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I've built a few PCs so far- The first one in 2008, a second to replace it in 2014, and also a experimental "budget" build to see how cheaply I could build a system. These were all for me.

My brother's birthday is coming up (21) and I got to thinking how he's still using his first computer that he got in 2007- I've gone through 3 and a laptop in the same time frame, and I consider myself rather reserved in when I decide to upgrade.  It looks identical to the one listed here, The specs don't match up- It came with slightly higher specs then those listed. He mostly uses it for browsing and games- I'm not privvy to the specifics though I believe one of them is League of Legends. He's likely restricted in what games he can play because of his specs.

I bought him a 9800GTX+ quite some time ago, and more recently he was having issues and I fixed it up for him. In the process I upgraded the memory from the stock 2GB to 4GB by taking two sticks out of my old build. I think he is planning on saving up for a new system but I know from experience (My own first build, when I was working at the same sort of job/pay level) that such things can take a while.

I've considered giving him one of my computers, or even my old laptop that compares favourably to his system- maybe swapping parts like the 9800GTX+ into them where applicable to make the system better, and I'm sure he'd like that just fine. But I have a tendency to go overkill, and this is no exception, so I've been considering the idea of a completely new build.

----------

That leads me to this forum for advice as to the build I have currently specced out. I'll provide the specific parts list then an explanation of my choice and likely alternatives. (Prices are in Canadian, so if they look ridiculous that is why, hah)

Motherboard: Gigabyte Intel Z97 LGA 1150 Micro ATX Motherboard GA-Z97M-DS3H  $130.99
CPU: Intel Core i3 4160 $170.73
PSU: Corsair RM 650 $143.99
GPU: EVGA Geforce GTX 750Ti $167.54
RAM: 8GB Corsair XMS3 (2x4GB) $74.77
Case: Fractal Design 1100 $65.72
SSD: Crucial BX200 240GB $97.99
HDD: 1TB WD Blue $72.75

Total: $924.48


Motherboard:

I've had good experiences with Gigabyte motherboards. I suspect this may be less a result of Gigabyte being any better then other brands and mostly because I've only bought Gigabyte motherboards. The motherboard arguably fits into the CPU decision. I went with this one because it seems to be a respectable board.

CPU:

I went with an i3 here because it's cheaper than an i5 or an i7 and considering he's using an ancient <2Ghz Dual core the performance improvement will still be a massive jump upwards. an i5 is a consideration. I think an AMD CPU (And motherboard) might be the best choice here over an Intel system but couldn't settle on any particular configuration so went with "What I sort of knew" here.

Power Supply: I went with Corsair for the same reason I chose Gigabyte. I bought a Corsair PSU for my first build and then bought one for every build after, and none of them have caught fire yet after years of service so they can't be terrible. Other brands are hardly off the table by any means, as with the motherboard. I went with the RM650 because it's the same PSU I'm using in this system. Modular cables probably don't matter much in this case, and my "napkin calculations" indicate that it should be enough wattage to run the system adequately.

Graphics Card:

This comes down to NVidia/AMD. I don't have a preference and I don't think my brother does either (and if he does he can buy his own bloody graphics card ). I don't want to go too high with this one- aiming for less than $200 for the Graphics card. Same thought as with the CPU- the jump from the 9800GTX+ should be huge even if the 750Ti doesn't compare favourably to a lot of other modern cards. (I think a Radeon R7 might be a good drop-in replacement to reduce costs without sacrificing performance. I see some less than $100 which would be a great reduction.

RAM:

Straightforward. None of this fancy gibberish where the RAM has heatsinks shaped like dragon genitals or whatever they seem to go for. I've used XMS3 myself for two systems and like the power supplies they haven't caught fire or caused any issues. Seems difficult to go wrong with RAM these days.

Case:

I used this same case for my "budget" build, and I think it is great looking while remaining affordable. I was concerned that it's smaller form factor would make it more difficult to work inside but building the system I used it for and I didn't have any problems.

SSD/HDD: His current system has a 250GB HDD that probably wants to die, so removing the HDD and leaving the comparably sized SSD to save cost- or use it for other components, is probably a great way to cut cost. I went with 1TB since it was only a few dollars more than the 500GB I originally selected.


Possible alternatives: AMD CPU/Motherboard; drop the HDD, use a Radeon R7? I'm trying to make it as cheap as possible without making it cheap... if that makes sense! THANKS in advance for any suggestions/advice.




I do mostly AMD builds myself, mainly because I am cutting corners in cost, but I would say stick with the build you have and the i3 listed as for if later he needs more processing power, the ceiling cap of performance is much higher on the Intel vs the AMD with the i7 upgrade later if needed worth it and the i7 processor cost will drop in time and become much more affordable.

Additionally AMD is not doing so hot and their future is unknown. In the past going with an AMD + socket build usually meant a long 2 or 3 CPU generation upgrade path for a build such as AM2+ would take a wide range of AM2 and AM3 CPUs, however with socket AM3+ if AMD fails tomorrow, there will be lesser upgrade path for the AM3+ board. Additionally the chipset controls the range of processor support as well as in my case I went with a build with a board that is maxed out for processing power because of the chipset support limit.

Sadly AMD isnt going to pull themselves out of the mess they are in, and their core design is lagging behind Intel. With my AMD FX-8350 8-core 4000Mhz build, I found out after the fact that the cores although 8 of them are trailing by 2 or 3 generations compared to Intel. Found this out when running single threaded program on the 8-core and performance seemed lesser than expected per core. Is it plenty of power,.... YES its plenty and overkill for most applications I have for it. After I built it and the local power company doubled our rates, I actually shut it down for about 5 months only turning it on when needed thinking I should probably have not built the system and saved my money and the 2009 build dual-core AMD Athlon 64 x2 4450B 2.3Ghz I continued to run instead because its power draw was 1/3 of the power draw of the 8-core system and otherwise ran fine for all games I used on it etc. Additionally I built my system on a motherboard that the maximum CPU supported is the AMD FX-8350, and the motherboard doesnt support the 4200Mhz Turbo feature so it only runs at 4000Mhz max of which I have cool n quiet enabled so it idles at 1400Mhz and sips electrons when idle or low work load vs running full tilt. I built this system figuring that it would be overkill and should last me a while, hoping to get 8 years out of it like my AM2+ 2009 build that is still in use and now better with a Athlon II x4 620 2600Mhz CPU in it at 780Mhz idle with cool n quiet enabled, and retired the dual-core 4450B 2.3Ghz that I overclocked to 2.53Ghz. However, the 4GB RAM of DDR2 800Mhz on this older system, I have started to see where the free memory is getting lesser and lesser as games I am running on it with Windows 7 64-bit are getting more needy and so with 4GB RAM I have seen my available memory drop to 300MB so its days are coming to an end at some point after 7 years of use 3 CPU upgrades ( Sempron x2 2300, then Athlon 64 x2 4450B, and then Athlon II x4 620 ) and a few video card upgrades ( Geforce 8400GS, Radeon HD 5450, and then  [ EVGA 896-P3-1267-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card ]   as seen here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130400&cm_re=evga_core_216_260_gtx-_-14-130-400-_-Product )

I like Gigabyte brand, good quality, features and price. I went with this board, because it had the best of old and new and I wanted legacy IDE support with modern SATA to make use of dual IDE DVD-RW drives without having to buy new SATA DVD-RW drives saving myself about $40 using legacy when for an DVD drive IDE is still plenty of speed for them, and the SATA bus gets the best of use by SSD and HDD's that communicate much faster than optical drives.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4305#ov

Thanks, Dave.

the AMD alternative was able to drop the price by quite a margin- $793.53. Also I did the math and I wish I thought of this earlier since it seems budget is a greater concern than I realized- I Could have, you know, not bought a Japanese Super Famicom, if I had considered this idea earlier, but too late now... at any rate, because of that I'm considering some possible cost-cutting measures. taking on-board the consideration to allow him (or me) to get additional components for the system while reducing the Initial cost.

1. Definitely dropping the HDD. SDD could technically be a later upgrade but going from HDD to SDD would mean moving the Windows install which would be a bit annoying. a 240GB SSD would be the same size as his current HDD and much faster so still an upgrade. Based on what I've seen I don't think disk space is a concern for him- and if it is or he wants more storage a HDD can be an affordable upgrade.

2. Another interesting thought I had was to drop the graphics card. This would require either an on-board graphics solution (an Intel processor or an AMD APU) or we could bring forward his 9800GTX+ and go with something like the FX (which doesn't have on-board). In both cases, the idea would be the slap a more capable card in later. My reasoning is that this would seem to make an AMD APU less preferred, since it would only be needed temporarily; for Intel chips they all have integrated GMA by my understanding so that is less of a significant problem (Xeon processors aren't in the running here, anyway). Dropping the graphics card would also mean that it would likely be possible to get a more significant graphics card in the future. Or, another possibility is I could upgrade my own graphics card and give him the 770, which would still be a significant upgrade over either on-board possibility or the brought-forward 9800GTX+.

3. Power Supply. the RM650 is a fairly good PSU but I'm thinking it might be workable to get a more inexpensive unit. My first consideration here was a Corsair CX 430M, which is nearly $100 cheaper. This is also the PSU I'm using in my aforementioned budget AMD system and similar back-of-the-napkin calculations suggest it should be enough to run a modest configuration, even adding in a GTX 970 or R7 later on. ANother possibility was anEVGA 500W Supply. There are other options such as the Corsair CS 450 which could reduce the initial cost without impeding future upgrades.

4. Save it for Christmas, heh

This leaves me with two possible builds, which really boils down to a AMD/Intel QUESTION (as well as Intel GMA versus 9800GTX+, I suppose):

AMD Version:

CPU: AMD FX-8350 Black $169.99
Motherboard: Gigabyte AM3+ GA-78LMT-USB3 $58.33
GPU: Bring forward his existing 9800GTX+ ($0)
PSU: Corsair CS430 $65.99
RAM: Corsair XMS3 8GB $74.77
Case: Fractal Design 1100 $65.72
SSD: Crucial 240GB $97.99

Total: ~$532.79

Intel Version:

CPU: Intel i3 4160 $170.73
Motherboard: GA-Z97M-DS3H   $130.99
GPU: Bring forward 9800GTX+, or use Intel GMA 4400 on the i3)
PSU: Corsair CS 430M $65.99
RAM: XMS3 8GB 74.77
Case: Fractal Design 1100 $65.72
SSD: Crucial 240GB $97.99

Total ~$606

Intel GMA 4400 seems to lose to the 9800GTX+ by a wide margin, which I actually didn't expect, so it's looking like bringing the 9800GTX+ forward. would likely be the case for both, here.

I was looking at the two, and seems the price difference is less about the CPU and more due to the motherboard. I suppose it's a bit of a toss-up here- either way, the Intel build with future upgrades stripped out is cheaper than my originally specced AMD system. Though I don't think I have a preference- as I don't put much stock in Doom & Gloom predictions of AMD since after we have the parts, AMD's involvement going forward will be practically non-existent. That, and the higher end AMD chip costs the same as the lower-end i3's on Intel's side.




Going with a slightly cheaper power supply would be a good idea - The RM650 is a great unit but you are paying a lot for nice things like modular cabling - I'd look at some sort of nice Seasonic unit or one built by them such as one from XFX.

With the AMD build I wouldn't see that motherboard as being comparable to the Intel one - The AMD 760G chipset is extremely old (From 2009) and therefore lacks features such as native USB 3.0 (it's provided by a 3rd party controller) and SATA III.  For a comparable board you'd really need to go for something with a 970 chipset or better (bear in mind that for some reason these are all regular ATX sized boards).

