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Hi everyone  I am a graphics and interior designer. I do video editing and work with programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, etc and do heavy gaming as well as light. I'm looking to build a desktop computer (capable for gaming and design works) and my budget will be around $800-1,100 USD for just the computer alone.

Here is what I have so far:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JgBrBm

Credits to Quantos

_______________________________________ _______________________________________ ______
CPU Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard

Memory G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

Storage -Sandisk Solid State Drive 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
           -Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Video Card EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card

Case Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 Advanced ATX Mid Tower Case (If possible, I'm looking for one thats thin/narrow yet fits everything)

Power Supply SeaSonic 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

Optical Drive   Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer

_______________________________________ _______________________________________ ______

I was WONDERING if someone could check if everything here is compatible with each other or if there's anything I could take out to save money.
Also, if you have a better recommendation than the mentioned above component, please let me know. 

Is there any component I could take and use from my old PC such as the optical drive (DVD Super Multi drive with Label Flash), tower, power supply, etc to save some cash? 

Here is the image or Speccy of what my old PC have
http://prntscr.com/7hai2b

A fast running computer and having it cool (no heat) under 20+ hrs a day is very important to me as well as having the best green component that doesn't require too MUCH energy in general.

What monitor should I get for graphic designing as well as gaming? I heard that IPS panel is a must for graphic designer? My budget is around $100-150 USD (it's okay if it reaches over the minimum) and would like the screen size to be more than 23inch.

Lastly, when is a good time to buy all of these component + monitor and where (upcoming Independence Day Sale—4th of July?) Or when is not a good time to buy them?

Thanks in advance!  Well, I am not an expert on gaming.
Still, here are two concerns.
The optical drive is now a vestigial organ. You don't need it.
Why use an ATX case? Do you have a crowded work work room?
A full size case may run just a bit cooler. Quote

Case Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 Advanced ATX Mid Tower Case (If possible, I'm looking for one thats thin/narrow yet fits everything)

My recent build for gaming rig with 8-core AMD 4Ghz AMD FX-8350 I decided to go with an mATX case and ran into issues fitting in a large gaming video card. I ended up making it work, but i had to remove all the guts and take a dremmel and cut out a portion of unnecessary 3.5" drive bay area where you could stuff like 3 hard drives in the mATX case.

Is there any component I could take and use from my old PC such as the optical drive (DVD Super Multi drive with Label Flash), tower, power supply, etc to save some cash? 

I've just completed my first attempt at building a computer from parts I chose & found.  system is:

Case                 HP Pavilion  a1310y
power supply    300 W
OS                     Windows 7 Pro.  Build 7601
Motherboard     Motherboard   Acer E946GZ
Northbridge     Intel 946PL/GZ C1
Southbridge      Intel 82801GB (ICH7/R) A1
BIOS             Phoenix Technologies, LTD R01-C1 5\30\2007
Memory             2048 MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz
CPU                  Intel P4 672 Prescott 2M HT VT
                           3.8 GHz  FSB 800 MHz  TDP 115W  FSB factor 19
Audio                Creative SB Audigy 4
Video                Intel 946 GZ Express chip
Drivers             Main components are running latest supplier drivers for windows 7.  Many components                           are using Microsoft drivers.

I chose this system for cost and the desire to have the VT technology so I can run my old XP programs.
My problems are that the system hangs, games run with many pauses, a lot of programs run then freeze and the CPU fan runs on high speed much of the time.  CPU core temp. runs 59C.   Max is listed at 119C
The board will take 4 MB of memory.  The heat sink is rated for a 3.8 GHz CPU. 

Where did I go wrong & what do I do next?What sort of games are you running on it - That is a very old system that would struggle to run Windows 7 well, let alone games, especially since you are using the integrated graphics.

Is that CPU temperature under load or at idle?  What do you get under load?I know it is an old system.  It met the minimum requirements for Win 7 and has the VirtualTechnology I wanted to run Win XP programs easily.  & I got the components cheap.
   Sooo, the CPU temp as measured by "OPEN hardware monitor"  runs 36-38C at idle and 58-59C max.  I don't know about spikes.  The fan goes to 5600 rpm at 58C and cools it. 
   I run old games.  Diablo II LOD and Battlefield 1942 mostly.  Still, running a youtube video will heat up the cpu.  According to a load calculator I ran, 300 Watts is enough power. Would more memory help?  I have 2X1Gb  KINGSTON pc5300 667 mHz  memory cards now.  I can go to 2X2Gb.  Those temperatures are fine, the PSU is also fine assuming it is a decent quality unit.  May be worth testing your hard drive, if it has issues it could explain random lockups.  Running a full memtest would also be worth doing.  More RAM could help but only do that if you already have it, don't go spending any money on such an old machine. Beyond that you may just be expecting too much from it, it's a Pentium 4 after all, at least 10 years old.I didn't spend more than $30 on any component.  About $140 total.  I could get a socket LGA 775 Pentium D or Core Duo2. for around $50.  I haven't researched their specs.  I don't think either have the VT technology. Wait a second, Wikipedia says that the core duo2 has VT in some cases.  I need to do some research. 
Thanks for your comments, camerongray.  I really wanted some assurance that I hadn't made any huge mistakes assembling this system.   BTW, a friend gave me his old a1310y to experiment with.  It was pretty basic, but 5 years newer than my Gateway 500 XLS Yorktown.    My real MISTAKE was to use very old components when I was starting from a a case & psu.. 800Mhz FSB Core 2 Duo is about as fast as you will be able to push this board and thats assuming that the BIOS has the latest Microcode to support the better Core 2 Duo's etc.

I wouldnt spend too much money on this, but you might be able to get a Core 2 Duo E4700 with 2MB Cache that runs at 2.6Ghz which benchmarks much stronger than that P4.

Here is benchmark of the Core 2 Duo E4700 which might be supported by your board based on info at Tomshardware: 
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+E4700+%40+2.60GHz

Here is your EXISTING P4: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+4+3.80GHz

Here is a similar article to CPU upgrade that someone else wanted to go with a Core 2 Quad, but was shot down on Core 2 Quad because core 2 quads start at 1066 FSB, however Core 2 Duo with 533 or 800Mhz FSB may work. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268225-28-specs-acer-e946gz-motherboard

Here is a CPU on ebay for like $20 that is a cheap upgrade, but no info found on CPU support for the Acer motherboard. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-2-Duo-E4700-2-6GHz-2MB-800MHz-SLALT-LGA-775-CPU-Desktop-Processor-/291433078543?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43dac3df0f

What games or software or application9s) do you have for an old computer like this? We might be able to help you avoiding wasted money if you EXPECT to run something that this is not capable of, such as a person who asked me why Witcher 3 wouldnt run on their computer and come to find out there computer was almost 10 years old and the game requires a somewhat modern high end system to run the game etc. Quote from: Trigg on June 15, 2015, 07:40:20 AM

I didn't spend more than $30 on any component.  About $140 total.

Hello. I gather my first computer, I want it to be powerful enough to play the latest GAMES, I have already bought all the basic ITEMS on bestshop-usa.com except the motherboard. Anybody can tell what kind of motherboard is best to choose?Everybody has a favorite. What to avoid is the names you never hear about.
But for a direct answer, here is a list on another site.
Best Motherboards: May 2015
(From Tom's Hardware)
Notice he starts with :
Intel Z97 Express Motherboards .
That would be a good choice.
But what do you really mean when you say 'best'?
One poster on that site SAID:
Quote

Basically, the DIFFERENCE in boards all comes down to ability. The more expensive boards have better everything. More USB headers, data ports, voltage regulations, chipsets, overclocking ability, better audio, bios, memory controllers.... Everything is better component wise, bigger, stronger, faster.

What is a GOOD MICROPHONE for CORTANA? THANKS.

Hello! I am a animator, graphics designer, i create music and try to design games / gamer in my spare time. I do some huge projects my current pc actually takes days / weeks to render some of my animation. I know more of the program side of computers and i am very experienced with the programs i use. But building a computer im pretty much hopeless at. I have done a bit of research and want to go all out on my build with no holding back so i guess my budget will be around £3000 for just the computer alone. My brother will be using this for his games to, hes pretty hardcore. Here what i have so far:

Case: NZXT H440 - https://www.nzxt.com/product/detail/143-h440-performance-mid-tower.html
Monitors: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-S27D590CS-inch-Curved-Monitor/dp/B00N9PVZ7A x3 ( i need 3 monitors, its a must have. all must be running 60+ fps) - Will be buying 4k monitors in november due to new project.
Motherboard: ASUS X-99 Deluxe - https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/X99DELUXE/
CPU: Intel 5960X Extreme 3.00 GHz -https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-550-IN
RAM: Ballistix (8GB x2) DDR4-2666 - will be a full 32gb after computer is built. -
GPU: ?
PSU: Will calculate what i need after everything else is sorted.

Now i want to make sure that everything i have at the moment is compatible with each other component i have in mind. I have already got the case and motherboard and nothing else. Im looking for some main advice on the GPU, i have done some research i found that one powerful gpu is better then multiple but honestly im stuck. I really want to go towards the nvidia brand because i have used them before. Maybe maybe 2x 980s? (duno if they will fit??) now having very powerful graphics is very important to me to spot mistakes and errors in my work as i play them back. Dont be too harsh on me, honestly i have no idea what im doing so a few pointers in the right direction will be great.

Thanks in advanced for your time.Two 980s would certainly be a reasonable setup for that, the case will accommodate them fine and you can power that with a good 750-850w PSU.

Are you gaming across all 3 monitors or is that more just for screen space when working?  27" is very large for only being 1920x1080 and having 3 of them could be cumbersome in terms of size (I have a pair of 27" 2560x1440 monitors and they already take up a huge amount of space).  I'd suggest either getting fewer but higher resolution monitors (e.g. a pair of 2560x1440) if you don't plan on gaming in surround on them or if you do I'd recommend getting smaller monitors such as 22-24".  You should also go for ones with IPS panels such as Dell's Ultrasharp monitors for BEST colour reproduction and viewing angles.  I'd also recommend looking at the stand the monitors come with (assuming you plan on using them) to make sure they have good adjustment, that Samsung's stand looks totally fixed.

Curved monitors may also not be the best idea if you have multiple of them, you're going to end up with a very strange shape of monitors. Quote from: camerongray on June 13, 2015, 11:52:59 AM

Two 980s would certainly be a reasonable setup for that, the case will accommodate them fine and you can power that with a good 750-850w PSU.

Are you gaming across all 3 monitors or is that more just for screen space when working?  27" is very large for only being 1920x1080 and having 3 of them could be cumbersome in terms of size (I have a pair of 27" 2560x1440 monitors and they already take up a huge amount of space).  I'd suggest either getting fewer but higher resolution monitors (e.g. a pair of 2560x1440) if you don't plan on gaming in surround on them or if you do I'd recommend getting smaller monitors such as 22-24".  You should also go for ones with IPS panels such as Dell's Ultrasharp monitors for best colour reproduction and viewing angles.  I'd also recommend looking at the stand the monitors come with (assuming you plan on using them) to make sure they have good adjustment, that Samsung's stand looks totally fixed.

