HotHardware Holiday Sweepstakes Winners!
And now, without further delay, the winners of our Holiday Sweepstakes are:
- First Prize - Peti1212 - California, US
- Second Prize - Tanka12345, New Zealand
- Third Prize - X.clay, Texas, US
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First Prize:
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Second Prize
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To the lucky winners, please shoot us your full contact information via e-mail and we'll get the shipment process rolling. Congrats, and thanks again!
Comments
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Congratulations, guys, good work! Edit: Nice! There's an edit button now! Oh, and please have more creativity-based contests in the future. This was fun! (That and I want a chance to try harder :P) |
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Thanks! HH hosted a great contest and I really enjoyed participating. Congrats to the other winnners |
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congrats to all! |
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Congrats to all! That's a fine rig there Peti. Less rendering time now eh? Those GPUs are no slouches either. |
Wouldn't that PC be weaker at rendering than his current computer as the CPU isn't as powerful as a Q6600?
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bob_on_the_cob:
why yes yes it would.
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congrats to the winners...enjoy the new swag. :) |
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im curious, when you chose the winners, did you choose one particular entry? or was it an overall effort? if its one specific entry, can you tell us which one? |
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Thanks HH and AMD! Although I didn't win the PC, a Graphics card is still awesome, even though I can't use it. Congratz X.Clay and Peti - enjoy your prizes! I second Ice's question. Peti, feel free to trade prizes! |
A 4830 would do wonders for rendering.|
btw, forgot to mention this in my earlier post. congradulations peti, tanka, and clay! peti enjoy your new cutting edge blu ray drive :-) |
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Congrats to the winners!! |
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I'm sure Petes rig owns the AMD PC anyday (especially in rendering): CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz @ 3.21Ghz/AMD Phenom X4 9350e 2.0GHz I can only dream... Peti, the offers still open.
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OMG, I wasn't expecting this... I am shocked. Thank you soooooooo much HH and ATI/AMD. This computer will be amazing for a small render farm. I am thinking of setting it up as a HTPC and as a networked render farm for my 3D. Thank you very much.
Hey Tank. I am really sorry that you did not win the first prize. I was aiming for the first prize as well since I've wanted to set up a render farm for a while now. Unfortunatelly rendering times do not depend on the video card. While powerful video cards are good for modeling, it will not have any advantage in 3D renderings. The processor is the big thing that plays a big roll in 3D. Thanks once more, and big thanks goes to Dave and Marco and all the rest of the people that judged. This contest was really fun. Enjoyed every minute of it. |
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That's OK Pete, maybe I'll win next time |
A graphics card is a good start for me, now I just need everything else which makes a computer. 
Have fun rendering, and be sure to show us pics of the rig, and creations you produce with it's AMD Goodness.|
Hey Tank, Thanks for being understandable. BTW, you got a very good video card. If it is not as fast as mine, it is equal to my video card performance. Good job once, I enjoyed competeing with you and loved your entries as well. X.clay had a very good entry too. Congrats. |
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I am really happy for the three of you lucky winners! I have enjoyed very much reading your posts and I want to congratulate you all for your effort. Thanks, to, for helping to make this a really great forum! |
Yep welcome to the winners club. Regulars here have a hard time avoiding it.
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Thanks guys for the kind words! :) |
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I wonder when Dave and Marco can attract more sponsors bearing great prizes. |
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Pete, We've got all the hardware in now for your build. Sorry it is taking a bit but we're going to work it up ASAP and ship!
