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"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

brain_stew said:
Use one stick at a time. Try booting if that doesn't work switch to the other.


You don't need two DIMMs to boot.

well got into bios long enough to change disk/boot priority and managed to start a memtest run now, will let it go for an hours or so.

But now I'm all fucking paranoid, what if memtest doesnt show that the ram is faulty? What on earth could it be then?

edit :

Cuz I mean, if my PC crashed in bios and sometimes before POST of all places it certainly can't be driver,software,gpu,hdd-problems right?

I mean I've been playing for nearly a week without the slightest problem. And now, all of the sudden when I was trying TF2 shit really hit the fan

1 ) hardlock no 1, ingame while playing TF2 after like 5min had to reboot manually
2 ) hardlock no 2, just as windows started , had to reboot manually
3 ) hardlock no 3, in BIOS just as I got in the menus.

All in the span of like 10 min
 
Maybe the cpu overheating? Does the heatsink/fan look ok?

I know what you mean about being paranoid. A similar experience to what you have put me off upgrading for a long time. The last time I had it it was because I never put the power cable into my graphics card. D'oh!

Good luck on getting it sorted all the same.
 
rossonero said:
So I went with the i5. Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3, Gigabyte GTX460 OC, Corsair 4gb, 1TB Samsung F3, Fractal Design R2 and a Fractal Design 550W 80+.

I also got a Hyper 212+ as I've seen you guys recommend it a lot of times, but how many fans should I get? 2 120mm should be enough? I won't overclock right away but would like to have a quiet and cool case anyway.

You mean in the case or on the CPU cooler?

The case comes with 2 fans and the CPU cooler with 1. Why not try it first and then decide if you want to get more fans.
 
moojito said:
Maybe the cpu overheating? Does the heatsink/fan look ok?

I know what you mean about being paranoid. A similar experience to what you have put me off upgrading for a long time. The last time I had it it was because I never put the power cable into my graphics card. D'oh!

Good luck on getting it sorted all the same.


Seriously doubt that, I tried intelburntest once and the cpu managed it brilliantly. Also I have to emphasize, I have been playing for an entire week, bunch of demanding games like crysis n' such.

edit : 16 minutes and counting. Memtest hasn't shown any errors yet :/, what the fuck is going on man.

Also, anybody care to answer ; " hypothetically speaking, can a bad motherboard destroy perfectly good components ( gpu/cpu/ram ) ? "

Beacause I'm at a loss. I have no idea what can be doing this if memtest doesn't find errors soon
 
PjotrStroganov said:
You mean in the case or on the CPU cooler?

The case comes with 2 fans and the CPU cooler with 1. Why not try it first and then decide if you want to get more fans.

Yeah I meant the case. According to the site I got the R2 from there is only 1 fan included but the Fractal Design site says 2 fans so I'll just wait and see what I get.

Thanks mate. :D
 
How much will overclocking shorten the life of a CPU assuming that its kept nicely cooled and not worked 24/7?

I got my i5 750 to 3.3ghz (easily) this weekend and am thinking about making the push to 4ghz.
 
Corky said:
well got into bios long enough to change disk/boot priority and managed to start a memtest run now, will let it go for an hours or so.

But now I'm all fucking paranoid, what if memtest doesnt show that the ram is faulty? What on earth could it be then?

edit :

Cuz I mean, if my PC crashed in bios and sometimes before POST of all places it certainly can't be driver,software,gpu,hdd-problems right?

I mean I've been playing for nearly a week without the slightest problem. And now, all of the sudden when I was trying TF2 shit really hit the fan

1 ) hardlock no 1, ingame while playing TF2 after like 5min had to reboot manually
2 ) hardlock no 2, just as windows started , had to reboot manually
3 ) hardlock no 3, in BIOS just as I got in the menus.

All in the span of like 10 min
I would also suspect hardware faults.

Memtest is a good starting point, and perhaps trying with just one memory stick at a time. Resetting BIOS to default settings and checking if it's the latest version is also a good start.

