• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

Corky said:
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

PSU? Try testing it. Try using a different one.
 
IrishNinja said:
...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:



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?

I say go with the quad core.
 
Quick question re: CPU temps.

My wife just got a Toshiba Portege r705 laptop. I installed Starcraft II on it just to see if it would run at the lowest settings, which it did. (She loves Starcraft.)

However, while playing the game, the CPU Core temps go up into the 90's (Celsius).

My kneejerk reaction, based on everything I know about CPU temps, is that this is too high and that therefore she shouldn't play the game on it. Am I overreacting, or am I choosing the safer path for the long term health of the CPU? And finally, is it normal for laptop CPUs to get this hot in general??
 
crisdecuba said:
Quick question re: CPU temps.

My wife just got a Toshiba Portege r705 laptop. I installed Starcraft II on it just to see if it would run at the lowest settings, which it did. (She loves Starcraft.)

However, while playing the game, the CPU Core temps go up into the 90's.

My kneejerk reaction, based on everything I know about CPU temps, is that this is too high and that therefore she shouldn't play the game on it. Am I overreacting, or am I choosing the safer path for the long term health of the CPU? And finally, is it normal for laptop CPUs to get this hot in general??


90C is far too high in my opinion. What is the CPU? Do you have laptop cooler?
 
crisdecuba said:
Intel Core i3 i3-350M / 2.26 GHz ( Dual-Core )

What's a laptop cooler?

They are pads that you put your laptop on to improve air flow. There are passive ones that simple raise the laptop up to allow more air underneath and active ones that actually have fans and usually use usb for power.
 
I'm looking into a cpu cooler replacement.

I got a phenom II x4 stock with the stock cooler, but the thing does too much noise for my taste.

I been looking at the Coolermaster V6 as it looks cool, and the fans only go up to 2200rpm so it can't be really loud.

Any tips on other cool solutions that I could look into?

I need it to be silent but good as I plan to OC it to 4Ghz (With the stock one and 100% load it stays on 50ºC) and not a really expensive one.

Thanks!
 
itxaka said:
I'm looking into a cpu cooler replacement.

I got a phenom II x4 stock with the stock cooler, but the thing does too much noise for my taste.

I been looking at the Coolermaster V6 as it looks cool, and the fans only go up to 2200rpm so it can't be really loud.

Any tips on other cool solutions that I could look into?

I need it to be silent but good as I plan to OC it to 4Ghz (With the stock one and 100% load it stays on 50ºC) and not a really expensive one.

Thanks!
Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B is a solid cooler. Just installed it. Brought my load temperatures down ~20 degrees C. And you can use any 120mm fan on it, so it could be as quiet as you like. Costs ~$40 and comes with everything you need.
 
crisdecuba said:
Quick question re: CPU temps.

My wife just got a Toshiba Portege r705 laptop. I installed Starcraft II on it just to see if it would run at the lowest settings, which it did. (She loves Starcraft.)

However, while playing the game, the CPU Core temps go up into the 90's (Celsius).

My kneejerk reaction, based on everything I know about CPU temps, is that this is too high and that therefore she shouldn't play the game on it. Am I overreacting, or am I choosing the safer path for the long term health of the CPU? And finally, is it normal for laptop CPUs to get this hot in general??
Isn't that a ~$1k laptop? I say send it back for a refund, and get something better for your money.
 
itxaka said:
I'm looking into a cpu cooler replacement.

I got a phenom II x4 stock with the stock cooler, but the thing does too much noise for my taste.

I been looking at the Coolermaster V6 as it looks cool, and the fans only go up to 2200rpm so it can't be really loud.

Any tips on other cool solutions that I could look into?

I need it to be silent but good as I plan to OC it to 4Ghz (With the stock one and 100% load it stays on 50ºC) and not a really expensive one.

Thanks!