As far as the SSD goes, The crucial BX series aren't great, I'd bump that up to an MX using the money you save on the PSU.Very impressive. 
About overkill.
SSD: Crucial BX200 240GB $97.99
That is a lot of SSD. You might cut that in half and get about the same performance.
Or maybe you really like your brother. 
Quote from: Geek-9pm on February 16, 2016, 07:06:50 AM

You might cut that in half and get about the same performance.
Or maybe you really like your brother. 

have you considered getting the components and doing the build with him ? ?

Going with a slightly cheaper power supply would be a good idea - The RM650 is a great unit but you are paying a lot for nice things like modular cabling - I'd look at some sort of nice Seasonic unit or one built by them such as one from XFX.

With the AMD build I wouldn't see that motherboard as being comparable to the Intel one - The AMD 760G chipset is extremely old (From 2009) and therefore lacks features such as native USB 3.0 (it's provided by a 3rd party controller) and SATA III.  For a comparable board you'd really need to go for something with a 970 chipset or better (bear in mind that for some reason these are all regular ATX sized boards).

As far as the SSD goes, The crucial BX series aren't great, I'd bump that up to an MX using the money you save on the PSU.

Given the i3 is not overclockable you could get a cheaper, non Z97 motherboard.

1 more afterthought...not sure it applies in your area but Samsung SSD's have gotten more aggressive with their pricing lately...

The specification of my system is HP Pavilion p2-1256il Desktop PC

 Processor : Intel Core i3 2120T
 Motherboard : IPXSB-DM (Cork2)

 Memory

 •Amount: 2 GB
 •Speed: PC3-12800 MB/sec (runs as PC3-10600 in this system)
 •Type: DDR3-1600
Memory upgrade information As Given in the Support Page:  
 • Dual channel memory architecture
 •Two 240-pin DDR3 UDIMM sockets
 •Supports DDR3 UDIMMs
 •PC3-8500 (DDR3-1066)
 •PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333)
 •PC3-12800 (DDR3-1600 with Ivy Bridge processors)
 •Non-ECC memory only, unbuffered
 •Supports up to 16 GB on 64-bit systems (with 8 GB UDIMMs)
 Will it support Any of the following RAM:
 G.SKILL 4GB X 1 DDR3 1600MHZ CL9 RIPJAWS X
 Link : http://goo.gl/1Q2Ruk
 Corsair CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9 Vengeance 4GB Single Module DDR3 Memory Kit
 Link : http://goo.gl/IfSK5q
 And if possible say which is better .
 PLEASE HELP ME
 P E A C E I'd check out your other RAM stick the 2GB stick to see if its a 1600, it might just be a 1333mhz fsb stick. I like to match the FSB on RAM especially when mixing memory. You will not get dual-channel memory with a size pairing mismatch, but you will get the 6GB. I prefer Corsair over G-Skill.

You mentioned its a 1600 running at 1333. I'd double check on this by inspecting the memory stick itself.He would be better off using 2 matched stiks and taking it to 8G ...instead of mis-matched 6G...I agree that a mismatch of size is not the best, however PERFORMANCE impact is very small in single channel vs dual channel. Its like only a 5% loss of performance hit last I read to run single channel. If money is tight and they dont mind a 5% performance hit to the memory it will probably work out just fine as long as both RAM sticks play well TOGETHER. The performance benefit of more memory would likely far outweigh the 5% performance hit as for 2GB of RAM is really tight for OS Windows 7 or newer and especially if any modern gaming or heavy multitasking is to be involved. There should be a great reduction in paging to hard drive which will make the system feel more responsive and less laggy.

If they can afford a matched pair of 4GB sticks to get 8GB in dual channel that would be best, however is the extra 2GB memory and 5% memory performance gain worth the extra money...  I'm cheap and would probably run on 6GB myself and eventually get another 4GB stick down the road from a free dead computer or something if it was my system.   

My wifes system has 3GB RAM all mismatched brands from other dead computers i gutted for good parts, 2 x 1GB and 2 x 512MB DDR2 667Mhz sticks and no problems, other than her system a Core 2 Duo E6600 with Geforce 9800GT 1GB Video Card with a ATA100 160GB HDD running Windows 7 32-bit is starting to show its age with games she plays to where I have had to lower GRAPHIC settings in games to get the frame rate back up and make her happy and stretch the systems LIFE another year or so for a 2007 model computer. Its fortunate that the most complex game is World of Warcraft which performance settings can be reduced greatly in graphics and not look too horrible to maintain 30 fps.

I have an EL1850-01e computer, with Celeron 450 processor, 4GB RAM, 64 GB SSD, and Raedon X600 video card. I just did a fresh install of W7 Home Premium 64 bit. When I check CPU usage with the Task Manager, it seems to be unreasonably high. There's almost no programs installed yet that would take up a lot of processing power, nor time since the install for viruses and malware to take over. As a benchmark, when I play a video with Windows Media Player, I get an average 70 percent LOAD showing on Task Manager. Any ideas what could be causing this? What do you expect to be normal?
What kind of video? You Tube?
If so, this might APPLY:
High CPU with You Tube (Tom's Hardware.)
Quote

It's chrome.exe that is eating all the CPU when watching a video otherwice it's fine and doesnt use much. I also tried disabling all my addons, but there was no difference,

I have a gateway all in one touchscreen, turn it on it starts to power but shuts off, tested power supply it is fine, had another good one so i INSTALLED it still wouldn't power on. Is this a motherboard issue? Cant be the switch because it tries to power on. How would i troubleshoot this further?The problem is with your power regulator if you change the regulator on your mother board every will be as good as new.How many seconds is it on before it shuts off and does the time it stays live vary or always consistent?Only about 2 seconds and it is consistent. Any history not shared yet on what might have DAMAGED it... it was dropped or got wet or a bad storm rolled through or static discharge from finger or did it just one day simply stop working?Posable static discharge, i DIDNT change the power supply myself so who knows what they did, other then that it just one day stopped working. Take it back and demand they fix it properly...

My guess is they swapped in a generic power brick...i would lol but its a friend asking me to fix it, they thought they could do it and they couldnt, i am not experienced in motherboard troubleshooting but i would have at least USED a static MATT when changing the power supply, I wont have time for couple days to mess with it but i am going to try a couple things and post here to see if it worked or not. While you are in there see which PSU is replaced with and look at the Manuf. page to see if it matches...i'll bet a Beer it doesn't.

Had an Asrock z77 wouldn't switch on. 
Tested the PSU with a tester and it said all okay except -5V.

Went to an old Acer Aspire which was working well and TOOK the PSU from it and tried it.  But it didn't work. 

So we decided to use the Acer and moved it into position.  And then it wouldn't work.

Tested both PSU's and both are all okay except for -5V.

Neither machine will switch on.

Both machines have an external power on switch from the jumpers on the motherboard in order to cut out the case switch as being the problem.

The Acer has been using that for switching on for a long time.  With no TROUBLE.

Well now the Acer switches on the PSU and the CPU fan rotates. But the case fan doesn't turn and there's no life to the monitor at all, no POSAT, no nothing.

The Asrock does nothing.  PSU fan doesn't turn.  Case fan  no,  cpu fan, no.

Any ideas?

Don't worry about the -5v - It's an ancient rail that modern PSUs don't have as nothing uses it.

You said that the Acer had issues after you "moved it into position" - Are you sure it's not something external to the computer such as any of your peripherals that you are connecting that are causing the problem?  I'd suggest disconnecting everything from the computer so you literally just have the power connected and then see what happens (may even be worth trying a different wall outlet just in case).
 Wow, thanks for the speedy reply.  And thanks for the info about the -5V.  I've asked in so many forums and nobody answers that question.  It is like I didn't ask.  Very good to have it settled once and for all.

 The computers were one in the workshed and one in the boy's room.  Asrock in his room.  Acer in the shed.

 So I don't know of any peripherals in common that they've shared.

 The Acer PSU was exposed to the Asrock board and the Asrock PSU was exposed to the Acer board.  ie. I swapped them whilst trying to solve this.  Gave him mine and tried to use his on the Acer.

 Apart from that nothing in common I can think of.

How bare bones can I get and expect to see some response from the motherboard?  I've got them back to motherboard, HDD, keyboard and mouse and get the response I mentioned, which boils down to nil really.

Noticed the case fan of the Acer gives a twitch when I switch off the power   It never switched on but it twitches on the way off.

And the Acer sits there making little clicking sounds like a HDD seeking maybe,  while the screen is black and there's no other signs of life.  Eventually it switches itself off.

It is time I learned how to trouble shoot motherboards.  I have about maybe eight collected from past failures where I"ve taken them out and put in new (second hand usually) ones.

If I can get on top of a trouble shooting, diagnostic routine I could go through them and finally figure out what will work and what should be thrown away.

This hassle now might be a good time to get that together.

this could blow up your pc so take advice with a grain of salt
ive had at least 3 different mobo`s and case`s and power button issue`s over the years what i have done is take a screwdriver or metal object and jumped the connectors that the power button wire attaches to on the mobo it worked for me and there was nothing wrong with the buttons and or mobo`s they worked for years after in my caseYou can safely ignore the above advice...
 That advice is redundant in my case.  I did mention that both computers are currently fitted with and external power on switch from the jumpers.  That is effectively what the poster is talking about.  Only instead of shorting the jumpers I've put in a momentary switch to make things easier for myself. 

That eliminates the case switch as the cause of the problem. 

I already knew the Acer had a broken case switch.  It needs the new one.

The Asrock apparently doesn't because it made no difference.

And now it makes no difference to the Acer,  either.

They both have a problem somewhere else.



For what it is worth...
There was a 'recal'l on the Asrock z77 motherboard.

Asrock Intel Recall - ASRock In the News

Does not make any sense.  Issue seems to be SATA ports.
Does anybody here know more about this?

Relevant information:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme4/


ASRock has over 16 different motherboard models using the z77 chipset. A more descriptive model NUMBER could be useful. I imagine it is safe to say that it's not one of the motherboards that feature a power switch and reset button directly on the motherboard or the Debug LED display, as I'm sure you would have noted both of those.

A minimal test for a motherboard would be with only the CPU installed. It should then give a Beep code indicating no RAM, which in this case should be three long beeps. If it doesn't, then it is either a failed CPU or a motherboard problem. as ASRock motherboards will do absolutely nothing (No beeps or anything) without a CPU or with a failed CPU. If it does, then you add back components and attempt to power it up until it fails- which would tend to point you at the LAST component you added.

It is safe to say there is no visible damage or obviously failed components such as capacitors on the motherboards?

It can also be useful to REMOVE the motherboard from the case (assuming you haven't done so), mostly because it makes it more accessible but also because the issue could be caused by a short with metal components of the case.

One useful feature is the aforementioned "Diagnostic" LED. This is a two-digit, seven segment display that is mounted in many modern motherboards and the Hexadecimal code that it shows effectively tells you what the motherboard is doing. These are an integrated version of a diagnostic tool called a "Diagnostic POST Card", so even without one on the motherboard it is still a possibility. these are expansion cards that can be installed which will effectively monitor the startup process and display a Hex Code. If you have several motherboards that you think have failed it could be useful to get one of those to determine where things are going wrong as it may point you towards possible remedies, or at least give you "Closure" that the board is dead.



