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5651.

Solve : Can someone help me with gaming computers??

Answer»

Im a 15 year old and im SAYING this because i need a gaming pc are there any good companies what im looking for is something that can run minecraft with high fps (even though you dont need more than 60 for smooth) but i want it to run shaders (sonic ethers) at 60 fps or a good fps. Cheaper is better but i still would like to see iv tried ibuypower and cyberpower but i honeslty know nothing about computers i dont know what a graphics card is or a motherboard or anything so if i tried to build one i would muck it up horrible. anyone know any cheap good computer companies??? even though im running minecraft it being able to run things like cod would be cool :d also dont give me some cheap CRAP that will break in 2 days im probably gonna be USING this for 5 years so it has to last anyway anyone help? i will love you forever Hello BumsRealm,

first of all lets post the requirements from mojang

Minimum Requirements:
CPU : Intel P4 or its AMD Equivalent (AMD K7)
RAM : 2GB
GPU : Intel GMA 950 or AMD Equivalent with OpenGL 2.1 Support
HDD : At least 100MB for Game Core and Sound Files
 
Recommended Requirements:
CPU : Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 (K8) 2.6 GHz
RAM : 4GB
GPU : GeForce 6xxx or ATI Radeon 9xxx and up with OpenGL 2.1 Support (Excluding Integrated Chipsets)
HDD : 150MB


Updated requirements (Game-debate.com):

AMD Athlon 64 3.1 GHz (Brisbane)
Pentium 4 3.0GHz
GeForce 8600 GS
Radeon HD 6320

Anything higher than that can run minecraft on its highest settings.

Now what is your budget?First question would be what is your budget as this is key to working out the BEST spec for you.

Both iBuyPower and CyberPower are good as they will allow you to customise the PC to your exact needs, you just need to be careful as they tend to, by default, include pretty low END components such as power supplies that you need to manually specify to upgrade.

Another option would be to consider building it yourself, it's not that hard and that way you can get everything exactly how you want it.

5652.

Solve : 2 PSUs dead?

Answer»

Ok the full story:

There was a fire in my APARTMENT building this past week, and after being evacuated they shut off the power (several times I'd assume) for safety reasons. After a few days of not being allowed in, I come home and try to turn on my computer... nothing. Won't turn on. After wiggling some stuff around, it does turn on, but only for about 30 seconds. Try turning it back on again, nothing. So I opened it up, cleaned it for good measure, and wiggled some more stuff around. Try to turn it on, and it goes, but then turns off after 30 seconds. After that time, no matter how MUCH I played with it, it wouldn't turn on. Sometime during that there was this brief burning dust/electrical smell that occured, so I figured it was the PSU. I asked some friends and they all say it's probably the PSU.

So I went to the store today, and picked up a cheapo PSU to try. It's 465w, the old PSU was 650w.
I plug the new PSU in and it works right away, everything looks good, sounds great. It ran for about 30 minutes then it randomly shuts off. I did have a temperature monitor on and I didn't notice anything strange. Once again, there is a brief burning smell. Now my computer won't turn on with the new PSU either.

I figured the old PSU was fried during the power outages, I could understand that. But why did this new one die? Did my PC break it because of not enough wattage? I had the old PSU for about a YEAR. The computer is custom made, not by me. I don't understand why my PC appears to be killing PSUs?

I wasn't allowed into my house for about 4 days after the fire, and I thought I got off without anything happening, but my beloved PC is unusable

PC specs:
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 R2.0
CPU: AMD FX-6100 at 3.3Ghz
RAM: 8GB
Video: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770 OC 1GB
PSU: RIPIMO you should get it checked out of the apartment. Not using apartment wall socket. May be friend's place or from a store. Also, take out the graphics card and unplug all other devices like hdd, cd drive. Run the comp only with cpu, motherboard and ofcourse psu. Not EVEN RAM. Check if it runs for more than 30 seconds as you mentioned?? Ensure you dont have any spike guard or extention boards between computer and wall socket.
Also check for blown capacitors on the motherboard.What make & model PSUs are we talking about here?
Sounds like the old one died due to the power outages, the new one may have just been a bad unit - either low quality, or faulty.it could have a short circuit inside the box check your motherboard

5653.

Solve : Old computer struggles with booting.?

Answer»

Hey everyone. I have here this old eMachines T6524 that I think we got in like 2006. I'm trying to set it up to just be a little computer for the nephews when they come over and have have made various improvements since I first got it(better power supply, upgraded GPU). It used to never have a problem but it's been unused for a while and after all these changes that I've made every so often when turning the computer on it never initializes the monitor and the keyboard doesn't light up when hitting the lock buttons, making it seem to me that it fails POST and never gets to the BIOS.
Usually if I turn it on it only requires one or two restarts to get it WORKING. But, sometimes it really struggles a no matter how many times I restarted the computer it never boots up. Anyone know what could be causing this?Do you have a graphics card installed?? If yes, remove it and check if the problem persists.I think that the problem only happens with the graphics card installed.Hi

Perhaps the replacement power supply isn't up to running the computer and graphics card.

Also I would check the motherboard for bulged capacitors here is a link to a description of what that means

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Hmm. I'm not 100% sure but it seems that all the GREEN capacitors are like what I saw when I searched Google for bulged capacitors. I've uploaded 2 pictures:

http://4seasonsautorepair.com/test/1216130020.jpg
The green ones are to the right of the CPU.

http://4seasonsautorepair.com/test/1216130024.jpg
Here's a closeup shot of two of them. The little one seems to be fine.

If that is the case, and they are bulged, is it just a waiting game until it finally dies and I'll just have to live with starting it up over and over to get lucky?It is basically a shop job now. You need to take it to a computer repair shop who can change these capacitors. Your comp will be up and running like before if there are no other problems reported after changing the caps.Any idea what a common price would be for a change of those capacitors?Depends from shop to shop and most importantly country to country. You can ask in 2-3 places and DECIDE accordingly.sounds like a pain in the *censored*....most of these old comps ARENT worth the time to fix them unless you dont have money like me and you got nuthin but time to mess around with it.  I dont know where you are but if you need a comp for your nephews you could try all the second hand stores and places like Goodwill etc....craigslist...if you can find an old beater that will accept your RAM, vid card and other components maybe it would be worth buying an old tower for 10 bucks?  just an idea

5654.

Solve : is it dead??

Answer»

I was going to build a second lesser rig out of a bunch of pieces i had collected over the years and when i turned it on i smelled smoke. i plugged in a monitor and there was no picture, so i turned it off and loosened the heatsink on the cpu and when i turned the computer on i got a blue-screen with a messege saying something like"windows has stopped....a problem with the system..." i cant remember it well because it was a week ago. Now im over the fact i messed up...but i want to sell the GPU i was using for that rig. its a gts450 and i want to know if i could sell it without worrying about someone getting it and it be dead....or cause other problems. what im going with now is that since SOMTHING did come up on the screen that the gpu wasnt the one affected. I would like to sell the ram i used aswell. any info would be appreciated   Hi

As windows started although didn't completely boot you could try the computer with a linux boot disk which you could use to test the memory and graphics card.

I have a copy of Parted magic for this purpose available from here  https://partedmagic.com/

In other tools there is memtest to CHECK the memory

And if it boots into the desktop then that would be a test of the video card

I recommend as you had smoke from somewhere that you stay with the computer while testing
I could test the video card on my new system but i don't want the card, if it is broken, to mess up anything. would it? or would it just give me an ERROR messege and i plop my other vid card in there and EVERYTHING is fine again?i agree with what Lisa said...there are lots of live boot cd/dvd options that will enumerate your hardware and boot you into a gui of some kind where you can review your hardware....if your gpu shows up there its probably fine.

5655.

Solve : Sony Laptop 18" AW220J powers on no display?

Answer»

Hi there, just joined. Hoping someone will have a clue about this as its very puzzling to say the least.  I have here the 8141L AKA VGN-AW220J a huge 18" laptop 2ghz beast...would be great to get it going since all my other lappies are broken in one way or the other (bad luck i guess)

Started out a lady brought this to me along with another laptop to repair for a friend of hers. Actually there was nothing wrong with the laptop...i installed windows xp and rebooted it a few times to make sure it was reliable and all good. I really didnt wanna give it back cuz it was such a nice laptop, compared to anything i OWNED (maybe some of you computer techs know what its like to always be fixing stuff thats better than what you got for people who can afford anything, it SUX!!)  Anyway....some one or two weeks later she brought it back to me again said her friend was using it and all the sudden it wouldnt work. Well....im thinking it got dropped or surged or something because usually computers dont just go belly up for no reason.

anyway, so it powers on but there is no CD tray activity (when bootable cd is inside like knoppix)....no display....external monitor doesnt work,  keyboard completely unresponsive....and whats most curious is there is a light near the bezel with a padlock and a one inside it thats lit and wont go off no unless i turn off the computer. I think this computer has discrete graphics and probably INTEGRATED as well but not sure....but the fact that the keyboard is completely unresponsive is very troubling....


any ideas? thanks in advanced!

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]Double Post...

Topic Closed.i forgot to mention that with the bottom place off and having access to the motherboard i can feel some small amount of heat from the processor, graphics chip, and southbridge......the cooling fan turns on shortly after the laptop powers on. I do not know how to do a continuity test or electrical test on the mobo with a multimeter...though I DO have a multimeter if i could find some resources online that could show me the various points on the mobo to test.  Any ideas?  Here is a recent pic of the motherboard with the cooling fan removed.  I am not 100 PERCENT sure but it looks like there might be a small chip in the graphics core...but not totally sure. Does anyone know how much needs to be chipped off before the processor doesnt work anymore? I hate these exposed core processors for that reason...everytime you remount the cooler assembly if uneven pressure is applied you RUN the risk of chipping off a tiny piece of the corner!!! BAH!

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]

5656.

Solve : What is DD2??

Answer»

hi i wa going through my grandmothers computer to fix it and i went to test the ram. I pulled out two 1GB DD2 sticks and stuck a 2gb DDR2 stick in to see if it was a ram problem, but all i get is beeps when i start the computer up. I had never heard of DD2, so *censored* is it?

its a really old HP based computer.Some DDR2 sticks were labelled DD2. Presumably R's were expensive, I guess.thanks, is there any reason why a stick labeled DDR2 would not work in PLACE of the other...besides it being BROKEN. im sure its not broken though. Quote from: BC_Programmer on December 16, 2013, 09:26:05 PM

Some DDR2 sticks were labelled DD2. Presumably R's were expensive, I guess.
ROFL 
Quote from: dustynana on December 16, 2013, 09:42:08 PM
thanks, is there any reason why a stick labeled DDR2 would not work in place of the other...besides it being broken. im sure its not broken though.
If after replacing the RAM, the comp beeps. It means the RAM is either not INSTALLED PROPERLY or the RAM is bad. The later one is true in most of the cases. actually all the sticks of ram beeped, even the DD2 ones. i had to put the ram back in a certain order to get the computer to stop beeping and turn on. Have you consulted the Owner's Manual ? ?there is no owners manual to be found. I did get most of the DDR2 ram to work after testing again today. One brand of ram wouldn't work though, their Topram sticks. But to get the other ram to work i had to reseat most of the sticks 2-5 times. im guess its a problem with the ram slots themselves. Did you try cleaning the ram slots with something like a small paint brush (unused)? Or use an air blower to blow the dust out of the computer case.
5657.

Solve : My Compaq cq61 will not power on???

Answer»

when I plug the power cord in, the LIGHT on the side LIGHTS up white. No other lights come on and pressing the power button does nothing? I tried removing the battery and holding the power button and reinstalling it, nothing happened. What should I check next? OPEN it up and look for bad solders??So plugging in you dont see a battery charge indicator either along side this white light showing that the computer is plugged into wall power with battery installed?

If this is the case then the main board is likely dead and has to be replaced. The Battery status LED should SHOW charged or charging state or else there is something wrong with the main board.

If there was no indicator at all on laptop I'd suggest that it was broken power jack etchave you tried powering on without the battery?On the side, where the AC power plugs in, there is a white light that is on. On the front there is 3 lights, a power symbol, lighting bolt and 3 disks, none of those come on.

I have tried powering on without the battery in, nothing happens.

What are the chances something is wrong with the power button? I.E. broken solder?Many laptops die the same way, just won't power on.I got it for free, is it worth putting any money into?You can get it diagnosed and get an estimate. Which may help you in deciding if it is worth or not. And you may also come to know the problem.

