[Jesus Sanchez]

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

Fixed the link. Yes, that one is suitable. The Mobility 4650 GPU is slightly slower than the desktop 4650, which is known to be adequate.

[Marguerite Dabrin]

Fixed the link. Yes, that one is suitable. The Mobility 4650 GPU is slightly slower than the desktop 4650, which is known to be adequate.

One of the reviews says that the video card is actually wrong:

"Speaking of the video card, it's actually an ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 1 GB, so that's actually better than the specs listed on here."

Would that be better, or should I look for a computer with a better Graphics Card?

[{Richies Mommy}]

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?

Looks nice. Although a 1GB GTS 250 would be a worthy investment, especially at higher resolutions. But if your resolution is low, the one you chose will suffice. Can offset the additional cost with a non-modular 550W or 650W Corsair unless modularity is important to you.

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

Often times, the onboard video will just disable itself in the presence of a dedicated GPU. You can try re-enabling it (through the BIOS), but I'm not so sure you'll get the results you desire. Games like Oblivion and FO3 can get screwy if it notices more than two video devices.

More than likely though, you will probably need two video cards to hook up 3 monitors. This certainly can be done with a cheap low-end video card and can be ran separately from your Radeon 4870 (doesn't have to be crossfired or anything)...Highly suggest you stick with a Radeon card though for the secondary one to avoid driver conflicts. There are plenty of guides on the web to do this.

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

Consider these alternatives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115763
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115732
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9736955.p;jsessionid=3B0858B15E4F56B1A976F367DB8B4945.bbolsp-app02-49?id=1218164036446&skuId=9736955

I certainly would vouch for Asus as a reliable notebook distributor even more so over Acer, but the hardware on the Acer notebooks are better. If you decide to get one of the Acers, highly suggest you wipe the thing and reinstall Windows because they do install quite a bit of bloatware.

[lillian luna]

Consider these alternatives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115763
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115732
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9736955.p;jsessionid=3B0858B15E4F56B1A976F367DB8B4945.bbolsp-app02-49?id=1218164036446&skuId=9736955

I certainly would vouch for Asus as a reliable notebook distributor even more so over Acer, but the hardware on the Acer notebooks are better. If you decide to get one of the Acers, highly suggest you wipe the thing and reinstall Windows because they do install quite a bit of bloatware.

Hmm, I have a hard decision to make. I noticed the one I linked because of the CPU, does it really play a big difference compared to the other ones? Which one would you pick in my shoes?

[Dina Boudreau]

Hmm, I have a hard decision to make. I noticed the one I linked because of the CPU, does it really play a big difference compared to the other ones? Which one would you pick in my shoes?

The Asus from Best Buy hands down....of course, it's more expensive though. The hardware on this one is better than any of the other three.

[patricia kris]

I read that the Phenom II series CPU can be unlocked to be turned into a quad core CPU.

Is this safe to do? I have AMD's stock CPU cooler, so I'm not sure whether it would be safe with that cooler. If it is safe to do, would it be worth it (chance of shortening life span?)?

I have AMD Phenom II X2 550 (3.1 Ghz - at stock speed)
Mobo: ASUS M4A78 Plus

[dav]

I have a Gigabyte MA77OT-UD3P, this motherboard can only have a single ATi Radeon HD 4890, correct?

Also, I have an AMD Phenom II X4 925 running at 2.8GHz, is this right? It seems like it should be running faster than 2.8GHz...

[Ashley Hill]

Not sure if you've seen, but http://i44.tinypic.com/9899gx.jpg what Newegg got in the other day.

[El Khatiri]

I have a Gigabyte MA77OT-UD3P, this motherboard can only have a single ATi Radeon HD 4890, correct?

Also, I have an AMD Phenom II X4 925 running at 2.8GHz, is this right? It seems like it should be running faster than 2.8GHz...

Right in both cases.

The MA770T-UD3P has only a single PCI-e x16 slot. You could host a 4890x2 on it, but not two cards.

The Phenom II x4 925 is 2.8 GHz stock clock. You would have to manually overclock it to get it to run faster.

[jesse villaneda]

I have this router http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=501
And I have these 2 adapters http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127244
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127247&cm_re=d_link_adapter-_-33-127-247-_-Product
I was just using the 2nd one the other day and now for some reason it doesn't want to light up or anything
I tried the first one and it does the same thing
I find it weird that both of them do not work correctly now
Could it be they just can't connect to the router and that's why they don't light up?
Thanks

[courtnay]

Not exactly tech-related per se, but I didn't feel like making a whole new thread. Does anyone happen to know if Super Famicom or PAL Super Nintendo controllers work on a North American Super Nintendo?

