PC Building and Upgrading 101

papajimsmooth

Could someone do a piece on monitors for normal use vs gaming?

Serephucus

That's not a bad idea at all actually, I'll start that one today I think.

jaykhunter

Oh actually, could u include - is there a difference between VGA-to-VGA, DVI-to-DVI and HDMI-to-HDMI cable connecting to the monitor? Like if you have the option of all 3, does it make a difference if you were gaming/watching videos?

thanks buddy

Monotype

If you use
VGA -> VGA, there could be a very slight drop in quality with an LCD as your graphics card is converting from digital to analogue and your monitor is is converting it back again to digital.

DVI and HDMI should be exactly the same as they're both digital signals.

HDMI can carry sound though and not every device that uses DVI is HDCP compatible (i.e., compliant with digital video DRM), so you could run into trouble with blu ray discs and drives.
There's also a few versions of DVI, like ones that output analogue signal and dual-link DVI which is for higher bandwidth.

Too long; didn't read:
DVI and HDMI is the same for your average desktop environment; use over VGA if you can.

ShadowHearth

Very good idea about some sort of piece about monitors.

I know that avg connection should be avoided as plague, but there is more then that.

Response times
Contrast rations
Led, TFT, TN panels
Resolutions etc.

How much is too much for desktop pc etc. I have seen se idiots on YouTube with 3x42inch telly eyefinity setups which look extremely uncomfortable and more annoying then cool or good for gaming etc.

I have some knowledge about monitors, but it is not as much as I would like.

Serephucus

It'll probably be tomorrow before I can get this up - scanning a 260 page book at the moment. >.<

ShadowHearth

Serephucus wrote: »

It'll probably be tomorrow before I can get this up - scanning a 260 page book at the moment. >.<

Ouch lol. Haven't used scanner in 10 years!!! Last time I used it: scanning some porn magazines...

( yeah yeah, Internet was not that awesome back then! )

Monotype

Addition to Windows guide (Thanks Fluffy):

When downloading large files like the Windows 7 .iso file, you should use a download manager to make life simpler. Being able to continue the download is very important with such large files in case of a dropped connection.
Opera browser features a built in download resume or another separate option is JDownloader.

Serephucus

Woops! I was supposed to do a monitor guide! Completely forgot about this amidst other stuff. At the moment I'm quite busy, so if someone else wants to take this feel free.

Monotype

Hmm... well what kind of depth were you thinking of?

I could type up a bit about the basics like connectors, eyefinity, and your average features/monitor types but I couldn't really explain what the differences between the various IPS panels or touch screens are without a fair chunk of research.

Serephucus

It sounds like it would have been similar to mine then. Sure whatever, we can always add to it later on or what have you.

Monotype

K, I should have some more time on Sat/Sun but if anyone else wants to butt in before then, feel free to post here.

The only thing I'm worried about these guides is the upkeep. I regularly see on forums ones that are well out of date. Prices of monitors can change a lot. ... no, wait, that's actually a good thing.

Serephucus

Yeah, I know what you mean. The solution of course is to make one of us a mod so these articles can be easily edited in the future.

Tea_Bag

Serephucus wrote: »

Yeah, I know what you mean. The solution of course is to make one of us a mod so these articles can be easily edited in the future.

dibs

deconduo

Serephucus wrote: »

Yeah, I know what you mean. The solution of course is to make one of us a mod so these articles can be easily edited in the future.

Or we can just annoy Sol whenever something needs to be updated

Serephucus

deconduo wrote: »

Or we can just annoy Sol whenever something needs to be updated

Here, you with the idea that doesn't give one of us an excuse to be a mod, shurup. :P

deconduo

Great guide on mechanical keyboards:

http://www.overclock.net/t/491752/mechanical-keyboard-guide

deconduo

How to pay HWVS using online banking:

http://imgur.com/a/BlC7k

Monotype

Monitor Guide

Connection Types

VGA (Video Graphics Array)
You’ll find the blue 15-pin D-Sub VGA connector on most monitors, sometimes as the only option on lower end ones. LCD monitors are a digital interface and so the monitor needs to convert the analogue VGA signal back to a digital one before it can display it. A graphics card produces a digital signal and if it has a VGA connector, it will convert it to an analogue one. This means that connecting a graphics card to a VGA LCD converts the signal twice. While it won’t have an enormous impact on the quality of the picture, it will be more noticeable with poorer converters and bigger screens. It is best to go with a digital connector.

DVI (Digital Video Interface)
DVI comes in many flavours of connectors. It’s usually considered as a digital connector, although also capable of carrying an analogue signal. You usually don’t have to worry about the variations too much but if you wanted to use a DVI->VGA adapter, you should ensure that your output supports this. Typically only one out of two DVI connectors on the graphics card will output an analogue signal. Dual link connectors support much higher resolutions and frequencies. DVI is the most common connector on monitors and graphics cards today but is being succeeded and supported by HDMI and Displayport – not to say that DVI is inferior in quality, as it is sometimes essential for some resolutions and frequencies that HDMI will not provide.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)
HDMI is the connector that TVs and home entertainment equipment have adopted. It is present on many new monitors and graphics cards. It is also capable of carrying sound and even network communication, unlike the older VGA and DVI standards. Be wary of cables being overpriced; a <€5 will usually give an identical picture to the more expensive ones, although bottom end ones can be below par. There are various revisions to be aware of although most cables/interfaces are backwards and forwards compatible.
HDMI carries a digital signal and you can not an analogue format without additional hardware - i.e., you can not use an adapter to easily convert from HDMI to VGA. You may convert to DVI (and vice versa) with an adapter but will lose the audio in the process. Note that HDMI is a digital signal so it should be identical to DVI in picture quality.

