The Computer Megathread

[Rusty]

Thanks for your time.

[Ad Bot]

[Dropshock]

Yayy! With my christmas money I'm grabbing a Radeon HD 6950 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161372

Then I'm also grabbing this fan controller: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811992005

and a couple new fans: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835200049

Hooray.

[KoopaScooper]

Niiice. I'm assuming this is going with your build that you made a few months ago?

[Dropshock]

Niiice. I'm assuming this is going with your build that you made a few months ago?

Yup. My old HD 5770 just isn't quite preforming as well as it used to.

[KoopaScooper]

Yeah, my 9500GT appears to be doing the same. Might be time to upgrade.

[kakashi11]

Ordered my PSU today, i got my Graphics card already, it's bigger then i thought!

Getting PSU tomorrow, :D

Pay for one day shipping, wait 2 days for delivery,

damn it newegg!

[Robin Ihoodl]

Hey Ethan, Would the 300$ one be good for a game like APB Reloaded, Really want to play this game but my laptop lags so much.

[Mega-Bear]

I would like to give a review of Ethan's selection here. :)

About a month ago I bought the $800 model and recieved it as a Christmas present. Yesterday I had a friend of my mom's come and put it together for me, and holy crap. I'll begin with the case: It's beautiful. It has a very sleek design with a pretty window on the side so you can see all the inner parts. The motherboard has a pre-lubricated fan which is very convenient, and even comes with a neat little blue light that helps me sleep at night. NOT ONLY DOES IT PERFORM WELL, IT AIDS ME WITH MY INSOMNIA! The graphics card, holy BALLSACK. I'm a PC gamer so I definitely need the best graphics card I can get, this one is by no means a let down. I can run Battlefield 3 on max settings.

Ethan, you've done a splendid job. It took my 167 pages to commend you for this, but better late than never. Great work.

[devildogelite]

Pre-lubricated fan, lolwut?

[Mega-Bear]

Pre-lubricated fan, lolwut?

Some part of the fan had lubricant already built into it or something, I don't know.

[Ethan]

Also, Ethan, mind telling me the steps to install more RAM into a computer?
My Mom only has 1.4 GBs of RAM and I want to install some more for her so her computer can run a bit faster.

If she is on Windows 98, any more RAM isn't going to affect performance.
Her other specs will be more useful on that OS.

i'm going to buy this with my christmas money
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231136

1. That's expensive.
2. 4 sticks? Why? Just buy two 2GBs.

http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelaptops/product.php?id=A1Q55EA&experience=direct
Opening it for chrimbo.

AMD Radeon HD 6545G2 Dual GPU graphics (512mb dedicated (3.8th total))
How will that perform?

Hmm.
Not too bad.

I figured this would be the best place to ask this question.

I'm contemplating buying Burnout Paradise for my PC, and cyri says I'm way over minimum. What bothers me is my CPU (it sucks compared to my computer) is a Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz where the minimum for the game is 2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent (For Vista 3.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4)
Would I be able to run it well on High?

Pentium D > Pentium 4.
The D is a dual core CPU version of the Pentium 4.

why is the background all Japanese q.q it makes me want to try to read it, or at least type what i don't understand into a translator

Bigger problems in the world, lol.

Should I set my ssd up in srt with my hdd?

Hell yes. Just remember to install Windows on the HDD first.

Help:

So I got a radeon hd 6870 like i was recommended in this topic for christmas and it doesn't seem to work... I took out the old card and put the new one in it's place and it just doesn't seem to be giving any signal out. Computer starts up as normally but no display through the monitor. I put the old card back in and it still works so nothing else wrong other than the new card. I double checked that i'd put it in right. I don't think the card is faulty as it's brand new and packaged. I tried un-installing the old card's drivers and putting in the new card as well but no luck.

Uh, did you plug in the power cords? The 6870 requires 2 6-pin PCI-E power cords.

Highest ATi GPU that doesn't need power from the power supply (a.k.a. a power cable plugged into it.)
GOGOGO

4670 or 6550 I think. Double check though.

Inb4nerdrage

Completely unhelpful and unneccesary.