Curved monitors may also not be the best idea if you have multiple of them, you're going to end up with a very strange shape of monitors.

Yeah, a pair of 980tis or regular 980s would work great for that setup.

Is there any other curved monitors you recommend around the samsung price range?

huh?  But you just said you already had the monitors.  And as I said, I would totally ignore curved monitors, unless it's an ultra-wide one it is more of a gimmick than anything.

Stick to high end IPS monitors such as the Dell Ultrasharps rather than gimmicky "gaming" ones.  A lot of the newer Ultrasharps also have absolutely tiny bezels which makes them great for surround gaming.

huh?  But you just said you already had the monitors.  And as I said, I would totally ignore curved monitors, unless it's an ultra-wide one it is more of a gimmick than anything.

Stick to high end IPS monitors such as the Dell Ultrasharps rather than gimmicky "gaming" ones.  A lot of the newer Ultrasharps also have absolutely tiny bezels which makes them great for surround gaming.

Hello. I have a laptop that would purchased REFURBISHED and it has been great, except for one issue. Occasionally, when the computer is plugged in and using balanced or high performance power settings it will turn off randomly.

Trying to solve the issue, I have installed some monitoring programs, like CPU-Z, and the cpu cores run quite cool, staying around 40-50 degrees Celsius. But, I've noticed that my clock speed goes up to 3.4GHz on high performance and balanced power settings, even though my CPU is rated at 2.4GHz. So, I think that the problem may be caused by that.

I have no experience with changing the clock on a processor, but I went into my BIOS and saw nothing that could change the clock. I installed Intel's Extreme TUNING Utility, but many of the options are grayed out and I do not seem to be able to change them. I have attached an image so that you can see my options.

I don't really care about having it overclocked, I just want the processor to run with stability. Any help on what I can do would be very appreciated.

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]Please post the laptop brand and model next TIME. Not sure of what is rated or stated in TERM of CPU speed but check the Properties (right-click My Computer) to see if it's the correct output.It's a Lenovo Y50 with a Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4 GHz Processor. Quote from: stewie-Y on March 02, 2015, 01:23:59 PM

...I've noticed that my clock speed goes up to 3.4GHz on high performance and balanced power settings, even though my CPU is rated at 2.4GHz. So, I think that the problem may be caused by that.
...

It's a Lenovo Y50 with a Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4 GHz Processor.

Hi friends,

I would like to invite your comments on the following 15 second video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNSsc9x2ybE

I have purchased a nVidia Quadro K6000 on eBay and have been checking it out.
I'm rather alarmed by this horizontal line that appears on every video I play. You can distinctly see it on the clip I uploaded (link above), when the girl's arm rises up against the blue background, you can see the horizontal lines. Is this the graphics card? Can it be fixed?

I know it is NOT the monitor as I have tried it on two other monitors - Same thing happens.
I know it is NOT that video, as I have tried watching multiple videos, it OCCURS all the time when video is played.

Interestingly, I can only reproduce the problem on YouTube at the moment. I actually downloaded that video to my computer and played it (ie. not through YouTube) and I don't NOTICE the horizontal lines. Could this be YouTube? I haven't noticed this on other computers.

Thanks for any help!


For the fact that it only happens when STREAMING from youtube, but not when the same video has been downloaded, I can only assume that its a sample rate issue with the stream maybe... is it playing in 360p or better when streamed through youtube? Also have you tried another browser to see if its browser related in which the video played on youtube has to work through your browser, but when played locally it might be media player or VLC Player that is playing the video etc in which the problem is not noticed.In addition to Dave's suggestions, it could also be worth turning off HARDWARE acceleration in FLASH and/or your browser just to see if that changes anything.

Okay so a few of you may have seen my recent post about my CPU temp being high.

So I did that, but while purchasing the compressed air I was told to REAPPLY the thermal paste, because most likely it has worn out. I took off the heat sink, bashed a few things here and there (I got pretty clumsy), put on some new thermal compound, cleaned the heat sink, put everything back together and now there's no display on the computer.

One thing that seems important was the guy in the shop told me I didn't need to earth when I asked him about it, because motherboards these days come coated in 'anti-static' coating, or something.

The GRAPHICS card fans are still spinning so it must still be functional, and it still boots up, but there's no beep when it boots up. Also when it's on I can't use the power button at the front, all I can do is power it off at the back.

Thank you for any help, I'd be happy to provide any more necessary information.


By the way, would it be better to try and fix the issue myself, or just take it to a shop to ENSURE that I don't cause any more damage?First thing I would do is check all power connections to the motherboard/GPU.etc and then reseat your RAM.  What things did you "bash"?

Did it beep before this when it started up?  Not all machines have speakers.It was pretty bad, I hit the ram a LITTLE, the heat sink landed on them motherboard when it slid down, and I dropped a screw into the GPU and had to fish it out. God I feel like such a clumsy idiot lmao.

So what do you recommend, just taking the parts out and putting them back in? The GPU has power to it for CERTAIN, the fans are still going.

The computer used to make the beep noise, but it doesn't anymore, which leads me to think there's hardware failure of some sort.

At this point I'm just hoping its simply the mobo needs replacing, if so it'll be pretty cheap compared to other things, also if I plug a monitor into the onboard graphics, there's no display either. I hit the mobo the most and it looks like that's what it may be to me, just wanted some other opinions.

And then heard a small what sounded similar to a "sizzle' and saw a small light inside side of harddrive as I have a clear side panel.  It appeared to come from area of graphics card.  I rebooted, and all seems ok, I did lose all my cookies in Firefox however.  Nothing else appears to be wrong with it.  Any ideas as to the cause?  Very wierd.  Anyway,   thanks for any info.HDD's are sealed...thats not where the light came from...Your best bet would be to open the machine and look around for any sign/smell of burning - If something blew up enough to cause light it should have left a burn mark somewhere on a component.Computer powered off by itself...
is this happening again and again.

Many times this happens due to high temperature. Check your cooling fans, Heat SINKS, etc..Open up the Power Options Control Panel. If you're on a LAPTOP, this can easily be done by right clicking on the battery icon.

You now have two options. You can change one of the existing plans to "Never" shut down the DISPLAY or system, or create a new power plan - call it "Presentation Mode".

Check your current power plan by clicking the Change Plan Settings link. Change the settings accordingly. On a desktop, there's a single set of settings, on laptops there are two SETS - one for battery operation and the other for AC adapter running. MAKE sure you change both sets for Presentation.

Hi

I have a lenovo ideacentre b305 which is giving problems at the moment

Every time I power the computer up it tells me that the CMOS battery is low and gives the usual F1 to ENTER bios or F2 to load defaults and continue. On hitting F2 everything loads as normal. I have changed the battery twice now and EVEN with a brand new battery in it keeps giving the same Cmos battery low message

Every so often it decides to become arkward to start and will say DQS Training FAILED on previous boot and not load at all. This is usually cured by switching power off and leaving it 30 minutes but last episode took 3 days to sort out. Again replacing the cmos battery just in case

I am starting to suspect the bios chip may be faulty but any advice or other answers would be massively appreciatedI'm assuming you've checked that the battery is making good contact and sitting snugly inside the holder?
Other than that have you tried UPDATING the BIOS, if an update is available, just to see if it makes any difference?Battery seated fine and making good contact. Will try bios update though. Thanks

I would really appreciate any bits of advice regarding this. I just purchased a bunch of parts that I confirmed were COMPATIBLE, and assembled them.

Unfortunately - though my assembly would indeed start, and all the parts worked (and all the LED's lighted up) - the connection to the monitor (Dell 27" P2715Q) would not work. My monitor kept saying that there was no DP connection detected. Furthermore, the error message B4  kept popping up on my motherboard's Debug LED monitor which according to the manual means: "USB device hot plug in"



Not sure what this meant, so I googled it and read numerous accounts of people getting this message, then disassembling everything from their computer, including the graphics card, so I did so:



Then it was just my motherboard connected to the monitor via displayport cable. Unfortunately, though the computer started once more, the monitor connection just wasn't made and the Debug LED monitor then read A6 which stands for "Detect and install all currently connected SCSI devices."

I'm not sure what to do at this point, and before assembling/disassembling/ throwing any more of my components, I was wondering if anyone here had any insight. Much obliged!I think the code being displayed is likely Ab, not A6.

Allegedly, this means a more-or-less successful boot, where it is waiting for user input (Press F1 to enter setup, boot failure, etc.)


Some users of the board claim they can only see the BIOS if they plug in their HDMI/DP Port connectors after the system has booted, or by using VGA. Others claim this to be fixed in later BIOS revisions, as well. It's also possible that the monitor can't sync to the lower resolution (maybe specific to Display Port), which seems like a possibility since it is a 4K display. Of course given that the only way to connect it is with DisplayPort, the best way to verify that is to use another monitor.
Thank you for the response. I also have a mac wireless KEYBOARD (am making a hackintosh) so it may explain why it's not recognizing my keyboard when I plug it in. Might look into a WIRED keyboard and a less high-tech monitor to test it on.

Still not sure about the b4 that shows up when everything is plugged in though. What do you make of that? Quote from: Cadence on June 24, 2015, 08:38:06 PM

Still not sure about the b4 that shows up when everything is plugged in though. What do you make of that?

So after getting 3 older computers free (at different times) i decided to take parts from all three and put it into the NEWEST one. I'm a bit experienced using software, but i'm new to hardware. It's a E machines T3265 and it only had the motherboard, case (although missing the side panel), and SD card and port drive on the FRONT (i'm sorry i don't know what it's called it just has support for a single usb and all these other SD card type THINGS). While doing this, i've managed to get in a power supply, 2 dvd drives, a 500 GB hard drive, a (what i think is) graphics card, and i put in additional usb ports and internet ports from where the others computers had at the lower back of the computer. Here are the specs:

Case Model: T3265
Power Supply: Dynex dx-ps350w (350 Watts) (From other computer)
Mother Board: Av31 D33007 (came with case)
Dvd drive 1: Samsung RW 32-10-40 AND (From other computer)
Dvd drive 2: JustLink Rw5125A (From other computer)
Graphics card: 3DF4MX-440TWIN (From other computer)

So here are my questions:

Is 350 watts too strong or too weak?
Are all of these parts compatible?

Also, when i was connecting the front panel to the motherboard, i connected the power button LED and the HDD LED, but there is no actual button... i took a button from one of my other computers and it still didn't turn on. Is there supposed to be a different way to turn it on? Did i just connect it wrong? What am i doing wrong? The led in the button is working but there just isn't that clicking button part (The led is located in the exact center behind the button.

I'm wanting to spend as minimal money as possible until i can confirm that the computer will work.

