[Daramis McGee]

Thanks, Tig Ol Bitties for you graphics card recommendation.

My GTX 460 came in today, and after I installed it, my computer finally works normal, and can even play DVDs now (strangely I never could before, even when I was running Windows XP). Maybe my ATI Radeon card was really faulty..?

[Beulah Bell]

Hey gang, my business computer...

Intel Pentium 4 - 3.2 GHz cpu
3GB DDR2 RAM
150GB HDD

...is biting the bullet.

And I've been charged with finding an upgraded replacement for it. Joy.

I'm in need of something new without going too far over the budget of $500.

What this computer will do is:

Light Power Point and Light Excel work.
Monitor 4 store security cameras and record the video feeds onto the HDD
Business E-mail and Website maintenance.

Things we need with whichever computer we get:

Vista or Win 7 OS, 500GB+ HDD, Decent vid card to process video.

Anyone able to point me in the right direction of some solutions here?

Thanks in advance gang.

[TOYA toys]

Hey gang, my business computer...

Intel Pentium 4 - 3.2 GHz cpu
3GB DDR2 RAM
150GB HDD

...is biting the bullet.

And I've been charged with finding an upgraded replacement for it. Joy.

I'm in need of something new without going too far over the budget of $500.

What this computer will do is:

Light Power Point and Light Excel work.
Monitor 4 store security cameras and record the video feeds onto the HDD
Business E-mail and Website maintenance.

Things we need with whichever computer we get:

Vista or Win 7 OS, 500GB+ HDD, Decent vid card to process video.

Anyone able to point me in the right direction of some solutions here?

Thanks in advance gang.

Are you going to build it? Or it has to be pre-assembled? Here's a hell of a self-built:

CASE+PSU+MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.525655
CPU+GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.500407
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?nm_mc=AFC-SlickDeals&cm_mmc=AFC-SlickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16822152185
DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135221
OS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754

That runs a lil over $500. Alternative CPU+GPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.500434


Pre-assembled machine:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229194

[sally coker]

Oh yea....but I hope your processor is a strong one. The GTX 460 is a nice card, but may be a little above your price range for the 1GB version:
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=52311&category_id=1216&manufacturer_id=0&tid=ne5x460sf1102

The Radeon 6-series will be dropping with the Radeon 6850 and 6870 in coming weeks too, so may want to wait and see what develops in terms of pricing and performance.

It's an AMD Phenom II X2 550. Will that bottleneck it at all?

If that particular processor isn't up to snuff, how cheaply can I get one that is?

[Kat Lehmann]

It's an AMD Phenom II X2 550. Will that bottleneck it at all?

If that particular processor isn't up to snuff, how cheaply can I get one that is?

I think it's pretty decent actually. Go ahead and get the card.

[Emily Jeffs]

Ok I'm back. I finally got rid of that nasty virus, so I didn't do a full reset. However, I still want to do a full rest of my computer because it's just gotten out of control. Old programs not uninstalled correctly, borked drivers, and other things like that are really messing with me. It would be easier to just reinstall windows than try to fix it.

However, I don't have a recovery disk except one I had from before I upgraded to W7. Is there a way to recover back to W7, and not Vista like I had before? The W7 upgrade process takes a hell of a long time.

[Andrea P]

Ok I'm back. I finally got rid of that nasty virus, so I didn't do a full reset. However, I still want to do a full rest of my computer because it's just gotten out of control. Old programs not uninstalled correctly, borked drivers, and other things like that are really messing with me. It would be easier to just reinstall windows than try to fix it.

However, I don't have a recovery disk except one I had from before I upgraded to W7. Is there a way to recover back to W7, and not Vista like I had before? The W7 upgrade process takes a hell of a long time.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1112884-the-community-tech-thread-no-92/page__view__findpost__p__16381910

What I said back then still applies. There is nothing you can do now as any imaging you do will only be able to restore to the current state.

I still highly urge you image your system after doing the reinstall. I image my systems even without upgrades simply because it greatly decreases the time it takes to set the computer up again (don't have to do as much reinstalling and reconfiguring). The advantage for upgraded computers is doubly-so.

[WTW]

I'm thinking of getting the HD7 ( the New HTC windows phone 7) and I want to know the difference between buying it on and off contract so please explain In layman's terms

[Alina loves Alexandra]

Not really a hardware question, but somewhat related and I don't want to open up a new topic.

