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[BotoxAgent]

For comfy couch gaming?


Then the distance seems to be the deciding factor for a lag free signal. So if you're sitting a few meters away from your pc, there's always a chance that interference could occur. Even at a short distance, some mice seem to act up. I'm still deciding whether I am going the wireless route. Made a list a while ago of a few mice that seem to be okay to good for a reasonable price.

You could always connect the wireless receiver to a usb extension cord to gap the distance between your devices and your receiver.


But in the end, I wouldn't dare to make a recommendation.

I guess I should back up a bit and ask what your application is.... are you sitting at a desk w/ a tower or is this for a couch setting?

yeah, I'm on a couch setting...sitting about 6 ft away from the tv.

On the bright side, the game I play the most right now supports the 360 controller. But I a really need a better mouse and keyboard.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

Some thermal grease with a drop or two of super glue (mix them) is what I used.

Thanks, I don't have any super glue in the house though. I think i'm going to go for some Arctic Silver thermal epoxy, or those new sinks.

 

[Feorax]

Ok, heres one for you GAF.

Bought a phenom x4 955. just put it into my Gigabyte AM2+ Mobo, and despite being 3.2ghz "black edition", It defauts to 1.76 Ghz, and noting in the bios seems to be able to change it.

It should be noted my power settings are at "high performance" in windows, so its not that.

Any ideas?

 

[Revolutionary]

Not sure where else to post this, since I don't think it's threadworthy, but fuck it:
I recently purchased an SSD for a boot/main drive. 2 weeks later and Steam is informing me that my disk drive's files have a high level of fragmentation, and that I should defrag them. I was told not to defragment SSD's. Is this just Steam not recognizing an SSD and suggesting the usual course of action for standard disk drives, or does it know what it's talking about?

My inclination is to ignore it but the fact that this warning may come up occasionally is irking me.

Also, in retrospect, I should've just put Steam on one of my Raptors.

 

[K.Jack]

Ok, heres one for you GAF.

Bought a phenom x4 955. just put it into my Gigabyte AM2+ Mobo, and despite being 3.2ghz "black edition", It defauts to 1.76 Ghz, and noting in the bios seems to be able to change it.

It should be noted my power settings are at "high performance" in windows, so its not that.

Any ideas?

Does it stay at 1.76Ghz, even under load?

 

[Corky]

Does it stay at 1.76Ghz, even under load?

also, make sure to have your motherboard updated with the latest bios incase it adds fuurther processors compability

 

[n0n44m]

also, make sure to have your motherboard updated with the latest bios incase it adds fuurther processors compability

this very much

AM2+ motherboards need an up to date bios for AM3 cpu's, although AFAIK most don't even make it into the bios without a correct bios

1.76 ghz is a strange number though, care to check cpu-z for the FSB and multiplier?

Not sure where else to post this, since I don't think it's threadworthy, but fuck it:
I recently purchased an SSD for a boot/main drive. 2 weeks later and Steam is informing me that my disk drive's files have a high level of fragmentation, and that I should defrag them. I was told not to defragment SSD's. Is this just Steam not recognizing an SSD and suggesting the usual course of action for standard disk drives, or does it know what it's talking about?

My inclination is to ignore it but the fact that this warning may come up occasionally is irking me.

Also, in retrospect, I should've just put Steam on one of my Raptors.

Yeah just ignore it as fragmentation is a total non-issue for SSDs

 

[Feorax]

Thanks for the help guys. It was indeed a bios issue. Mine was running at v2 when it probably should have at least been v6.

Also, I did a quick check under load. It appears only one core was defaulting to 1.76ghz, the rest were actually at 800mhz for god only knows why :lol

 

[subversus]

Thanks for the help guys. It was indeed a bios issue. Mine was running at v2 when it probably should have at least been v6.

Also, I did a quick check under load. It appears only one core was defaulting to 1.76ghz, the rest were actually at 800mhz for god only knows why :lol

What motherboard do you use? Was there any error message on bootup? I had pretty sad experience of CPU raping the motherboard :lol

Also it's very strange that your cores run at 800 mhz under load, mine runs at 800 mhz being idle.