  That's a good idea.  In fact if I go rummaging around I think I might have one of those - bought for pennies from eBay some time in the past on the spur of the moment and never actually used...  I'll go looking for it...

  Before I give them up for dead I'll do that ' reflowing ' thing.  It seems to have worked sometimes.

 With me its mainly nonsense.  The boards I have are mainly so old they're historic relics really.  Even my 'good' ones are now getting to be so old....

 But I amuse myself...

there are no fans

intel Haswell i7 4th Generation CPU, Dual Core, 4M Cache, Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
8GB DDR3L RAM, 128GB mSATA 3.0 6Gbps SSD
intel HD4400 Graphics, 3200*2000 Resolution supported
2*LAN, 2*HDMI, 1*SPDIF OUT, 4*USB 3.0, 4*USB 2.0, AUDIO in/output, Card Reader
Smart Design, Fanless, Metal Case, Silent WORKING, High Speed CPU and SSD, 2 Year WarrantyNo idea...who makes it ? ?...what Model # ? ?dosent say model here but i googled kingdel and they have been around for about 10 years
Kingdel® Intel Haswell i7 4th Generation CPU Mini Box PC, Fanless HTPC, Mini Desktop Computer with 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 2*HDMI, 2*LAN, 4*USB3.0 Wi-Fi, Windows 10 Pro
by KINGDEL
Where are you buying it from ? ?...Link ?Looks like this one here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdel%C2%AE-Haswell-Generation-Fanless-Computer/dp/B01AFYDEL2

That should be fine - It looks as though it is using the case as a heatsink so as long as you don't shove it in a really enclosed environment it should be fine.  It's a laptop chip, not a full desktop one so the CPU is only around 15w anyway - Won't get that hot.  I wouldn't recommend running it at 100% CPU load constantly or anything but for regular usage it should be fine.http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01B178WIC/ref=dp_olp_new_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=new

i know amazon has a great policy for returns

but im going to be using it as a full time htpc streaming on kodi streaming netfflix 18 hrs aday its for a homebound personthanks for input
free help that insane just joking
 thanks againHmm, I'd maybe be a bit careful with that - Just noticed that it's from an Amazon Marketplace seller, not Amazon directly so if it fails you will have to deal with the seller who appears to ship from china.  I'd also be wary of the included copy of Windows 10 Pro - On a cheap device like that being shipped directly from China, I'd be suspicious of how genuine it is, of course you can always supply your own licence or use Linux.

You may want to look at devices such as the Intel NUC and Gigabyte Brix which can be found around the same price (Albeit maybe only with an i5, i3 or Celeron chip instead of the i7) - Those would perform fine for a 1080p HTPC and would generally be a bit better supported in terms of warranty or at least find that machine being sold by Amazon directly with some sort of reasonable warranty.Everything about the whole thing stinks...
I wouldn't buy one them from a reputable seller...much less eBay...have you considered buying the person maybe a laptop from the pawn shop i found a really good one for watching kodi for $150 it came with windows 8 and i know its completely legit plus it had a 30 day warrantyConvection cooling is not a good idea. Except for very small units that have large surface area to volume.  Even so,  a small fan helps.
Academic reference:
http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/py105/notes/Heattransfer.html

so here are my SPECS for my computer
2 AMD 6870 video cards
Dedicated Memory   2.0 GB
Total Memory   3.1 GB
Pixel Shader Version   5.0
Vertex Shader Version   5.0
Hardware T & L   Yes
Memory   3.0 GB

8 Gb RAM

AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 955 Processor quad core quad core 3.4 Ghz

Sound Device 2   Creative SB X-Fi

Sound Device 3   AMD High Definition Audio Device

1 Tb Hard Driveoh and 1,000 watt Cooler Master power supplyanyone please i had this custom built for me and i plan to play alot of games but i need to know what my limits might be  and i really dont know much about computersIt is a capable system but for gaming you'll have trouble running most AAA titles from 2012 and later without reducing settings, I expect. The hardware you listed was released in 2011 or earlier.
Are there any titles that catch your attention that you would like to run on this so we can say whether they will run ok or not for you.

This system is an aged system and there are far better systems out there. Depending on what you plan on running it may be overkill, plenty, or not enough processing/GPU power for best performance.

A game like Witcher 3 can bring this system to its knees. It might run it but it would struggle and so settings would have to be lowered.the sims 3 & 4, Fallout 4, i like alot of FPS and top down games like the command and conquer series, i also like elder scrolls SKYRIM and oblivion and S.T.A.L.K.E.R but i had problems with it for some reason it was really laggy and im not sure why its an older game otherwise rpgs lol.and i really dont mind lower settings im all about the game and gameplay and storyline not so much about the graphics but i do love a good look about graphics so if i dont have to lower them id rather not.You will not have any problem playing sims, however fallout 4 has higher spec requirements, here is whats recomended:
 Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz/AMD FX-9590 4.7 GHz or equivalent
8 GB RAM
30 GB free HDD space
NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB/AMD RADEON R9 290X 4GB or equivalent

You can go here http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/fallout-4/12905/?p=r to check the specs. according to that it says i only have one 6870 graphics card but i have 2 installed and linked together correctly so i should be able to run it on minimum graphics correct?YesGreetings!

Id like to add my 2 cents to this. I run a single 6870 and can manage to play GTA V with medium/high. It handles QUITE well. Granted im running an AMD FX 8120 that has 8 cores but im sure your rig can handle most games at medium. Perhaps some titles will run at low, but its still a peppy system.
good luck! thx all for your help and i talked to the guy who built my PC hes gunna get me a nivida 660 Ti maybe 2 so i can run fallout 4 here's hopingThat really isn't that huge an upgrade and IMO you would be better off getting a single, better card.  Why not try it with your current setup and see how it performs before spending money on new video cards?well he told me i wouldn't have to pay for it so i was just going to let him upgrade me can't beat free lol and seeing as the setup i currently have with everything custom i only had to pay $700 for it oh and i was wrong the power supply is 750 watt cooler master

I tried a dual boot with my windows 7 SSD and a windows 10 HDD but then wanted to go back to just my Windows 7 SSD.
I now have a problem in so much as I have to always press F8 to enter the BIOS boot menu because if I don't then the BIOS doesn't find my Windows 7 on my SSD and I get a blue screen stating that it can't find the windows start file. When I go into the BIOS boot menu using F8 then I get a LIST of boot OPTIONS:- 1 is my Samsung DVD, 2 is my Atapi DVD, 3 is my Data HDD and 4 is my System SSD. I've been into the Bios advanced options and tried altering the choice of boot drives to only HDD's but it doesn't help. In the boot menu priority there is only the Samsung DVD and my Data HDD Listed to swop

Any idea how I can get the BIOS to just boot from my SSD

Regards

Dave

There's a lot to this.  It took three weeks and a few posts here, hours of looking at the Asus forums and over £1000 of money spent.  Some good money after bad there, but mostly well spent.

I'll try to keep this brief because there's a lot to it.  If this helps someone else to diagnose a problem or save themselves cash then it's done it's job.  Maybe it will help an advisor here - I certainly learned a lot.

First the original SYSTEM - I'll give you the bits that count:

CPU - AMD Athlon 4200 X2
Ram - 2x 512 Kingston DDR 400 + 2x Corsair 512 DDR400
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-K8N-Pro SLi
GPU - XFX 7800GT PCI-e
HDD - Western Digital SE16 320 Sata II (x2)
PSU - Seasonic S12 500Watt

The whole thing was cooled with a water system and ran close to silent.  The temps were pretty normal under load - perhaps edging towatrds the high side but well within the max temps for GPU and CPU per the manufacturers webside (topping out at maybe 70c.

The PC was on and I was watching the TV.  The pc started making a noise louder than it should - the water was leaking.  Switched off.  Found the LEAK and checked that no liquid had gone insode the case.  It hadn't.  Phew.  Fixed the leak, refilled, switched on - dead.  Nothing.  No PSU fans.  Nothing.  Unplugged a few things, reseated them (remember that apart from the water leaking, and therefore higher temps, nothing else had happened)

The Mobo had died on me once before and gave me the same result, but I was aware that this could also be a PSU issue so I shorted the main pins as recommended on the Seasonic site and the PSU powered up.  So I went and bought a new mobo.  This time, the LED on the mobo lit to indicate power was FLOWING.  When I switched on the PSU, the led flashed but again, zero occurrence.  So I bought a new PSU.  This time the PSU came on and the whole lot got to the point of POST testing but failed with Memory errors (1 long and 3 short beeps on AMI BIOS) and I also still had no video.

So at this stage the PC config is:

CPU - AMD Athlon 4200 X2
Ram - 2x 512 Kingston DDR 400 + 2x Corsair 512 DDR400
Mobo - Asus A8N32 SLi Deluxe
GPU - XFX 7800GT PCI-e
HDD - Western Digital SE16 320 Sata II (x2)
PSU - Jeantech Arctic 600w modular

I borrowed an old PCI graphics card from work - it was a TNT pro (!) and this seemed to work.  So I started shopping for a new GPU.  For old times sake, I decided just to give the 7800 another try and as if by magic it booted.  It worked.

That's where we got to with this thread here.

I started to play again.  Wasn't confident enough that I should put the lid back on yet, but I started to run some tests, update a few drivers etc and suddenly the hard drive glitches.  Then again.  It's the rough EM 'scrape' noise you get when you turn off a computer and which I'd heard before when a Hitachi drive decided to let go on me once.  Again it glitched.  Third time, the computer BSOD's with an nvata.sys error.

I did a search and that told me it was often driver errors but I knew from my previous problem that this was also a possible HD failure.  So i swapped the drive to my spare WD drive.  Started to reload windows (it needed to be configured as a boot disk as it had been secondary up until then) but again the errors started.  i felt sure it was NOT the hard drives but something else.

Using a handy laptop, I downloaded memtest 86 and memtest 86+ and created a boot disk.  I disconnected the hard drives and ran the tests and this gave me errors in Test #6.  No idea what that means, and there's no clear instruction anywhere what it might indicate, but there they were.  Errors in test #6.

I then read that AMD CPU chips have a memory controller onboard.  So what could the problem be?  The CPU, the Mobo, or the memory?  I spoke to a man who had a stall at a computer fair.  His place was not too far from me so i took him all three and he ran them OVERNIGHT.  he recommended replacing the RAM with some ECC memory.  he took in the old RAM and charged me a small premium on top.  but he had run it overnight with his own GPU and HD plugged in with no problems.

I got the kit back and plugged it all in and ran memtest.  Everything was fine.  It ran three or four cycles without a hitch.  So I added everything else back and started to load Windows onto the spare drive again.  Glitch in the hard drive again.

I unplugged it all and ran memtest 86 once again and guess what?  Errors in test #6.

So at this point, after almost three weeks fiddling about in the evenings and weekends, tests running overnight etc I gave up.  I went out and bought myself a whole load of new kit which works.  So now I have:

* Mobo - Asus P5b deluxe (Intel 965 chipset)
* CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 Conroe
* RAM - 2Gb OCZ 6400 (800Mhz) DDR2
* Video - Asus EN8800GTS (nVidia 8800 GTS)
* PSU - Jeantech 600w Arctic Modular

All the rest is the same.

I would very much like to save/sell/recycle the old stuff but I've no idea at all what might work or what might not work anymore.  I have a horrid feeling that it must be the graphics card somehow upsetting the memory.  It makes sense as the cpu/mobo and memory were working fine overnight with this other chap.  It certainly isn't the HDD's which have been working flawlessly since.