If anybody could PLEASE help this newbie out i will be so thankful. I'm just wanting to use the computer for recreational uses. The factory OS on the original HDD was windows XP (although i am unsure what this new hard drive uses.)


[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]Did any of these systems work somewhat before gutting and mixing parts? ( could you be mixing bad parts in this build? )

Not sure how you are going to get a 500GB Hard Drive to work with this board because it only has IDE ports, and I have yet to find a 500GB IDE drive. The 500 GB drive is likely SATA in which you would need to add a SATA controller and then configure the BIOS to boot off of the SATA HDD which in some BIOS's can be a nightmare if lacking the necessary features to do so.

Here is a picture reference I used for your board in which there is no SATA port. http://www.ebay.com/itm/FIC-VG31-d33007-Motherboard-Socket-478-W-P4-Processor-HP-P-N-5187-2528-/271869979077?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f4cb6a9c5

Common reasons for not turning on from most common to less common for a new or mix and match gutted build:

1.) Wired Wrong ( the front panel wiring doesnt match up correctly with the PWR SW on the motherboard, and so the motherboard doesnt get the start signal of a temp closed connection )
2.) 4 pin molex connection not plugged in by the CPU
3.) Power supply not plugged into motherboard
4.) Rocker switch on back of power supply not turned on
5.) No actual power making its way to power supply such as plugged into power strip or bad outlet
6.) Bad Power Supply
7.) Bad Motherboard

Note: The 4 pin molex being forgotten is a common problem and critical to system functionality. Is everything plugged in where it belongs and proper pin location for the front panel wiring? You can locate the Power Switch pins and temp short them with a paperclip without touching any other pins or components at same time to bypass the power switch on the front panel to see if it will boot.

Well, first of all that power supply is an extremely low end, cheap unit which could certainly be what causes the problem - Even if it isn't, I'd advise against using it.

You haven't specified what processor or RAM you have but from the motherboard and video card I would be amazed if this machine was remotely fast enough to even do stuff like web browsing at a comfortable speed.  It's an extremely old machine, not worth spending any money on IMO.  You could get a much better machine for under $50 or even find one for free.The PSU should be sufficient to at least confirm it can boot. If you are ever able to do so, you should replace it with something else.  Though based on your post it sounds like it was the best option out of the PSUs in the different systems.

Looking up the eMachines system info, I get this motherboard:


It looks like  Socket A motherboard to me. It doesn't have any CPU power connection that I can see so that concern is not present. Thing is, the motherboard model doesn't match, so it was probably replaced, particularly since tis picture doesn't match the ones I find for the motherboard model listed, which appears to come from an HP.

In addition to the notes Dave provided-

-You only need one network card. It sounds like you grabbed as many expansion cards from the other systems and crammed them in. It might work, but it is incredibly pointless and will saturate the PCI bus. Personally I'd remove all of the added cards except for the graphics card, then add them back once you can get it powered on. You generally should start with as little as possible, then add components. You might even try only powering up the motherboard with no graphics card connected- the motherboard should give you a series of beeps indicating it couldn't find the graphics card once it powers on.

-Did you plug in the main 20-Pin power connector from the power supply to the Motherboard? Make sure that is in place. If the board is the one Dave pointed out, then you need to connect one of the molex connectors to the connector portrayed in the lower-right side of the picture.

-you mention a power switch as having a light. But you also state there is no power switch. I'm unclear what you mean. The Power-Switch is a separate front panel connector which in Dave's picture of the motherboard would likely be the set of pins in the lower right, to the left of the Molex connector myself and save pointed out. usually it will be labelled with silk-screen nearby; you'll want to connect the power switch front-panel connector to the one labelled "PWR_SW".

-The Power supply might not work at all.

Quote from: DaveLembke on June 12, 2015, 07:26:54 AM

Not sure how you are going to get a 500GB Hard Drive to work with this board because it only has IDE ports, and I have yet to find a 500GB IDE drive. The 500 GB drive is likely SATA in which you would need to add a SATA controller and then configure the BIOS to boot off of the SATA HDD which in some BIOS's can be a nightmare if lacking the necessary features to do so.

I'll be ordering a Sager NP9377 soon and I want to know if I can still install programs on an SSD that has been configured as an OS drive. If I order the laptop with one SSD configured as an OS drive will I need a second SSD for programs and games or can I have the laptop preconfigured with only one SSD for the OS and also install more programs and games on it? Thanks. It depends on the size of the SSD. An SSD with an OS installed on it isn't locked in some fashion to only have the OS on it, you can use it just as you would a HDD.

Your SSD will act just like a hard drive - It will appear as a C: drive in Windows and will do anything a hard drive will.  The only reason people tend to recommend separate storage drives is due to SSDS being LOWER in capacity.The only need to have the OS and Storage Data on a separate drive would be if you run into a capacity limitation problem as BC stated in its size, however if you are using this system for say video editing in which you are working with large files and making changes to them in which there are excessive amounts of read/write instructions, by having the work area that the video editing is occurring at on a separate drive, the SSD as the OS drive wouldnt lag as a result of a communications bottleneck with that specific drive.

A few years ago I had a system with just a 90GB SSD in which the OS ate up 30GB of it for Windows 7 fully patched and of the 60GB remaining space 24GB of that was used by a video game leaving me with around 36GB storage area. I use a program called FRAPS to capture and record online game events with the group of people I play with, and FRAPS makes for very large video files which then need to be encoded down to a far smaller size than a raw video dump to disk. So I would have 18GB raw video dump files and use virtualdub64 and convert them to like 700MB AVI files and delete the original 18GB raw video dump file. But when this was happening the hard drive was extremely busy with read/write conditions as its processing this very large video file to make it into a nice 700MB AVI file to share on youtube with the group of friends.

When the system was encoding the video file the SSD while fast, was busy and so everything else you wanted to do during that time lagged with opening games and programs.

By adding a separate drive for this video editing/converting could occur on,  the lag I had with wanting to play games while this is happening was gone as for the much OLDER 164.7GB SATA HDD while a slower SATA 1.5 drive, was handling all the conversion process read/writes and my SSD was pretty much running idle ready to jump at the occasion to retrieve information quickly.

Lastly, for my config I changed my swap file to be targeted on the HDD vs the SSD because the video conversion process even though I have 4GB of DDR2 800Mhz RAM, was swap intensive and with default of C: for the swap space which was my SSD, so I let the HDD handle it all. The video games while they too use the swap file didnt seem to have a bad performance hit using the swap space on the HDD that is busy with the video conversion.

If your not video editing and the drive is large enough to allow for the OS and Storage to work in harmony then the single drive will be just fine. Just make sure you dont get too small of a SSD as for I ran into a problem with an older system I have that I installed a 40GB SSD with Windows 7 on it and Windows 7 use to consume only 18GB space clean install, but after all the updates it grows. Currently Windows 7 is 27.3GB so it grew about 9.3GB in size since installed clean from Disc about 2 years ago. On the 40GB SSD while storage space was already kind of tight I made the mistake of installing programs in the free area when I was at 18GB for OS size, 1GB for user profiles, and had about 4GB free space. As Windows 7 swelled in size as patches forced it to consume more space I soon found that the SSD was out of free space and Windows 7 updates were failing. I then had to uninstall and reinstall programs to the other HDD in the system and get them off of the SSD so that Windows 7 could continue to grow in size with patches from Microsoft as well as perform some profile cleanup to get rid of unnecessary files that were sitting in the user profile space which was also on the SSD.

With SSD's cheap these days, I wouldnt buy any that were lesser than 120GB in which the last SSD I got was 240GB for $125 for a Crucial M500  240GB SSDOk, thank you. Just curious, how much storage space does an OS use on an SSD right now? I'll be getting Windows 8.1. I'm considering getting the 256GB Micron M600 SSD with a 1TB HDD for my Sager NP9377. This is my FIRST experience with an SSD so I'll be putting the OS on it and maybe some apps and a few games that I use frequently. From my understanding you're supposed to leave at least 20% of SSD storage unused to keep the SSD from losing performance. Quote

From my understanding you're supposed to leave at least 20% of SSD storage unused to keep the SSD from losing performance.

As the subject states, My main desktop randomly freezes during usage and I have no idea as to why. I am a Musician by trade and I do all of my music on this computer.

Here's what I know.

I can't make Skype calls or it will freeze.
Connecting it into the internet will cause it to freeze over time.
USING FL Studio 10/Studio One 2 will cause it to freeze.
Doing nothing will cause it to freeze.

I'm just confused as to why because I was once able to do all of these things at once if I wanted to and now, nothing.

I've attached a Speccy snapshot as well. Maybe it will help.

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]Check your operating temperatures 1ST...
Next step would be a failing HDD.Temperatures say 47 degrees Celsius.

Basic math says 116.6 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Not good. Depending on the PC specs those temps may be fine...where are the readings from ? ?From here. Lol

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space] Quote from: patio on June 22, 2015, 07:30:59 PM

Depending on the PC specs those temps may be fine...
where are the readings from ? ?

Doing nothing will cause it to freeze.

CPU is an Intel Pentium D 830.

I'd still run a HDD fitness test from the drive manuf...

Not sure if this is the correct place for this.

I had my external HDD plugged into my PC.  I went away and did something else for a while and when I came back the computer had gone to SLEEP.  When it came back on, I tried to go into a folder in the eHDD and a message appeared saying the filepath didn't exist.  I unplugged it and plugged it back in and now the folder is gone completely.  However, when I look at the drive, it seems that Windows is still detecting the data there, because the same amount of space is in use.

About 60GB is missing because of that one folder.

I'm using Windows 8.1 and the HDD is a Buffalo 1TB HD that's formatted as NTFS. Quote

About 60GB is missing because of that one folder.

GParted is a free partition editor for graphically managing your disk partitions.
With GParted you can resize, copy, and move partitions without data loss, enabling you to:
    Grow or shrink your C: drive
    Create space for new operating systems
    Attempt data rescue from lost partitions

Hi there,

I believe the files are still there, but had gone invisible. The attrib command was a good option, because sometimes really solves the issue. Check the drive on another PC and with another USB cable. I would try to take ownership of that folder from the Security tab in Properties. I leave details below.
Using a Linux Live CD is another option, which may give you access to those files. I believe that versions here do not really matter. If you access your data, do a backup and format the drive.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753659.aspx – how to take ownership of a folder

Hope this helps

on “Start” –>Run–>type cmd and click on OK.
if your hard drive as G:
Enter this command: attrib -h -r -s /s /d g:*.*
Then check if your real files will be showed"


When I tried that it didn't seem to do anything.

Try following the exact commands including run as administrator when opening cmd prompt
http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-623304-hidden-files-on-my-hard-disk

1) How do files "go invisible"?
2) Taking ownership has nothing to do with files disappearing, only the ability to access the files.

Hi, I put a computer together today with almost all new components. The only component that isn't new is the PSU but it was working late last year.