After checking the memory with memtest (USB or CD version at least overnight and each stick separately and together), you could use a live-CD operating system and do stability tests on the various components while removing any potential interference from faulty HDDs or OS installations.

Make sure to disconnect all non-essential devices from the computer and run only the necessary ones to get rid of as many unknown variables as possible.

A PSU with unstable rails could cause all sorts of problems but it's rather hard to check unless you have the right instruments. Same with a bad motherboard, hard to pinpoint

If you have another compatible computer to swap parts between that would make troubleshooting a lot easier.

Good luck!
 
unrenowned said:
Good luck!

Thanks for the reply.


I've been running memtest now and it just completed it's second pass without errors ( fuck me ). I've tried a grand total of four, count em' four different gpus. I've tried other ram, without any luck. The primary source of my headaches : the crashes are seemingly random, I cannot reproduce them and they come and complete random occacsions. Anything from games, to idling, to bios-menus.


Alright, if we take this step by step.


1. Ram : tried memtest, had faulty ram once, got new working ram ( not faulty ) still crashes. Tried older non-faulty ram, still crashed.
2. GPUs : a gpu shouldn't really produce pre-post lockups / bios -crashes right? Nevertheless, I've had 2 GTS 250s ( broken ) got a new one ( non-faulty ) still crashed. Bought a 460 ( non-faulty ) still crashed.
3. CPU : I tried intelburntest ( but I remember reading somewhere that it didn't work with AMDs, then what the hell did it test ? ) without errors.
4. Software/harddrive : Again, these can't really produce my kind of hardlocks can they? Bios-crash etc. Nonetheless, windows 7 freshly formatted just recently.
5. Motherboard.
6. PSU

So what can I do? I can't test either of 5/6, I can't really have someone check the pc because they'll probably not be lucky enough to have these random crashes occur.


For crying out loud....sigh
 
To those interested in setting up dual GTX 460s in SLI:

Be aware that models that use reference cooling such as the highly rated Gigabyte model could have heat issues on a motherboard that does not accommodate space between cards. My Gigabyte GA-X58-UD3R is such a board.

The reference cooling system is going to suck hot hair straight into the top card and create some temperatures that made me feel uncomfortable with my investment. Playing SCII on ultra settings resulted in 61c lower and 97-99c upper card temps with ample airflow.

I returned my dual Gigabyte cards for dual EVGA 460s that use external exhaust on the same case and board and am now happily getting 61c lower card and 72c upper card temps on the same settings. Also, the AR models come with a great limited lifetime warranty and their customer service beats Gigabyte by miles.
 
Corky said:
For crying out loud....sigh
Sorry to hear that. If you could swap out the PSU and/or motherboard you could either discover the cause or rule them out. Not much else I can think of.

Najaf said:
To those interested in setting up dual GTX 460s in SLI:

Be aware that models that use reference cooling such as the highly rated Gigabyte model could have heat issues on a motherboard that does not accommodate space between cards. My Gigabyte GA-X58-UD3R is such a board.

The reference cooling system is going to suck hot hair straight into the top card and create some temperatures that made me feel uncomfortable with my investment. Playing SCII on ultra settings resulted in 61c lower and 97-99c upper card temps with ample airflow.

I returned my dual Gigabyte cards for dual EVGA 460s that use external exhaust on the same case and board and am now happily getting 61c lower card and 72c upper card temps on the same settings. Also, the AR models come with a great limited lifetime warranty and their customer service beats Gigabyte by miles.
That's worrying since it is the card I'm getting, and I plan on going SLI when I need to upgrade. Though I should be able to use PCI-express slots 1 and 3 to separate the cards more (with the 3rd slot limited to x8). I suppose it's possible to get some EE edition and run that as top card and the Gigabyte in the lower slot. Are there any 460 cards with external exhaust and low noise level?
 
unrenowned said:
Sorry to hear that. If you could swap out the PSU and/or motherboard you could either discover the cause or rule them out. Not much else I can think of.