DisplayPort
DisplayPort is a royalty free alternative to HDMI. This is present on most AMD 5000+ series of cards, nVidia 600+ series and Apple machines. Displayport must (in general) be used to avail of eyefinity. DisplayPort connectors tend to be exclusive to high end monitors, such as Dell’s IPS range. It is also capable of carrying audio as well as other forms of data and is a likely successor for DVI. Some graphics cards have a mini-DP connector so you’ll probably need a converter to connect the full size one.


| | |

VGA

|

DVI

|

HDMI

|

DisplayPort

Which connector should I use?
With an LCD monitor, DVI, HDMI and DP should be identical in most situations. Choose it over VGA. HDMI and DP can carry sound. You need DP for eyefinity.

LCD Types

TN panels are the most common type of LCD you’ll see today in monitors and TVs. They’re cheaper than the other types and are good for gaming due to having a fast response time. The drawback is poorer colours, so unsuitable for fussier people and professional workers who depend on colour accuracy.

VA monitors offer improved colour reproduction over TN panels and contrast but response times can be variable.

IPS are high end product but have greatly expanded recently to affordable ranges. They come in variety of forms, the recent not quite up to the professional standard of earlier expensive models but certainly a high quality monitor nevertheless. Response times were slow in the past but recent screens have improved in this area and would be suitable for games.

LED/Backlights
LED monitors in most cases actually refers to the LED backlight in the monitor.
There are also two main types of LED backlighting - edge lit, and full backlighting. Edge-lit is basically a direct replacement to CCFL: two LED strips on opposite edges of the monitor. This approach doesn't really do much aside from usually achieving a thinner overall monitor profile, and reduced power consumption. The full LED backlighting approach is where you really see contrast ratios shoot up, but so does the price, so most-often the cheap LED monitors are only edge-lit.

Multiple monitors

Dual monitors
Modern AMD and NVidia cards will support two monitors.
Intel’s modern desktop chipsets & integrated graphics will support two monitors (assuming sufficient connectors).
AMD’s AM3 based integrated graphics supports one VGA and one digital connector simultaneously. AMD Trinity can support three.

Three+ monitors/AMD Eyefinity/nVidia surround

AMD has called their multi-monitor setup eyefinity. You can use a single graphics card for three monitors (or more if the card supports it) but you need to be careful in how you connect them. You need to use a DisplayPort connector for one of the monitors (DVI or HDMI is fine for the other two). You may do any of the following:

• Connecting to a monitor which has a build in DisplayPort connector
• Buy the correct DisplayPort to DVI adapter
• Use a graphics card which allows you to bypass the adapter requirement, such as Sapphire’s Flex editions.

nVidia surround requires two graphics cards for three monitors in older series but high end 600+ series cards support 4 monitors by using any of the digital connections.

You can use Intel’s integrated graphics in their 6 and 7 series (if supported by the motherboard) by using a combination of the integrated graphics with the dedicated card for 3 monitors. Suitable for desktop use only as it wouldn’t really have the capability for games.

The Correct DisplayPort Adapter
Not all DisplayPort -> DVI adapters are created equally. Early and cheap adapters are sufficient for low resolution, with a single monitor. For eyefinity you’ll need either one marked as ‘active’ or one that states that it’s capable of eyefinity. Dell sell active adapters and they’re expensive but eyefinity adapters are more widely available now and you’ll see them for €20-30, made by graphics card brands such as HIS or Sapphire.

Note that all monitors should be of the same resolution, but not necessarily the same size. Some people prefer their monitor in the centre to be slightly larger.

Resolution

The resolution of a monitor is the number of pixels. A monitor could have resolution 1920x1080 resolution, which means that it has 1920 pixels across and 1080 lines of these pixels downwards, which is 2,073,600 pixels in total. It is also written as 1080p.

Aspect Ratio is the ratio of the horizontal pixels with the vertical. So 1920:1080 is equivalent to 16:9 – i.e., for every 16 pixels across, there are 9 down.

Traditionally, monitors have been a few steps ahead of TVs in resolution – probably because we sit a lot closer to them.
There are names associated with the standards such as VGA (640×480), XGA (1024×768), SXGA (1280×1024) but these are fading from common use as it’s hard to keep track of them, so people just quote the resolution. See here for a full list.

Widescreen monitors were previously in 16:10 ratio, meaning that 1920x1200 WUXGA would have been considered a more standard resolution. However, the popularity of the 1080p in TVs has pushed monitors towards that instead (also saving monitor manufacturers a bit of money, shaving off those extra pixels.

It’s important to know your resolution when choosing a graphics card to match. Higher resolution needs more computational power. 1080p has 2,073,600 pixels while 720p (1280x720) only has 921,600 – less than half the pixels, so you clearly don’t need a graphics card as powerful. You can change your resolution to one lower than the ‘native’ resolution but the image will be stretched and often won’t look even as well as it would have on a lower resolution monitor.

1920x1080 monitors are much more affordable in the past year, selling at about €100 and is the standard for new monitors.

