swiftowl7 said:I’d suggest opening up the case and unplugging the cables from your hard drive; maybe give the contacts a quick spray with some Western Digital cleaner, plug everything back in, and see if that does the trick. If that doesn't work, try swapping in a different working hard drive just to test things out, and let us know how it goes.
Western Digital and electronics don't really mix. I guess you use Western Digital when your door hinges are squeaking, not when your computer is acting up.
It’s not just some tiny incremental step; it's more about the fact that later on, you won't need to drop a bag on an entirely new PC since you'll just be swapping out specific parts you skipped this time.
I don't know, what you're planning doesn't really make sense. For the motherboard you've got, that’s pretty much the best CPU you can squeeze out of it. I guess your best bet is either to just swap the $1000 CPU, motherboard, and RAM all at once so you don't have to touch them again later, or just grab a new GPU and call it a day. Since your current setup probably won't handle a beefier graphics card anyway, maybe just upgrade the core trio first and keep using the old GPU while it still has some life left in it. Honestly, throwing in an SSD wouldn't be a bad move either—that's where you'll actually feel the speed boost.
If you're dealing with a high-end unit, maybe it's worth messing around with, but if it's just some cheap $33 that's a few years old and you're looking at dropping $13 on a new fan plus wasting half an hour swapping it out—I guess you're better off just buying a new one.
So, what kind of power supply are we talking about? I guess you'll need to check which fan is inside to find something with similar specs, and you'll probably need a soldering iron too.
Sure, an Intel Core i5-9600K can handle just about anything. Your setup should work fine, though I guess crimsonstag84 managed to squeeze out a bit more performance.
Most USB ports are on the back of the motherboard, so they aren't really tied to the case. Those front ones are mostly there for quickly plugging in thumb drives, phones, and stuff like that. How many do you actually need?
So I’m running a Ryzen 5 1600 paired with a GTX 1660 6GB on an EVGA 450 W. that I picked up way back in 2012. I actually used it for mining for a few months (running at 300W 24/7), and honestly, it hasn't even flinched. If it's working, I guess just don't touch it. 🙂
Honestly, just grab an SSD and push this build as far as it'll go. That i5 9600k is already getting pretty old, and who knows what the standard will be by the time you're actually ready to upgrade. Also, maybe skip the liquid cooling if money is tight 😬
I can't believe Best Buy is asking $3000 for that junk. It’s barely worth 4 bucks. I guess you should probably wait until someone builds you something decent instead of rushing out to grab that.
Bradley Ramos11 said:fadedorca66, thanks for the tip, you nailed it. I swapped the BIOS, everything worked, then switched back and reflashed, and now that one works too. I feel kind of (okay, totally) stupid for wasting two days on something I fixed in half an hour. 😁
Nice 👍
Don't sweat it; without experience or someone pointing you in the right direction, this is a pretty nasty issue to tackle. You wouldn't think a GPU BIOS could act that glitchy, and honestly, most people don't even realize a card has its own BIOS. A buddy of mine ran into this once and we all spent forever trying to figure out what was going on 😁 And most troubleshooting sites just point you toward the usual stuff: drivers, reinstalling macOS, drivers, and so on...
Did you flash the BIOS on the GPU or the motherboard? I'm thinking someone might have messed with the graphics card's BIOS, which would explain why it's acting up.
Since that card has dual BIOS, maybe try finding the physical switch on the card itself and flipping it to the other BIOS to see if things change. Just make sure the PC is powered off before you mess with it.
Look, if my memory serves, that board was one of the early ones released for that socket back in 2006. I actually had its sibling, the Gigabyte Motherboard, which died ages ago 😬
So we're talking about a decade old here. You'll drop $67 on an SSD, maybe 250 on a processor, 30 on a cooler, 50 on some RAM, and then you'll probably realize your graphics card is garbage too and needs an upgrade. Eventually, you'll figure out the power supply is also ten years old and on its last legs... and after all that, you'll still just have a ten-year-old PC that you dumped a ton of cash into 😬
I guess this is my worst-case scenario, but people tend to get stuck digging holes with these old PCs and end up wasting a massive amount of money. My advice? Just grab that SSD first and see how it feels. If the performance jumps significantly—great. It's the lowest risk move since you can always toss it into a new PC later. If you're still not feeling the speed, maybe pop in a processor up to $33, but don't go overboard. And if it's still lagging, maybe add a stick of RAM for $17. It won't cost much and might give you decent enough performance.
Before you do any of that, it would be a really good idea to visually check the capacitors on the motherboard. If even one looks "bulged"—don't bother putting another cent into that PC. Same goes for the power supply, especially if it's some low-end brand like EVGA, you should probably check that too if you can.
I think I have those two processors lying around somewhere, but it really just comes down to whether you want four "weaker" cores or three better ones. The Phenom II X3 actually has L3 Cache, whereas the Athlon doesn't.
If I were you, I'd probably just grab an SSD first; you'll notice a massive difference with that.