Thanks so much for the advice! Since I’m a total newbie at this—basically a complete amateur, really—I was actually thinking the same thing about upgrading. It feels like the jump wouldn't be worth the hassle, so I guess it makes more sense to just hold onto my cash for now. Maybe I'll just save up and grab a brand-new setup later this summer or maybe in the fall.
fadedorca66 said:I mean, I don't know—it feels like what you're planning might not actually make much sense! For that motherboard you've got right now, you’re already running the most powerful processor it can handle. Honestly, your best bet would probably be to... $1000 So, you've basically got two ways to play this—either swap out the CPU, motherboard, and RAM all at once (and then just leave that setup alone for a long time), or just grab a beefier graphics card and call it a day. Since your current setup is probably going to bottleneck any high-end GPU you throw at it, I’d say my best bet is to go with the CPU, motherboard, and RAM upgrade first. That way, you can actually get some decent performance out of the graphics card you already have—it still has plenty of life left in it! Oh, and if you really want to feel a massive difference in how snappy everything feels, you should definitely toss an SSD in there too. Honestly, that's usually where you see the biggest jump in daily speed.
So, I actually upgraded my RAM last year—I'm sitting at 16 GB now! So, I was thinking—what if we look at a CPU and motherboard combo that doesn't break the bank? I mean, maybe just something reasonably priced that still gets the job done! $833. If I’m planning to pick up a completely new PC—just the tower itself, mind you, without any of the peripherals—I’ll probably end up dropping somewhere around... $2000 Honestly, I just don't see the math working out right now—it feels like I'd be throwing away half my budget just to pick up a few extra components!
Hey there! So, I'm thinking about upgrading my GPU and CPU just so I can actually keep up with today's games. Here’s what I'm currently running: ASUS ROG Maximus ASUS ROG Maximus motherboard 1 $192 $192 R9-390P-8DF6 XFX AMD Radeon ™ R9 390 8GB DD 1 2 $244 2 $244 LC-CC-95 Cosmo Cool LC-CC-95 - CPU cooler 1 $29 $29 ST1000DM003 Seagate 1TB SATA HDD Barracuda, Serial ATA III, 1000 GB 1 $135 $135 GH24NSC0 Samsung DVD Writer 1 $33 $33 975B LC-Power Gaming 975B 1 $129 $129 -- Fractal Integra M 650W, 80+ BRONZE 1 $212 $212 HX318C10F/8 Corsair Vengeance RAM 8GB 1866MHz DDR3 1 $119 $119 FD8350FRHKBOX AMD AM3+ FX-8350 Box 4GHZ 8 CORE 1 1 $125 1 $125
The parts in bold are the ones I'd want to swap out—and I bolded the motherboard too, just in case. Basically, I'm looking for something in a similar price range to what I have now, but compatible with this motherboard. Ideally, I'd love to stick with the same brand if possible, I guess. Any advice? I might head down to the Police station—wait, I mean, maybe just hit up some local shops—or check out places in San Francisco (like Links or Best Buy), or even maybe somewhere in Cleveland. I'm planning on buying a brand-new PC later this year anyway, so I'm wondering if it even makes sense to drop money $1000 on just two components right now. Thanks! This setup is probably about 4 or 5 years old now.
Is this service still actually being used? Especially since they're pushing Google and Apple Pay so hard now. I haven't been able to link my debit card to Google Pay at all—it’s been a bit of a headache, honestly—so I was thinking about activating this just so I could finally start paying with my phone.
At this point, I guess my only move left is to try swapping the slots around. My BIOS says everything looks totally fine—it’s reading all 16 GB of memory—and CPU-Z is showing the exact same thing. Since they're identical sticks, there shouldn't be any compatibility issues at all, so I'm honestly just scratching my head over why this is happening.
Hey there! So, I just added another 8 GB of RAM to my rig—now I've got 2xKingston Technology HyperX Fury Memory Blue 8 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 in there—but my system (running Windows 10 home 64) is acting a bit weird. It shows that I have 16 GB installed, but it says only 7.97 GB is actually usable. If I check Task Manager, it says 8 GB is being "hardware reserved." What does that even mean? I'm kind of stumped as to why it won't let me use all the memory I paid for. I tried digging around online for some fixes, maybe messing with those MSConfig settings, but nothing seems to work. My setup uses a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P motherboard, and I'm pretty sure the sticks are seated correctly—I originally had the first one in the second slot and put the second one in the fourth slot.
crimsonstag84 said:Honestly, just grab some used gear—it’s really not worth shelling out for brand-new DDR3 these days. If you're looking around San Diego, there should be plenty of options 😛
Kingston HyperX FURY DDR3 8GB 1866 hx318c10frk2/16 1x8GB Red
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 8GB 1866 cmz16gx3m2a1866c10 1x8GB black
Kingston HyperX FURY DDR3 8GB 1866 hx318c10fb/8 1x8GB black
All of these should work perfectly with what you've already got.
