The Computer Megathread

[steve5451]

I think I may have over-overclocked my Athlon II and it's borked now. :C
That or the motherboard. I had to get my mobo RMA'd and the one I got was open box. It didn't bother me too much other than the fact that I didn't get a little POST beeper thingy (whatever you call it.) Since I don't have this wonderful little thing I can't identify the problem properly. It cut out in-game as if it had an unstable overclock. I waited for it to reboot but it didn't show anything on my monitor. It sounds perfectly normal when it boots too. I can hear my HDD spinning up and my CD drives start reading for a couple seconds but my CPU takes about 20 seconds to actually start to feel warm when I took the heatsink off and stuck my finger on it as it booted. Another thing is that I've noticed when I boot my GPU will spin up fast for the first second then spin down to where I can't hear it. It no longer does this.
The irony of it is that I was using the Athlon II as a temporary CPU because my Phenom II borked.

[Ad Bot]

[mp7964]

EDIT: I need a 750w+ PSU that will fit into this case. Anyone know where I can find one?

[Funkadelic]

Since there is no other place to ask, is a Radeon HD 6850 graphics card fully compatible with my Dell inspiron 518 desktop?

Does anyone have any ideas for good graphics cards?

[SpreadsPlague]

lol'd hard at "etiquette power supply"

pretty sure you meant "adequate", koopa 

Does anyone have any ideas for good graphics cards?

a 6850 or 560 Ti (assuming you don't want to spend too much)

EDIT: I need a 750w+ PSU that will fit into this case. Anyone know where I can find one?

newegg

[Captain Crazy]

question about add-on cards and USB in general: is USB 3.0 signifigantly better than USB 2.0? My case is lackin' major in USB ports, and I'd love to be able to have more peripherals, but I'm wondering if I should shell out the extra dough for some fancier ports.

also another computard question: what the heck are SATA ports for? they're a cool blue color but I'm genuinely confused as to what they're for. most results on google for the same question are quite vague.

[steve5451]

question about add-on cards and USB in general: is USB 3.0 signifigantly better than USB 2.0? My case is lackin' major in USB ports, and I'd love to be able to have more peripherals, but I'm wondering if I should shell out the extra dough for some fancier ports.

also another computard question: what the heck are SATA ports for? they're a cool blue color but I'm genuinely confused as to what they're for. most results on google for the same question are quite vague.

SATA ports are what connects every modern HDD and CD drive to the motherboard. It replaces the slow and outdated IDE ports, which are the long white things that you must align every pin to plug them in, which for me is very difficult.

[Captain Crazy]

SATA ports are what connects every modern HDD and CD drive to the motherboard. It replaces the slow and outdated IDE ports, which are the long white things that you must align every pin to plug them in, which for me is very difficult.

like those damned 8-pins and 6-pins and 4-pins and aaauhghgh pins forget them

so, SATA ports feed power through the motherboard? is it limited to the HDD & CD drive or can it give power to components plugged into other ports? sure would be convenient if my graphics card could take power straight from the slot rather than a horrific mess of wire


EDIT: oop wait, I see now. i got a pair of those IDE things on my motherboard, along with a pair of ports labeled "SATA RAID"

[Fluff-is-back]

like those damned 8-pins and 6-pins and 4-pins and aaauhghgh pins forget them

so, SATA ports feed power through the motherboard? is it limited to the HDD & CD drive or can it give power to components plugged into other ports? sure would be convenient if my graphics card could take power straight from the slot rather than a horrific mess of wire


EDIT: oop wait, I see now. i got a pair of those IDE things on my motherboard, along with a pair of ports labeled "SATA RAID"

SATA ports on the motherboard to not power the device, these are for DATA only. SATA drives require a seperate SATA power connector, this is found on most modern PSUs, same with IDE, but these drives use a 4Pin molex power connector, on most if not all PSUs.

[KoopaScooper]

pretty sure you meant "adequate", koopa 

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my bad, need to install spellcheck again

Does anyone have any ideas for good graphics cards?

anything above the GTX 450 or the HD 5670

EDIT: I need a 750w+ PSU that will fit into this case. Anyone know where I can find one?

any standard ATX size power supply will work

[Uncle Bengs]

Is ~43 C an acceptable idle temperature for your GPU when you're using two screens?

[KoopaScooper]

yes
mine idles at 60 when dual-screens because it's stuff

[._maxwell23461_.]

BUMP

[Tokthree]

Is ~43 C an acceptable idle temperature for your GPU when you're using two screens?

30 C is pretty cool, 50 C is okay, 70 C is pushing it a bit and 110 C is back the forget out of there and turn up your fans immediately.
Decent estimation scale for all GPU's no matter what you're doing

[steve5451]

30 C is pretty cool, 50 C is okay, 70 C is pushing it a bit and 110 C is back the forget out of there and turn up your fans immediately.
Decent estimation scale for all GPU's no matter what you're doing

What, 30 is normal 50 is warm 60 is hot 70 is too much.

[Uncle Bengs]

What, 30 is normal 50 is warm 60 is hot 70 is too much.

depends on GPU, mostly. tokthree's scale thing looks suitable for most GPU's though