Author Topic: The Computer Megathread (Read 492710 times)

It supports up to 4GB total DDR2-800, in 2 slots.
Sorry, you're at your maximum.

However, I must add, that 4GB of RAM is incredibly overpowered for the rest of your system, which quite honestly sucks.

Fluff-is-back · December 23, 2011, 07:18:23 AM

I have given up with AMD and am now going for the i5 2500k, I am leaning towards this motherboard. Any advice on this?

KoopaScooper · December 23, 2011, 11:41:45 AM

Quote from: Fluff-is-back on December 23, 2011, 07:18:23 AM

I have given up with AMD and am now going for the i5 2500k, I am leaning towards this motherboard. Any advice on this?

ASUS is quite a reliable brand. Go for it.

SPooK · December 23, 2011, 11:54:30 AM

Quote from: Fluff-is-back on December 23, 2011, 07:18:23 AM

I have given up with AMD and am now going for the i5 2500k, I am leaning towards this motherboard. Any advice on this?

That's probably one of the best boards you will ever buy. You can get a much cheaper board that is just as good. I would suggest this.

Gojira · December 23, 2011, 11:55:43 AM

Uh
I have a virus or something that plays videos as the screensaver

any idea how to delete?

Windows XP running on Parallels.

Ethan · December 23, 2011, 02:27:37 PM

Quote from: Gojira on December 23, 2011, 11:55:43 AM

Uh
I have a virus or something that plays videos as the screensaver

any idea how to delete?

Windows XP running on Parallels.

Virus scan maybe? If you're sure it's a virus. Doesn't really sound like it.
Are you talking about those animated screensavers?

Quote from: SPooK on December 23, 2011, 11:54:30 AM

That's probably one of the best boards you will ever buy. You can get a much cheaper board that is just as good. I would suggest this.

Don't get this, get the one you were going to get.
This motherboard is P67, the Z68 chipset addressed issues with P67 and added useful features.

Quote from: Fluff-is-back on December 23, 2011, 07:18:23 AM

I have given up with AMD and am now going for the i5 2500k, I am leaning towards this motherboard. Any advice on this?

Ok, ok, but have you seen how the 7970 kicked nVidia's ass, even the GTX 590 when the 7970 was overclocked? :P
That's a good motherboard.

Nickelob Ultra · December 23, 2011, 07:42:50 PM

Code black

I've gotten two blue screens today. Both point to "hal.dll" and "ntoskrnl.exe".

http://www.mediafire.com/?zn3v734z15d1az1

These are both the dumps in an html file from BlueScreenView.

I'm immediately prepping the same copy of Windows .iso I used to repair it if needed, and will be running a virus scan over night.

If there is any other information/advice you can offer me, it'd be useful. I always take this stuff seriously with my computer.
I'm also going to be manually checking my BIOS settings. I had reverted an overclock but I'll double check, my RAM had been set to 1600 MHz so it might be why.

In the BIOS it was set to 1066 MHz. Why is my RAM at 667 MHz?
And is my north bridge supposed to be this high?

KoopaScooper · December 23, 2011, 07:58:29 PM

My RAM is 533 MHz in reality, while CPU-Z says it's only 310 MHz. It's not rare, I get it on all my computers.
Also, http://www.google.ca/search?q=STOP+0x00000124

And just a quote from another forum:

Quote

1) Ensure that none of the hardware components are overclocked. Hardware that is driven beyond its design specifications - by overclocking - can malfunction in unpredictable ways.

2) Ensure that the machine is adequately cooled. If there is any doubt, open up the side of the PC case (be mindful of any relevant warranty conditions!) and point a mains fan squarely at the motherboard. That will rule out most (lack of) cooling issues.

3) Update all hardware-related drivers: video, sound, RAID (if any), NIC... anything that interacts with a piece of hardware. It is good practice to run the latest drivers anyway.

4) Update the motherboard BIOS according to the manufacturer's instructions. Their website should provide detailed instructions as to the brand and model-specific procedure.

5) Rarely, bugs in the OS may cause "false positive" 0x124 events where the hardware wasn't complaining but Windows thought otherwise (because of the bug). At the time of writing, Windows 7 is not known to suffer from any such defects, but it is nevertheless important to always keep Windows itself updated.

6) Attempt to (stress) test those hardware components which can be put through their paces artificially. The most obvious examples are the RAM and HDD(s). For the RAM, use the in-built memory diagnostics (run MDSCHED) or the 3rd-party memtest86 utility to run many hours worth of testing. For hard drives, check whether CHKDSK /R finds any problems on the drive(s), notably "bad sectors". Unreliable RAM, in particular, is deadly as far as software is concerned, and anything other than a 100% clear memory test result is cause for concern. Unfortunately, even a 100% clear result from the diagnostics utilities does not guarantee that the RAM is free from defects - only that none were encountered during the test passes.

7) As the last of the non-invasive troubleshooting steps, perform a "vanilla" reinstallation of Windows: just the OS itself without any additional applications, games, utilities, updates, or new drivers - NOTHING AT ALL that is not sourced from the Windows 7 disc. Should that fail to mitigate the 0x124 problem, jump to the next steps. Otherwise, if you run the "vanilla" installation long enough to convince yourself that not a single 0x124 crash has occurred, start installing updates and applications slowly, always pausing between successive additions long enough to get a feel for whether the machine is still free from 0x124 crashes. Should the crashing resume, obviously the very last software addition(s) may be somehow linked to the root cause.

Nickelob Ultra · December 23, 2011, 08:08:02 PM

The very first one happened while playing Just Cause 2. The second was later while just browsing the internet. Minecraft was in the background, but regardless it was fine.

I'll run a memtest tomorrow while I'm out.

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/187966-bsod-0x00000124-error-hal-dll-5ba9-ntoskrnl-exe-c4085.html

So far the signs point mainly towards bad overclocking skills (damn).