 

[diztrukted]

I just built my very first PC. I intend to use it primarily for gaming, but for work also (some photoshop, some 3d modelling programs). I saw this thread with the utilities listed on the frontpage and thought, maybe this is the next step, to make sure everything's running properly. I tried 3dMark06 and it finished the test and during one of them, it would run at 2 or 3 FPS (red valley test)...the rest were fine. I used Furmark also, this one went for a long time to the point where I just closed out of it. At one point it did reach somewhere in the high 70's for temp readings but that was about a half hour in before it went back down. I also ran OCCT and at first, within the first 2minutes it would say CPU too hot and making a quacking noise. Ran it again and it seemed fine, but again, i don't what it is I should be doing here or how long it should run.

Typically what do you guys do to tweak/alter your hardware for optimal performance?
How long do I run these tests for?
I don't know a lot about benchmarks and stress testing cpu's and gpu's, what do i do?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Side Note: should I be overclocking? How do I overclock? What about hyperthreading? Should I even concern myself with any of these?

WHAT I'M WORKING WITH

\\ THERMALTAKE ELEMENT T | CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX | ASUS P6X58D
\\ INTEL CORE i7 930 2.8 GHz | CPU HEATSINK COOLER MASTER RR-UV8-XBU1-GP
\\ RAM CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) | SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 5850
\\ SAMSUNG SH-S223F| WD CAVIAR INTERNAL l HDD |SAMSUNG SPINPOINT F3 HD103SJ 1TB | INTEL X25-M MAINSTREAM SSD
\\ WINDOWS 7 PRO x86 | ASUS VW246H | RAZER MAMBA MOUSE

 

[Celcius]

What would be the best option for connecting my pc to my home's wireless network? (wireless card?) I'm open to any suggestions/links. thanks

 

[L0st Id3ntity]

Side Note: should I be overclocking? How do I overclock? What about hyperthreading? Should I even concern myself with any of these?

I would recommend relaxing and "settling in" for a while, then just google, OCing is very easy with recent hardware.

 

[L0st Id3ntity]

What would be the best option for connecting my pc to my home's wireless network? (wireless card?) I'm open to any suggestions/links. thanks

To skip compatibility issues (weak signals etc...), try looking for a card with the same brand as your router.

I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000N4WRFY/?tag=neogaf0e-20

It's pretty good with the latest drivers installed.

 

[diztrukted]

I would recommend relaxing and "settling in" for a while, then just google, OCing is very easy with recent hardware.

Well, I think I've settled in quite a bit, I finished this build in may :lol

I've been playing starcraft quite a bit on it too, but i guess for future reference, would OC'ing differ because of my mobo or because of the cpu or does it relate to both?

 

[L0st Id3ntity]

I've been playing starcraft quite a bit on it too, but i guess for future reference, would OC'ing differ because of my mobo or because of the cpu or does it relate to both?

RAM, mobo and cpu are all factors, but I guess t's mainly the mobo, because that's where you're going to tweak voltages and timings (in BIOS).

 

[Hazaro]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...lickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16814500173

768MB GTX 460 for $130 AR BACK IN STOCK

INSAAAAAAAAANE VALUE

 

[·feist·]

Well, looks like I'll have to stop recommending the Antec 300 as the de facto lower end case choice. As solid as the 300 is, there's now way in the world I'd recommend it at its new (and strangely increased) $60 price when you can buy a Cooler Master 690 II Advanced for $80. It really isn't even close.

Between that, the Corsair 600T launching for more than they said it would, and other examples, case prices are getting screwy again.

 

[Hazaro]

The CM 310 and HAF 912 are great choices as well.

 

[ZZMitch]

Well, looks like I'll have to stop recommending the Antec 300 as the de facto lower end case choice. As solid as the 300 is, there's now way in the world I'd recommend it at its new (and strangely increased) $60 price when you can buy a Cooler Master 690 II Advanced for $80. It really isn't even close.

Between that, the Corsair 600T launching for more than they said it would, and other examples, case prices are getting screwy again.

Could have posted this a week ago!

Oh well, I guess my ignorance of PC cases is my downfall!

 

[Shambles]

Well, looks like I'll have to stop recommending the Antec 300 as the de facto lower end case choice. As solid as the 300 is, there's now way in the world I'd recommend it at its new (and strangely increased) $60 price when you can buy a Cooler Master 690 II Advanced for $80. It really isn't even close.

