|
Is it normal for CPUs to get hotter as they age? I've got a system with an Athlon XP-M 2600 on an Abit NF7-S board, cooled by a Scythe Kamakaze cooler. I used to run it overclocked to 2600 MHz and 1.70 volts, and my temperatures were usually about 15 to 20 F above room temperature (according to the onboard sensor). They started climbing up to as much as 40 F above room temperature about 6 months ago, though, so I've wound things back drastically; right now I'm at 1.35 volts and 1500 MHz, and back to 15-20 F above room temp. I can't afford to lose this system, or to buy a new one.  I've checked out the heatsink, and it's free of dust. The fans are running at roughly the same RPM they did when they were new. I've put new thermal goop on and reseated the heatsink, although the goop was fairly old (it was still a normal consistency, though). Could the temp sensor be hosed up? Did I gently caress something up when I overclocked it?
|
| # ¿ Sep 13, 2006 12:59 |
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 23, 2013 04:54 |
|
|
hyperborean posted:Where can I buy right-angle molex adaptors? The power plug on one of my hard drives is in the way of the motherboard if I put everything together. Local computer shops, CompUSA, and Google haven't yielded anything for me.  for "right angle molex" got me this:http://www.adpmods.com/case-modding...-p-1-c-172.html It's in Canada, but they ship to the US.
|
| # ¿ Sep 19, 2006 03:00 |
|
|
D1Sergo posted:I'm not quite sure if this is what the title means by a hardware question, but here goes. You're probably hosed. Normal water is sometimes OK if you can get everything unplugged and wait for it to thoroughly dry out, but the fact that soda has all sorts of acids and sugars in it means that your laptop is probably hosed. You might be able to detach the keyboard and see underneath, but fluid spills are the traditional Achilles' heel of laptops.
|
| # ¿ Sep 19, 2006 07:58 |
|
|
Boywhiz88 posted:I have an ASUS M2N32 mobo and am looking into a set of Z-5500s but am not sure if the optical inputs and outputs are compatible. So I've got a few questions: They're almost certainly compatible. Given that I see the DTS logo on the front of those speakers, there's pretty much no chance they aren't S/PDIF. Digital coax and digital optical carry the same bits, and contrary to what Monster Cable says, the bits aren't really affected by the medium.  The only reason to choose one over the other is what your equipment supports.The only thing to check is if the board supports Dolby Digital output; many can only do PCM S/PDIF, which means no 5.1 sound. (Does anybody who had one NOT miss the Nforce2 MCP-T and Dolby Digital Live?)
|
| # ¿ Sep 22, 2006 04:46 |
|
|
Not Female posted:Flipping through their product brochure leads me to think that it's a Terminal Control Processor, possibly for DSL. In any case, it's a modular board for telecom equipment. It's probably supposed to sit at a local exchange somewhere and turn analog into bits and vice versa, or do something to assist that process.
|
| # ¿ Sep 29, 2006 03:32 |
|
|
baptism of fiber posted:Can most USB thumbdrives transfer files between macs and PCs? Can using it for spyware removal infect the thumbdrive? Most thumbdrives are formatted with the FAT or FAT32 filesystems, which is as close to universal as you'll get in the computing world. Neither Macs nor modern PCs use it natively, but pretty much everything understands it. If you've got a system which understands the USB Mass Storage Device spec, then it will almost certainly be able to read a normal USB thumbdrive. Spyware doesn't really infect things like the viruses of yore; generally, to be infected with spyware you must run one specific executable or ActiveX control. As long as you're dealing with spyware rather than "real" viruses, then there's no worry about infecting media. Even then, pretty much every virus and worm in the wild today infects via the network, as opposed to spreading itself into executable files. However, because of the (small) possibility that there might indeed be a file-infecting virus in addition to spyware, I'd just use a flashdrive with a write-protect function. Considering that there's no premium for a write-protectable flash drive, though, I'd go for the cheap insurance. If you don't have a write-protect tab, though, don't sweat it.
