[Rob Davidson]

Alright, one final micro-decision question. Scan has 2 different 1GB XFX 5850s. The first is http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX-HD5850-PCI-E-21-4000MHz-GDDR5-GPU-725MHz-1440Cores-DP-DVI-HDMI-Aliens-vs-Predator. The second is http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX-HD-5850-XXX-PCI-E-20(x16)-4500MHz-GDDR5-GPU-755MHz-1440-Cores-DP-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDMI.

How much difference would those few extra MHz make, and how much difference does it make between PCI-E 2.0 and 2.1? I don't care much for the free game with it.

[djimi]

Alright, one final micro-decision question. Scan has 2 different 1GB XFX 5850s. The first is http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX-HD5850-PCI-E-21-4000MHz-GDDR5-GPU-725MHz-1440Cores-DP-DVI-HDMI-Aliens-vs-Predator. The second is http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX-HD-5850-XXX-PCI-E-20(x16)-4500MHz-GDDR5-GPU-755MHz-1440-Cores-DP-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDMI.

How much difference would those few extra MHz make, and how much difference does it make between PCI-E 2.0 and 2.1? I don't care much for the free game with it.

Marginal. Maybe up to 5 fps more. Do understand that the Radeon 5850 can overclock quite nicely too...close to Radeon 5870 speeds, so I say go for the cheapest one.

PCI-E 2.1 is just the next step until PCI-E 3.0, which is still FAR away. To be honest, the PCI-E 2.1 stat is irrelevant right now...there aren't any cards that even saturate the PCI-E 2.0 bus. Compatibilities will not be a problem if you're wondering. All the PCI-E generations are backward compatible.

[kitten maciver]

Not on a "healthy" install. How many processes are running in Task Manager after a fresh boot? Anything CPU heavy? What are the system specs?

Don't have those answers right now - I'll repost when I'm at my parents. But there's like ten thousand background programs, from what I recall. Hmmm, to be continued with a procexp check.

But at least I know it's not normal. *shrug*

[Sharra Llenos]

Will the fun never end? I plugged in my new GPU, turned the computer on, GPU fan fires up full blast, case fan comes on, mouse flashes, keyboard flashes, absolutely nothing on the monitor. Any ideas?

[Bad News Rogers]

Will the fun never end? I plugged in my new GPU, turned the computer on, GPU fan fires up full blast, case fan comes on, mouse flashes, keyboard flashes, absolutely nothing on the monitor. Any ideas?

Auxiliary power not plugged in on the GPU?

Monitor has dual inputs, and it's set to VGA when you're using DVI?

Have you ever gotten that motherboard to work with any GPU at all?

[Jonathan Montero]

Auxiliary power not plugged in on the GPU?

Monitor has dual inputs, and it's set to VGA when you're using DVI?

Have you ever gotten that motherboard to work with any GPU at all?

Power (2 PCI-E cables) is connected up to the GPU. I just tried there with my flatmate's GPU in my motherboard and got nothing. I put it back in his computer, connected this monitor up and it worked fine. I did send the motherboard off to Overclockers a bit over a month ago for testing. The said it was fine, sent it back, and slapped me with a nice fee. I've tried both sticks of RAM in my flatmate's computer and they both work fine. I've tried booting up without the hard drive and optical drive connected incase they were the culprits, and it makes no difference. Despite Overclockers' insistence, I don't see what the problem could be other than the motherboard.

[Maria Leon]

Power (2 PCI-E cables) is connected up to the GPU. I just tried there with my flatmate's GPU in my motherboard and got nothing. I put it back in his computer, connected this monitor up and it worked fine. I did send the motherboard off to Overclockers a bit over a month ago for testing. The said it was fine, sent it back, and slapped me with a nice fee. I've tried both sticks of RAM in my flatmate's computer and they both work fine. I've tried booting up without the hard drive and optical drive connected incase they were the culprits, and it makes no difference. Despite Overclockers' insistence, I don't see what the problem could be other than the motherboard.

Sure sounds like the motherboard to me. Do you have a speaker plugged into it, and do you get any beep codes?

[Arnold Wet]

No speaker. The motherboard has connections for a speaker, but my case (Coolermaster Stacker 831) doesn't appear to have one. Which is irritating. Had I been doing this 2 weeks ago, I could have just picked up a buzzer from the lab at uni <_<

[Clea Jamerson]

Hello everyone!

I've been messing around with partitions recently, and at the moment I have 3 different volumes on my HDD, my C: drive, system reserved, and unallocated space. However, when I right click on my C: drive in the Windows 7 disc management to extend the volume using the unallocated space, the option is greyed out. Could someone tell me what I need to do in order to extend it?

