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

any good book/web site on how to build your own core 2 duo computer?i built one several years ago (single core), but am tempted to give another go at it, basically I want to keep all my guts and just replace mobo/cpu/memorythanksciao!Brian S

I'm trying to decide which processor to buy. Choice 1 is the E8500 Dual Core and choice 2 is the Q9450 Quad Core. Bothe are the new 45nm technology. I am more interested in getting smooth consistant FPS rather than high FPS. If I could get 20-25 FPS at bigger airports I would be happy. Also which MOBO can be used with the 45nm processor? I am also looking at the P5KC P35 775 ATX Motherboard as it seems to have plenty of overclocking capabilities as well as it can take DDR2 and DDR3 ram. What would you guys suggest?

If anyone is interested, I upgraded video cards today. Up until now, I'd used an ATI x1900xt, 256mb of vid mem.Now, evga 8800 gts 512 mb (g92).Otherwise, I have an E6600 running at 3ghz, 4 gb of ram, and the normal other stuff. Single monitor, 19" samsung vga at 1280x1024 native resolution.I used Nick's advise for setting up nhancer for fans, and rivatuner for render settings.FSX: no change in frame rates....shows how cpu dependant fsx is. Of course the quality is nicer. I had Crysis for a while, but couldn't run it before. That proggy has some graphics, and now it plays great...so that's been fun.Only question, I haven't gotten the automatic thresholds working on r…

Now that I've got FSX running without lock-ups or CTD's, I'm thinking of upgrading from my EVGA 7600 GT w/256 mb to either a GeForce 9600 GT or a Radeon HD 3870 with 512 mb. My monitor resolution is 1400 x 1050 and flight sim is the only "game" I play. I realize I probably won't see any significant improvement in fps, but will I see an improvement in video quality, texture loading, or other?Any advice would be appreciated,Dale

Hi,I usually use 2D mode and am thinking of changing to VC mode. How do you set the eyepoint distance so that it remains the same everytime you open FS9. From my experience I have had to keep resizing the VC mode during flight whenever I have changed views - hence my not using the VC mode.. I want to set it up so that it will look like the 2D panel and not have to always re-configure it.ThanksRob

I'm having an issue with my new 8800GTS 512... with any of my games, (not just FSX), it seems like my Anti-Aliasing is capped at 4x. If I set it to anything higher (8x, 16x, etc) it will disable AA entirely. Does anyone know why this happens? (And yes, my video card can support up to 16x AA)

Hey guys, I'm a long-time flight simmer who recently took the dangerous jump from FS2004 to FSX. I really like what FSX has to offer, and I'd like to get my rig to a point where I can run it with acceptable FPS. Ultimately, I'd like to upgrade my complete system, but that's not really an option just yet. So, I'm wondering if a step up in the graphics card department could help until I'm ready to get a more FSX compatible system.Currently, I'm running FSX on a 4-year old Dell Dimension 4700 with XP Home, 2.8 Ghz, 1.5gb RAM, and an ATI Radeon X1300SE PCI-express video card. I've tweaked my config file to get 15-20 FPS in rural airspace, but the moment I approach busy …

Hey guys,after having reinstalled my system, I had to look for some good drivers for my 7900GT, especially some more or less stable ones in order to have running my FS9 smoothly like I did before the reinstallation. Could you recommend some, which of them give the best performance?GreetingsMichael

I bought their Audio FX 5+1 headset which uses a USB connection. My problem is that when they are connected my sound card becomes disabled and my Butt Kicker ceases to work. The two inputs seem to be mutually exclusive. I contacted EDimensional and they suggested an input setting which did not work and when I told them, this was the help they gave me: "..but if it's not working you would need to search google or do something that will allow you to use 2 sound outputs at the same time. We do not have the answer..." Does anyone know of a way to have both outputs live?

I have been using both of the products with FSX without any problems. I decided to try my old friend FS2004. But, I can't get the throttle, prop and mixture to work in a two engine stock plane. Can someone please let me know if there is an issue with this product and FS2004.Thanks in advance to all who reply.Bill

I have an Acer AspireM5100 with an AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core Processor with 2.2GHz. It has 4GB of RAM and I am running windows Vista Home Premium with SP1 installed.(32 bit)It has an ATI Radeon HD2900 512MB video card.Should I have any problems running the game smoothly?? Any recommended settings would be greatly appreciated. Should i go to FSX or stick with FS9??

Is there any way to install FSX on Ubuntu Linux 7.10? I just put it on my laptop, and I want to have FSX on it. I have Wine, although I'm not sure how to use it.