Between that, the Corsair 600T launching for more than they said it would, and other examples, case prices are getting screwy again.

Sadly the CM 690 II Advanced still runs 100$+ up here in Canadia where the 300 can still be had for <60$. When I'm mucking around in my 300 I sure wish I had something that used the space better but for me it's hard to justify 100$ on a case compared to the money i'm spending on the components themselves. Hopefully in a couple years some of these features work their way down to my cheapo 60$ range

Don't worry too much about buying the 300, just because there are better ones out there now doesn't make your any worse. It does the job, it's cheap, and Antec has great customer service. After I broke one of the usb connectors on my front panel I emailed them and they mailed me the replacement parts free of charge or hassle so kudos to them.

 

[·feist·]

Sadly the CM 690 II Advanced still runs 100$+ up here in Canadia where the 300 can still be had for <60$. When I'm mucking around in my 300 I sure wish I had something that used the space better but for me it's hard to justify 100$ on a case compared to the money i'm spending on the components themselves. Hopefully in a couple years some of these features work their way down to my cheapo 60$ range

That's when it was at its most compelling, easily being a viable option for users that don't need/want the extras that you might find in a more expensive case. Also working in the 300's favor is its build quality. Some its direct competitors feel embarrassingly flimsy. I'd rather have less features and a good base to build on, than some other models that have included newer spec, but are constructed out of tin foil.

Could have posted this a week ago!

Oh well, I guess my ignorance of PC cases is my downfall!

I just happened to notice it earlier, actually. Don't get me wrong, even at $60, the 300 is a great case (I have one sitting in front of me right now for a build I'm doing for someone). It's just that when more expensive competitors like the 690 II-A are dropping in price, and cases like the Lian Li Lancool PC-K62 can occasionally be found dipping into the $75-90 range, raising prices isn't the way to go.

The CM 310 and HAF 912 are great choices as well.

I don't personally care for the 912's aesthetics (though it is a great choice), but even that highlights my point a bit. I can't imagine how many HAF 922 sales the 912 is going to cannibalize. If I'm not mistaken, the markets that are going to get the 912 Plus edition will have that at a lower price than the 922 as well. Obviously, you can't avoid certain issues when it comes to demand and product planning, but some of these positioning choices are somewhat strange.

 

[Gully State]

Help...I just turned on my PC and all of a sudden I hear a grinding noise coming from the tower. Turns out the source is from my GPU (HIS 5850) fan. I check the GPU temps and it's fine. I try cleaning out the fan with canned air and turning the fan speed to 100% but that doesn't help. Any suggestions on how I would go about fixing this? Or should I just RMA this?

 

[Evlar]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...lickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16814500173

768MB GTX 460 for $130 AR BACK IN STOCK

INSAAAAAAAAANE VALUE

And just today I decided to start shopping for parts for my next build. Tempting, tempting. Well below my price threshold, too...

 

[Kaako]

Core i7 875K Unlocked.
I'm seriously thinking of going with that one now instead of the i7 950. Seems more easy and fun to OC it as well. Also will save $$ like Hazaro mentioned. What you guys think?

Also is 2 PCI Express 2.0 @ 8X/8X good enough for SLI/Crossfire for high end card? Or new ones to come?

Thanks.

 

[Shambles]

Core i7 875K Unlocked.
I'm seriously thinking of going with that one now instead of the i7 950. Seems more easy and fun to OC it as well. Also will save $$ like Hazaro mentioned. What you guys think?

Also is 2 PCI Express 2.0 @ 8X/8X good enough for SLI/Crossfire for high end card? Or new ones to come?

Thanks.

4X/4X is good enough for SLI/Crossfire for the highest end card

Spoiler

This is where someone talks about how if you run 3 30" monitors off of it you might see a 5% difference.

 

[Kaako]

4X/4X is good enough for SLI/Crossfire for the highest end card

Spoiler

This is where someone talks about how if you run 3 30" monitors off of it you might see a 5% difference.

I see, thanks. I also forgot to mention I want to do my gaming @ 1080P with AA. Will it make a difference in that situation whether I have dual 8x or 16x sli setup (460 1GB GTXs)?