The issue I'm having is when I try to turn the computer on all the fans spin for about a second or two then turn off and spin again, so on and so forth.
I've tried without ram to see if I get any beeps and there were none, tried with and without the graphics card, same thing.

The current components are

450-500w Thermaltake PSU
Nvidia gtx 660 Graphics Card
DDR3 4 or 8gb ram(can't remember>_>)
Gigabyte B85M-D2V Motherboard

*edit*
I forgot to mention, the ram I'm using has two red lights in either side and they do light up when I try to turn the computer on.I also bought a new PSU, problem still persists.Well... you have done what seems reasonable.
Your tried no graphics.
You tried no RAM
You replaced the PSU.

You also need to  test the Hard drive and anything ELSE connected to the computer.

You may have to contact the vendor and request a RMA for the motherboard.


I got the board replaced but the problem persists, I'm really not sure what the issue could be.You haven't mentioned what processor you're using, that would be useful to know.
Only other thing I would suggest is to try the motherboard, CPU and RAM only, outside of the motherboard on a nonconductive surface such as the motherboard box.  HOOK it up to the PSU and use a screwdriver to briefly short the power switch pins on the front panel header to turn it on.  This would rule out a grounding/shorting issue inside the case.I'm using an i3 4160, I've tried with just motherboard, cpu and ram on a box, did all that didn't change anything.Based on what you've said - that you've tried everything outside the case, tried two different PSUs (one brand new, one was working not so long ago), and two boards - I'd say that assuming you have tried each stick of RAM individually, the only thing left is a dead CPU, however unlikely that is.  I've built over 3000 computers and I can't recall ever getting a CPU that was dead out of the box, but it's not impossible.  The only other suggestion I could make is to try that processor in another compatible board and see if the other board POSTs or not, just to make absolutely sure.Would a FAULTY/dead cpu cause the fans to spin then stop then repeat indefinitely? I've never experienced a faulty cpu before.It could do yes, could also be a faulty board, PSU, cables not plugged in, a short, CPU not recognised (BIOS update required), or several other things. but you've pretty much ruled out everything else.I am having this exact issue.  All new components in old case.  It sounds like i should be looking at the case.
Do you suggest shorting across the on-off switch pins to rule out a bad switch?  Is that what I'm reading?Partly, but partly because it'd be difficult to use the case's power switch if you're testing outside the case
I have seen faulty power or reset switches cause issues before though so it's always worth ruling them out. Quote from: turchmania on June 18, 2015, 11:46:28 AM

I am having this exact issue.  All new components in old case.  It sounds like i should be looking at the case.
Do you suggest shorting across the on-off switch pins to rule out a bad switch?  Is that what I'm reading?

Hi. I'm making a gaming PC and I have a budget of about 273 dollars. I have a HARD Drive with Windows 7 installed. I heard that you should re install windows if you put it in another system. However, the disk I used to install it was thrown out. How do I reuse this drive?
Thanks!Well, you still need to reinstall Windows - Do you not have the licence key/sticker for the installed COPY of WIndows?  If you can do you can try and borrow another disc with the same edition of Windows on it and use your key with it.  However, if the licence came on a prebuilt PC (i.e.  a sticker on the PC case) and not in a full retail box, it cannot legally be transferred to a new machine.

Also, unfortunately $273 is nowhere near enough to build a gaming PC.It's a computer I built. Is there a Microsoft Windows ISO that I can get?
Edit- apparently I bought an OEM copy and it doesn't accept a ISO download.
Unfortunately OEM copies cannot be legally moved to a new motherboard other than a like-for-like replacement if the original board has failed.Microsoft is changing all the license rules for Windows 10.  If you have Windows 7, it will be eligible for a FREE upgrade.  Microsoft stopped issuing product ID's (PIDs) with Windows 8.  It is still not clear how all this will occur, but they have announced a release date of 7/29/15.  Wait another 6 weeks to find out.It is unclear whether upgrading to Windows 10 would change an OEM license (tied to a machine) into a Retail license (allowing it to be used on other systems).

trying to decide between the T540P/T550 and W541/W550s..... it will be for school and would like to have a 5th gen i series CPU but that's not top priority as other specs are the deciding factor for me. ether one needs dedicated graphics and 16 or 32 gb of ram with windows 7 and a 3K display.... do I really need an i7 for graphics and computer service/IT? what do you recommend?
They are all good machines.  First thing I would say is that I would highly suggest sticking to the newer models that have physical trackpoint buttons above the touchpad instead of the large clickpad (e.g. the T540p).  Even if you only use the touchpad, the newer one is significantly better.  I have a T440s myself and actually replaced the original clickpad with the one from the newer model because the original was so terrible.

You ALSO need to think about whether you need a dedicated Quadro GPU or not.  This would be the main difference between the T and W series.  For heavy graphics work, the W series is the better option whereas the T series is designed for more business-oriented workloads.

You then really have the slightly tricky decision for the CPU.  Currently Intel have not released full power Broadwell (5th gen) CPUs.  This means that the T550 and W550s have the 5th generation, low voltage CPUs.  While these are still good chips and will certainly improve battery life, they will be slightly less powerful than the full power counterparts and also don't have quad core options (they are all dual core with hyperthreading).  If you want a full power/quad core chip, you would need to then GO for the W541, however this does mean you are getting a slightly older Haswell chip.  Whether this bothers you is really up to you.

Whatever you do, also ensure that you get an IPS screen - The ThinkPad IPS screens are fantastic, the TN panels are really "meh".

For context - I have a T440s with an i5 4300U, 8gb RAM, 1080p IPS screen, 250gb SSD, 6cell (rear)+3cell (front) batteries and Intel HD Graphics with the touchpad from a T450 fitted in place of its original.  It's been absolutely fantastic - I use it heavily for university (Computer Science) work and I've never found anything that I've needed to do on it that it couldn't do.   The battery life is also great and can easily get me through a full day of fairly heavy usage without needing to plug it in.I have a T550 that I bought a few WEEKS ago. The T series does not have dedicated graphics (Except in certain regions, from what I understand).

I got it for work, which typically requires several instances of Visual Studio, Explorer Windows open to various folders, Skype, Text Editors, Database admin tools, Web browsers, occasionally Photoshop, as well as our own software to be open a lot of the time.

The Integrated Graphics perform just fine. I expect the only time it will have trouble is if I play a game, which I don't intend to do with this system. Otherwise it doesn't have any problem driving the 2880x1620 screen.

Much the same story for the CPU. I got a i7 5600U, which performs a bit worse than my desktop's 4770K, likely for the reasons camerongray explained (fewer cores as well as low-power). But, again, I expect I would only see this issue if I tried to play games on the system- which is not my intention. The systme would likely be fine with a i5 as well.

Photoshop doesn't appear to suffer from the lack of a graphics card. A dedicated card would either be for games, or for using things like AutoCAD or 3D-Rendering Programs. Otherwise, most other software can just use the integrated graphics.I would be ordering it in the next 1-3 months and I have used the T530's at my high school while I was there and liked them alot... dedicated graphics are a MUST in any laptop I order.... I was also going to go with the 9 cell 99 watt hour battery.... Now the T550 Trackpad will work in a T540? but ya at this point I would think a Haswell will be what I order as I would like to have a 28 watt cpu and not a 15 watt cpu

so it's a T440p/T540p or W541.... leaning more towards the W541 though

Thinkpad 15.5" 3K (2880x1620), IPS, with WWAN or Thinkpad 15.5" 3K (2880x1620), IPS, with WWAN, with Color Sensor

NVIDIA Quadro K1100M 2G or  NVIDIA Quadro K2100M 2Gany suggestions?Well.... Haswell ?
Quote

I would think a Harwell will be what I order as I would like to have a 28 watt cpu and not a 15 watt cpu

Well.... Haswell ?
You may want to reconsider this idea.
Why do you think it was designed with  more power consumption?
What is the name and dauber of the low power CPU?
If you wait a bit, the price of Haswell  may drop.

ok the W541 seems to be the best choice here then? max it out or will the base config be good?

I thought I heard it on Mobile tech review but I may have been watching another video on their youtube

I have experience with PC hard drives, but not laptops.

???Doing my head in it is! I have an OLD Sony vaio which had Win98 installed at factory but I have purchased it with Win XP installed.I plugged in an external HARD drive and got message about SLOWER operating speed etc because device was USB 2.0 and laptop isn't.So I then bought a USB 2.0 card bus to convert my standard port to USB 2.0.Now when drive is used through card bus I get power and a green LIGHT but the drive is not recognised/displayed on the 'My Computer' page.Any clues anybody??Right clik on My Computer and SELECT disk management......does the drive show up in there ?

First of all, here are my computer specs: PC specs:

GPU: Gigabyte 2Gb nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Super OC
CPU: AMD VIshera FX-6300 3.5ghz
RAM: 8gb 1333mhz
Motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M
HDD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda Green 7200rpm
PSU: Corsair CX750w
Case: K-3 Gaming ATX Case
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Optical Drive: LiteOn DVD Writer
And a PCI-Express 300mbps networking card

Previously I've had some ISSUES with my computer (where the cpu literally smoked and my computer just basically set on fire and just wouldn't turned on, it was a *censored* cpu so I replaced it with this and it feels more secure). Previously, my PSU was around 600w, and this one is 750, so I expect it to be a lot more lenient with the specs or whatever, but recently it feels hotter than ever. I'm GETTING seriously worried about the heat, as I just checked the temp of my cpu and it says it's reaching 80 degrees. Is this ridiculously high, or am I just paranoid?

I've also noticed these weird numbers in my panel thing recently, I have no clue what they are but do they have anything to do with it? :

So basically, is there any ways for me to help cool down my pc? I was thinking about getting watercooling or something, but can someone maybe recommend me the best to get for this situation? Thank you for any help.
1st thing you should check online is the CPU's normal operating temps...some are higher than others...
As far as the fire issue that's probably from a cheapo PSU...Done some research and apparently it shouldn't go any higher than 65 degrees. What can I do to lower this temperature? Just checked and there's a bunch of dust in the fins in the heatsink (which is a standard heatsink by the way, I'm thinking of just getting watercooling but I'm not sure how effective that would be for lowering the entire computer, although I could get 2 fans and a water cooling heatsink, idk), but I didn't think this would matter because the way it works is the heat is just conducted along the fins. I'm not sure. So what are my options, what would you recommend me doing?clean it. The purpose of a heatsink is to radiate heat, which is accomplished by airflow over the heatsink. if there is too much dust clogging it up then it won't cool effectively.

Sounds like the heatsink is a dust cake at those temps, or it needs to be repasted. Quote from: BC_Programmer on July 01, 2015, 07:03:57 PM

clean it. The purpose of a heatsink is to radiate heat, which is accomplished by airflow over the heatsink. if there is too much dust clogging it up then it won't cool effectively.

Sounds like the heatsink is a dust cake at those temps, or it needs to be repasted.

