Random Question Thread: Tech

[hey]

Yes.

[Senji]

Thanks, my original intention when I bought the GTX460 was to get a second one later to SLI, but I'm having trouble finding a second of this guy that isn't being gouged in price. Got boned all-around on it, PNY screwed me on my rebate to boot, I should have just gotten a better card off the bat.



Err, I didn't know if GPUs had to match specific boards/manufacturers the way CPUs do, my current PC is still my first-ever, lol.

You basically missed the retailer blow out sales of 460's. Unless you go cheap used, Id unload it. A WTB thread in classifieds would be a good idea.

Some boards are specific, but have a work around. I can't recall if x58 boards even have to deal with it now. You could post your board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-14150549-L08A

Id go between this card and the other XFX I linked, its on sale $235 after rebate and promo code: EMCNFNG45

While the MSI is nice, its only 1gb vram and regular priced. The XFX are both 2 gb vram.

[Meresgi]

How does the GTX 560 compare to the 6870? or the 6950? 6950 is on sale for $235 after rebate..but not sure I want to drop over $200 on a card. All the 6870's seem to be around the $170ish price tag on newegg w/o any sales so far.

I kind of want to get back to using radeon cards, I used to a long time ago and liked them, then swapped to Nvidia. Nvidia just seems very overpriced though compared to ATI.

[hey]

How does the GTX 560 compare to the 6870? or the 6950? 6950 is on sale for $235 after rebate..but not sure I want to drop over $200 on a card. All the 6870's seem to be around the $170ish price tag on newegg w/o any sales so far.

I kind of want to get back to using radeon cards, I used to a long time ago and liked them, then swapped to Nvidia. Nvidia just seems very overpriced though compared to ATI.

http://www.hwcompare.com/11005/gefor...adeon-hd-6870/

[Caiyuo]

Might be better resources to use for comparisons but this is my go-to usually: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

e: like, for instance, that ^

[Callisto]

You basically missed the retailer blow out sales of 460's. Unless you go cheap used, Id unload it. A WTB thread in classifieds would be a good idea.

Some boards are specific, but have a work around. I can't recall if x58 boards even have to deal with it now. You could post your board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-14150549-L08A

Id go between this card and the other XFX I linked, its on sale $235 after rebate and promo code: EMCNFNG45

While the MSI is nice, its only 1gb vram and regular priced. The XFX are both 2 gb vram.

Thanks, while I'm asking derpleherps, what does vram actually affect?

[Meresgi]

Those links show the 560 fermi still being ahead of the 460 or am I missing something Senji? I mean I can see it's not by much, 20%ish but both are still 120% above my 450 lol.

[Jojimbo]

Thanks, while I'm asking derpleherps, what does vram actually affect?

Nothing unless you can use what you have, vRAM allows you to play at higher resolutions without as much of a bottleneck/perf cap. 1-2GB vRAM is all you need for 1920x1080 gaming and you only need more if you use eyefinity/surround (3 screens) or a 2560x1440/x1600 screen and high levels of AA.

On it's own vRAM is meaningless though, and a single 560/6950/6870 isn't really powerful enough to play at high enough settings/resolutions to max out its vRAM anyway. It would only come into consideration with these cards if you were to SLI/CF them so you could play on a larger res/multiple monitors.

[Senji]

Those links show the 560 fermi still being ahead of the 460 or am I missing something Senji? I mean I can see it's not by much, 20%ish but both are still 120% above my 450 lol.

I was combining info for both of you in a single reply, yeah its the higher clocks kicking in for the 1gb 560 vs 1 gb 460 essentially. The 450 and 768mb 460 are based off of a different chip that was cheaper to make.

[Cail]

my iPhone wont connect to my email anymore..any tips? and yes, the passwords matchup

[Kaelan?]

So after like 4 hours of headaches trying to figure out what was wrong with my Desktop today I narrowed it down to either a memory issue or something wrong with one of the hard drives. Decided to try just reseating the RAM first, since I figured that'd be easy enough to do before trying anything else.

Turned the power off, opened it up on the floor, made sure I didn't have anything else on or around me that might cause static and always kept in contact with the case. Pulled the sticks out, made sure there wasn't any dust or anything on them or on the motherboard and carefully put them back in. Didn't touch anything else. Figured at best it would fix things, at worse nothing would happen.

Well, I think I fucked something up and fried the RAM somehow, cause now my computer won't even boot. Just starts up for a few seconds and immediately shuts down without doing anything (well, the fans/lights all go on as expected, but no error beeps or anything). Tried to reseat them again a couple of times in case I just didn't put them back in properly and no go. Sooo:

A) Am I screwed?
B) Steps to unscrewing the situation?

[Caiyuo]

Can't tell if you're screwed yet, but are there multiple sticks of RAM and do you have any other RAM available that you could test to ensure that's where the problem lies? If there's more than one I'd just try to use one at a time to see if it's just a single that's fucked up or even the RAM at all in the case that you could try an old stick you've since upgraded from or something.