5658.

Solve : Computer not booting.?

Answer»

Hey there. I have here a computer that is not booting for me(It's not the same one as in my other thread).

When I hit the power button the CPU and case FANS spin but the power button doesn't light up and it doesn't initialize the monitor. I plugged in this POST diagnostics card(as seen here http://i.ebayimg.com/t/PC-DIAGNOSTIC-4-Digit-CARD-Motherboard-POST-Tester-/00/s/NzAwWDcwMA==/z/eCAAAOxy4t1SgcWV/$_3.JPG) and 5 LEDs light up(-12V, +12V, +5V, +3.3V, and RESET). Looking at the paper that came with the card it says this for Reset: "Lights only for half - second when you slide the power switch or the reset switch. If it is lit all the time, check the following: make sure that the reset pin is plugged properly, or the reset circuit is broken."

Doing a quick google search on reset pins I get different results so I'm not QUITE sure what to do at this point. Any HELP would be appreciated, thanks!Hi

If the reset light is on then the motherboard is in a reset state so there will be nothing on the screen.

You could try disconnecting the reset switch from the motherboard and see if the light goes out.

If it does then the reset switch is  stuck or there is a short in the cable between the switch and the motherboard.

If that doesn't clear the reset then it could be a motherboard fault .
Or the power supply isn't releasing the power good signal or that the power good signal is too short, either of these you would test with a powersupply tester or oscilloscope.



 

 
The computer only has the black/white(Power SW), green/white(Power LED), and red/white(HDD LED) switch cords. It never had the blue/white reset switch but this never was a problem. Any idea what else might be causing this? Something that I'm not seeing stuck?Hi

Just to confirm you haven't moved any of those connections since before the computer was working. If you put a HED led on the reset pins it can hold the board in reset ?

Even with the computer turned off but plugged in does the reset led light on the post diagnostic card ? 

There is still the power good on the powersupply is playing up

5659.

Solve : Problems after CMOS reset.?

Answer»

I am having a few problems after resetting the CMOS after moving the jumpers and removing the battery for 5 minutes.

When the computer boots up it boots ALOT faster than NORMAL and has weird characters on the screen on bootup:

Is there a fix for this?

After it boots up everything else seems normal, i am just worried about the BIOS being corrupted now or something.Fixed it. Apparantly after the CMOS reset, the Ownership tag was set to those random characters which was displayed in that picture, so I changed the tag and that issue is fixed.

The boot time was fixed also as it was defaulted back to quick boot.Thanks for your time to post back the solution. Please mark it as SOLVED.

5660.

Solve : Lenovo G550 charging problems?

Answer»

I have a Lenovo G550 laptop that will not charge the battery. The battery is good because it can be charged in another laptop. The laptop will work as long as the battery is charged. The laptop will not come on with the ac adapter plugged in. I checked the voltage out of the charger (19 volts). I took a cover of the back of the laptop. There is a PLUG which COMES from the CHARGING port where the charger is plugged in. It plugs into the motherboard. I unplugged it and measured 19 volts there. Is there a simple fix or is this laptop good for parts only?Sounds like the power jack is faulty, if it's a plug in unit then it's a nice simple replacement, rather than needing to solder it like most.
It's basically either that or the charging circuit on the board, which would probably require a board replacement - whether it's WORTH it DEPENDS on the cost of the parts.Or a shop can do motherboard repair if charging circuit is problem.

5661.

Solve : Serious slowdown issues?

Answer»

Hi guys I hope someone here can help I have had my laptop for nearly 2 years and have always had some sort off issue or another with it but never one Iv been unable to fix up until recently the laptop has been experiencing major slowdown to the point where it cannot even display the control-alt-delete menu screen and instead just shows an error box I have tried multiple things such as safe mode restarts in which it seems to be fine, winsock resets and much more. I think I may has narrowed it down to my wireless CARD or maybe it's software which Iv had problems with intel my wifi in the past but I am not sure as I have tried safe mode with networking and I am faced with the same level of slowdown although on both modes I see no fluctuations of CPU output. I hope you guys can help because I'm stumped as to I'm going to do next and I really don't want to completely reset my laptop.                                                                                   My specs are as follows: windows 7: SERVICE pack 1. Model: dell xps l702x  Processor:Intel core i7-260qm 2.20GHz RAM:8.00GB System type: 64 BIT  Graphics card: Nvidia GT-555m  Wireless card: Intel centurion advanced-N 6230.       Thank you for your time. (emails also welcomed)First thing you need to do is use punctuation please. Your post is almost indecipherable.

Second, you say you've always had problems with the system. What sort of problems?

And let's start by running full scans with BOTH your anti virus app and with MalwareBytesHi thanks for the fast reply, and sorry about the punctuation I'm using my iPhone to type so I forget. Some of the issues I have faced before include mainly my wireless card, some of the issues I have faced include my laptop not revising the cards software, software clashes with Intel my wifi and the dell wifi manager that I had installed, my laptop not registering that I have a wireless card at all and also the odd graphics card issues which have been sorted out with driver updates and various patches.    Also I have run scans on my security software for which I have kaspersky Internet security and have found no problems I will try to get onto my PC ASAP and run a malwarebytes scan and will update with more info when I do, thank you again.The 2nd Post isn't much of an improvement...Travel to the laptop manuf. site and DLoad all required drivers and re-install them.
Chipset drivers 1st...then re-boot then install all others.i tend to use a hammer to smash a flea......so for computer problems i just pretty much cant live with i tend to just do a fresh OS install and wipe the drive or use a new drive and start over....adding drivers and software slowly while doing copious reboots and basic benchmarks of the user experience (how smooth it opens and runs things, etc)   I know its not very scientific....but there is actually by some accounts something called 'OS rot'....google it if you like....and the premise is basically that the longer you have an OS installed on your drive the less performance over time you will experience with your computer notwithstanding all the proper maintenance you do.  So....you can spend a day or two ...or more...sorting out your various and sundry issues...or you can backup your stuff....and reinstall in a couple hours.....i like the latter option for myself


good LUCK! Quote from: techjunk on December 17, 2013, 06:58:48 PM

So....you can spend a day or two ...or more...sorting out your various and sundry issues...or you can backup your stuff....and reinstall in a couple hours.....i like the latter option for myself
No, I don't agree with you. If the OP had to start a fresh, I hope he understands this by himself and would not want to come to our forums asking for help. According to me, formatting should be the last option if nothing works. If scanning with antiviruses and installing drivers etc can fix this, why would any one format the drive/partition for such a small problem? Also, I don't agree with your statement that
Quote from: techjunk on December 17, 2013, 06:58:48 PM
and the premise is basically that the longer you have an OS installed on your drive the less performance over time you will experience with your computer notwithstanding all the proper maintenance you do.
As an example, my home computer is running great without any problems, it has 80GB PATA hard disk. I have NOT formatted the hard drive since like last 4-5 years. Until recently the hard drive had some problem with its circuit board. Till then it was functioning great without any problems.
5662.

Solve : Using router to sync files?

Answer»

Some newer routers now come with USB ports (usually one, sometimes two) which can be used to put printers on your local LAN or USB HDD's for storage available to all users on the network.  I've looked at several manufacturers who build these routers and nowhere have I seen any reference to syncing files.  If I plug an HDD into one of these USB ports it will allow me to view the contents of the HDD but will it allow me to sync a file or files to all computers on the LAN?  If that capability isn't built-in to the router, is there software that can be used with the router to accomplish syncing?

I suppose I could just put the file(s) on the USB HDD and have each computer reference that drive for access to the file(s) but I'm not really comfortable with that.  I'm currently using WUALA (http://www.lacie.com/us/more/?id=10097) to keep the file(s) synced,  which works just fine but I'd rather keep the file(s) local rather than in the cloud.Even if you had a high END NAS device there is software on each PC that connects to it that manages the sync. These NAS devices themselves do not search for the PC to UPDATE.

I have used simple batch files to sync data, but this is not automatic and it requires me to launch it.

But also my complaint with the sync programs out there is that while it may be great to DOCK to your network and sync up, there are times when this is a problem. This is when the network is conjested with data transfer for the sync between the NAS (Network Attached Storage Device )and the PC and so you have to wait for the sync to complete before you can use the PC for any other heavy network load or (HDD or SSD) load because the system is busy with the sync. And ones I have worked with in the past for syncing data automatically want to do this at start up of the computer and so you are looking at longer times to boot the system to a functional desktop to check e-mail etc because the minute the sync service triggers it is performing this sync and so it slows the computers performance while also trying to load other services and this has somewhat crippled systems I dealt with in the past. Also on shutdown of the systems with the sync service, it once again is slowed to make sure that the data between the local PC and the NAS updates before shutdown. Better sync software will check periodically while the service is running to update the NAS which what was last modified locally, but those that dont really drag down boot and shutdown performance.

So my preference is not to have it automatic and instead chose to do this when I am walking away for a minute or for 30 minutes on a LUNCH break etc so that its doing this when I am not needing the full power of the PC.

*Also, the time it takes to sync is dependent on the volume of data that has been added, removed, or altered. So if you just have a couple MS Word files that are like 10MB in size total it will sync fast, while if you are video editing or performing graphics projects with many large files that get altered your looking at a longer time to sync.

My experience with these sync programs was with application for a Graphics / Video Editing Department at a business that issued laptops to the graphic artists and video editors and so they could work on their digital artwork / edits anywhere, but when they docked their laptops there could be data in the GIGABYTES to sync between the NAS and the Laptop.Hmmm, well thanks Dave.  I had no idea the sync overhead would compromise the speed of everything, although I suppose in hindsight it makes perfect sense.  I guess I'll stick with WUALA.  It works well and doesn't cause any noticeable slowdown in anything I do (which isn't much).  I'm using it just to maintain sync between our two computers on a password vault file.  It's just that I was considering getting a new router and was looking for an excuse to do that.  But, other than not having a USB port, the router I'm using works perfectly well.

Thanks for your input.I use Karen's Replicator to do exactly why you are trying to do.

5663.

Solve : Sony Laptop AR630E 18" how to activate external monitor??

Answer»

Ok so yes another post about yet ANOTHER of my broken laptops...this time a different issue hopefully easier to solve. I did actually look to see if i could find a way to activate my Dell external monitor but so far no dice. What's weird is i am currently using my Dell monitor on an ancient desktop....but no matter which laptop i plug the monitor into it simply will NOT show the display from the laptop.

In THIS case i know the AR graphics card is working because the lamp went out and when i SHINE a flashlight on the screen i can still see the windows logo and all that.  The problem is i dont want to sit there with a flashlight to use the computer...so i have this cool external monitor but i'm not able to get it to work during bootup. 

anyway, the AR is kind of a bad laptop....build quality wise....just complete junk especially the screen hinges...in my case both broke very soon after acquiring it.  If anyone can HELP me with the external monitor issue id be very grateful!

cheers

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]Have you tried telling the laptop to output to the external monitor?

You will need to do this in your display options (Same place you set the screen resolution).

Using it during bootup is trickier - As the internal screen is dead, disconnecting this from the motherboard can usually force the laptop to work on the external monitor by default.Thanks for the idea to disconnect from the MB....im going to try that tonight and see if it helps.....very cool of you for that!  But yes theres no way for me to do it within windows because i have forgotten the windows password to that HD havent used it for so long....thats part of the reason im trying to do this so i can do a REINSTALL and eventually make the laptop ACCESSIBLE through SSH or remote desktop type thing....will have a status update sooni had to basically disassemble the entire computer to get to the various screen cables that plug into the mobo.....after powering on i have a working external keyboard but no signal to the monitor. Problem with external keyboards is they dont have the function+screen keys that you normally use on the laptop to tell the laptop to switch the output signal to an external screen...yeah..and the other problem is the laptop keyboard is toast a long time ago so ive always used an external keyboard to use it.   Is this thing just ready to be thrown or parted out or would i have better luck with a different brand/model of external monitor?  thanks!The external keyboard should do the same commands...did you use the Shift/Tab keys ? ?i did not try the shift/tab keys.....do i need to use them in combination with other keys to activate the external display? I have search engined 'external monitor sony viao' and variations on that theme....closest i found was fn+f7  and i dont have a function key on my external keyboard.  The one thing i havent tried yet is to see if the display from the AW220 will plug into the laptop of the AR630....that would be quite amazing if it was the same plugs....but i havent had the gumption to totally disassemble the AW220 yet to check the lcd connectors.  Will probly have to wait till tomorrow as my head is already swimming from this round....THANKS guys for your help!Since the screen is cracked how difficult would it be to use a 17" screen/panel from say an HP dv7? Are the wires the same even if i have to swap out the plugs from the Sony? If the wires are the same and all i have to do is wire new plugs onto the panel i would do that.....anyone have any experience with doing this kind of surgery?


thx

5664.

