way and trick i saw online and no luck. My motherboard had a small flashing blue led and the power button on the board would flash but nothing would power otherwise and the power good light never came on

[cozzri]

I did a custom build for my wife last week with the same budget. Got all my parts at microcente, didn't bother shopping around.

Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max $115
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 $160
Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB $125
GPU: ASUS GTX 1660 Super $230
Case: Corsair SPEC-02 Redshift $65
PSU: Corsair - CX650M $100
SSD: Inland Premium 1TB M.2 $130

Total $925

[zhero]

Or you could byt a completely legal key for 10-15$.

where are you getting a legit key for that little?

[chazus]

It's entirely possible it's just the power supply that needs replacing. I'd replace that first, since you'll need to anyway with a new build, and see what happens.

[Ringthane]

As someone else said, try just unplugging the power cord, push the power button to discharge it, and then plug it back in and try it again. Also, as chazus said, start with the power supply before you go replacing everything. You can get cheap power supply testers that will tell you if it's fried anyway, and that's a useful tool to have. Third thing to try? Unplug/take out everything but the CPU and see if it turns on or shows video. If so, then start replacing parts one by one - could be just a stick of memory or some other part that's bad, and not the whole thing.

[chazus]

Or you could byt a completely legal key for 10-15$.

You can buy legit keys for 10$\€, what are you on about.

where are you getting a legit key for that little?

Legal, yes. Legit, yes. Moral? Yeah probably not. That said, I have no qualms getting keys from grey market, but never buy games from there since it actually hurts developers who need that money. Microsoft doesn't notice.

[Kagthul]

Legal, yes. Legit, yes. Moral? Yeah probably not.

The Windows keys are almost entirely purchased in countries where its very cheap to do so as an OEM in large bundles and then re-sold. Its not like a Steam key for a game. If your credit card supports foreign transactions, you can literally buy them yourself without using the grey market, straight from MS, overseas. Ive done it in the past (with a company card that supported foreign currency transactions). We were buying from... Serbia or something? I dont even remember. It was at least 5 years ago. But it worked out to be like 12.99$ US, buying them from straight from MS.

Theyve started to stop this in SOME areas (you used to be able to get Russian MS keys for like 8.99 or so US) by jacking up the price in the local currency to an equivalent USD amount but you can get around it via VPN. (Theyre likely just seeing you connect from the US and charging you what it would be in USD, etc).

Re-sale of the keys (even OEM keys) is legal because of EU law (all software licenses have to be transferable); instead of trying to region-lock the keys, MS just kinda threw up their hands and went "its easier to comply with EU law than try to have a bunch of separate policies".

That said, I have no qualms getting keys from grey market, but never buy games from there since it actually hurts developers who need that money. Microsoft doesn't notice.

Agreed, dont buy game keys on the grey market. Its not the same as the Windows keys at all. A lot of times they ARE region locked, and/or are stolen from accounts, or used stolen credit cards to acquire them. The Windows keys USED to be similarly shady until people realized it was just as easy or easier to do it legally.

Also keep in mind that the license you get from a place like NZXT actually ISNT an OEM license. Theyre giving you a full retail license, so you can call and get support from MS. If you have an OEM key (which is what almost all of the cheap keys are) the only support MS has to give you is activating the key. You're on your own after that (as the OEM is supposed to provide the support).

[deenman]

Legal, yes. Legit, yes. Moral? Yeah probably not. That said, I have no qualms getting keys from grey market, but never buy games from there since it actually hurts developers who need that money. Microsoft doesn't notice.

Depends on the company making the game,for example me personaly,i will never ever give bethesda any money,but im proly gonna wanna play the next scrols game,its proly going to be shit like all their games in the past decade,but i still found some enjoyment in them even if the company and devs are literaly the worst in the industry

[Kagthul]

I hope you are talking about using a free OS like Ubuntu.

Since you can get Windows keys for about 10-15$, no, he's not.

And you can also install and use Windows literally forever without getting a key, as long as you dont care that you cant alter some settings.

If you're just gaming, though, itll work just fine.

[lockybalboa]

What?

You can buy legit keys for 10$\€, what are you on about.

Sorry but how?