Thanks! I'll definitely check those out. It seems like a much better deal since it's almost $67 cheaper. So, just to make sure I've got this right—I can mix and match different brands as long as the speed and capacity stay the same, right?
Hey everyone! I wanted to jump in here instead of starting a whole new thread. I'm looking to upgrade the RAM in my rig—right now, I'm running a single stick of Kingston Technology HyperX Fury Memory Blue 8 GB 1866 MHz DDR3—and I’m thinking about adding another module. I really want to stick with the exact same brand and everything to be safe, but I'm feeling a bit torn... I was eyeing a 4 GB stick since the price difference is actually pretty huge, but I guess I'm just worried about whether it might mess with my system's stability or overall performance? Any thoughts?$100And honestly, I’m thinking that bumping up to 12 GB should be more than enough for my gaming needs—since I can actually manage to play things pretty solidly even with just the 8 GB I have right now! So, I've got my setup running now—it's a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P motherboard paired with an XFX AMD Radeon ™ R9 390 8GB, and for the CPU, I'm rocking the AMD AM3 + FX-8350 box 4 GHz 8 Core. It feels pretty solid!
Andrew Peterson2 said:If it was working fine before, maybe try a hard reset? If that doesn't do the trick, then you’re probably looking at a hardware failure—most likely a fried USB controller.
Maybe try searching online for the specific hard reset steps for your model (usually involving some key combos during startup). Or, you might find a reset option tucked away in the settings menu under "About" or something similar.
I'm honestly not sure how else I can help! Your best bet is probably taking it to a repair shop and asking them to check the chip, though that kind of diagnostic work can take a while—so you'll need some patience there.
And hey, if all else fails, maybe it's just time to treat yourself to something newer and even higher-end.
Thanks, I'll definitely look into that. This one is actually pretty new—it's only been about a year old, and it's honestly one of the better models out there in terms of quality.
Hey everyone! So, I've got an Android head unit in my car running the Lollipop OS. It’s got this little mini USB port on the interface meant for plugging in different devices. For a while now, I've been using it to plug in a thumb drive via a mini USB cable—you know, the standard adapter type—but lately, the radio just won't detect the USB at all when I plug it in. I've already tried swapping out the cable and even testing a different flash drive, but I'm getting the exact same result every single time. Do you guys think it's possible the mini USB port itself is fried, or could this be some kind of software glitch that might be fixed with a quick factory reset? I'd really appreciate any advice if anyone has dealt with something similar before. Thanks!
So, I've got Microsoft Office installed on two different computers, and there's a bit of a weird situation—one machine has all the spellcheck tools for American English ready to go, but the other one is totally missing them since they weren't included during the initial setup. I really need to get those tools working, but it looks like they might have pulled the language packs from the official website lately. Does anyone know how I can get them installed? I guess I'm just a bit stuck!
So, I ran into a weird little glitch today with Microsoft Edge—not like I’m a power user or anything, but I decided to fire it up just now, and things got strange. It started out totally fine, but then, as soon as I launch it, it automatically kicks me straight over to Google Chrome! It’s like, the blue Edge window pops up for a split second, and then—bam—I'm suddenly staring at Chrome. The even weirder part? This keeps happening even after I actually uninstalled Chrome from my system. I don't really use Edge all that much, but I can't help but wonder what might be causing this... I mean, I guess I'm a little worried it could be some kind of virus or something even nastier. I did run a scan with my antivirus software—which is always running in the background anyway—but it didn't pick up any issues at all.
Hey everyone! So, I've got this HP Pavilion laptop. Lately, I've noticed something pretty weird—whenever I close the lid, it goes into sleep mode like it's supposed to, but then after just five minutes, it jumps straight into hibernation. The thing is, my settings don't say anything about that happening! I actually have the hibernation timer set to 60 minutes. I even tried disabling hibernation entirely, but nope—it keeps doing it regardless of whether I'm plugged into the wall or running on battery. Any idea what might be causing this? Does anyone have a clue why my laptop would just ignore my settings and force itself into hibernation? It's running Windows 10 and I've kept everything updated for a while now, though I'm not sure if that's actually playing a role here.