How is nvidia's newest http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-258.96-whql-driver.html? I remember an issue way way way back then where their drivers caused gpu fans to stop spinning, and I've been scared to update mine ever since. I'm using 185.85 drivers

[Hairul Hafis]

My cd-tray is opening and closing itself. It happens without regularity. It can go on for a minute, stop for half an hour and start again. According to a little search the culprit could be a trojan. I did scans with several virusscanners and spywarescanners (offline and online, even in safe mode) but couldn't find a thing.

The tray isn't that old and doesn't get used a lot so I don't think it's hardware malfunction.

[kyle pinchen]

Can sound cards degrade noticeably as they get older? I have a SB X-Fi XTremeGamer card, and it's a few years old now. I've noticed that its plugs are corroded over, and also that it pops occasionally. It's also lately developed some instability, but I'm not sure if it's because my system seems bogged down lately (planning a system wipe soon), or if my inability to find some way to DriverSweeper away the Xonar DX driver remnants (Xonar had some bugs I couldn't stand so I switched back... or tried to).

[Jake Easom]

My laptop just froze and when I went to restart it, at launch it's coming up with this message:

"Primary hard disk drive 0 failure

No boot device available -
No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility"

Now I've googled the error message but different boards are giving conflicting reports. Some are saying the harddrive is fried and others are saying it's because it can't find the OS?

Nothing's happened to it (as far as I'm aware) and it was literally just working away when this happened. Any ideas?

[(G-yen)]

My laptop just froze and when I went to restart it, at launch it's coming up with this message:

"Primary hard disk drive 0 failure

No boot device available -
No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility"

Now I've googled the error message but different boards are giving conflicting reports. Some are saying the harddrive is fried and others are saying it's because it can't find the OS?

Nothing's happened to it (as far as I'm aware) and it was literally just working away when this happened. Any ideas?

Go into the BIOS and see if the HDD is listed in there. If it's missing in the BIOS it's fried.

It could be a corrupted Master Boot Record. You could try fixing it with the install disk using the console. Which OS do you have?

P.S.

http://www.ehow.com/how_6645707_repair-windows-xp-mbr.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_5901191_fix-mbr-windows-vista.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_4836283_repair-mbr-windows.html

[carley moss]

I've gone into the BIOS and Internal HDD is still listed as the initial drive in the boot order. Is that what you meant?

Do you think it would be worth trying a fresh install?

[darnell waddington]

Hey all, I have a quick question.

I'm trying to get my music from my iPod onto my computer. Herein lies my problem. I have all of my music at home, and my main iTunes account on my PC. Now that I'm at Uni I'm on my laptop, with none of my music or media, I can't erase my iPod and put everything back on it. Since Apple automatically assumes I'm a pirate this is being made incredibly difficult for me. Is there any simple way to do this?

[sam]

I'm thinking about another i7 build. I'm leaning towards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115223
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188059
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130563
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225

The question comes on a heatsink. My i7-930@3.8GHz is using a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835242001 with 2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185060, and with 72F ambient, it still runs over 70C in an Antec 1200. Has anyone tried the Corsair http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181013? The reviews look pretty good, and the concept is interesting.

This will be a new Folding rig and replace a Q6600 with 2x 8800 GTS 512s. I'm not ready to move to an SR2 or full water cooling, but this would take me half way there.

[Stefanny Cardona]

I'm thinking about another i7 build. I'm leaning towards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115223
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188059
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130563
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225

The question comes on a heatsink. My i7-930@3.8GHz is using a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835242001 with 2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185060, and with 72F ambient, it still runs over 70C in an Antec 1200. Has anyone tried the Corsair http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181010 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181013? The reviews look pretty good, and the concept is interesting.

This will be a new Folding rig and replace a Q6600 with 2x 8800 GTS 512s. I'm not ready to move to an SR2 or full water cooling, but this would take me half way there.

The H50 and H70 are overpriced and don't perform better when compared to cheaper air coolers (CM 212+ and Noctua D14, respectively). They are loud, and serve no real purpose other than marketing with "watercooling". The only reason to ever get them is if you don't have space for a massive air cooler (which the HAF X definitely has). And are you actually planning to use all 4 slots for videocards? Quad-SLI 460s seems silly, as does spending that much on a motherboard without using all 4 slots.

[Dale Johnson]

And are you actually planning to use all 4 slots for videocards? Quad-SLI 460s seems silly, as does spending that much on a motherboard without using all 4 slots.

Being a Folding rig, I'm planning 4x 460s, no SLI (460s only have a single connection). 460s are the sweet spot for folding points vs. power used.