|
| # ¿ Oct 13, 2006 02:35 |
|
|
Hotdog Farmer posted:What's the best bang for the buck around $150 or less, for a videocard that is best suited for a PC with a AMD Athalon 64 x2 dual core processor 3800+ 2.0ghz with 1gig of RAM? If you can stretch the budget just a bit farther, get a 9600GT, which is a fine bit of midrange equipment. If you can't, get an 8600GT - it's not that great a card, but on the other hand, it's a hundred bucks. It's far better than the 8400, at any rate. At any rate, though, a CPU upgrade is probably in order fairly soon. Source is fantastically scalable when it comes to graphics cards, but when you're using Garry's Mod to make massive physics-based monstrosities, all those calculations lean hard on the CPU and RAM. If you're not planning on upgrading the rest of the system anytime soon, in fact, you might want to stick with the 8600GT; anything more won't do too much in a lot of situations where you're CPU-bound anyway. PS: "Athlon," not "Athalon."
|
| # ¿ Mar 3, 2008 06:48 |
|
|
Jago posted:Those all seem pretty expensive. So, what's the most quiet card I can get that HAS a fan and not a jacked up price? I don't mind if it gets somewhat noisy under load, but for windows and web browsing it should be no louder than my mediocre hard drives. Any anecdotal experiences? First of all, the reference design for all those cards has a thermally controlled fan. It won't get terribly loud unless you're doing something that stresses the card. Also, keep in mind that the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 will fit any of the cards you listed (except the old 8800GTS G80, GTX, and Ultra, but why would you buy any of them?), and it's a completely passive heatpipe cooler available for thirty bucks or so that typically does a better job than stock cooling. You might want to use the "turbo module" low-speed fans to get a bit of airflow going on the voltage regulators, though. If you do decide to go this route, you might want to go with an EVGA. They've said that they're willing to honor warranty claims even if you've modified the cooler, as long as your modifications didn't cause the card to fail. If you're looking for a ready-made cooling setup, then MSI's 8800GT comes pretty well-recommended. It's got a heatpipe-based cooler that outperforms the stock 8800GT reference design, while staying quieter. It's a good price for an 8800GT, too.
|
| # ¿ Mar 11, 2008 08:05 |
|
|
zip flop posted:We just put four gigs of RAM into it and of course Windows only sees 3.25 Gigs. I'm aware of why it does this (PCI address range and all that mumbo jumbo) but from reading up on 4+ Gigs and XP 32 bit it seem(ed) there was a way to mess around with the PAE or DEP settings and get it to recognize all 4 gigs as long as you have a 64 bit processor/chipset installed. PAE is shown as enabled and supported because Windows uses it for data execution prevention. However, the address space is limited to 32 bits, to ensure compatibility with drivers. Unfortunately, your best bet for actually using all your RAM is to just move to a 64-bit OS. clinteractive posted:Does this exist?
|
| # ¿ Mar 11, 2008 20:40 |
|
|
Drox posted:[e/n]Today my computer caught on fire[/e/n] First of all, is the card within warranty? If it is, don't gently caress with it, just send it in. EVGA apparently has a habit of unloading higher-spec cards that they're not selling onto warranty returns, too - people have sent in a 7-series card and gotten the G80 8800GTS back, for instance. It's not something to count on, but if you can get them to fix your card or give you a better one, do it! If you're out of warranty, then you might want to experiment with case fans, zip ties, and duct tape. It looks terrible, and it's not smart to leave for long, but it can tide you over until you can get a new cooler or video card.
|
| # ¿ Apr 3, 2008 04:34 |
|
|
SplishSplash posted:Does anybody else think it's strange that single core CPUs for 939 are still in stock everywhere, but dual cores are completely gone? Incidentally, AM3 processors are slated to work in AM2 and AM2+ boards (although the reverse isn't true). Even if AM2+ is obsolete in six months, you'll be able to upgrade to AM3 processors. Of course, you'll still be stuck with AMD, but they're at least trying to offer a decent upgrade path.
|
| # ¿ Apr 13, 2008 09:26 |
|
|
Hob_Gadling posted:Those, 4G memory and 3 smaller disks with RAID 5 and you should be set. I'd recommend using Windows XP since driver support is best for it.
|
| # ¿ Apr 14, 2008 06:35 |
|
|
Paper Mache Soul posted:I'm sort of interested in getting another internal hard drive, but my motherboard only has four SATA connections (all used - 2 Optical Drives, 1 Hard Drive, 1 eSATA connection which I use for backups) and one IDE connection which I'd rather not have to use if I don't have to (the cables are a pain). What would I need to hook up another SATA drive, and would it be better to just plug in an IDE drive? Paper Mache Soul posted:I don't believe so, the cable that attaches to the motherboard only provides power to the fan as far as I know, so you'll have to get another fan if you want one.