I guess I'll just leave that part to the real pros—I'm definitely not quite at that level yet! 🙂. Basically, looking at things now, it seems like my mouse is plugged into port 1, but it’s showing up as hub 006. Maybe that's where the trouble is coming from?
So, I'm working with an ASUS Prime motherboard, Windows 10, and an EVGA case. On the front of my rig, I've got two standard USB ports and one USB 3.0 port. Whenever I plug any kind of USB device into either of those two USB 2.0 ports, I get this error: Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)
A request for the USB device descriptor failed.
The other port works just fine, though! I've tried googling for a fix, but honestly, none of the methods I've found seem to help at all—and my drivers are already up to date, according to the system. I'm thinking the issue might be with port 001 hub003.
I wonder what could be causing my new computer to show a hard drive capacity of only 194 GB when it’s actually supposed to be a 1 TB drive? I'm using a Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD, and the OS is Windows 10 ME edition 64-bit—if that even makes sense! I guess I've just never run into something like this before.
Jonathan Mendoza17 said:Man, here we go again! 🤣 Alright, let me break this down for you. VGA - analog signal only DVI-A - analog signal only DVI-D - digital signal only DVI-I - both analog and digital signals HDMI - digital only DisplayPort - digital only
See, your monitor can only take an analog signal, so that's what you've gotta feed it. If your graphics card is putting out a digital signal, you're going to need a converter to actually change that signal over. Now, if your card happens to have a DVI-A or DVI-I port, a cheap passive adapter works just fine—it doesn't actually convert anything, it just reshuffles the pins, which is why it's so inexpensive. But in any other scenario? You'll need a slightly pricier active adapter that actually converts the digital signal into analog (probably around $10-$15). So, you really ought to double-check whether your card has a DVI-I or a DVI-D connector. If it’s DVI-I, you can just grab a passive DVI/VGA adapter on $10. But if it isn't, then you'll need a DVI-D/VGA, HDMI/VGA, or DP/VGA adapter—those ones act as converters, which is why they cost more. I'd budget about $43 depending on where you shop.
Thanks so much, that was a super clear explanation! My card actually has a DVI-D port, based on the link in the post above. Man, things would be so much easier if it were different. So, does that mean this one, this one or maybe this one?
Adam Moore3 said:Good grief, why is there so much confusion about this? — I mean, seriously! Your monitor only has a VGA port; it doesn't even have DVI or HDMI. On the flip side, your graphics card doesn't support VGA at all—it’s strictly DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort. So, I guess you're basically looking at needing a new monitor if you want things to actually work! 😬 So, I'm thinking maybe just a "DVI/HDMI/DP to VGA adapter"? Basically, one side would be VGA and the other could be any one of those three—that way I can just plug my monitor (which uses VGA) into the adapter, then stick the adapter straight into the graphics card. That should do the trick, right? Simple as that! 🙂
Sorry about that—things are finally starting to click for me! I guess I was just a little confused at first about how everything worked, so I definitely got mixed up. My bad!
Exactly, that’s what I was going for! @ Timothy Kim60—just so you know, my graphics card only has digital outputs. I actually just finished chatting with a guy over at Best Buy, and he mentioned that since my ports are all digital, I could hook up the monitor using either the DisplayPort or the HDMI port—which basically means I'll probably need to pick up some adapters, maybe an HDMI-to-VGA or a DP-to-VGA one, I guess.
Adam Moore3 said:So, look—that’s a really old monitor with a TN panel, and if I remember correctly, it's running at 1680x1050 resolution. Basically, you're working with a super dated screen where Full HD isn't even its native resolution—especially when you pair it up with a card like that... $1000 I wonder which people actually use these setups even for some occasional 4K gaming? 🙂 Things aren't quite adding up here, are they? I mean, it feels like something is just a little bit off—maybe even a bit mismatched! 😬 Bare minimum! Like this! You could definitely pick that up! It’s such a steal—plus, it has a VA panel, so you're getting Full HD too. Or... maybe not? I guess it depends! Alright, let's get this going! So, about that IPS panel... at least you'll actually be able to make decent use of your GPU's potential! I mean, running an R9 390 at 1680x1050? Man, what a waste—it's honestly such a shame! 😁
I was checking out that BenQ, but honestly—I ended up dropping pretty much everything I had on an MSI build instead! So, I guess I’ll just have to wait a little bit before I can finally grab a new monitor.