[kevin ball]

Originally by Powerslide
LET'S MAKE THIS WORK PEOPLE!

Okay, now as anyone could see there are HUNDREDS of tech threads floating around in CD - ranging from questions about graphics hardware, to questions about pricier graphics hardware and other tech such as monitors, hard drives and Processors to announcement threads of new technology and more. (I accede - I'm not being very eloquent here)

Any questions you have, tech news or ANYTHING related to buying/selling/information/announcements of new hardware should go here.

For example, if you come to the forums to ask "What is the better graphics hardware" or "What sort of RAM should I put in my PC?" then it should go here - I'm a little hazy, I know - but please keep all those graphics card and tech questions to one thread! Please!
So here's the summary, all:

• Announcements and queries on new or unreleased tech
• Benchmarks and results of hardware/discussion
• Questions on what sort of hardware you need/want for your machine
• Questions about existing tech and/or function
• Pricing and recommendations

Should be kept to THIS THREAD.

This has been A-okayed by CCNA for all who were wondering - it's up to you to stop filling CD with the same topics again and again that ask what the most powerful card in existence is so you can (not) buy it.

If you feel you have a question or can answer one - please feel free to do so.


Thanks all.
Adding more links shortly, thank you for your patience.

(Threads 1-85 have been all pruned, may they rest in peace)

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1079401-the-community-tech-thread-%2386/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1084024-the-community-tech-thread-no-87/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1090141-the-community-tech-thread-no-88/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1094900-the-community-tech-thread-no-89/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1102258-the-community-tech-thread-no-90/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1108118-the-community-tech-thread-no-91/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1112884-the-community-tech-thread-no-92/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1118559-the-community-tech-thread-no-93/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1145193-the-community-tech-thread-no-94/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1153130-the-community-tech-thread-no-95/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1160717-the-community-tech-thread-no-96/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1167952-the-community-tech-thread-no-97/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1176772-the-community-tech-thread-no-98/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1180239-the-community-tech-thread-no-99/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1188969-the-community-tech-thread-no-100/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1199194-the-community-tech-thread-no-101/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1207079-the-community-tech-thread-no-102/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1217232-the-community-tech-thread-no-103/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1224422-the-community-tech-thread-no-104/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1227492-the-community-tech-thread-no-104/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1228926-the-community-tech-thread-no-106/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1233177-the-community-tech-thread-no-107/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1241366-the-community-tech-thread-no-108/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1247846-the-community-tech-thread-no-109/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1297566-the-community-tech-thread-no-110/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1328500-the-community-tech-thread-no-111/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1348566-the-community-tech-thread-no-112/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1358707-the-community-tech-thread-no-113/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1368710-the-community-tech-thread-no-114/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1376885-the-community-tech-thread-no-115/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1386813-the-community-tech-thread-no-116/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1397168-the-community-tech-thread-no-117/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1402863-the-community-tech-thread-no-118/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1406651-the-community-tech-thread-no-119/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1413621-the-community-tech-thread-no-120/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1415651-the-community-tech-thread-no-121/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1423359-the-community-tech-thread-no-122/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1430631-the-community-tech-thread-no-123/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1435536-the-community-tech-thread-no-124/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1440306-the-community-tech-thread-no-125-quasquicentennial-edition/

Do I also have to put a big glowing neon sign to this in my signature? THERE ARE TOO MANY TECH THREADS - THIS IS NOT A FORUM FOR YOUR TECH WOES!

But we will gladly help you anyway. [img][src="http://www.gamesas.com/images/smilie/wink.gif"]http://static.zenima...efault/wink.gif[/url][/img]

Honour list:
Nottheking
Lord Athanar (SUPER-PINK!)
Insaneturbo13
Anothercanadian
Tig Ol' Bitties (Moderator)
Dogsbody
CCNA (Moderator)
Níeh?ggr
wolfpup
Wierd
Softnerd
wingus
DEFRON
Qwaxalot
iGuess
Starforce9
uncle fuzzy


Oh and PLEASE, if you want us to "Build" you a PC, please indicate the following:
1.) your budget in your country's currency
2.) what country you reside if not listed in your avatar area
3.) pre-assembled PC? ...or can you build your own?
4.) what is needed other than the PC tower? Monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard, Windows OS disc? All these can jack up the price.
5.) product preferences, preferred seller, and intended aim

but please, no "I want teh superererest Peecee evar1!!!!11!1", because really, only Bill Gates has that much moolah.


And, speaking of building your own PC, two sets of good how-to videos from Newegg:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPIXAtNGGCw&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_56kyib-Ls&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxaVBsXEiok&feature=related

Thanks to SpankyTheElf for finding these additional ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CStOC0hET8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3buj5cIh2Bs&feature=related



Other useful links

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/983941-a-freeware-guide/page__p__14225246__fromsearch__1#entry14225246
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2
http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/502403-graphics-card-ranking-5th-time-last.html
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/articles.php?articleid=132
http://www.memtest86.com/
http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/
http://entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm
http://www.irfanview.com/
http://www.knoppix.org/
http://www.jonnyguru.com/
http://www.overclock.net/power-supplies/183810-faq-recommended-power-supplies.html
http://www.overclock.net/power-supplies/715889-psu-articles.html#post9110838
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/
http://tftcentral.co.uk/
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06/
http://www.fraps.com/
http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1&front_id=12

[Darrell Fawcett]

What's this? A Tig Ol Bitties siting?


