The Computer Megathread

[KoopaScooper]

well if you're looking to upgrade a prebuilt try looking deeper next time

[Ad Bot]

[Ethan]

Not by much? I understand the mem on that card is DDR3, instead of GDDR5, but 2 gigs of ddr3 alright for Blockland and BF3?

Video RAM doesn't really play a part in performance. 1GB is heaps for pretty much any laptop, unless you're running an extra monitor off of it.
It moreso matters about the video core.

Intel(R) HD Graphics Family

Is this a bad Video Card? The only thing wrong is a lack of dedicated memory.

Very bad. Few generations ago's integrated bottom-end chip. Lol.

Might upgrade ram to 8GB, but the processor will stay as is, seeing as it is most likely soldered on.

Is it worth it? I'm doing things like rendering Blender Animations.

The processor is the problem part here. That's quite slow.
I don't think any extra RAM is going to improve anything, sorry.

I've been thinking of building a new system for a while now, since my crappy old dell dimension 4300 finally died.... (well, i DID try to take apart the CPU)
so here's the list of things I've been thinking about with my approximate budget of £300 -£400.

Case - not to worry about right now
motherboard - Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2PV Intel H61 - £39.98 - http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/motherboards/intel1155h61chipsetmotherboards/ga-h61m-s2pv.html                                                             
   processor - Intel Pentium G480 - £50.99 - http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/intelpentiumdualcore/bx80623g840.html
   RAM - Novatech 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHz - £18.98 - http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/memory-pc/ddr3-pc3-10666/1333mhz/ram-313334.html
   network card - included in motherboard
   USB port - included in motherboard
   Disk controller - what is this?
   Graphic card - GF GTX550 Ti 1024MB - £79.99 - http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/nvidiageforcegraphicscards/nvidiagtx550tifermiseries/nov-550.html
   power supply - already have?
CD drive - LG GH22NS70 22x DVD+/-RW SATA - £13.98 - http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/opticaldrives/satadvdwriters/gh22ns70.auaa.html
Hard drive - Seagate Barracuda 500GB - http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/harddrives-internal/sata500gbto1tb/st500dm002.html

I know this may be above my budget but i wanna see what you guys think of my choice, and perhaps recommend something better of a similar price.
Please also note that my keyboard is a PS/2, my display only supports VGA, and I'm not going to be playing CoD on max settings, just Blockland and a couple of other cheap games.

I'll get you a list soon.
Few things to take note of: That CPU is really underpowered for the rest of your system, and that in turn will bottleneck the whole system to the speed that the CPU can handle.
Do you need a copy of Windows 7? Or do you already have one?

BRB with the rest of the post.

[Ethan]

can someone suggest a laptop for <1000 usd, that can run most of my steam games on at least medium settings?
The less money the better really, I'm going to need this for college but I want to be able to play some games during the times between classes.

If you want really really good performance and don't mind it being refurbished:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158386

However, not much of a step down, and brand new, and a lot cheaper:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246324

It has 384MB of dedicated memory actually. It's an AMD Radeon HD 6250

Anyways, I'm probably not going to do anything here, but I'll check to see if it's soldered on anyways.

Would 8GB of RAM actually make much a difference?

Edit: 8GB RAM

Problem is, no where on my current RAM does it mention bus speed or # of pins or anything, just "1Rx8 PC3 10600S"

From the numbers 10600, I can determine that it runs DDR3-1333 speed RAM.
So yes, anything within this list:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007635%20600000414%20600000401&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20

Could somebody list me an £800 computer for video editing/gaming?

List on it's way.

Look at the $1000 build in the OP.

Nah, that's outdated. I need to update OP's suggestions.

How should I go about factory resetting a netbook without deleting windows itself?
It came with windows 7 starter so no disc drive (or disc).

Well, when you get the computer, the bloatware insists that you create a factory backup, which you maybe should have done if you didn't have a copy of Windows to put on.
However, the only way to truly factory reset it, is have a disk, restore it with the above method, or reformat. But reformatting requires reinstalling Windows.
So, unfortunately, you will probably have to reinstall Windows.