 

[Shambles]

I see, thanks. I also forgot to mention I want to do my gaming @ 1080P with AA. Will it make a difference in that situation whether I have dual 8x or 16x sli setup (460 1GB GTXs)?

Here is some documentation about the effects of x4/x4. It seems that perhaps in a generation or two the very best cards might start to saturate the four lanes but for 99.99% of us it won't matter one bit. If you're running an x8/x8 board it will probably last you more than a decade, far longer than you'd actually keep a motherboard.

 

[grap3fruitman]

So I'm about to bite the bullet on this setup, last thoughts? I don't really want to tempt fate with an Antec PSU but I don't want to spend too much money. ;-;
I wanted this Corsair but the PSU+HDD combo I wanted to help knock the price down is out of stock. Boo!

 

[vazel]

I've been fooling around with Afterburner's oc'ing and OSD functions(great app!) and it brought something up that's always bugged me. With vsync we're told that when framerate dips it halves. So if you go below 60fps you'll get 30fps. But then how come when I run OSD programs I see framerates of 40fps, 38fps, etc. Shouldn't I just see 60/30/15?

Edit: Hmm nvm I'll post this on a dedicated PC forum. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=260286

 

[Feep]

So, two weeks ago I installed 2 GB of memory (total now: 4 GB) and a sweet new NVIDIA GTX460 into her machine. Seemed to work fine (though the monitor, connected via VGA, would oddly not turn on sometimes on boot-up, but whatever).

She's now reporting massive problems, system lag, internet connection sometimes freaks out, games can't run on anything but the lowest settings. Could my installation have caused this (worked fine at first)? Her power supply looked a little crappy, though everything is turning on.

Maybe she just happened to pick up nasty malware in the last two weeks, though Task Manager shows no particularly suspicious behavior. What should I tell her to do?

 

[Shambles]

I've been fooling around with Afterburner's oc'ing and OSD functions(great app!) and it brought something up that's always bugged me. With vsync we're told that when framerate dips it halves. So if you go below 60fps you'll get 30fps. But then how come when I run OSD programs I see framerates of 40fps, 38fps, etc. Shouldn't I just see 60/30/15?

Edit: Hmm nvm I'll post this on a dedicated PC forum.

Vsync isn't meant to keep constant frame rates. It's to prevent tearing when your GPU is rendering games faster than the monitor can display them, hence capping the framerate at the maximum frequency of the monitor. Whether a game decides to set caps that are lower than the framerate of the monitor is them doing their own thing.

 

[Fredescu]

So I'm about to bite the bullet on this setup, last thoughts? I don't really want to tempt fate with an Antec PSU but I don't want to spend too much money. ;-;
I wanted this Corsair but the PSU+HDD combo I wanted to help knock the price down is out of stock. Boo!

This one is made by Seasonic and is modular: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=antec_truepower-_-17-371-022-_-Product . Not sure if the 15% off applies on top of the already discounted price, but if it does it works out nicely.

 

[Hazaro]

Core i7 875K Unlocked.
I'm seriously thinking of going with that one now instead of the i7 950. Seems more easy and fun to OC it as well. Also will save $$ like Hazaro mentioned. What you guys think?

Also is 2 PCI Express 2.0 @ 8X/8X good enough for SLI/Crossfire for high end card? Or new ones to come?

875K is a waste of money unless you have $100+ in cooling and the time and knowledge to make use of it. Doesn't clock that much higher either.

So I'm about to bite the bullet on this setup, last thoughts? I don't really want to tempt fate with an Antec PSU but I don't want to spend too much money. ;-;
I wanted this Corsair but the PSU+HDD combo I wanted to help knock the price down is out of stock. Boo!

Sam thing as above. Just get the i5-760.
Antec PSU is fine.

DO NOT GET that F4. It's 5400rpm storage drive and will be slooooooooow.
Get dual 1TB F3's or WD 1/1.5TB instead.

Last thing to save some money is to get 4GB vs. 8GB. RAM is one of the easiest things to upgrade and unless you are running 5 intensive programs simultaneously you don't need 4GB. If you are doing heavy video editing and very large images in photoshop you may need more than 4GB.