:(
:(
:(:(:(:(

something tells me that even with a different psu/mobo the problems would persist.

memtest has been running for 3 hours now, no errors. With the old faulty ram memtest found hundreds of thousands of errors within the hour. I really need guidance because it feels like I've tried everything really. The crashes have never ever occured during full load, they've always occured during random times ( like before post or after post, or just as I start a game ) OR a couple of minutes into a game. I've never had a crash after several hours of intensive playing.

Which leads me to think that its not an overheating issue. Another thing that we can rule out...
 
Anyone have any experience with the Konig vga switch box? some of the reviews say you need a good quality cable to stop ghosting but I thought I would ask here first before I buy too much.

A screen with 2 built in ports is out of the question for multiple reasons.
 
So I'm starting to do some amature music recording on the mac I built myself the other week. Now I'm about to try and make the system as silent as possible without resulting to crazy measures. My main rig is almost silent, but I think I can do better. I have some cooler master and lian-li 120MM fans laying around which I can use (I bought the cooler master CM 690 II basic) But they aren't exactly silent. Anybody have suggestions for ultra-quiet case fans? The case also has spots for two 140MM fans on the sides, so I could use suggestions for both sizes. I've been looking at the Noctua NF-P12 as that looks pretty quality and is about as much as I'm willing to spend on case fans. The power supply I'm using right now is temporary as I took it from another machine which is a TX750W but is oddly loud compared to the other TX750Ws I've bought since. I figure I might get a Corsair AX750 as corsairs tend to be quiet and with a 90%+ power efficiency, it must be one of the quieter units on the market.

That leaves me with a CPU cooler. I usually use Corsair H50s on my machines, but I'd rather buy something that doesn't have an audible constant pump sound. Most reviews for air coolers tend to focus on temps and usually completely ignore dB readings with a few exceptions. So any suggestions here would be very welcome. My CPU is a core i7 930, and I would probably be OCing occasionally but not while recording.
 
Corky said:
:(
:(
:(:(:(:(

something tells me that even with a different psu/mobo the problems would persist.

memtest has been running for 3 hours now, no errors. With the old faulty ram memtest found hundreds of thousands of errors within the hour. I really need guidance because it feels like I've tried everything really. The crashes have never ever occured during full load, they've always occured during random times ( like before post or after post, or just as I start a game ) OR a couple of minutes into a game. I've never had a crash after several hours of intensive playing.

Which leads me to think that its not an overheating issue. Another thing that we can rule out...


GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Now the fucker wont even boot? I turned off the pc but the keyboard wont stop glowing?

Why
Do
You
Hate
Me
God?

Can't I just have a problem like anybody else? Can't I just get artifacts? Can't I just get motherboard beeps? Can't I just get burning smells? For the love of god what the fuck do you want from me pc?!
 
Fuck! Got my now 5770 in but it won't fit because of an extra heat sink we added onto the motherboard. Now I need to wait till the weekend to play anything on my desktop since I don't have the tools with me to take the thing off.

Curse you two slot wide video card!
 
NinjaFridge said:
I don't think Corky was meant to play games on PC.

I dont care if it kills me man.... I'm getting to the root of my problems.

These machines, these components, they follow a pre-determined set of rules. I WILL find the problem. Broken wires,bad PSU , no matter how difficult to detect it is ...
 
Corky said:
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Now the fucker wont even boot? I turned off the pc but the keyboard wont stop glowing?

Why
Do
You
Hate
Me
God?

Can't I just have a problem like anybody else? Can't I just get artifacts? Can't I just get motherboard beeps? Can't I just get burning smells? For the love of god what the fuck do you want from me pc?!
If your machine refuses to boot now it must be the mobo or psu, can't see any other problem from what you have said so far.
 
Diablohead said:
If your machine refuses to boot now it must be the mobo or psu, can't see any other problem from what you have said so far.

But I think I'll be able to boot if I reset CMOS. Which let me guess, makes this whole shit even more confusing right?
 
It's finally time - I get paid THIS friday and I'm finally taking the plunge on a new PC.

