Posts by Larry Ortiz5

Jose Fox9 said:The best tool out there is BitMeter—it works great for both AT&T and Comcast Xfinity customers.

Man, we're really digging up some old news here—this topic has been dead for about eight months now.😁

Robert Johnson8 said:There is—you should head over to the overclocking sub-forum. If you check there first, you can find plenty of people sharing their experiences after they've dialed in their clocks. Everything is laid out pretty clearly there if you just take a look. 🙂

Look, I'm well aware of all that—I just didn't want to start an entirely new thread, like I mentioned before. 🙂

I’m with fadedorca66 on this one—if you can stretch your budget just another 50 bucks $33, honestly? Just do it. You'll have much more peace of mind later on. 🙂

boldgull8 said:Should I grab the Radeon HD 7750 MSI or the ASUS one? Which would be the better pick?

Sapphire (OC)
Gigabyte

Personally, I’d go with the overclocked version.

Benjamin King2 said:Of course there are overclocking options—that’s literally what it's built for: http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner...r%20Manual.pdf

You can actually save multiple OC profiles, so you can just swap them out whenever you feel like it.

My bad, I misspoke—I meant more like, how exactly do you go about the overclocking process? Is there a good tutorial out there somewhere?

I don't want to start a whole new thread, but could someone walk me through how EVGA Precision Xperience actually works? I've just been leaving everything on the default settings—is there a way to safely overclock my GPU a little bit? Also, I just swapped out my motherboard for this http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H55M-...Specifications

Brenda Chavez5 said:That's actually my main issue—whenever I try to launch a game, Windows just crashes immediately. I took it to a repair shop and they told me the graphics card is fried, but honestly, I have my doubts about that being the culprit.

So, does the PC run perfectly fine when you aren't gaming? If it does, then there's a decent chance the power supply is the real issue here. When you start running something demanding, the GPU pulls a lot more juice, and if the PSU can't keep up with those wattage demands, things go south fast. Of course, it could still be the card itself—the best move would be to borrow a spare GPU from a friend just to test it out. If the crashing continues even with a different card, then you know for sure it's the power supply. I'd like to think the guys at the repair shop aren't just feeding you nonsense, but hey, you never really know with those places, right? 🙂 Give that a shot and see what happens..

Brenda Chavez5 said:The box for my power supply just says "power supply EVGA 600 W" and nothing else.

Here’s what they're running:

To be honest, I paid $73 for it thinking it might just be some cheap junk.

Man, honestly—you would have been better off putting in a little more $67 and grabbing a high-end unit from XFX instead. 🙂 What you bought is pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel stuff... it's a shame, really. If you had started a thread here on the forum first, someone probably would've warned you against it. It definitely isn't pushing 600W—it's likely closer to 250-300W at most. But hey, if it's working for now, it's fine, since your GPU only pulls about 100W under full load. Just make sure you swap that PSU out if you ever decide to upgrade to a beefier graphics card.🙂

For what it's worth, the most reliable brands are usually XFX, Corsair, OCZ, Cooler Master, Antec, or Thermaltake. I might have missed a few, but generally speaking, if you stick to those names, you won't have to worry too much.🙂

I’m not super familiar with that specific power supply—I haven't personally put it through its paces—but if you're absolutely stuck with it, don't sweat it too much. Since your build doesn't pull a massive amount of power, you shouldn't run into any major issues even without having the full 600W at your disposal. By the way, what's the exact model you're looking at?
EDIT: Actually, looking closer, I think that thing is total junk. I just saw it's rated for 600W $50, and honestly, you can tell immediately what kind of quality we're dealing with here 😁.

I actually didn't know that... Oh well, I guess they should just go ahead and install Windows 7..

Brian Campbell36 said:EVGA recommended Power Supply: EVGA 650W PSU, but I have an EVGA 600 w CX

If I decide to pick this card up, I’ll probably need a new power supply too—might be best to just grab one and solve the problem once and for all, right?

