Do NOT install Windows 2000. Windows XP has better support for old games than Windows 2000. I speak from experience, since all the computers in my house have Windows 2000 on them except mine, which has XP and 7.
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Do NOT install Windows 2000. Windows XP has better support for old games than Windows 2000. I speak from experience, since all the computers in my house have Windows 2000 on them except mine, which has XP and 7.
Alright, so for the past two months I've been fucked over by Asus in pretty much every way possible.
Back in July my motherboard decided to kick the bucket and took my video card with it, Asus have proved again they have one of the worst customer support services going.
Paid for a RMA which they spent just over a month doing jack shit and have now cut my 3 year warranty off and refused to repair my motherboard.
What I need right now is a motherboard which is NOT Asus, supports a Core2Duo E6750, four RAM slots supporting at least 8GB DDR2@1066 and supports PCI-E x16.
This is the bare essentials for what I need right now and I've been out of the loop ever since my motherboard destroyed everything.
The max I can afford right now is £120 and this board needs to last at least a year.
I don't particularly care about which brand as long as it is Not Asus.
Any suggestions on this would be greatly appreciated.
CrAsHOvErRide;everything in my set up has been changed, psu cpu, ram and graphics card, each have had the same result with Asus boards.
Two years ago I had a Asus board die on me after the north bridge chipset started to fail on me, two of the four slots would cause blue screen errors and at one point stopped the computer from booting at all.
I sent it of for an RMA which Asus promptly lost in the czech republic for 8 months straight, by the end of it they refused to reply to any of my emails asking where my board was.
This year another Asus board died the same way this time instead of doing what should have been a routine RMA they spent 4 weeks plastering the box and board with out of warranty stickers and cut the warranty down from 3 years to one year so my board was no longer covered, not only that but I had actually paid for the RMA through one of their licensed dealers and even then they refused to repair the board.
When the board first started failing i contacted Asus tech support to find out about an RMA and here's what they had to say.
They may make decent boards but their customer service is absolute shite.Quote:
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.
My name is Jany and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.
If you just connect one memory to the A1 slot or the B1 slot separately, could the PC POST well?
If so we highly recommend you run only in the functioning set up unless it becomes absolutely necessary for an RMA.
Welcome to refer Troubleshooting & FAQ for ASUS products in ASUS website:
Troubleshooting - http://support.asus.com/troubleshoot...shooting.aspx?
SLanguage=en-us
FAQ - http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx?SLanguage=en-us
If you continue to experience issues in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Best Regards,
Jany
ASUS Customer Service
E: just heard back from XFX about the video card, their offering a discount for a new card if i send the old one.
I'm thinking this would be a good card, http://www.xfxsupport.co.uk/upgrade/...e=HD-485X-ZDFC
Well I never used any customer service so idk. If you think you should change brand then you should go ahead.
I cannot recommend anything because I have only used ASUS and MSI in the past...and I always preferred ASUS. So I guess only options are Gigabyte or MSI.
I was obviously talking games that don't run on XP because otherwise I would have recommended it. If you have an old laptop you can do something extraordinary and not install a slowass XP on 512MB.
You're dodging the question. I don't know any games that refuse to run on XP, and my experience with Windows 2000 is that it slows the machine down with its incessant disk checking and then it has issues running games designed for Windows 98 and older where Windows XP runs them fine.
Dodging the question? Have you never heard of XP patches for games or DosBox? FYI they have the purpose that games run on XP which previously did not.
Settlers 2 for instance. I prefer running it on the old Kernel rather than installing a slow OS (given the RAM obviously, nothing wrong with XP) with an Emulator.
Settlers, Anno, Worms just to name a few.
I just came up with a little wishlist for a future (needed) upgrade for my PC:
Mobo x1
RAM x1
PSU x1
I have a few questions though: Will these parts be compatible with my gfx card, cpu, and case? Those are the only things that I don't want to change right now. And, are the parts I selected good, or are there better alternatives? For say, a little higher price, but it'll make a big, and better, difference.
I've heard of and used DOS Box. It's much easier to run a DOS game in DOS Box than it is to run it in the original kernel when you have a newer machine (his shitty laptop qualifies as a newer machine in this case) because you can slow down the CPU cycles for the app and it will emulate your hardware (most notably video and audio) to look like DOS/Windows 95 era hardware. I can run Wing Commander I-IV fine in DOS Box using Windows 2000 or Windows XP on any machine, but don't even get me started on having to fight with the computer to get it running using the integrated DOS kernel...and this isn't even a recent computer, this is an old Athlon K6-2 450MHz running, you guessed it, Windows 2000.
