Posts by Benjamin King2

Cca $300 rig plus maybe another 400-450 for a decent monitor.

James Ortiz said:Thanks for the tip, Benjamin King2. A few people have pointed me in that direction already—so yeah, definitely going with the HD 6670.

With that card, I shouldn't be sweating my 400W power supply, right?

The 6670 should actually pull less juice than that old x1950 you're running now—especially if you're currently using an extra PCI-e power connector for it.

Look, if you try running them both at once, your CPU is going to choke—it’ll start stuttering like crazy. Your RAM shouldn't be an issue, though. And honestly? Adding a second graphics card isn't going to change a thing in this scenario.

You should probably take a look at some Core 2 Quad processors on eBay—there are a few listed here: http://processormatch.intel.com/Comp...ardName=DG45ID

You should be able to snag one for somewhere around $6-$233.

Which Adobe apps are we talking about here? Honestly, having a beefier graphics card only really matters if you're grinding away in Adobe Premiere or maybe Adobe After Effects—for anything else, it’s pretty much overkill. If that's your situation, you could probably grab something like this:

As for the CPU, you'll likely have to hunt through the used market—something like a quad-core, maybe a Q6700 or a Q8400, actually makes sense. Though, I guess the real question is whether the price tag is worth it, since those things can get surprisingly pricey sometimes.

@James Ortiz/">@@James Ortiz

Nah, you gotta wipe the old driver completely, reboot the rig, and then—only then—do you go ahead and install the new one.

Experian is basically just a tool that logs graphics card errors into the event viewer—it’s not actually vital for the GPU's performance or anything. You could probably just head over to Services and disable it if you want to mess around.

So, the program isn't asking for your attention anymore?!? 🙂 You claim you've got a ton of programs running at once—but honestly, do you even have enough RAM to pull that off?

Think about Network Attached Storage (NAS)—you basically just plug it into your router via an Ethernet cable and call it a day. If you throw four drives into a RAID 5 setup, you’re pretty much set when it comes to backups—even if one of those disks decides to kick the bucket, you just swap it out and keep moving. You end up with three drives worth of actual storage space, while the fourth one handles the redundancy.

If your HDMI cable decides to quit on you, you've basically got four ways to fix the mess:

DVI (GPU) to VGA (Monitor)
DVI (GPU) to HDMI (Monitor)
miniDP (GPU) to HDMI (Monitor)
miniDP (GPU) to VGA (Monitor)

Larry Taylor3 said:I just care about getting the most bang for my buck when it comes to capacity.

Well, if that's the case, you aren't really making a choice—you're just following the path of least resistance. Once you decide you need anything larger than a 1 TB Western Digital, your hands are basically tied. You won't find any other brands offering 2 or 3 TB drives available at any local big-box retailer here in the States.

Jeremy Moore75 said:I’ve already tried an HDMI cable at home with my Radeon HD 5670, but I just couldn't get a full-screen picture—total failure there. I'm picking up a Radeon HD 7770 tomorrow, so I'm wondering what the move is here.

Look, just test that same cable on the new card first—it's basic troubleshooting. If the issue turns out to be the HDMI port itself, then you're probably looking at grabbing a VGA adapter for your monitor.

It honestly makes zero sense to me—I mean, DVI and HDMI are basically identical when you’re just talking about video quality.
Maybe you could just grab an HDMI cable from a buddy or something and run a quick test?

You could grab that one too—Gigabyte builds cards with seriously solid cooling systems.

Honestly, you can't beat Hitachi—it’s basically a total steal. It’s got a snappy 7200 rpm drive, plus their backup software is easily the best I’ve ever laid eyes on.

The GeForce GTX 670—it pulls less power, stays way cooler, and doesn't deal with those constant driver headaches you get with a Radeon... if it were me, I'd definitely grab this one instead of whatever PoV is suggesting:

It’s a solid move—that Sapphire Radeon HD3650 512 mb AGP Motherboard Asus P4S8X-MX is a massive step up from whatever you're running right now. Honestly, don't even bother looking at anything stronger than a 3650; there's zero point in spending the extra cash since your processor is a bit of a bottleneck for anything more powerful.

Maybe they should just grab something like this:

Or perhaps this instead:

He can pick up just about any PCI Express card he wants. But honestly, what’s the point of him grabbing some low-profile graphics card? It’s barely an upgrade over integrated graphics—hardly worth the effort. He’d be much better off just putting that money toward more RAM instead.

The only way you're making this work is if you stumble upon a used Phenom X4 9850 or an Athlon X2 6000 somewhere—since, obviously, nobody is actually manufacturing those anymore. But honestly? In my humble opinion, I’d rather just grind for another 1500-$667 and pull the trigger on a whole new setup—motherboard, CPU, RAM, and GPU included. The platform you're running right now is basically a fossil at this point. It's dead.

Give Safe Mode a shot—it’s sitting right there on the same startup menu as the repair option. While you're running through the repair process, keep an eye out for System Restore; the system should throw that option your way at some point.

As for that DVD issue? Either the disc isn't actually a bootable DVD, or you just haven't set the optical drive as the primary boot device in the BIOS yet.