Cleaning it is free, why not try it?

Stock coolers are fine if you aren't overclocking and don't mind the slightly increased noise.

Would this completely solve the problem, or should I just get a new heatsink?

I've always been told that standard heatsinks are garbage and you should replace them

Also, how effective is overclocking it? I may think about doing that.

Best method is using a can of compressed air....use a Q-Tip to hold all fan blades in place when blasting it...

Looking at your original post, some questions do come to mind, though- you said the CPU smoked (a previous CPU)- this could indicate a motherboard problem or failure as well (or a misconfiguration in the BIOS).

Make sure to reset your CMOS Settings to fail-safe defaults.

My CPU wasn't what smoked, it was my PSU because it was a *censored* cheap one that I'd owned for like 20 months and I simply replaced it and it worked.

Oh OK. To be fair you did say "the cpu literally smoked"

Fail-safe defaults are pretty much never a bad idea.

It's possible that the Power Supply that failed may have caused failures in the Motherboard as well from out-of-range power input. In addition to making sure there is plenty of airflow (eg dusting with compressed air and cleaning out the heatsink, make sure all the fans are working, especially the CPU Fan etc.) you could verify the voltages using a hardware monitor Program. (ideally, you would use a multimeter on voltage points on the motherboard but software is the next best thing)

my c key gives zcvx,m_: , my, think it was 7 &/ or y &/or t keys seem to put it in sleep mode. hardware issue? Read somewhere an EC resetting helps... Its a Toshiba cb30. Thoughts?
I'm thinking that the keyboard is damaged. The & in place of 7 could indicate that its a stuck shift key, however if the shift key was stuck you should be getting  capital letters in place of lower case etc and your getting results different than that. If its not the keyboard then it could be keyboard controller on the main board is damaged. Given that chrome books are cheap computers sold PRETTY much as disposable systems given their price tags in the $200 range, you might find out that its best to just get a new chromebook. However if you want to take a gamble and spend some money in the process, I would try a keyboard swap for it with a new one. One other thing that might work, however I do not have a chromebook or have even owned one to know if this would work or not, but if you had a USB corded desktop COMPUTER keyboard and plugged that in and everything behaved with the desktop keyboard attached using the desktop keyboard then you would know that its with 99% certainty that its a bad keyboard in the chromebook and not a software config that is forcing the keyboard to malfunction. I have had good luck on amazon buying cheap replacement parts for laptops. I got a Dell keyboard for a Dell C610 for $15 and it installed with no problems. EBAY is the other location to get parts. It may be easiest to open the chromebook and look to see if there is a part # STICKER on the bottom of it so that you get the exact keyboard for it as for sometimes keyboards state they work with specific model ranges and then you find that yours has a different tab or mount setup.tried plugging in a USB keyboard & it workes like a charm, unlike the main, chromebook keyboard. might have to open the main keyboard & fasten some cables, mb?The keyboard is metier damaged or very dirty.
Be very CAREFUL about removing the keyboard.
Here is YouTube on how to remove a laptop keyboard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbhwu95zknc
How that helps. 

i jus wanna know can i over clock my System.. of P4 2.4 Ghz Intel 845GVSR..

if so tel me how. to.Yes, you can overclock.
Google for overclocking GUIDE, that will GET you started.
However, I do not recommend it unless you absolutely know what you are doing and are prepared to take it slowly.
It's a great way to fry your PC.
Consider why you want to do it, and what you want from it.i need it for geeting speed.. and my system gets really slow when i do some or 4 process

I noticed in another thread you are considering getting a new machine...overclocking this one just might speed up that process if you're not careful... Quote from: pidu_rak on March 29, 2007, 10:31:07 PM

i need it for geeting speed.. and my system gets really slow when i do some or 4 process

Yesterday I installed a second internal hard drive in my machine.  At first I attempted to use my Windows XP CD to set up and partition the drive, but then I realized I could just do it through the DISK Manager, so I did it that way.  Both drives are working fine.  But....

I also have a Maxtor external HD HOOKED up via USB port.  The thing is chock full of files, and I've never had a single problem with it.  Now, after installing the second internal drive, my computer is treating the external drive as unformatted, unpartitioned, and empty!  I can't seem to do anything to get my machine to recognize the drive as formatted and full of data.  I tried plugging it in to my other computer, but it does the same thing, which tells me the problem is now with the external drive -- somehow something in it has been "reset" so that it's being read as a new, empty drive.  (I know I didn't accidentally format it by mistake.)

So, now I'm panicking -- I really don't want to lose the 200GB or so of data on that external drive.

Before I go hauling the Maxtor to my local shop & paying them money to fix what MAY be a very simple problem, can any of you help?  Many thanks in advance.
Would this happen to be a Maxtor, several years old? Those older ones have a problem with overheating, and failing. If so, you may want to either take it to a shop or purchase and use a recovery utility.No, it's not very old -- less than a year.  I haven't had a single problem with it since I GOT it, and it would be way too much of a coincidence that the drive would just happen to fail at the same moment I installed a new drive.  So I'm quite sure that's not the problem.Power down and unplug the external.
Do a few cold boots.
Power down and remove the 2nd internal.
Do a few cold boots.
Re-connect the external and power up...
Does this change anything ? ?I essentially tried the things you mentioned, but to no avail.

Fortunately, after trying several data recovery programs that didn't work very well, I found a good one (R-Tools) that recognizes everything on the drive and is allowing me to transfer all of the files to another drive.

Problem solved!  Many thanks for the suggestions.
Glad you got it solved...

if I add a SECOND hdd to my computer, will the first one overwrite the second?? im using win 7, and I think the second is VISTA. no real way to clear the second.No...they stay seperate.
If the 2nd has Vista INSTALLED why do you say it can't be "cleared" ? ?

It can be hooked up as a slave drive so the PC doesn't try to boot it...use a SATA PORT on the MBoard higher than SATA 2 or 3...or if it's an IDE drive set the jumpers to slave....

Hi

Should I get this or do you think I can build a better one for the same PRICE?
-Web browsing, gaming and video editing/graphic works.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227602&cm_re=iBUYPOWER_Desktop_PC_VERSA_SERIES_NE403-_-83-227-602-_-Product

What do you guys think? 

_______________________________________ ______
Current updated build in mind [Budget : around 1,000]

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
______________________________
CPU Cooler
Any suggestion?
______________________________
Motherboard:should I get Asus Z97-E ATX LGA1150 Motherboard or
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
or other options?
______________________________
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory or
G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
or other options?
______________________________
Storage suggestion? (something from Crucial or Samsung) 1TB
______________________________
Video Card
EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Superclocked Video Card or
EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB SuperSC ACX 2.0+ Video Card
or other options?
______________________________
case
any suggestion?
______________________________
Power Supply
any suggestion?
______________________________
Wireless Network Adapter
any suggestion?
______________________________
Case Fan
any suggestion?
-keep computer cool
-noise level doesn't matter

Thank you guys! 


What is your budget? MAYBE $500, $1000 or $2000? The more you want the costs goes way up.

DIY is a great hobby. I started because there were few options. But that was years ago. Nowadays you get more bang  for your buck buying pre-asembled stuff and adding upgrades. Exception for very high END cutting edge things.

I would suggest   you find a used desktop that has a nice case and take it apart.Notice how things go together. Then try r some upgrades to improve the performance. Like more RAM, better hard drive, graphics card and so on.

At the present time you can get a good refurbished desktop with very good specs for about half the price of components. Plus it comes with Windows 8.1 and a one year warranty. Dell sells some good units  and give you a warranty.

I assume you are a first time builder. IMO you need to get into a working machine and learn how it goes together. One thing. Never get a SFF PC. They are impossible to upgrade. The Small Form Factor  has no room for anything.

Now if you already have years of experience, ignore what I said. 
Those prebuilt gaming PCs on Newegg tend to use quite cheap parts to cut corners.  If you can build one yourself I would certainly recommend doing that or at least get it from a company who will let you customise it to your needs.

The built you have there looks good although you may want to consider whether for your needs you would maybe be better off with a cheaper CPU such as an i5 4690k and a better graphics card such as a 970.

• CPU cooler: If you are overclocking I'd look at a good air cooler, it really comes down to how much you can spend, something like a Coolermaster Hyper 212 is decent value.  If you aren't overclocking then the stock one would do the job fine.
• Storage: I'd recommend getting an SSD (probably around the 250gb mark) from Crucial or Samsung and then a separate HDD of the size you require.
• Case: Very much personal preference, take a look and see what you like the look of - I'd recommend getting a decent case now instead of skimping on it, you can keep the case for a long time - It doesn't really become obsolete or need "upgraded" unless you fancy a new one.
• PSU: I'd suggest something from the likes of XFX or Seasonic around the 550w mark.  Higher end Corsairs would also be good (i.e. higher end than their VX and CX lines (RM,HX.etc))
• RAM: Either of those will be fine, just get whatever is cheaper.
• Wireless Adapter: If you absolutely need it to be wireless just get a reasonable card, POSSIBLY with dual band/802.11ac - Even if your current access point doesn't take advantage of this, future ones you get might.  Don't however go overboard with silly "gaming" cards with ridiculous heatsinks.etc - They are more of a gimmick rather than anything.
• Case Fans: You don't really need anything special for a simple case fan, I'd just get a decent brand such as Corsair/Fractal Design/Antec.etc.  You may also want to see what the case you pick includes as it may come with enough fans and if it doesn't you may want to buy more of whatever fans it does include so that they are all matching.

• Storage: I'd recommend getting an SSD (probably around the 250gb mark) from Crucial or Samsung and then a separate HDD of the size you require.
• PSU: I'd suggest something from the likes of XFX or Seasonic around the 550w mark.  Higher end Corsairs would also be good (i.e. higher end than their VX and CX lines (RM,HX.etc))

My laptop is a TGNotebook.  I bought it new this year.  There is no MODEL number on the user's guide.  But there is  a tag on the computer that says msip-rmi-thg-n1502; zu12092=14001; kcc-crm-tnt-zu60hmwbn; n1502-1b16-j001 (all letters in caps).  The user's "guide" has almost no instructions and no specs.  How-ever, one of the illustrations does say "webcam" and points to what looks like a lens above the screen.  I am running Windows 8.1 with automatic updates from Microsoft.

My QUESTION is:  How do I activate and USE my webcam?  (I read on an HP advice set to go to BIOS and activate it.  A search of my computer brings up no hits for "BIOS.")

Also, I bought earphones and a mike.  I have that line plugged in to the mike outlet, but sound still comes out of the regular speaker.  I looked at the hardware SECTION in my computer, but I didn't see any-thing that said camera/webcam; nor did I see any-thing about either built-in speakers nor the headphones I just plugged in.

I want to set this STUFF up for Skype.