As for XP patches to old games, nope, never heard of them. I've needed patches to run a game in Windows 2000 properly (see Battlezone II), but never for XP.
Aside from all that, Windows XP is basically an extension of Windows 2000 anyways.
@ThePlague: what are your current specs?
From my profile (XFire actually):
Yes, those new components will work with your CPU and GPU. A bit strange to be pairing an nForce board with an ATi graphics card, but it will still work just fine.
I know nothing about mobo's, but that one seemed to have really good reviews. Why is it strange?
You typically buy an nForce if you want to do SLI. Unlike Intel with its X58 platform, AMD has no chipset that is capable of supporting both Crossfire and SLI; it's an either or situation. The other reason is simply because one prefers nVidia's built-in motherboard graphics to AMD's. I'm just OCD about matching my parts, as I believe it promotes smoother meshing of components. It's all in my head though, don't mind me. :p
Go ahead and get the board, there's nothing wrong with it. I myself built my new AM3 rig with an ASRock, and it's a superb motherboard. Nice features, solid performance, and good layout. Also fantastic onboard audio, USB3.0, and SATA 3. :aaaaa:
What about my other parts I listed? My biggest concern is the PSU, because my machine right now is running a 250 watt. Will the 460 last long? And I picked a Coolermaster because I know their products are good, or so I heard :)
Well, if you hope to upgrade to a much more potent graphics card later (think HD5770 or GTX460 and up), I suggest having at least 550 watts. If you are just buying these pieces to tide you over for something better, then get that 460.
Actually, now that I think about it, what is your goal here? If you seek to keep the CPU and GPU as is right now, and swap motherboards to allow more expansion, why aren't you getting an AM2+/AM3 board?
That never occurred to me either. Haha.I'll start looking for one now.
The main reason I picked that in the first place is because I forgot that my new CPU can fit an amd2+.
e: Found this, seems to be a good one.
I'd actually rather go with this one if I were buying. Always look at the eggs to number of reviews ratio. Also, it has better features and I recognise the Biostar brand.
Yeah, but it seems a little high for what I was looking for.
I have a question though, will the RAM I have currently work with the board I chose, plus the RAM I want to get? Or is it not good to mix different types of RAM?
Assuming you want to upgrade to something better down the road, I don't think the coolermaster is adequate. That PSU can only deliver 460W max, it is closer to 400W continuous. In general, low end power supplies deliver lower power than they are advertised with. With PSUs, you really do pay for what you get.
Alright, what do you think I should get?
I meant more specific than "2 gigs DDR2". Like, what speed is it: DDR2 800? DDR2 667? What?
It says on the site 8500.
*headdesk*
I mean what's already IN your PC. You want to have sticks of RAM that are the same speed, and ideally you would just replace the RAM you have with a dual channel kit to get best results.
Here's exactly what it says on the RAM:
2GB 2Rx8 PC2 - 6400U
666 - 12 - E1
And it's by Kingston
That is most definitely not DDR2 8500 RAM. That's 6400. Find some DDR2 6400 RAM to go with it, with a timing starting off 6-12 to match.
Fake E: Or just replace the whole set completely. That's the easier route.
Well, what do you want to do with it? If you're running a 32-bit OS and playing older games like Halo and Source-based games, then 2GB is fine. If you plan on Crysis and its sequel, or Far Cry 2, or what have you, you want 2x2GB. If you get just 2GB, I suggest getting a 2x1GB kit, since that will double your memory throughput (two sticks operating has more bandwidth than one).
What 1 GB sticks do you recommend?
The ones with the best and most reviews, naturally!
Aside from that, it has timings of 5, which is good for DDR2 though if you want you can push it to 4. You won't see much performance increase.
I'm trying to find a good GPU so I could play newer games and found thatsomemost/all GPUs need PCI 2.0 which my mobo lacks, yes I know that 2.0 cards are compatible with 1.0 slots and vice versa, but how big the performance drop will be? And which GPU should I buy? Budget: 200$, PSU: 450W if anyone needs to know.
The performance drop is almost immeasurable in games unless you're using SLI/Crossfire, even when using SLI and Crossfire the difference between PCI 1.0 and 2.0 is only a few FPS in most games. I run two GTX 285 1GB's in SLI on a PCI 1.0 board and don't have issues.