Solve : Issue with switching to on-board video card.?

Answer»

My OLD video card died    So I CONNECTED my monitor to my on BOARD video.  When I restarted my computer, the screen froze at the windows load screen.  My keyboard and my mouse both turned on (keyboard is backlit).  I can tell the computer isn't completely frozen because the NUM lock and caps lock both turn on and off when I hit those buttons.  I restarted my computer in safe mode with networking and it goes to my main screen with no issue.  I've taken the video card completely out and uninstalled all my nvidia software.  I was WONDERING if there was a driver or something that i'm missing?  Any help is greatly appreciated I should also point out that the on board video card driver is up to date.While in Safe Mode, go to Device Manager, delete (not uninstall) the drivers for the onboard.  When you reboot it should find & reinstall them for you.  If that doesn't work, reinstall the onboard video drivers from Safe Mode & see what happens.

5665.

Solve : Confused about building a new system??

Answer»

Hello,

I am thinking of building a new gaming computer for my son, which i have never attempted before, so I would like some help with the parts, I have read the reviews but they are like mandarin for me just words with no meaning so I would love some help from the people who know more than me about the parts.

Trying to keep it under £600 (GBP)

My Son would like it to be able to play battlefield 4 and high end games pretty well and able to record for YouTube. He does not need a sound card as he just uses onboard sound to an amp to speakers. And no need for a Operating system as he has Windows 7 already

Thanks

Zach
600 GBP is about $978 USD as of writing this.

Here is info on cards tested with this game in beta, and this is a good reference for the released game to whow which were better or worse etc. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-4-graphics-card-performance,3634-3.html

Also minimum system requirements found on google for this game are: Quadcore CPU, 4GB RAM, DirectX 11, and video card with 512MB Video RAM andAMD Radeon HD 3870 or nVidia GeForce 8800GT or better. *System below is beyond minimum requirements to play game.

Building a computer for the first time can be tricky and risky. As a suggestion, I'd suggest buying one off the shelf and adding a powerful video card and more powerful power supply to it, as for this way if you run into troubles you can simply return the computer and get another after removing video card and putting other power supply (PSU) back into it to send it back as original defective under usually a 1 year warranty.

Building a system from the ground up if you have any problems you will have to deal with many different companies and varying RMA support processes to send parts back when there are problems etc, as well as buying an off the shelf name brand you know that the hardware other than video card and power supply are an engineered match and not a pieced together gaming rig in which sometimes you can run into problems.

Here is a suggestion below if you want a gaming rig that will play this game with no problems out of the box and save you some money as well. However I would swap out the PSU unit at the get go for a better power supply because I dont really like 500 watt power supplies for a gaming build. I'd suggest replacing it right off with a 650 watt PSU. This system also allows room to expand later if you want a more powerful CPU, more RAM, or better video card down the road. It also has that gaming rig look to it vs just a regular computer tower. Its specs are beyond the minimum system requirements for Battlefield 4 and it comes with a 1 year warranty. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229285  My brother bought a similar gaming system and he has had good luck with it not having to make any modifications to play Crysis 3 etc. His time of ownership is about 18 months and he uses it every day for many hours of use.

Here is the PSU I'd go with for this system: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020

This system + 650 watt PSU can be purchased for around 390.77 (GBP) or $636.96 (USD) ... you also would be essentially building it partially since it will be BUILT custom with a better stronger power supply than the cheap PSU that comes with it. This is a bargain Gaming Build and they probably should have gone with a better PSU than try to shave off an extra $20 off the sticker price etc. ** Also with this build you do not need to buy a powerful video card for the build because it already comes with one that is powerful enough to play the game well as part of the system purchase.

Below are system specs and the most important are the fact that this motherboard is the AM3+ with FX CPU support for the FX-4xxx ( 4-core ) and so it should support the FX-6xxx series ( 6 core ) and FX-8xxx series ( 8-core ) CPU upgrade of the future as well as the motherboard can take 16GB RAM, and with PCIe 16x you can throw just about any video card into this build and get many years of gaming out of it and are not buying into a build that has limited upgrade options.



Brand                                   CyberpowerPC
Model                                   Gamer Ultra 2098 (GU2098)
Type                                     Gaming & Entertainment
Processor                             AMD FX-4300 3.8GHz
Processor Main Features      64 bit Quad-Core Processor
Cache Per Processor            4MB L2 Cache
Memory                                8GB DDR3 1333
Hard Drive                            500GB SATA II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM
Optical Drive                        24x DVD+/-R, +/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Graphics                              AMD Radeon R7 240 2GB
AudioSound card -               Integrated
Ethernet                              Gigabit Ethernet
Power Supply                      500W
Keyboard                             USB Gaming Keyboard
Mouse                                 USB Gaming Mouse
Operating System               Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Special Features                  AZZA Orion Gaming CaseCPU
CPU Type                             AMD FX-Series
CPU Speed                           FX-4300(3.80GHz)
L2 Cache Per CPU               4MB
L3 Cache Per CPU               4MB
CPU Socket Type                 AM3+
CPU Main Features              64 bit Quad-Core ProcessorGraphics
GPU/VGA Type                     AMD Radeon R7 240 2GB Memory
Memory Capacity                8GB DDR3
Memory Speed                    DDR3 1333
Memory Spec                      4GB x 2
Memory Slot (Total)             2
Maximum Memory Supported 16GB
Hard Drive HDD Capacity    500GB
HDD Interface                     SATA II
HDD RPM                            7200rpm
Optical Drive Type              DVD±RW
Optical Drive Spec              24x DVD+/-R, +/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Audio Chipset                    Integrated
Audio Channels                 7.1 Ch AudioCommunications
LAN Chipset                       Integrated
LAN Speed                        10/100/1000Mbps
Front Panel Ports
Front USB2
Back Panel Ports
PS/2
Video Ports                       1 VGA, 1 DVI, 1 HDMI
Rear USB                           6 ports
RJ45                                  1 port
Rear Audio Ports               Yes
PCI Slots (Available/Total) 1x PCI-e 16x
                                          1x PCI-e 1x
                                          1x PCI
Mouse Type                       USB MouseKeyboard
Keyboard Type                  USB KeyboardPhysical Spec
Dimensions                       20.00" x 17.00" x 7.5"
Weight                              30.6 lbs.

Warranty:
Limited Warranty period (parts): 1 year
Limited Warranty period (labor): 1 year

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd disagree with the idea of buying something premade and then upgrading it, you will basically end up wasting perfectly good parts and spending extra money that you don't need.  It also sort of defeats the whole point of building a PC and you still run the risk of getting low quality parts in the premade system.


For a build in your price range I'd recommend something along the lines of the following, it should come in at just over £600 if you shop around:

  • CPU: AMD FX-6300
  • Motherboard: Something from Gigabyte or ASUS with an AM3+ Socket (Such as a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P)
  • RAM: 8gb DDR3 (2x4gb sticks) - Cheapest you can find really that is at least 1600MHz
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 760 or a AMD Radeon R9 270x
  • HDD: Whatever size you need (I'd recommend a 1tb 7200rpm Seagate Drive)
  • Power Supply: Anything above 500w is FINE but get a good quality unit (I'd suggest the XFX Core Edition 550w) - Despite what was said above, 550w is ABSOLUTELY tonnes for this build and this is a very good quality power supply so should last a long time.
  • DVD Drive (If desired): Just get the cheapest one, you probably won't use it much nowadays
  • OS: Windows 8.1 (You can save money and get an "OEM" licence, just bear in mind that this cannot be moved to a new motherboard if you replace it in the future)
  • Case: Just get something that your son likes the look of and in an ATX size.  Just remember that cheap, unbranded cases can be pretty poorly made so it's a good idea to spend a decent bit on a nice case.
That machine above would be a great value gaming machine for the price and has plenty of potential for future upgrades if needed.
5666.

Solve : nVidia GPU's for battlefield 4?

Answer»

Hello,

What nVidia GPU play battlefield 4 on a descent setting? up to £250

my PC:

Motherboard:
Gigabyte 970A-D3 AM3+, DDR3, USB3, SATA3, GBLan, ATX.

Processor
AMD Vishera FX-8320 3.5GHz AM3+ Black Ed Processor.

Memory Bank 1
8Gb (2X4Gb) Dual Channel DDR3 1333Mhz Memory.

Memory Bank 2
8Gb (2X4Gb) Dual Channel DDR3 1333Mhz Memory.

SATA Device 1
1TB Seagate Barracuda Green 7200rpm SATA3 64Mb Hard Drive.

Card Reader
All-In-One Internal USB2.0 Card Reader (3.5 Inch Bay) -Black.

Case
V9-Blue VAPORISE ATX Gaming Case.

PSU
Zalman 500W ZM500-RS 80+ Quiet ATX PSU.

Optical Device 1
LiteOn DH-4O3S-04-B 4x Internal BD-ROM Blu-ray - Bare.

Cooler
Coolermaster Hyper TX3 Evo Socket 775 1150 1155 1156 1366 FM2 FM1 AM3 AM3+ AM2+ AM2 Processor Cooler.

Which comes to: £374.99 (GBP)My concern looking at your hardware specs is that your PSU is only 500 watts. This can be a problem for higher end GPU's and your budget is sufficient to have a strong video card, but the PSU may be a problem. I WOULD consider upgrading the PSU to 650 watts and make sure it comes with the molex connections for the direct graphics card power for the card you will go with. As far as nVidia and playing Battlefield 4, there are many CARDS out there that can run this, however if your budget is what it is you may have to settle for a lesser powerful video card because the 650watt PSU eats into the budget some.Please KEEP to one topic, see my reply to your other one.Topic Closed.

5667.

Solve : 2bg or 4gb?

Answer»

Hello,

I was wondering what BENEFIT my son will get for going for a Gigabyte GTX 760 OC Windforce 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card than the 2gb version?

Thanks

ZachVery little unless he PLANS to grab an identical card down the line, SLI them, and RUN multiple monitors or play at a higher than "normal" resolution such as 1440p or 1600p.
The 760 isn't really powerful enough to need the additional VRAM, as once you're hitting the limits of the VRAM you're also nearing the limits of what the card can push.
In short, 99% of the time I would advise to grab the 2GB version and save the money.

5668.

Solve : Dual monitors not working??

Answer»

Greetings CH!

What im running is a MSI R6870 Hawk so ati 6870 which has 2x DVi 2x mini DISPLAY (i think) and 1hdmi. What i had setup was one DVI to vga adapter going to a cheapie EMACHINES lcd. I connected another DVI to vga adapter to another cheapie LCD to use extended desktop and it doesnt detect the other display at all. Neither through WINDOWS or the AMD catalyst control centre. whats up?Have you swapped MONITORS to make sure the monitor works when set as the primary before digging further into this PROBLEM of dual-displays. Also what is the resolution you are using and does both displays support it. I saw once a while back where an older display couldnt sync up to the high res and so the new display worked and the old display was not detected and couldnt sync. When dropping the resolution down to like 1024 x768 both displays worked, but when going like 1600 x 1024 or something like that only the modern or newer display was able to handle this.It may be the case that your card has one DVI-I connector (Which can convert to VGA) and one DVI-D (Which cannot be converted to VGA).  To test this try one monitor and test it in the first DVI port, then in the second.  If it only works in one of the ports then this is most likely the issue.

If you have this problem then your best bet would be to use a Mini-DisplayPort to VGA adapter in place of one of your DVI-VGA adapters.I'm thinkin one of the monitors is bad...because it should work no matter what connecters you use according to the card specs...no. both monitors are working fine. i used the second monitor to another tower but now i wanna do dual screens. both are vga monitors and both have adapters from dvi. and my card wont detect the second screen.  You sure it's the proper version of Catalyst ? ?
Try un-installing and re-installing...

P.S. Did the card ever work properly with dual monitors ?

5669.

Solve : Innostor USB drive set as DVD/CD-ROM?

