Posts by Benjamin King2

The AMD card actually packs an extra DVI port—plus, the clock speed is slightly higher, sitting at 1075 versus 1050.

driftingwalker19 said:So, basically—because my old hard drive finally kicked the bucket—I did a fresh install of Windows onto an SSD. But then, out of nowhere, Windows starts crashing constantly. No pattern, really; sometimes it’s immediate, other times it’s after thirty minutes. Every time it crashes, the screen just explodes into random colors for a split second before the whole thing restarts. Then I get hit with a Blue Screen of Death featuring two different error codes—mostly memory-related stuff. Since I already ran tests on my RAM and it seems fine, I started suspecting the VRAM on my graphics card... though, to be fair, I ran that one program I mentioned earlier and it didn't show any errors there either. Meanwhile, I used Essential to find out the SSD has bad sectors. Honestly, though, those weird color glitches right before the crash feel more like a GPU issue than an SSD issue. To make matters worse, I accidentally set my second new hard drive to a dynamic disk, so now I can't even reinstall Windows to see if the SSD was actually the culprit. It's a total mess—I'm honestly half-tempted to chuck this entire PC out the window. 🙂 hope you can make sense of any of this 🙂

Look, if your display isn't acting up during the boot process—you know, before Windows even starts loading—then I wouldn't bet heavily on the graphics card. I'd look at the damn Windows installation or drivers first. Also, grab SSDlife or CrystalDiskInfo and check the S.M.A.R.T. attributes on that SSD. If it's showing bad sectors, take it back for a warranty claim if you've still got one. You could try doing a secure wipe on the SSD and then attempt the Windows reinstall again, but if the SMART data still looks garbage, that SSD is officially junk.

Who actually threw what error, and why on earth do you think the GPU is the culprit? You haven't really given me anything to go on here—just a total blank.

driftingwalker19 said:How many passes should I run during a video memory stress test to be sure my GPU is actually okay??

Honestly, you could probably just run it two or three times—though, theoretically, a single pass ought to catch any errors if they exist. Just keep in mind that this specific test is really just verifying that the VRAM is behaving itself—it doesn't necessarily mean the entire card isn't going to flake out on you later.

Why don't you try sending them an inquiry over at this link? See what kind of custom builds they can put together for you—at the very least, it gives you a solid baseline to compare against HP:

I've picked up a few high-end chassis for servers and workstations from these guys a couple of times now—they actually carry some pretty decent hardware if you bother to look through their price list. If you're looking for a heavy-duty rig that’s going to chug along 24/7 without throwing a tantrum, you really need to make sure you're spec'ing out redundant power supplies and ECC RAM; everything else is just a matter of whatever your specific needs dictate.

mistymason18 said:Hey everyone, I could really use some help here. A few days ago, I was gaming and needed to quickly alt-tab to look something up online—standard stuff, right?—but when I minimized the game, the whole system just locked up. I had to hard reset, and once it rebooted, my screen was covered in a mess of red lines, exactly like what you see in the photo. After that, the Windows logo pops up, but then... nothing. It just won't boot into Windows. I even tried booting into Ubuntu, but that failed too. I called a buddy who thinks it’s likely the GPU—it’s a SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870, about two and a half years old, and yeah, the warranty is long gone 🙂. So, if you guys could let me know if this is definitely a GPU issue or if it could be something else, I'd appreciate it!
Thanks!

What do you mean by "won't boot"? What's actually happening? Is there an error message on the screen or something? Have you tried booting into Safe Mode yet?

Check your VGA cable connector first—make sure none of those pins are bent out of shape. As for the card itself, your best bet is to swap it out temporarily to test it, or just try plugging the monitor directly into your integrated graphics if your motherboard supports it.

Have you checked out the retail locations on the HP site yet? http://www8.hp.com/hr/hr/store-finder/index.do

And honestly—you might want to look into building some custom rigs—because if you just go out and buy one of these pre-built workstations, you’re basically paying a massive premium for nothing more than the convenience.

I’d definitely go with a new drive—that 80 GB one is ancient, practically prehistoric at this point.