Thx Freelancer and welcome back!
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...TEK-_-17815007
Is xigmatek a good brand? I need a cheap PSU, but all of them seems to be crap.
Posted on a tech forum and didn't get any good feedback so I'll try here. Looking to overclock my AMD 550 processor (basically this except mines an older black edition model). By reading how-to tuts overclocking with the BE it should be easy with messing with the multiplier. The main thing I'd like to ask here is if anyone knew of a good cooler for $60 or less that's compatible with AM3.
Any cooler that worked on AM2 or Socket 939 also works on AM3; they haven't changed the form factor, just the pin arrangement on the socket proper.
That said, I recommend one of those Zalman fans, the ones that sit perpendicular to the CPU.
Like this one.
Have one on an old 939 Athlon 64 X2 3800+, works wonderfully.
I personally recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-T...6972885&sr=1-6
+
2 x http://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-U...6972885&sr=1-4
+
2 x 120mm fans of your choice. Want quite fans, get em. Want loud performance fans, get those instead.
If you look around you can probably find it all for under $60, you don't need to get the Black model but try and get the latest revision of which ever Ultra 120 you find. Don't look at the Venomous X cooler, the tightening bolts will crack your motherboard.
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So I finally got around to formatting my two separate 500GB drives that used to dual-boot Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Now they're combined into a RAID-0 array for increased performance and only running Windows 7, as I hadn't logged into the Vista installation in over a year...
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/7378/raid0hdtune.gif
And that's the result, has sped up my load times for Windows/Programs/Games by a recognizable amount. I'm sure it's not as fast as an SSD but it does make a difference! Could some of you grab the free version of HD Tune and bench your drives? These numbers are kinda useless to me without something to compare to...
I don't know if you're looking for SSD benches or fellow RAID benches. Just benched mine however:
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8949/101013hdbench.jpg
Random downward spikes probably due to me having quite a few programs running whilst doing the bench =[
I think my HD Tune isn't recording my speeds properly, as I can move a file from one of my storage RAID's to my OS RAID at about 90-100 MB/s according to Windows... WTF.
Those new Samsungs are quite an improvement over the old series
http://innergoat.modacity.net/comput...NG_HD501LJ.png
It gives you positive increase in CPU usage? wat.
What's the reason for the downward ARC on non-RAID systems again? I remember reading something about that at one point. Burst or sustained speeds are more consistent on RAID or something, is that right?
Spinning disk... outer edge moving faster relative to the heads
Also AMD 6800 series reviews should pop up on Friday. They're midrange cards to replace the 5770 and 5750 lol.
6900 replaces 5800
6800 replaces 5700
That doesn't sound right because on their own chart, they had the 6700 series performing on par with the 5800 series. Something doesn't add up here.
e: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...3&postcount=32
nda is up go go go
I just realized, AMD has now come full circle with Nvidia's old build numbers. When I first got into PC building the Nvidia 6800 and ATI X800 GPU's were king.
So, the new HD6870 is on par with an HD5850, and the 6850 is slightly better than a 5770. As far as I'm concerned, this is a naming fail for AMD. Now a shitload of people are going to be confused. Having said that, the cards are excellent for the segments they target; nVidia's GTX460 and 470 have some serious competition now.
I'm buying two of these for my laptop: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136567
Any reason I shouldn't?
Because these have infinitely better performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148591
Except that those Momentus XT drives are SSD-HDD hybrids.
Why anybody would pay for an SSD at the current prices is completely beyond me. It just doesn't make sense to spend that much money. It'll drop in price eventually. 7200RPM drives do fine and if you can't wait that long, you should go learn some patience.
Ya, I need it now and have $100 to spare. I'd rather have an extra tb than a minimally faster drive.
I'll get an SSD when they're practical.
e: May go with this 7200 with 750gb http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148599
Is the SSD actually worth losing out on 500gb?
I'd never buy an SSD right now either, the price is way to high. You guys need to research that Momentus XT a bit more before posting about it again.
I've found that 7200rpm drives in laptops give a hugely noticeable difference in general operation performance, my old laptop had a 5400rpm drive in it and it would take forever to copy files and such. The 7200rpm in my M15x is on par with my desktop.
Whatever the case is, I was running a 160gb 5400 rpm drive before. This is going to make a big difference to me.
