Random Question Thread: Tech

[Niya]

Did you reset the BIOS to default settings and check them afterwards?
Only other thing that i could think of would be that something went wrong on one of the flashes and that the BIOS itself is broken... But CMOS checksum error normally means that just the settings store got screwed up.

[Kanriel]

Did you reset the BIOS to default settings and check them afterwards?
Only other thing that i could think of would be that something went wrong on one of the flashes and that the BIOS itself is broken... But CMOS checksum error normally means that just the settings store got screwed up.

Yes, reset to defaults right after the battery was installed, after I got the CMOS checksum error with the new battery and after I flashed the BIOS. Still no audio or external HD. I ordered a new mobo/CPU/ram combo, might as well fix the entire issue, heh.

[Caiyuo]

Considering graphics cards for a budget build floating around $150, from the most recent Tom's Hierarchy, a 7770, 6850, 6870 and 560 SE are where I was looking. Should I be considering anything else? Is there much of a benefit to going with the newest generation? Spotted this 6850 on sale and wondered whether to jump or hold off: http://us.ncix.com/products/index.ph...E&promoid=1373

[Jojimbo]

That's a pretty bad price for a HD 6850, this HD 7770 is $105 after rebates and performs on par with a HD 6850 (but uses less power). This HD 6870 is a bit more powerful and $150 after rebates. HD 7850 is vastly superior to all of them and only $195 if you can stretch your budget that far.

[Caiyuo]

Nice, thanks for catching that.

[Nitsuki]

Man this is pissing me off and i thought it would totally be fixed with my pc upgrade but here goes and will be providing full details of this:

I dual monitor with my samsung 46" LN46C630K1F, when i use MPC to run videos on it, or just plain run youtube videos from chrome itself, there is slight stuttering, mostly noticeable when there is scrolling or any form of smooth movement, this ONLY happens on videos and nothing else, moving my mouse and running games don't affect it. I have it on my HDMI input 1 which delivers limited options for video settings and completely disables the 120Hz automotion crap. I have it running on a DVI -> HDMI cable that i purchased from monoprice. My video card (MSI GTX560ti twin frozr II) supports a mini-hdmi port on top of the dual DVI. MIND YOU, this stuttering DOES NOT happen on my primary display which is my ASUS v236h monitor. Also quick thing to mention, when i open MPC on the actual monitor, it helps slightly, it does it more only when i move MPC from 1 monitor to the next. I've installed the recommended codecs and no go, my only true suspicion is either...

1) the cable itself
2) the fact that i'm using the DVI port rather than the mini-hdmi port
3) my tv itself

my PC specs are as follows:

Intel Core i5-3570k OC to 4.4GHz
MSI GTX560ti OC to 950 MHz
8GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H motherboard
Win 7 64-bit SP1

PLEASE HALP!

[xerodok]

^ Are you using some kind of DVI/MiniHDMI adapter on your graphics card? Or is it a straight up HDMI to DVI cable?

[Nitsuki]

It's a straight up dvi>hdmi cable. I found out my vid card actually came with a mini hdmi>hdmi adapter, i may use the extra hdmi cable thrown around if it would help.

[Tricen]

Probably an easy fix but not sure how to search for it. My PC has been super laggy lately. Like taking a few seconds to do stuff. Sometimes when I type it pauses and stuff. Or watching youtube videos it will be a little skippy and it's super annoying. There seems to be some latency issues going on and I dunno what to do about it.

[RKenshin]

A couple of the simplest things to check: how full is your HD? How much of your CPU is being utilized? And memory? Do you see a spike in activity that corresponds with the lag? Any programs in task manager that appear to be using an excessive amount of resources?

[Tricen]

My HD is only like 28% full. 4g RAM. How many programs should I have running in the task manager? I don't know what most of them do, so I dunno if any are useless or not. CPU usage thing says like 10% and memory says 2.25~gb. No idea what that means

[Weeks]

How can I be sure that Windows crashes and freezes are due to my power supply? I'm afraid that the only option will be to stick a naked power supply on my desk plugged into my motherboard and see if the crashes stop.

Against all the advice in the other thread, I went with my preferred build:

Antec ISK 110 VESA mITX case with 90W PSU
Intel i7 3770S
Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe motherboard
8GB Corsair RAM
128GB Samsung 830 SSD

The only things I have plugged in are the 65W TDP CPU, the 8GB RAM, a USB keyboard, my speakers, my monitor via DisplayPort, and the USB upstream cable for my monitor. Memtest via a USB clean boot showed no problems with the RAM. CPU temperatures sit in the low 50s C. Got the latest BIOS flashed. All the latest drivers installed. Windows 7 Ultimate installed and a few minor updates refuse to succeed via Windows Update (A .NET-related one and a completely irrelevant IE one).

Windows sometimes resets while I'm doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes it just freezes and never restarts until I manually power down the system. It happens sometimes when I'm doing stuff too. Twice while installing updates (But I've spent several hours doing that, so I think it was chance), once about 5 minutes after I started playing FFXI on it, once about 20 minutes into FFXI. Looking through event viewer, it just says that Windows was closed unexpectedly, which I think implicates hardware.

[Jojimbo]

Try opening the CMD as admin and typing sfc /scannow

[Weeks]

Did that last night, no problems found.

[Jojimbo]

What are the idle temps for your CPU? Tried running Prime95 or some CPU stress program to see if something is unstable?

[Niya]

A 90W PSU for those components is probably not enough...
65W for CPU
5-10W for the SSD
10-20W for motherboard and RAM
You forgot to count system/CPU fan(s) in

Together with peripherals, in worst case you'll get a load of 100W+ when the CPU is stressed. There's a reason why calculators like this one exist, and those recommended values are very close to what you really need. With your parts ( i guessed you have 2 4GB RAM sticks) you get a recommendation of a 150W PSU, with adding a bit of buffer ~170W would be a good value. So your 90W PSU is WAY BELOW what is needed...

If that isn't enough for you to believe it, download the UBCD, boot from it and let prime95 (Mersenne Prime test, under CPU) run. I highly doubt the system (or rather, the PSU) will survive this stress very long and you'll get crashes again.

[Weeks]

The problem I have with chalking this up to an insufficient power supply is that Puget Sounds makes systems using this case/PSU with up to 65W CPUs and mechanical hard drives.

Idle CPU temps are mid 40s. Doesn't rise much at all with anything I've done. Don't have the system hooked up atm but will try Prime95. Not sure how that'll differentiate between a heat problem and a power supply problem though.

[hey]

Not sure how that'll differentiate between a heat problem and a power supply problem though.

If your temps aren't 100c+, then that's not the problem. Ivy bridge can get really hot without an issue. 90w is nowhere near enough, unless your cpu is never doing much more than idling.

[Weeks]

Again, Puget Systems makes this system so I'm skeptical, but I guess I can simply swap cases between this PC and the little HTPC I have in my bedroom with a 150W PSU. Sucks, but I'll do it if I can't stay up during a clean boot stress.

[Acturus]

Not sure where to ask this. Sorry in advance if it's not appropriate.

Does anyone know if Tigerdirect.com includes the system/driver/OS discs with purchases? I want to buy a laptop from there, but I don't want to deal with the preloaded bullshit, so I'd just like to wipe the PC when I get it, and reinstall everything the way I want to.

*EDIT* Got my answer. They don't.

So, how bad is it that I won't have a Windows disc?