Answer»

I got a USB drive RECENTLY that was given to employees that went to a PASS Summit. It's a 32gb Innostor flash drive. On every computer I've plugged it into it comes up as Innostor CD-ROM on Flash USB Device. In computer Management it is under DVD/CD-ROM drives.

What I'm trying to do is format it, and set it to USB only. I thought it was partitioned, but all the guides I found required it to have some semblance of a USB drive in order to format.
This is as far as I can get into its settings http://imgur.com/a/NwMfq#0

Am I MISSING something? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Running Windows 7 ULT. I have a fairly strong idea that these things are read-only. They are manufactured with custom FIRMWARE to make them work like a CD-ROM (The RO of ROM stands for "Read Only".) You may be able to monkey around with the PARTITIONS using a program called UFDUtility which you can Google for. Use at our own risk!
Thanks, I'll have to look into this.

5670.

Solve : DTV, DAB+, Video Capture?

Answer» Can anyone please recommend a video card that has all of the FOLLOWING:
DTV (digital TV)
DAB+ (digital radio)
Video Capture (with S-video/composite, and audio inputs)
PCI or PCI-E connectivity.
Must operate on Win 8.1
5671.

Solve : acer aspire 7730ZG wont boot?

Answer»

Hi,
having a slight problem trying to help a FRIEND with his acer ASPIRE laptop, which, at first, was crashing everything you started-like: browser, skype, folder, basically everything you touch with the mouse, thought at first it needed a fresh os, but now it WONT even boot to let me try that option.
passes the first screen that SAYS acer and then it displays a message "a disk read error occured, please press ctrl+alt+del to restart". and everytime i do it does the same thing again.

it would be really HELPFUL if anyone could tell me if there is any way to boot past this, at least to safe mode.
or anything else i could try?

so it has a Win7 OS installed, not genuine, these are other specs right here http://www.cnet.com/laptops/acer-aspire-7730zg-323g32mn/4505-3121_7-35270526.html.

any help appreciated Quote from: sum on December 23, 2013, 12:41:24 PM


so it has a Win7 OS installed, not genuine

Sorry, we cannot help with illegally obtained software.
5672.

Solve : System Doesn't See Sony Camera?

Answer»

I'm attempting to use my camera (Sony DSC-W5) with Win 8.1. The device manager tells me that the driver is up to date but then I get the message(below). Initially after boot up when I check the device manager there is no yellow triangle next to Sony DSC. But as soon as  I try anything the yellow triangle appears.I've uninstalled the driver and reinstalled etc.,etc. to no avail. The PC will not recognize the camera except it does make a noise(beep?) when turning the camera on and off. The other thing that seems odd is that when booting up the PC the mouse is not recognized if the camera is plugged in and turned on. Immediately upon removal of the camera the mouse works fine. My understanding from Sony is that this camera should work with this O/S.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thks. overthehill

_________________________________
This device cannot start. (Code 10)
{Operation Failed}
The requested operation was unsuccessful.
Code 10 is generally a Hardware error message...how old is the Cam ? ?A little older than I thought. Date bought : 1/10/06Sounds like the camera is dragging down the USB power or faulty in some other way. Does it still take pictures? Are you using a memory stick in the camera? When I had a Sony camera I got a card reader and took the stick out of the camera and put it into a reader which I plugged into a USB port. In fact I do this with all my digital cameras and camcorders.


Duh!!!  Now why didn't I think of that? I've been copying to my other PC's and then using a stick to transfer. Guess that's why I depend on folks like you to help folks like me. Thank You. Salmon.

Much appreciated. overthehillA thought - I know a LOT of people use the term "memory stick" to MEAN a pen drive or jump drive or whatever, I mean the Memory Stick with a capital M and a capital S, that is Sony's own type of memory card.

It might look like this



Or like this



You can take it out of the camera and insert it into a USB device called a "card reader", they cost about $10 to $20. You would need to make sure it covers the type of card ("stick") you have in your camera.Yep. I know EXACTLY what you mean.I should have thought of that. Took the card out of the camera. Stuck it in the PC and presto. Not the first time that you've helped me Salmon. Keep up the good work.

Merry Christmas. overthehill

It's just that I have recently had a protracted conversation with my sister about "memory sticks"... it's still fresh in my MIND!

Merry Christmas!

I had similar problems while connecting mobile phone (USB Storage) to my PC. Found out the connecting cable was the problem.

5673.

Solve : RAM Channels A channel DIMM and B channel DIMM?

Answer»
  I have XP  SP3 machine that has 4 ram slots......its named A and B channels on the BACK side of the main left side computer cover in a lay out diagram.....I see Channel A and Channel B  slots.........should my match set of ram go in Channel A and my 2 separate un matched  ram sticks go in channel B...........see the 2 Corsair was Both in the same package as a matched set !.........However the other ram sticks were separate....because my XP uses the older sticks.....it harder to buy extra memory sticks.......Where should the matched set GO?.....and the unmatched set go ?.......what channels A and B !.........................Thanks to all  who help me.It's different for all manuf....what MBoard is this ? ?
  My MoBo is a  Intel D915PGN.

          Hope that helps.
                CRaShWell Geeeeeeeeeeee  No answer back after i said i had a  INTEL Mo Bo..........soooooooooo i checked with "Corsair.com".........heres what i found of my memory
 placement 

     FAQ asked questions as :
Which Corsair Memory modules will work with my existing modules?
We strongly recommend matching the module part number as closely as possible in order to ensure the greatest chance of compatibility. Even if you match part numbers properly, we can’t make guarantees as to their performance as the modules weren’t tested together.  Also be aware that when USING two kits of memory together, you may need to REDUCE the speed of the memory due to motherboard chipset limitations.   

    IF any one can add to THIS please do as we all need to know these types of answers........Thanks                                        Your MBoard Manual.
5674.

Solve : Windows XP Code 41 ... Drivers loaded but can't find harware?

Answer»

Pending job on a computer DT with Windows XP using a Logitec Black Keyboard Y-ST39. I FOUND a driver 22.2 that is supposed to WORK. Uninstalled and rebooted, installed new drivers from disk. In Devices, the yellow prompt is still indicating a problem. There is a system driver that I'm missing and I'm unable to find one on disc.  It has a USB port for board. I tries a PS/2 Microsoft board as well. Can't find either one.

Any thoughts on addressing this issue? All INSIGHT is appreciated.  You may be missing chipset component drivers...go directly to the MBoard manuf. site and DLoad and re-install all of them for that MODEL and OS...
Chipset driver 1st...re-boot...then all others.

5675.

Solve : OC AMD 8320 ??

Answer»

Hello,

How would I go about aver clocking my AMD 8320 from 3.5 GHz to 4 GHz or higher, what would I need and what would it affect and what benefits will I get.

Thanks ZachThe benefit you'll see is INCREASED CPU speed, as that's exactly what overclocking your CPU does.
What PSU, motherboard and cooler do you have?  The FX CPUs get very power hungry when overclocked and without a good PSU, beefy VRM circuitry and a great cooler you run the risk of damaging hardware.Just my opinion:

I wouldnt overclock this CPU unless you have liquid cooling and a real need to do so. The AMD FX-8320 is a hot blooded CPU to begin with when used with stock cooler that comes with the CPU and everything that Calum stated is correct.

Also even if a motherboard supports over clocking in the BIOS features, it does not mean that the motherboard WONT run into problems such as with the Voltage Regulators (VRM)'s roasting and failing. Better motherboards have a heatsink applied to the VRM's to keep them cool, however lower cost motherboards can come without them and allow for you to burn them up if you drive the CPU/Board to hard with an overclock.

Unless you have a real need to OC this CPU, I'd avoid it. For more then 99% of the people out there its plenty of processing power and usually overkill at native clock, and when a powerful video card GPU or PAIR of GPU's/cards are teamed up with this CPU you have one powerful system on your hands for gaming.

I haven't overclocked any of my CPU's until it was towards the end life cycle of them, when they are starting to show that they are strugging to keep up with the heavier processing demands of today VS the easier processing demands of yester-years. When a CPU is at the end of its life cycle usually around the 5 year in age mark, you can drive the old CPU harder to squeeze more processing power out of it to get say 1 or 2 more years out of it with an increase between 5% and 25% more processing power out of it depending on the overclock performed, proper cooling methods used and how hard the CPU can be driven in speed before it starts to destabilize no matter how cool you can keep it.

Just as an example, I overclocked a quadcore AMD Athlon II x4 620 which is a budget quadcore from its native 2600Mhz to 2847Mhz by increasing my FSB on my RAM from 200Mhz to 219Mhz with a 13x multiplier. My CPU is a locked CPU so I had limited over clocking abilities and the motherboard has all sorts of features to alter the settings manually to fine tune an overclock. What I found is that the system wouldnt boot at 220Mhz FSB, and booted at 219Mhz FSB but would blue screen randomly. I then worked my way down to 216Mhz FSB when it was stable, but I was getting surging in my games with FPS jumping around. When I dropped it 1Mhz to 215Mhz FSB for my Corsair DDR2 800Mhz XMS2 higher end gaming RAM which works well for over clocking, I was now at 2795Mhz vs the 2600Mhz that I started at and the system was running good and the performance gain was noticed in boot time and in games, but my CPU was now running 55 to 60C from what it use to be running at 40-45C at native clock, so this extra 195Mhz of processing speed raised my CPU temp by about 15 degrees C, and the main reason for it running so hot was because I was using a 95watt cast aluminum heatsink which was not the best heatsink for driving a CPU under an overclock condition.  I then decided to go back to 200Mhz FSB and bring the CPU back to 2600Mhz because summer was around the corner and I didnt want to cook the CPU to death.

There are many methods to overclocking, and some CPUs are limited or wont take an overclock at all, and then there are others like the Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 which is a 2.4Ghz CPU that can be easily driven to 3.2Ghz or higher with proper hardware and cooling.For 6 to 8 % performance gain i think it's a waste of time and effort....
JMHO.

5676.

Solve : Haphazard screen scrolling?

Answer»

My first posting.

For a couple of months I've had a problem with my screen scrolling or jumping by itself when I've been using Outlook Express, Word, Excel or when I've been WEB browsing.

I've TRIED just about every program to scan for spyware, malware and viruses but they all keep coming up clean so I don't think there is any infection.

I've also uninstalled and reinstalled Microsoft Office and checked all the connections to my PC for the monitor, mouse, keyboard etc with no obvious problems being found.

The problem occurs whether or not I'm connected to the web.  Other applications seem to be free from the problem.

Can anyone help please?Try UPDATING your video card drivers.

FlameThanks for the suggestion but the problem still remains.  Any other thoughts? Woodford ....... Have you tried changing your mouse ..........? A bad mouse could be causing what you describe.

dl65  Is it a wireles mouse? Does it have more than 2 buttons?

FlameGood morning Flame.  No it's not a wireless mouse.  It is a normal 2 button mouse with a scroller.  Since the last posting I've cleaned the mouse and removed some 'fluff' from the inside.  I'm seeing what happens today but already I've had a few small jumps.

I'm doubtful that the problem is the mouse since if this was the case then every application would have the same problem whereas this is not so.

I've tested a couple of card games like solitaire and the screen remains perfectly steady no matter how long I stay connected.  By contrast when I go into my email or start browsing the web as well as using Excel and Word the screen begins to misbehave.

I'm really baffled - and cross-eyed!!

SteveGood morning Flame and d165.

Having had another go at cleaning my mouse I must say that after a day of testing, the screen scrolling has reduced although it still suffers the odd jump or two.  Nothing like before though when the screen would scroll from top to bottom and partly back up at great speed.

Perhaps the mouse was (is) the problem although I still don't understand why it only affected a few applications.

Anyway thank you for your help - much appreciated.

SteveTry another mouse. Let us know what happens.

FlameThe problem soon came back despite cleaning the mouse.  Yesterday I bought a new mouse and so FAR so good.Hopefully the new mouse will keep THINGS working in good condition... Let us know how it works for you... I'm interested now  

FlameNot all applications respond to the scroll wheel.  A faulty scroll wheel would therefore not affect all applications.Well guys another 2 days have passed without any problems re-appearing.  I'm confident now in saying that the issue was in fact the mouse.  With your help I've learned something new.  Cheers.

SteveI had the same problem and changed the mouse so far (1 day) so good.  Thanks guys.  New to this site and already benefitted!

5677.