I thought I had done my homework, when I ordered a NEW drive to BURN CD's. Guess not, what I got is a ROM Reader-IDE. I WANT a new drive that plays CD-R, CD-RW, and BURNS. So, what do I look for? I have a separate DVD drive.
Thanks so much.
If you want a drive that burns and READS CDs, you want a CD-RW drive.
They're not common nowadays though, they have been replaced by DVD drives.
Any DVD burner will also burn CDs, and most DVD reader drives will also burn CDs.
Check in the specification of any drive to see what it will record or write to, and what it will read from.
Hope this helps.CD-R = Read only
CDRW = Read and write.

DVD-R = Read only
DVDRW = Read and write.

Hi,  Can some one tell me how i can make my Athlon xp 2600+ faster than it currently is.  At the moment it is 1.92 GHz.  I found a web site which is called http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1685&p=1     It say's 2600+ should be clocked at 2.13GHz    so is there a way to make it faster without buying a NEW processer 'cos there hard to find now.
 Thanks1. Download and install CCleaner from here:

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

2.Run the disk defragmenter

3. Add more RAM

4. Don't overclock the cpu unless you know what you're doing 

Alan <><  The above will SPEED up the PC overall.
As for the CPU being slower, it jay be a jumper setting on the motherboard, what motherboard do you have?
Or it could just be the CPU, there are several versions of the Athlon XP with different clock speeds.Is your reported CPU speed consistently 1.92GHz or does it fluctuate?  You might access your BIOS and see whether it has settings for CPU Frequency.  An incorrect setting there can affect the actual CPU speed.

If you can't find any setting in your system that is causing this and your system is consistently 1.92GHz, I wouldn't go out and buy another Athlon XP 2600 to try to resolve, which is what you implied in your comments.  The difference between 1.92 and 2.13 isn't worth spending money on the same model processor, and it may not resolve the problem, anway.Hi, my motherboard is Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394 and using Everest home Editition it says my cpu speed is 1919.22/.36 Quote from: soybean on March 29, 2007, 12:53:14 PM

Is your reported CPU speed consistently 1.92GHz or does it fluctuate?  You might access your BIOS and see whether it has settings for CPU Frequency.  An incorrect setting there can affect the actual CPU speed.

echo. %temp%

perhaps delete your temporary files.
If you're not sure of the path to your temp files, go to the command prompt and typeand it will show you the path to your temp files.

Hi,  Can some one tell me how i can make my Athlon xp 2600+ faster than it currently is.  At the moment it is 1.92 GHz.  I found a web site which is called http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1685&p=1     It say's 2600+ should be clocked at 2.13GHz    so is there a way to make it faster without buying a new processer 'cos there hard to find now.
 THANKS

Hi! Its nice to have the FORUM back and WORKING again i do like the new page.

I have a sony VAIO USB 1G, recently it as been working in astrage way, when ever i click ope it brings out the Open With dialogue box instead of opening. And when i right click, the open option appears in this way OPen (o) when i click open it brings back the Open With dialogue box. I run sacn with norton, Avast and Avira but it still the same. Any idea of what is going wrong with my flash?
 THANKS!!!!!!What, exactly, is "sony Vaio USB 1G"?  That string of text really makes no sense, other than that you have a Sony VAIO.

So, you're having a problem connecting your USB flash drive, right?  Has it worked in the past?  If so, what changed?  Exactly what HAPPENS when you connect it?

I recently bought this laptop but im not sure if its good enough for gaming. Can someone tell me how good mylaptop is capable of doing?

4th Generation Intel Core i7-4510U Processor (3.10GHz Turbo, 2.00GHz Base 1600MHz 4MB)
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160
Full HD 1080p Display (1920x1080) with 720p HD Webcam
1TB Hard Drive / Windows 8.1 / DVD Drive
8.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3L SDRAM 1600 MHz / Bluetooth Version 4.0The integrated Intel graphics will be capable of playing older games and maybe some less demanding newer games on low/medium settings.  Without dedicated graphics, this isn't really intended as a gaming machine.Is it possible to add a new graphic card? Ik that you cant replace an integrated graphic card but can you add a new one ?Unfortunately not.  With laptops you need to buy them with the graphics card and CPU you want from the very start.But overall is my laptop good like for work, business, REPORTS, entertainment,... etc.?I would say so, yes - the only upgrade I would consider is an SSD to replace your HDD, as your system will feel much more responsive with an SSD.  If you're happy with it as it is though I don't see a pressing need to spend any more on it until you want to Quote from: Calum on July 08, 2015, 01:06:58 AM

The integrated Intel graphics will be capable of playing older games and maybe some less demanding newer games on low/medium settings.  Without dedicated graphics, this isn't really intended as a gaming machine.

Consider this. Intel has put a lot of money and time into its new CPU design. The have the people and tools needed to make the best of whatever they want. If they really believed separate chips were the hay to go, why don't they?

Intel history has examples of where Intel would put onto one chip the stuff that used to be separate. Dual core instead to two separate CPUs. Match processors on the same chip. Cached memory on the chip.  These offered both economic and technical advantages.

Why would a separate Graphics thing be better?

Are there real benchmarks out there that show separate  graphics perform better? Curious minds need to know. 

AMD and Intel have significantly improved the graphics technologies integrated into their respective CPUs. AMD’s Kaveri-class Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) incorporate the same powerful Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture of its best discrete Radeon-series graphic processors.

I'm about to purchase the latest Geforce 980ti, but I'm wondering if some of my old equipment might bottleneck it and not allow it's full potential. Can anyone tell me if I am going to get a bottleneck SOMEWHERE, where that might be? Thanks!

Gigabyte x58a ud3r            HTTP://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3449#ov
i7 930 overclocked to 4.0 Ghz
12 Gig Ram
CoolerMaster 750 Psu
500 GB WD Raptor HDDI doubt it - I'd still be thinking of the CPU/board to be the next thing to upgrade but I doubt you'll have any issues with that system and the better video card. Quote from: camerongray on July 06, 2015, 03:43:50 PM

I doubt it - I'd still be thinking of the CPU/board to be the next thing to upgrade but I doubt you'll have any issues with that system and the better video card.

I doubt it - I'd still be thinking of the CPU/board to be the next thing to upgrade but I doubt you'll have any issues with that system and the better video card.

Hi there,

My current PC is starting to get dated by my standards (2 years old now) and my wife's computer is now gone as I salvaged it for repair parts. Rather then buy two new COMPUTERS I am hoping there is a way to build a single tower with a very good spec, and use two wireless monitors that can connect to the 2 SEPARATE user ACCOUNTS at the same time, essentially allotting half the memory to each user account so we can both be on at one time and set up shop anywhere in the wireless range. Is this setup a practical possibility? and if so where would anyone suggest looking into it more from both a PRACTICALITY and monetary perspective.

ThanksIt is possible but is not remotely worth it, the software is tricky to get working and the monitors would need to be directly CONNECTED to the machine.  Not to mention that desktop versions of Windows are not designed for multiple users actually using the system at once, they can do it, but you could start running into unexpected issues.

What you are trying to do sounds like you would be much better off just getting two laptops or giving your wife your machine (2 years old is hardly that "dated") and buy one new system for yourself.I agree.  Get a 2nd computer.They are right. Only a few business users still use several terminals to one computer. Even schools now are doing one computer to each student.
Reference:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/innovation/unleashing-the-power-of-one-computer-for-every-student-21449488/

So just get two computers.

Hi The name of my external HARD DRIVE on windows 8.1 is changed to "Local Disk F" after my friend copied games into my hard drive using his laptop. I tried to rename my hard drive but it failed. Any suggestions to rename the hard drive? Thanks.Have you tried via Disk Management ? ?

PS....Copied games are not gonna work.

Hello,


Currently owns a stationary computer since a few years back but since I'm traveling abroad for a year (and possibly more times following that) I've decided to buy a laptop.


The purpose is webbing/document editing/computer programming and gaming (which I think will be most demanding). I've asked my local computer store for a suggestion (and got one) but would like to get some input from SOMEONE else before buying:


Laptop specifications:
Asus R555JK
CPU i7-4710
Memory 8GB
Disk 750GB+24GB SSD (I'll probably ask them to at least make it 1TB)
DVDRW
15Wide Full-HD
Graphic GTX850
Webcam
Windows 8.1

(Price ~8,000 Swedish kronas ~= 1,000USD, could go up to about 10,000 Swedish krona, but don't MIND saving a little if this ones is good)


The things I would like input on would be:
-Am I making a big MISTAKE somewhere?
-How would this computer play some game (some example of popular games like Star Craft/Dota/Skyrim/Civilization/Fallout would be fine).
-How would it compare to my current computer (that despite some age I'm still very satisfied with):


Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU 3.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory 8192MB RAM
Disk 150GB SSD + 500GB
Display 1680 x 1050
Graphic NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Windows 7


Thanks in Advance!Looks good however hopefully the 24GB SSD is a TYPO and you really meant 240GB

The hardware is plenty for the games you listed.

Only concern i would have is how long it will run away from an outlet as for most laptops I have seen that are gaming laptops require an outlet nearby as for when the gaming starts the battery goes on a heavy drain cycle. You might only be looking at 1 hr to 1.5 hrs away from an outlet when gaming with full charge. Plan of purchase of two batteries. 
Thank you very much Have you already got it?
What kind of games do you have in mind?
The laptop looks nice, though the QUALITY of the display is unclear to me - can you provide some link to the laptop?

Hi GUY's !
i got a question about my laptop .. i dont know much about hardware and well i have a question about graphic cards
so i am using a Acer Aspire v17 NITRO ( black edition )
and i was wonder if it was possible to replace the graphic card in this model of laptop .
If yes what is the best graphic card that can be PLACED in this laptop ?

 System Model: Aspire VN7-791
               BIOS: V1.07
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4710HQ CPU 2.50GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
             MEMORY: 12288MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 12212MB RAM
          Page File: 4626MB used, 10016MB available
Gforce GTX 860M

Kind regards ! The GPU on that machine appears to be soldered to the MOTHERBOARD so unfortunately you cannot replace it.  Very few laptops nowdays have replaceable GPUs as they make the machine a lot thicker and heavier.Indeed, the GPU is soldered on this one, but why are you considering it? what's the problem you are trying to solve?

Friend of mine wants to get a low cost liquid cooler for his Phenom II x4 945 to overclock it and I am advising him to go with a known name brand that has good REVIEWS vs a low cost liquid cooler with so-so 3 star reviews.

Anyone know if you have to worry about leaks in cheaper liquid cooler kits or if the only concern is really in the thermal transfer property rating of liquid coolers?