|
| # ¿ Apr 18, 2008 21:13 |
|
|
Pulp Friction posted:So, I'd like to spend as little cash as possible, so what mobo and processor would get me the most bang for my buck?
|
| # ¿ Apr 23, 2008 00:19 |
|
|
Running a giant patch cable through the wall will work, but it's not the best way to do things. Pick up a pair of keystone jack panels, cat 5e or cat 6 keystone jacks, and mud rings. You'll be able to put a nice-looking wall panel (with detachable cable) in the wall, rather than drilling a hole and leaving things ugly. You also won't need a crimping tool. You will need a punchdown tool, but lots of jacks include a super-cheap one in the packaging. Failing that, you can use a small flatblade screwdriver to punch the wires down, too. Instead of buying from monoprice, paying for shipping, and cutting off connectors, you'd probably do better to see if any local hardware or electrical supply stores sell twisted pair to length. Or, if you know any networking types, you might be able to score a length of spare cable, and more importantly, some help with your project. Higher grades of wire won't do anything unless you've got the hardware on each end to support it. 100 meg ethernet requires Cat 5. Gigabit ethernet requires Cat 5e. 10 gig ethernet will probably work with Cat 6 (there's actually a shielded Cat 6a standard for long runs, but I think a hundred feet is within the limit for unshielded runs). Remember to keep the untwisted portion of the wire as short as possible.
|
| # ¿ Apr 23, 2008 11:23 |
|
|
Killbox posted:Oki, my main card is at 41°C, my CPU is at 45°C, my GPU is at 65°C and my MCP(dont know what that is) is at *80°C*..(idle mode) I have got a strong feeling that this is to high temperatures.., is it? The CPU and graphics temps aren't too bad. I'm not sure what you mean by your "main card." What board do you have, and what chipset? Nvidia calls the Nforce southbridge the "MCP," so if you've got an Nforce board, that's probably it. Some boards (like my P5N-E) shipped without any kind of heatsink on the MCP, and it can get really hot. I solved the problem with a cheap northbridge heatsink and a dab of thermal adhesive. If it does have a heatsink, you might want to try remounting it; it's possible that there was some problem in assembly and it's not making proper contact.
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2008 09:50 |
|
|
Killbox posted:Main card = motherboard(sry) For the MCP temps, try touching the southbridge heatsink. If it's not making good contact, the heatsink will only feel a bit warm (be careful - if it does have good contact, touching it for too long will probably burn you). If the heatsink isn't making good contact, then you'll probably need to remount it. Take the board out, squeeze the tip of each pin on the backside, and push it through. Once the pins are out, you should be able to get the heatsink out without too much trouble. Clean whatever thermal grease is on there off, reapply it, and remount it, making sure it sits firmly on the chip. If it is making good contact, there might be an issue with the heat pipe. If you can push some thermal grease in the area where it's supposed to make contact, do that. If you can't, unmount the heat sink, coat the heat pipe in thermal grease, and put it back together; hopefully that will help with temps. It might also be that you've got a defective heat pipe, in which case your best option would be to either RMA the board or hack together a fan to blow on the southbridge heatsink.
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2008 13:38 |
|
|
Fats posted:Anyone remember the safe operating temperatures for a Pentium 4? It's hot as hell today (currently 35°C in here -- don't live in third story non-air conditioned apartments) and the old beast is incredibly unhappy about it. It's idling at 52°C and locking up even at idle, I tried to get a load temp but Prime95 killed it immediately. I've got an OK fan setup, two 120mm pulling in the front and two more exhausting out the back -- I opened the case and temperatures went up, so I closed it again. Absolutely no dust inside. I remounted the heatsink with a new application of AS5, but no change there. Those temps are high, but not high enough that I'd expect to see serious problems. Thermal throttling doesn't start until things get much hotter - I believe it was 85 or 90 C for Prescotts, although it's been a while and I could be remembering incorrectly. I think the CPU shuts itself off completely (THERMTRIP) around 90 or 95 degrees. At any rate, it was well outside what you're seeing now. Also, if it were heat related, I doubt the problem would have been instantaneous - you'd see a rapid rise in temperatures over a minute or so, followed by thermal throttling and possibly a power cut if temperatures didn't drop. I'd be wondering about the power supply, myself. Flaky PSUs tend to get much worse as they get hot. If you're using a crappy generic model, that might be to blame. Also, even some well-regarded manufacturers built PSUs with bad electrolytic caps, so if you're using an old power supply, that could be the issue. If you've got a spare PSU, you might want to try swapping it in.
