[meg knight]

K, thanks for the info, I didn't think that it was that much more graphically intensive then skyrim to warrant running on low.

on another note, I don't like how you can't change the controls in-game, you have to exit and change them before you load the game up. it was naturally set to WASD, which I can't stand ><

[Céline Rémy]

Hey guys.

I was looking to upgrade my GPU to something better but then I realized I needed a new motherboard to go along with it, and then a new case because my current one wouldn't fit the new card. So now I think I want to give my computer to my brother (who also needs something better) and just go all out and buy a brand new computer.

At first I was looking up different parts and adding up the prices and seeing where I could buy them from ebay. Then I saw this; http://tinyurl.com/a8tmvjg

Ignore the pink, you can request other colors as well.

After adding up the cost of all the individual parts, it would actually cost me more to build my computer than to buy this pre-built one with similar specs. So I was wondering what your thoughts were on buying pre-built PC's online, and if you think that is a good price for what I am getting? If you scroll down there are more details on what is in the build.

Thanks.

[Vera Maslar]

Thats....actually not bad to be honest. It is definitely comparable(I think) to what you can build. Question is, do you live in Australia? Otherwise it's going to cost a TON to ship, and that will probably eat up the money saved. The GTX 680 is probably the major icing on the cake there, that's a solid 350-600 buck card(It's been a while since I priced them, but I do believe that's an appropriate range for them).

I will say though, If you are from Australia, I have no idea how it converts to U.S. currency, that $1300 AUS may actually not be as good of a deal as it appears depending on the conversion rate, since you could probably buy the parts from the U.S. and even with the shipping it could possibly be cheaper. My advice, wait till someone a bit more versed in ordering from different countries comes on the thread, as they'll be able to give you a better answer. But from a glance, that's a pretty good comp, and the pricing doesn't appear to be bad at all. Do make sure you pick up a copy of Win7 though, as that page specifically states the comp only comes pre-installed with FreeDos.

[Ella Loapaga]

Yeah I'm in Australia and I have a copy of Windows 7 lying around somewhere.

[joeK]

About to go to bed, so I won't go looking at stuff now, but something worth noting for Aussie builds is that certain Thermaltake power supplies (Toughpower Grand, XT, QFan) get lifetime warranties here.

[Wayland Neace]

Well here is a bummer, I got my new motherboard all installed then I realized my Processor is 1156, I didn't even thing to check. I assumed all i5's where 1155, I shouldn't have. Bright news is I planned on buying an i5 Ivybridge next month anyway, so i'll just hang on to my new motherboard until then.

[Robert Garcia]

Just an update, that the detection was ok, all I had to do was reboot the system and let the drivers do their thing. I didn't need to reinstall install windows. Although I was pissed off that because of a mobo change, win7 demanded a new product key. MS should probably stop that, but oh well.

Anyway, its all good. Enjoying my new system.

[willow]

Hello everyone,

I apologize if this is not in the correct section but I wanted to get some experienced opinions from those here before I purchase anything. I own Skyrim on the Xbox 360 but I have always been more of a PC player (that's how I played from Daggerfall to Oblivion). My current laptop is outdated and I wanted to buy a new laptop that can play Skyrim on it for pretty decent settings. I've looked around, but I am not tech savy so I am hesitant. I considered Alienware computers, but they are very pricy. I am looking to spend $1000 or less on a new laptop. I just don't know where to look.

Thank you in advance!

Summoner-Yuka

[Richus Dude]

Try Newegg.com and sort by $900-$1000, and Google "Gaming laptop under $1000".

But with that budget, you could get a mega-awesome laptop.

[Vicki Blondie]

One of the reviewers of this model says Skyrim plays smoothly. How is this? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312438

[Curveballs On Phoenix]

I'd jump on that while it's still available. That's a helluva deal for a 1080p laptop with dual GT 650M in SLI. I'm not a fan of SLI, but the specs are great for the price and would put the performance to the level of around the 670M or 675M. The 1TB 5400 rpm is a letdown, but just get an SSD down the road if you want something quicker. Battery life is garbage, but it's pretty normal for notebooks with decent video chips in them. The processor is fast albeit only a dual-core chip, but with 4 threads....should hold up rather well.


I just hope this doesn't overheat badly considering there are two video chips :\

[Steven Hardman]

I'm currently looking for a mid range gaming laptop. I'm going to be traveling a lot in the next year and I plan on starting college fall 2014.

I was looking at the http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6350-clevo-w350etq-eta-p-4897.html. It looks like a fairly good price. I plan to stick a couple of my SSDs in it. (one boot drive, one gaming drive)
It has a gtx 660m.

I'm not all that well versed in mobile GPUs, I know my way around a desktop, but I've never had a gaming laptop.


I'm not planning on maxing out every game, I just want to know if the 660m would be able to handle Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim, Witcher 2, HoMM VI, etc at 1080p with medium/high settings and 40+fps. Just so that it the games don't look horrendous.

[Melung Chan]

Ok so I come home just to turn on my computer and it begins to smoke. I turned it off right away and took it apart and it looks like the PSU completely fried. I have no idea why, it was working perfectly about a week ago. And now there's brown liquid leaking from it and have no idea what that is. I honestly have no idea what to do since I take care of my computer.
Any advice?

Also it killed the power in my room...

[Rude Gurl]

I feel bad for posting this in more than one place, but I suppose it can't hurt. It's another full-build gaming PC check.


http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1436797-the-homebuilt-gaming-pc-guide/page__view__findpost__p__22081632

[Danielle Brown]

dialectric fluid. Please resist the urge to play and/or drink it as depending on the compound used, it can be quite toxic.