Anyway, a cautionary tale for everyone and hopefully a good lesson for someone.Hmmm, well, I'm not sure what the lesson is here.  I'm not sure your "horrid feeling that it must be the graphics card somehow upsetting the memory" is adequately supported as a valid conclusion.  

I'm just wondering how much money you spent on computer components through the whole ordeal.  Clearly, it must have been many HUNDREDS of dollars.The lesson I think is that I changed quite a lot of bits and pieces which otherwise were the 'easy wins' and yet they were not.

It makes perfect sense that if your computer doesn't POST that there's a problem with the motherboard or power supply.  The power supply, by the way, is now fine.

I'm also confused about why the memory has failed.  This is ECC RAM which has had errors forced into it.  Makes no sense at all to me.

Maybe someone can take something away from this, and maybe someone can suggest further checks, but really I have posted it here in case it helps people.  I know that this sort of post might have made me feel a little better when I was checking the forums!

In terms of cash though, it has worked out at almost £1200 which is over US$2200 at current exchange rates.  The money 'wasted' on kit which didn't help is maybe £275 or over US$500.

Hope someone can help.

I have difficulty physically reaching my monitor due to disability. I need to SWITCH my video inputs on my Samsung P2450 (Samsung util software does not do the job) as I use the (Windows) PC/monitor to set other HARDWARE i.e. Apple TV & cubox i4, and need to switch from DIGITAL > HDMI and back.
I used to use mControl by EnTech but they no longer exist and the software needs a new licence.

Any help will be gratefully appreciated - I'm very low tech and have noticed something called COMMAND line/Auto HotKey input apps. These are above my tech level so KEEP it simple please.

All the bestNot sure if this is it or not i hope it is so it might help you but i found this.

http://home-automation-systems-review.toptenreviews.com/mcontrol-details.html

Hi,

My UPS was not working, so i gave direct power supply to my computer and devices without UPS. And one day a High Voltage surge appeared, due to the surge my router power ADAPTER and PSU of computer got burned, I REPLACED this two components and it is working fine now. Since power adapter and PSU have some circuitry such as zener diodes etc which protects the output connected to it. But my monitor was directly connected through a simple plug without any over voltage protection. And now when i turn on my monitor it displays every thing but FLICKERS at the bottom and a weird NOISE comes out like brrrr. So, What should I do for these. Can it be repaired?

Thanks

I have a Creative Sound Blaster Live sound card.  When first installed, the software was set up so that the sound blaster was primary and the hardware on the INTEL MOTHERBOARD was seconday.  Since a virus took over, neither works properly, probably a problem with the bios.  I am UNCERTAIN about how to reset this.  The volume indicator will slide down after being reset.  I have removed all of the creative software and this has not helped.  There is no problem with the speakers.  I tested them with an MP3 player.  And there is sound when I HOLD the volume indicator up with the mouse before it slides down.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.To reset the bios have a read &GT; here <. Also I believe you posted in the wrong section for your particular problem, you should have posted this in "Hardware" not "Computer Programming". That way you'll get more of the right replys. Can a mod move this to "Hardware" please. I hope that helps .

 8-)fffreakRe-install the Creative drivers...

Hi,

I got a HP w185 LCD screen.
Behind it, got 2 port, VGA & DVI. Next to it there is a 'PC Audio In'.

What is that for or how to USE it?
I TRIED it with my HEADSET but no sound COMING from it.

Can someone clarify what is the purpose?

TQThe MONITOR has small, built in speakers.  You would connect that port to the audio output of your PC to play the PC's sound through the monitor's speakers.

Hey guys!

My brother lately appears to be having issues with his little Toshiba Laptop. Is a 12inch Toshiba L645D in blue that has a little AMD Athlon P340, 4Gb DDR3 RAM, 500GB mementus hard drive and running windows 10 home (upgraded from 7 home 64bit). This isnt no rocket computer, but for a high school teen to carry with him, perfect.

Anyways the last few days he's been complaining to me about freezes in windows. No BSOD and not even anything intensive. PLaying a video he made on a mac in VLC and even just browsing the net. What will happen is the mouse will freeze and nothing will move.

Since ive looked at it, its frozen countless times sometimes right away, other times its taken some time. A few times it went to sleep and wouldnt come out, or it would but only show the cursor and then nothing.

So far ive run a check disk going into my computer>right click the hard drive>properties>tools>check now and it came out fine. Im currently running Memtest 5 and it already passed one session.

I did think that perhaps its over heating... I blew out the exhaust and than managed to get HWmonitor running and found it ran around 50 degrees C on idle. However now that im looking at it running mem test its at 64 degrees Celcius..

Im not 100% sure if its the hard drive, the RAM or something in the system that has corrupted itself..Or its overheating..

Any feedback would be appreciated. And as always it is well appreciated. THANKS

I've seen this symptom about a dozen times. In every single instance, it was the Hard Disk.

running a chkdsk /r to completion should confirm that. Replacing the HDD Is the best option if that is the case, though the chkdsk /r could give it a short second wind.Thanks for the reply, i tried getting into CMD but i cant get that far. Ive tried using HDD regenerator which runs off a CD and it even froze that. Would it still be the HDD if it froze a live CD?Try memtest86 and see if the RAM is healthy Quote from: comda on February 28, 2016, 01:02:38 AM

Thanks for the reply, i tried getting into CMD but i cant get that far. Ive tried using HDD regenerator which runs off a CD and it even froze that. Would it still be the HDD if it froze a live CD?

Try memtest86 and see if the RAM is healthy

Im currently running Memtest 5 and it already passed one session.

 However now that im looking at it running mem test its at 64 degrees Celcius..

Given the Live CD in question would specifically be accessing the HDD, yes.

Best way to confirm is to slap a known-good HDD in temporarily and see if the issue can be reproduced.

oops didnt see the memtest when posting earlier. Then its likely what BC stated with HDD and software that runs to a bummed HDD hanging and thats why live CD hangs

I've had drives given to me clearly sharpied as Duds that worked for over a decade since I owned it, And I've had brand new HDDs out of the factory packaging last less than 3 years before suffering catastrophic failure.

Thats alright. I try to post as much info in my original posts about the granted issue. I was in no way trying to be rude when i showed you that. Just showing that it was already stated thats all.

Hey guys...

Quick update.. I Installed a nice Kingston SSD 240Gb in the machine and began installing windows 10 Pro..... And the computer froze on the installation at 27% in... So if its not RAM, and not HDD we got what a board failure?

What install media are you using ? ?

I have an issue with my laptop touchpad.

Product Type: Eee Book
Product Name: Asus TRANSFORMER Book
Flip TP200SA

The touchpad is not sensitive enough - I have to REALLY hammer it to get a response most of the time.
It's annoying and I'm sick of my class mates OFFERING me a hammer

PLEASE don't suggest I use a mouse because this laptop is for uni and a mouse isn't always practical for uni situations.

I EMAILED ASUS about it because I can't find an adjustment for the sensitivity but they haven't replied yet.

Has anyone got any suggestions?

OK so my wife turns on here Asus computer and is ASKED for a Hard Disk password.  Thinking it was a BIOS password I wiped the CMOS and it did squat.  That is when I realized that it was asking for a Hard Disk Password.  My wife did not set one and I cant get past screen right after I power it on.  Running a Boot CD with some utilities on it I found out that>
1 the C drive is not being found. 
2 Only drive that is referred to at all is a Q: drive. 
3 running the Windows 7 recovery CD it will pull up all the information but will not list the OS to be repaired. 

Does anyone have any ideas about how to remove, get passed, hack or what ever this hard drive password? 

Asus laptop
windows 7
2009 BIOS is all I could find out
dual core


Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Paytrn Quote from: paytrn on March 20, 2012, 08:23:02 PM

Does anyone have any ideas about how to remove, get passed, hack or what ever this hard drive password? 

last week my friend send me their old motherboard videocard ram and power supply through the mail, they all apear to be in working order however when I turn on my monitor it receives no signal, its as if there isnt any pc connected to it at all.

To figure out which part was failing I ordered a new motherboard with onboard videocard, a dvi cable in case it wouldnt work with my old vga one and got myself 2 vga cables and 1 dvi screen and 1 vga screen. However no matter which combination I use I can't manage to get a signal to the monitor.

I must be missing something simple like a giant red on button on the videocard or something. Does anyone have any suggestions?And the monitor definitely works on a different system?  Have you checked the RAM works?  What motherboard and CPU are you using?  Have you tested the power supply on a working system?the monitor works cause im using it to write this, I got 2 ram sticks from my friend that are supposed to work on the motherboard I got with it and my new motherboard uses ddr3  so I had to get new ram with it so I assume it works as I unboxed it this morning. I cannot test the power supply because the pcs I have that work are all ancient and dont have the proper connectors for it however it does make my fans spin and computer boot up so it works at least somewhat.

CPU amd fx6300 
Motherboard m5A78L-M usb3Since it could be any of the things Cameron mentioned as well as others you should post the complete specs...I'll write down my specs tomorrow when I have access to all of them cause I don't know them by heart but it shouldnt matter too much as I used 2 motherboards with each their own cpu and ram one with an on board video CARD and another with a dedicated videocard. Of course multiple things could be wrong but it WOULD be quite the coincidence to RESULT in the same exact problem right?

Now that im thinking of it I'm starting to believe that it has to be the power supply as it is the only part used in both builds and it's not very new.
Could it be that the power supply still has enough power left to turn on the lights and fans on my parts making me believe it's working properly while it doesn't actually have enough power to make the videocard capable of sending out any signals?Yes...pc 1                                                                       pc2
motherboard:  Gigabite GA-EP45-DS3                  Asus M5A78L-M/usb3
               
cpu:  INTEL Pentium D 805                                      AMD FX6300

ram:  Corsair Dominator 2048MB X2                     Kingston HYPERX Fury 8GB 1866MHZ

videocard:  Sapphire HD4870                                Integrated ATI Radeon™ HD 3000

parts used on both machines:

power supply:Be quiet p6-530w pro

hard discs I tried:
western digital WD3200AAKS
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 RoHS
and a 3th one which name I can't see as its used on this pc which is a tiny abomination and a totall pain in the *censored* to take apartPSU...that's my guess.

Doesn't exactly have glowing reviews...

Computer screen freezes. Then speakers blare static as loud as they can. I have to forcefully restart. This happens when IM WATCHING videos or playing games help plz.

Computer Specs:

CASE: Corsair Vengeance C70
Motherboard: Gigabyte Ga-Z97x-Gaming 3 Atx
Processor: Intel Box Intel Core I5-4590
Ram: Evga mem 16gb 8x2 D3 1866 Dimm C9
GPU: Xfx R9-280x 3gb Boost 2mdp2
PSU: EVGA SUPRNOVA 850G2 80G FM PSU
HDD: Wd 1tb 3.5 Mainstrm Blue Hd
Wireless Card: Tplink 450mbps Wlsndb Pcie Aptr

I am trying to use internet in my basement and it is very weak signal here. I thought I could get better reception if I put the modem near the window of first floor, so  I BOUGHT a 10M usb extension. Now, it does not work good. Its stuck a 0 most of the time. I thought about loss in transmission so I checked by transferring from usb drive but the loss is not much, it gives aroung 80% of the speed which a direct connection does. Also, the cable might not be good quality as most of the other cables are expensive than this, and most of them have good reviews and people have posted that dongles work with them. I went to a computer shop, he told me that usb extension never works. If problem is the cheap cable then I can get a new one.The gentleman at the STORE is correct...USB has it's limits for extension cables...
Why not just hardwire it ? ?Extension cables for USB are LIMITED to AROUND 5 meters. Any further and it introduces timing issues which can screw up communication between the device and the host.You could also hard wire off the router to the basement...get a wireless repeater and still have wireless down there if needed...