3D Screens

There’s two major ways of getting 3D using glasses at present. Both need specialised monitors, unless you use the old two colour anaglyph method (red-green glasses).

Shutter Technology
For NVidia’s 3D, you need an NVidia card, an NVidia 3D vision kit and a 120Hz monitor. A 120Hz monitor for 3D Vision accepts a 120Hz signal from your graphics card, allowing the image to update 120 times a second. The shutter glasses sync with the monitor to display alternating images for the left and right eye. The shutter is closed for one eye when the image is intended for the other. This happens so fast that it is unnoticeable. It’s more expensive than the alternative, especially the price of glasses, although just for games you don’t exactly need many sets of glasses. Note that the glasses that come with shutter TVs such as those from Samsung aren’t compatible.

A 120Hz is still a very good choice for a high end gaming monitor, even without the 3D. Note that this is not the same as the wild claims from TV manufacturers which say they can display 120Hz (or even 600Hz). These TVs duplicate frames and interpolate changes to create additional frames while still only taking 50 or 60Hz.

Polarisation technology
This is a much cheaper alternative, pushed hard by TV and monitor manufacturer LG. It makes use of Polarised glasses - the same kind you get in the cinema and are far cheaper than shutter glasses. You just need the supporting monitor. The big drawback with this over the shutter is that each eye is only getting an interlaced resolution – i.e., 1920x540. Some monitors such as the IZ3D and Zalman use a variation on the technology and don’t suffer from this drawback but aren’t releasing as many monitors.

Here are nvidia’s and AMD’s respective pages on 3D.

Other things to consider

Response time
Response time is how fast a pixel changes from black to white to back again and is measured in milliseconds (ms). You should avoid comparing manufacturer quotes for response time as they can use different methods of testing. Be especially wary of ‘grey to grey’ response times as this is a lesser measurement. It’s important that your monitor can change fast in games and video, otherwise you can get ghosting of previous images remaining on the screen. You shouldn't notice much ghosting below 12ms response time. It’s often best to gather direct comparisons from review sites.

Viewing angle
Viewing angles are nowhere near as bad as early LCDs, which would dramatically appear to change colours when not viewing from straight on. Even the cheapest monitors have reasonably consistent colours, but if you have reason to have monitors at angles or a wide viewing audience, you might want to take this into account and choose an alternative to TN.

Surface – Glossy or matte
Screens come in glossy and matte surfaces. Apparently the glossy screen can give you a sharper image but reflection can be dire in a bright room. Matte screens can also have shiny anti-glare coatings.

Contrast ratio
This is the ratio of darkest black to brightest white. In theory, the higher the ratio, the better. It shouldn’t be relied upon, especially when comparing different manufacturers. Note that dynamic contrast ratios give even higher numbers as it takes brightness controls into account.

Refresh Rate
As mentioned in the 3D section, 120Hz monitors are a good choice for gaming, even for 2D but be careful not to trust refresh rates for TVs.

Ergonomics
You have to pay more to get a monitor with features such as height adjustable stands and swivel. Rotating the monitor can be handy too if you want to have an eyefinity setup with three monitors arranged vertically, to allow for high vertical resolution.

Review sites:
DigitalVersus Is an excellent, easy to read site for comparing monitors.
TFT Central covers many big releases and dissects every aspect of the monitor to give a very professional and detailed picture.

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Feedback welcome.

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Serephucus

Nicely done! Couple of things from a quick look-through:

You mention that HDMI cannot be converted without additional hardware, and that you can't use an adapter. This is a bit misleading, as you can convert to DVI (and then to VGA, though I don't see why you would) with an adapter, it just won't carry audio/ethernet/whatever else.

There's what looks like a table after the DP section that hasn't gone away fully. Not sure if that's meant to be there.
Edit: Heh, you fixed it, never mind so.

For LED section: There are also two main types of LED backlighting - edge lit, and full backlighting. Edge-lit is basically a direct replacement to CCFL: two LED strips on opposite edges of the monitor. This approach doesn't really do much aside from usually achieving a thinner overall monitor profile, and reduced power consumption. The full LED backlighting approach is where you really see contrast ratios shoot up, but so does the price, so most-often the cheap LED monitors are only edge-lit.

Monotype

Serephucus wrote: »

You mention that HDMI cannot be converted without additional hardware, and that you can't use an adapter. This is a bit misleading, as you can convert to DVI (and then to VGA, though I don't see why you would) with an adapter, it just won't carry audio/ethernet/whatever else.

I was under the impression that you could only do DVI->VGA if the relevant analogue signal was already present. Most graphics cards send both analogue and digital to the DVI output. If you went HDMI -> DVI, would you not only get digital and therefore would not be able to use the VGA adapter?

For LED section: There are also two main types of LED backlighting - edge lit, and full backlighting. Edge-lit is basically a direct replacement to CCFL: two LED strips on opposite edges of the monitor. This approach doesn't really do much aside from usually achieving a thinner overall monitor profile, and reduced power consumption. The full LED backlighting approach is where you really see contrast ratios shoot up, but so does the price, so most-often the cheap LED monitors are only edge-lit.

Righto, I'll add that in. I was unsure exactly how much detail to be putting into in some areas (that's actually much better).

Serephucus

Monotype wrote: »

I was under the impression that you could only do DVI->VGA if the relevant analogue signal was already present. Most graphics cards send both analogue and digital to the DVI output. If you went HDMI -> DVI, would you not only get digital and therefore would not be able to use the VGA adapter?

