My PC just died

[MasterBlaster76]

Yep, for sure. My PC, along with monitor, steering wheel etc are all plugged into a Belkin six way socket extender with surge protection, and everything else in it works fine so I don't think that's the culprit. It raises an interesting question: what causes a PSU to suddenly go pop like that?? I was experiencing a lot of BSODs, but I'm sure that was down to the RAM which, when tested, returned literally thousands of errors! Indeed, what causes RAM to suddenly throw up loads of errors after it's been running flawlessly for months?

I learned my lesson about researching PSUs after a substandard one killed my ATI X1950XT - since then, when it comes to PSUs, I will only go with a good named brand.

Good news is Corsair will send me a pre-paid postage label, so I can RMA my current PSU and keep the replacement as a spare - even better news: I still have the proof of purchase for the PSU! Presumably, as long as I don't go with some crazy multi-card setup, a TX650 will be good for many years to come as it is now? That way if this happens again, I'll have something to use to avoid a whole lot of downtime while I wait for the replacement component to show up.

I'm pretty sure the GPU is compatible with my mobo, but you've planted a small seed of doubt in my mind now: how do I find out for sure? I mean, my current (dead) card works fine with my mobo - it's a PCI-E, just like the 6850 - aren't pretty much all cards PCI-E these days? Maybe there are still a few AGP ones hanging around but I'm sure this isn't one of them. Just noticed that my card's gone up in price by almost ?15 so it's a good thing I ordered it when I did.

As well as the GPU and PSU, I've also ordered a new cooler for my CPU - I've heard Intel's stock coolers are not all that and I did notice it could be quite loud when under load.

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Oh no, typo. My bad! I was referring to one of these:

An Uninterruptible Power Supply.

I might look into that as well, it looks handy. Where did you find that for so cheap? I've checked Amazon and they seem to start at ?40.

 

[puddleduck]

Yeah it's compatible

Bare in mind though that you're basically getting a mid-range GFX card these days. Will certainly be a boost to your existing performance, and it's a DX11 supporting card I think? So you should get pretty decent performance out of everything until DX12 comes out. Still, by paying the ?150 or so quid to get a new GFX card and PSU, you're spending a lot less than the ?750 or so you might have spent building an entirely new system

Yeah should be able to keep this PSU until you then think about getting a new barebones bundle in a few years with a new GFX card. Can transfer over your hard drives, and you're sorted

Steering wheel hey? Which one you using, and which games?

I was always taught never to put an extension socket into a an extension socket, so perhaps a 6 way splitter could be pushing it for something like a PC? Merely speculation on my part though.

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Yes, replacing stock coolers with a better one and better heatsink and gel can make a nice difference More so if you're looking into overclocking etc...

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Yeah it's compatible

Bare in mind though that you're basically getting a mid-range GFX card these days. Will certainly be a boost to your existing performance, and it's a DX11 supporting card I think? So you should get pretty decent performance out of everything until DX12 comes out. Still, by paying the ?150 or so quid to get a new GFX card and PSU, you're spending a lot less than the ?750 or so you might have spent building an entirely new system

Yeah should be able to keep this PSU until you then think about getting a new barebones bundle in a few years with a new GFX card. Can transfer over your hard drives, and you're sorted

Steering wheel hey? Which one you using, and which games?

I was always taught never to put an extension socket into a an extension socket, so perhaps a 6 way splitter could be pushing it for something like a PC? Merely speculation on my part though.

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Yes, replacing stock coolers with a better one and better heatsink and gel can make a nice difference More so if you're looking into overclocking etc...

Steering wheel is Ferrari F430 USB FF Wheel, and I mostly use it for F1 2011, but also for DiRT 2 and (when I can get the 1991 mod to work), GP4.

I'm definitely not putting an extension socket into an extension socket - that's what I've been told not to do as well. No - the PC, monitor etc go into the extension socket, and that goes straight into the wall outlet.