[djimi]

What are some wipes I can use to clean my laptop without harming the screen? I have asked it before but it was a couple threads ago.

[kelly thomson]

What are some wipes I can use to clean my laptop without harming the screen? I have asked it before but it was a couple threads ago.

I use a glasses cleaning cloth on my monitor. Just wipe it very lightly and it's always been fine.

Not exactly tech-related per se, but I didn't feel like making a whole new thread. Does anyone happen to know if Super Famicom or PAL Super Nintendo controllers work on a North American Super Nintendo?

I don't know for sure, but wikipedia and google aren't coming up with anything other than the games being region locked. The pictures look the same of the controllers though, albeit with different colors.

[~Sylvia~]

I have a http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=068 and I'm curios as to weather or not I can map the two buttons on the side to do what I want, because I find going backwards a page to be quite annoying sometimes.

[Far'ed K.G.h.m]

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.

Nobody?

[IsAiah AkA figgy]

Sorry if this has been asked before

I'm looking at getting a new rig - it's a prebuilt one by a very reputable local supplier and after doing some online pricing I know I can't build it for cheaper myself

Standard specs include:

* AMD Phenom II X2 550 3.10GHz (6MB Cache) Black Edition Dual Core Processor
* 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 CL9 Dual Channel Memory
* 1TB - SATA2 3Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD
* AMD 770 Chipset Motherboard - USB3.0 & SATA3 6Gbps Ready
* Single NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3 - 3D Vision/ PhysX Ready


Anyway they have limited customization and the default choice of GPU is the GTS250 - I could swap that for the 5770 for $50NZD more - (my dollar is like 70c to the USD)

Have looked up far too many reviews of the 5770 from what I understand it is an excellent entry point DirectX 11 card - so if DX11 takes off it will be limited in capability vs. the more powerful ATI cards

I'm not a hard core gamer, good grief am still playing Morrowind, and tend to enjoy playing on the couch with the consoles for new releases - however I am interested in machinima so would like to ensure the card I choose works well with fraps and video editing.

By all accounts the GTS250 is a solid performer, but the 5770 has DX11 - am I in danger of being seduced by DX11 when I might not need it?

[Joanne Crump]

Nobody?

If you're using Boot Camp, then it's exactly a PC, for as long as you're booted into Windows. So long as your Mac isn't one of the ones with a cheap Intel GPU, it's just fine for PC games.

Virtual machine environments like Parallels or Fusion are not as good for gaming; they can't provide an adequate display adapter.

[renee Duhamel]

Sorry if this has been asked before

I'm looking at getting a new rig - it's a prebuilt one by a very reputable local supplier and after doing some online pricing I know I can't build it for cheaper myself

Standard specs include:

* AMD Phenom II X2 550 3.10GHz (6MB Cache) Black Edition Dual Core Processor
* 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 CL9 Dual Channel Memory
* 1TB - SATA2 3Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD
* AMD 770 Chipset Motherboard - USB3.0 & SATA3 6Gbps Ready
* Single NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3 - 3D Vision/ PhysX Ready


Anyway they have limited customization and the default choice of GPU is the GTS250 - I could swap that for the 5770 for $50NZD more - (my dollar is like 70c to the USD)

Have looked up far too many reviews of the 5770 from what I understand it is an excellent entry point DirectX 11 card - so if DX11 takes off it will be limited in capability vs. the more powerful ATI cards

I'm not a hard core gamer, good grief am still playing Morrowind, and tend to enjoy playing on the couch with the consoles for new releases - however I am interested in machinima so would like to ensure the card I choose works well with fraps and video editing.

By all accounts the GTS250 is a solid performer, but the 5770 has DX11 - am I in danger of being seduced by DX11 when I might not need it?

The 5770 is no slouch; it's an improvement on the 4870, which beats all the older nVidia cards. The GTS 250 is an over 2-year-old design; while it's still a very good performer, it's starting to show its age.

If the extra-cost option is a 5770 with 1GB GDDR5, I wouldn't hesitate to go for it.

[Kat Ives]

I read that the Phenom II series CPU can be unlocked to be turned into a quad core CPU.

Is this safe to do? I have AMD's stock CPU cooler, so I'm not sure whether it would be safe with that cooler. If it is safe to do, would it be worth it (chance of shortening life span?)?