[M!KkI]

Hello everyone!

I've been messing around with partitions recently, and at the moment I have 3 different volumes on my HDD, my C: drive, system reserved, and unallocated space. However, when I right click on my C: drive in the Windows 7 disc management to extend the volume using the unallocated space, the option is greyed out. Could someone tell me what I need to do in order to extend it?

As a rule, you can't modify a mounted partition. You may do better using something like http://www.partedmagic.com.

[Naazhe Perezz]

As a rule, you can't modify a mounted partition. You may do better using something like http://www.partedmagic.com.

So I should install this program on a CD, boot from the CD, and then I can use it to extend my C: drive?

[His Bella]

So I should install this program on a CD, boot from the CD, and then I can use it to extend my C: drive?

Be prepared. Sometimes even the good partition tools (GParted, Parted Magic, Ubuntu installer) will cobble your C: drive, causing your computer to fail to boot. Usually the Repair feature on your Windows install disk will fix this. This assumes you actually have a Windows install disk (many proprietary computers don't come with one). And even then there is a chance of it not working.

Proceed with caution. Because of the danger of rendering your C: partition unbootable and unrecoverable, this maneuver is best reserved for situations where you damn well need the additional space in C: to do something that you must do, not merely for your convenience.

[!beef]

Be prepared. Sometimes even the good partition tools (GParted, Parted Magic, Ubuntu installer) will cobble your C: drive, causing your computer to fail to boot. Usually the Repair feature on your Windows install disk will fix this. This assumes you actually have a Windows install disk (many proprietary computers don't come with one). And even then there is a chance of it not working.

Proceed with caution. Because of the danger of rendering your C: partition unbootable and unrecoverable, this maneuver is best reserved for situations where you damn well need the additional space in C: to do something that you must do, not merely for your convenience.

Well, it really is just for convenience more than anything else. Would you recommend simply formatting the unallocated space into a new volume instead? It wouldn't kill me if I had to install things to a D: directory eventually. Thanks for the warning, I had no idea it would be a dangerous procedure.

[Causon-Chambers]

It can be, but I have yet to have any issues expanding or shrinking C: drives on XP and W7. At least with W7, I can do within Windows. No need for a boot CD.

[Logan Greenwood]

It seems my mum has broken her laptop again and I'm required to fix it :shifty:

It looks like she's got some sort of Virus that's somehow messing with file permissions - but not really (If you know what I mean). I've looked at the file permissions and they are all normal and I am logged in as the administrator account. It seems she's ended up with some sort of Virus that's impersonating a Vista security tool. I literally can't do anything in normal mode so I eventually managed to boot into safe by holding F8 during the setup (Msconfig doesn't work, it's blocked as well). The error message when attempting to open a file is:

"Windows cannot access the specified device, path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item"

Whilst in safe mode I've been able to run Spybot S&D bit I still can't run the AVG AV software she has installed.

Any ideas? I was thinking a USB bootable virus scan or something? I'm not sure...

Cheers.

[Tessa Mullins]

I'm wondering, could my problem be to do with not having GPU drivers installed, so I don't get an output to the monitor? Could explain why it works hooked up to my flatmate's computer with his GPU, but not my computer with his GPU, while also clearing Overclockers of being quite such colossal :spotted owl: s. Only problem then would be how I could install the drivers, if I can't see anything at all on the monitor and don't have an OS installed yet? I have a Linux Mint USB with a casper partition I could get drivers for, but I'm pretty much out of my depth here.

[Rich O'Brien]

I'm wondering, could my problem be to do with not having GPU drivers installed, so I don't get an output to the monitor? Could explain why it works hooked up to my flatmate's computer with his GPU, but not my computer with his GPU, while also clearing Overclockers of being quite such colossal :spotted owl: s. Only problem then would be how I could install the drivers, if I can't see anything at all on the monitor and don't have an OS installed yet? I have a Linux Mint USB with a casper partition I could get drivers for, but I'm pretty much out of my depth here.

No, if there are no drivers, Windows will use the fallback VGA driver. Any graphics card for PC has to work with that driver.

[Laura Shipley]

It seems my mum has broken her laptop again and I'm required to fix it :shifty:

It looks like she's got some sort of Virus that's somehow messing with file permissions - but not really (If you know what I mean). I've looked at the file permissions and they are all normal and I am logged in as the administrator account. It seems she's ended up with some sort of Virus that's impersonating a Vista security tool. I literally can't do anything in normal mode so I eventually managed to boot into safe by holding F8 during the setup (Msconfig doesn't work, it's blocked as well). The error message when attempting to open a file is:

"Windows cannot access the specified device, path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item"

Whilst in safe mode I've been able to run Spybot S&D bit I still can't run the AVG AV software she has installed.