Anyone know anything about this? http://www.bootcooler.com/
They don't show up as separate drives Warsaw. The drive places files that are used most often onto the SSD portion of the drive, mostly OS files. The drive works way better than it sounds, I was skeptical until I actually saw a friend install one in his laptop. Way faster boots and general operation than his previous 7200rpm drive.
I don't honestly see the hubbub about faster boot times. So you save 20 seconds of your life from looking at a boot screen, whoop dee doo, what else were you going to do with those 20 seconds? I personally use it to go grab a drink or something. What I would want an SSD for is to reduce the god-awful load times in games like Half-Life 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Bioshock, and Battlefield. A hybrid just can't do that because its SSD portion doesn't have enough space to. Honestly, you would get the same effect as installing to RAM, using an SSD.
Considering it was almost 5 minutes before I could even use any applications before, this is a great improvement. I can start using it in under 60 seconds now.
What the hybrid is good at is for opening and maintaining programs. It stores commonly used files in the ssd automatically and loads them from there when you need them. My commonly used programs do not require more than the alloted 4gb, and so paying the insane prices for an 80gb ssd AND a new hdd is not worth it to me.
Well I guess I'm strange then, because my most used programs are Chrome, Steam (which is over 70GB), and then whatever game I've been whoring recently. Out of those, only Chrome would fit. For one application, it's not worth it.
So like I said, it's basically an extension of your RAM and not storage. Might as well spend more money on your RAM then.
You could have 128GB's of the fastest RAM in the world and you'd still get a performance increase using a hybrid or SSD, since things still need to load from your storage drive to your RAM.
Not if you do what I said and just install straight to RAM, which has been done before. The hybrid is only going to give me a performance increase on the things that I don't care to have an increase on. It is just simply too small of a solid state capacity for games.
Well, christmas is coming up soon, and to me that means blowing money that I get on something I probably shouldn't. I've asked this question before about upgrading my PC, but I changed a few things up and wanted to know if these are good deals or not.
Mobo first
PSU
Moar RAM (currently at 1x 2Gb stick.)
Worth the $125.97 (w/out shipping)?
And this is my current specs:
Just a question, if you're upgrading of all things the mobo already and other stuff, why didn't you build a computer to begin with?
More ram is always a good buy, but yeah whats wrong with the current motherboard? You planning on overclocking on that new cheapo board? :raise:
Kind of, yeah. Last time I asked you guys about my motherboard, you said that it was bogging down my computer. With those parts, it should make it faster, right?
And @Rook: by buying these i'm pretty much building the computer from scratch. I just don't have the money to do it all at once, so I do it one piece at a time. I started with the graphics card, and then bought that CPU. I'm keeping the case, because it has a lot of room to upgrade, and I like the power button setup.
That board should leave me some room if I want to continue upgrading the CPU (which I do, eventually), and it seems to be a great deal.
It should be enough to get by so long as you don't plan on doing any major OC'ing.
Also, you should have bought the motherboard first.
Didn't really think of it at the time, I was more focused on getting rid of having to use the terrible integrated graphics.
How much of a framerate boost should I see with this? Right now i'm running Borderlands at 1024x768, with ~23 FPS, and my resolution for my monitor maxes out at 1280x1024.
e2:
Well, reddit says it would be better for me to get this and this, instead of that stuff. What do you guys think?
You would be better off snagging a 5770 or 4850 for around the same price point. Yes, they really are that much better. I have a 5770, my monitor maxes at 1280x1024, and it plays everything beautifully. Borderlands at 60fps with 4x AA and 4x AF, hello (Borderlands hates ATi, BTW. So I could theoretically go higher, but certain spots will not be happy). S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat runs maxed.
Srs. Get the 5770.
I can't really spend $150 on a card, I need to get a new PSU too. Right now i'm running on a 250W, and I want to be able to spend 150 for a card and a PSU.
Alright, so it's about time that I get myself set with a new computer. Like most other students I don't have the big bucks to spend on something top of the line so I'm willing to settle for a nice mid range rig. Now, of cores, I want to save every bit of cash that I can so I'm opting to build it myself. Unfortunately, having never built my own PC before, I don't know where to start in terms of parts to buy and where to find the best deal. (I imagine Newegg though) So this is where I turn to you fine tech guys to help me overcome my ignorance of all things related to building my own PC; though from what I've read so far, it sounds like their is nothing to it.