Solve : At least 20 minutes to boot to BIOS -why??

Answer»

I have a first-ever issue with my HP 6000 Pro mid-tower ; it's booting very, very slooowly into the BIOS. At first I thought it was stuck on the  "HP Invent" blue screen. But after reseating the RAM, taking out the CMOS battery, removing DISK drives, etc. I  saw if I left the computer alone long enough it would go through the normal boot up cycle, only at a record snails' pace.
It will go to the BIOS screen eventually, where everything looks normal. And it will respond to my keyboard, only it takes a long time. Now I'm wondering if the problem is my Nvidia GT120 video card. Or could it be the CPU? Has anyone had experience with this KIND of thing?REMOVE everything not needed for a simple BIOS screen.
No Hard drive.
No floppy
No CD-ROM
No video card
No USB things
No mouse
No keyboard
No CMOS cell
One RAM stick
Simple VGA on built in video

The BIOS should display an error right away.

What test tools do you have?
Volt meter? Oscilloscope?  AM/FM Radio?

If the problem still persists, it might be  symptom of a bad capacitor on the motherboard.


I have a voltmeter. I've looked for swollen capacitors but everything looks normal. The power supply of your tower must deliver + 5 volts and + 12 volts to this connector of the CD-ROM drive.


Blacks are negative, red is 5 volts and the yellow is 12 volts.
It the readings  are note withing 3 percent of the stated voltage,you  may have a power supply issue.

You really got me on the right track about disconnecting everything - I was able to boot the computer into Windows, and am now plugging everything back in one piece at a time, to see what might have caused the issue. Thanks!If it helps I've seen this many times with a bad HDD or optical drive, as they are accessed for the BIOS to detect them sometimes they either hang the system or make it take an absolute age to POST.  A bad data cable can do the same thing, so I would be inclined to check your cables and drives, and if you do get the system all back together as it was and it boots fine, run a diagnostic on your HDD just to be safe.

5678.

Solve : Upgrading CPU in older board...?

Answer»

Greetings CH!

Sadly windows Xp will soon be another thing of the past and with that i would like to upgrade my current system that my family is using to windows 8. However The system is running on an older Athlon chip. don't remember exactly which one. i know it just has a 512mb cache, runs at 2.2GHz and is a Am2 socket. I would like to upgrade the CPU to something at least in the 1mb cache era. The motherboard is a Asus m2n SLI Delux which doing some research i have found that doing the bios update to this board can GRANT me access to run max a AM3 socket cpu.. this is the page..

http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/list.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=M2N32-SLI%20deluxe&p=1

however, there are limited CPUs supported. my question is, is it Just this list or can this AMD triple core work?

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6620917&csid=_61

i wanted a AMD FX 4150 AM3 socket but i doubt it will run that. what do you thing? please let me know... Thanks
You are only going to be able to run the CPU's that are PART of the supported CPU listing. And I'd avoid the ones that are tagged as beta. I'd GO with a Phenom II x3 or x4 CPU, but be sure your power supply can handle the extra load. If you are running just a 300watt power supply, I'd install a 500watt power supply to match the extra power demands of the faster and power hungry cpu.

I have a system that i upgraded from a Socket AM2 Sempron x2 2Ghz to a Athlon II x4 620 2.6Ghz quadcore and it was a sweet upgrade. I ended up getting this quadcore for free from a friend who cooked his integrated GPU on a HP tower and when we bought a NEW motherboard for his system he decided to go with a Phenom II x6 six-core CPU, and gave me his prior quad-core as payment for fixing/building the system up. I was willing to pay $50 for this CPU at the time and he said nah you can have it free. The Athlon II x4 620 performs well and it can be bought used for around $50-60 USD, the Phenom II x3 and x4's are around $75-100 although you have to make sure its supported on the CPU list and I'd avoid those listed with beta indicators which can lead to problems. Phenoms are generally better than the Athlons with the L3 Cache, and EVEN a slower clock Phenom can out perform a higher clocked Athlon, however there are some high clocked Athlons in the 2.6Ghz + clock range that run better than slower clocked 1.8Ghz Phenoms etc. Here is an example: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-Phenom-II-P820-vs-AMD-Athlon-II-X4-620 So you cant just assume that anything Phenom is better than Athlon! 

Be sure to make sure your heatsink is rated for proper wattage to draw heat away if going with a 95 watt CPU though. I got lucky that my Athlon II x4 620 at 2600Mhz runs 45C to 50C with a 65watt rated cast aluminum heatsink when gaming, but its a 95 watt CPU!!! The prior CPU was a 45watt CPU in which this 65 watt heatsink was plenty, but running a 95 watt ( hotter running ) CPU with a lower rated heatsink can lead to overheating your CPU.

5679.

Solve : My First Ever PC Please HELP!?

Answer»

Hey guys not sure if this is the right place to put this at all, if a mod sees this please feel free to move it.
So basically I'm going to be making my own custom built PC. I've done a fair bit of research on this so I'm not totally clueless ( well maybe I am for a lot of it) but the part I struggle on is the compatibility part. This is where I would like for you guys to come in and suggest better things if they are not compatible or confirming they are and if the power supply cannot handle what the PC will need, which one should I get? Any help is appreciated thank you very much!!

Here's the list I made

Processor - Haswell i7-4770k
Video Card - ASUS GTX 770
Mother Board - Asus Maximus VI Hero
Power Supply- Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750
CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler
Case - CM Storm enforcer
Hard DRIVE - 2TB WD Red
OPTICAL Drive - ASUS Black 18X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM

Cheers,
ThomasThat looks good, everything should be compatible (You are just missing RAM).

Just a few pointers:

  • You do not have an SSD in that list, for a build like that a SSD is a really good idea, something like a Samsung 840 Pro/Evo would be a great option here
  • That power supply is great but you would be fine with 650w, you may also want to consider a 'modular' unit as you can disconnect any cables you aren't using which makes it easier to keep the inside of the case neat.
  • If this machine is mainly for GAMING and depending on your budget you may also want to consider DROPPING the CPU down to an i5 4670k and using the money you save to get a better graphics card as this should BENEFIT gaming more.
5680.

Solve : Graphics card only showing low resolution, driver up to date.?

Answer»

I'm having a problem getting my graphics to more than 640x480. I've updated the driver wth no change. This is an old 845dxr Intel board. I'm on my WAY now to obtain ANOTHER PCI graphics board but I'd certainly like to know what I'm not doing right  here.
 Thanks for any help,
Mike

What OS ? ?
Vista Home Premium.
 Update, I was given 3 computers, 2 CRT monitors, 6 keybords, 2 usb mouses, a DVR player / recorder and some other stuff today by a guy who has limited $ but paid me in old computer equipment. I'm working on his wife's computer's virus problem right now and there will be no $ charged to him or his wife for sure when I'm done. What a great low income family who have been able to send thier son Jeremy to college, and he's a great boy and doing well in SCHOOL.
 I'm just having an issue with this display not going beyond basic 640x 480. I've updated the driver and it say's i have the latest driver installed already.
 Maybe I can get an external graphics card out of one of these computers i just aquired, I won't know until I get time to investigate...
 But, for now,  why will this machine not go to a higher resolution other than basic 640x480?

Thanks again for your years of help patio!
Mike

5681.

Solve : no beeps, no boot on startup?

Answer»

I have been struggling with this for awhile now. This is only my second build ever and I can not for the life of me figure out what the problem is. No matter what I do I can not get my build to even boot. Whenever I hit the power button, the fans spin and the fan LEDs TURN on, but I get no beeps and no boot screen and within 5 seconds EVERYTHING powers down and the whole process starts over.


Here is what I have
CPU: Intel core i5-2500k
Board: Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3
Power Supply:  Corsair TX 750w
Memory: 4x4gb corsair Vengeance
HD: Seagate Barracuda 1.5tb

I have tried disconnecting everything but the board and cpu and still have not gotten any results.

Any help any of you could give WOULD be very appreciated.All MBoard standoffs in place ? ?
THERMAL paste applied properly ? ?
4/6 pin CPU connector firmly seated ? ?

These are the mos common issues that CREATE this.

5682.

Solve : riser card?

Answer»

when computer is booting up it says RISER card not installed turn off computer and install riser card. is this required and what is its purpose? Please share with us the computer make/model or is custom built all the information on this build such as motherboard make/model, CPU, RAM, HDD, OS, etc?

I have an ASUS Intel Socket 775 P5Q Deluxe Motherboard that has a similar blat that otherwise works perfectly fine. And the most confusing part is that there is no riser for this board. I was given this motherboard for free from a friend, and stuffed a Pentium E5400 2.7Ghz dual-core into it. It is just at the POST that you SEE this message for about 3 seconds., but it gets PAST this and runs without any problems WINDOWS 7 64-bit.

Does your computer otherwise work perfectly fine and its just a POST message annoyance?

5683.

Solve : Graphics card replacement?

Answer»

I have an ATI Radeon 3400 HD in my computer at the moment. Have been having issues such as frame rates being slow and no signal to the monitor. I was considering replacing with an ATI Radeon 3450 HD but am not sure if i can or what steps i need to take to do this. Also looking for any tips on other graphics cards i could possibly upgrade to. Would appreciate some feedback.The Radeon HD 3450 is about as weak as the HD 3400, what are your system specs, budget, and most intensive graphics program or game you will run on this and normal or MAX settings, to suggest a video card for you?

I have a couple systems using the Radeon HD 5450 with 512MB and 1GB video Cards in them and they play games like World of Warcraft between 30 and 60fps at normal graphics settings on 1024 x768 on dual-core computers such as the Intel Pentium E5400 2.7Ghz, AMD Athlon 64 x2 4450B 2.3Ghz, and Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz and the video cards were cheap $30 at www.newegg.com each. These cards are ok for WoW and other games I have like GTA San Andreas etc, but against newer games like Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4 etc the Radeon HD 5450 would probably stuggle if able to run these games at all. The one game I have that the Radeon HD 5450 does show some struggling on is Skyrim where when there is a lot of action happening the frame rate plunges to like 15 to 20 fps from 30 fps on normal settings, but it does this for about 2 or 3 seconds and then jumps back up to 30fps so it slows but picks right back up again. The textures in Skyrim are probably what is really making the Radeon HD 5450 cards struggle to keep up which graphics far more realistic than World of Warcrafts cartoonish textures.

With additional info we can help point you to a video card that should work for you.I play World of Warcraft almost exclusively. I'm running an AMD Phenom 8450 triple core. As far as budget i really don't wish to invest any large amount of money on a system that i will probably replace in 12 to 18 months.The Radeon HD 5450 with 1GB RAM is about $30 and will run WoW on 1024x768 res at the middle/normal graphics setting at 30-60 fps. Only thing to watch out for in the cheap cards is that they have proper cooling, some come with small fans and others are passive. One of the HD5450's is ASUS brand and Passive Heatsink = No Cooling Fan, and so I added a 80mm fan inside the case to blow cool air across the heatsink surface and its been working well that way for last 2 years.

Here are 2 good cheap cards that are name brand, but I'd add a fan to cool them. The ASUS same as shown in 2nd link roasts burning hot when gaming without airflow across the heatsink. I added a 80mm fan with a tie wrap upright in my mATX tower to blow air across the video card and the GPU is a nice 43C when gaming vs roasting 85C+ without airflow as measured with speedfan gaming. I made use of the floppy power connector that is not used to tap into the 12VDC inserting the wires into the yellow 12VDC and black common and then placing scotch tape over this to keep wires  from backing out.

XFX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150655

ASUS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121447

Last year I BOUGHT another 2 of these cards on a black friday deal with a rebate of $10 off each card and the final price was $14.99 per card, and those which where sapphire brand came with small fans on the heatsink so that adding a fan was not necessary and they are still going strong.

Quote from: texasken on December 24, 2013, 03:21:13 PM

i really don't wish to invest any large amount of money on a system that i will probably replace in 12 to 18 months.

You may want to consider getting a really good card (And possibly a power supply upgrade) now then down the line you can always move it into a new system, that makes more sense to me than spending money on a fairly low end card you'll be replacing.I agree with Camerongray if you have the money to spend on a better card.

 But if your looking at a cheap card for 12 to 18 months in hopes to get a more modern video card in 12 or 18 months, you can buy cheap now and spend more later. Since you can get a better video card for the same money today, down the road in 12 or 18 months. I have gone that route sometimes myself vs buying a high end card now and 12 to 18 months down the road you could have gotten an even better video card for the same $120 etc. Although for the past 4 years I have gone the route of bargain cards after FIRST researching into their graphics processing benchmarks to make sure they are a good deal and better than integrated video.