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2008 03:38 |
|
|
Chris Walken posted:So I just finished the assembly part of my first build and now I can't do anything with the computer. When I turn it on I can't see anything on the monitor. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H with the AMD 780G chipset, and I am using the onboard video. I tried both the VGA and DVI outputs and neither produces an image on the monitor. Everything is hooked up properly and all the fans and drives are spinning. I just can't see anything on the screen, so I can't even get into the BOIS to do the initial setup before installing Vista. I do not hear the system speaker beeping at all when I turn on the machine, and it is supposed to emit a single beep for a successful startup. I tried reversing the speaker plug on the motherboard header thinking I hooked it up the wrong way, and there was still no beep. Any ideas? Do you have all the power connectors plugged into the motherboard? Forgetting the extra 12 volt connector (four or eight pins) is a common trouble spot for first time builders. It'll usually cause the problems you're describing - it provides power to the processor, so you end up with a situation where all the lights are on but nobody's home.
|
| # ¿ Jun 4, 2008 05:48 |
|
|
Magnum1371 posted:welp sorry to respond to sarcasm in kind. But if people really get bent out of shape over harmless joke them I'm sincerely sorry from the bottom of my goony goon goon heart and I will play you a song on the worlds tiniest violin to soothe your battered emotions [/derail The power requirements for RAM are miniscule. If you're concerned about efficiency, pitch an 8800GTX out the window, switch to a dual core, and get a high-efficiency power supply. As for RAM voltage, it should theoretically be the same no matter how much RAM you've got. In practice, it's often not a bad idea to bump it if you've fully populated the board; with fewer sticks, you can get away with lower voltage. Finally, yes, you can make use out of 8 gigs of RAM. Vista caches aggressively - the more RAM you've got, the less likely you are to have to hit the hard drive. The performance gain isn't dramatic, but it often does result in a subjectively "snappier" system. With RAM prices where they are, it's not too crazy to move to 8 gigs.
|
| # ¿ Aug 31, 2008 01:47 |
|
|
JustinZ posted:So i got offered a Asus P5Q Pro m/b and an Intel E8500 for $320 shipped It's not a great deal - check prices on Newegg before you jump on a "deal." You're looking at just over $300 before shipping, plus there's a $15 rebate on the motherboard. The new Intel chips are already out. They're called Core i7 (or Nehalem, which was the development codename), are extremely fast, and are fairly expensive. The entry-level Core i7 920 starts out at about the same price as a mid-tier Core 2 Quad, the new motherboards are all $300 or so, and they require expensive DDR3 RAM. If you're doing heavy number crunching in a time-is-money environment, it might be worth the expense right now; even the entry-level i7 performs on par with the top-end $1500 Core 2 quad-cores in heavily multithreaded applications. A single top-end i7 can run with dual-quad workstations in certain tasks. On the other hand, if you're doing stuff that's not mostly multithreaded (games, web browsing, office stuff), a fast dual-core like the E8500 is still your best bet. When you're only using one or two cores, there's no need to spend a lot of extra money for a processor that really shines at using four. It'll take at least six months for Nehalem-based processors to trickle down into the mainstream market, and even then, it looks like most of the benefits of the new architecture come from its multithreaded performance. Ultimately, if you've been planning for an upgrade, now's a pretty good time. You can throw together a nice office/web/media system for under $500, and $700 or so will get you a gaming system capable of running pretty much anything under the sun at 1680x1050 and nice settings. LGA 775 is going to go away when mainstream Nehalems come into the picture, but a good Core 2 CPU should last you quite a while regardless. You can always get more performance for less if you wait a while, but if you've got the money to spend, I'd say that you should go for it.