It means your PSUs capacitor burst. Probably that nasty dirty power Edison's been giving us lately. Had to replace my ONT last week because the dirty power fried it (or do you guys not have Edison in your part?).

[Pete Schmitzer]

[censored], I really don't want to replace it, and yeah I bet a power surge or something was what caused it to fry. Edison covers this area being the central coast and all.

Can you recommend me another psu? My old one was a OCZ 600W. I've got 8gb ram, a 4870 1gb, phenom quad core 3.2GHz and an ASUS mobo.

[Mark Hepworth]

I loved my SeaSonic 560W Gold. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095 SeaSonic is about as good as it gets in power supplies. Very well made and reliable.

[Nicholas C]

Over the weekend I had a 2TB drive go bad from my ESXI server. It was giving me a lot of sector read errors.

I got most of the data off, and it is under warranty, so I am going to send it back. Western Digital will send me a replacement.

But I always DBAN before I return a drive. The drive is formatted in VMFS5 and all the data was stored in a VMDK (Virtual Disk).

Would it be reasonable to just DBAN the VMDK (since it took up the entire drive)? Nothing too valuable was stored on the drive.

-Edit- I just ended up using DBAN on the entire drive.

[megan gleeson]

Not so much as technical, but i didnt want to stat another thread and i have no idea whrther this has been posted before, if you install Kingdom of Amalur and Mass Effect 3, ME removes the icon from the programs list for you cant uninstall it through programs, and it uninstalls the uninstall program in the folder, getting rid of it was a load of laughs.

[Vahpie]

Its apparently a known issue on the Bioware forums. I believe it has something to do with KoA adding extra items to the ME3 install, but it could be simply bad coding.

http://social.bioware.com/578067/blog/212308/

[Jarrett Willis]

I am looking to build a gaming computer, with a focus on the most power for the least amount of money. So far, I really like the i5-3570K, but am struggling how to pair it up with a GPU.

• Since the K model is capable of doing so, should I overclock this CPU? Will it improve the performance noticeably and how difficult is it to do so? Overall, is it a safe procedure, so long as I am sensible with regards to cooling?
• Which GPU should I use with this CPU? I am looking at a pre-overclocked GTX 660 2 GB VRAM or a HD Radeon 7870 2 GB, which I could then always go on to overclock if necessary. Which is better?
• With regards to your recommended choices, what sort of performance could I expect from this? Using Crysis 3 as a benchmark, which is one of the most intensive games I can think of from this generation, what sort of FPS can I expect on what graphical settings and resolution? It would be running on 20" Full HD Samsung monitor.

Anyone who can either drop us a PM or just leave a message below in this thread with some solid advice will have my appreciation. Thanks!

[RAww DInsaww]

Hi all,

So Im graduating high school soon and am going to need a laptop for college. My mom has agreed to pay for half of almost whatever I choose to get (up to $500) for my graduation gift. The thing is, in order for my mom to pay half, I have to buy my computer from a brick and mortar store (gross, I know). She's kind of old for a "kid "my age and is very set in her ways. Well, pretty much my only options around here are Best Buy and Wal---well, my only option is pretty much Best Buy. I'm going to look into some small computer shops around town that I know of, but I think the majority of them are repair shops exclusively.

I want to play some games on it, so I need a decent video card and processor. And for some reason, I'm very stuck on having a Blu Ray drive in it. But since it is for college, I have to have a decent battery life. Anyway, after looking on the website for a long time, I think I found my best option:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell---Inspiron-15.6%26%2334%3B-Laptop---8GB-Memory---1TB-Hard-Drive-%2B-32GB-Solid-State-Drive/7850404.p;tab=reviews?id=1218861571251&skuId=7850404

Now, I know it's a Dell, but look at the specs and give it a chance. But I'm also prepared to have my computer ripped apart (metaphorically) by you guys. Thanks in advance, guys.

[Heather M]

Have you looked at Lenovo's offerings? Should do a price comparison with the Sagers from xoticpc. I am a fan of their products too, but Lenovo has certainly catered well to Laptop gamers lately. Check this out:
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087¤t-category-id=AC523278A4F13F27A84F5F5622D1AC7A&action=init

or even this and get a separate SSD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312438



Looks decent enough.




1. Kind of a shame getting a K chip without the intention of OCing it. Can easily get an extra 1GHz out of the chip. Plenty of guides around the web these days on how to do it. Just need a better cooler than the stock one. One of http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=hyper+212&x=0&y=0 will do fine.

2. Both are rather similar. Whatever's cheaper. If PhysX, Linux, or 3D is important, then the GTX. If multi-monitor setup is important, then the Radeon.

3. This should help:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-3-performance-benchmark-gaming,3451-5.html





Not bad. Dell actually does make decent notebooks. The price for those specs isn't too bad either. Don't expect the greatest battery life though...any laptop that has better than a mid-range GPU and a i7 CPU in it will svck in the battery life department.

[Hayley Bristow]

This is more of a tech story than asking for support. But basically, I was a part of a bitcoin mining botnet for about a day. I noticed my GPU activity increasing whenever I was idle on my computer. It would spike to about 15% when I was actually using it, and then when I left it idle long enough, go to 93%. I installed malwarebytes, and it started blocking "potentially malicious connections" almost immediately to two IPs. As soon as I did that, the GPU usage stopped. I looked at the process that was trying to make these connections, and it was ieutil.exe located in my C:\Temporary folder, along with another folder called "bitstreams", and inside that there are a bunch of files, one of which has "fpgaminer" in the name.

I don't think I'll have any problems once it's removed, it doesn't seem exceptionally sophisticated, but I thought it was pretty interesting. Still no idea how the infection happened though.

[Chris Ellis]

Looking for a good wireless networking card for my computer. Internal or external is fine. Just want something with good performance.