One time in the past I lucked out in holding off on an ultra powerful video card back in 2004 when my system was 8x AGP in and I decided to get by on the GeForce FX5200 AGP video card I already had vs buying a far more powerful nVidia FX5900 video card. Less than a year later PCI Express cards/motherboards came out and that was where you wanted to be vs older slower AGP graphics card connection for games and so I was able to get a more powerful video card later that also was able to be moved to future builds vs having a slower and obsolete AGP video card that had to be paired up with older hardware.

*But PCIe is here to stay for a while so I dont see this happening any time soon! I just got lucky in holding off in 2004 that it worked out to avoid buying AGP and later buy PCIe instead!

Quote
PCI Express 4.0

On November 29, 2011, PCI-SIG announced PCI Express 4.0 featuring 16 GT/s, still based on copper technology. Additionally, active and idle power optimizations are to be investigated. Final specifications are expected to be released in 2014 or 2015.
As quoted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

This below was a concern back then:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/60414-28-expressI really appreciate the feedback. One final question. I have $150.00 give or take to spend. I can get a Diamond ATI AMD Radeon HD6450 PCI Express 1 GB for around $80.00. Any card you feel is a better bang for the BUCK than this? Quote from: texasken on December 25, 2013, 02:23:27 AM
I really appreciate the feedback. One final question. I have $150.00 give or take to spend. I can get a Diamond ATI AMD Radeon HD6450 PCI Express 1 GB for around $80.00. Any card you feel is a better bang for the buck than this?

Something like a GeForce 650 (Or better the 650ti) would fit your budget and would be miles better than the Radeon 6450 which is a very low end card.
5684.

Solve : Asus g60jx Video card issue?

Answer»

Hi guys i have a asus g60jx. I installed a fresh copy of windows 7 ultimate x64. Now when i do not install video drivers the laptop runs fine without any crashes or issues. I have it well vented and it does not run hot maybe 50c when watching videos and such. I had tried the drivers from asus, i had tried drivers from nvidia. Im at a loss i have no idea what it going on. Can it have something to do with bad thermal paste or a bad hard drive i do feel a bit of heat on the palm rest of the laptop but nothing majorThis model has lots of overheating COMPLAINTS on google. I'd open it up and remove old dried up thermal compound and apply new thermal compound between the GPU and CPU and the heatsinks, and then see if that fixes the ISSUE. Also verify that the fans are not clogged up with lint etc. Hopefully your GPU is not damaged as for I have seen GPU's run fine on windows default drivers, and cause the system to BSOD crash and restart when the GPU has been cooked and using the correct nVidia DRIVER etc to try to run the FULL features of the GPU that the windows default driver does not tap into to cause the crash. *Also to note ACCORDING this this feedback post on newegg it looks like the GPU/graphics adapter can be swapped amoung other MXM cards so if it is cooked you can probably find a good used replacement on ebay for this laptop maybe.

I also see that people bought refurbs of this same model at newegg and one guy even claimed to have to drill holes into the bottom of it as seen here:

Quote

Cons:                   Had to drill some holes in the back plate so the fan could actually get some air!

Other Thoughts: This laptop is still a monster even being 3-4 years old. I have owned this laptop since 2010 and couldn't be happier! Woot Woot! Oh and you can also upgrade the graphics to a GTX 260m, but the card has to have come out of a Asus because of the proprietary MXM cards they use for this gen of laptops.
As found in feedback here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220796
5685.

Solve : Socket 7?

Answer»

I've come a cross a computer with windows 95, 200mhz pentium PROCESSOR, 32mb of ram and a 2gb hard drive.

What was the fastest processor for this socket?

We need the MBoard Model #...The fastest processor in socket 7 was the AMD K5 500mhz , Not all motherboards supported the 100mhz FSB and multiplier also the low core voltage.The Socket 7 that went beyond normal socket 7 CPU LIMITATIONS was called Super Socket 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Socket_7

Quote

It is backward compatible with Socket 7, meaning a Socket 7 CPU can be used with a Super Socket 7 motherboard, but a Super Socket 7 CPU cannot operate at full speed in a Socket 7 motherboard.

I had a Cyrix MII in an OLD Packard Bell that was this Super Socket 7, but never upgraded it beyond the cache crippled Cyrix CPUWhat MBoard ? ?its an aopen ax5tSome Info...And a Bit More...so this one?

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/AMD/K6-2/AMD-K6-2_366AFR.html
5686.

Solve : How do I reset Epson Stylus T13 Printer?

Answer»

Hello

My name is Tiffany Plumber and I am from England,UK.I have newly get a printer and It was running healthy ,But SURPRISINGLY it stops functioning and SHOWING some text fault MESSAGE in the screen , I do not know how to repair it, even i do not know where is the difficulty. Software or in hardware.I need some software to FIX it.
I need your suggestions.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks
Tiffany PlumberHi Tiffany, you could try deleting the printer and re-installing it.Curious as to the text fault message? Is it still displaying this message to share with us so we know what it is complaining about. Some of these MESSAGES are easy fixes while others can be bad news. Knowing which one you have we will be able to assist you further in diagnosing the cause and cure. Quote from: tiffanyplumber on December 28, 2013, 05:35:35 AM

I have newly get a printer and It was running healthy
How much old is it? Is it more than an year old or less?
5687.

Solve : Stuck between 2 computers...?

Answer»

Hey, so I've been stuck between choosing 2 computers which i think would be good enough for gaming, my main intention is to play Battlefield and Skyrim etc... I will post the specs here below, but the really main question is the graphic card im in doubt about

HP 500-045EO

Processor:Intel Core i7-3770 (3,4 GHz)
RAM: 8 GB DDR3 (1 x 8 GB)
Harddisk Drive:1 TB 7200 o/min. SATA,
Grafic:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 645
Vram: (2 GB GDDR5)
Operativsystem:Windows 8 6


HP Envy 700-021EO

Processor: Intel Core i7 (4. Gen) 4770 / 3.4 GHz
Max Turbo Speed:   3.9 GHz
RAM: 8 GB / 32 GB (maks.) DDR3 SDRAM (1x 8 GB)
Harddisk Drive: HDD 1 x 1 TB SATA 3Gb/s (7200 rpm)
Graphic: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
Vram: 1.5 GB GDDR5 SDRAM
Operativsystem: Windows 8 64-bit Edition

So which of these computers are BEST for gaming - and are any of them capible of running Battlefield and Skyrim?The bottom one is certainly the best but for gaming I would stay away from premade PCs and either build your own or order it custom made from a specialised manufacturer.

Both of those have i7s which are way more than you need for gaming, something like an i5 4670k would be perfectly sufficient.  You could then spend the money you save on a better graphics card which would give a much bigger benefit for gaming.

The other issue with premade PCs is they are often limited in their upgrade potential and tend to use low end motherboards and power supplies, something that you can avoid by building your own/getting one custom made.

Another thing that neither of those PCs have but you may WANT to consider is a solid state drive (SSD) as this will make the machine boot up and load stuff a lot faster and makes the whole PC feel a lot "snappier".I'll add to the above advice, which is right on TRACK, that I wouldn't consider either of those cards to be ideal for high end gaming, as said above if you dropped the CPU to an i5 you could get something like a GTX 760, GTX 770, or AMD 7870 or R9 280, which would be much better for gaming. Quote from: Calum on December 28, 2013, 09:13:48 AM

I'll add to the above advice, which is right on track, that I wouldn't consider either of those cards to be ideal for high end gaming, as said above if you dropped the CPU to an i5 you could get something like a GTX 760, GTX 770, or AMD 7870 or R9 280, which would be much better for gaming.
Calum, I respectfully disagree. IMHO the OP should  to stock with the i7 And he can contact the manufacturer directly and ask for custom components and save some money. And the warranty is for the whole package.
Just saying.An i7 has no benefit for almost all games over an equivalent i5.  If you can find something to support your point of view, please, post it.  A 5 second Google produces one of many tests on i5 vs i7 - here.  You can see the difference is very small, except in CPU intensive games like BF3 which do not represent a majority of games.  Spending the £80 or so difference on a better GPU would yield more of a difference even in CPU intensive games, the i7 just isn't as good value as the i5 unless you're doing mainly CPU bound tasks where the i7's hyperthreading makes a difference.

Edit: in fact, see here for a test with many more games than TPU's quick test, with different cards involved, showing minimal differences - most within the margin of error.Calum, the link you gave makes the point. Thanks for the link.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i5_4670K_and_i7_4770K_Comparison/8.html
The OP said Battlefield

For Battle filed 3
The i7 does more FPS than i5  on that particular game.
About  34 FPS for i5 and 42 FPS for i7.

And yes, for some other games it does not matter. So for almost any game, the i5 is great. But for Battlefield 3 you might want the i7. If the FPS is important to. you.
(Really, many people can not see the difference anyway.)



Quote from: Geek-9pm on December 28, 2013, 05:35:52 PM
Calum, the link you gave makes the point. Thanks for the link.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i5_4670K_and_i7_4770K_Comparison/8.html
The OP said Battlefield

For Battle filed 3
The i7 does more FPS than i5  on that particular game.
About  34 FPS for i5 and 42 FPS for i7.

And yes, for some other games it does not matter. So for almost any game, the i5 is great. But for Battlefield 3 you might want the i7. If the FPS is important to. you.
(Really, many people can not see the difference anyway.)

While the i7 will give a higher framerate in BF3 when the rest of the system is the same the framerate improvement with a better GPU would be much greater.  This is why Calum and I would suggest moving to an i5 as the money saved will allow for a better GPU to be purchased which will improve performance in ALL games, not just the couple that can benefit from the i7.camerongray, OK. I see y0ur point.  Geek, as Cameron says you're right that an i7 will perform better than an i5 in Battlefield, but the difference in cost is better spent on upgrading the graphics card as that will help performance more than the difference between the i5 and i7 with the same card, and it'll also help in the 90% of other games which don't benefit from the i7.
5688.

Solve : Can anyone help in determining if a 3.5 in floppy drive can be connected into an?

Answer»

HP Pavilion a712 XP desktop. I need this to copy over a number of 3.5 floppies unto CD or DVD. I have 2 EA Windows 95 units that are unusable to copy but the 3.5 drives seem to be o.k.! Not clear on the question at all...however a common thing on older floppy drives was the read unit would get mis-aligned over time...and floppy's that worked would no longer...
Buy a new floppy drive...not that expensive...and try to retrieve the data that way.
I'd buy an external USB Floppy Drive. I have one and it works awesome. On newer systems that support booting over USB you can even boot to DOS and perform BIOS flashing etc if needed.

They are cheap. I bought a Lacie External Floppy Drive about 5 years ago and keep it in a ziplock bag to keep dust out of it. Here is a cheap source for an external floppy drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=usb%20floppy&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20

According to the age of your desktop, it probably has a floppy PORT on the motherboard, and should have a mini power plug for support of a single floppy drive, but I wouldnt use an old floppy drive out of old systems which can be dirty and could damage disks with important data, I'd got with the external USB floppy drive instead. I have use this external floppy drive with XP, Vista, and Windows 7 with no drivers having to be INSTALLED its pretty much plug-n-play.

Update: This link is to the motherboard that your system claims to have according to HP and it does have a FDD1 (floppy drive port) http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c00068983

So if you didnt want to spend any money you could move a floppy drive from an older system to this system using the floppy cable and drive from an older system, just be sure that its plugged in red or blue stripe to pin 1 etc ( most are keyed to only plug in the proper way however some older cables were not keyed and so it could be plugged in 180 degrees and not work ), and plug in the mini power jack from the Power Supply if you have one, most do. BUT I cant find any info on if there is a knock out to add a 3.5" floppy drive so you may have to do this with the cover open and use the floppy drive on a temporary basis. Just be sure that the floppy drive doesnt fall into the case if on its SIDE and short the motherboard etc.

The BIOS should autodetect the floppy drive, however if it doesnt its easy to enable Floppy A: 3.5" 1.44MB assuming the drive is a 1.44MB drive and not an older 720K drive.

5689.

Solve : Quite a few startup issues?

Answer»

Good Morning!

