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

I just went and got some new thermal paste to make sure my heatsink was mounted to my processor perfectly, because when I got my processor and heatsink origionally I didnt actually put any on. (exept what ever it came with) I dont know what it came with.. it wasnt even paste. it was more like a layer of grey metalic tape or somthing. but Ive taken the heatsink off and reinstalled it a couple of times without replacing the stuff so I figured its time to replace it. but anyway it seems now my processor heats up much more then it did before I put some on.. I tried using lots.. I tried using very very little.. but nothing seems to work as good as what ever was on there before…

I see people posting Ram specs such as "G.Skill Ripjaws x 2133 Mhz kit running @ 1600MHz 8-9-8-24." What does that all mean? I have 8 gigs of Ram. That is all I know.

This topic has come up a couple times recently and will only become a bigger issue as Ivy Bridge nears release. Thank you, MSI. http://www.techpowerup.com/151718/MSI-Calls-Bluff-on-Gigabyte-s-PCIe-Gen-3-Ready-Claim.html

I've been trying to get a GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 to recognize a SATA3 Seagate Barracuda 1tb hard drive in AHCI mode with no luck. If I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to AHCI the bios doesn't see the hdd. When I set the PCH SATA Control Mode to IDE it see it right away, listing it as the IDE Channel 0 Master.Is there some setting that I'm missing? Please advise and thanks!Mark

O&O 14 Pro says my new SSD is 12% fragmented. Says 3000 files of 78000 are fragmented. I have not, and will not, attempt to defrag, but was wondering if this is normal???

i bought a second indentical gtx460 for SLI with 3 monitors in full screenI have a mobo p6t SE but it seems this mobo is only compateble with crossfire and not nvidiaThey say p6t would be sli supported but i dont have that one Is there someone who has a solution to get SLI working?

Hi Guys Planning on upgrading my current 2 year old system to... CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.60GHz Sandybridge CPUMotherboard: Asus P8P67RAM: Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual ChannelCooler: Corsair A50 CPU Coolerhttp://www.overclock...053&subcat=2064 For my graphics card:Asus GeForce GTX 580 Matrix Platinum 1536MBhttp://www.overclock...914&subcat=1812ORAsus GeForce GTX 560 1024MBhttp://www.overclock...914&subcat=1341 My case and PSU are also dated (currently running a 600W) so am planning on upgrading to: Corsair TX750M PSUhttp://www.overclock...123&subcat=1084 Corsair 650D Casehttp://www.overclock...rodid=C…

Right Now I'm at 4.6Ghz on air. According to Bios idle temp was 45C. But according to Core Temp the average temp between all four cores was around 31-35C. I tried to push to 5.0Ghz at 1.41v and The computer wouldnt even boot. So I guess if I get that message, that means My CPU is saying NO?

Hi Most days I start-up my PC at about 9am and shut it down at around midnight. During the course of the day it may stand without use for up to a couple of hours on and off.Apart from the obvious energy saving benefits, is it wise or of any added benefit to the hardware's lifespan to have it hibernate during periods of non-use. I know Nick N suggests switching off hibernation permanently as it is a resource hog, but wondered what everyone else does ? Cheerserich

I'm looking for opinions on a new motherboard for the computer I'm building. I want an ATX motherboard for an i5-2600K with the option to step up to an i7 in a few years if it's worth it. The one I'm considering, I'm open to other suggestions, is the an ASUS P8H67-M Pro. I have no particular reason for choosing this motherboard other then it seems cost effective, easy to work with, dependable, and I've read good reviews of it. I don't really plan to overclock so that isn't a must in a motherboard.

I barely was five minutes into prime95 and Worker 4 gave a fatal error about a Hardware Failure Detected. I will attach the results file to see if someone can help.

Is it worth while to play around with this number. I'm guessing NO. But thought I'd ask

OK so I am very close to making my decision. I have decided to get one 120GB Agility 3 SSD from OCZ and partition maybe 20GB to caching then 100GB for FSX only and to get rid of thoses annoying grey slow load times! I just want to know if that is possible and how can I do it. Thanks,

I am using a new W7 i7-2600K overclocked PC to run FSX, FS9, games, internet. Should I ALWAYS choose the HIGH PERFORMANCE option or will BALANCED ramp up my processor as needed? Also when choosing the High Performance advance settings what are the optimum processor power management settings or does it really matter? Thanks for any suggestions!Airbus

Hi. I've been starting a couple of threads here over the past few months asking about my Sandy Bridge upgrade. Well the day has finally arrived where I have all the pieces I need, together. I'm gonna build and install windows 7 on my new rig this weekend. But before I do that, I have some questions: 1. With a Sandy Bridge rig, and especially when running OS and FSX on a dedicated SSD, what parts of NickN's "Win XP64 and Windows7 Help" can I skip?What exactly changes in installing sequences and such when using a SSD? The "install FSX first" because it will go on the outer part of the disk isn't really necessary on a SSD, right? 2. Also I was thinking of flashing the bios b…

I'm currently using the mobo embedded soundcard. I also have 5.1 speaker system. I think FSX supports this but I can't notice it. While considering buying a new soundcard one question comes to mind.Is an external soundcard fine or will it give some kind of problems that won't be the case with an internal soundcard?