|
| # ¿ Nov 26, 2008 06:22 |
|
|
tripwire posted:I had 2 sticks of mushkin 1gb ddr2 8500 dual channel ram, but one stick spontaneously stopped working and prevented the computer from even posting. I was thinking it wasn't a big deal because I still had the lifetime warranty and the original case, but because of a mixup with the website where I bought it, it wasn't on the invoice with the rest of the stuff I ordered from them at that time.. it was probably on another invoice which is now lost forever to me. So since I'm poo poo out luck on getting proof of purchase I was wondering what makes the most sense to do right now. As far as your errors are concerned: I'd try running a Prime95 torture test, but I'd suspect it's got something to do with your graphics card or drivers. It might also be a power problem if you've got a seriously underpowered PSU. Running Memtest overnight without problems isn't an ironclad guarantee that the RAM is fine (I've seen stranger things happen), but given the issues, I'd suspect it's not a memory problem. You can try poking around with Microsoft's crash analysis tools on the dump files that are generated when the system bluescreens; hopefully there'll be a pattern. You might also want to play around with Driver Verifier, too (preinstalled on Windows; run "verifier.exe"), because IRQL errors can be deceptive bitches to track down. Space Gopher fucked around with this message at Nov 26, 2008 around 11:25 |
| # ¿ Nov 26, 2008 11:16 |
|
|
Mongolian Squid posted:What's the fastest way to find out what my power supply is without opening up the case? ColonParade posted:I'm trying to buy a basic laptop as a Christmas gift this year for a basic computer user. The problem is I'm short on cash and the best deal I have found so far is a Compaq running vista premium for $399. The problem is the processor is an AMD Athlon X2 dual core with a speed of 1.9ghz. Would this speed be completely inefficient for the basic computer user (used only for Word and internet browsing)? Space Gopher fucked around with this message at Dec 1, 2008 around 23:15 |
| # ¿ Dec 1, 2008 22:59 |
|
|
Euphoriaphone posted:For SLI/Crossfire: Do the video cards have to be the same series (like 2 9800 GTXs), pr can you use 1 280 GTX and supplement it with a 9800 GT? For Crossfire, you can mix and match a bit (4870+4850, for example), but the series of the cards has to match. ATI has a big compatibility chart. You can use different amounts of memory on each card, but it'll behave as if you have the lowest amount of memory - for instance, a 1GB card and a 512MB card will act like two 512MB cards. quote:For RAM: If a motherboard it only listed as 800MHz, 1066MHz, and 1333MHz DDR3 RAM, you could put in 1600MHz RAM but it would only run at 1333MHz, right? DDR3-1600 isn't useful for i7, anyway, unless you're planning on pretty heavy overclocking. The 920 and 940 use DDR3-1066 speeds out of the box (and won't run the RAM faster than the "FSB," either). DDR3-1333 will let you bump the base clock 25% before RAM starts to be an issue. * If you're not planning on i7, don't bother with DDR3.
|
| # ¿ Dec 11, 2008 12:28 |
|
|
diggingtrash posted:I want to upgrade my pentium 4 computer by upgrading the cpu to an E8400 with plans to overclock it in the future when I have time for gaming. Would anyone be so kind to point to the necessary Motherboard, RAM, Video Card, and cooling peripherals for them to me? I have a general knowledge about computers but not much about current hardware that'll get me the best bang for the buck. My budget is 400. Thank you in advance. Check out the parts picking thread. The OP has a decent overview of what's good right now; read through that, then post any questions or a potential system for critiques. You might also find the Tech Report system guide useful.
|
| # ¿ Dec 15, 2008 02:29 |
|
|
Aturaten posted:Alright, I've had my stupid friend put ideas in my head I haven't been able to verify as true. I am looking to upgrade/replace the DDR400 512mb stick that is currently in my computer with 1-2GB. Normally this would just involve me buying a new DIMM but I was told OEM/HP computers only accept certain brands of RAM. Fact or fiction?
|
| # ¿ Dec 28, 2008 07:17 |
|
|
IntoTheNihil posted:Thanks for pointing that out about the PSUs, I didn't realize how gimped they are. If you're willing to spend a ton of money for a top-notch prebuilt system, you might want to look at Puget Systems. From what I've seen of their stuff, build quality and service are top-notch, although you'll pay a lot of money for it.
|
| # ¿ Mar 24, 2009 02:55 |
|
|
FalloutGod posted:I'm stumped and stressed out so I turn to you much smarter people than I. Shut down the computer one night, next morning I try and turn it on and nothing. I switch outlets still nothing. I notice that the little ethernet light isn't on anymore nor is a light that is usually on the motherboard. I take a guess and order a new Power Supply because I've had an old thermaltake one for a while. I get the new PSU today and install it. The computer turns on now but the motherboard doesn't post. Could a power surge have killed the motherboard and my old PSU? It seems unlikely but I don't know at this point is. I've already thrown 100 bucks a decently new computer and I really don't want to throw anymore at it unless I know its going to fix it. Thanks for any help folks. Did you remember to plug in all the power connectors? If you miss the CPU power connector, your system will spin its fans and drives but won't POST. If you miss a video card power connector (assuming you have one) you'll likely get an error and of course won't have any video. They're easy enough to forget when you don't do this sort of thing on a daily basis. If you double-check, everything's there, and it still doesn't work, you might have some luck resetting the BIOS. Beyond that, if you've got another known good power supply (say, a working system has one you can pull), you might want to check that - even good manufacturers deliver the rare DOA unit.