I have a few pretty big startup issues with my dads computer.  I'm not too new to fixing a computer here and there, but I am stumped this time.  Originally the only symptom was random shutdowns.  This had happened once before and it turned out to be an overheating issue and a simple dismantle and clean up FIXED it.  So, that's what I did, and I must have done something very wrong, although I have checked and rechecked and cannot find the issue.  I do believe it to be a hardware issue, but am not 100% on that.  I have listed the symptoms/occurrences below:

On start up, I get one seeming randomly selected error

BLACK screen with the statement "The file is possibly corrupt. The file header checksum does npot match the computed checksum"

A random restart sometime during the startup process

BSOD (Sometimes a Crash Dump) with  : STOP : 0x00000124 (0x00000000, 0x90503024, 0xB2000010, 0x00010C0F)

A solid black screen (the GPU display comes up, but then just sits on black screen for over 30 mins, until shut off)

Windows Startup Recovery (Recovery essentially does nothing)

System fan failed to start (I currently have the casing open and all fans are running as usual)

Normal startup, but will shut down after 10 mins of operation.

Now for my already attempted solutions:
Reset bios by reseating CMOS plugs.
Reseated all RAM individually on separate startups.
Disconnected graphics card and used onboard output.
Tried to update the BIOS, Computer doesn't stay on long enough :/
I have tried using Startup Recovery option, but I get a message that it could not fix the issue.

Now for the all important specs:

HP Pavilion a6230n
Corsair GS700 PSU
PNY XLR8 9800 GTX+ 512MB GPU
8GB RAM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 5600+

Thank you all for any and all help you could possibly give.  I am only in town for the holidays and would love to get this working for my dad again.How old is this computer?

Do you see any leaked capacitors on the motherboard?I see no popped or leaking caps.  I am not 100% on the age, at least 5 years, I would have to say.Just a guess, but it could well be the power supplyI do have a spare power SUPPLY around here somewhere, but, if I recall, we rid of it because it wasn't quite enough to power the GPU.  I will take a look though, and swap that out.You can then remove the addon gpu, use the on board graphics and use the spare power supply for the diagnostic purpose.Alright, so far so good.  Which diagnostics should I run? I'm not entirely sure what to do at this point xDDon't run any diagnostics at this point. Just see if the power supply solves the problem for starters.Alright, I will use the computer as normal, to see if it wants to shut down on me.Well, So far so good.  I will keep it on and stress it every now and again and give you guys and update LATER.  Only time will tell at this point ^_^At some point you're going to want to run chkdsk /r because of all of the anomalous shutdowns. Don't do it yet though, since you don't want the system to shutdown in the middle of running checkdisk - that can cause major problems. Once you are confident the system is not going to shut down, do the following:

right-click on a command prompt icon and open as administrator. In the command prompt window type: chkdsk /r (then press ENTER). You'll be told the disk is in use and asked if you want to run checkdisk on the next boot. Say yes, exit the command prompt window, and reboot.I decided to go ahead and a restart to make sure it was starting up alright.  It did not shut down on its own after waiting for a while.  I am now getting this:

Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0
Copyright junk

BIOS ROM checksum error
Keyboard error or no Keyboard present (my keyboard is plugged in, but wireless, so it may not be communicating)

Detecting IDE ATAPI device

Detecting Floppy drive A media
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

haven't seen that one yet, and on a second restart the desktop was on, but no display.  The monitor shut off due to no connection (It does turn on automatically if a connection is established.)

On a third and fourth restart everything came up as normal.  I will continue to restart to make sure the other issues are gone though.  No Blue screens yet ^_^You probably want to replace the motherboard battery. Let's see if that helps the boot process.Will probably have to go and get one.  Don't think I have a spare.While it's refreshing to have someone keep us closely posted, you really don't need to report everything every step of the way .

5690.

Solve : Rebuilding computer?

Answer»

Recently i have bought a new MOTHERBOARD the SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0, i realised it will not fit in my computer, so i put my motehr board back in (it has built in standoffs) replugged in all the power supplys connectors and then turn it on.... then it started smoking from the harddrive/CDrom  area.   It wouldent make much sence it if was the harddrive because i did see the little windows 8 logo pop up and it started loading ( this is when i noticed the smoke and turned the machine off) and if it was the CDrom it wouldent make much sence either because it wasn't being used when it first turned on ( as far as im concerned). i have been told to also replace my power supply which i had just bought the other day and is on 115V which is american ( again as far as im concerned)

HELLP!!!!! im not wasting money until i get more suggestions on what to do.
Let me say something. Here is the best advice I can give, due to present market conditions and your --ahh, mm... apparent lack of skill or attention to detail.

Refurbished Desktops are now going MAINSTREAM. The market is now thick will Dell Desktops that have come off lease. These vary from junk to top quality general purpose desktops. Sold without monitors, saves on shipping.
Do not get a USFF unit. Nobody likes them. The standard or reduced Desktop styles a are good. Here is one good one on Amazon.
Used Dell 620 at Amazon.
Quote

Dell GX620 Tower, Intel 3.2GHz CPU, 2GB DDR2 Memory, Large 160GB Fast SATA Hard Drive, DVD/CDRW  $103.93 plus shipping
Egghead, Best Buy and others have similar deals. Even Wallchart in USA.

It is better to get a used PC under warranty that invest money in a old thing not working. Been there, done that. I have had better results with refurbished PCs instead of things people just gave me to fix and use.
Not a joke!

EDIT: I have a 520 that runs 64 bit windows 7. My research indicates the 620 is a better choice with the same capabilities. Most vendors have a 90 day warranty.  They come with Windows XP pro licensed by Microsoft.. Windows  7 costs a bit more.Hi

You don't say what the old motherboard was just the new one.

Did you remove the hard drive from the case when you were swapping the motherboard ?

Did you reconnect the front usb PORTS to the motherboard and if so were they plugged in CORRECTLY ?

If something smoked then if you remove the motherboard , hard drive and dvd drive you should be able to smell what part smoked or see the damage to the PCB tracks. 

If you can please describe where the damage is and on what part.

As an example : Seagate 500gb 7200.12 hard drive burnt smell on CIRCUIT board near power connector .
That and more detail would be very helpful.


5691.

Solve : Upgrading Laptop Battery Question?

Answer»

Hi,

I recently PURCHASED a new laptop (Acer Aspire E1-472) that comes with the following battery.

http://www.battdepot.com/ca/model/notebook+battery/acer/aspire+e1-472/lac223.aspx

I know that the Acer Aspire V7 has the exact same specs as the one i purchased but comes with a 4 cell battery with a capacity of 3560mAh which lasts about 7hrs instead of the one in the above link which only lasts about 4hrs. My question is, if I purchase the one with a 3560 mAh capacity, will i be ABLE to get the 7hrs of battery life (or at least more than the 4hrs?) Below are the two computers I am speaking about, their specs are the same except the V7 has a solid state hd and is touchscreen and comes with the 3560mAh battery.

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/acer-acer-aspire-e1-14-laptop-silver-intel-core-i5-4200u-500gb-hdd-8gb-ram-windows-8-e1-472-6440/10270637.aspx?path=73c30dfbed117e584b2195205e462a07en02

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/acer-acer-aspire-v7-14-touchscreen-laptop-iron-intel-core-i5-4200u-500gb-hdd-8gb-ram-windows-8-1-v7-482p-6616/10276255.aspx?path=838e3c1816dfafb2071a38f3aaa11c8fen02

Any help would be appreciated. ThanksYou have new laptop (Acer Aspire E1-472). You indicate one model has a 7 hour life andf another has a 4 hour life. Where in that information found?

You question is hard to understand. The general rule is that only the capacity of the battery is specified. How long it lasts is not fully specified, only estimated.

Literature for the battery makes shows that, in a given set of con conditions, the larger capacity battery will last longer. But this does not directly comparing two models of a laptop and their respective batteries. Even a slight variation is significant. A unit with a solid state drive should use less power than  a hard drive . Nevertheless, there are other factors that influence battery life.

The manufacture in this case Acer is more qualified to answer your question. In general, using an overcapacity battery is no a good idea unless the design allows. There have been some serious issues with laptop batteries.

Battery engineers recommend that if you really NEED e long life for a road trip, take a spare battery with you. This is the more conservative approach.


The is the best answer I can give you. This is based on the experiences and recommendations of others, not just my personal observations.

the battery life is indicated in the specs in the links provided. the models are not the same name, one is acer aspire e1 and the other is acer aspire v7. I am aware that battery life estimations are only valid to a certain degree as it depends on what you are doing with the laptop. essentially i was asking if the battery life would be similar b/c within the two models, everything else is essentially identical except for the fact one has a solid state drive and is touchscreen. i will check with acer but i was just wondering if it is feasible to use a battery with a larger capacity. i can see that the battery that came with my laptop is 14.8 volts but this battery that has a capacity of 3560mah is 10.8 volts.Bottom line is you will never get 7 hours out of a battery rated at 4 hours...so the short answer is No.i would be replacing the battery that lasts for 4hrs with one with larger capacity, shouldnt that increase battery life?Yes.Some laptops are designing to have two disparate battery systems, but with compatible physical specifications.

The longer life battery is a 10 volt device.
The lessor life battery is a 14 volt device.
That is by design in some popular laptops.
When this  is done by design, the laptop will automatically adjust to the difference in voltage. Do not assume that is the case unless it is well documented.

Even if it was the design of the engineers, the larger capacity battery in the same physical case can generate more heat during changing. I n few cases, the batteries catch on FIRE. So this is part of the argument for using lower capacity batteries in a confined area. It is a safety issue.

That is way the spare battery is given as the better solution.
Ton's Hardware is one of many posts related to this idea.

Multiple batteries for a laptop?
thanks to everyone for their input. i've spoken to acer and all they can tell me is that no other batteries have been tested with my model so essentially they dont really have an answer for me as to if i can upgrade it. from what i HEAR it would be at my own risk.

5692.

Solve : laptop slow in recognizing usb/cards/xpress card slot?

Answer»

Lately, My laptop is very slow in recognizing my usb stick, or my Hard drive (usb 3.0) or my sxs cards through my express card SLOT. It 's also slow in recognizing my sd-cards through my card reader. I have a very fast laptop. A lenovo W530.

I just started a while ago, and I can't get it to recognize faster . Everything ELSE works just fine and fast.... but it takes up to 4 minutes to recognize these things.I run windows 7 professional

Can somebody help?

TxTake a looksee in Device Manager...any Yellow !!'s or ??'s ?Yes there  is yellow at the usb mass storage device. It says: code 10.  After a while, this dissapears and it says it works correctly.
And after I want to eject it, it says code 47. And this dissappears after a whileCode 10 is usually a hardware error...EITHER the external drive or the card reader is headed South...
Test 1 at a time to determine which one...It's really strange...  The usb hard drive, or the card reader are working just fine. On other COMPUTERS they work completely fine.
And also on this computer, they work ABSOLUTELY fine. It seems like there is somehting that just stalls my laptop to recognize these items. After 3 minutes, they are recognized and they work absolutely fine. And when I want to eject them, it takes , again a long time before they get ejected.

5693.

Solve : Fast,powerful machine on a budget!??

Answer»

I have included my PC config in the image. My problem is that I bought this machine on the basis of it being a gaming machine (I paid £330). With the RAM and processor I can't really see why I can't play games at least at medium spec (I almost always have to play them at the lowest graphical settings...which sort of SUCKS) and some games become distorted and won't play at all really... I know different games come with different demands from the machine but it just seems like every game (unless its ancient) seems to have serious problems performance-wise...

GTA4 ran very choppy, slowing right down then running suddenly over the normal speed for a few seconds before slowing down again. The characters in the cut-scenes usually don't have HEADS either... just eyes and teeth (which admittedly was hilarious but still...)

The other game I had problems with was The Witcher (1 and worse so with 2). Just generally terrible performance and delayed reactions in almost every element of the game.

If any of you out there know how I could improve anything (even if it includes binning the thing lol) then I would be very appreciative. Was I ripped off? The motherboard does not have additional slots to SLI another card, so would a better graphics card be the answer??

Sorry if this type of question is on here somewhere and answered I looked but couldn't see anything related to it really.