Also get a cooler. OCZ Vendetta II, Scythe Mugen II, N520, Hypere 212+. Corsair H50 if you want that.

 

[vazel]

Vsync isn't meant to keep constant frame rates. It's to prevent tearing when your GPU is rendering games faster than the monitor can display them, hence capping the framerate at the maximum frequency of the monitor. Whether a game decides to set caps that are lower than the framerate of the monitor is them doing their own thing.

I know what vsync is meant to do. It's just that explanations from guys like this have always confused me about the performance penalties. http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/27719.aspx

Edit: Excellent explanation right here I understand it better. I guess the other fps readings I was getting was because triple buffering is automatically enabled with vsync in tf2. http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027966611&postcount=1

 

[YagizY]

I have a really important question guys:

My mom is currently using a computer I built around 5 or 6 years ago. Recently a voice has started coming up that says "CPU temperature is too high" and then the computer turns off. I checked in the BIOS and the CPU was running at 70 Celsius and it's only an old Athlon 64. The fans in the case are all working and the heatsink fan is also working. What would the proper steps be to fix this, I was thinking:

1. Clean out dust to make sure that it's not an airflow issue.

2. Detach heatsink and reapply thermal paste. This won't cause me to reinstall windows will it? You only have to do a reinstall if you are putting in a different CPU, correct?

Is their a good site to go to for the whole removing and reapplying thermal paste tutorial or will any site through a quick google search work?

 

[evil solrac v3.0]

I have a really important question guys:

My mom is currently using a computer I built around 5 or 6 years ago. Recently a voice has started coming up that says "CPU temperature is too high" and then the computer turns off. I checked in the BIOS and the CPU was running at 70 Celsius and it's only an old Athlon 64. The fans in the case are all working and the heatsink fan is also working. What would the proper steps be to fix this, I was thinking:

1. Clean out dust to make sure that it's not an airflow issue.

2. Detach heatsink and reapply thermal paste. This won't cause me to reinstall windows will it? You only have to do a reinstall if you are putting in a different CPU, correct?

Is their a good site to go to for the whole removing and reapplying thermal paste tutorial or will any site through a quick google search work?

1.use a q-tip with a little bit of alcohol and rub it off.

2. no, you don't need to reinstall windows.

3. after you remove the paste, spread a bit across the CPU, (just a bit, no need to use half the bottle) a small, straight line across the CPU, spread it evenly with something flat (a credit card) and place the heat sink (after having cleaned the thermal paste off as well) as normal.
I like to the place the heat-sink on top of the CPU after applying the paste and twisting it like opening a bottle cap and then finish installing the heat-sink, bu that's just me and it spreads it fairly well.

 

[YagizY]

1.use a q-tip with a little bit of alcohol and rub it off.

2. no, you don't need to reinstall windows.

3. after you remove the paste, spread a bit across the CPU, (just a bit, no need to use half the bottle) a small, straight line across the CPU, spread it evenly with something flat (a credit card) and place the heat sink (after having cleaned the thermal paste off as well) as normal.
I like to the place the heat-sink on top of the CPU after applying the paste and twisting it like opening a bottle cap and then finish installing the heat-sink, bu that's just me and it spreads it fairly well.

So don't apply any paste on the heat-sink? Just the CPU correct?

 

[Servizio]

So, two weeks ago I installed 2 GB of memory (total now: 4 GB) and a sweet new NVIDIA GTX460 into her machine. Seemed to work fine (though the monitor, connected via VGA, would oddly not turn on sometimes on boot-up, but whatever).

She's now reporting massive problems, system lag, internet connection sometimes freaks out, games can't run on anything but the lowest settings. Could my installation have caused this (worked fine at first)? Her power supply looked a little crappy, though everything is turning on.

Maybe she just happened to pick up nasty malware in the last two weeks, though Task Manager shows no particularly suspicious behavior. What should I tell her to do?

You'll have to diagnose the problem first. Yes, it could be either bad RAM or a bad card. Do her usage habits make her vulnerable to malware? Does she frequently run suspicious files random strangers email her, or download and run a large quantity of pirate of software? All without a virus scanner?