I can recommend the V6 wholeheartedly - it's fairly easy to install, has way more thermal capacity than I'll ever use and at idle and gaming loads, it's inaudible over the other fans in my case. As added bonuses, the fans just clip on instead of having to fiddle with wire fan clips and it looks sharp. The only downer is that it only comes with 1 fan unless you shell out for the GT version at $20 more. Additionally, the fan that it comes with has red LEDs, so if you dislike lights, that weighs against it too. I added a CM Blade Master fan to mine for push/pull, and I'm okay with the lights. :)
 
K.Jack said:
Isn't that a ~$1k laptop? I say send it back for a refund, and get something better for your money.
Huh? It was $830, was reviewed highly, and fit everything she wanted in a work laptop. Starcraft 2 was not expected - just something I tried out.
 
hmmm Gaf, got a puzzle for you.

I recently attempted to put together an HTPC, the case doesn't have an internal speaker so I can't see hear any POST errors. On boot, everything powers up fine, I'm just not getting any video which unfortunately points to quite a few things (i think). If it was the CPU/MoBo, I'm assuming the sucker wouldn't boot at all, right?
 
Also, a question re: SSDs.

When I build my PC, I didn't include one because of the price. I might be able to get one now and was wondering what others have experienced.

My goal would be to install Windows 7 and all my programs on the SSD, and then keep all my documents on my existing 500GB HDD.

My expectation would be that my computer would boot up really fast, and that my programs would start really fast as well.

Are these expectations realistic? Is the "OS and programs on the SSD" approach the right way to go? Any other advice?
 
Well, my worst fear came true. I just built my new rig about a week ago and everything was great until today. Booted up STALKER with the Complete 2009 mod (which I have been playing without problems until now) and the game immediately froze when I loaded my save. Artifacts everywhere. Exited, turned of D3DOverrider and tried again. Same thing. Also started noticing artifacts in Win 7 start menu.

So I downloaded OCCT. GPU mem test seems OK. Ran the GPU test and well...a picture is worth a thousand words:

5khd8m.jpg



What now GAF? It is a Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB. Fan was also making weird noises during test. Do I RMA? Or do I test for something else?

Edit: Decided to download memtest86+ v4.10 and am running it now. I am at 46% first pass and it has already detected one error. Question: Could a faulty DIMM be messing up my GPU tests? Or are both bad?

This is so frustrating.
 
Dear Gaf,

Let me start out by saying first and foremost, I'm a computer noob attempting to become computer savy.. For starts I had a nice guy build me a computer 2 years ago and it was some what decent from what I could tell..

AMD phenom 64 processor (I'm assuming)
Ati 4850 gpu
Asus m2r32 motherboard
650w power supply

That's all I could identify by looking at it (remember I'm pretty new at this)

Anyway long story short I was wondering if I would be able to play ff14 when it's released with this rig, or would I need to upgrade some things.. Well that was my initial problem. During the process of trying to see what I had under the hood of this thing, I managed to fry my motherboard. (I think)

Anyway gaf whats a pretty kick ass motherboard I can get to replaced my fried one?!
 
Lando Jones said:
Dear Gaf,

Let me start out by saying first and foremost, I'm a computer noob attempting to become computer savy.. For starts I had a nice guy build me a computer 2 years ago and it was some what decent from what I could tell..

AMD phenom 64 processor (I'm assuming)
Ati 4850 gpu
Asus m2r32 motherboard
650w power supply

That's all I could identify by looking at it (remember I'm pretty new at this)

Anyway long story short I was wondering if I would be able to play ff14 when it's released with this rig, or would I need to upgrade some things.. Well that was my initial problem. During the process of trying to see what I had under the hood of this thing, I managed to fry my motherboard. (I think)

Anyway gaf whats a pretty kick ass motherboard I can get to replaced my fried one?!
EDIT:

Looks like you're probably on Socket AM2, so here goes:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131292
 
1st thanks for even bothering to help :D..

I should have mentioned that the board I was using was capable of running up to 8gb of ram. I was on 4 and thinking of putting more in for the heck of it. Any chance you know of any with higher capabilities than the one you just showed me? Or is that not even necessary? I guess I was going for a more future proof set-up.

Hmm I should probably browse newegg for myself...:lol
 
Lando Jones said:
1st thanks for even bothering to help :D..

I should have mentioned that the board I was using was capable of running up to 8gb of ram. I was on 4 and thinking of putting more in for the heck of it. Any chance you know of any with higher capabilities than the one you just showed me? Or is that not even necessary? I guess I was going for a more future proof set-up.

