Solve your computer problem with the help of experts!

[Chewie]

Hmmm I've just realised that to do this I might need to upgrade my power supply as well and this just seems like a bit too much effort and starting to get a bit expensive...

I have a 460W PSU at the moment, but people recommend at least 600W for HD4850 crossfire. I know how to put a new graphics card in (theoretically) but I don't know how to install a PSU and where everything should plug into it.

 

[Abhas]

It's not that hard actually. The socket on the motherboard and the PSU should match, and usually there is only one way of putting it.
When you take the other PSU out, just have a look at what all you are unplugging, and make sure all those things are plugged back.

 

[Chewie]

What I was planning to get was a HD4850 and a 2TB HDD, which would be about $240 in total. A 650W PSU is $100, making a total upgrade of $340 (American). This is about $460 NZ. My computer itself was only worth something like $1200 when it came out. I'm not sure whether it's worth spending this money or just save it and buy a completely new computer in a couple of years time. I may just get the HDD because then I can just swap that into any new computer I get. Also, would the crossfired graphics cards get bottle-necked by my CPU if I got them? I have a E8400 (Core 2 Duo, 3.0GHz).

Also I reckon that if I gave the inside of my computer a good clean it would go a bit faster and would be much quieter and colder. I haven't cleaned it since getting it a year and a half ago

 

[Abhas]

The E8400 is a beast! I'm sure it can handle your cards in SLI/crossfire.

I can't really suggest you about whether to buy the graphics card or upgrade the computer, but keep in mind, in the new computer you'll have to buy the graphics cards anyway, so you might as well use the ones you already have.

One advice I can give is,
Definitely clean it. Do it NOW

 

[Chewie]

The E8400 is a beast! I'm sure it can handle your cards in SLI/crossfire.

I can't really suggest you about whether to buy the graphics card or upgrade the computer, but keep in mind, in the new computer you'll have to buy the graphics cards anyway, so you might as well use the ones you already have.

One advice I can give is,
Definitely clean it. Do it NOW

The E8400 isn't that great compared to the new i5s out, but of the core 2 duos its one of the best and better than some of the quad cores. By then though ATI will be up to the 7000 series and my graphics cards will be rather outdated. I'd probably give my pc to my parents and turn their one into a home theatre pc

hahaha I plan on cleaning it after my exams which finish on Tuesday, I've been meaning to for a while but never got around to it It's going to be terribly dusty in there. I'll probably head out and buy some compressed air or something to clean it with.

 

[Kshitiz_Indian]

I've never tried Crossfire myself, but I don't think the manufacturer should matter. Maybe any other 4000 series card will work, but you'll get hte best results with the same chip, as otherwise one will always be bottlenecked and you might just drop in performance.

 

[Chewie]

I've never tried Crossfire myself, but I don't think the manufacturer should matter. Maybe any other 4000 series card will work, but you'll get hte best results with the same chip, as otherwise one will always be bottlenecked and you might just drop in performance.

Yea I was reading around and they recommended that it's much better getting the same card. The same card with a different memory, or different clock settings is just as bad, because the faster one will still suffer from a drop in performance. That's why I asked about the manufacturer because some make changes to the card itself.

 

[Sureshot]

Don't concern yourself over putting the fan in your case. It's quite obvious, as long as you connect the cables whilst it is off and you point the fan in the PSU away from the metal top of the case () you'll be fine. I'd like to say it's the most foolproof part of building/repairing a PC...

 

[Amiya]

I am complete dumb when it comes to graphics related stuffs in laptop. I want to have a graphics card for my old Acer laptop, so that i can play some latest games on it with little bit improved graphics. I have Acer Aspire 5920 with Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5550 (1.83 GHz,667 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache), 2gb DDR2, Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100.
I want to know whether i can have a graphics card for my laptop. If so, kindly help me out.

 

[Chewie]

You can't add graphics cards to laptops unfortunately and you have an integrated graphics card which is why it's not very good.

 

[AngryPixel]

^ Really. I was under impression that some manufacturer allow you to upgrade by sending you laptop to their center. I guess it is limited ot HDD and RAM.

 

[Chewie]

Yea you can only add more ram or replace the hard drive. It is much to harder to replace a graphics card, and if you have an integrated graphics card then there is nowhere for the graphics card to go.

 

[Chewie]

Ok. So the situation is:

I bought a new computer last year, it came with Vista 64-bit installed on it. Used that until the end of last year, when we upgraded our home computers to Windows 7 64-bit. I didn't want to lose anything I might still have on the Vista partition so I installed it in a dual boot configuration, with Vista as the primary partition/boot partition. I've decided now that I don't need the Vista partition any more seeing as I haven't had to access it for a few months, so I presume there's nothing on it I need.

What I would like to know is; What is the easiest way to make my computer only have one partition again, and for it to boot properly. I've done this before, but it took ages and was a mess basically. What happened then was I used the command line to make this partition the active one, and then delete the other one and then extend the current one. But while that made it one partition, the booting process wasn't correct because due to not being the original OS. I had to find a Windows 7 recovery disk and use that to repair the boot process. Is there an easier way?

Since I got no replies last time, I didn't do anything to my computer at that time. Now that it's holidays, I really want to get rid of the other partition now. Can anyone answer the question?

And I'm going out to buy compressed air tomorrow Hopefully I can find somewhere that sells it.

 

[Chewie]

Help on the one above please.

Also, I just cleaned my computer, and decided to clean the heatsink above the processor by taking it off. I managed to undo the screws but I couldn't get it to come off so I did those screw things back on again. But I can't get one side to go in properly. Any suggestions?

 

[Abhas]

Heatsink: Not sure, maybe you'll need to unscrew it and put it in place properly.

If you format the other partition, and change the boot entry, would it be enough for you or you want to merge the 2 partitions into 1?