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Or should I say, Marco is... |
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Thanks for the updage Dave. I'll keep waiting... I bet it will look awesome. |
We have seen...lol |
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Just got a word back that the computer is assembled and ready to be shipped on Sunday, so hopefully it is already on its way. I am so excited. :D |
Congrats! |
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Congratz! Make sure to post some pics after you get it. :) |
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Hey till I get back if you have any give aways put me in for the drawing Ha! HA! |
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Any news yet Pete? |
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Nope, nothing yet. It's friday so I have to wait another week I suppose. :( |
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Alright, I have recieved the Computer today! yay! I am really happy, however there are some complications. The whole front of the PC's case was broken. It was flapping all over the place. The CD Drive cover is broken too, so now there is just a huge hole. I had to clean out the inside of the PC because there were cluttered pieces of plastic all over the place because of the case being broken. Now to the other bad part. I plug everything in, all the cables, and turn on the PC, and nothing happens. The fans are spinning, the CPU fan seems to be off, it spins for a second and then turns off then spins again and turns off. I suppose this is the thermal setting in the BIOS that controlls the fan speed. The Heatsink seems to be hot though so I am a bit confused. Next up, here are my tests. I plugged in my DVI connector to both DVI connectors on the video card with no luck. No Signal message pops up on my monitor. I decided to take out the video card and try using the onboard video card, but once again nothing shows up, NO SIGNAL. I tried both DVI and VGA connectors but nothing seems to work. I reset the BIOS and still nothing. I am still getting NO SIGNAL and no respons from the computer. I also tried removing all ram, and having them in separately with no luck. :( Please help, I was very excited to finally lay my hands on this computer and now I am having these problems. |
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Holy Crap. Was the box smashed? We may have to file a complaint with UPS. |
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The shipping box itself looked just fine, but the inside was smashed. The stirapham that was holding the case was smashed and broken apart. This shows that the box wasn't handaled with care. Well, it seems that the front CD cover was broken since parts were broken off of it not allowing me to put it back on, and also the front panel of the case where the latches are holing it to the steel, the plastic latches are broken, therefore I had to use some electric tape to fix it. It seems after doing some tests that the Power Supply might be the one that failed. I tested it with the Power Supply tester and the -5V is not turning on. I tested the power supply tester on my sisters power supply and everything lit up, so I assume the power supply might have gotten damaged or fried during shipping. I don't know how to test it out with another power supply at the moment, but what do you guys think? |
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That sounds bad. If the PC isn't working, isn't there nothing much you could do, apart from replacing the PSU? If UPS are like that in the US, I wonder what they'd have been like to NZ I hope Marco and Dave can help you sort it out! It's really a shame to have a new rig broken up like that. If you want, can you post pics? So we can see the full extent of UPS mishandling. Also it would be good to take some incase UPS need/require some to file a complaint. Try to take lots of them as you may need them. Tank
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After you waited so long 
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oh man, I really sorry to hear that UPS messed up the PC. Have you checked all the power cables to make sure nothing got jarred loose in transit? You might want to make sure the heatsink didn't get jarred loose as well. I really hope you can get everything sorted out. |
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Everything seems to be just fine. Now I am just not sure weather it is the motherboard that fried or it is the PSU that is bad. I'll take some pictures later on today. I have to go film for my future movie right now, but I'll be back later on today. |
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We'll get this worked out one way or another. If there's any way you can get access to a second PSU just to try, that way we can nail down the exact problem and figure out exactly what parts need to be replaced. If you want, you can send the whole kit back to me and I'll get it taken care of. |
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I'll try to figure things out and see what might be bad, and I'll get back to you as soon as I figure it out. If I cannot figure it out, I'll send it back to you and I'll let you check it out. Unless you don't want me to check it and just want me to send it back... Edit: Ok, I just changed the power supply and still no signal from the video card. Neither the video card or the onboard video card give out any signas. This could only mean that the motherboard is fried or dead. Any ideas? I am kind of affraid to plug in the power supply from this PC into my sistes one since what if the Power Supply fried the motherboard? Edit 2: Ok, I put the new power supply into my sisters computer and it worked like a charm. No problem with it at all. So then I don't know why my power supply tester shows no -5V? Any ideas? Also, I took the video card and put it in my sisters computer and it works just fine. I also changed the memories in my sisters