Hi all,this is the system I am getting:Intel core 2 DUO E8400 3.00G/1333/6M/S775Asus Motherboard P5K-E with WiFiIntel Core 2 ICE Fan with Heat Pipeadditional fan swap for heat pipe - 90mmPrizion Qualified 4GB DDR2 RAM 800mHz - Kingston (2 x 2GB)Memory cooling via "heat sink" (for 2 chips)2 x Seagate 320GB 7200rpm Serial-ATA-2 Hard Drive with anti-shock with 16mb cachenVidia GeForce 8800GTS OC 512MB PCI-ExpressLogitech Cordless Desktop MX3200 Laser - Keyboard / Mouse ComboInfiniti2 series Black tower casing ATX Form Factor -- Silent SeriesAntec TruePower Trio 650 - Power supply ( internal )2 x Aluminum Fan with Dual Ball Bearing 120mm Chassis Fans / 40,000 hrs . 79.14 CFMH…

Wondering if anyone has a Microsoft FF2 Joystick running in Vista 64?Thank-You,Ted

Hi,I have recently bought the X52 Pro and on testing it I find that the stick 'sticks'. What I mean by this is when you have been holding a manoeuvre for a few seconds, say a turn, and you want to increase the rate of the turn, the joystick appears to have stuck on its base and the force required to move it means you end up jerking it to release it and over-turning, or at least pulling the nose all over the place. I actually took it back to the shop to get a replacement and the new one does it too! Does anyone have this issue and how did they fix it? I am thinking perhaps oiling or greasing but I would rather not...

We've had a couple of brief power outages at home recently and each time even though I have a large APC Uninterrupted Power Supply under my rig, an active FS2004 has been kicked to the desktop although the PC remains on and OK. I thought that this kind of arrangement would keep the sim alive and working through power outages but the sim obviously crashes. Is this normal even with a UPS?JS

I have a GA-X38T-DQ6 motherboard, running a Q6600 and 2GB of DDR3 RAM. I have never overclocked before, and am considering doing so. However, when installing the CPU I also installed the stock cooler with the silver compound supplied by Intel. I'm not sure how much overclocking is possible with the stock cooler.What are the precautions when replacing the stock cooler with a better one? I've heard about the silver compound being hard to clean or remove from the CPU due to the minute contours on the cpu surface.Thanks for any suggestions,Bruce.

HI all and thanks in advance.Right now you can see my current rig in my sig. I have a older 17" lcd that I would like to use as well so I can put gauges and other stuff on that and if possible have the VC on the main monitor. My Mother board has 4 PCIe slots so I could put a GF 7600GS in one of those slots to run the second monitor. Whats the best way to set this up?

For having voice in one headset and background noise on speakers, don't buy an extra sound card. You can just get a USB headset. Just something little, but I figured any money saved from it is worth it.

Hi there,Being perfectly happy with some Goflight modules, I treated myself with the secm amd atc module. Unfortunately the atc module doesn't work in FSX in Vista64. I've got a dual boot rig with XP and here the atc-module works perfectly (also FSX). So the module is OK.As I like FSX more with DX10, I fly always in Vista64, so I'm very put down the thing doesn't work.At Goflight they suggested to install GF-Keys, but that didn't do the trick.Is there anyone who got the atc-module working under Vista64? If so, how did you manage that?Greetz from Limburg,Han Jeurissen

While flying, I am getting some real small stutters. I thought it was my processor but I noticed that everytime it stuttered, the hard drive light flashed. Is there some way to decrease this HD access. as in load more into memory or something. I am green to alot of this.Also, will trying to overclock this system help that?TurnipSPECS:VISTA Home Basic 580 WATT Sunbeam PowerCrucial Ballistix 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAMASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6550MSI nVidia NX8800GT 512 PCI-E 2.0SB LIVE 24250 GB WD SATA HD 120 GB WD IDE HD[/url]

Hello allI asked a few months ago what you guys would suggest for a new home built computer, I got a lot of good advice, Thanks.I dont know if things have changed that much since then and Im not in any real hurry to buy.Im looking to spend between $1000-1500, I want to get the biggest bang for the buck, and would appreciate any advice or suggestions.Currently running Dell 8400 P4 3.2 Geforce 6800, Old stuff but still works good.Thanks in advance,Jerry

Hi Nick, after having used your tune up procedure for xp sp2, I wanted to learn something from help.Went to services to turn it back on and got this message. Can you interpret it for me? I don't know what to change.Thanks,Bob

Anyone ever get this? It appears after logging into Windows, and says something like this:"Windows - Registry Recovery: One of the files containing the system's Registry data had to be recovered by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was successful."Any ideas?

My new puter will have a 150G Raptor @10,000 rpm...Also I will have a 350G Sata @ 7,200Both the OS and all games will go on the Raptor for sure....But which drive should I place my Anti-virus and Spyware and CC-Cleaner? And why?Thanks.....Mason