That card pulls about 175W TDP under full load. Since you're running an EVGA 600 w CX instead of some random no-name unit, you've got plenty of headroom—so the PSU won't even break a sweat. Honestly, there's nothing to worry about here.🙂 Even if you were running a 500W unit, it would likely handle it just fine without any issues.

Brian Campbell36 said:So, should I stick with the CF setup or just grab this one instead? do you guys think?

It's a bit more expensive, but honestly, it's the better choice
$33 🙂

Paul Garcia42 said:I'll probably grab something like that 😁

Man, if I end up putting this on a payment plan, it’s gonna turn out to be $100 way more expensive 😢
. Do you think they'll put it together for free over there? haha

As for the OS... can I just stick with Windows XP, or am I really forced to jump to Windows 7?? haha
It's not like I'm an expert or anything, but I seem to remember that XP doesn't support more than 3.25GB of RAM—or does it show 3.25GB but actually uses all 8GB? I honestly can't remember. Total newbie here, haha

64-bit supports more than 4GB, while 32-bit tops out at about 3.5GB. And if you're really set on XP, there is a 64-bit version available.

ironhawk3 said:That’s just not possible—they go hand in hand.

People are saying I swapped the LEDs with the power switch or something, but honestly, the lighting was pretty bad while I was working... But are you seriously telling me a board can't short out like that? I was putting the build together out on the patio (it wasn't even humid out), and when I pulled the motherboard out of the old case, I grabbed it from underneath. Now I'm wondering if I might have scraped it or messed something up, though I really tried to be careful...

ironhawk3 said:I ran into this weird issue where my whole system kept freezing up. I just wanted to jump in here and let everyone know that the fix is actually pretty simple.
Basically, on my ASUS Z77 Extreme paired with an Intel Core i5-3570K running Windows 7 64-bit, the PC would just lock up—especially after being left idle for a while (like during overnight rendering jobs, database sorting, or just leaving a torrent running).

Turns out, the culprit was me—I had accidentally swapped the RESET switch and the HDD Sw pins on the system panel header. Just a tiny wiring mistake, but it made all the difference.

Just figured I'd share in case anyone else is dealing with something similar. 🤣

Well, I miswired mine too, and I ended up telling the repair shop that I might have fried the motherboard... The computer would power on, but there was absolutely no signal on the monitor. We even tried swapping out the graphics card, but no luck there either. Now I'm sitting here wondering—is it actually possible to short out a board just by messing up those specific pins?

crimsonstag84 said:If you're looking for smooth frame rates, I'd lean toward the HD 7870 or the HD 7950—though honestly, having that extra VRAM on the HD 7950 would definitely be a huge plus. It goes for about $767... plus, since it’s roughly five times more powerful than an old HD 4770, you can really see where the value lies. Just do what feels right for your budget 😁

👍

Gerald Flores63 said:I've got 4GB of RAM and a Q9450 processor—I'm looking for a PCI Express 2.0 graphics card, if anyone can point me in the right direction. Right now, I'm running an HD 4770 with a dual-monitor setup.

edit:
Budget isn't really an issue here. Just suggest something mid-range 🙂

The ATI 7870 actually supports up to six monitors... Honestly, that card is a total best buy for gaming, though it's really optimized for a single-monitor setup.🙂

Gerald Flores63 said:Hey everyone!

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a graphics card that can handle three monitors all running at the same resolution. Is that even doable?

First off, what's your full system build look like? And how much cash are you looking to drop on this?

fadedorca66 said:The power supply isn't actually blowing air onto the graphics card—it’s because the fan is sucking air in, not blowing it out.

But, the PSU can definitely pick up heat from the GPU, which might make it run hotter in the process...

Correction—that's what I meant—the power supply is blowing air out of the case...

It’s true—if you think about it, when the graphics card starts pulling heavily from the power supply, and then that power supply feeds back into the GPU, you end up generating a massive amount of heat.