I reckon my budget is about £650-700 (maybe a bit further if it would give me a noticeable difference) and the main games I want to play are Guild Wars 2 and The Witcher 2 - though my main priority is playing all of my current games on their maximum settings (Bad Company 2, X3, TF2 and Company of Heroes.

I've browsed the builds in the OP but many of the components aren't available in the UK or the links are dead - I don't need a monitor or KB and mouse so that should save me some pennies and I won't need to buy any games for a while (it'll take me forever on my current internet to download the ones I currently own anyway.)

Any help is greatly appreciated

Edit - http://www.arbico.co.uk/Intel-Core-i7-PCs-p-1-c-421.html - Is the £650 on here any good? Or is this website ok in general or is building your own pc always much cheaper?

Edit 2 - http://configure.euro.dell.com/dell...12&s=dhs&vw=icon&leadtime=&showleadtime=False

Or this deal from Dell? I went through taking out the expensive accessories and I added £140 for the RAM and graphics card (the RAM seems a little excessive but it was an offer for both that and the card) and it's just about in budget.

Edit 3 - OR my friend is offering me his 4870 for about £50 and he thinks 8 gig ram is excessive - so i'd save myself about 80 quid with that card and sticking to the standard 6 gig of ram.
 
anonymousAversa said:
Ram? Make sure theyre slotted in firmly and no dust?

Check and check, there's virtually no dust in the pc. Back to buisness : the pc couldnt boot right? Yeah, I resetted CMOS and the pc booted up. Then I barely had enough time to start OCCT just as the PC rebooted itself and crashed @ " Loading asus express gate"


edit : I know I'm starting to sound like a broken reacord but can anyone answer this : " Can a bad motherboard destroy your otherwise working cpu/gpu/ram/etc?
 
Corky said:
Check and check, there's virtually no dust in the pc. Back to buisness : the pc couldnt boot right? Yeah, I resetted CMOS and the pc booted up. Then I barely had enough time to start OCCT just as the PC rebooted itself and crashed @ " Loading asus express gate"


edit : I know I'm starting to sound like a broken reacord but can anyone answer this : " Can a bad motherboard destroy your otherwise working cpu/gpu/ram/etc?

If the board is so screwed up that its throwing out irregular voltages, sure. It really does sound like the board is defective.
 
dekjo said:
Question about your ASUS motherboard - why get a board with onboard graphics chip when you have a dedicated 460? Couldn't you save a few bucks by getting a board without onboard graphics?
You certainly could, but the 890FX is targeted more toward higher end and thus many 870s or 890 (with no onboard) might not have 8x/8x. It's also a good board and just 1 of many I had to pick from at the time that was at a decent price.
Corky said:
Check and check, there's virtually no dust in the pc. Back to buisness : the pc couldnt boot right? Yeah, I resetted CMOS and the pc booted up. Then I barely had enough time to start OCCT just as the PC rebooted itself and crashed @ " Loading asus express gate"

edit : I know I'm starting to sound like a broken reacord but can anyone answer this : " Can a bad motherboard destroy your otherwise working cpu/gpu/ram/etc?
It's possible a mobo could be doing that, but very rare. It's more likely there's some voltage issue with it. Are there any broken or bulging capacitors on it?
 
Hazaro said:
It's possible a mobo could be doing that, but very rare. It's more likely there's some voltage issue with it. Are there any broken or bulging capacitors on it?

I'll check the capacitors.

Nope the capacitors all look nice and cylindrical. What would this voltage issue be? From the psu or the mobo?
 
I dont unfortuneately :(

When it comes to a bad cpu, would it be plausible that I have one? I mean during load nothing happens but time and time again these random crashes hit
 
Corky said:
I'll check the capacitors.

Nope the capacitors all look nice and cylindrical. What would this voltage issue be? From the psu or the mobo?
Either. Normally PSU is the culprit, but if your voltages are close enough in BIOS (3.33, 5.00, 12.00) it should be fine.