[Ethan]

Uh help please


My keyboard and mouse have seemed to have stopped working. I left my computer on to download a game overnight and when I woke up I couldnt get my computer out of sleep mode because the mouse and keyboard did not work. They did not have any of their lights on, so it looks like they are out of battery, but they are wired and my computer is on


Help :c

Sleep mode, while having been around for many years, still is buggy. If I put my computer into sleep mode (my laptop is fine with sleep mode, just my desktop does this) my G19 keyboard acts like it has permanent sticky keys, and my G9x mouse also acts the same.
Hard restart is really the only thing, lol.

Also, if your computer is in a closed cabinet, is it getting enough ventilation?

If its a dell I believe there's a setting in BIOS to reset it to factory settings. Nevermind, I'm handicapped. Unplug all your peripherals that you don't need and start the computer.

Press F8, and the Advanced boot options should show up. Then select "Repair your Computer" and then set the language and all that.

Log in as an administrator and click "Dell factory Image restore".

I think that's how it is.

EDIT: I think it takes a while depending on the computer.

That requires the backup disks, and is only for Dell computers, lol.

[TeslaCoil]

my pooter is bedder den ur pooter

[Ethan]

my pooter is bedder den ur pooter

na bra

[SpreadsPlague]

how much cash would I have to dish out if I wanted a laptop with a fast i7 processor? (only for documents and the like, do not need gaming on it whatsoever)

[Ethan]

how much cash would I have to dish out if I wanted a laptop with a fast i7 processor? (only for documents and the like, do not need gaming on it whatsoever)

So, a good processor, fair bit of RAM (4GB, 6GB or 8GB do?), relatively big hard drive (500GB?) and a basic GPU?

Here's your cheapest option:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215268

If you want to spend a little more, you can get something with arguably better quality and a tiny bit better specifications:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158324

Also, any other constraints? Maybe you want a 17.3" screen or something like that?
Here's a complete list of i7 laptops:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740%20600003982&IsNodeId=1&name=Intel%20Core%20i7

[D3ATH LORD]

Few things to take note of: That CPU is really underpowered for the rest of your system, and that in turn will bottleneck the whole system to the speed that the CPU can handle.
Do you need a copy of Windows 7? Or do you already have one?

BRB with the rest of the post.

Thanks for replying, and for the advice, for i always thought that CPU would be sufficient...but then again, i don't know much about them.
And yes, one of my major problems is that i don't own a copy of windows 7. I was thinking of Ubuntu, or one of those Linux-based systems, but really, no-one makes games for those systems. I have a copy of windows XP professional, but that's getting old too...
My dad also advised me that the Geforce 550 is way more than i need and i perhaps need to think through my choice again and update the list of components. Also, i forgot to mention in my previous post that i can't get anything outside of the UK, and i need to keep costs as low as possible while maintaining the decency of the components. I'm looking for cheaper things still, and if you have something in mind perhaps you could suggest it.

[Tokthree]

That requires the backup disks, and is only for Dell computers, lol.

My Inspiron 570 has a backup of the OS and factory settings partitioned on my HDD, as long as my harddrive doesn't suffer a catastrophic failure I'm golden no matter what OS bullstufftery happens

[Mulch]

My video games are setting themselves to low or the lowest graphical settings possible the first time I run them. Are they not recognizing my system or something?

Actually under "Performance Information and Tools" in my control panel the computer gives me a base score of 5.9 based on my hard drive only, even though the second lowest component is my processor at a score of 7.6 out of 7.9 . Are my games reading my base score and deciding what graphics settings to use based on that?

[Citrus]

http://www.falcon-nw.com/

A site that I found to have very VERY VERY VERY VEEEEEEERRRRYYYYYYYY.....er.. .nice... products.

Just thought that maybe Ethan might like to look at it. (He probably already knows about it <_>)

[steve5451]

I did a hard drive transplant from my grandmas old computer to a newer, hard-driveless one. It boots in safemode but when booting normal it just arruptly restarts with no warning while showing the Winsows XP loading screen.
I noticed that it will show a Dell bios after the normal E-Machines bios which I found odd.

[Legodude77]

I have a question, this new computer I built is using the onboard radeon HD 4250, and my old pc is using a 5450. Now I'm wondering if when the new blockland update comes out if I will need to get a better graphics card than the onboard one I'm using right now. I plan to when ever I get enough money to buy a 6750, but that won't be for a while.

[steve5451]

Can't you put your 5450 in your current computer or use your old one? A 5450 is plenty enough for Blockland with shaders.