I have AMD Phenom II X2 550 (3.1 Ghz - at stock speed)
Mobo: ASUS M4A78 Plus

Well, it's the Phenom X2 550 and 555 that can potentially (not guaranteed) be unlocked and I find it to be worth trying. However, your motherboard is not known to be one to allow you to do so making this question unfortunately moot.

[Alister Scott]

Ok, I have a serious problem with my current PC (not the new system I'm having nightmares building). Every time Windows loads up, the PC resets itself. It spends an unusually long time hanging at the Windows "Welcome" screen, then when it gets in I get the message "To help protect your computer, Windows has closed this program. Name: Generic Host Process for Win32 Services. Publisher: Microsoft Corporation." In the few seconds I manage to get into the task manager before the computer resets, I can see that the CPU usage is at 100%, with the bulk of the load going between avgcsrvx.exe, avgrsx.exe and nvsvc32.exe. These all seem genuine processes, so I'm not sure whether this is normal start-up behaviour or not.

I have some uni stuff I've been working on that I need access to as soon as possible, so I need some way to get Windows working again, even just for long enough to copy some files onto a USB, or some way to access my Windows files from Linux. Then I need some way to fix Windows. I'm currently running Linux Mint 8 off a USB just now,

[Bonnie Clyde]

Ok, I have a serious problem with my current PC (not the new system I'm having nightmares building). Every time Windows loads up, the PC resets itself. It spends an unusually long time hanging at the Windows "Welcome" screen, then when it gets in I get the message "To help protect your computer, Windows has closed this program. Name: Generic Host Process for Win32 Services. Publisher: Microsoft Corporation." In the few seconds I manage to get into the task manager before the computer resets, I can see that the CPU usage is at 100%, with the bulk of the load going between avgcsrvx.exe, avgrsx.exe and nvsvc32.exe. These all seem genuine processes, so I'm not sure whether this is normal start-up behaviour or not.

I have some uni stuff I've been working on that I need access to as soon as possible, so I need some way to get Windows working again, even just for long enough to copy some files onto a USB, or some way to access my Windows files from Linux. Then I need some way to fix Windows. I'm currently running Linux Mint 8 off a USB just now,

When I was restoring the MBR on my Windows 7 machine, booting from the install disc let me access the command console and access my files. If you have a second partition you could try copying the files there via the command console, and then format and reinstall on the main partition. There may be an easier way to do this though.

[Chris BEvan]

Often times, the onboard video will just disable itself in the presence of a dedicated GPU. You can try re-enabling it (through the BIOS), but I'm not so sure you'll get the results you desire. Games like Oblivion and FO3 can get screwy if it notices more than two video devices.

More than likely though, you will probably need two video cards to hook up 3 monitors. This certainly can be done with a cheap low-end video card and can be ran separately from your Radeon 4870 (doesn't have to be crossfired or anything)...Highly suggest you stick with a Radeon card though for the secondary one to avoid driver conflicts. There are plenty of guides on the web to do this.

Ahh, ok...I'm not looking to do anything heavy on the monitors (like game) but instead just for extra desktop real estate. Looks like it's gonna be a cheap card for me then. Any you'd recommend? I know the specs probably won't matter if all it's doing really is extending the desktop, but if I'm gonna spend money on a 2nd GPU I don't see the point in just buying something bad! Haha.

Also, would Windows recognise both GPU's? Like, when I go to extend the desktop, will it recognise the 3rd monitor?

[helliehexx]

When I was restoring the MBR on my Windows 7 machine, booting from the install disc let me access the command console and access my files. If you have a second partition you could try copying the files there via the command console, and then format and reinstall on the main partition. There may be an easier way to do this though.

I managed to get into Safe Mode and copy the files onto a USB from there, and I can do my work in Linux. Still, I'd quite like to have one properly working PC at least <_<

[Beth Belcher]

Errr, i put my Morrowind disc in the drive and its making a clicking sound? Ive never known this to happen before. Not sure if its not important or if it is a problem, whether its down to the drive or the disc? :unsure: I put in another game, Football Manager 2008, and there was no clicking sound, but the whirring was definitely louder and faster than usual...

EDIT: The discs are also coming out baking after only a few seconds in there.

[Luis Longoria]

Errr, i put my Morrowind disc in the drive and its making a clicking sound? Ive never known this to happen before. Not sure if its not important or if it is a problem, whether its down to the drive or the disc? :unsure: I put in another game, Football Manager 2008, and there was no clicking sound, but the whirring was definitely louder and faster than usual...

EDIT: The discs are also coming out baking after only a few seconds in there.

How old is the drive? My disc drives never seem to last more than 3 years, just order a new one for like 15-20 bucks.