Building a second PC. How not to make the same mistakes?

[Celauron]

Hi. Few years ago i've decided to build my own rig and it ended up in spectacular disaster. I've spent about 3000$ on this:

DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 processor

Asus Striker II Formula motherboard (which didn't work out right so i had to call a specialist for an additional 200$ and it has been slowly "dying" ever since).

Some GeIL memory with lights which died after a year so i bought Corsair XMS2 DHX CM2X1024-6400C4DHX

Zotac 9800GTX videocard which died after a few years so i replaced it with 570 GTX
Thermaltake 1200W PCU... which is working fine, i think

Some expensive NEC monitor which started to "bleed" due to manufacturing issues. Had to wait 6 month's for replacement and pay 100$ bucks over that for less expensive P221W.

2x150GB WD Raptors that turned out to be incredibly noisy.

Awful and inconvenient (i didn't know it back then) Thermaltake Tai-Chi chassis with water cooling... which got polluted very quickly so i had to dismantle it and buy "Noctua" D14. That fan turned out to be the best investment i've made and the only reliable part in my rig.

I've also added two WD hard drives for 2TB and 500GB. The first one seems to be dying as well.

Basically - every single part i bought had some issues (xept CPU, PCU and cooling fan) and was a waste of money. I thought that buying the best or most expensive parts would save me money in the future but i was wrong.

Recently everything started to break piece by piece - HD's keep crashing or can't be detected, RAM acting up, cat chewed on the monitor cable etc. etc. So now i am forced to build a new rig and i don't want to repeat my mistakes but im not sure how to do that. Im already thinking of buying some stupid Asus motherboard with "dust protection armor" so i've decided to ask here first, before shelling out about the same amount of money as the last time.

I want to keep my monitor, PCU, cooling, and graphics card, also add one solid state drive and one 4TB hard drive, while retiring everything else. But i can't decide on a new chassis (has to be spacious, without sharp parts and with easy installation rack for hard drives) and a new motherboard. So any advice on those and any general advices would be appreciated.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... what's your budget this Time? and Main use?

 

[house70]

ASUS makes good mobos, you probably had a bad one, not sure what "dying' ever since means. I agree their mobos are a bit costlier than other manufacturers' counterparts, but I have 2 of them in 2 systems now and never had an issue with them.
CPU: not much to say, AMD or Intel. Pick your poison (according to your mobo). A quadcore should be enough.
PSU, GPU, cooler :use what you got.
HDDs: for system/OS, I would get SSD. For data: HDD, but keep it reasonably low. HDDs last a few years, after that need replacement. A large capacity one is a) more prone to failure and b) maybe not even half way full before it needs replacement. 2 mirrored ones would be better for data keeping.
Case: a mid-tower should be enough, unless you want to go big. More room means easier servicing, also more dead space in your room. I would get something with a side fan for additional cooling.
Good luck! You will get all kinds of advice about this or that brand, people speaking from their experience. YMMV.

 

[hillmanant]

Hello Celauron

That sucks you had all those problems, we'll try to get you going in the right direction here. A price range would help till then I'll suggest a few parts.

I'll start with a good case since that seems to be your most direct question. I would go with the COOLER MASTER HAF 912 It's a very good case with a good track record, and IMO Coolermaster makes a good product in all aspects. If your looking for something with a window the IN WIN GRone is a nice looking case that's very functional, even has a hot swap bay on top for using other drives for backups. Again a proce range would help but these are just a couple I've been looking at buying myself.

For the MOBO that bothers me that you had problems with a ASUS board. I myself have had a very good experience with the builds I've done with them in the past. Overclocking is extremely easy with the EUFI bios on the ASUS boards of today, so even though you had problems with your lemon of an ASUS board I'm going to suggest another one sadly enough. The ASUS P8Z77-V LK LGA is a great board IMO, when paired with the Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge its a mean combo. Add an aftermarket cooler like the ZALMAN you got yourself a mean setup for years to come.


For the hard drive you said 4 Tb the Western Digital WD Black is the one I would use for a 4 Tb but I don't agree with putting that much information in one place, I would use 2 2TB drives instead like the TOSHIBA PH3200U cheaper that way too.

For the RAM the G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB again because of its good track record and decent price.

Burners are a dime a dozen pick your poison there.

As for the SSD, I can't make a good suggestion as I am looking at getting into one myself.

Just my 2 cents do with it what you will.

 

[Celauron]

Hello... what's your budget this Time? and Main use?

Budget is about the same, even more if you consider that i don't have to buy new monitor or graphics card... yet.

ASUS makes good mobos, you probably had a bad one, not sure what "dying' ever since means.

It means that i've had a lot of unexplainable issues which i tend to put on the motherboard. Just now i couldn't boot my pc because it couldn't "see" one of the hard drives in raid setup. I've replaced the PCU power cords and switched sata cords and it worked, but i still think that the issue might be in motherboard. High north bridge temperature, low RAM compatibility and many different BIOS bugs are also experienced by users with that motherboard.

Hello Celauron
Again a proce range would help but these are just a couple I've been looking at buying myself.

I've had issues with dust so i had to install additional filters on two chassis fans. Those two cases seem to have a lot of holes in them...

For the MOBO that bothers me that you had problems with a ASUS board. I myself have had a very good experience with the builds I've done with them in the past. Overclocking is extremely easy with the EUFI bios on the ASUS boards of today, so even though you had problems with your lemon of an ASUS board I'm going to suggest another one sadly enough. The ASUS P8Z77-V LK LGA is a great board IMO, when paired with the Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge its a mean combo. Add an aftermarket cooler like the ZALMAN you got yourself a mean setup for years to come.

Actually would like to keep my Noctua cooler, it has many fixings and it can be set on any LGA at the moment. As to RAM and motherboards - Corsair memory used to be most stable and reliable, has this changed? I don't want to buy another Crucial/GeIl w/e memory i had that died soon after the purchase.

For the hard drive you said 4 Tb the Western Digital WD Black is the one I would use for a 4 Tb but I don't agree with putting that much information in one place, I would use 2 2TB drives instead like the TOSHIBA PH3200U cheaper that way too.

I will still have my old 2TB, 500GB and 2 raptors as spares. I will probably sell or give away some of them though.

Thx for the input btw

 

[Kamen_BG]

If you want a dust proof case, you either need to mod a case yourself or you need the Silverstone prototype case in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=losMDQq5hyM

 

[hillmanant]

If you want a dust proof case, you either need to mod a case yourself or you need the Silverstone prototype case in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=losMDQq5hyM

+1 I want one, I have cats, right now I have the Antec Nine Hundred Two with the front side filters and they work great but Silverstone took that to a whole other level here, good pick.

 

[Wisecracker]

You should not spend more than $800 to $1,000 with moving your PSU and GTX 570 forward.

There is too much new stuff coming out this year to spend more money than that ...

 

[Celauron]

You should not spend more than $800 to $1,000 with moving your PSU and GTX 570 forward.

There is too much new stuff coming out this year to spend more money than that ...

I was going to wait for lga 1150 but if my PC continues to act up i will have to upgrade sooner.