Any ideas? I was thinking a USB bootable virus scan or something? I'm not sure...

Cheers.

The only thing I can think of is booting into a Linux USB OS, and run your scanner from there. It may not work though. I've also heard of people creating a new user and removing the virus, but that may not work depending on the virus.

[Paul Rice]

No, if there are no drivers, Windows will use the fallback VGA driver. Any graphics card for PC has to work with that driver.

I don't have Windows on the computer yet though. I have the disks, but since I can't see anything on the monitor (and since the GPU fan spins like it's putting out a forest fire I assume it's not starting up properly) I can't install the OS. I also don't get anything trying to boot from the Linux USB. I might try using my flatmate's motherboard instead of mine to see if it works, at least then I'll be able to say for sure it's my mobo. No joy trying to find a system speaker yet <_<

[Stacyia]

Hi all, im looking at a computer on the internet, what sort games would this configuration, im looking for one that is suitable for fallout 3 and oblivion but also ones that have come out more recently (empire total war, and maybe battelfield bad company2). Maybe you could also recommend more suitable computers or components that i can put in. I also have other questions that will be below the specs. Thanks in advance.

Processor- Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz S1156 overclocked to 4Ghz

Memory- 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3

Graphics Card- Nvidia 512MB XFX GTS 250, 675Mhz GPU

Power Supply - 650W Corsair CMPSU-650HXUK PSU

1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache

Question: Oblivion was made before Windows 7 came about, will the game run without any complications? otherwise i will stick with good ol XP.

And do i really need a gaming keyboard and mouse? Does come in handy when playing COD or battlefield games?

[cassy]

ahhhh boy....

I spilled a bit of water onto my laptop (not very much, but enoguh to screw it up), right ontop of keyboard where its above the video card. Now this happened a few hours ago, how long should i leave it? when it happened the screen turned white, and the power light on the top started flickering, had had ot pull the battery out to stop it. Im thinking that there is a short between the power and screen, hopefully just caused by water inside it.

so, how long do i leave it? should i try it in the morning? Will there be permenant damage you think? anything i should do to it tonight to help it dry?

[Abi Emily]

I have a question regarding Multi Monitor displays...

My graphics card is an HD Radeon 4870. It has 2x DVI outputs, which are both connected to monitors at the moment. This is fine, and I have a sweet dual monitor set up running perfectly. However...

I recently got an HDTV, which sits in between my monitors...it has connections/inputs galore, and I really want to use it as a 3rd screen! But my graphics card only has 2 outputs...fail, right?

My motherboard has on board graphics (ATI 3200 something...) so I figured I could just connect it via either VGA or HDMI to the motherboards outputs and voila! But no, the 3rd display won't show up as even being acknowledged

Are the onboard graphics disabled when you connect a dedicated GPU? If so, is there a way to enable it? If not, I'll just buy a cheap second graphics card and do it that way, but I'd rather not...

TIA

[JUan Martinez]

Are the onboard graphics disabled when you connect a dedicated GPU? If so, is there a way to enable it? If not, I'll just buy a cheap second graphics card and do it that way, but I'd rather not...

You can't use two graphics cards at once, as far as I know. (besides an SLI setup of course)

[Alexandra Louise Taylor]

I figured I'd post this here, since making a new thread about it seemed redundant considering there is a tech thread. ^_^
So, I'm running an iMac, OS X Leopard. I installed XP on it, the entire windows OS, and when I restart my comp, and hold down "option", a option comes up to boot this machine up through OS X Leopard, or XP windows. I choose windows, and it goes through the whole windows booting up process, it technically "is" a PC when I do this, there is no trace of the mac OS when I do this. The only way to access my mac OS is to restart my comp and pick it, and boot it up from there. I used a program called BootCamp to do this.
So my question is, if I install a PC game on it (I set aside 100 gigs of my terabyte HD for the windows OS for whatever I'll need), will it run just as it's on a PC? Logic dictates, since it's the Windows OS, it will, but I still am not sure, as I've never done it before, I'm not very tech savvy, and I haven't ran windows in literally almost a decade. The only reason I did this was to run Morrowind/OB/possibly fallout on here, since I hear there are a few decent mods out there.
Thanks.

[Chris Duncan]

Hello, I'm looking for a laptop that is good enough to run Morrowind heavily modded and Oblivion and Fallout 3 lightly modded, for below $1000

http://http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220634