Sorry, I meant DVI->HDMI, should have made that clear. I don't know about the other way around, never tested it. But what you're saying sounds right in principal, so it probably wouldn't work. I just meant it might be a bit confusing if someone comes along with a HDMI TV and a DVI GPU and thinks he has to shell out for a new card or something.

Monotype

Actually re-reading it now, it's not clear at all. I'll fix up; you can still move between other digital formats, just not from digital to analogue.

Edit: Does anyone things it's worthwhile even mentioning CRTs?

seeing_ie

Great thread, required reading if you're building a pc.

Monotype

SSD Guide

A Solid State Disk (SSD) is a storage disk which uses NAND flash memory. It has no moving parts as opposed to Hard Disk Drives (HDD) which use magnetism and spinning disks to read/write. In general, they offer faster speeds than HDDs when reading and writing data in sequence. More importantly, they are much faster at retrieving information scattered around the drive as they don’t rely on moving heads and rotating discs. Faster access times means that you can start many programs near instantly.

Setting up your SSD with Windows 7/8

If you haven't installed yet:

1. Physically disconnect any other hard drives. We do this to ensure that Windows writes a new boot record on the SSD rather than using that of an old installation, in case you want to switch or wipe your hard drives later.
2. Go to the BIOS/UEFI setup and somewhere under storage configuration, you will have the option to change the drives to AHCI as opposed to legacy or IDE mode.
3. Ensure that you are booting from the DVD-Drive (or USB Flash) where you are installing Windows from the first time, but you’ll need to change the SSD as first priority half-way through installing Windows.
4. Install Windows.
5. Reconnect your other storage devices and make sure that the SSD has first priority for booting.

If you have already installed windows:
Enabling AHCI in BIOS menu first will blue screen your windows. You need to change it in the windows registry and then enable it in the BIOS setup.
Here's some instructions with screenshots if you're not sure.

1. Go to the start menu and type regedit to enter into the registry editor.
2. Navigate through to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msachi
   on the left hand side.
3. Double-click on the entry called start on the right hand side.
4. Change the value data of this entry to 0
   
5. Close down the registry editor.
   
6. Change the SATA mode to AHCI in the BIOS/UEFI menu.

Finally, run the Windows Experience to ensure that Windows tests your hardware and configures appropriately. You might get low numbers for graphics if you haven’t installed your drivers yet.
Type Windows experience index into the start menu or find it by
Start menu -> Computer, right-click -> Properties -> Windows Experience Index (centre of the window).


That's it! That's all you really need to be worried about on a clean Windows 7 install. Everything else is just about retrieving space, small optimisations or just double checking that windows has done its job properly.


Space Saving Measures

Page file
The page file allows your hard drive to act as additional virtual memory to complement your RAM. Since RAM has been much more affordable in recent years and many people carrying 4-8GB in their systems, virtual memory isn't as important as it used to be. Windows tends to set the page file to be equal in size to the RAM, so 8GB from a 64GB SSD is quite a large chunk.
I would not recommend that you move the page file to a hard drive as the page file will typically have small random reads, which SSDs are great at.
Arguments for disabling it completely are that it may cause more wear and tear on the SSD and the OS may use the SSD instead of RAM on occasion, which would be slower. There are also plenty of cases that people report no problems with completely disabling it.
Modern Windows OSs are designed to maximise RAM usage rather than relying on the page file and I wouldn't be overly concerned about SSD wear. I think it's safer to reduce the size in the case that any program specifically demands virtual memory or even as an overflow in the case of unexpected RAM demand.
Some tests show instability with disabling it completely. For a bit more info on the working of the page file, have a read of marco_polo's posts here, here and here.


You can change the size by Start menu -> Right click on computer -> Properties -> Advanced system settings (upper left) - > Advanced Tab -> Performance box, click on settings -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory Box, click on change.

A maximum size of 2GB should be plenty for a typical system with 4GB RAM or a gaming system with 8GB. If you do wish do disable it completely, reduce the size to a minimum before disabling it as sometimes the file will stay around anyway.


Hibernation File
Some guides have suggested to disable the hibernation file because the computer boots up fast anyway with an SSD. Speed was never the intention of hibernation – its function is to save the state that your computer is in right now to hard disk. When you switch it back on, everything will be as it was. The difference between hibernation and standby is that hibernation doesn't demand power – you can plug out your PC as the data is saved to the disk.
It's a handy function in some circumstances such as HTPCs or if you just like to continue exactly where you left. However, it's also a guzzler of space and will be noticeable on a small SSD. Unfortunately, it can not be moved to a different drive so you just have the options to disable it or change size.

Open an administrator command prompt by typing cmd into the start menu, right-clicking on it and selecting run as administrator.

To disable hibernation, type:
[php]powercfg -h off[/php]
and press enter.

To enable hibernation, type:
[php]powercfg -h on[/php]
and press enter.

Disabling hibernation will save you some space. Using it few times a day should be no problem but I wouldn't be over enthusiastic about hibernating at every opportunity. See the section on limited writes.

Other things which windows 7/8 should already take care of with an SSD

• Re-run the Windows Experience Index following any changes in hardware to a system as this can have an effect on how windows configures itself.
  Start menu -> Computer, right-click -> Properties -> Windows Experience Index (centre of the window).