If leakage is a risk with lower cost liquid coolers, he was wondering if replacing the liquid with mineral oil might be better as he saw a fish tank on youtube with an entire system submerged in mineral oil its non conductive and so the system worked. He was thinking about going low cost cooler and mineral oil possibly if there is a risk of a leak with water based (conductive) coolant, as for if mineral oil leaks no problem the system is not trashed, just oily in the area of the leak etc. Video here is what he saw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eub39NaC4rc

He is planning on pushing his CPU to the max for overclock and so even a high end air coolant based heatsink probably wouldnt be adequate enough. I was suggesting to him to upgrade from the Phenom II x4 945 to a Phenom II x6 1055T for around $85 and forget liquid COOLING running that 6 core stock, since his ASUS motherboard supports 6 core CPU's and the 1055T is in its CPU supported listing. But he seems to think that he can just push the quadcore harder and it will respond with better performance and it would be cool to have liquid cooling, yet he doesnt really want to spend a lot of money either.

Maybe I should be suggesting to him to dunk his motherboard with graphics card in a tank of low cost mineral oil and free fish tank from fish that died long ago...   

I'd make sure you go for a reputable brand and not some sort of cheap generic one.  I also wouldn't remotely think about putting mineral oil in one, they are not remotely designed to pump a thicker liquid such as that and you risk clogging things up/burning out the pump - It also isn't going to be remotely as good thermally as a proper coolant.

That said, basic liquid coolers perform around the same as a high end air cooler, in order to get any benefit with liquid you need to go to a high end custom loop, if he's that worried about leaks, just get an air cooler.  There is no reason that a good air cooler won't let you overclock that CPU to very high levels.Mineral oil has a dielectric property that differs from free air. This may have some impact on performance.

To be cost effective, he  could  consider outing the whole thing inside a small fridge (Not a joke. Many have done it.).  See tom;s Hardware.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1682004/mini-fridge-freezer-cooled.html
Some SAY no:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/373263-Why-a-mini-fridge-won-t-work
Others do it anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgT_zcsrCj0
(And it was a nightmare.)
The cost of the fridge may be comparable to the time spent building cooling system. But if your labor is free, custom building would be cheaper. 

Quote from: Geek-9pm on July 05, 2015, 08:00:53 AM

To be cost effective, he  could  consider outing the whole thing inside a small fridge (Not a joke. Many have done it.).  See tom;s Hardware.

That said, basic liquid coolers perform around the same as a high end air cooler, in order to get any benefit with liquid you need to go to a high end custom loop, if he's that worried about leaks, just get an air cooler.  There is no reason that a good air cooler won't let you overclock that CPU to very high levels.

I have Windows 7 ultimate and ASUS REALTEK 6.0.1.7354 sound
on internet is good but on games or applications is disturbed
what to do PLEASE help me

So to go into a little more detail, I have been getting this problem ever since i installed my GT 740. Whenever i PLAY league, at any random time my computer will restart and instead of the regular restart ASUS bios (from what i recall) reports that it shut down the computer because it DETECTED a power surge. This only start happening when i start playing league, for no other game does it do this (I usually play, Rome 2, EU4, 9dragons. I had Shogun 2, APB reloaded, Vindictus, but removed them to make space on my hard drive.) If anyone can provide any insight id greatly appreciate it . Also computer specs(from what i know of) follow.

I have Windows 7
Service pack 1
NZXT phantom computer
16 gigs of gaming RAM(still have to CHECK on that, friend gave them to me)
Corsair CX600M power supply
GeForce GT 740
Samsung 840 250 GB SSD(will update later to check accuracy.)

Not sure what else i need to add. If someone could just direct me to a page that has this problem( or similar one) I'd appreciate it.
Also if more details are needed please let me know as to which ones, i'm not sure what else i should be adding.
Quote

(from what i recall) reports that it shut down the computer because it detected a power surge.

Hi All,
 
I accidently plugged in my laptop power to my WD 2TB drive and then it stopped working.  A friend suggested that I take off the casing and then buy a HDD docking station.  I bought one from Ebay and it works okay as i can see the power light on etc however when I insert my drive into the slots it doesnt do anything , no whirs, no clicks, nothing.
 
There should not be any damage to the contents of the drive but I dont understand why the drive does not register with this HDD docking station?
 
If anyone can help me that would be great 
 
NicoleHi

On the My Book case there is a MDL number it's normally on a white label on the bottom of the case. Can you give me that number, so that i can check how the USB interface board works as far as over voltage conditions.
Also the full model number of the hard drive itself for the same diagnoses.
Depending on this diagnoses it maybe possible for someone  with the right soldering equipment to repair the drive for you.
Hello,

Thank you so much for coming back to me.  I have the plastic casing numbers here;

There are two but not on a white label?

P/N WDBACW0020HBK-01

S/N WMAZA8404186

On the silver SATA drive there is a white label at the top of the drive and that reads WMAZA 840 4186

There is a strip at the front of the drive that says SATA / 64MB Cache WD20EARX which I think is the model number.

A friend in work mentioned to me that the SATA wouldnt work in the HDD Docking Station as maybe it requires a new PCB to fire it up however he cant see any damage on the current one.

Any hep would be greatly appreciated.

All our childrens baby photos are on this drive oh nooooo

Thanks,

NicoleHi

The good NEWS is that you don't need a going WD My Book case so the usb to sata case you have BROUGHT will work with that drive once it is fixed.
There is 2 RESISTORS close to the power connector R64 and R67 these are 0 ohms and are there to provide some protection like a fuse. One or both are probably open circuit. Your tech at work can test that with an ohm meter.
Also check components md3 and md2 they should be high resistance like meg ohms.
If ether R64 and R67 are open, they need to be bridged if you do this with wire or solder make sure it is only to get the data off as the drive will no longer have over voltage protection.
If MD2 or MD3 is short circuit then they can just be removed.
 
You can't exchange boards on this hard drive without swapping the IC labeled u12
If the data is important then have a specialist do the above.
 
Thank you so much for this reply.  I will share your comments with the person in our office who is very tech savvy and see if he can help.

We had the drive and the PCB out today.  When we plugged in only the PCB to a power point in the wall a white light started flashing on it.  This was the same white light that FLASHED after the power surge when the drive was still in its case.

We can look at the current board as your suggestion which is great and if we can't he advised that we can order the same model PCB from eBay listed here;

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PCBA-4061-705094-001-Rev-AA-WD-MY-BOOK-Control-Board-USB3-0-4060-705094-001/201355189440?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D70e4e9f635934df6b3a835d2bd

Is that also a solution you think may work?

Thank you so much for your help here.  Very much appreciated

Nicole Hi

Sorry I should have said that it is the circuit board on the drive itself that has those components. The board from ebay is the part that converts the USB to SATA and although it could be needed if you didn't ALREADY have the replacement HDD docking station.
So the components are on the hard drive circuit board  Thanks again for all your help. 

We ordered the part from eBay last week and hopefully this will solve the problem now as the board on the hdd is working okay.  When we plugged the power into the old circuit board the white light just keeps blinking.  I've read a number of posts about this problem too and fingers crossed the new board works perfectly and can kick start some power into the drive.  It's definitely an electronic problem and the contents of the drive should be okay.  I can't see an electrical surge wiping everything out!

I'd feel so bad if we lost all our kids baby photos!!!

Thanks heaps again and I will keep you posted.

Nicole

Waiting anxiously

Greetings,

This is my first pc build and has gone bad. My computer does not make any beep and it does not post. Guided by tomshardware I tried a lot of things from there. Disconnected the battery, cleared the CMOS and then tried removing component by component and when I removed all ram sticks it starts doing a restart loop like every 5 seconds or so, but only when removing all ram sticks, if I put one ram stick it stays there all fans spining everything turns on but no beep or post. I haave change my mobo so this is the second one because I had the same problem with the first one. Also if anybody with the same motherboard can confirm this motherboard does beep?Please help.Here are my COMPONENTS:

Motherboard-Gigabyte Z97N-Gaming 5 Mini-ITX
PSU-Silverstone SFX SERIES 450W Fully Modular gold.
GFXC-MSI GTX 970 gaming
CPU-Intel Core i5 4690K
CPU-Cooler- Zalman CNPS 8900
RAM-2X8=16GB Kingstone Fury Hyper X

Another note is that I have only tried with hdmi cable, not sure if that INFO is of any value, since everything turns on, it might be that I don't have drivers for hdmi.
Borrow another PSU and swap it in there....BTW you won't get a Post with no RAM inserted. Quote from: patio on July 02, 2015, 07:53:00 AM

Borrow another PSU and swap it in there....BTW you won't get a Post with no RAM inserted.

The motherboard needs a speaker on the front panel header to give beep codes.
Unfortunately your motherboard doesn't have a speaker or connections for one.
And as your board doesn't have a PCI slot, a POST diagnostic card isn't an option.
It really is a tough one to diagnose. To answer your question no the board won't post beep.

It really is a tough one to diagnose. To answer your question no the board won't post beep.

About 2 weeks ago I got a really bad virus on pc my touchpad stopped working as well as a bunch of other things so I to just reset my Toshiba satellite by holding down the 0 button at START up with my Logitech k400 wireless keyboard but since the virus my touchpad on the wireless keyboard works but the keys no longer work any help WOULD be greatly appreciated thxA virus won't affect a keyboard...PERHAPS we could ask the OP how he knows the keyboard has the virus?
The obvious is to try using a standard keyboard and see what happens.
Some time ago USA Today did an article that IMPLICATED a virus could interfere with the keyboard. The SOLUTION is to remove the virus. 

ive got superantispyware I had avg now ive Kaspersky spyhunter I spent hours and hours one day downloading anti virus programs such as malwarebytes then running a scan quaranting viruses then when that didn't fix it then id uninstall and download a different one
Did you replace the batteries ?> ?I have brand new onesTry a different channel on the reciever....move all other wireless devices away from the PC...including phones.it dosent have oneTime to replace it then...how old is it ?about 1 year

Pls help me, my hp laptop gets stuck on hp invent screen, also the green light beside the amber color light won't lit up and it will not boot, and it also show autoit error WHENEVER it luckily boot.. Model: probook 4510.
Actually the problem STARTED the day I scanned my /c/ with eset 32 nod antivirus because it was CONVERTING all files on the usb, phone and flash drive to shortcut, after that , it start displaying an autoit error message on a popup any time I turned it on. How old is it?
After some five years of use it could have more than just  one issue.

As for AV scans and other third party software, one should always have backup plan in place.  If you do, now is the time to use it.

Have already used the system restore features?
geek it should be 4years Quote from: Geek-9pm on July 08, 2015, 05:31:05 PM

How old is it?
After some five years of use it could have more than just  one issue.

As for AV scans and other third party software, one should always have backup plan in place.  If you do, now is the time to use it.

Have already used the system restore features?

So I've noticed an issue lately. My performance in games has just been really bad when it shouldn't be. For example, I'm having framerate issues in a game on the lowest POSSIBLE video settings for a game I used to have no issues on high settings. And it isn't just this game, it's a few games. And this is after reinstalling windows a week or two ago.

I've also noticed my MEMORY usage being pretty high compared to normal 40%-60%. Granted, this is with firefox the hog running. But I'm having abnormally high memory usage regardless, even without firefox running.