HELLO EVERYONE...

I HAVE AN OLD COMPUTER ...;-

Dual-core [email protected] ghz  1.60 ghz ram 2gb
card nvidia geforce 9500g
windows 10[/size][/size]

IS IT WORTH UPGRADING TO MAKE IT FASTER SAY BIGGER RAM/ VIDEO CARD/ ETC,
WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST THINGS TO CHANGE ?   We would need to know what MBoard it is to check on what's doable...I will say no. I have and use old computers and do not believe it is worthwhile trying to upgrade them.   

A year ago I would have say otherwise. Now the price of new computers is at a rock bottom price.   

Look at this:
New Computers Under $300.
Quote

We would need to know what MBoard it is to check on what's doable...

Hello
Not sure what this could be, but I seem to have an intermittent fault. Best way to describe it is that my Pc freezes on the splash screen once it has been shut down for a period of time. I then have to press the reset key on the tower and it boots up ok. Seems to only happen when it's been left shutdown for a period of time like all night. I'm doing a mem test at the moment. The computer is slightly overclocked using the XMP PROFILE and a recommended over clock of the cpu by the boards inbuilt setting. Memtest has passed on one pass without ERRORS so far, but I'll run it for a while.

Windows 764 bit
Z170x Gigabytye gaming 7
Skylake i7 6700k
2 x 8 gig Corsair Vengeance ram
1000 watt psu EVGA
Samsung SSD pro 500GB

For now I'd recommend removing the overclock to eliminate it as a potential cause.  Make sure you note down the settings so you can redo it if desired in the future.This is still happening even without the overclock.  I've also tested the memory and that seem fine and I've reseated my cards and the memory sticks. Does anyone have any other  IDEAS what this might be?  Thanks! What BIOS version is your board currently on?I have the latest Bios installed. I also  tried a windows 7 boot repair but it reported no errors. Do you think a driver could be causing this problem? To confirm, which splash screen is it getting stuck on - the Windows 7 splash screen, or the BIOS splash screen?
If it's the BIOS splash screen, it's not a software issue and the most likely cause is that it's struggling to detect a drive.  TRY unplugging any additional SATA drives like a storage HDD or your DVD drive, or try a different SATA cable, see if that makes any difference.  Also, make sure your SSD is on the latest firmware.
If it's hanging on the Windows 7 splash screen, try starting in safe mode - I know it's a bit awkward because you don't know exactly when this is going to happen, but try it when you think it would usually get stuck.  Alternatively, try enabling "OS Boot Information" in msconfig by going to start - run - type msconfig and press enter - go to the Boot tab - tick "OS Boot Information" and "Make all boot settings permanent".  This will show info about the drivers etc being loaded during startup, if you can see that it's hanging at the same point each time then this would help narrow down where the issue lies.This seems to happen when I switch my monitor to another monitor to display the desktop and then reboot. I'm having problems with windows splash screen not the BIOS one.What happens in safemode ? ?

Any Yellow !!'s in Device Manager ? ? Quote from: patio on January 28, 2016, 06:42:29 AM

What happens in safemode ? ?

Any Yellow !!'s in Device Manager ? ?

Alternatively, try enabling "OS Boot Information" in msconfig by going to start - run - type msconfig and press enter - go to the Boot tab - tick "OS Boot Information" and "Make all boot settings permanent".  This will show info about the drivers etc being loaded during startup, if you can see that it's hanging at the same point each time then this would help narrow down where the issue lies.

So is there no difference between the boot mode Callum suggested and the one I was getting when my computer freezes? Does it only display the drivers when loading windows and nothing else?

what is the best SSD for cheapest price? time to upgrade the old core 2 duo Macbook.... might be able to get by with a 256 GB SSD but what is your thoughts?

Recommendations?I recommend a 480GB intel 530 series ssd as it has the best price vs capacity vs speed, it cost me $240AU to get one.I'd go for a Crucial or Samsung personally.  There seem to be a few firmware bugs for the most recent drives, haven't had any issues myself but if it was my MONEY I'd PROBABLY be leaning towards a Samsung right now.  The 850 isn't the cheapest SSD available but they're generally quite reliable and they're good performers - not so much of a consideration for an older machine as you won't get the full performance anyway, but in the future you can ALWAYS move the SSD to another machine. Quote from: Calum on March 09, 2016, 10:55:16 AM

I'd go for a Crucial or Samsung personally.  There seem to be a few firmware bugs for the most recent drives, haven't had any issues myself but if it was my money I'd probably be leaning towards a Samsung right now.  The 850 isn't the cheapest SSD available but they're generally quite reliable and they're good performers - not so much of a consideration for an older machine as you won't get the full performance anyway, but in the future you can always move the SSD to another machine.

Was looking at all the 14" Thinkpad Yoga's..... the x1 Yoga and P40 Yoga... I wouldn't buy anything but a Thinkpad!

will be maxing one out for my needs but what one? will mostly be doing web browsing but I want to get into heavy 1080P/4K video editing

Was looking at both with an i7-6600U, 16 GB of ram, 512 ssd and WQHD screens..... do you think it's worth the extra 1 or 2 HUNDRED dollars before shipping/tax to get the nvidia m500m dedicated graphics over the intel 520 graphics for what I'm doing? that is the only difference I will have to make.....I personally would go with the nvidia option however 1080P/4K is quite the video for a laptop. Maybe someone else here would be able to share if its going to handle that well or not. It might be able to run 1080P or 4K but frame rate might be not the greatest and it might get choppy at 4K.

 A desktop setup would handle that kind of video processing /editing workload better as well as allow for further upgrading of the GPU and possibly even CPU if ever needed. There are performance differences between an i7 for laptop and an i7 for desktop. You get far more processing power from a desktop i7 than a laptop i7. This is due to the fact that the laptop CPU's need to run on lesser TDP so while they are both i7's there is a noticeable difference between laptop and desktop CPUs. In marketing anyone not knowing of this difference will go with it as i7's being the same between them not knowing that a desktop would perform better if both brand new with i7's.It really comes down to whether the video editing software you use can be accelerated using the GPU - If it isn't then the GPU probably isn't worth it.  As Dave says, for lots of video editing the ULV CPU in that machine will likely struggle, it'll do it but it will be quite slow when rendering.  In order to get a full voltage chip however you'd have to lose the convertible functionality and go for a physically thicker machine with a full voltage quad core chip such as the ThinkPad P50 or (when it comes out) the T460p.  This is one of those classic cases where you really need to pick either size or performance.I need the portability of a laptop for college.... I did consider a desktop but I would than have to spend extra money for a low end laptop.... save myself $300 and spec out a laptop I can use..... to edit 1080p video and sometimes maybe 4k video.... I only have $2200 to spend max and would like to get a 14" laptopPersonally with that budget I'd build a decent desktop and then spend around $500 on a refurbished/used ThinkPad.  You could get something like a t440, t440s or x240 for around that price or something a bit older (but still decent) such as an x230 for even less.

Alternatively you could get a nice new laptop and buy/build a mid range desktop. Even a basic i5 based desktop COSTING well under $1000 would blow the ULV i7 out of the water.

For context, I have a ThinkPad T440s with an i5 4300U.  It's fine for day to day use around university but I do often find that the CPU can be a bit sluggish for CPU heavy workloads.  In a recent coursework that involves running network simulations I found the CPU to be frustratingly sluggish and ended up running the simulations on my Xeon E3-1226 v3 based home SERVER which worked out MILES faster.well now that you say, I was looking at a p50 with i7-6700hq, 4K display, 16 GB of ram, and 500 GB hdd (only way to get proprietary sata adapter and not an M.2 ssd) how would this go if I was to edit 720p video max?

I come to find out that the highest speed my isp will give in my area is 10 mbps down and 700-1000 kbps upload (more close to 700 kbps up), so uploading 1080p video to youtube for everybody and the family back home will take at least an hour or more (that's how long it took last time I uploaded).....The P50 is a great machine and that is probably going to be powerful enough for what you are doing but bear in mind the size - It's bulky if you are going to be carrying it around every day.

I presume you will be using an SSD as well as the hard drive in that machine?  Buying a machine like that and running it off of a hard drive is really going to impact the performance.  Also bear in mind that Lenovo offer PCI-E SSDs with it which will be a lot faster than a regular SATA drive.

As far as uploading - I have a 2mbps upload speed (40 down) (really annoying since the line I have can easily support 10mbps upstream but my ISP doesn't resell that plan, ANYWAY...) - I upload 1080p videos, I just leave videos to upload overnight - They only take a couple of hours but it means the upload gets exclusive use of the connection. Quote from: camerongray on March 06, 2016, 11:22:55 AM

The P50 is a great machine and that is probably going to be powerful enough for what you are doing but bear in mind the size - It's bulky if you are going to be carrying it around every day.

I presume you will be using an SSD as well as the hard drive in that machine?  Buying a machine like that and running it off of a hard drive is really going to impact the performance.  Also bear in mind that Lenovo offer PCI-E SSDs with it which will be a lot faster than a regular SATA drive.

As far as uploading - I have a 2mbps upload speed (40 down) (really annoying since the line I have can easily support 10mbps upstream but my ISP doesn't resell that plan, anyway...) - I upload 1080p videos, I just leave videos to upload overnight - They only take a couple of hours but it means the upload gets exclusive use of the connection.

HI,
YESTERDAY i was PLAYING a game on my laptop with the power plugged in...while i was playing the display went black and when it came back there were PURPLE bands vertically on the screen and it became tinted green....the intensity of the purple bands( refer pic) decreases after a while to normal but the screen always remain tinted greenish...could you SUGGEST what could be the cause of it?

model is ASUS n550jk

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]Did you recently update drivers ? ?

If so from where ?Well i have recently updated the Nvdia drivers to the latest version...graphics card is Nvdia gtx 850...Then that's likely your issue...

With laptops you should only use Drivers from the laptop manuf. site...But the purple bands appearing while the laptop is booting...and then it just fades away after a while...should i try uninstalling the drivers?Yes.
Then install the proper ones from manuf. site...hello
i tried reinstalling the drivers from the site but the problem still remains :/  i just noticed that when the screen has a white background then it turns back to the normal state for a second but after a second it flickers with pink shades eventually going green and the same thing repeats when the screen is white...can see that the previous screen remains burned when the pink one flickers....

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]You sure it's the correct driver ? ?...
If so your vid chip may be failing...how old is this laptop ? ?Try the machine on an external monitor/TV and see if you get the same issue on that.yeah i made sure that the driver is correct...the laptop is nearly 1.5 year old :/ it was plugged in when it happened..is it because of some circuit? i am scared whether i would have to replace the display as it would COST a lot
When i used it on Tv everything is working fine..i dont have the same issuesThat seals it then...it's the display.So i would have to replace the display?

