VAIO 'Master'

[Woody]

Well my search for spare VGX XL's on eBay has not come up with much lately, they are either 'Talas' based, which I don't want or they are overpriced XL300's.

However, I have purchased something very rare.. ..a VGC-RM1N, the VAIO 'R' Master (see www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/RM6/).
This is a behemoth of a VAIO based around a Core 2 Quad Q6600. I got it cheap as the PSU had gone (a very easy fix).

Really pleased with it, and it will be my gaming machine for a while (plenty of room for a monster GPU and can go up to 8 Gb RAM).

The only draw-back is it is based on the failed BTX architecture, so when the mobo finally fails I will have to modify the case extensively, but everything else about it is completely standard (rare for Sony ).. ..very, very upgradable and room for 6HDD's in the main case (4 of which are essentially tool-less swaps).

Well pleased!  

[Oliver]

I saw that on eBay, fancied it myself.

I thought the power supply might be custom and hard/expensive to find or that it might not only be the power supply that blew. The guy selling seemed to speculate that it was a power supply issue without any guarantees.
It looks like a very powerful machine, I hope you get it working and I'll be very interested to hear any feedback

[Woody]

Hi Oliver,

Yes it is now fully working, indeed it is what I am typing this reply on.. ..all the Windows Experience values for it are at 5.9 (it currently has Windows Vista on it and 5.9 was the highest rating).

They guy who sold it was really good, excellent communication, as soon as he gave me a few more details about what had happened I knew it was the PSU. Amazingly, the only OEM spare I could find on eBay for it (apart from memory modules) was a PSU!! However, the PSU is a standard 450W version, so I could have used any with a few harness plug adaptors.

Really pleased, very fast, very expandable.

[Oliver]

Excellent Woody, I glad it was a simple repair.

I am a little jealous, my 11yo son wants a machine to do youtube videos on, he likes recording his game play on XBox1 and this looked ideal. We have just bought him the Elgato HD60 (the game captor all his favorite youtubers use)

He already has a Lenovo h505s that I bought him second hand on Amazon but it didn't work and had a non-original power supply with it, I suspected the power supply had blown up at some point and blew the PC with it. It was sold as working, so I contacted the seller who refunded me and said I could keep the PC, next I visited the lenovo website and I discovered after typing in the serial number that it was under guarantee, I sent it off for repair and when it returned the Lenovo engineer had bent the casing trying to force it shut, it was a right mess. Anyhow long story short, I ended up with a brand new h505s for free, but about 2 months after my son's birthday.

<<EDIT>> It seems his Elagto needs a (i5-2xxx or comparable) cpu, no wonder his h505s couldn't do it. <</EDIT>>

The Lenovo is horrible, worst PC I've ever used, its Win8.1 which doesn't help and has been nothing but trouble.

Maybe someone here could help me?
The Lenovo was working ok, until I broke my son's monitor moving house. I bought a cheap secondhand 1080p widescreen Hanns monitor on ebay and the computer has never been the same since. YouTube and other online video's are very jerky, so bad he cant watch them, we have tried the 3 main broswers, reseting the Lenonvo back to factory settings, updating all the drivers and playing with the settings and plugins on Google Chrome but nothing works. My son says minecraft and other things dont work well either. The Lenovo play 1080p videos fine as long as they are not streamed. BTW he has wired connection and we are on fast fibre optic. The Lenovo streamed video fine before I replaced the monitor!? I don't know if the PC could be damaged or if it just doesn't like the new monitor. I don't have another monitor to try either. Otherwise the monitor appears to work fine.
If anyone has any ideas or has had any similar problems please let me know, I'd appreciate any help at this point

[Woody]

Hi Oliver, sorry I beat you to this, but I really wanted a decent computer for gaming, the 'RC204' I also have is for my eldest to do her homework etc. on. The 'VGX-XL' remains under the TV strictly for media. I was actually never intending to get an 'RM' (I always keep an eye out on eBay for a cheap XL, for spares), but it was too good an opportunity to miss.. ..I have only ever seen one other 'RM' for sale on eBay and they wanted a ridiculous price for it.

As for your monitor issues, I am at a bit of a loss to be honest.. ..maybe refresh rate issues?
It does sound as if there is something strange going on.

As a suggestion, could you plug the Lenovo into your TV via HDMI and see if all is well.. ..at least then you will know if it is something specifically related to the monitor.

[Oliver]

I'm glad it went to a good home mate, I'm looking out for a PC with i5 CPU now. On eBay they seem to be around 160-170 quid cheapest, I might get it for his next birthday 12th, in April