PC Upgrade Ideas

The 4xxx series (LGA 1150 socket) won't work with your motherboard...

By the way, what's the full model name of your board? If you check CPU-Z, Everest, or something similar, let me know, because there are a few different versions out there online (like the D2, UD2H, etc.).

GA-H67M-D2-B3

So, if they told you that, they’re right—you should at least grab an i5-3330. If you're looking for the top-tier standard i5, the absolute best you can get is the i5-3570.

Just picked up the 3570 from Best Buy

So you actually $578 for him?

Hope everyone is doing well!

So, I picked up some upgrades for my PC yesterday:

My original specs were:

GIGABYTE - Ga785-ud3h
AMD Phenom x4 945 3.0 ghz
2x2 GB DDR 1600 mhz (Muskin Redline frostbite)
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 512 MB DDR3 Green Edition 1 TB Western Digital
EVGA SuperNova 550W / Cooler Master Gladiator 600

I upgraded the rig with:

ASUS R9 270x direct CU II TOP 2gb DDR5
+ 2x2 GB DDR 1600 (G.Skill Ripjaws X series)

Games are running great, though benchmarks and 3DMark results are looking a little underwhelming (hitting about 4980 out of a possible 5500 points in 3DMark 2013... but I suppose that’s just because my older Phenom x4 is bottlenecking things... nothing too major, really)

The real headache, though, is that my system randomly freezes right in the middle of gaming, watching YouTube, or even just basic tasks where the load hits more than 5%. The audio just makes that weird "trrrrrrrr" sound, and then I get the Blue Screen of Death with all those error codes, you know the drill. It says "dumping physical memory" with a percentage, and then it just auto-restarts.

I've tried everything, really. I wiped all the drivers, cleaned up the registry as much as CCleaner and TuneUp would allow, cleared out backups and restore points, and reset the BIOS to both failsafe and optimized defaults. Nothing seems to have helped.

One thing I did notice in the 3DMark and Everest info is that two of my memory modules are listed at @ 667 mhz while the other two are at @ 800 mhz. Shouldn't they both be running at 1600? I'm not entirely sure how that works.

I also don't think the power supply is the issue. Even under heavy GPU load, everything seems fine; both green LEDs under the 6-pin connectors on the card stay lit.

I'm kind of at a loss here. Should I just wipe the whole drive and reinstall macOS?

PS (Temperatures in Leer are around 29-31 for the GPU and 39-42 for the CPU. Under full load, it's about 57-59 for the GPU and 50-55 for the CPU), so I doubt heat is the culprit.

I'd appreciate any advice before I lose my mind. This unpredictability is driving me crazy—I never know if the computer is going to crash in one minute or after two hours of gaming. It just decides to quit on me whenever it feels like it.

David Sanders4 said:So you actually dropped $578 on that thing?

Yeah, unfortunately, it's definitely pricier, but I'm playing the long game here (plus, it was the only one in stock anywhere in the tri-state area)😁

Look, everyone has their own set of criteria when they decide what to buy. For me, there’s a charming girl working at the Best Buy in my hometown, and honestly, she’s the sole reason I bother going there and willingly paying a premium for certain products. When someone tries to tell me I could have found a better deal elsewhere, I find myself spinning a long list of logical excuses just to justify the purchase. It's really just a way to avoid admitting the truth: I have a bit of a weakness for a friendly face.

Hey. Sorry to just barge in here like this!
I've run into a bit of a snag with an upgrade. Honestly, I'm not sure if anyone here would be down to help me clear some things up. 🙂

Built this rig yesterday:

MSI Z87-G43 motherboard

Intel Core i5-4570 LGA 1150

Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2

Zotac GeForce GT 630 2GB DDR3

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2 x 4GB + 1 Corsair Dominator 2GB

No monitor here, just using an 32-inch Sony TV hooked up via HDMI

Problem: Speedfan is showing my CPU temperature at 128C. It won't go down. Everything else seems fine.
In the BIOS, the max temperature was 46 C while playing Black Ops 2.

Look, I’m no hacker, but can someone explain what that CPU temp reading in Speedfan actually means? Any idea how to get it lower?

Well, looks like the software is reading it wrong.

Are you positive I don't need to worry? Because I'm still feeling a bit uneasy about it.

Just check the temp with your finger.

And if you're really that worried about it, maybe just grab some electrical tape and cover the temperature reading on the monitor.😁

Look, even if it hits near 120 degrees Celsius, it wouldn't have fried itself already. The BIOS is smarter than that. You should check it using some other software, like HWMonitor or Everest Ultimate (PC - Sensor)

You can learn something new every day, but some people just refuse to grow!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to pick your brains constantly. I don't need to be slapping electrical tape on my monitor just because it gets in the way while I'm gaming🤣. Honestly, it’s much easier to just uninstall Speedfan and call it a day😁
.
I ended up downloading the MSI Intel Extreme tuning utility
.
Anyway, thanks for the help!

Can I ask for a little more help here? Just one more time, please!

If anyone’s feeling generous:

My DVD drive works fine, but the second I pop in a CD or DVD, my motherboard just stops recognizing it. It's like the drive completely disappears from the system. I can go into Device Manager, add new hardware, and it pops back up—everything runs great until I try to swap in a different disc. All my components are brand new, and I've already tried nuking the drivers and reinstalling them. I'm officially out of ideas, so if anyone has a suggestion that isn't just "stop putting discs in it,"😁 I'd really appreciate the assist.🤷

A buddy of mine ran into a bit of a headache after installing Windows 8—he couldn't find his optical drive anywhere under "My Computer." Turns out, the fix was surprisingly simple: I just had him unplug the SATA connector from the drive and plug it back in, and just like that, everything popped up again. It might be worth giving that a shot if you're stuck...

I’ve already tried swapping out the SATA cable and even moved things over to a different SATA port on the motherboard. I actually went out today and picked up a new 630W power supply because I saw some folks on the forums mentioning that a weak PSU can cause disconnects during data transfers. Honestly, I’m still not sure if the issue lies with the jumpers, though. It seems to cut out right when the system tries to read a CD or DVD via autoplay.

It sounds like the issue might actually be your burner—instead of shelling out for a new power supply, you probably could have just picked up a new optical drive for less than $67. P.S. Is that a brand new part, or did you pull it from an old PC?

The burner was sitting in my old rig that I put together about three months back, but now I’ve moved up to a beefier setup. My old power supply was only 550W, and honestly, the fan was already starting to whine. Plus, the case was way too cramped. So today, I finally migrated everything over to a much larger case with better airflow and a fresh PSU. I have another burner, but it's an IDE drive, and my motherboard only has SATA slots. I'm running an original Windows 7 Ultimate 64. Not sure if there's any issue with the motherboard having SATA 6Gb ports.