Hmm I should probably browse newegg for myself...:lol

That ASUS board supports up to 8GB so you should be good. That said, I'd like to change my recommendation:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130265

The new recommendation is cheaper and supports newer CPUs (AM2+/AM3) and more RAM (still DDR2, so your old sticks should drop right in).
 
crisdecuba said:
Also, a question re: SSDs.

When I build my PC, I didn't include one because of the price. I might be able to get one now and was wondering what others have experienced.

My goal would be to install Windows 7 and all my programs on the SSD, and then keep all my documents on my existing 500GB HDD.

My expectation would be that my computer would boot up really fast, and that my programs would start really fast as well.

Are these expectations realistic? Is the "OS and programs on the SSD" approach the right way to go? Any other advice?

Its the common route most people take with SSD using it as a OS boot, programs and few games. Having a fast boot time and really fast start up with programs is really great indeed.

Corsair SSD F60
2r53jtt.png
 
Lando Jones said:
Sorry posted without checking your edit..
Thanks for the second and third recommendations!

Sorry that you had to watch the winnowing down in real-time, but I think that MSI board will do you right.
 
Much appreciated..I think i'll go with that

Since I got you I don't play much pc games so when it comes to comparing specs I'm at loss..

Anyway with the specs I mentioned before and this new hardware.. would I have any trouble running ff14?

Minimum specs:
CPU: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.0 GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
RAM: 1.5 Gb
Video RAM: 256 Mb
Graphic Card: nVidia GeForce 8600 / ATI Radeon HD 3600
Sound: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7


Other than the OS anything else you think I should look into?
I'm running ubuntu 9.10 at the moment..err was :lol
 
Lando Jones said:
Much appreciated..I think i'll go with that

Since I got you I don't play much pc games so when it comes to comparing specs I'm at loss..

Anyway with the specs I mentioned before and this new hardware.. would I have any trouble running ff14?

Minimum specs:
CPU: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.0 GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
RAM: 1.5 Gb
Video RAM: 256 Mb
Graphic Card: nVidia GeForce 8600 / ATI Radeon HD 3600
Sound: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7


Other than the OS anything else you think I should look into?
I'm running ubuntu 9.10 at the moment..err was :lol
The early Phenom's weren't the best CPU's, but you should be ok.

That much said, I wouldn't suggest getting a $90 mobo with DDR2 and no SATA 6 / USB 3.
If possible a better option would be to sell your DDR2, and get a nice AM3 board for $10 more.
There a lot of 870 boards to pick from, any Gigabyte, Asus, or MSI with good reviews is fine. Probably around $95-105.

4GB is plenty.
 
Hazaro said:
The early Phenom's weren't the best CPU's, but you should be ok.

That much said, I wouldn't suggest getting a $90 mobo with DDR2 and no SATA 6 / USB 3.
If possible a better option would be to sell your DDR2, and get a nice AM3 board for $10 more.
There a lot of 870 boards to pick from, any Gigabyte, Asus, or MSI with good reviews is fine. Probably around $95-105.

4GB is plenty.

Troo. I assumed that he wanted a drop-in replacement to get back up and running, though. If he's willing to sell/trade parts off, things get more interesting, and I'm with you on the 870 and DDR3.
 
MisterNoisy said:
Troo. I assumed that he wanted a drop-in replacement to get back up and running, though. If he's willing to sell/trade parts off, things get more interesting, and I'm with you on the 870 and DDR3.
Some people don't want to deal with all that, but if possible it's the better route to take imo.
 
alanias said:
I say go with the quad core.

this one, right? had to be the $800 one... ;_;
for real, though: do you think the processor/RAM boost are a fair trade off for going from a GTX 260M to a ATI 5650? i'm worried that GPU dropff my bite me in the ass come PC games next year & beyond, you know?

lemme know what you think, i really appreciate the help. im gonna go look for a happy medium i might be missing on newegg.
 
Hazaro said:
Some people don't want to deal with all that, but if possible it's the better route to take imo.

So the general senses is to just trade off parts and start fresh..

Alright let lets put our heads together.. Whats worth keeping?..

- I know i needed to change the power supply from 650 to about a 1000w from what I've heard..
- Also since the MB is toasted thats out too..
- Is the video card and the idea of running crossfire with a second one no longer worth it as well?
- Wont mind scraping the ram since I wanted to buy more anyway..