Need to get a laptop for Aunt and I have to option of upgrading a current one I got or going with a newer one..... really the only thing it needs to be able to do is run skype, chrome and be able to plug in a camera to offload pictures there really isn't anything more that she can do on the COMPUTER in it's future.... I can upgrade the current one a Compaq C700 which came out around the very beginning of the vista era before windows 7 came out.... I can upgrade it with an ssd, ram and NEW windows 7 key or just go with a newer thinkpad? what are your thoughts?If she only needs it for those needs, I'd just upgrade it to 2GB RAM and keep the HDD and Vista on it. You might be able to upgrade it to 2GB for less than $20 buying a memory stick on AMAZON or ebay from a merchant that has positive feedback

While her CPU is slow at 1.6Ghz, it appears to be a Core 2 Duo which is capable of handling all the tasks you mentioned.Agreed...Work out the cost of what you will be doing and see if it would still be worth it.  An SSD, more RAM and Windows 7 is going to come close to $200 which is way more than that machine is worth so if you were going to spend that much, get a newer machine.  You could get a really good used ThinkPad for that such as a T420.

An SSD or more RAM could make the machine a bit more bearable but I wouldn't spend more than $50 on that machine.I believe it has 2 GB of ram already plus I know it has has a 500 GB HDD with windows 7 already installed.... cleaned up the system and defragged plus all the normal things for speeding the system including turning it to windows classic mode and removing all visual styling..... it still lags worse then my Acer from the same time period (and it's spec'd about the same!) or any of my other machines! i'm pretty sure it's the HDD that's making it LAG, but my acer is light speed faster then this compaq!Where did the Windows 7 OS come from that you upgraded this system to 7, and is it 7 - 32bit or 7 - 64 bit? Quote from: DaveLembke on March 07, 2016, 03:20:01 PM

Where did the Windows 7 OS come from that you upgraded this system to 7, and is it 7 - 32bit or 7 - 64 bit?

I can upgrade it with an ssd, ram and new windows 7 key or just go with a newer thinkpad? what are your thoughts?

I believe it has 2 GB of ram already plus I know it has has a 500 GB HDD with windows 7 already installed....

I got it that way.... the last owner upgraded it...

The old key will work fine with a new SSD, do not buy a new one especially since the machine is worth nowhere near the cost of the OS.

I'm trying to watch videos on my Alcatel 665 One Touch mobile phone. I've tried to convert the videos I have to other formats, (i.e, 3gpp, 3g2, mpeg, mpeg2, mp3, mp4, mov, WMV) and it recognizes a few, like MP3, MP4, MOV, 3GPP, & 3G2, but, it typically says "Failure To Open" when I actually go to play a file. The most common file types that it does this on are MOV, 3GPP, 3G2, & MP4. It only plays the sound on MP3s, and it also recognizes other audio in different formats, namely AMR, & WAV, but, it can't play any video associated with it. I'm using an SD Video Card with it, and that's where I store the video and audio files. INTERESTINGLY, as the files that are on the memory of the SD Card are not part of the main memory of the phone, it seems like I can play videos, (3G2 only) from the phone as longas it's out of the phone's memory, and not the card. I thought maybe that the problem might be the driver(s) on the phone, as when I hook it up to a computer, it sometimes ask me to re-format the disk. I'm loath to do this, as I don't wish to erase the files and information that is on the SD Card, nor do I have the time to back up all of the files, in the event that I choose to. I've tried every kind of file converter that I can find, please help.so if you transfer a file that wont play on the SD to phone internal memory it will play, but not off the SD directly? 

Might have to do with a speed issue with the SD being too SLOW.

Also I have run into issues with videos higher than 360p, have you tried to reduce a video file to 360p to see if that HELPS? For myself I found out that it might be a video resolution issue with one file when I was getting audio with a frozen PICTURE for a file that was 720p video resolution while others wouldnt play at all, but some older files in 360p worked.

the connector with 2 yellow and 2 BLACK WIRES on the INSIDE of my computer seems loose, as in it must have got disconnected. so my question is...after hours of trying to FIGURE it out through google-- where does it GO??A picture would be help ful or at least more information.

Where does one end of the wire go?the focus went to the wrong part of the picture but here it is

I have an older PC with a Pentium I processor and 128  RAM.  It will momentarily stop responding whenever I switch between 2 MULTIMEDIA applications ( My Windows Media player and Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia)

Should I upgrade the RAM to 256 MB or is the processor speed?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[email protected]At this point i would START SHOPPING for a new machine...you could add more RAM but you would be throwing GOOD money after bad.You would notice NO improvement with more RAM.

I only keep my Macbook Air at home for browsing the web and such.... it's ONE of the very last CORE 2 duo Airs (maybe late 10 or early 11?) and noticed that it is all ways at least half full of suff I can't seem to find and/or delete...

I think it should only be using 10-15 GB from a fresh install of 10.11.x (doesn't have a fresh install but has no files or programs) but after install with no files and programs, I am GETTING only about 20-30 GB of free space on the 64 GB SSD... don't know if this NORMAL but if it's not how may I be able to fix it?.sorry! bumpPost a screenshot of Explorer.....meantime DLoad and install Treesize...Free.One Mac OSX Equivalent for Treesize is something like Disk Inventory X.

It's POSSIBLE the added space being used is from updates, or perhaps the installer is still on the SSD in a download folder if it was upgraded.

I installed a new dvd rw mad dog 18x lightscribe and WINDOWS xp pro say's unknown device in usb  :-?Did you get instructions with it? How exactly did you "install" it? What SERVICE pack is on that XP Pro?I have sp2 pack and the MANUAL says windows xp should reconize itRecheck your connections and ALSO the jumper settings...This is a USB EXTERNAL drive?

Hi there, I'm new and I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this topic but I am in desperate need of help.

As thet title says my mouse won't connect to my computer, when I go into my mouse settings and look for hardware nothing is shown, I thought it was because my mouse was broken, but it gave me the same results when I USED another mouse.

I'm not administrator on this computer, my father is and he won't help much, is there any way to fix this problem WITHOUT logging in as administartor? Even though I explained him what happened he didn't think it would help anyways.

Also, is there an alternatice program that can move your mouse with the keyboard? The one I am already using is horrible because the cursor moves slow and then rapidly fast BEYOND control, ain't there any way to make it move at steady speed? As in, it will allways move in same speed but also a bit fast?

Someone please help, this is driving me insane! I suspect this is a USB mouse. Please clarify what we are working on. Do you have a real PS/2 mouse?I think he has a PS/2 mouse and the port is broken. He may need to get a USB mouse to fix the problem.  No need to think about it. Perhaps he will post back.Please do keep in mind I am a total n00b and don't know what a PS/2 Mouse is, [email protected];;

I dunno if it's my USB port tho, the mouse just clogged off all of a sudden while I put in some headphones.Is it a rectangular (USB) mouse CONNECTOR or a round and probably green (PS/2) plug?

Do you have two round connectors on the computer? Keyboards can also be PS/2 or USB items. We need to be sure what you are TALKING about.

Have you rebooted the machine with the mouse plugged in since this started? How long has this been a problem?My own mouse is USB, but I have an adapter that can change it to the round kind, the extra mouse I got is round kind already, I'm not sure if I restarted with any of them plugged in, I'll try now.

Oh and it has been a problem since yesterday.Be sure and have the round one plugged in when you restart.

Bullet Story:
1. Took computer into repair shop for new SSD, Windows 10 clean upgrade (no data transfer whatsoever).
2. Took it home, 5 days later, computer froze at the startup on home screen.  Screen was present and keys were still lit on laptop but mouse wasn't moving, buttons were not responding when hit. 
3. Cold boot would sometimes lead to the blue screen of death giving a very broad error (SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION).
3a. Noticed it HAPPENED when USB ports were about to be plugged into.
4. Took it to repair shop where it worked flawlessly until mouse was plugged in.
5. After 1 week, he took out EVERY piece of RAM I have, deducted that wasn't the problem.  Also tried new hard drives and Windows 10.
5a. He suggested it was video card or MoBo but Fuzzy Donut worked great on laptop when it was tested at the shop. 

Sincerely lost but I'm extremely suspicious of my drivers.  I keep coming back to the computer freezing upon input of mouse.  Very suspicious. 

Help me not lose more money on this laptop!

Are there any tests I can run on the system to help this?

Thank you,

AndrewWhat is make/model of computer?  If custom build, all specs of system.

You might want to downgrade back to original OS version and then after you know its all good with that OS then upgrade to 10 and this way you know if its a hardware issue or a driver issue.

Do you still have the original drive to put back into it to see if it behaves when set back to original hardware config? ( Maybe SSD drive is messed up...)Screen Resolution   1920 x 1080
Processor   2 GHz Intel Core i7
RAM   8 GB GDDR3
Memory Speed   1333 MHz
Hard Drive 750 GB mechanical_hard_drive
Graphics Coprocessor Nvidia GTX 460M 1.5GB
Number of USB 2.0 Ports   3
Number of USB 3.0 Ports   1

I will definitely try my old HDD, thanks for that IDEA.

[attachment deleted by admin to conserve space]States there a mechanical HDD...this screenshot must be prior to the SSD install...
One question...did these issues exist before the new HDD ? ?

64bit Windows 7 Enterprise machine, 8gb ram, updated audio drivers (realtek), working speakers, good wired and wireless connections.

When the computer plays sounds, either music or training videos or Lync/Adobe connect meetings and headsets (analog or usb) or external speakers (usb) are connected, they are ignored/no recognized. The sounds continue to play through the built-in speakers. We have tried multiple headsets, and speakers, rebooted, updated the drivers, we can't updated Windows due to company policy, but it is as up to date as possible. I went through and checked the settings but don't see ANYTHING that says to ignore external devices or only use the internal speakers. What am I missing? Is there a setting I did not find?

ThanksAre you able to get to control PANEL, and then sound properties, or are you locked out of it due to corporate GP etc?control panel is not a problem and I have the admin password if needed. Group policy does affect some things, but sound and VIDEO are not part of that set. The company WANTS the users to be able to take training and attend meetings using their laptops.If company policy dictates not being able to do driver updates then everything will fall on deaf EARS i'm afraid...nice pun.

No, group policy does not affect the sound or video drivers. It will prevent the regular user from installing drivers they have downloaded. I have the admin password and account that will let me do the installs and updates.

So, any ideas why headsets and external speakers don't work? If they are plugged into another laptop they work just fine. Check Device Manager....any Yellow !!'s ? ?

Anything muted in Control Panel/Sounds ?Nothing muted, all devices working correctly.

Tried earphones, mic-headset, external speakers, iphone earbuds, the only thing that plays music are the internal speakers.
Ok, the basics worked. Deleted the sound drivers, and installed the latest version from the Lenovo site. Now the external devices are recognized and work correctly.

Got this cold air blaster in a can with the wand attachment. I removed the cpu fan and BLASTED that, then cleared the cooling fins. It sure needed it. In fact I suspect it was "gasping for air". Dust went flying, sure does the job. I blasted EVERYTHING else, and also the upper rear exit fan.

      Put everything togeather and everything works fine. I'm disappointed that there wasn't any 1/8in holes at the bottom of the TOWER case to put the wand so I can blast in the 1/2" clearance of the motherboard and case, as this is the printed circuit section prone to static. If the wand was longer, I think there was ONE spot I could BEND it without crimping to get it under the MB.

      Is there a way I could have used to get in there.?

      Thanks.Bend it like Beckham...

So, My PC  suddenly started running slow and was closing  by showing blue SCREEN. I noticed a weird sound coming out of my hard drive. I changed it with a friends hard drive to test. PC started working fine. But now i've BOUGHT a new 1 TB hard drive for permanent use. But now with new drive, my PC is so slow that i couldn't EVEN install WINDOWS on it.  Did you check if your computer have a virus?When you transferred the hard drive from your friends computer did you use your data cable or their one it MAYBE the cable between the drive and motherboard is faulty.
Try and think what is different between using your friends drive and the new 1TB you are installing.