Automatic Defragmentation
Automatic Defragmenation should be enabled for hard drives and disabled for SSDs. Using it on SSDs causes unnecessary writes and won't improve performance in the same way as HDDs.

Type dfrgui into the start menu to open up the disk defragmenter window.

Press Configure Schedule and Select Disks to ensure that your SSD is excluded (it shouldn't even appear on the list). Don't disable it for hard disk drives as it's a good feature!

Indexing
This allows you to search for files faster. People sometimes recommend disabling it as SSDs are pretty fast at searching, which is a fair enough argument. Having it enabled will result in a few extra writes. The default folders is not a large range so it's not something I'd bother changing. It's a handy feature if you search a lot, especially on hard drives.

To completely disable it on a drive:
Start menu -> Computer -> Rightclick on your SSD -> Properties -> Untick “Allow files on this drive...”

To select which folders you want to have indexed, enter indexing options into the start menu.

TRIM
Your SSD should have TRIM enabled if you installed windows 7/8. TRIM prepares an SSD by cleaning deleted data so that you can write to it again at full speed. Without TRIM, the SSD must first clean deleted data on each write so the process is a bit slower when you've used the drive a few times.

To check to see if you have TRIM enabled, go to the start menu and type in cmd, right-click on it and run as administrator.

To find out if it is activated, type:
[php]fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify[/php]
and press enter.

0 means enabled and 1 means disabled


To enable TRIM, type:
[php]fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0[/php]

To disable TRIM, type:
[php]fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1[/php]

What not to do with SSDs

Superfetch
Many guides suggest to disable superfetch. What superfetch does is that it stores regularly used programs in RAM to be ready if you need them. It also factors in times of day that you use the programs.
[rant]The justification for disabling superfetch is that “SSDs are already fast enough”. Well let's see, how fast is RAM? Oh, only about 10GB per second. And SSDs? Maybe 500MB per second if you're lucky. Last time I checked 10,000MB/s was a bit faster than 500MB/s. Of course, we're talking about peak rates here and random access may change around a bit, but I have a feeling that RAM is good at random access. So what is going to happen when you open a program on the SSD with superfetch disabled? Yes, that's right – it's going to get moved to the RAM anyway![/rant]

Apparently there were some bugs in earlier versions of Vista which caused slowdowns as a result of the hard drive being accessed so regularly, but I wouldn't worry about this much on a fully patched system.

Basically, I think that superfetch is a good piece of software in that it really helps the other hard drives in your system especially. I've moved some programs to SSD from HDD and wondered why there wasn't a huge difference in speed. Tested on a new system, opening the program is slower on the hard drive too, but speeds up as time goes by. The answer appears to be superfetch. While your SSD won't be visibly faster, there's no need to go disabling it and slowing down your HDDs.

So unless you have a good reason that you need all your memory free, I suggest that you leave it on. An SSD only system would probably be a fair reason not to need it.
I have noticed in a few installs that Windows turns it off. I’m unsure of the reasoning or triggers, but perhaps it is automatically disabled with high end SSDs.

RAID and SSDs
TRIM has been recently usable with RAID in 7-series chipsets (Z77 etc.). If you don’t have don’t meet this requirement, I would recommend avoiding RAID with SSDs. While RAID can be beneficial with new drives, the performance can very rapidly degrade without TRIM. If you want RAID for backup, you should consider backup software. Unless you have dire need for the extra speed and have chosen your drives carefully, it is not recommended as the gains are not significantly better. Have a read of this article.

Defragmentation
Don’t defragment your SSD.

Useful tools

Steam Mover is an excellent tool which allows you to easily move folders without breaking an installation. It allows the user to move parts of a program to different drives. Where this can be of benefit is, for example, a steam installation with a library of games on a hard drive. Since steam is too restrictive/never bothered to include the functionality of allowing installations of games on other drives, you could move a single game to the SSD by use of this program which would give you the full benefits of storing it on SSD. Evidence shows that steam may be allowing this functionality in the future, but no need to wait.

Cloning
You can create an exact copy of your OS from one drive to another. Doing a clean install is always the best option as a lot of crap tends to build up in the OS after a few years of use. If you really don't want to reinstall, you have the option of cloning software. You should be okay cloning from HDD to HDD or from SSD to SSD. I recommend that you do not go from HDD -> SSD with cloning software. There’s a good chance it will work if you’re lazy, but you certainly won’t get the best you’re your drive and you should go for a clean install. Don't clone the OS if you're upgrading to a different motherboard.
Recommended cloning programs:

• Acronis – you need to buy this but there's a free version on Western Digital's Site if you have one of their drives or Seagate’s version.
• EaseUS Todo Backup v3 – there's a charge for newer versions, but v3 was free if you can still find it.
• Clonezilla is a powerful cloning tool but not as user friendly as the others. You need to boot it from a USB drive/disk.

Be careful when using cloning tools that you don't copy the blank drive to the one that has your data. This would mean that you'd lose all your data and you'd end up with two blank drives!

Scanner - A very useful little app that shows your hard drive as a pie chart. You can click on any sub-section, and it gets shown as the total chart for further resolution. Useful if you're trying to see where all your space is going.

AS SSD - Popular SSD benchmark software.

Atto - Useful benchmark tool which shows speeds across a range of data sizes.

Cyrstal Disk Mark - Another Benchmark tool.