Damn here I thought my rig was decent.. Well guess it was 2 years ago..
 
Lando Jones said:
So the general senses is to just trade off parts and start fresh..

Alright let lets put our heads together.. Whats worth keeping?..

- I know i needed to change the power supply from 650 to about a 1000w from what I've heard..
- Also since the MB is toasted thats out too..
- Is the video card and the idea of running crossfire with a second one no longer worth it as well?
- Wont mind scraping the ram since I wanted to buy more anyway..

Damn here I thought my rig was decent.. Well guess it was 2 years ago..

Dude. Keep your PSU - it's enough for even the beefiest single-card rig.
 
MisterNoisy said:
Dude. Keep your PSU - it's enough for even the beefiest single-card rig.

My mistake. I was informed I should switch it if I planned on running 2 cards, not just if I wanted to swap the current card I had in.
 
Just installed 2 "Cooler Master SickleFlow 120" 2000 RPM fans.

One of them sits at ~1000rpm at idle and one sits at ~1900rpm at idle... and is quite loud. I plugged it into "PWR_FAN" on my motherboard, could that be why?

When I hooked it up with the molex adaptor it ran full speed... how can I get it to ramp up/down based on how it's needed?

Edit: Changed it to SYS_FAN2 and still is running at 1900RPM. What gives. Computer is super chilly too.

I'm running a CPU stress test and everything is below 50 degrees C.
At idle everything is below 30 degrees C.
 
Lando Jones said:
My mistake. I was informed I should switch it if I planned on running 2 cards, not just if I wanted to swap the current card I had in.

TBH, it's probably enough for most SLI/Xfire rigs, unless you're looking to do 2x 5870 or 480GTX cards or other super-bananas configurations.
 
webcivilian said:
What PSU do you have? It certainly can be the PSU. POST crashed seem more towards a PSU problem.

hey man

I have a corsair TX650W. And again, nothing else to test it with :(

So I have 3 things to look at.

psu,mobo and cpu

For now it seems my crashes have the symptoms of bad ram/psu ( and my ram checked out fine ).
 
*choke* can't...go on... describing... symptoms*choke



Anywhoooooo, I'm slowly starting to mad :) laughing maniacally in a corner and rocking back and forth. Got the pc up and running long enough to start an OCCT cpu test. Got halfway through the test before the pc randomly reboot itself.

This has to be a conclusive clue towards somekind of voltage-spike or other problem related to the psu right? I mean if it was the cpu that had somekind of error during the occt it wouldn't just randomly reboot the pc would it? I mean a crash I can understand or somekind of error message.

*continues rocking back and forth*
*da govn'ment took ma baby*
 
Corky said:
*choke* can't...go on... describing... symptoms*choke



Anywhoooooo, I'm slowly starting to mad :) laughing maniacally in a corner and rocking back and forth. Got the pc up and running long enough to start an OCCT cpu test. Got halfway through the test before the pc randomly reboot itself.

This has to be a conclusive clue towards somekind of voltage-spike or other problem related to the psu right? I mean if it was the cpu that had somekind of error during the occt it wouldn't just randomly reboot the pc would it? I mean a crash I can understand or somekind of error message.

*continues rocking back and forth*
*da govn'ment took ma baby*
Get a decent PSU from a PC shop with a good returns policy and use it to test your rig, if it still reboots then it's your CPU or mobo and you can return the PSU after.
 
Tensai said:
Get a decent PSU from a PC shop with a good returns policy and use it to test your rig, if it still reboots then it's your CPU or mobo and you can return the PSU after.

Sent an RMA request to the store, I'll be sending in the motherboard and the psu.
 
rogue74 said:
Well, my worst fear came true. I just built my new rig about a week ago and everything was great until today. Booted up STALKER with the Complete 2009 mod (which I have been playing without problems until now) and the game immediately froze when I loaded my save. Artifacts everywhere. Exited, turned of D3DOverrider and tried again. Same thing. Also started noticing artifacts in Win 7 start menu.

So I downloaded OCCT. GPU mem test seems OK. Ran the GPU test and well...a picture is worth a thousand words:


What now GAF? It is a Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB. Fan was also making weird noises during test. Do I RMA? Or do I test for something else?