My computer is custom built all the parts picked by me. And I believe that may be the issue. These two things have been happening. This computer is new (maybe two months old as well as all the components) 1) My computer makes a loud click (just one click) everytime I press the power button and every time I shut it down. (Defective HDD?) 2) Occasionally when I turn on the computer, everything is powered up all the lights come on, then it pauses and everything goes dark, and then back on (in a matter of a few seconds)

Hi again It will be the first time I will be overclocking my new PC which will come in 2 or 3 weeks maybe.The processor will be i7-2600k. There is a possibility that I get memory 1600MHz CL7 instead of 2133MHz CL9, which means I would need (or not!) to overclock ram memory as well. I was reading a lot of topics and websites about overclocking and I am really confused. What I got as a conclusion is that I should never touch BCLK. Things to touch are Vcore and the multiplier. Is that right? My questions are:1. which voltage to choose and what is the maximum allowed?2. which programs to monitor temperatures, voltages and performance of the computer? (prime95, cpu-z, coretemp…

I've been into FSX now for about 10 months now. I first downloaded the DEMO on my laptop and was instantly hooked, even with the horrible processing power of a 4 year old system! So, witha LOW budget as my guide I decided to throw $500 (notice i said BUDGET) right down the drain on a system that I thought would run FSX, an AMD 640 quad core with a smokin radeon 9450 graphics card, oh the uniformed! I took me all of 2 minutes to figure out that , yes, FSX runs a lot better on this "NEW" system than on my out of date laptop, but was still no where near what I expected! So my first "Upgrade" was a HD Radeon 5750 GPU (again, budget!). Yes it did make a difference in FPS but s…

What defrag program are you using? I can't seem to turn off AVG or stop it from searching the FSX folder

This cooler comes with 2 fans which each have a 3 pin socket connector. On my Asus P8Z68-Vpro board there a 2 4pin connectors labeled "CPU fan" and a couple more 3 pin connecters labeled PWR Fan connecters. Since the only match way the pwr fan connecters, I plugged the cpu fan connectors into them. When I did my external setup, everything worked, except I got a CPU fan error. Thoughts? Dan

I have decided to overclock my i5760 to around 4ghz for the time being - probably waiting until the next batch of Intel CPU's come out and then just upgrade mobo and CPU I am new to FSX ( FS9 for 6 years) and have played around with some FSX add-ons for a few months at stock speeds but with some new add-ons ( e.g. PMDG J41, CLS MD-80, REX) , i will need to get some more juice from the CPU. I am holding off on the PDMG NGX ( although very tempting as it the best a/c addon out there bar none) until i get a CPU that i can overclock go 5GHZ so i can hold 25- 30 FPS pretty much everywhere. Here is what i have at the moment: I5 760 LGA 1156Nvidia GTX 460 1GB ( my monitor is a…

I'm starting here my own thread, if there is anyone out here knowledgable about Exchange, Push Mail etc...Been googling for past 2-3 days and trying to set up things properly, but it seems harder than it has to be. My problem:- 2 private account on GMX (German free Email server)- 1 Company Exchange account (external)- Outlook at home- Iphone and Ipad Exchange is working wonderfully, so it can be omitted for discussion... All 3 devices have to have access to all 3 accounts, and it bugs me immensely that I have to delete emails from each device, since they are coming in by POP3. So, I wanted to change to IMAP, but within GMX that's only possible for business customers (payi…

Perhaps the title is not that clear, but I was curious about what would be faster : CPU 4.05 and Memory at 1456 6-6-6-20vsCPU 4.2 and Memory at 1600 7-7-7-24 Running the memory at 1456 6-6-6-20 is faster than 1600 7-7-7-24. The question is if letting the cpu run faster and the memory slightly slower FSX would benefit from this as the clockspeed from the cpu has a direct influence on the framerate ?With that I mean that perhaps from 1333 mhz memory and up the influence of the memory is less than the influence of the cpu. Before doing all kind of tests I thought I would ask you guys if anyone of you already did some tests ? Here a link from 2008 about the same discussion…

As I approach this project, I'm curious about in which order some steps should be taken. First, according to the NewEgg video, I'll do an external build to ensure that the MOBO, processor, GPU, ram and power supply all work. Then I'll put together the system (and this is where I'm confused) First update the chipset from the Asus site, then go into the bios to make its set up properly (this according to NickN) and I suppose this means that the basic manufacturer recommended settings are correct. Then I install Windows 7 64, and the updated drivers for lan, video etc. add virus prtection, MS Office, email, etc. Or do I overclock before the installation of Windows, I doubt i…