I am praying someone can help me here.
I followed instructions on how to reformat a COMPUTER I was given for my son.
Was told it was easy...NOT.
I did everything in the right order and now the computer screen has this message on a
black screen and I have no idea what to do next.

C:\>(wee flashing line)

The guy who gave me the instructions said he doesn't have a clue as to why it's
doing that.

He told me to type D:\setup....but all I get is the message saying Bad COMMAND or file name.

I have the Windows 98 cd and a boot up disk he gave me.

What do I type at the wee flashing line?
Do I leave the boot up disk and cd in the computer?

Have I ruined the computer completely?

Any ideas would be wonderful.

I'm sorry for sounding so dumb...prob should have left this to the
professionals but was told it was an easy job.

Thank you
CazzaIf you have a real Windows start up diskette, you first need to make sure that the floppy drive is set to boot prior to the hard drive. THis is set in the BIOS. Most machines are like this, but we need to make sure yours is.

What is the computer make and model? Ususally there is a message onscreen during boot up to indicate what keys need to be pressed to get into the BIOS.

Once this is done the floppy will indicate several messages, one of which will be the designation of the CDROM. Please post all of the start up messages.

If you have a real boot disk and everything is set up correctly, the final message on the screen should be an A:> Quote

If you have a real Windows start up diskette, you first need to make sure that the floppy drive is set to boot prior to the hard drive. THis is set in the BIOS. Most machines are like this, but we need to make sure yours is.

What is the computer make and model? Ususally there is a message onscreen during boot up to indicate what keys need to be pressed to get into the BIOS.

Once this is done the floppy will indicate several messages, one of which will be the designation of the CDROM. Please post all of the start up messages.

If you have a real boot disk and everything is set up correctly, the final message on the screen should be an A:>

When it gets to that point A:\ then type E:\ Press enter
 then type setup and Press enter.

It probably moved your cdrom drive ahead one letter
when it used the D:\for you virtual drive.

When you booted with you Floppy disk and came to the A:\ Prompt did you
do fdisk and format?

When you booted with your Floppy disk and came to the A:\ Prompt did you
do fdisk and format?

Also,I don't know which drive was assigned for your CDROM.You make need
to Type E:  Then F: Then G: so on in alphabetical order to find which letter was
assigned to your CDROM.

When you booted with the floppy disk did it give you an option to boot with CD support and you chose YES?

Quote

When you booted with your Floppy disk and came to the A:\ Prompt did you
do fdisk and format?

Also,I don't know which drive was assigned for your CDROM.You make need
to Type E:  Then F: Then G: so on in alphabetical order to find which letter was
assigned to your CDROM.

When you booted with the floppy disk did it give you an option to boot with CD support and you chose YES?

No was told to choose option without cd support think it was option 2.......

When you booted with your Floppy disk and came to the A:\ Prompt did you
do fdisk and format?

Also,I don't know which drive was assigned for your CDROM.You make need
to Type E:  Then F: Then G: so on in alphabetical order to find which letter was
assigned to your CDROM.

When you booted with the floppy disk did it give you an option to boot with CD support and you chose YES?

Place your boot floppy into the drive and reboot your computer.
( choose: Start Computer with CD-ROM support if prompted )

      You should wind up at the A:\> MS-DOS prompt. Again, make absolutely, positively sure that you can access your CD-ROM at this point by typing DIR E: ( or whatever drive letter your CD-ROM drive has ), and and pressing ENTER. If you can now see a list of files on the CD you know it works.

At the A:\> prompt, type FDISK and press ENTER.
      You will see a very long message, telling you that "Your computer has a disk larger than 512 MB", and asking if you wish to enable large disk support. ( "Large disk support" means "FAT32" ) Answer Y to enable large disk support.

You will see the main FDISK Options menu, and the Enter choice: prompt.
      It will tell you Current fixed disk drive: 1 in other words, unless you tell it otherwise, it's going to operate on disk 1, the first disk it's found on the system. Since there's only one hard drive on your system ( Make sure this is true ), this is what you want to do.

You want to start out by deleting the existing partition from the disk.
      To do that, type in 3 the Delete partition or Logical DOS drive option and press ENTER.
A menu will appear, asking you what sort of partition to delete. Enter 1 Delete Primary DOS partition and press ENTER.
      A list of partitions will appear; there will probably only be one partition there. It will ask you what primary partition to delete; choose 1 the only one listed, and press ENTER.
      To make absolutely sure that you know what you're doing, it may prompt you to type in the volume label for the partition, which will be listed in the partition list. If the Volume Label column is blank, then the volume label is blank too, so just press ENTER.
It will tell you Partition deleted, or words to that effect, and send you back to the main menu.

Now you want to create a new partition.
To do that, choose option 1 Create DOS partition or logical DOS drive and press ENTER.
It will prompt you for what sort of partition to create; choose option 1 Create Primary DOS partition and press ENTER.
It will prompt you Do you wish to use the maximum available size for a Primary DOS partition and make the partition active (Y/N)?  Y

It should be counting up 100% of your hard drive that it will be using as
your primary partition and making it active.

Then you will boot with your computer again until you get back to the A:\ prompt and type     Format C:

It should be counting up 100% of your hard drive that it will be using as
your primary partition and making it active.

Then you will boot with your computer again until you get back to the A:\ prompt and type     Format C:

It should be counting up 100% of your hard drive that it will be using as
your primary partition and making it active.

Then you will boot with your computer again until you get back to the A:\ prompt and type     Format C:

After your format gets to 100% and stops you will then press enter.

Now, Believe it or not you will then reboot your computer choose
Cdrom support again and this time when you get to the A:\ prompt

Type E:
Press Enter

Then Type:          SETUP

so i have a Samsung Desktop Monitor 2043SWX Rs.9,990 monitor and the problem im having is when i turn it on at first it takes forever for the picture to come in fully it starts out dull then fully comes in.  Then it will shut off the picture while the monitor power itself stays on then i have to turn it off and on around 30-40 times to get it to come on and stay on otherwise it will just flash and show a picture for about a second then shut RIGHT back off but after about 30-40 times of playing turn it off and back on the picture comes on and stays on and the picture is beautiful when it finally does stay on.sorry its the Samsung 204B monitor here's the specs

Panel/Display
Type    a-si TFT/TN
Viewable Size    20.1"
Brightness    300 cd/m2
CONTRAST Ratio    800:1
Viewing Angle    160° horizontal, 160° vertical
Pixel Dot Pitch    0.255 mm
Response Time    5 ms
Panel Life    60,000 Hours
Colors Supported    16.7 million
Signal
Internal Interface    Analog/Digital
Frequency    Horizontal: 30-81 kHz
Vertical: 56-75 Hz
Sync Type    Separate H/V Sync
Composite H/V Sync
Sync on Green
Resolution    Maximum: 1600 x 1200 60 Hz
Native: 1600 x 1200 60 Hz

Supported Resolutions
640 x 350
640 x 480
720 x 400
800 x 600
832 x 624
1024 x 768
1152 x 870
1280 x 960
1280 x 1024
Input/Output Connectors
Analog    VGA: 1x 15-pin Din
Digital    DVI-D: 1x Connector
Audio Input    None
Headphone Jack    None
Hub Ports    None
Speakers    None
Mount    Desktop: Yes
Wall-mount: Yes, VESA 100 x 100 mm
Controls
Buttons    Menu, MagicBright/Down, Brightness/Up, Enter, Auto, Power
On-Screen Display    Brightness, Contrast, Color Tone, Color Control, Gamma, Image Coarse, Image Fine, Image Sharpness, Image H-Position, Image V-Position, Language, OSD H-Position, OSD V-Position, OSD Transparency, OSD Display Time, Auto Source, Image Reset, Color Reset, Information
Auto Configuration    Yes
Touch Screen    No
Tilt/Swivel Range    Tilt: Yes
Swivel: Yes
Height: Yes, 3.1"
PIVOT: Yes
Compliant Standards    FCC Class B, Energy Star, TCO '99
System Requirements    PC or Macintosh computer with VGA or DVI output
Power Requirements    Voltage: 100-240 V, 50/60 Hz
Consumption: 50 watts max
Environmental Requirements    Operating
Temperature: 50-104° F (10-40° C)
Humidity: 10-80%, non-condensing

Storage
Temperature: -4-113° F (-20-45° C)
Humidity: 5-95%, non-condensing
Dimensions (WxHxD)    With Stand: 17.5 x 16.8 x 7.9" (44.4 x 42.8 x 20 cm)
Weight    With Stand: 16.9 lb (7.7 kg)

anyone know why this is happening is my monitor going out on me?If I had to guess at the cause, it WOULD be that one or more the Capacitors on the Power Supply board of the Monitor have failed.

It could also be a failing backlight inverter. When you turn it on but can't see anything, try shining a light on it and seeing if you can make anything out.

Either way, it's unlikely to be economical to repair it.thanks i was thinking of upgrading to a 120hz monitor/tv anyways this just confirms that i will be doing so

Hi Guys

i have Dell system 1gega  intel BOARD 256 RAM
USB Card

when i try to connect a new software my system is being restart
before restarting in blue SCREEN i face an error i can't read it it only blinks
that is all

thank you :d in ADVCan you explain that a LITTLE more coherently PLEASE?
I'm getting that you get a BSOD when you try to do . . . something.
What are you trying to do when the blue screen happens?
What does the blue screen say?
What do you mean by "it blinks"?

Please tell me if this laptop that I specified would be a good laptop for me to PLAY games on.and please give me other site to buy laptops at too

- 17" WUXGA "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy SCREEN (1920x1200)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- 0 Dead Pixel Policy
- ~Intel Core 2 DUO 2.33GHz (T7600) Processor (Merom / 4 MB L2 Cache / 667 FSB)
- 512MB PCI-Express nVidia Quadro FX2500M w/GDDR3 (User Upgradeable)
- None Standard
- ~ 2,048MB DDR2 667 PC2 5300 (2 SODIMMS) Dual Channel Memory
- Standard Finish
- ~ 8X DVD +/- R/RW /CDRW Dual Layer Combo Drive
- ~ 100GB 5400 RPM (Serial-ATA 150) Hard Drive
- NO Bay 2 Hard Drive
- None Standard
- Internal 4-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO)
- Integrated Digital Video Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D AUDIO - Included
- Integrated System Speakers - Included
- 10/100/1000 Network Card & 56K RJ11 Phone Modem
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g
- Basic Black Business Case - Included
- Primary Smart Li-ION Battery Pack - Included
- 110/220V 120W Auto Switching AC Adapter - Included
- ADD Car Adapter
- ~Windows Media Center 2005 with Drivers and Utilities CD & Free Vista Upgrade
- 3 Year Labor* 1 Year Parts Warranty Lifetime Toll Free Tech Support
BRoberts...... Does this machine have a brand name ?