Edit: Decided to download memtest86+ v4.10 and am running it now. I am at 46% first pass and it has already detected one error. Question: Could a faulty DIMM be messing up my GPU tests? Or are both bad?

This is so frustrating.

graphical artifacts normally mean your gpu is faulty.
Just to be double sure pull out the ram sticks that you have found to be faulty and run your gpu test again.
 
spazzfish said:
graphical artifacts normally mean your gpu is faulty.
Just to be double sure pull out the ram sticks that you have found to be faulty and run your gpu test again.


I left memtest running overnight and when I woke up it was still running (albeit slowly) and that one error was still the only error that appeared. Shouldn't I have gotten more over several passes? If I can't reproduce the error how can I determine what stick is bad? And is it possible for memtest to give a false positive?

I'm going to try that windows memory thing this morning and run memtest again during lunch to see if it comes up again.
 
rogue74 said:
I left memtest running overnight and when I woke up it was still running (albeit slowly) and that one error was still the only error that appeared. Shouldn't I have gotten more over several passes? If I can't reproduce the error how can I determine what stick is bad? And is it possible for memtest to give a false positive?

I'm going to try that windows memory thing this morning and run memtest again during lunch to see if it comes up again.

somebody correct me if I'm wrong but if memtest detects a bad ram stick wouldn't it give thousands upon thousands of errors per pass?
 
Corky said:
somebody correct me if I'm wrong but if memtest detects a bad ram stick wouldn't it give thousands upon thousands of errors per pass?


WHen I was having issues, I ran memtest and got a single error that didnt happen until pass 9. I ran a total of 15 passes and this was the only error I had. I was reluctant to believe it was the ram but I RMA'ed it anyways and sure enough, the issues went away.
 
Salaadin said:
WHen I was having issues, I ran memtest and got a single error that didnt happen until pass 9. I ran a total of 15 passes and this was the only error I had. I was reluctant to believe it was the ram but I RMA'ed it anyways and sure enough, the issues went away.

But did you have one or two sticks? If you couldn't reproduce it, how did you know what stick to send in? Or do you send in the whole kit?

Also, what are the chances of me getting a bad GPU and RAM stick? And having those problems not appear until a week and a half after regular use? I guess anything is possible.

Could the bad RAM have caused the artifacing in the GPU test? Sounds like a stupid question but I guess the the idea of having to RMA both RAM and GPU is putting me in denial a bit.

I left the Win 7 memory diagnostic tool running when I left for work this morning. It will boot back into windows after the test and I will see how it went when I check it at home for lunch. In the meantime I found out there are 3 ways to run that Win 7 test. You can choose Basic, Standard and Extended. I will try an extended test and see what that reports. As well as try Memtest86+ again.
 
rogue74 said:
But did you have one or two sticks? If you couldn't reproduce it, how did you know what stick to send in? Or do you send in the whole kit?

2 sticks that I tested one at a time to see which one showed errors.
 
Ok then, as I mentioned earlier my psu and mobo are going to be RMAd soonish. But I need to ascertain that this will get to the root of the problem.

Can anything else inside my case, cause bsods/lockups/random reboots that are reminiscent of bad psu / ram?


CPU/MOBO/GPU/PSU/RAM

is there any other component other than the above 5 that can cause problems like mine? ( remember my pc even once crashed in bios so you can virtually count out software issues ).

What else is there? Optical units? The case? The hdd? None of these should be attributed with my issues right?
 
rogue74 said:
I left memtest running overnight and when I woke up it was still running (albeit slowly) and that one error was still the only error that appeared. Shouldn't I have gotten more over several passes? If I can't reproduce the error how can I determine what stick is bad? And is it possible for memtest to give a false positive?

I'm going to try that windows memory thing this morning and run memtest again during lunch to see if it comes up again.

I have never known memtest to give a false positive.
If memtest says there is a problem then i'd take that as concrete that you have a problem on one of your ram sticks. If memtest has thrown up an error, then i'd assume it will again.
I'm assuming you have two sticks of ram?
Pull one out and run the test again. If no problems you can assume that stick is fine and you can run your gpu tests again.
Also make sure your ram is properly sitting in it's slot.
 
Top Bottom