Mobo also has voltage regulators, but electronics have a pretty darn wide range of operation which is why it's rare.
 
I have some questions about SLI/Crossfire; specifically, is it worth it? Do you have to run two of the exact card or can you mix them up? Is extra heat a serious issue and, if so, is it worth the boost in graphical horsepower?

TIA
 
Lately my PC has been locking up at a black screen when going into sleep mode, or BSODing after resuming from sleep. My laptop is having a similar issue, with one of the hard drives disappearing after resuming from sleep. Doesn't occur when waking up after hibernate. I'm running Windows 7. Both these problems are recent (past two months or so; though the drive in my laptop may have been vanishing before that without me noticing). Anyone else have similar issues?
 
unrenowned said:
That's worrying since it is the card I'm getting, and I plan on going SLI when I need to upgrade. Though I should be able to use PCI-express slots 1 and 3 to separate the cards more (with the 3rd slot limited to x8). I suppose it's possible to get some EE edition and run that as top card and the Gigabyte in the lower slot. Are there any 460 cards with external exhaust and low noise level?

The model I listed above is not loud in my experience. I know that many reviews on newegg complained of noise levels, while others celebrated it's silence. I have 6 120mm fans on my case, so take what I say with a grain of salt. My noise levels are already more than most seem to tolerate. The cards do storm quite a bit at upper levels while stressing in furmark, but that is expected.
 
Corky said:
I dont unfortuneately :(

When it comes to a bad cpu, would it be plausible that I have one? I mean during load nothing happens but time and time again these random crashes hit


I'm pretty much sure that your motherboard is faulty or it just could the bios failing. Try updating the bios to see if it resolves the issue. Also check whether it crashes while disk reads/writes it could be a faulty controller. Unplug all devices and try to start with minimum hardware. If the problem persists change your mb.
 
webcivilian said:
I'm pretty much sure that your motherboard is faulty or it just could the bios failing. Try updating the bios to see if it resolves the issue. Also check whether it crashes while disk reads/writes it could be a faulty controller. Unplug all devices and try to start with minimum hardware. If the problem persists change your mb.

I want to try to update the bios but seeing as my crashes even follow me into BIOS, I'm afraid that I might get a crash during the bios-update -> fucking my shit up even further.

eedit :

I've been reading around on different sites and my problem seems very similar to people who have a bad power supply.

- random reboots
- random crashes
- some crash are pre post, others are post.
- sometimes it'll boot sometimes it wont
- ram, gpu, tested and new.
- sometimes it'll start, the fans start and the keyboard lights up but nothing else happens.


Now I'm leaning much much more towards a bad PSU rather than a bad mobo.
 
...i know laptop questions aren't very sexy, but i'm looking to make my purchase in the coming weeks, really hoping for feedback here! gonna try again:

brain_stew said:

thanks again man - was comparing those 3 with this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=4#scrollFullInfo

+ best graphics card of all options - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

-lowest end processor (2.53G duo)? i'm told this might only affect me for PS2/GC emulation, still not sure to what extent - hoping diablo 3, fallout: new vegas etc dont require quad cores?
-6GB DDR2 vs 4GB DDR in some of the others.
-Recertified - GAF, how do you feel about recertified laptops? i keep reading Newegg's customer service is great, but ASUS says extended warranties have to be bought through the vendor, and newegg doesn't seem to offer it (unless im missing it), so im kinda scared this thing could die after 30 days and leave me boned.

i like that i can buy warranties on a few of the others, but i fear im trading off a lot on the graphics card end. what do you guys think?
 
The load plate feels like it's smashing my CPU when I try to close the latch (lots of tension and a little creaky). Is this normal? I have the CPU all lined up and everything, I just don't want to break something...

Edit:

It's a Core i5 Intel on an EVGA P55 board
 
MomoPufflet said:
The load plate feels like it's smashing my CPU when I try to close the latch (lots of tension and a little creaky). Is this normal? I have the CPU all lined up and everything, I just don't want to break something...

Mine did the same thing. Took a little bit of elbow grease to latch that thing on there.
 