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2009 04:00 |
|
|
Sir Nigel posted:Yeah, monoprice is the best site for cables and stuff of any kind. You need a 9ft HDMI cable? Bestbuy/Monster Cables wants eleven thousand dollars for it and your first born child. Monoprice will get you one for $15. Monoprice is great for premade cables, but for bulk wire, a local shop might be better. Thousand-foot boxes are fairly heavy and bulky, and shipping can get steep. A local electrical supply place will probably cost a few dollars more for the box, but you won't have to worry about shipping charges. As for the wire itself, if you're making cables, don't go with the less-expensive solid core stuff (the $50/box option). Solid core is fine to go in walls, but it'll break easily with handling. Stranded wire won't break internally if you bend it back and forth a bunch. It costs $15-25/box more, but it's worth it to have patch cables that are much less likely to develop mysterious problems.
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2009 03:05 |
|
|
Straker posted:it should run (in many/most circumstances, at least), I never said it will run well.
|
| # ¿ May 12, 2009 09:39 |
|
|
Sir Nigel posted:I don't think ATI's cards can be used to help encode video/audio. They can do hardware decoding (like playing back a BluRay disk) but not encoding. Only nVidia's cards have CUDA which allows CUDA compatible programs to use the video card's impressive oomph to speed up encoding video/audio and stuff of that nature. Unlike Badaboom (the CUDA option), it's even free, although the ATI encoder is apparently worth even less than what you pay for it. ATI has an interface very similar to CUDA, called Stream. Neither one is likely to become a major factor in the market, though, because they both tie developers to one set of hardware. From what I understand, most big players are waiting for the release of the final OpenCL and DX11 Compute Shader standards. Until there's a standard that works across AMD's, Nvidia's, and upcoming products, GPU acceleration will be limited to custom apps and glorified tech demos.
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2009 18:29 |
|
|
Callsign posted:I'm going to help a friend build a computer and there is a possibility of going sli with a couple of 9400 gt's. I've never done anything with sli, and although I've got a pretty good idea of what to do I was wondering if there was anything obscure or not immediately apparent that is necessary to make this happen i.e. specific power requirements, etc. First of all, I hope to God you're not buying two 9400GTs and an SLI-capable motherboard. With that money, you could buy a 4850 and a better Intel/AMD chipset motherboard (the only thing Nvidia chipsets have going for them is SLI). There is absolutely no reason to put low-end video cards like that into SLI/Crossfire unless you've already got the necessary hardware sitting around and are bored. You might get a performance boost of 50% over a single card on a good day with a following wind, which would put you at maybe a third of the performance of a decent video card. If you're seriously considering buying hardware to build a system with two 9400GTs, please, please, please visit the parts picking thread, read the OP, and post what you've got. You might get a little poo poo, but you'll end up spending less to get a much faster computer. "9400GTs in SLI" should only be delivered as a punchline. If you are just loving around with hardware you've got, you don't need anything besides an SLI-compatible motherboard and the SLI bridge. Power would be a concern with beefier video cards, but 9400GTs don't take much. If you have an aux power connector on the motherboard (usually a Molex connector wedged down by the expansion slots to provide power to PCIe cards), you might want to plug that in. Otherwise, you're fine.
|
| # ¿ May 24, 2009 05:40 |
|
|
RustyTrombone posted:How do I run my motherboard's (Gigabyte EP45-UD3L) on board video without removing my 8800? I want to do some trouble shooting without fighting through wires I never organized. The GA-EP45-UD3L doesn't have onboard video.
|
| # ¿ May 25, 2009 17:39 |
|
|
Spatial posted:Where did the word 'drive' in the term "disc drive" originate?