computer and it works fine as well. This brings it down to the Motherboard or the Processor. I have no way of testing either of them because I don't have another AMD motherboard or CPU to test it out with. What should I do? I haven't tested the hard drive or the Blu-Ray drive yet since I have no clue how I would take them out. I need to look into that since that little case is kind of hell to work with, but of course it is nice because it is quite small compared to my Full Tower case. Edit 3: Figured out how to take appart the Cage system in the case. It's actually not that difficult. I am going to run a test on the hard drive and the Blu-Ray drive to see if they work on my other PC. Edit 4: I have just installed the hard drive and the Blu-Ray drive into my computer and it works without a problem. So now I am sure that either the motherboard or the CPU has to be the problem. Marco, when you tried out the system, did you get any beeps? I am not getting anything at the moment, so I am not sure if it's because the motherboard might be fried and won't go through the testing process at booting or the CPU might be damaged. What do you guys think? |
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Man. I checked this post and saw some activity and I was soo excited
thinking you had got it. I am very sorry you are having issues. From
someone that has won a PC from here and a build by Marco I can say that
it is not him. Wish I had a AMD cpu to help you out. |
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Yeah, now I am just trying to figure out what Marco will want me to do. Send the parts back that might be wrong. Keep them and get a refund by UPS or send the whole PC back to him? I am just affraid that If I send it back to him, UPS might throw the package around again and more things would get damaged. Then sending it back again to me, there is even more possibility of damage. I'll wait thill he replies to know for sure what I should do. |
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Power supply testers are usually crap and dont help you out. The best test is a multimeter with the PSU by iteself and see what the readings are with no load, then start putting fans and cd drives and stuff that is old that likly aint going to be to bad if it dies, if it handles that and you dont see weird drops in voltage when you plug in more devices, then it usually is safe to test with more load like a test system. If your package was as messed up as you described, then you should be able to file a complaint with UPS and im sure that package was insured and that should cover the costs to get things replaced and working again. Personally i would use Fed Ex as they never mishandle any packages i have ever recived, however, UPS packages i get looks like they tried to play soccer with it. |
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I actually tested it with a volt meter and it seems alright. It's not the power supply, it's either the motherboard of processor. Marco, what do you want me to do? |
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Just box everything up and send everything beck to me. I'll coordinate with the folks at AMD to get replacements parts. |
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Humm bummer with the shipping snafu.... But it will get sorted. |
Alright, if that's what you wish. Do you think I could possibly keep the hard drive at least for now because I am trying to recover the files off of my RAID0 system and I need to put it on something it will fit on? |
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Alright, took it out of the freezer and now I am cloning the hard drives to one single 640GB hard drive luckyly that I got from the new PC. At least something comes usefull. It has been running for about an hour now without any clicks and it's at 42%. Hopefully nothing will go bad in the next 2 hours. Cloning takes a long time. Edit: Opps, sorry replied to the wrong thread. Oh well, same thing. |
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OMG, what the heck did my dad do? My dad comes into my room and decides to touch my working hard drive and a huge static shock travels through him. Then all of a sudden the hard drive fails and restarts. I am so pissed right now. He should know not to touch something before touching a metal part because he is an electronic engeneer. what am I going to do now? :( Oh, sorry about tripple posting. I am trying to copy the hard drive again with excessive amount of fans blowing at it. My room is like a turbine engine at the moment. Hopefully that will help. |
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Peti, if you didn't have bad luck you would have no luck at all! |
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Ok, I finally was able to retreave all files from my RAID0 configuration, however now I am having another problem. So previously I had two 500GB hard drives Striped, which means that only 500GBs of space will be available in Windows. I had 3 partitions. One of them had i believe 200GBs free, the other 200GBs and the third 100GBs. However the amount was smaller after format. So I would have assumed that after cloning the hard drives to the new 640GB hard drive, there would be extra space left. On the 500GB hard drives I still had around 40GBs left on the first 200GB partition, about 80GBs of free space on the second and around 50GBs on the third. Now once the files were cloned to the 640GB hard drive now all of a sudden it shows up as if all partitions were completely full with only 12kbs of space. How crazy is that? Is there a way to fix this? I used Acronis True Image Home to do the cloning. |
Actually two 500GB hard drives striped in RAID 0 = 1000GBs of space, peti. You were very fortunate to squeeze it all onto that 640GB drive! |
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Oh, I didn't know that. I though it was recognized 500GB since that's what windows showed. |
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