Honestly, we could probably shave some money off this build—if you're just messing around with 2D graphics, I really don't see why anyone would need a dedicated GPU:

Corsair RM Series 399.00
Corsair RM Series, 460 W 389.00
ECS B85H3-M4 469.00
Intel i5 4430 1,519.00
G.SKILL Ripjaws F3-12800CL8D-8GBRM, 1600 MHz, 2x4 Gb 599.00
Samsung 870 EVO, 120 Gb 719.00
WD Blue WD10EZEX, 1000 Gb 459.00
Samsung SH-S224BB 120.00

$1558

The x2 card is definitely a step up from the AMD Radeon R7 260X, but man, it runs hot—like, seriously hot—and it's a total power hog. If you're rocking some cheap, budget case from a big-box retailer, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. You’re going to need a rock-solid power supply, at least 600W, just to stay safe. What does the rest of your rig actually look like? Processor? Power supply?

Case and power supply - roughly 500
Motherboard and CPU - somewhere around 700-750
RAM - 250
GPU - 650-700
Hard drive - 350
SSD - honestly hard to call since it's an older model, maybe $233
Monitor - about 600
Speakers - 350-400

As for gamepads, I haven't got a clue what they're worth.

Honestly, given the processor you're running, stepping up to anything stronger than an HD 7770 is just throwing cash down the drain—purely a waste of money at this point. You might as well just grab a 7750 instead; it’s sitting right there in that middle ground, pretty much like that old card you used to have, something like this:

Larry Ortiz5 said:So, when is Broadwell actually dropping? I’ve been scrolling through various sites and they're claiming a Q1 release this year just for testing, then full retail wouldn't hit until late 2014. Is that legit? And honestly—let's be real here—it probably won't even be much better than what we have with current Haswell anyway. 😬

Plus, it all comes down to how fast motherboard manufacturers can actually roll out boards with the new chipsets—I mean, there’s zero point in trying to test anything if the motherboards aren't even on the shelves yet.

Just go ahead and load the default settings in your BIOS right after you swap out that battery.

It doesn't make much sense to just shove spyware into random computers—I mean, really, what's the point? You’d actually want to target a specific mark, wouldn't you? And if the goal is to harvest massive amounts of data, you aren't going to waste your breath messing with one single laptop—you'd go after compromising some major network hub with huge data throughput instead.

Brian Campbell6 said:Right, I meant BIOS—not sure why I kept typing DOS, honestly. How am I even supposed to check the date?🙂

Just hop into the BIOS and check there. Usually, when you boot up a Dell, the screen will tell you to "press ... to enter setup" or something similar.

There aren't enough CUDA cores and the bus width is just too narrow—honestly, you’d be better off dumping that cash into a beefier processor instead. If I were you, I'd aim for at least a GTX 650 or a 660 as a baseline. Also, Trendkill—keep in mind that having a CUDA-enabled card can seriously speed up your 3D rendering when you're working in Premiere or After Effects, so definitely factor that into your decision.

Brian Campbell6 said:I just gave it a shot—the second I tap it or even give it a little nudge, the whole thing freezes?????? And I'm telling you, every single connection is seated perfectly.

Then it won't even boot up, so it just keeps trying over and over until it finally catches.
And then DOS just spits back "overclocking failed".........
It’s like some contact is totally shot...

That isn't a DOS issue, it's the BIOS. You should check the BIOS to see if the date got reset; if it did, you probably just need to swap out the CMOS battery on your motherboard.

The 2011 era only really makes sense if you're jumping straight to a 6-core processor—honestly, grabbing a quad-core back then just isn't worth it when you compare it to Haswell. If you aren't planning on overclocking everything to the limit, just go with the Intel Core i7 4770. As for upgrading, sure, Broadwell processors will use the same Socket 2011 as Haswell, but I highly doubt your current motherboards will actually be compatible. You might even find yourself needing to swap out the power supply along with the board, so this "upgrade" could end up being a massive money pit. On the bright side, Socket 2011 isn't going anywhere—Intel has too many serious users relying on it to just abandon them. But let's be real: every platform becomes obsolete eventually, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over how long things stay relevant. What kind of software are you running?

Honestly, it’s entirely possible some connector just wiggled loose—maybe the ATX or the CPU power cable—and that was the whole reason it was acting up. Anyway, problem solved. 🙂