What have you learned since joining the OcUk Forums

What I have learnt since being here is there are plenty of people willing to help no matter how stupid or how many times the same topic comes up over and over again.

I also learnt some people really do have way to much money to burn on pc stuff lol just kidding.
 
I originally joined in 2000'ish before the forums were hijacked - as i wanted to learn how to do the pencil trick for overclocking my slot A cpu.

I ended up staying because of the neurotic-nightmare that was the Abit kT7xx Raid motherboard that i bought with it. I still can't make my mind up whether i hated that board or or just wished it small amounts of harm...

My advice is, if you want to learn a lot, buy a motherboard that requires a coffee with 2 anphetamines plus countless BIOS counseling sessions just to even consider booting into a stable environment. And then, once you think you can finally pass it as sane, it decides to develop more idiosyncratic problems that contradict the first...


StevenRaith said:
Examples include rolling out over 1000 XP machines at a london council, building custom CAD workstations for 3D rendering, rolling out 600 machines using WDS at a school - having never touched WDS for mass deployment, within six weeks the whole site was finished :eek: - etc etc. Always had a knack for machines.
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Steve, when i eventually run into trouble networking all my pc's together with the HTPC i've been trying to convince the wife i need to build - i'm just going to label my thread 'SteveRaith i need help' if that's ok with you? :). Having said that my wife keeps threatening that she wants me to look at the network at her school - so i may end up with the aquired knowledge via the method of 'mental-flooding' soon :/

Plec
 
Slogan said:
Probably a good bit but I still don't know what folding actually is.
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When you look at the task manager, check the System idle reading. You'll notice most of the time your system is doing nothing 99% of the time. These are unused CPU cycles.


Folding uses these unused cycles to calculate protien formulas for cancer related projects. A distribution system provides your PC with some work to do when the system is doing nothing. These are called a work units (WUs). When this completes, it uploads the results to a server. This is called Distributed Computing, meaning many computers are making one big super computer.

For a fun, as each WU completes, it give each project a score depending on it's class and importance so you score points. These points are accumulated for person gain and for the team you belong to. Can be quite addictive.
 
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OCUK taught me one main thing, to get a TRUE over a AC7. That and how to overclock properly.
But I'm sure I have learnt more, as I am a real life sponge bob square pants...honest
 
How easy it is to spend loads of money you don't have and yet still need more bits...!
Also that not all computer bods are geeky nerds, many are really helpful, tolerant, know plenty and are happy to share and help others learn.
I now know a litle about cooling, cable management and that modding a case can be really enjoyable even if no-one will see what has been done.
I also know that I know nothing about how computers really work and that as soon as I am outside the basics of connecting components I am totally lost.
Thanks to all who have helped me so far !
 
Basically everything i know about computer hardware today. Even from my very first PC build (Geforce 4 baby!) i spent a while reading these forums, looking for guides on overclocking or just plain simple PC building itself. Did it for every PC up until now, funnily enough today is the first time i've actually asked for advice on a near-full system rebuild, i was a lurker during my previous builds :E
 
satriani1412 said:
Isnt this folding thing on the PS3 too? Or am I thinking of something completely different......
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Tis indeed, it isn't half bad at it either. Its hidden away in a little app called Playstation@Home that shows the regional news, weather, plays music and, for a little novelty, can show a world map with glowing dots showing where other groups of people are folding on the PS3, while doing these the PS3 folds away in the background.

It's a nice idea and i often see people in my friends list with 'Playstation@Home' as their 'now playing' message so it must be working.
 
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satriani1412 said:
Hope this is a fitting sub forum to post this in, if not, feel free to lock/move/delete/verbally abuse ;)

Simple question - What have you learned about computers, that you didn't know before, since joining this forum?

Personally I haven't been here long, i've grown up with computers and have been dubbed a PC whizz but knew minimum amounts about hardware and how things ticked.

I joined at the beginning of April and in that short time i've learnt things that now make me feel confident enough that I could go out and make a working machine out of a box of bits.

Before joining, I didn't know:-

-(I knew what it was but) What watercooling systems really were, how they worked and how they were put together

-The difference between CPU sockets, compatibility of different socket CPUs on different boards

-I didn't know how to overclock, nor did i know the benefits/what actually happened when overclocking (physical changes ie. temperatures and speeds)

-What different parts actually did while working, how they helped performance and what tasks they dealt with (ie graphics cards clocks, ram timings and speeds etc.)

-I didn't have a lot of product knowledge, what's on the market, whats the top end stuff and what's the best value for money per performance margin.

-What cases had cooling benefits, ie airflow and which builds are the best builds



This is just touching on what i've learned so far, and i'd be quite interested to know what you lot have gained from being here as I feel everyone here has had some form of input of teaching one person or another, something that helped them.

Edit: - Even all you pros out there must've learned something ;)
;)
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Dude, reading your story feels like reading a summary of my own experience here! I've also been classed "THE computer guy" with really minimal knowledge of the inner workings of a computer. Using OCuK I've put together my own computer, which now seems like a pathetic accomplishment, but was almost unthinkable beforehand.
 
Mmm the excitement of finally doing it is eventually shot down by reading about hundreds of people doing it better on here ;)

All part of the fun

No pun intended for all you naughty people -________________________-
 
Way to much technical stuff which hurts my head when I think about it! :D Also (and mainly) that there are some really helpful people who frequent this forum who never tire of being asked the some old stuff and are always (usually) happy to help.

I wouldn't know half the stuff I know now about computers without them.
 
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