My budget is $1,500, I would like to keep it below that if possible but it's not the end of the world if I go over a tad. Idealy I'll be using this computer purely for gaming and video editing. Would love to be able to stay ahead of the curve in the gaming area if I can, primarily looking to play things such as Black Ops, Bad Company 2/Battlefield 3 (once released), WoW, Guild Wars 2, (oh and dat awsum Crysis game yo:haw:) at respectable settings/speeds. Of cores upgradability is a must but I imagine a custom built rig isn't exactly that restricting.
Spec wise I'm shooting for:
A 500Gig hard drive
4 gigs of ram (unless you advise more)
An Intel i7 950 (if possible with budget)
And that's as far as my limited knowledge of computers goes, the rest I entrust to you guys. :v:
$1500 is a massive budget for a "budget" computer. I built an entirely new tower and manged to throw in a keyboard for $640. Just scrounge your old DVD drive and hard drives to save a nice chunk of change.
-AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE
-ASRock G870 motherboard with Crossfire support
-HD5770
-Antec 300 case
As for your current build, well, nothing short of an HD5870 or GeForce GTX480 would do justice. Also, if you are getting an i7 950, you want 6GB of RAM to take advantage of the triple channel that the motherboard WILL have. Oh, and X58 motherboards ain't cheap either.
Referring to this again: http://bacon.modacity.net/img/images/perfrel.gif
It'd be near damn pointless to waste $99 bucks on a card that barley performs better than what you already have (according to your modacity specs) save up and spend $50-$100 more to get something that would actually make a significant difference.
Well, since barely anyone posts here anymore I decided to take it to reddit the other day, and someone gave me the best option i've heard. So i'm getting this and this, because my graphics card is fine for now, and it should run better with more power. That comes total to a little over $80, which is way better than what I had.
You should spring for a GTS 250. You could find some really nice deals if you search around.
amd's 6900 are out
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...=56&subid=1752
It has less Stream Processors than the 5870. wut.
Already read it. Very interesting how they've changed since the last generation. For those of you who don't want to read, the short version is that AMD has squeezed extra power out of its Shader Processors and improved tesellation at the expense of performance some slightly older games. Good news is that for the newest games and the most presently demanding games, it is as fast as or faster than the GTX570, but for older games it can get trumped by the 5870 in some instances.
Question time! No GF for plas = lots of spare money. HOWEVER, im in the process of getting a new car.. so I only have a little bit of a budget here to work with. So here's my question. How will 'Tier 3' work with current games out now? Am I gonna be able to run current games at medium to high settings? If i go with Tier 3, i can basically get it within the next week:
http://www.hardware-revolution.com/b...ng-pc-q4-2010/
Now, if it wont get me medium to high settings, im willing to wait a while till i get the extra money for tier 6:
http://www.hardware-revolution.com/m...eam-gaming-pc/
How will that do me? Will I be able to get max settings with that on current games? I dun know shit about PCs by simply looking at the parts like that ><
Tier 3 is actually pretty damn good, and should do fine (it's essentially what I have) though I'd slap a 6870, 5870, or 6970 in there as opposed to that GTX 460 they recommend. If you want nVidia, get a GTX 470, 480, or GTX 570.
How up to date are you guys with PSUs? My current Corsair VX550 is only able to power my setup running my motherboard with 20 pins, apposed to 24. Everything still runs fine even under load and at high ambient temps. I'm wanting to upgrade because the fan is becoming damn noisy, and I don't like the idea of running a power supply at its max output.
My current setup:
AMD X4 955
4GB DDR2
HD4850 512MB
3 HDDs
1 CD Drive
2 Case Fans
I'm thinking about upgrading to a 5000 or 6000 series card and eventually DDR3 ram this year, does anyone have any recommendation for a silent power supply?
I was thinking about the Corsair HX650: http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/comp...p?partid=11077
It provides an extra 10A on the +5 and +12V rails, which in my extremely uneducated opinion seems like a decent upgrade.
Your current PSU is fine for any card you upgrade to, excluding the dual-gpu cards of course.
:raise:
He wants a quieter PSU, not just a more powerful one. I would give advice but I'm not really qualified since I have never built a PC for quiet operation. I always have all of my fans running at 100% except for the GPU.
The one he has now is quiet. If he's still using the stock AMD heat sink thats making all the noise ~
Nope. I'm using a Noctua heatsink and fan for my CPU, i've unplugged my case fans and turned my GPU fan down to 20% (and turned it up to 100, but it makes a different kind of hum) to see if that stops the noise, but the sound still persists :\