I'm currently running 5 quads (Q6600 to i7-930) and 11 video cards (8800 GTS 512 to GTX460).

[stacy hamilton]

Not really a hardware question, but somewhat related and I don't want to open up a new topic.

How is nvidia's newest http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-258.96-whql-driver.html? I remember an issue way way way back then where their drivers caused gpu fans to stop spinning, and I've been scared to update mine ever since. I'm using 185.85 drivers

Try 197.45...I believe they're the following driver that fixed the fan problem. I've read of a few people reporting fan issues with 258.96....strange.

Can sound cards degrade noticeably as they get older? I have a SB X-Fi XTremeGamer card, and it's a few years old now. I've noticed that its plugs are corroded over, and also that it pops occasionally. It's also lately developed some instability, but I'm not sure if it's because my system seems bogged down lately (planning a system wipe soon), or if my inability to find some way to DriverSweeper away the Xonar DX driver remnants (Xonar had some bugs I couldn't stand so I switched back... or tried to).

Well, I haven't had that issue with any soundcard I've ever owned. Most electronics do degrade over a long period of time so I suppose it could be a possibility, but rather unlikely in your case. Perhaps the plug jacks just need a clean...or those Asus driver remnants are interfering with something.

Being a Folding rig, I'm planning 4x 460s, no SLI (460s only have a single connection). 460s are the sweet spot for folding points vs. power used.

I'm currently running 5 quads (Q6600 to i7-930) and 11 video cards (8800 GTS 512 to GTX460).

:blink:

[Chris Ellis]

I've gone into the BIOS and Internal HDD is still listed as the initial drive in the boot order. Is that what you meant?

Do you think it would be worth trying a fresh install?

Yup, that's a good sign.

I'd try the "FixMBR" thing I linked to before first, then if that fails try a reinstall.

[April]

Yup, that's a good sign.

I'd try the "FixMBR" thing I linked to before first, then if that fails try a reinstall.

Thanks honey. Much appreciated.

[lydia nekongo]

460s are the sweet spot for folding points vs. power used.

I hesitate in the choise between 460 or 450, get 2 gts 450 in the mail (at the post office now),gts 450 has a tdp at 105 and unsure about 460 but around 160-180 tdp (similar to the old 260) ?
still "need" two more cards and ′m frankly very unsure what to get of those two considering heat,power consumption and ppd obviously for f@h

[Blackdrak]

Just got my GTX 460 installed and working, sort of.


I can only get it running through VGA. Neither of the 2 DVI ports or HDMI port work at all, the monitor displaye the classic "No signal recieved". Any ideas? It seems I've covered all my bases, just can't figure out what the problem is.


Thanks for the recommendation anyway Tig, looks like a cool card.

[Wayne Cole]

:blink:

Have you checked our stickied thread? Hardware-based number crunching for the good of mankind. :brokencomputer: :flamethrower:

I hesitate in the choise between 460 or 450, get 2 gts 450 in the mail (at the post office now),gts 450 has a tdp at 105 and unsure about 460 but around 160-180 tdp (similar to the old 260) ?
still "need" two more cards and ′m frankly very unsure what to get of those two considering heat,power consumption and ppd obviously for f@h

I'm already folding on 4x 460s. They pull about 150W for over 10K PPD. OCd to 825/1650/1900 I see 10351-10558.

BTW, welcome back to active status. We've missed your points. :foodndrink:

The root question remains- recommended cooling solutions for an i7-980X that I plan to OC the bejeezus out of. I'd like to see 4.5GHz. I had the 930 to 4.0, but the temps were a bit high (kept topping 80C) and it wasn't 100% stable. It's fine at 3.8.

[Chris Ellis]

I'm already folding on 4x 460s. They pull about 150W for over 10K PPD. OCd to 825/1650/1900 I see 10351-10558.

thanks,beats gts 450 where I have seen people report around 9k oc′d,and way higher on "lucky units",have to think about it some more

The root question remains- recommended cooling solutions for an i7-980X that I plan to OC the bejeezus out of. I'd like to see 4.5GHz. I had the 930 to 4.0, but the temps were a bit high (kept topping 80C) and it wasn't 100% stable. It's fine at 3.8.

don′t have any suggestions better than alreay mentioned coolers,consider corsair A70 my self,it is a huge air cooler that recently got released,and got nice reviews but not outstanding.
http://www.corsair.com/products/a70/default.aspx