Task manager shows no suspicious activity, but what about something like Process Explorer? Doe she have something like Desktop Indexer constantly indexing her hard drive? I had someone bring me a laptop once that would slow to crawl, but only during certain times of day; nothing showed up on either task manager, or process explorer. Just an oddly high memory load on the 'System'. Turned out to be Automatic Updates constantly running but never actually retrieving or installing the updates.

You can also try various other diagnostic tools that are hardware specific, like memory testers, hard drive scanners, CPU stressers. I think the op of this thread has a few listed.

Before doing all that, you may just want to double check that the video card and the RAM are securely installed, and all the connections are tight. I think typically when PSU's go bad it's a pretty binary, catastrophic thing.

 

[Hazaro]

I have a really important question guys:

My mom is currently using a computer I built around 5 or 6 years ago. Recently a voice has started coming up that says "CPU temperature is too high" and then the computer turns off. I checked in the BIOS and the CPU was running at 70 Celsius and it's only an old Athlon 64. The fans in the case are all working and the heatsink fan is also working. What would the proper steps be to fix this, I was thinking:

1. Clean out dust to make sure that it's not an airflow issue.

2. Detach heatsink and reapply thermal paste. This won't cause me to reinstall windows will it? You only have to do a reinstall if you are putting in a different CPU, correct?

Is their a good site to go to for the whole removing and reapplying thermal paste tutorial or will any site through a quick google search work?

You don't even need to reinstall Windows if you change the CPU

The fans are probably pooping out and the HS is probably clogged.
Thermal compound probably really dried out as well, but the first two should drop temps a lot.

 

[Anduril]

Does anyone know the answer to this?

is it possible that GA-P55-UD3L is different in the States than in EU? Every US store lists it as having USB 3.0 and none of the European stores mention it at all, only 12 USB 2.0 ports. /me confused

Also, what the hell is up with Core i7s and their 9xx and 8xx lines? I have no idea which ones I should be looking at. Currently researching 870 (it has TurboBoost up to 3.6 GHz, which is great), but it has a lower bus speed than 9xx. Will this matter in any way? Should I rather be looking at 9xx series, which seems newer? Too much info! *head explodes*

 

[Wes]

Tracking PC part delivery is addictive.

 

[Fredescu]

Does anyone know the answer to this?

I can't find any reference to that board having USB 3 on Newegg. Got a link to somewhere that mentions it? It does have some "3x USB Power Boost" feature, which isn't USB 3.

 

[Anduril]

I can't find any reference to that board having USB 3 on Newegg. Got a link to somewhere that mentions it? It does have some "3x USB Power Boost" feature, which isn't USB 3.

Yeah .. that might be due to me being a retard.

The actual motheboard GA-P55A-UD3 somehow got changed into GA-P55-UD3L while I was searching for it through different search engines/stores. Thanks for making me notice that, doh.

The Core i7 question still stands, though.

 

[Hazaro]

9xx is 1366
8xx is 1156

Get an i5-760 anyway.

 

[grap3fruitman]

875K is a waste of money unless you have $100+ in cooling and the time and knowledge to make use of it. Doesn't clock that much higher either.

Sam thing as above. Just get the i5-760.
Antec PSU is fine.

DO NOT GET that F4. It's 5400rpm storage drive and will be slooooooooow.
Get dual 1TB F3's or WD 1/1.5TB instead.

Last thing to save some money is to get 4GB vs. 8GB. RAM is one of the easiest things to upgrade and unless you are running 5 intensive programs simultaneously you don't need 4GB. If you are doing heavy video editing and very large images in photoshop you may need more than 4GB.

Also get a cooler. OCZ Vendetta II, Scythe Mugen II, N520, Hypere 212+. Corsair H50 if you want that.

I'm trying to get a better processor than the i7-860 I'm replacing, an i5-760 won't cut it and I was going to go i7-870 but there was a combo deal with the mobo I had picked out and the 875k for just $10 more so I just went for it.

RAM? I'm running 4GB right now and I can't have much open and it pisses me off.

The PSU/HDD combo I wanted was that Corsair and a WDblack 1.5TB but it's out of stock. =(

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

So, I was finally looking to upgrade the ol' reliable, and I think I want to do it myself.