Crystal Disk Info -Great tool to relay SMART info from your SSD such as number of times it's been switched on, active hours and the condition of it. Comes with "Miss Shizuku who is a japanese cute girl watch over your HDD and SSD" but you can get a standard edition without her.

Background info on SSDs

NAND
The type of flash memory used in SSDs.

TRIM
When data is deleted on the drive, it is just marked as deleted. TRIM cleans SSDs by erasing deleted data. Without TRIM, when you write data to a previously used sector, it must be prepared for writing first before your new data is written. So unless you are writing to a new drive, having TRIM disabled will slow your drive down. TRIM will improve performance only when you delete files. Overwriting files will still be a bit slower as it has to perform a delete operation first.
Note that TRIM is not supported by every drive or every OS!

SLC, MLC & TLC
Single Level Cells (SLC) are used for storage in enterprise and server grade SSDs. They are the most expensive and have higher (than MLC) endurance. Multi Level Cells (MLC) store two bits of information in each cell. MLC is cheaper but comes at the cost of more errors (compensated by firmware), lower speeds and shorter lifespan. MLC is the type of NAND found in most consumer SSDs. Triple Level Cells (TLC) store three bits per cell. Again, this means lower price, lower speed and lower endurance. This is emerging in SSDs such as Samsung’s 840 (non-pro version).

SSD size
SSD manufacturers, as with HDDs measure 1GB as = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Windows and other OSs measure 1GB as 2^30 = 1,073,741,824. So when you format your 60GB drive, you may only read it as ~55.88GB.
This is the case with all drives. What you should watch out for is SSD manufacturers switching to different manufacturing processes, such as the transition from 34nm to 25nm. OCZ sold drives branded as 60GB, but were in fact only 55GB. Worse still, windows would only read this as about 50GB.

SSD OEMs
As with PSUs, many SSDs use the same source of components. Two or three drive brands can have the same internals with slight variations such as different firmware or memory types. Bear in mind that one particular company may sell a range of drives from completely different OEMs so quality can vary quite a lot. A good brand will offer better customer care - Corsair recognised faults with their Force 3 drives from Sandforce and recalled them, while soon offering a variation of Micron's drive for their high end Performance line.

Power Consumption
Power consumption with SSDs can vary quite a bit. Check out reviews on a particular drive for a better picture. Power savings are not really much better than a HDD, despite the lack of moving parts. HDDs have become extremely efficient in recent times, especially with OS power savings modes enabling the drive to shut down almost completely.

Read/Write Speeds
Some SSDs have lower write speeds than read. That's actually not a big deal though. Think about how often you write to a drive in comparison to when you read. You might install an OS once, patch it up a little bit now and again but you're going to read from it every day, several times a day. The same goes for any program that you install, you'll read it from the SSD many, many more times than write. In fact if you a guaranteed a certain lower write speed, you may actually better off than peak write speeds claimed by another manufacturer which uses compression.

Limited Writes
Flash memory has limited writes. That means SSDs, the SD card in your camera, the microSD in your phone and your USB drive. But it's not something to be overly concerned about. The average consumer will be able to use their SSD for many years, likely to be finding it obsolete before broken. It's more of a concern at enterprise levels with constant writes. Technology and software have improved over the years to ensure that the drives last longer (e.g., by avoiding stressful situations like defragmentation).

Here are some tests on SSD endurance: Corsair Force and A whole load of tests at XS.
MWI = Media Wear Indicator, which indicates the expected lifetime of the drive, but the drives actually tend to continue well beyond that. You can see a modern drive such as the Crucial M4 outlasting the older drives, with expected life around 170TB, but lasting up to 500TB in one test and over 1PT in another! 170TB might not seem that much but on a 64GB drive, it's actually quite a lot.

A few tweaks here and there won't make much difference to the lifetime of your SSD. This seems to be the basis for the abundance of silly tweaks for SSDs in the name of saving a few writes here and there. Maybe using older drives, you had to be especially careful, but a modern drive handles things a bit better. In fact, I would be fairly certain that my temporary downloads to the desktop and internet cache greatly outweighs all the other writes.
As an example of how long you could expect an SSD to last, I checked my own 64GB C300 that I've had over 2 and a half years now, used in my main desktop and now in a HTPC, where it is still receiving wear as it hibernates most of the time. The condition of it is now 94%. That means that it's good for another 40 years. Most desktop technology gets replaced inside 10.

That said, you should still remain somewhat careful that you're not wasteful. Take for example a fairly extreme case where you are a using a laptop throughout your travels and you hibernate it 10 times a day and write 3GB each time. Remember that many laptops are set to hibernate if the lid is closed. That's 30GB a day and 10TB a year. Potentially you could have expended the rated lifetime of a small drive in 5 years. However, this is a fairly extreme case - Microsoft is probably much more careful in minimising writing to hard drive, not to just protect SSDs but to minimise hibernation times - so volume of data written to the drive is probably much lower. With a 64GB M4, it should still take 15 years to chew through.

While our usage increases with larger drives, writes such as hibernation become less significant as the wear is spread across a larger area. It's something to bear in mind but it shouldn't control how you work at your PC!

Synchronous vs Asynchronous
Some drives can look nearly identical in their specifications such as OCZ’s Vertex 3 vs Agility 3 or Corsair’s Force GT vs Force 3. The difference is that the former in both cases uses synchronous NAND while the latter use asynchronous. The Agility 3 and Force 3 drives slow down as a result and lose out performance when they fill up. More details from the articles at Hard|Ocp and Tweaktown.