And I can feel my laptop seems to be running hotter than normal. So my question is, does anyone have an idea what's CAUSING this and what I should do? The performance is concerning because despite being a laptop, it should be performing better (because it has before). I'm worried it's a hardware issue as a reinstall of windows didn't really improve anything.

Acer Aspire V3 771G
Running Windows 8.1
Nvidia 650 GTM
8gb RAM

I recently UPGRADE my computer's power from 350 to 500, but now it refuses to remain powered on for more than a couple seconds. The first TIME it remained on for 5 minutes, long enough for me to get a game running, but then it shut off, and now when I power it on it makes a sad whirring hum, then turns back off.
I decided to have some help putting in the thing, since I'd never done it before, but I am skeptical of the INDIVIDUAL's skill, as he went off a youtube video as he did the transfer. (Not that I have anything against tutorials, but if you're advertising as a computer hardware technician, it doesn't really help your credentials.)
     So I'm WONDERING, is it the hardware installation that sounds like it's an issue, or would it be compatibility with the other parts? I don't have a lot of knowledge regarding hardware, so I'm just looking for some help regarding the identification of the issue. Thanks!What make/model power supply for the 500 watt?

Is it brand new or one that was taken out of another computer?

Why was the prior power supply replaced... was it because of similar problems of unexpected shutdowns etc?

Have you verified that all fans are spinning freely and that there are no wires in the way of fan blades? ( * This can cause a very fast shutdown if a fan is not spinning as the system will protect itself... I have seen people install power supplies and other devices and have wires in the path of fans that cause the fans to slow or not spin and it causes the system to shutdown like you have happening. )I took a look and it was a loose cable was in the way. I zip tied it secure and out of the way, and now everything is running smoothly. Thanks for the help! Glad to hear it was this simple

Hi!

I have had a issue with my second HDD going SUPER slow, where it would read/write at around 50 BPS, or just not at all, and ultimately crash windows explorer. It happened once before, it kind of got fixed by itself after a few trial and errors with repairing disk through disk management. This was about a month or so ago. Just recently it has come back, and I want to try to find a more permanent solution to the problem. The times it seems to have come is after I've downloaded a file (been different kind of files), try to open it and windows explorer stops working. The OS on my pc is on the SDD, not the HDD, I only have some games/files on the HDD. It is properly connected inside, so if it is a hardware issue it must be the disk itself being bad. I use a bootleg Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, I use AVG (free VERSION) as anti-virus, and my pc SPECS are:

SSD: Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5" OEM
GPU: XFX Radeon R9 280X 3GB GDDR5
PSU: Cooler Master G750M, 750W PSU
MB:   ASUS M5A97 R2.0, Socket-AM3+
CPU: AMD FX-8320 Black Edition
RAM: CRUCIAL DDR3 BallistiX SPORT 1600MHz 8GB
HDD: SEAGATE Barracuda® 2TB

I've searched multiple times, and found similar issues, but not the same issue, and the fixes replied to in those issues have mostly been of no help.
If anyone has an answer, or know of a thread who could help, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
Quote

I use a bootleg Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

hello
 yesterday my pc froze, i had to disconnect the psu cable, when i tried to restart, i got the "unable to find os" message.
 so  i went to the sony help/tech' support & followed the instrutions, they told me to go to bios ( via f2 ) check the hd is recognised & if it is to re set the bios to default.
 well i did all this, the pc still shows unable to find os & to top it off the hd is now shown as "none" in bios.
 sony say the hd is faulty & to purchase a new one, as the pc is 7 years old, i can buy a hd from ebay, but i need some advice as i'm getting confused on the repair procedure.
 ok, 1) the replacement hard drive will have nothing on it, so i assume i need a fresh windows os, correct?
2) the hd will need to be partitioned so i'm told, so i need to carry out this operation first?
3) there are some guys on ebay selling "recovery discs " they say these discs can recover the  data from my faulty hard drive, does that sound true?
4) the replacement hd will have none of the original files from sony/windows, so will it even work on the pc if it boots up?
5) the firmware on the replacement drive is not the same as the original, is this gonna be ab issue?
6) how on earth is it possible in 2015 to have the entire os on ones pc completely removed, gone, vanished, without a trace, in 2 minutes
Thanks for any help in advance.

os windows 7 home premium
sony vaio vplc13s1e
8gb ram
hdd seagate barracuda st3100528asYou will have to reinstall the system, and its best to do this with a system recovery media set that you should be able to get from Sony.

The PARTITIONING WOULD be automatic.

Unles the recovery disc on ebay is for your specific system, I wouldn't use an alternate as for if its the real deal, they have hardware detection required to install. So for example if its the wrong disc media for the hardware that is in your system it will boot off the disc and then refuse to install as an antipiracy feature.

Gone without a trace in 2 minutes = drive was damaged in less than a second probably, or was failing and finally failed for good. Drives die. The system is 7 years old and if it was heavily used then there are many run hours on the system. I have seen drives die in less than 7 years so I feel you got possibly a good amount of use out of it before it DIED. Some drives live forever, others die.yeah, i guess 7 yrs ain't too bad, i'm saving the recovery disc OPTION to LAST, as that will 100% wipe all my data.  i made a set when i 1st got the pc.
i've been reading on the sony site, others have done the clean install, with success, so i'm gonna try that & then try to recover some of the data/files from my old hard drive.

Wasn't sure where to put this post...

Alright, so I'm having a problem with my LAPTOP. It's running slow. ODDLY slow. It was left alone never being turned on for about 4 months. (I was in Army OUST training) Now before I left I was able to play quite a few games with decently good FPS, easily 50-60 fps. When I got back and tried out a few games my fps was jumping from 12-60. So I completely restored my computer than fully updated it and I'm STILL getting these fps jumps. I'm using a ASUS laptop it's about 4 years old.

Any help would  be nice.Which games and what MODEL laptop?

Hello, I have a MSI X99s Sli mobo, and bar the GPU the new build is complete... Running some setup on it with an old 8600GT I've come into a problem.
Both CorsairLink and CPUID HWMonitor display "Cputin" at 126°C. Now I'm pretty sure it is an error. My question is, how do I FIX it? I plan to OC so want as accurate as I can get with readings.
I've tried:
Updating Bios, and Management engine.
Clearing Cmos.
Updating all DRIVERS.

Not really sure what else to try. I'd rather not just live with it if I can resolve the issue I would like to.

Specs: Msi x99s Sli plus, (bios 1. Cpu: 5820k (Not o/c) H100i GTX stock fans. Evga supernova 1000 G2. 8600GT Gpu. Windows 8.1. 250GB SSD/2TB HDD.

Screenshot of temps: http://gyazo.com/d6c0505e0ef53f806d73a598d42b31fbThis problem is common. Most live with it and their systems run fine. Overclocking though with inability to watch the CPU temp though is risky. I have seen where some hardware monitor software doesn't work with certain boards though and you can go into the BIOS and see the CPU temp there. However the problem with the BIOS CPU temp is that your CPU is idle when its reading the temp. If you see 0 or an INSANE temp in the BIOS for temp then the THERMOCOUPLE is likely damaged and its unable to report. If your in a situation where you must overclock and don't want to have a melt down, I'd go with liquid cooling or a really good heatsink that can draw the heat away and then overclock and you should be ok. Be sure you have fresh thermal compound as well to be sure that the thermal transfer between CPU surface and heatsink are as good as can be as well so that you don't have a CPU that roasts with inability to transfer the heat from its surface to the heatsink surface.All the other temps seem to read fine, it's just that one. I've seen reports of the problem just never a certain fix, perhaps there isn't one.

When I go to Bios is says temp is low 30's. I'm assuming that is okay, usually a bit higher temps then when Idle in windows, but only by a few °'s, I think it got to 39 once in bios, never higher.
 Your screenshot doesn't seem to show, at least on my end.

it's common for some sensors to display crazy values, usually 127 degrees, as they're not actually connected or reading anything at all.  Does HWMonitor not show you a reading from the CPU itself?  It should show you one reading per core really, I've just taken a shot of mine to compare.

Attached a file to make it easier. It does show other temps and they all seem fine. (At least to me, someone here might see an issue I'm not aware of )
It's just that one, which although I know is an error, having it show up in HWM and Corsair Link just bothers me and was hoping I could fix it to give an accurate reading.

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]

I have an old system as backup which uses an old HP monitor. The model is HP VS 17e.
Recently some  white pixels started showing up in the middle of the screen that stays stuck whenever the display is on. Also when viewing any image or watching a video the portion where these pixels show up stays dark. The image file attached MIGHT give you an idea of what the problem is. Would LIKE to know if there is a fix around this or if the monitor has run it's coarse. I occasionally use this monitor for some color related work and now due to this prob the colors don't seem true.

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]Reinstall you r vid card drivers and re-boot...if still the same it's the monitor.I know it's got nothing to do with the GPU. Wanted to know if there is any work around the problem or should  I dispose the monitor.Generally dead pixels stay dead but if they are just stuck, not dead,  as a last RESORT before dumping the monitor, there are a few things that people try, some physical and some software based. I should make some things absolutely clear: there is no guarantee that any of these things will work, or if they work, that the same or other pixels won't die in the future. You should only try the physical methods if you were GOING to dump the monitor. You could make things worse or damage the panel. Hope that is clear. Don't blame me if you bust your screen.

Physical:

1. Pressure Method

Turn off the monitor.

Get a damp washcloth, so that you don't scratch your screen.

Take a pen, pencil, screwdriver, or some other sort of instrument with a focused, but relatively dull, point. A very good tool would be a PDA stylus.

Fold the washcloth to make sure you don't accidentally puncture it and scratch the screen.

Apply pressure through the folded washcloth with the instrument to exactly where the stuck pixel is.

Try not to put pressure anywhere else, as this may make more stuck pixels.

While applying pressure, turn on your computer and screen.

Remove pressure and the stuck pixel may be be gone.

2. Tapping Method

Turn on the computer and LCD screen.

Display a black image, which will show the stuck pixel very clearly against the background. (It is very important that you are showing a black image and not just a blank signal, as you need the backlighting of the LCD to be illuminating the back of the panel).

Find a pen with a rounded end. A Sharpie marker with the cap on should be fine for this.

Use the rounded end of the pen to gently tap where the stuck pixel is - not too hard to start with, just enough to see a quick white glow under the point of contact. If you didn't see a white glow, then you didn't tap hard enough, so use just slightly more pressure this time.

Start tapping gently. Increase the pressure on the taps gradually for 5-10 taps until the pixel rights itself.

Display a white image e.g. an empty text document to verify that you haven't accidentally caused more damage than you fixed.

3. Software methods

Use a "pixel exerciser" app or go to an online web page such as http://www.jscreenfix.com/index.html

Exerciser apps and websites

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-software-solutions-to-fix-a-stuck-pixel-on-your-lcd-monitor/





Thanks for the info.