MomoPufflet said:
The load plate feels like it's smashing my CPU when I try to close the latch (lots of tension and a little creaky). Is this normal? I have the CPU all lined up and everything, I just don't want to break something...

Edit:

It's a Core i5 Intel on an EVGA P55 board


Every CPU I've installed in the past 10 years of installing them has felt like its going to break when pushing that bar down.
 
Need some help, guys. I just got my new motherboard today and it has a place for USB 2.0 connections from the front panel. My case was made prior to USB 2.0 so even though it has front panel connectors, they'll be 1.1. I am still ok to connect these to my motherboard?

Or does it not even matter? I'm not sure if the connector can actually be USB 1 or 2 or if it can be either as long as the motherboard and device support it.
 
Just installing my Scythe Mugen 2 REV B cooler.

The instructions say to "Evenly apply the thermal grease onto the entire surface of the cpu heat spreader" and the picture shows them just gobbing on the thermal grease... I was unter the impression that less is more and you should use a ~3mm blob in the centre, not a ton of it.

This is the grease that came with it. (Sorry for shit picture, I'm on my netbook... PC is currently with out any CPU cooling)

iIhnD.png


EDIT: And I was under the impression you put the small blob on the CPU not the cooler.
 
Corky said:
I want to try to update the bios but seeing as my crashes even follow me into BIOS, I'm afraid that I might get a crash during the bios-update -> fucking my shit up even further.

eedit :

I've been reading around on different sites and my problem seems very similar to people who have a bad power supply.

- random reboots
- random crashes
- some crash are pre post, others are post.
- sometimes it'll boot sometimes it wont
- ram, gpu, tested and new.
- sometimes it'll start, the fans start and the keyboard lights up but nothing else happens.


Now I'm leaning much much more towards a bad PSU rather than a bad mobo.

What PSU do you have? It certainly can be the PSU. POST crashed seem more towards a PSU problem.
 
WEGGLES said:
Just installing my Scythe Mugen 2 REV B cooler.

The instructions say to "Evenly apply the thermal grease onto the entire surface of the cpu heat spreader" and the picture shows them just gobbing on the thermal grease... I was unter the impression that less is more and you should use a ~3mm blob in the centre, not a ton of it.

This is the grease that came with it. (Sorry for shit picture, I'm on my netbook... PC is currently with out any CPU cooling)

iIhnD.png


EDIT: And I was under the impression you put the small blob on the CPU not the cooler.

Your understanding is correct. Apply in the middle and put the headsink correctly. The pressure will spread the thermal grease evenly across the entire surface.

Edit: The metal on the top of the CPU is the 'CPU heat spreader'. The CPU is inclosed inside of it.
 
webcivilian said:
Your understanding is correct. Apply in the middle and put the headsink correctly. The pressure will spread the thermal grease evenly across the entire surface.
Excellent. Just making sure it wasn't some special grease you need more of. Odd that the instructions would be off like that :s.

Thanks for the help.
 
WEGGLES said:
Excellent. Just making sure it wasn't some special grease you need more of. Odd that the instructions would be off like that :s.

Thanks for the help.

Get another set of hands to help if you can. I installed my Scythe Mugen this weekend and when it came time to screw on the backplate, I had to call my brother for help. Its not easy.

Great cooler though. I love it.
 
Salaadin said:
Get another set of hands to help if you can. I installed my Scythe Mugen this weekend and when it came time to screw on the backplate, I had to call my brother for help. Its not easy.

Great cooler though. I love it.
Yeah, it was a laff and a half installing the back plate and the cooler and such.

Almost forgot thermal paste, even after asking. It's in place and working excellently.

Ran Prime95 with stock cooler and with the Mugen

Before, the cores were at about 70 degrees C, now while running the same test in Prime95 they're at 51-53 degrees C. And it's much quieter. So impressed with it. Wish I bought it with the rest of the PC parts... such a hassle taking everything out to get the mobo out of the case.


When it's all said and done, it was worth it.
 
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