Leaving free space/Changes in speed
Hard drives can get slower over time as your files become fragmented. Performance will also be lower with files stored towards the end of the drive (i.e., the centre of the disc). In SSDs, fragmentation shouldn’t play much of a role in degrading performance and all areas of the drive should be equally fast. However, in some cases such as the asynchronous drives above or the OCZ Agility 4, speed can drop as a drive fills up. It’s still a good idea to leave some reasonable free space on any SSD to avoid continuously re-writing to the same area.

Do not believe what you see as the quoted read/write speeds!!!
This has been a disaster trap for customers and third generation SSDs. Sandforce's compression technology lured many people into believing the quoted speeds of 550MB/s which were achievable only with compressible data. The seemingly slower Crucial drives proved victorious in terms of reliability, uncompressible data and further pushed the boundaries with firmware updates.
That's not to say these drives are bad – with the correct price it is absolutely a good buy, but don't be led by manufacturers claiming their products are the best.

Can I use my SATA 6Gbps drive in my SATA 3Gbps (SATA II) computer?
Yes, you can. The connections are backwards and forwards compatible. With a 3Gbps connection, you’ll be limited to around 3000Mbps = 375MBps (Conversion bits to bytes). With communication overheads, it would be a around 300MBps. Many SSDs reach 500MBps so you aren’t getting the full potential of the drive. However, you still gain the best benefit which is the low access time. I wouldn’t let the fact that you only have SATA II dissuade you from buying a faster drive; you can always carry it to a new system and there’s not much savings in going for SATA II drives instead.


Physical Size and Connections

SSD physical attributes

• SSDs use SATA connections.
• SSDs mostly come in the standard 2.5'' size. There's very few drives of the standard 3.5'' desktop HDD form factor.
• SSDs are compatible with the SATA connectors in desktops.
• SSDs are compatible with laptops using SATA connections.

Some laptops or ultrabooks use a slimmer version which is 7mm thick rather than the usual 9.5mm. These will generally already have had an SSD.

Other types of connections
Memoryc.com is a good place for some of the more unusual types.

• IDE – Yes you can get IDE/PATA connections for SSD but you would be upgrading a very old system and with the cost of the going for this niche product, you'd be far better revamping.
  
• PCI-Express – This allows a very fast interface for the SSD and will typically be available on extreme high end products. Could be troublesome to boot from and not worth the effort for the average user.
  
• Mini PCI-Express – Usually used for wireless cards in laptops. This is actually quite a handy way to add in an additional SSD if you want to keep your hard drive (and don't want to replace DVD drive, if you have one). You'll be paying a little more than the price for regular SSDs and performance seems a bit cut down in them.
  
• Mini SATA – Looks very similar to Mini PCI-Express. These have been showing up in high end motherboards and some laptops & netbooks. There's actually some reasonable looking drives available so this could be the future for miniature storage.
  
• Express Card – Card slot for SSDs in laptops. Some laptops just tie this in with the USB bus so it could be slow but it should offer good speeds if the card slot connects directly to the PCI-E bus.

RAM-drives - Alternative to SSDs
With the aid of programs, you can use your RAM as storage. Linux distributions have been using these for years to allow users to try out the OS without actually installing anything (also known as a “Live Distribution”) .The downside to this is that the data is wiped from the disc every time your computer is shut down and you don’t get the fast boot that you’d get from an SSD if you’re using it as an alternative. The upside is that RAM is much faster than SSDs and faster again than hard drives – although it’s likely that you wouldn’t notice the difference between RAM and SSDs in many situations. Some programs will get around the need to copy everything back to the RAM drive by doing it automatically when you boot up. RAM remains dearer than SSDs, so size will be comparatively smaller. It can have its uses though, such as a game server which would be on for long periods and which could benefit from fast loads times. Dataram’s RAMdisk is a popular option and their trial allows for a 4GB drive. If you have AMD branded RAM, you can avail of the slightly better 6GB trial. There’s nothing stopping you from running a RAM drive and using an SSD to gain the benefit of reduced writes and maximum speeds. Some reading here, here and here.
Here’s a list of RAM drive software on Wikipedia.


Which SSD should I choose?
The SSD market is likely to change but at present, the best drives are the Crucial M4, Samsung 830 or Samsung 840 Pro.

There's a good article on how Windows 7 uses SSDs here.

Serephucus

Excellent guide Mono. I particularly like that you defunked a lot of what that SSD guide on the OCZ forums was telling people to do (even when it was wrong).

In the useful software bit, I'd maybe also recommend Scanner. It's a very useful little app that shows your hard drive as a pie chart. You can click on any sub-section, and it gets shown as the total chart for further resolution. Maybe not as relevant with bigger SSDs now, but still useful if you're trying to see where all your space is going.

Monotype

Thanks, added.

I was thinking about write wear on SSDs yesterday and it struck me that hibernation is actually not great for SSDs. You're could be writing a couple of gigabytes and it could add up if you were doing it on a regular basis.

A quick few calculations show that it's not that much of an issue, but looking into the matter shows why some guides are overly paranoid about any tiny thing being written to the SSD in case of wear. Newer drives are more robust so I think that it makes many of the measures obsolete.