Can we also make it so all the "I'm buying a new PC" threads all go here as well since there are like two or three popping up daily?

[luis dejesus]

I notice a small bit of lag in The Witcher 2 and Skyrim (with highest res texture mods, nif replacers, etc.).

[Prisca Lacour]

Since the PC subforum hardware thread for Skyrim doesn't get much traffic, I thought I'd ask about this [existing] hardware set-up here as regards its ability to run Skyrim:

ASUSTeK Computer INC. M4A78LT-M-LE
AMD Athlon™ II X4 640 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
4096MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 240

While it already exists, and if I were to build a new PC I would use more recent hardware, just indulge me for a moment.

[Josh Dagreat]

Here's a gameplay demo that purports to be running on a GT 240 and an older CPU:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6op_gA7QK7c

[Mrs shelly Sugarplum]

Actually checked Can You Run It, the only thing it flags is the graphics card.

[Marcin Tomkow]

The GT 240 isn't the greatest card nowadays, but still should get you medium settings. The Can You Run It site is rather inaccurate for Bethesda game releases...they've been ridiculously wrong in the past and I cannot recommend using their tool. It may have flagged you for the amount of VRAM your card has. The game claims to be 1GB VRAM min, but plenty have ran the game on 512MB cards as can be seen in the link Softnerd provided. Some settings may have to be turn ed down, but it's more than playable.

[LuCY sCoTT]

Hell, the Xbox360 runs it with a total of 512MB of RAM. Admittedly, consoles are a very different beast to desktops (how they handle/use hardware in particular, with various other factors contributing), but not enough to couteract having a tenth of the memory (4GB system + 512MB graphics). 'Course, a shoddy port can quickly devour such resources and still want more...

[Queen of Spades]

I want to build a new gaming pc. My cousin who I ask about rebuilding is MIA and I need help. What I want is (USA location, I prefer from newegg but if there's others, I'll take the suggestion) to build a gaming PC. No more than $1000, around $800, I prefer.

Also is it possible to have two drives in, with two different windows start up? I want one for Internet, which will be for gaming and the other without Internet. The one without Internet, I want to avoid virus and keep important stuff and do my video editing on it. I just don't want to deal with viruses. Thanks.

Edit: I mean two different hard drives, each with it's own operating system.

[TIhIsmc L Griot]

I'll leave the rig to someone else, but the idea of a dual-boot of Windows where one's offline and the other is online is silly and won't protect the offline one from viruses. Any bit of malware could just copy itself over to the other partition easy-peasy.

So it's possible to do, but pointless.

A Windows/Linux dual boot may be of interest to you.

[Micah Judaeah]

I'm sorry, I meant two different hard drives, one for each operating systems.

[ZzZz]

That doesn't change anything unless you were to physically swap out the drives. Even that's not guaranteed to stop malware if you aren't careful.

[Lloyd Muldowney]

Yes but the textures look like poop and the framerate is awful.

[Maria Garcia]

Didn't mention the need for monitor, mouse, KB, or speakers so I'll leave those out. Just tower and OS. If you have a Microcenter or Fry's nearby, can get decent combo deals with the CPU an mobo...especially Microcenter. Otherwise, newegg it is.

CASE+HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1229146
CPU+PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1200030
GPU+RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1230943
MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157296
DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204
OS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

That'll be less than $1K. If you don't overclock, can save by going with a less CPU in the given combo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1200026
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1200026

If the OS is not needed, can get a SSD like 128GB Crucial M4 or something.

[Chris Cross Cabaret Man]

Thanks Tig-ol-bitties, I like the setup. Actually there is micro center, 5 to 10 minute drive. I totally didn't put this store in mind.

[Mizz.Jayy]

Does anyone have experience with SteelSeries Siberia V2 headsets? My Logitech ones finally gave out for good and I wnted to get a quality pair to replace them and was suggested these. Not a fan of over the head but if they are comfortable I do not mind as I wear my headsets for many hours a day.

[Soku Nyorah]

My laptop's CMOS battery died, and I'm too lazy to have it changed. Are there any other bad consequences leaving it dead, beside wrong date and time?

[Sarah MacLeod]

Shouldn't be any problem at all as long as you don't let your laptop's main battery completely discharge or remove it from the laptop. Worse case scenario is any custom changes you made to the BIOS would be lost, like boot order, overclocking settings, time, date, etc..

[Ice Fire]

Looking to get a new system. I've got a handy questionnaire from [H]ardforum that I'm pasting here, in hopes of getting something rolling soon. The Community Tech Thread's never steered me wrong; and continues to be the most helpful place on the internet!

