Posts by Thomas Wells5

It makes zero sense to me that it would be freezing up right in the BIOS... but I guess I'll give it another shot and try reinstalling macOS

I haven't even bothered upgrading to a new macOS yet, but honestly, I don't think that's even the core issue here. It’s just completely nonsensical—the system froze two or three times right in the BIOS. If the freezes were happening exclusively within macOS, I'd just wipe it and reinstall, but that's not what's happening. To be perfectly blunt, I just didn't have the willpower left. I've been wrestling with this rig all day long, and frankly, I'm exhausted. I ended up just swapping my old motherboard back in so I can gather some actual advice and hopefully get back to work tomorrow or the day after. We'll see if this thing is salvageable or if I should just write it off as a total loss.

I’ve actually had a few colleagues suggest I dive into the BIOS settings and try disabling things like the LAN card or the onboard audio, just in case one of those components is causing the instability. I’ve also been weighing the idea of flashing the BIOS... honestly, at this point, I'm feeling a bit lost on what my next move should even be.

Alright, so I’ve run into a bit of a headache here.
I installed a second motherboard, an ASUS ROG gaming motherboard,
Everything seemed perfectly fine on day one, but today the whole system started freezing up on me. It doesn't matter if I'm just sitting in the BIOS or working in macOS; sometimes I'll boot it up, it runs for maybe 15 to 20 minutes, and then—boom—total freeze. Everything just locks up and I can't move a single thing.
The weird part is that when I swapped my old motherboard back in, everything worked flawlessly again,
which pretty much rules out any issues with my RAM sticks.
It might be worth mentioning that I actually tried to overclock this thing—specifically trying to unlock that fourth core on my AMD Athlon II X3—but I had no luck. Just in case, I went ahead and reset the BIOS to factory settings...
For context, the rest of my build consists of an AMD Athlon II X3, 2x4GB Kingston DDR3 at 1333MHz, a Corsair 480W power supply, and an MSI dual fan HD6670 1GB GDDR5 graphics card.
Since I picked this motherboard up used, there's no chance of a return. Honestly, I didn't spend a fortune on it, so if the thing is just a lemon, I'm not even going to stress about it too much.😁

That's basically how my account ended up looking too, just some $50 without any cooling

I’m looking for an appraisal on an MSI gf615m p33 motherboard—just the board itself, please.

The closest Pa links I can find is over in Indianapolis... and honestly, for my cousin, it’s just not the right fit for a PC build.

Hey there... I'm looking to put together a PC build by $1000. To be clear, I just need the components—I already have the case, and I don't need any peripherals
. I'm planning on buying everything through Facebook on a payment plan
. The rig's main purpose will be playing some of the newer titles
.

Honestly, I’m inclined to agree with you—it sounds like a faulty power supply or one that’s just completely kicked the bucket. Before you go dropping cash on a new unit, do yourself a favor and try to borrow a spare from a friend to test it out first. It might save you a headache if it turns out to be something else entirely.

I mean, seriously, why on earth didn't you just attempt a rollback to version 8.12?

Look, I’m certainly no licensed electrician, but a buddy of mine mentioned that if your computer and your router are pulling from the same electrical phase, you can end up with all sorts of signal interference or even total connection drops... It sounds a bit ridiculous, but I used to have this issue where my internet would just cut out every single time I flipped the switch on my space heater. Even today, if I turn on the hot water in the bathroom—assuming the water heater kicks in—my connection goes dead. It sounds absurd, I know, but it's the truth. Maybe that's why it happens right when I fire up the vacuum, too.

Have you tried running a System Restore yet? That ought to sort out the underlying issues... As for that hotspot situation, there are a ton of little utilities out there designed specifically to broadcast a signal.
The best one by far is Connectify... just grab a cracked version from a pirate site and you're good to go. 😁

Yeah, yeah, I already tracked this one down, but thanks anyway.
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/14/12/17/bu8.png Seems decent enough for a $107 card that’s got about two months of life left in it before it finally bites the dust.

So, I went ahead and picked up an MSI 6670
but for some reason, when I pull up CPU-Z, it won't tell me the bus width or the DDR type. It's just being completely unhelpful.
Check out this screenshot: http://prntscr.com/5hzh6j

If that motherboard is the one from the link, then it should be running at 1333 MHz without any issues... or perhaps you've got two sticks of RAM where one is rated for 1333 MHz and the other is a slower speed, which would definitely cause you some headaches.

Unless some neighborhood dogs actually chewed through the cable in contact with it... I mean, there’s supposed to be insulation, right? xD

Look, just run a system restore... roll it back to a date when everything was actually functioning properly. If you haven't a clue how to perform a restore, I don't know—just Google it. I can't recall the exact steps for Windows 8.1 off the top of my head, but it shouldn't be anything too difficult to figure out.

Well, I was actually thinking... and I even told the guy to adjust the price so I could pull the trigger on it...

Quick question: is this graphics card actually worth the asking price? http://www.ebay.com/itm/example-listing
It supposedly still has a warranty too—at least that’s what the seller told me via email. Though, if I'm reading the listings on Newegg correctly, you can grab a brand new one for about $207 if you look hard enough...
The guy claims there's still
of warranty left on it.

Just tell me it's GDDR5