I'm expanding on the section about it anyway and adding a few more links for software. If anyone things of anything else, please let me know.

Some of the other guides need updating already! :-/

newmug

Hey folks. I recently upgraded from vista to W7, but the screen resolution is dire. I tried all the usual stuff, but none of it makes a difference. I googled it, and it seems to be a common prob, but nobody seems to have an answer. I've been forced to go to my local xtra vision to read my emails, such is the headache looking at my own screen gives me. Any ideas?

Monotype

Anything specific about what you mean by "dire"?

What I suggest you try is changing it to maximum resolution. Right-click on desktop -> Screen Resolution
Press the drop down button on Resolution and move the slider up to the top.
Hit apply and select keep changes in the window that pops up.


Next, if you're finding the text too small, just underneath the option you just changed, you'll see Make text and other items larger or smaller. Press on this.
Try medium size which is 125% and press apply.

You need to log off/shutdown for the changes to show up. If you find that the text is still too small/big, you can go back to enter in your own percentage greater than or less than 125%.

Skylinehead

Try downloading the latest drivers for whatever graphics card you have.

newmug

Monotype wrote: »

Anything specific about what you mean by "dire"?

What I suggest you try is changing it to maximum resolution. Right-click on desktop -> Screen Resolution
Press the drop down button on Resolution and move the slider up to the top.
Hit apply and select keep changes in the window that pops up.


Next, if you're finding the text too small, just underneath the option you just changed, you'll see Make text and other items larger or smaller. Press on this.
Try medium size which is 125% and press apply.

You need to log off/shutdown for the changes to show up. If you find that the text is still too small/big, you can go back to enter in your own percentage greater than or less than 125%.

Skylinehead wrote: »

Try downloading the latest drivers for whatever graphics card you have.

By dire I mean fuzzy and blurry to the point of giving you a headache! I tried both of your suggestions, no difference.

Monotype

Check that the cable is secured into both the screen and the PC.

Procrastastudy

Post a photo - preferably on a new thread.

ZeroThreat

Monotype wrote: »

SSD Guide



Page file
The page file allows your hard drive to act as additional virtual memory to complement your RAM. Since RAM has been much more affordable in recent years and many people carrying 4-8GB in their systems, virtual memory isn't as important as it used to be. Windows tends to set the page file to be equal in size to the RAM, so 8GB from a 64GB SSD is quite a large chunk.
I would not recommend that you move the page file to a hard drive as the page file will typically have small random reads, which SSDs are great at.
Arguments for disabling it completely are that it may cause more wear and tear on the SSD and the OS may use the SSD instead of RAM on occasion, which would be slower. There's also plenty of cases that people report no problems with completely disabling it.
Modern Windows OSs are designed to maximise RAM usage rather than relying on the page file and I wouldn't be overly concerned about SSD wear. I think it's safer to reduce the size in the case that any program specifically demands virtual memory or even as an overflow in the case of unexpected RAM demand.
Some tests show instability with disabling it completely. For a bit more info on the working of the page file, have a read of marco_polo's posts here, here and here.


You can change the size by Start menu -> Right click on computer -> Properties -> Advanced system settings (upper left) - > Advanced Tab -> Performance box, click on settings -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory Box, click on change.

A maximum size of 2GB should be plenty for a typical system with 4GB RAM or a gaming system with 8GB. If you do wish do disable it completely, reduce the size to a minimum before disabling it as sometimes the file will stay around anyway.

I have 16gb of ram in my current pc. The pagefile.sys is 16gb (recommended is given as 24gb).
Should I leave it as it is, reduce it , or increase it to the recommended?

Serephucus

Reduce it. 512MB should be fine.

Next time, please don't quote several paragraphs just to ask a one-line question.

RUCKING FETARD

Monotype wrote: »

SSD Guide

What about adding setting up a RAM Disk to reduce wear/speed things up even more?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/260918/how_to_supercharge_your_pc_with_a_ram_disk.html

http://www.ghacks.net/2010/06/10/use-a-ram-disk-to-reduce-writes-on-solid-state-drives/

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/how-do-i-use-a-ram-disk-to-help-speed-up-disk-intensive-applications/3430

Monotype

I'll add it to the post next time it gets revised. It's a good idea if you have specific needs for that kind of speed. In practical day to day use, it's not really that good because you'll need to copy the programs/files that you want onto there every time. The programs designed for this will factor this in and do it automatically which will results in copying all the files over at each startup but I'm quite happy with the fast boots of SSDs.

ED E

SSD up and running, speed of program installs on a new build rocks

Got ghost free with my 830, good backup option or how do you all backup your SSD?

cherryghost

Bumping for justice

Lu Tze

Monotype wrote: »

I'll add it to the post next time it gets revised. It's a good idea if you have specific needs for that kind of speed. In practical day to day use, it's not really that good because you'll need to copy the programs/files that you want onto there every time. The programs designed for this will factor this in and do it automatically which will results in copying all the files over at each startup but I'm quite happy with the fast boots of SSDs.

I have an AsRock motherboard that came with a RAM Disk App. I have a fairly low powered build but it certainly helped out with a 3D model (copied the file over) i had in sketchup that i wanted to make a recording of (a flyover, about 50 seconds using fraps). From the SSD (Crucial m4) the distant textures just werent loading up quick enough, though my CPU was a bottle neck as well (stuck on 100% as son as the flyover started).