System Hardware: PC | MOBO | RAM | CPU | HDD | SSD | PSU etc

I got a pc from Cyberpower last year and had some power issues so I decided to replace it myself with a new 600w unit (didnt like the idea of sending it back and waiting weeks for a fix) and it ran fine for maybe 4 months even with a new graphics card (GTX560Ti). Now something bad is happening again with sudden power offs and lockups.It started with a clicking noise like you get when you turn the power on and it would lock up, now windows just freezes up at random and I get an Critical error showing in event viewer "Event -ID 41, Source: Kernal - Power" What are the chances of 2 failed PSU in 1 year? Could it be some deeper problem with the motherboard? Its so confusin…

I started a thread a while back, but I can't find it anymore, so I decided to start a new one.OK, it's December, so I must now choose parts for my computer. (This will be a entire new system, not an upgrade)I'm doing most of my shopping on Newegg, and this is what I have so far:To run up on that, I will have a Cooler Master HAF912 (which, IMO, is big enough; I'm worried about case sizes because I don't want to return a GFX because it didn't fit like I did with my current Dell. Also, how will I know if it will fit my pwoer supply, below? I saw the newegg review of it and it doesnt seem like a big space for a power supply.)a Seagate Barracuda (Just FYI, it must be a 1TB so …

Hi Guys:I am slowly building a computer for FSX. I have the P8Z68 MOBO, CoolerMaster HAF 932, Corsair 750W Modular, I5-2500K and Noctua NH-D14 cpu cooler. I know this cooler will cause a problem fitting some Ram. What Ram is recommended by people with this setup.Thanks John

Not a bad price for a really solid case!$189.99 - $20.00 promo - $20.00 rebate = $149.99LINK

HelloIt is looking like AMD are pulling out of the CPU market.Now would be a good time for anyone thinking of going to Sandybridge to buy before the prices go upIntel will have no incentive to be competitive on pricing from here on in.http://www.techpowerup.com/155920/AMD-To-Give-Up-Competing-With-Intel-On-x86-CPU-Prices-Already-Shooting-Up.html

Hi AllI've not used FSX for quite a long while, but decided to reinstall, but first I updated an old desktop just for FSX. This is the hardware I have nowIntel core i5-2300 @ 2.8ghz8gb DDR3 RamGTX 550ti 1GB CardIs this going to be any good at running FSX at a decent quality ?CheersWhitetimer

MY X980 CPU factory overclock settings is 3.743.MHz with X28.0 multiplier. Can I achieve 4MHz with changing CPU Clock Ratio to X30.0 multiplier and setting CPU Vcore to 1.35888 ? ( Temps around 50-60C )THX

Hello,my original intentions were to upgrade my current RAM, CPU and video card but with my current PC someone said it might not be possible. So someone else suggested RAM drives. My current problems are that I get freezes, CTDs and out of memories. Will the RAM drives fix these and give a better performance or am I better off with a new PC?Thanks

HelloMaybe this is why it seems a bit slowhttp://www.techpowerup.com/156123/AMD-Realizes-That-Bulldozer-Has-800-Million-LESS-Transistors-Than-It-Thought-.html

Since Ivy Bridge appears not as enticing as I previously thought (yes, it's a little early to conclude this, so it's a 'soft' conclusion) I am tempted to rethink a SB machine. So, what can you say about maximum overclockability w/ an SB processor? I tend to be disinterested in water cooling. I use a cooling system which is effective for air-based. And an appropriate GPU solution for this well overclocked SB platform?Thanks in advance . . .Noel

So lastnight, after around 15 mins of simming, my pc was going mental..well the fans were.So today i thought i'd have a strip down and a clean up..This is what greeted me ..Graphics card removed here :As you can see my CPU cooler looks a right state!And here's the G-card...the state of the fan doesnt look to promising..OK...lets pop the hood and take a look It should look like thisBut we have this! Totally block allowing zero airflow....no wonder the thing wanted to take off!!Useing a small brush ( the type used to clean out barbers hair trimmers) and a vacuum, i got to work.35mins later..and put back to bed...and a rather snug fit..rather close to the HD

It's been a long time.. My Alienware is of 2005 vintage and is due for an upgrade. This is what I came up with at cyberpower. Thoughts? (Rig will be used for FSX & BF3 mainly)Tower & Accessories:CoolerMaster 690 II Advanced Mid-Tower800 Watts - CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold 80 Plus Power Supply (80+ Gold)Maximum Enermax 120MM Case Cooling Fans for selected case (Maximum Silent Operation) (500-1,200 RPM T.B. Silence Black Color with Blue LED Twister Bearing 8-14 dBA [+0])CyberPower Xtreme Hydro Liquid Cooling Kit 240MM w/ Dual Fan(CPU & GPU Liquid Cool Capable, Extreme Overclocking Performance + Extreme Slient at 18dBA)NZXT Sentry LX Aluminum High Performance Fa…

Quoted from Overclock.net: After running flawlessly for months with 4.8GHz @ 1.40v, I got a BSOD a couple weeks ago. I dropped my OC down to 4.5GHz and bumped up the offset voltage a tad. Between downloading scenery 24/7 and finishing up my thesis, I couldn't afford to have my PC blue screening on me. I know it was said in the beginning that power delivery would be very important with Sandy Bridge, but we all assumed that would be in the form of the motherboard. Anyway, maybe somebody else having similar issues can look into this. I would like a new PSU, but I can't do it right now, nor am I concerned enough about it.Anyway, the whole issue reinforces why it's so import…