You're right - it's a midrange DX11 card - which I've found is the best bang for your buck. Unless you're gaming at a stupidly high res, or on two screens, there isn't really anything out there that requires the performance from one of the ?300+ cards, and by the time there is, they've come down to about ?150, that's what happened with my X1950XT. And yep, it's definitely makes more sense to simply upgrade my machine, given that everything is fine apart from the GPU and PSU. I was thinking about a new case, to give everything a fresh look, but I'll save that for when I have to do a full upgrade (mobo and everything on it). Just hope the stuff gets here soon so I can play games again. This laptop of my nephew's isn't exactly a gaming machine...

 

[puddleduck]

Haha yeah I'm the same, there's been so many good games released in the last decade that I'm normally more than happy working through some of the classics I missed. A gfx whore I am not

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Sorry to hear that mate.. Is it a sheer coincidence or what? My pc died too just a week ago. It was exactly same as your config except the mobo which was dg31 in my case. Tried some new PSU but it didn't work, tried without graphics card and it was still dead as a dodo. I don't know what the hell happened Even the card is fried, Tried it on a friend's pc and it showed no output.

Euch - not a good week for us at PC, eh? So since your card was killed, as mine was, which one are you going to go for?

Edit: Just re-read your post - so the mobo's gone as well? Are you just going to go with a completely new build now? That's what I would've done if my mobo had gone down and taken everything on it with it. Did anything survive on the motherboard that you could salvage?

Haha yeah I'm the same, there's been so many good games released in the last decade that I'm normally more than happy working through some of the classics I missed. A gfx whore I am not

Ha ha! If you wanna be a graphics whore, you need to be rich . Personally, when my games start struggling, I just turn down some of the more fancy effects, and things like AA/AF. That usually grants them a few more months reprieve. I'm confident that I won't have to upgrade my PC again for a long time - as long as it remains healthly. My components are due for arrival tomorrow, at least the GPU and PSU are. The cooler will come later in the week and as for the RAM, I haven't got tracking info from Corsair yet so I assume they haven't yet sent it. I'll probably be stuck with Win XP for a few days when I get the PC back, as I've only got one spare stick (1gb Kingston), while I wait for Corsair to send me my 4gb replacement.

 

[Chewie]

I don't think I could stand buying a new computer and immediately having to turn down graphics settings on it to get games to run at decent fps

 

[puddleduck]

I grew up playing on an amiga, then a snes and mega drive. Gameplay over graphics every day

There's still an N64 with Mario Kart in my living room

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Wonderful.

According to Corsair, they haven't yet received my RAM, but my tracking number is showing it as delivered. Corsair have asked for the tracking number and handler info, so hopefully it'll be sorted out soon. My GPU and PSU have arrived, still waiting for the cooler. Either way, without the RAM, I'm going to be stuck with Win sodding XP, as I only have a 1gb spare stick (tried loading Win 7 64bit and not surprisingly, it fell on its face). Since I've got an RMA waiting, I don't really want to blow another ?50 on two more 4gb sticks. Still, if Corsair don't get this sorted out soon, that's what I'll do - can't bloody stand Win XP, not after being used to Win 7. And when the RMA finally gets sorted out, I'll be able to go from 4gb to 8gb.

Just thought of something: I have Win XP and Win 7 64bit on my machine - is it possible to have Win 7 64 and 32bit on your machine? Win 7 32bit will run with 1gb of RAM and it would sure as hell be better than being stuck with Win XP.

@Chewie - I'd be the same, but this isn't a new PC I'm getting, it's the same build with an upgraded GPU.

GPU came with a DiRT 3 code! Bad news is it says it expired Dec 2011, so I'm probably out of luck with that one. Would've been nice, but I wasn't expecting that to come with it in any case. (Why can't they just stick a boxed copy in, instead of a code - doesn't exactly take up much room!!)

 

[iridescentt]

Irrespective of my failure to differentiate the difference between a surge protector and a UPS , do you know of any other big tech stores in the UK that you wouldn't mind ordering online from? The UPS devices on Amazon are largely from the US if I'm not to be mistaken.