The pasting job looks really weird; so apologies for the differing colors of text.

Spoiler

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Heavy Gaming, Texture Heavy, High Resolution Skyrim!

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

Around $1500, but I'm flexible. Yes.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

US, Just south east of Chicago.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

Whole new system; Mobo, PSU, CPU, RAM, Case, GPU, HDD (SSD?), I have all accessories.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

I have an OCZ 64 GB SSD that I've been using as a "Skyrim Drive", for all my modding and high res textures. Currently, my standard Skyrim install jumped from 13 GB (vanilla), to 31 GB (modded)... and I'm not done yet.

6) Will you be overclocking?

If I can achieve stability. Not the best OC'er.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

1080p, Panasonic Viera 37" LED TV.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

In the next month, would be willing to wait till May, if preferable new products are on the way.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

I would like USB 3.0 and SATA. Perhaps a quality onboard sound system; for immersive gameplay. I don't wish to use my old Fatal1ty

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

64-Bit Yes, although I'm willing to pick up another if bundled into a great deal.

Poster Notes:

My PC's 5 years old now and I'm giving my old beast to my wife, whose been getting back into gaming with me (!!). I play WoW, Skyrim (HD EVERYTHING) and games like Borderlands 2 and Dishonored. I don't invest time in shooters, but occasionally play RTS games, like StarCraft and Warhammer.

I'm looking for a video card that will last me; and that will allow my ultra setting easily on Skyrim. I've heard great things about the GTX 670, but haven't bought an Nvidia card since my SLi'ed 8800 GTX's at their release years ago. My current card is an HD 5870, but that will not be re-used in the new system.

I'm also mildly interested in "beyond standard" cooling methods, for my new build; but know very little on the subject. Finding a simply put guide on the matter has been challenging.

[jessica Villacis]

Actually I've noticed that even with the main battery charged, the BIOS still does not remember the date/time. It's only when the laptop is plugged into the wall (with or without the main battery in it), and leave the wall power on, that the date/time remained. Does that mean my main battery has problem as well?

[Monika Fiolek]

Not necessarily. Some older notebooks I've seen have an entirely seperate circuit for the CMOS battery backup, independent of the primary battery. (Dell, HP) It sounds as though yours is one of those. Replacement of the battery seems to be your only option. Fortunately it takes years for the battery to weaken, so you'll only have to do it once. Just be sure to do a little research as to which battery it needs (CR2032 being the most common) and the procedure to remove/replace said battery. That would also be a good time to get a can of air and blow the dust out of the heatsink and case interior as well. Just be careful not to over do it around the cooling fan. I've seen a few notebooks with the fan blades blown completely off after using industrial compressor to clean the heatsink.

[victoria gillis]

HELP! My computer can't seem to detect my graphics card. Just built it (my first build). Basic specs:

Intel i5-2500k @ 3.30GHz
4 gigs DDR3
Gigabyte Intel Z77 LGA1155 Motherboard
Nvidia Geforce GTX 480 1.5 gig
Monitor: Samsung HDTV

Now I am using the TV because I haven't received my monitor yet (ebay...starting to regret the choice to buy it there, as it's been 2 weeks since I ordered...). As you can imagine as my first build I'm a little paranoid and want to confirm I did everything right. And it seems to be running great! Except I am connected via the motherboard, and it's using the "standard VGA Graphics adapter" apparently from my CPU. My GPU, which I also bought off Ebay (which makes me even more paranoid), seems to be running, as the fan is going. But the dxdiag and Nvidia drivers I tried to install both act as though the card doesn't exist!

I hope it's just a matter changing the video priorities in the bios...I tried connecting the GPU directly to the TV with HDMI, and that didn't work either. But shouldn't my computer be able to detect it either way?

Of course I've considered the possibility that the card is defected, but I'm not wanting to settle on that possibility yet.

I need help!

p.s. will post full dxdiag if needed, didn't want to make a mess of the thread.

[Mark Hepworth]

Since you're taking the video output from the motherboard, your GPU doesn't really exist. Do you have the cables/adapters needed to plug the TV into the 480?

Does it show up in Device Manager? If so, what driver is it using? Can you update the driver from Device Manager? Does the nVidia driver come up under Windows Update, showing the system identifies the 480?

I've never had a mobo with video out, so all I've seen are boxes with multiple GPUs. I have the monitor hooked to one, but the other(s) are all seen in Device Manager and the drivers install to all of them.

[Ymani Hood]

I need an ATI graphics card for experimenting with something. So what's the cheapest available option that is actually worth using with games? I'm not overly concerned by performance and shininess at this stage, as the main objective is proof of concept, but I'd rather not be shelling out for another card if it does work and I want to actually play games (1680x1050, games from the past few years such as Arkham Asylum, maybe ARMA2). I assume a 7770 is what I'm after, but I'm unfamiliar with AMD cards and want to be sure.

Thanks in advance .

[Kelsey Anna Farley]

HD 7770 sounds about right. HD 7750 is just a tad too weak for decent gaming performance in more demanding recent games - even at 1680x1050.