[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]Could you please post the full specs of your PC using speccy: http://www.piriform.com/speccy

We also do not SUPPORT PCs running pirated copies of Windows, while you are upgrading it, buy a legitimate licence for Windows.  I can tell this by the fact you are running Windows 7 Enterprise which is not legally available to end users.  Running a pirated OS can also cause all sorts of problems.  If the machine came with this copy of Windows preinstalled then you have been ripped off and should report the person who sold it to you to Trading Standards. Quote from: camerongray on January 03, 2014, 10:05:27 AM

you [...] should report the person who sold it to you to Trading Standards.[/b]

Or whatever your local consumer protection agency (if you have one) is called if you don't live in Great Britain.

Uuuugh, It's an illegal copy!?

I thought it was a bit cheap considering the OS was ALREADY installed... Although the guy didn't give me the SERIAL key or disc...

It was a guy my buddy knows that sold it to me...apparently he dropped it from £500...

Will this OS cause me problems?! Before I confront him about this are you sure it is an illegal copy?

I'm thankful for the help but I don't obviously want to start something on the off-chance that I'm wrong...

The Speccy program thingy is below for consideration

Thanks again

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]Is there a particular version of windows 7 that is better for gaming or whatever so I know what to look for (or more to the point what I'll be demanding the guy that sold me the machine to install...)Tell him you plan on reporting it to MS...he'll probably install anything you want to prevent that from happening.
If he doesn't he's a fool.Unfortunately it is an illegal copy yeah.  The only way anyone can possibly legally get a copy of Enterprise is through Microsoft's "Home Use Program" which would be provided by a workplace for employee use at home.  Even if he did obtain the copy this way, he cannot legally pass it on to anyone else.

To me the biggest limitation there is probably the graphics card, the CPU is also pretty weak but should be fine for current games.  If you are looking to upgrade your graphics card, you'll need to take a look and check that you have a decent quality power supply - Due to the other issues with the PC, I imagine it's probably a pretty cheap one you may want to replace if you are getting a better graphics card.

That said,  I would first take the PC back and demand a refund instead of asking for a legitimate licence - He'd probably rather do that and then sell the machine to someone else instead of paying the large amount of money for a legitimate licence.  You could then get a new PC that's better for gaming from a more reputable source.Deary me

Well thanks for all the help everyone (in particular to camerongray)

The guy has an office so I think I'll pop along and see what he has to say on Monday...

I really think I need to research a little more into what the industry standard is (and above) for modern gaming...

Thanks again guys it's much appreciated!No problem!  If he is a business then certainly report him to trading standards (I assume you are in the UK as you are using £) no matter if he sorts it out or not - There are far too many dodgy PC people around nowadays so we need to try to stop them!
5694.

Solve : no sound with optical cable?

Answer»

hey everyone i have a problem with my sound. i have the logitech thx5500 5.1 and i have ALWAYS USED the 3 plugs (green,Orange and black) but today i bought an optical cable but i cant seen to GET it to play sound at all. any help would be appreciated sooo annoying tryed everything -.-" ok so i PLUGGED the cable into my other comp (same speakers) and it works so i dont get whys its not working on my NEW computer

5695.

Solve : weird error code?

Answer»

my acer laptop is giving me on occasion an error code that says missing memory, it says to CONTACT manufacturer, computer is out of warranty and Acer wants almost $300 to repair . at that price its probably better to just buy a new one. should i take it to a computer repair shop locally ? or is there a way to find out what is missing and get it downloaded myself. it is an Acer Aspire 5515What does the error message say exactly, and when (in what circumstances) does it show?
it only says memory missing  contact manufacturer, only comes up once in awhile Quote from: jaybee on December 31, 2013, 12:46:17 PM

memory missing  contact manufacturer

Those exact words? No others?

If the message is about RAM failure, there is nothing you can "download" to fix that; it's a hardware fault.
Memory missing isn't an error message i've ever seen from Windows...
Maybe i been doin this too long. Quote from: patio on December 31, 2013, 04:36:25 PM
Memory missing isn't an error message i've ever seen from Windows...
Maybe i been doin this too long.

I have asked twice now for the exact wording of the message, but it does not seem to be forthcoming. NEITHER is a description of when it happens.

I think I remember hearing about Windows issuing a warning message if the amount of RAM available CHANGES from the value at login. This would indicate a hardware problem such as flaky RAM or motherboard. Sometimes at boot time or after a reboot a message like ""the amount of system memory has changed" can appear, which is why I wanted to know when the message occurs (that is, at boot or at random times during otherwise normal OPERATION)
In that case it could also possibly be a flat CMOS battery as well...

We may never know... i will go thrugh thewindows diagnostic again and WRITE down exactly what it says
5696.

Solve : Which new student touchpad laptop to buy??

Answer»

Hey,

I'm looking for a student touchpad laptop that has high RAM and a fast operating SYSTEM, with the added bonus of not reflecting much light IF POSSIBLE. However there are so many on the market, I have no idea where to start! I'm liking the design of the HP's, but how's their insides??

Cheers
Flying SoulWe will need a lot more information than this.


  • What do you plan on using the laptop for?
  • What is your budget?
  • What preferences do you have to do with size/weight?
  • What country are you in?
Well the budget (very MAX) is about $1500 Australian Dollars (I'm in Australia). I plan on using the laptop for school work, though would like to use it for gaming/ movies as well. I have no preferences in size/weight, though preferably no smaller then 13 inches  When it comes to a laptop for gaming, you really need to get the best graphics CARD and CPU you can now as you will be unable to upgrade it in the future.  I'd say you would generally want to be looking at something with a decent quad core CPU and some sort of dedicated graphics card (Either NVIDIA GeForce or AMD Radeon).  4gb of RAM would probably be enough for now but 8gb would be better (Remember, you can always buy a laptop with less RAM and upgrade it yourself).

As FAR as screen sizes go, if you are getting a 15" laptop (The most common size you'll tend to find) then you would be best to look for one that has a high resolution such as 1920x1080, this will make movies and games look better and also give you a lot of space for working (You can easily have a web browser and word processor running side by side).

You may also want to consider getting a laptop with a Solid State Drive (SSD) - This does the same job as your hard drive but is a lot faster (Meaning this will open and boot up much quicker) and since it has no moving parts, it will be a lot tougher against the laptop being moved/dropped.  The compromise here is that SSDs tend to have less storage space as compared to a hard drive but you can always get an external hard drive if you need space for large files like movies.

Looking ONLINE I found this laptop that fits into your budget and looks like a great laptop for the price! http://www.mwave.com.au/product/metabox-w350st-156-fhd-intel-i7120gb-ssddvdrwgtx765-2gbwindows-8-ab49990#detailTabs=tabOverview.  It has a Quad Core Intel i7 4700MQ CPU which is pretty much the best CPU you will find in a laptop at the moment.  It also has an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765m which should be decent enough to run modern games at a reasonable quality level.  It also meets the other suggestions I made above about having a 1080p screen, 8gb of RAM and a 120gb Solid State Drive.  If the 120gb of storage isn't enough you can always add a second hard drive as this laptop features two drive bays.  It also has a BluRay drive if you want to watch them.
5697.

Solve : MB Issues?

Answer»

Hi I have just installed a new B75M R2.0 MB into a new tower with a new CPU and HDD but I am having ISSUES in getting anything to show up on the Monitor all else seem fine like power getting to the cpu ect
 So I need help Ideas on what to do next the things I have done so far are replaced the ram replaced cables to the monitor and HDD and the disc drive so I just said no idea on what else to look for any help would be great Or even where else I can post for ideas Thanks
 
 Hi

Do you have a graphics card if so are you plugging the monitor into the card not the motherboard.

Do you have both power leads plugged into the motherboard ?

If you do have a graphics card try the motherboard on it's own without the card and the monitor plugged into the motherboard.

Re check the front panel connections where they plug into the motherboard that they are correct.

If you have any front usb ports plugged into motherboard perhaps try with those disconnected.

If still no go can you check that the keyboard lights flash and if you can toggle the caps lock light

 In addition to the queries above, it would also be helpful if you could post the whole system specs, including what CPU and RAM you're using, what PSU, what graphics card (if any) and so forth.
One possibility is that your CPU might not be supported by that motherboard, as there are several listed on the Asrock support SITE which require a BIOS update - popping in one of those CPUs with an older BIOS revision would cause the situation you describe, hence why I'm asking exactly what you're using.Hi thanks for the replies decided to take it down the repair shop
Thanks again

5698.

Solve : Replacing hard drive with ssd?

Answer»

Can u advise if i can do a STRAIGHT swap out of hard drive and replace with ssd?

What plug type connection is required for the ssd?SSD uses SATA connections...
You may want to loook into a good DISK Image app as with a proper image the swap to the new SSD is quick and painless...

I use Acronis TRUE Image...but there others.
For a Free solution Macrium Reflect or EASUS both have Free Home versions.

5699.

Solve : Regular Windows freezes?

Answer»

So, around a month or two ago I bought and assembled a new PC.

Right off the bat, I've been getting regular freezes after installing all the drivers, notably those of my video card.

At first I THOUGHT my video card was faulty, and soon purchased a new one from a more reliable manufacturer (ASUS, previously Club 3D). Although this did reduce the frequency of these freezes, they still occur, and in the same way. As of now, I think this can outrule it being by video card.

I've ran multiple passes of RAM tests with Memtest86+, ran benchmarks on my CPU (Prime95) and video card (Furmark) to no live repetition of the problem for about 15 minutes for each (the amount of time recommended for both on other troubleshoots I've come across). In these scenarios, these units of hardware should be stressed to the max and thus forcing the freeze to reoccur, but it doesn't. As such, it may be my fairly low-end Sharkoon 500W WPM PSU that could be the problem, as I've heard it may sometimes provide tens of watts less in power (around 450~, whilst advertising 500), as I've noticed a CRITICAL error called "Event ID 41: Kernel power" in my windows event viewer.

It is either the aforementioned or my CPU (AMD FX-6300) at this point, perhaps a GENERAL lack of CERTAIN parts of my PC.

I really do think I'm past my options if it's NONE of the above and I'd appreciate any help I can get!Please do not start multiple threads on the same subject. I'm locking this one.

5700.

Solve : Need help with upgrading my pc!?

Answer»

I'de like to upgrade my computer for gaming purposes. It's just that i'm not sure what i should do/buy in order to do so.
OS: Windows 32 bit
Computer specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 645
Mainboard: FOXCONN 2AB1
Memory: DDR3 6GB
Graphics: Radeon HD 4200
 
Really NEED help, would like to play like "Fallout 3", "Fallout:New Vegas".  I can play fallout new vegas on lowest setting with slight lag. Would like to atleast play with no lag. My budget is a maximum of 100 dollars!

Buy a better video card, everything else looks like plenty. I have a slightly slower CPU the Athlon II x4 620 2600Mhz and it plays games well with a good video card. The video card you have is weak!

How many watts and what is the make/model of your power supply? You may need a larger power supply to handle a better video card.My psu is 250 watts.Power Supply will need to be upgraded to at least 500 watts. This cuts deep into the $100 budget.

Here is a suggestion:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438016 EVGA 500Watt PSU $37 after rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130791 EVGA GeForce GT 620 $49 after rebate.

One of my friends has the GT 620 and it works well with games like WoW, Skyrim, GTA, etc... so it should be ok on "Normal" graphics settings to play the games you want, HOWEVER not sure if it will play well on max settings, however its FAR better than the ATI Radeon 4200, so if the game is running in the Radeon 4200 now, it will be way better with this card! However this system would probably not boot and black screen on you if you try to get by with that 250 watt power supply! I have seen some people get lucky on a 350watt PSU and a video card SIMILAR to this one installed, but its running the powersupply to the max if it works at all and you are prone to crashes when the power supply CANT keep up. So 500 watts or better is best.

I have one system that is running on a 460 watt power supply and a ATI Radeon HD5450 and I have to upgrade my power supply to install a better video card. Probably GOING to go with Corsair 650 watt because I have a higher end over clocked and power hungry video card that is going to be an upgrade for my system. nVidia claims that the video card I have requires a minimum of 500 watts, but its good to have more than less especially when you have extra fans and drives installed to draw more power from the system than a regular workstation build.
 Thank you so much!  My graphics card atm wouldnt even play minecraft(Didn't support open GL 2.0 ) :_( Thank you so much! XDPersonally though I would wait and get a better GPU than a 620 - It'll handle basic games okay but is really nothing special and is certainly not a "gaming" card.  If your budget is really tight I'd consider seeing what cards you can get 2nd hand as you can probably get something that fits your budget that is already miles better than the 620.