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As for your dual boot question with a 32 & 64 bit version of Windows, you sure can. Just make sure that you assign each of the two as an individual partition on your HDD.

I remember struggling with only 2GB of RAM on a Vista test machine - hard times aha.

 

[Chewie]

Wonderful.

According to Corsair, they haven't yet received my RAM, but my tracking number is showing it as delivered. Corsair have asked for the tracking number and handler info, so hopefully it'll be sorted out soon. My GPU and PSU have arrived, still waiting for the cooler. Either way, without the RAM, I'm going to be stuck with Win sodding XP, as I only have a 1gb spare stick (tried loading Win 7 64bit and not surprisingly, it fell on its face). Since I've got an RMA waiting, I don't really want to blow another ?50 on two more 4gb sticks. Still, if Corsair don't get this sorted out soon, that's what I'll do - can't bloody stand Win XP, not after being used to Win 7. And when the RMA finally gets sorted out, I'll be able to go from 4gb to 8gb.

Just thought of something: I have Win XP and Win 7 64bit on my machine - is it possible to have Win 7 64 and 32bit on your machine? Win 7 32bit will run with 1gb of RAM and it would sure as hell be better than being stuck with Win XP.

@Chewie - I'd be the same, but this isn't a new PC I'm getting, it's the same build with an upgraded GPU.

GPU came with a DiRT 3 code! Bad news is it says it expired Dec 2011, so I'm probably out of luck with that one. Would've been nice, but I wasn't expecting that to come with it in any case. (Why can't they just stick a boxed copy in, instead of a code - doesn't exactly take up much room!!)

Buying DDR2 RAM as well would be incredibly expensive seeing as they hardly make any anymore. DDR3 is so much cheaper it's rather stupid

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I know mate - but I'm pretty sure my mobo doesn't support DDR3, otherwise that's what I'd be getting - I'm not stupid.

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Irrespective of my failure to differentiate the difference between a surge protector and a UPS , do you know of any other big tech stores in the UK that you wouldn't mind ordering online from? The UPS devices on Amazon are largely from the US if I'm not to be mistaken.

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As for your dual boot question with a 32 & 64 bit version of Windows, you sure can. Just make sure that you assign each of the two as an individual partition on your HDD.

I remember struggling with only 2GB of RAM on a Vista test machine - hard times aha.

Hmm, I reckon I'll stay with XP for now then - at least that can run to a decent level on only 1gb. Anyway, all components are here now (apart from the stupid bloody 4gb RAM) so should be up and running again very shortly.

 

[iridescentt]

Tell me about it, my 7 year old DELL still runs perfectly fine for my parents with only 512MB of RAM -- good for Pokerstars and web browsing. What a dream XP machines used to be eh

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Damn straight, mate! Anyway, this comes to you from my own PC - it's back up and running, but God 1gb is slow, even running under Win XP! Corsair better get their bloody finger out! It's better than nothing of course, but I think I'm gonna have to wait to test-drive this new 6850 - 1gb has got to be bottle-necking it, and the CPU come to that.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Looks like I might have got lucky with the DiRT 3 code: although the card says offer closes Dec 31st 2011, I tried to go ahead with the process anyway and they sent me a Steam key to be activated by May 31st 2012. So a damn good card (going by all the reviews) and a damn good game (ditto) for ?91. Result.

Also, Corsair sent me a damages form, saying they'll compensate up to $150 for GPUs, so with any luck I'll be able to get some cash out of it (even though I was gonna replace the GPU anyway : )

 

[Chewie]

I know mate - but I'm pretty sure my mobo doesn't support DDR3, otherwise that's what I'd be getting - I'm not stupid.

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Hmm, I reckon I'll stay with XP for now then - at least that can run to a decent level on only 1gb. Anyway, all components are here now (apart from the stupid bloody 4gb RAM) so should be up and running again very shortly.

Yea I know, I'm just saying how annoying it is I had to go replace my RAM a year and a bit ago and it was so expensive and annoying