I'm going to get one of these. Since I cannot think for myself, please pick the most suitable one for playing games such as Minecraft and Land of Blocks.
1 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158073
2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230129
3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215199
4 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230130

gogogogogo

The first one is the best.
dv6-6135DX

Number 2 would be work just fine, everything else is overkill.

You're an idiot.

Post 1 of however many.

[Ethan]

Steam Crashes my Asus Laptop. I just updated all the drivers but whenever i run it it freezes up my computer. Help :C

Delete the clientregistry.blob in the Steam directory and report back.

My friend is going to get this GPU:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1075157&SRCCODE=SHOPPINGDF&cm_mmc_o=2mHCjCmtB55bETCjCVqHCjCdwwp&cpncode=22-191861972-2
Now I'm wondering if it needs a cable from the power supply plugged into it or not. His psu might not be powerful enough.

Yes, I believe that does require at least 1 PCI-E 6-pin connector. Make sure he has at least 450W PSU, high quality.

I want to get this card:
http://shop.amd.com/us/All/Detail/GraphicCard/EAH6870!2F2DI2S!2F1GD5?SearchTerms=Asus%20radeon%206870

I have the 6-Pin connectors required to power it and a PCI Express 16x Lane, but there is a wire protruding from the power supply which is blocking the way. I've measured the space (8 Inches) but the card is 12 Inches. Any suggestions?

Just redo your cable management. All I can say. BTW, 12 inches for a 6870? Sounds wrong. A near-equal spec 5850 is about 9 inches.

Just installed Ubuntu on my new pc build. It works great!

Now I have another question. My cpu fan it constantly on high. Why is that? The temperature say 44c degrees Celsius. Is that good?

Not good, but adequate.
If the noise bothers you that much, reseat the heatsink on the CPU. Make sure to reapply thermal paste.

I'm looking to buy an amd 6970 with some work/christmas money. Can you suggest the best brand to buy? I was looking at this gigabyte one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125371 mostly just because the 3 fans drew my attention. actually I better measure the room that I have, the above card looks too big. Yeah I only have a bit less than 11 inches of space.
Current system specs:
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 955 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
PSU: 800 watt
I'm also using 2 monitors if that effects anything regarding manufacturer choice.

Your current GPU is really good as it is, and the 6970 will possibly be bottlenecked by your CPU, a little bit.

Have you found the length of a twin frozr II one?

Hey Ethan, I was wondering if you could work with me to make a cheap gaming pc to run games like APB Reloaded, Always wanted to play that game but my pc Sux.

Of course.
Budget?

I wanna run skyrim and i got THIS compoter V
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227163

Will these stuff hep it run skyrim with high settings:
Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808

Graphics Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131440

If you want high settings, you'd be looking at a better GPU than the one you asked about, however that processor is great.
Just make sure it's compatible, and your PSU is adequate.

So, here's the problem:

I got a new 550W power supply and an ATI radeon HD 6870 video card for christmas. In my excitement, I unhooked the power cables of my old CPU, unscrewed it and took it out. Then I reassembled my new PSU and video card with all the cables in the right slots. When I turned it on, all the fans started spinning, the lights went on, but I there wasn't anything showing up on my monitor. I tried reconnecting certain parts, the hold-the-button-for--seconds trick, but nothing helped. So I unscrewed the PSU and the GPU and put back my old ones. The same thing happened. Is there anything i'm doing wrong? All cables are in the right spots. Here's where the cables go:

• My 20-pin cable goes into the 24-pin on my motherboard (It has always worked like this)
• My 4-pin cable goes into a 4-pin slot near my GPU
• My HDD goes via a SATA cable to my SATA1 port
• My DVD-Drive goes via a SATA cable to my SATA2 port
• My DVD-Drive and HDD both have power cables connected to them

I still have 1x4 cable which I couldn't find a spot for hanging loose in my case.
Please help :o

Do attempt to put the whole 24 pins in the motherboard one.
Have you put the two 6-pins in the 6870?

[Bisjac]

where is the ati equivalent of the "Mixed GPU Acceleration" setting?
i want to change settings for better multi-monitor usage.

right now games lag when using 2 screens, total crap

[Coulmbai]

Pre-lubricated fan, lolwut?

Hote

[devildogelite]

I have a 120gb Corsair gt, would it be better to use it in srt or as a boot drive?