Already have a CD/DVD drive, case, wireless card, 1080p monitor, and I can get free Windows 7/virus software from my school.

Need:
- CPU
- HDD
- Memory
- Graphics Card
- Blu Ray drive?
- Motherboard?

Was thinking

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX = $160

Seagate Barracuda 7200 1 TB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST31000528AS-Bare Drive = $65

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL (in OP) = $87

Asus ATI Radeon HD4870 1 GB DDR5 2DVI PCI-Express Video Card EAH4870/2DI/1GD5
= $100 (after rebate)

Samsung Blu-Ray Internal SATA Drive with Lightscribe SH-B083L/RSBP (Black) = $80 (optional)

Total = $412 ($492)

No idea what the limits of my current mother board is, but it's from 2004 so it's probably shit...thoughts/improvements/critiques? I'm kind of new at this.

 

[JudgeN]

So, I was finally looking to upgrade the ol' reliable, and I think I want to do it myself.

Already have a CD/DVD drive, case, wireless card, 1080p monitor, and I can get free Windows 7/virus software from my school.

Need:
- CPU
- HDD
- Memory
- Graphics Card
- Blu Ray drive?
- Motherboard?

Was thinking

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX = $160

Seagate Barracuda 7200 1 TB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive ST31000528AS-Bare Drive = $65

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL (in OP) = $87

Asus ATI Radeon HD4870 1 GB DDR5 2DVI PCI-Express Video Card EAH4870/2DI/1GD5
= $100 (after rebate)

Samsung Blu-Ray Internal SATA Drive with Lightscribe SH-B083L/RSBP (Black) = $80 (optional)

Total = $412 ($492)

No idea what the limits of my current mother board is, but it's from 2004 so it's probably shit...thoughts/improvements/critiques? I'm kind of new at this.

Stay far away from that seagate hard drive, its the same kind of drives we get with our HP at my office and they fail all the time. Buy this instead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

How much do you want to spend and what the PC be used for? GPU isn't really powerful enough for 1080p gaming with good frame rates. Next your buying DDR3 ram but if your MB is from 2004 it isn't going to support DDR3 so you're going to need a new board.

I recommend this, great price and features.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128443

 

[reggieandTFE]

Software issue here if anyone wants to help.

I just bought the Orange Box on Steam. I already had HL2 and Lost Coast which ran great on my new laptop. Portal, Episode 1 and Episode 2 all work great.

Team Fortress 2 does not. The first time I booted it up it loaded to the main menu screen and suggested I play the tutorial. I clicked the tutorial and the game got hung up on a screen saying "loading game environment." I waited a good 10 minutes before going to the Task Manager and shutting it down by force. The same thing happened after I restarted my computer. I uninstalled TF2 through Steam and reinstalled it. Now when I hit Play through Steam or doubleclick the desktop shortcut the blue working circle pops up by my mouse but TF2 never boots.

If I try to start it again I get an error message about only 1 instance of this program can exist at a time. Looking in the task manager I see that hl2.exe is active under processes with a very small footprint (~6000k). I end that task and try to boot TF2 again and the cycle repeats. Any ideas? I was hoping to get back into PC gaming, but this kind of stuff can get frustrating. Thanks.

 

[n0n44m]

Stay far away from that seagate hard drive, its the same kind of drives we get with our HP at my office and they fail all the time. Buy this instead:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

How much do you want to spend and will the PC be used for? GPU isn't really powerful enough for 1080p gaming with good frame rates and we can't say if the processor will work with your current motherboard without the model of the board.

"The Socket AM2, renamed from Socket M2 (to prevent using the same name as Cyrix MII processors), is a CPU socket designed by AMD for desktop processors, including the performance, mainstream and value segments. It was released on May 23, 2006"

He said his motherboard is from 2004 ... yeah that's gonna be a new motherboard as well

 

[JudgeN]

"The Socket AM2, renamed from Socket M2 (to prevent using the same name as Cyrix MII processors), is a CPU socket designed by AMD for desktop processors, including the performance, mainstream and value segments. It was released on May 23, 2006"

He said his motherboard is from 2004 ... yeah that's gonna be a new motherboard as well

Bah you caught me before my edit, my ninja skills need work.