Hey guysI am building a new PC for web-surfing and to drive my home-office.I bought all the parts on NewEgg and got them last night, after a fit of building and pulling parts out of my old office PC, I seem to have a problem.The PC will not overclock stably at all, here are the specs: Original GTX480, from back in 2010Corsair H70 Self contained watercooling blockSandy Bridge 2600K12 GB :CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9BGIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel MotherboardCORSAIR Professional Series HX750 (CMPSU-750HX) 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready…

I ended up building and AMD setup based on the Scorpius platform. The funds came from a few years of spare change that I had dropped every day into several coffee cans. This machine was not built for FSX, I have a nice SB setup for that. Once I am done testing, FSX will be removed, but I thought since I haven't seen any benchmarks for AMD's new bulldozer chip that I thought I'd try and get some numbers for everyone before I put this machine to work for its intended purpose.Here's the system specs:AMD FX-6100 @3.3Gigabyte 990FX-UD3Gigabyte HD 6950 1 GB8GB Gskill Ram @ 1600 8-8-8-24240 GB Mushkin callisto SSD for operating system and temporarily FSX760 Seasonic power…

I'm considering doing a modest upgrade (specifically the cpu) on my current stock computer. My current setup is:Win7/64 bitFoxconn H-RS880-uATX moboAmd Phenom II quad core processor (2.8 Ghz, 95 watt)8 GB memoryIntegrated Ati Radeon HD graphics1T Hard DriveI'm looking to upgrade to the AMD 975 (X4 3.6 Ghz) or possibly the 1100T (X6 3.3 Ghz) although the mobo documentation doesn't show that 6 core processors are supported.I run PMDG addon aircraft (747, 737NGX) with ASE, REX, UT2 with modest performace with appropriate config settings but am looking for a performance boost. I'd any input as to whether this makes sense and whether or not I shoud expect a performance boost.T…

After over 10 years using AMD platforms, I have stepped across to the other side. After the recent let down of BD, I opted for an i5-2500K on a Gigabyte board. I'm in the early stages of transferring components but managed to sneak in some FSXMark11 tests. At 3.6GHz this system gives a 10fps increase (31%) over the 3.8ghz 6-core Thuban it is replacing! Minimums are 4-5fps higher also...think I'm gonna like this.Update: Now running smoothly and without much effort at 4.0Ghz, the upgrade was pretty easy and only required reactivating Windows/FSX. I now am coming to understand what so many of you have been enjoying for so long. The X-Plane demo is looking better as well. One…

I've held off a screen size upgrade out of concerns over losing performance w/ my current set up. My wife needs a new display, so I'm thinking of sending this one to her and purchasing another at either 1920x1080 or 19 so now's the time to decide if I should go to 24" at 1920x1080 or 1920 x 1200. W/ a new top end machine (it will hopefully be Ivy Bridge based in Q2 2012, w/ a new Keplar based GPU), what kind of perf impact from moving up? 5%? 10%? I'm doing a poll on this one!Thanks in advance,NoelPS: yes, it's in the monitors forum, but may not get so much exposure there, so it's here too!

I need help deciding which joystick to get.My options are the Saitek Cyborg F.L.Y. 5 and the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro.1) Will either of these sticks be able to last a year without losing calibration? Which one will last longer before losing calibration?2) Which of these have better controls? (not going left or right when the stick is centered, good precision etc.). I've heard that the Logitech turns the plane right when the stick is centered. Is this true? Does the Saitek have any such problems?If you can answer the above questions and recommend which one to get, that'll be great!

Hi, Since I don't have a clue if my problem is HW/SW related: appologies if it's the wrong forum. I recently bought a new PC (I-core5 2500, 8 Gbyte, GTX560TI, 2 LG DVD multidrives) with Window7 Prof, and installed FSX on it from scratch (from the original FSX-deluxe DVDs).Installing via Autoplay went fine, and after installing the various SP's and tweaks FSX runs great. Now, I'm trying to install the SDK from DVD-1.When it insert DVD-1, and open it with Explorer, the DVD player goes wild (continuously reading the DVD, progressing green bar in the address line of Explorer). Left it reading for 10 min: no change.As if it couldn't read the DVD (but Explorer doesn't hang).Tri…

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Hey guys,I've recently learned that my RAM/Memory may be unstable, might have the wrong voltage setting, or might not be compatible with my MOBO. I've had a lot of FSX CTD's from dll's that crash usually when memory is faulty. In my attempt to make sure my 3 sticks of ram were were okay, I went around google and saw a lot of stuff that made no sense to me. I was wondering if anyone could help me through this. What I'm trying to do is get my 3x Channel DDR3 1600 Ram to work with my Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R mobo as stable as possible, which it should do by default because it is compatible. That said, I've been having a difficult time figuring out exactly WHAT I should be doing…

Well with their VGA PCB's, I think they are lagging behind the other major brands with their colour. They have done it to their motherboards and personally, I think my Z68 UD3P looks great with its all black and grey finish. For the people without windows I guess this doesn't matter, but for someone like me, I love my PC to look sharp and the PCB colour is what turned me off the Gigabyte GTX 570. So I guess the question is, does it turn you off and is it time to join MSI, ASUS, EVGA, XFX etc, etc.Welcome for input.

HiJust about to order my Asus 1GB GeForce GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II but noticed it needs 2 PCI 6 pin power connections. My Gigabyte Supertb 550W power supply only has one 6 pin and one 2 pin. Can I still connect it ?Thanks

Any comments on moving Windows7 to a new disk and, at the same time, going to 64bits?Way to retain C: designation?