|
| # ¿ May 25, 2009 22:30 |
|
|
ibroxmassive posted:Before, I could get 1920x1200 out of the Nvidia 6600GT that came with the computer. Now, it limits itself to 1600x1200, and pops up this delightful message on startup. Have you hooked up the supplementary power connector on the motherboard? The P5N32-SLI should have a Molex connector down by one of the x1 slots to help ensure that PCIe cards get sufficient power.
|
| # ¿ May 26, 2009 17:15 |
|
|
ibroxmassive posted:
Looks like you've got the P5N32-SLI Premium WiFi, which doesn't have the same layout as the plain old P5N32-SLI. The SE_PWR thing is a standby power light, I think. You might want to try moving the video card between slots, although that's kind of a long shot. If you just want a desktop, you might be able to get away with turning off Aero to get 1920x1200. If that's unacceptable, though, it looks like you're probably going to need to buy a new video card. The only other option I can think of, if you're good with a soldering iron, would be to buy something like this, hack it apart, and solder it to the power connector pads. The 6600GT reference design did have a supplementary connector, but not all manufacturers put one on. It's probably still possible to attach one to your card.
|
| # ¿ May 26, 2009 19:53 |
|
|
ibroxmassive posted:I can confirm that SE Power is the standby LED :facepalm:. If you're interested in gaming on a budget, the 4850 is probably the best deal out there right now. The cheapest 4850s out there will run you about a hundred bucks after promos and such. The 4770 is also a great card, but they're a bit hard to find in stock sometimes and don't carry as many incentives. With a 1920x1200 monitor, you might also want to look at the 4870, but it sounds like you're on a pretty strict budget. The 4870 offers pretty good performance for money (at least, by computer hardware standards), but the 512 meg models are north of $150, and the 1 gig models (which you'd probably want for maximum pretty-settings at 1920x1200) sit around the $200 mark. If your performance standard is just "as fast as the 6600GT," or, "I just want an Aero desktop," you can get away with substantially less. An Nvidia 9500GT or ATI 4650 can be had for $50 or so, and while they're glacially slow compared to even a ~$100 card like the 4850/4770, they're still faster than your 6600GT, and have extra tricks like HD decoding to boot. If you're not gaming, there's no need to go for the more expensive gaming-oriented video card. Either way, pretty much any video card these days can output to at least two monitors. Finding one video card with suitable outputs will be easier than trying to hack a card that's already having problems into your setup.
|
| # ¿ May 26, 2009 23:40 |
|
|
samoth posted:I have an Abit IP35-Pro and every time the CPU temp goes above 80C it starts beeping at me. How do i make it stop beeping. If it's overheating, fix that. 80 C is way too hot for a modern desktop processor, and running it at those temps long-term will cause damage. Make sure your heatsink is mounted correctly, make sure your case ventilation is working, and if you're overclocking, bring things back to stock. There's a reason for that alarm. If you've just got a bad motherboard-mounted CPU temp sensor (Core Temp or similar gives you readings much closer to normal), you should be able to turn off the alarm or temp monitoring in BIOS setup. Don't use that as a bandaid for an overheating system, though; that's a good way to end up with a fried processor in the near future.
|
| # ¿ May 27, 2009 00:19 |
|
|
drat NIGGA posted:My computer had been turning off randomly for the last week or two. I cleaned it today, thinking it was heating due to heat. 20 minutes after using it after cleaning it, it turned off, and won't turn back on. Everything was connected, no moisture, no static. What kind of power supply do you have (brand and wattage), and what are your system specs? I'd suspect that before the RAM. If it is the power supply, taking out the RAM might still allow it to boot partway. With no RAM at all, it's probably hanging on an error before it even gives the processor much power. The fans might spin up, and the lights might turn on, but that doesn't mean the computer is actually running yet.
|
| # ¿ May 29, 2009 04:43 |
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 23, 2013 04:54 |
|
|
VERTiG0 posted:I have a 256MB 8800GT (yeah, yeah). If you're just displaying a desktop, it's fine. Even with fancy accelerated effects, that doesn't take much memory. If you're gaming or doing 3D-intensive work that involves texture mapping, it's probably time for a new video card. The resolution you're looking at is very close to 1920x1200 in pixel count, and that's where, if you're building a system these days, a 1 gig card is worth considering. You can keep going with what you've got and see if it works for you, but you'll probably need to turn down texture quality settings and possibly effects to avoid framerates dropping to single digits when the card needs more than 256 megs of RAM.
|
| # ¿ Jun 4, 2009 01:59 |
|