I'm a bit unclear as to whether you have purchased this or are still looking ?

dl65  
Quote

Please tell me if this laptop that I specified would be a good laptop for me to play games on.and please give me other site to buy laptops at too

- 17" WUXGA "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1920x1200)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- 0 Dead Pixel Policy
- ~Intel Core 2 DUO 2.33GHz (T7600) Processor (Merom / 4 MB L2 Cache / 667 FSB)
- 512MB PCI-Express nVidia Quadro FX2500M w/GDDR3 (User Upgradeable)
- None Standard
- ~ 2,048MB DDR2 667 PC2 5300 (2 SODIMMS) Dual Channel Memory
- Standard Finish
- ~ 8X DVD +/- R/RW /CDRW Dual Layer Combo Drive
- ~ 100GB 5400 RPM (Serial-ATA 150) Hard Drive
- NO Bay 2 Hard Drive
- None Standard
- Internal 4-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO)
- Integrated Digital Video Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Integrated System Speakers - Included
- 10/100/1000 Network Card & 56K RJ11 Phone Modem
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g
- Basic Black Business Case - Included
- Primary Smart Li-ION Battery Pack - Included
- 110/220V 120W Auto Switching AC Adapter - Included
- ADD Car Adapter
- ~Windows Media Center 2005 with Drivers and Utilities CD & Free Vista Upgrade
- 3 Year Labor* 1 Year Parts Warranty Lifetime Toll Free Tech Support

I was [highlight]impressed [/highlight]by the Arctic Silver thermal compound listing.

Did we ever hear the brand or price of this thing?

Hello,

My laptop screen is faulty when i checked with the official service CENTER. They told me to get a new MONITOR for 200$ approx and i was wondering whether there was any way to fix it. The red colour is displayed as black. EVERYTHING is in colour of blue and YELLOW and i would like to know if there is any possibility to repair itHave to gone into the configuration for the graphics and adjust the color hues?

Could be the graphics CARD going, cable that connects the card to screen, or the screen its self.

Have you tried a reset to default settings?

External Monitor to see if it is the card?

My friend is trying to build a computer, it seems LIKE it should WORK, but it doesn't .
Can someone help find the problem, on the screen there is no signal.

The specs are E6400, Ati x1650 pro, P5b, ddr2 512mb ram.

I have my own computer (E6300, P5w dh deluxe, 2GB ddr2 ram), the ram and graphics card work in my computer.Either a faulty component or an INCORRECT build. Does it start up just no video?

It is always smartest to do a minimal build - 1 stick RAM, CPU/Fan and video card only and see if that will POST. If you toss it all together and it doesn't work you will have to isolate where the problem is.

Is the motherboard SHORTING out on the case? Quote

Either a faulty component or an incorrect build. Does it start up just no video?

It is always smartest to do a minimal build - 1 stick RAM, CPU/Fan and video card only and see if that will POST. If you toss it all together and it doesn't work you will have to isolate where the problem is.

Is the motherboard shorting out on the case?

I'm building a new system and I cannot get it to boot. It gets through the POST phase ok (at least I get a beep), with or without the floppy and/or hard disk connected. It will freeze in a few different points, such as:

- Verifying DMI Pool Data
- In the BIOS editing screens
- On the BIOS splash screen

During the "Verifying DMI Pool Data" phase, I get the following displayed:
- +3.3V = 3.34V
- 12V = 11.71V
- CPU Vcore = 1.31V
- +5(V) = 5.34V

Configuration is:
-  Biostar P4M800 Motherboard
- Pentium D830 Dual Core Processor
- Power Up Doom 2535 case with 400W 20/24 pin power supply
- existing monitor, mouse, keyboard, hard drive and floppy drive that have been verified to work ok.

I have tried resetting CMOS multiple times. I also notice that if I wait awhile before rebooting, the boot process will progress a little further before hanging.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,
BobWhat is the boot order?  Is it trying to boot from HARDDISK, floppy or cd drive?  Have you tried booting it from the cd drive?Unplug everything except the CPU/Fan, 1 stick RAM and onboard graphics (if you have it. Use the video card if not) and see if that will boot. You have too many variables to sort through at once. You need to simplify things to see where the problem truly is.I can't determine the boot order. The system hangs in the bios screens before I can see it.

I have already tried booting it with the simplist configuration (no daughter boards; 0 or 1 stick of memory; with and without hard drives and floppy).

I also tried a different mouse, monitor, and keyboard; and reseating everything (even the cpu). No luck.

btw. It's now at the point that I don't even get a beep when it powers up.Have you tried swapping in a known GOOD PSU ? ?I plan to buy another one this morning.Don't get a cheapo...you might wind up in the same situation in a few months.Just tried another power supply. Didn't help. I'm going to try another mother board. I was planning to build a second system anyway, so it will just become my first system. What do people like for motherboards - socket 775, pentium dual core capable, either DDR or DDR2 memory (I have some of each)?It could be a build problem.   Quote

It could be a build problem.  

My PC has been giving problems for a while now. It can boot up fine but after a few minutes will suddenly shut off. sometimes it will auto reboot others it is dead! following this it will occasionally fail to open WINDOWS and need RESETTING a few TIMES?   any ideas?Heat BAD Ram and or power problems are the 3 likliest culprits....but first travel to Control Panel / System / Hardware / Advanced and uncheck "automatically restart on errors"...

This will now produce BSOD's which will help diagnose the problem further.

patio.   8-)CLEAN first the copper of your memory stick using an eraser and brush the memory slot then put again the ram then boot if it still doesnt work try to change your ram with another spareFollow Patio's advice instead.

Hello! My name is Apoorva. I would like to know that which motherboard would be best recommended for Windows Vista? I am planning to buy RC 410 Motherboard as adviced by my computer engineer who says that there's a latest release of RC410 Motherboard came into the market which now supports Dual Core processor technology and has few additional benefits as well.

5 days back, I got Windows Vista Final Edition Build 6000 Installed on my current system which is:

P4 2Ghz, 512 DDR SDRAM, 80 G.B. WDC HDD (7'200 r.p.m.), 128MB NVIDIA Graphics Card & I am USING A.O.C. monitor, Liteon DVD RW

but Vista has been installed on a 20 G.B. Quantam HDD (5'400 r.p.m.) and it works properly except for it is slightly slow. Also, I am using Aero facility available in Vista on a 512 MB RAM and it works fine but is slow.

Now, I am planning to sell off my current system and buy a new one, the system configuration for which would be:

P4 3Ghz Dual Core Processor,
1 G.B. DDR 2 SDRAM
160 G.B. SATA2 WDC HDD (7'200 r.p.m.)
128MB NVIDIA GRAPHIC Card
RC 410 Motherboard (Dual Core Supported)

So, I would like to know whether RC410 newer motherboard is Vista compatible and whether it will give a better performance if compared with INTEL's motherboard?

Awaiting revert...
Apoorva M. Sheth.apoorvasheth........ Why dont you CHECK with the mobo manufacturer .


dl65

First of all, please let me apologize up front if this post drags on...  But I don't think this can be brief.  I own an emachines (model T-6522).  It has an 2.2 gig AMD Athlon processor, 1 gig PC 3200 DDR RAM, 200 gig hard drive.  Graphics and sound on an integrated card.  One day while playing Medieval Total War, the right speaker started to fade and then it quit working altogether.  I have it hooked up to an offbrand 27" LCD TV, so I thought it was the TV.  After hooking up PC speakers to the computer, I found out that it wasn't.  
 
I've:  a) tried updating the audio driver.  No dice.  b) deleted the audio driver and reinstalled it.  No dice.  c) ran the registry cleaner (Not sure why, it was recommended by someone).  No dice.  All diagnostics say the speakers should be working right.  The left one does...  just not the right.
 
Maybe the connector was bad?  I went out and bought a nice, inexpensive Creative sound card, DISABLED the integrated sound, correctly installed the sound card, correctly installed the DRIVERS and software that came with it...  Hooked the speakers up to the new card...  And the right speaker still doesn't freakin' work...
 
I'm now leaning toward a problem with the motherboard.  I'm not an expert...  I know just enough to be dangerous...  Has anyone heard of anything this crazy?  I'm officially out of ideas.      
 
Thanks,
The Prussian
Have you tried speakers from another computer that are known to be working?Thanks for the reply...  Yeah, I've tried THREE separate speakers for the right.  I just did a complete restrore last night...  It's driving me crazy.  After it was all said and DONE, it still doesn't work.  It's got to be a piece of hardware, but I'm now at the limits of my PC knowledge...  

Thanks again.

Greetings Friendly CH members!

For MONTHS ive been trying to figure out which machine to use for classic games.. Ive narrowed it down to a nice Abit ABX-BX6 motherboard, a 500Mhz Celeron, 512mb SD ram ati rage pro Turbo AGP GPU..

Issue is the hard drive.. ive only a few IDE drives left and i was looking at alternatives.. I came across many youtubers such as the 8-bit guy stating that you can use a IDE to SD card and use SD cards as a hard drive storage... Issue is (as he also outlines) an SD card has a limited read/write.. He mentioned about disabling the page file for the SD card.. Would doing that decrease the amount of writes to the drive and if so how would one do that in say windows 98SE?

Thanks guys. I have tried one of those SATA to SDCards as a cheap SSD like alternative. Problems I ran into is that it only worked for Linux and Microsoft Windows refused to install to it.

I'd just pick up a cheap used IDE HDD if you need one and dont have one. For Win 98 a SMALL HDD would probably do such as a 8GB. It all depends on what you will be running for games.

Also to mention socket 370 CPUs are cheap. You might be able to upgrade it to the better Pentium 3 for around $10 off of amazon or ebay. It would also open up your game selection for older games that may have been too demanding for a celeron, but Pentium 3 was perfect for them without lag. The 66Mhz FSB Celerons I try to avoid and go with a 100MHZ  or 133Mhz FSB Pentium 3 if the motherboard supports it.Hi Comda

There is IDE to SATA converters , they plug into the IDE port on the motherboard and have a power socket for powering the board.

This is just an example
   http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-PATA-IDE-TO-Serial-ATA-SATA-Interface-Hard-Drive-HDD-Adapter-Converter-/251875957235?hash=item3aa4fa19f3:g:ngoAAOSw9N1VsPTy

Then you would be able to use any sata drive in the computer. There will be partition LIMITATIONS with Windows 89.
If you do want to use an sdcard then you would turn off windows swap file. With 512mb of memory windows  shouldn't need to use the swap file and you could therefore leave it turned on.
 
Windows 89 ? ? ? Quote from: DaveLembke on March 10, 2016, 07:36:48 AM

I have tried one of those SATA to SDCards as a cheap SSD like alternative. Problems I ran into is that it only worked for Linux and Microsoft Windows refused to install to it.

I'd just pick up a cheap used IDE HDD if you need one and dont have one. For Win 98 a small HDD would probably do such as a 8GB. It all depends on what you will be running for games.

Also to mention socket 370 CPUs are cheap. You might be able to upgrade it to the better Pentium 3 for around $10 off of amazon or ebay. It would also open up your game selection for older games that may have been too demanding for a celeron, but Pentium 3 was perfect for them without lag. The 66Mhz FSB Celerons I try to avoid and go with a 100Mhz  or 133Mhz FSB Pentium 3 if the motherboard supports it.

So I just built a customized computer via ebay, with the following specs:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/391403143839

Yes, I am AWARE there is no GRAPHICS card and aware there is no OS system. I put in a r9 290x radeon 4g in myself and have a windows 7 disc.

So today it all came and I set it all up but it would give me the "no signal input" error, despite it showing me what was going on on the monitor just fine, but then as I have to boot the system up for the first time with my windows 7 copy, the computer is not responding to my keyboard. Any command I try, nothing, and my keyboard wont even change lights when putting into caps lock or not. Obviously if I can't tell my computer to boot, it's useless. I tried wireless and usb wire keyboards, but still NADA. Any IDEAS on WHATS going on? Make sure you are connecting your monitor directly to your graphics card and not the motherboard.  If that fails take your card out and try connecting directly to the motherboard.  If it doesn't work in the state that it arrived in using the onboard graphics, then I'd send it back.