Also are you sure you're putting the RAM into the appropriate/same slots as before? No idea how familiar you are with this but also make sure the clips on the sides of the memory slots are snapping into place when you're reseating the sticks.

[Kaelan?]

I've never really done this stuff before. I'm sort or reluctant to mess with it any further; I only did this because it seemed simple enough (and that looked like where the problem was coming from).

There's three sticks in all, and I'm using a 6-slot motherboard. I tried using just one stick like you mentioned, with each stick in each possible position and all of it gives the same result. I'm just hoping it's the sticks themselves that are bad, not the rest of the parts, cause that would be a bitch to replace. I don't really have another Desktop I can use as a control unfortunately; I'm writing this from my laptop. Also don't really have spare parts laying around. I'm thinking of maybe just buying some really cheap RAM and trying that instead to see if at least everything else is still OK.

[Xno Kappa]

How do I get wifi on my Iphone4 through my wired laptop connection? The hotel I'm staying at sucks and has no wifi on its own. Trying use ad hoc but for some reason the phone keeps saying Failed to join even though I know I'm putting in the password right.

[Purrrfect]

I've never really done this stuff before. I'm sort or reluctant to mess with it any further; I only did this because it seemed simple enough (and that looked like where the problem was coming from).

There's three sticks in all, and I'm using a 6-slot motherboard. I tried using just one stick like you mentioned, with each stick in each possible position and all of it gives the same result. I'm just hoping it's the sticks themselves that are bad, not the rest of the parts, cause that would be a bitch to replace. I don't really have another Desktop I can use as a control unfortunately; I'm writing this from my laptop. Also don't really have spare parts laying around. I'm thinking of maybe just buying some really cheap RAM and trying that instead to see if at least everything else is still OK.

Sure you're getting them all the way in? RAM typically takes a lot more ass to go all the way into the slot than other parts. The keepers on the side typically lock into place by themselves when you get it in all the way. Could check other cables, maybe something got disconnected on accident that you didn't notice. Could try resetting the cmos to see if that helps, but you'll lose any bios settings if there is anything custom in there like overclocking or raids.

[Gokku]

droid 4 vs samsung stratosphere 100 dollar difference still not sold on either though.

[Caiyuo]

I've never really done this stuff before. I'm sort or reluctant to mess with it any further; I only did this because it seemed simple enough (and that looked like where the problem was coming from).

There's three sticks in all, and I'm using a 6-slot motherboard. I tried using just one stick like you mentioned, with each stick in each possible position and all of it gives the same result. I'm just hoping it's the sticks themselves that are bad, not the rest of the parts, cause that would be a bitch to replace. I don't really have another Desktop I can use as a control unfortunately; I'm writing this from my laptop. Also don't really have spare parts laying around. I'm thinking of maybe just buying some really cheap RAM and trying that instead to see if at least everything else is still OK.

I don't know all that much about pinpointing where the trouble lies with hardware, but usually with bad ram I was under the impression you can generally still boot to something like memtest86 to get an actual diagnosis. Also having all 3 sticks go at once sounds really, really rare hence the "maybe it's in wrong" stuff. As long as you can return it buying another stick somewhere locally couldn't really hurt, I'm just getting the impression that it might not be the RAM.

[Kerberoz]

When you say you kept in contact with the case... it was grounded, right?

[Molamola]

I wonder if someone could help me out.. I've got an issue where I cannot get Google to return search results when using Firefox. Google.com will load, but when I try to retrieve a query, the results are a blank page. I've checked my NoScript plug in, and it is set to allow Google

I recently was infected by trogan.agent. As per the antivirus thread sticky in this forum, I ran combofix, malwarebytes, and superantispyware. Finally after running that, my Trend Micro finally steps up to the plate and sees something wrong and quarantines the file. However since the clean up, I cannot get search results to return from Google when i use Firefox.

I went into firebox options and found that the garbage had changed my proxy settings. So I disabled my proxy settings in Firefox. I checked IE, it did not show any proxy settings and it will return search results. I've rebooted and I've also run SuperAnti.. in safemode, but still no search results. Can anyone help me out?

[Kaelan?]

When you say you kept in contact with the case... it was grounded, right?

I turned the power off but left it plugged into the wall jack, so it should have been, yes.

Anyway, I think I'm good now. Bought a new pair of sticks, plugged both of em in and the system boots up fine. I have no freaking clue how I managed to lose all three old ones at the same time, but there you have it.

One more question. I went from 6GB (3 x 2GB) to 8GB (2 x 4GB). Does it matter that I'm not using all three slots in a set? I'll probably want to get the third eventually anyway, but for now I just want to know if it's safe to use it as-is. It seems to be booting way too slow, considering I actually have more memory than I did before. I double checked to see it was the right type and everything. Do I have to mess with timings in the BIOS or something like that?