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

If I'm building a new system what kind of PSU should I get? I have been warned against cheap units on the other hand I don't wan't to spend more money than needed. But I wan't quality. I intend to use several harddrives and two optical units and I wan't to PSU to suffice even for further upgraded like 9800 VGA cards and more powerful CPU. What is the minimum power or current limits I should accept? For a chassi I wan't qulity and sufficient space. I don't wan't paying for unneccesary items like LED fans and windowed panels.Any recommendation?

I installed a Diamond Extreme 7.1 in my system alongside the onboard audio. XP recognizes it fine and in FSX I am able to split the ATC to headphones connected to the 7.1 and all other sounds tyhru the speakers. Running under Vista Home Premium - Vista recognizes and installs the sound card and uses it just fine except when I run FSX I can not get the ATC to play thru the headset - it comes thru the speakers and sounds like it's in an echo chamber.Only thing I could find in a serach was dated 3/07 and basically said that you could NOT split the output in FSX under Vista.Anyone been successful?Thanx,VicQ6600 G0 CPU 2.4 o/c 3.6Evga 680i A1 with P30 BIOS 2G XP2-8500 DDR2 106…

YYYESSS!!! I ripped open my external HDD, the one I fried, and was able to connect the actual bare oem hard drive to me mobo via SATA WOOOOT!It worked....all my pics are there YESSSS!!! Already backed them up on DVD... so yeah....If you're external ever stops working take it apart and plug it in!!Can't believe I almost sent in a working hard drive back to seagate....wooooooot!Thank you to all who suggested opening it up!!!

As I continue to try and bribe my better half for more computing power, I am buying her a quilting machine that has a tablet that connects to her PC with a blue tooth connection. I built her PC (AMD3000+), so I'm the tech support :). I had her ask what was required in the PC to provide a blue tooth conenctions, and she got:"For our Graphire4 Bluetooth tablet to communicate with your computer, your computer must have bluetooth capabilities. Check with your local computer store to have them set you up to receive bluetooth signals."I've seen hardware that comes with a small USB dongle that acts as a communication device that uses blue tooth. I'm not sure if they are avai…

Hi,I am using an AMD 5600+ dual coreVista 64QTY 2 8800gts4 gig ramFSX7 monitors-3 across, 3 consoles and 1 overheadlooking at using a Matrox quad head to run the 2d panelsI want to use pilot, engine instruments, co pilot, over head and comms and throttles on this array. They are also touchscreens.Does anybody know of good aircraft that can run on 4-7 monitors.I have tried the Level D 767 but you can't get both pilot and co pilot screens running at the same time.so far the Q300 or ATR -72 look best but if there are any others please let me know.Preferably glass cockpits,

HelloSupposedly the 680i mobos will work with the 45nm chips. What about RAM. Will PC2-8500 DDR2 be compatible? Thanks for your helpJeb

Once again looking at upgrading from my current AMD 4800 X2 to a Q6600 quad. I tend to favor ASUS boards, although am not locked into them if comething better is around for the same $$. Can anyone advise on a board to run the Q6600? Also any advice on memory would be appreciated.Thanks- Bruce.

Hi All,I ordered some new h/w for a pc will be dedicated to FS only. I plan to fly FS9 with all addons for the first year probably, then move to FSX. I had a lot of thinking about which components to put into it, finally I got this ordered:> Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 2.4GHZ BOX Stepping G0> ASUS P5K DELUXE WIFI-AP> CORSAIR XMS2-6400 800MHZ DDR2 2048MB TWIN2X2048-6400C4DHX> WD 160GB 7200RPM 16MB SATAII RAID WD1600YS> ASUS GEFORECE 8800GTX 768MB PCI-E EN8800GTX/HTDP/768M> ENERMAX INFINITI 720W SLI EIN720AWT-00> Thermaltake V1 Volcano CPU COOLER TT-CL-P0401Now I am going to get my order, and I am SO CONFUSED regarding which OS to put in it. I wil…

I have noticed very high reduction in shimmering, while maintaining high FPS (FS9) with new drivers (provided you use Super-Sampling), the new ATI driver feature. Only for X1xxx cards.

The charts in Tom's Hardware Guide suggest that there is no appreciable difference between an 8800 GTS and an 8800 Ultra in FSX. This seemed strange, even given FSX's CPU-dependency, and I have always wondered whether these tests used SP1 or not. Curiosity finally got the better of me and I have upgraded my 8800 GTS 320 Mb (factory overclocked to 580MHz) to an 8800 Ultra (factory overclocked to 655 Mhz).It is notoriously difficult to convey any idea of relative smoothness in FSX because framerates are seldom constant, except at high altitude or in areas of low graphics complexity, where they don't matter. But to give some idea of what I mean (though without any pretence a…

Hi guys,I normally use the windows task manager to keep an eye on things.FSX runs pretty well for me.Under the processes tab and right clicking on fsx.exe you can select either "set priority" or "affinity"Q. What do these do [in simple terms please] and are there any benefits in changing these settings and if so to what?I have an Athlon 64 x 2 dual core running at 10% overclocked at 2420In my CFG file I have included [jobscheduler] Affinitymask =11Any help/comment appreciated.RegardsRichard

Hello,I'm configuring a new system which will be used for FS9 and FSX only. Is there a significant performance advantage in two Raptor (10,000 rpm) drives in RAID 0 over a single 7200 rpm SATA drive or for that matter a single Raptor drive. And if two are better, how do I back them up conveniently? Add a third 7200 rpm SATA drive for back-up and storage?This is very confusing to me so I would appreciate all help and suggestions.ThanksJeb

I've decided to build a new system and would like some opinions.If I want the fewest hassles is it better to stick with XP Pro vs. Vista? Any advantages? It will be a shared home use computer along with FS9 & FSX.Intel E6850 core2duo or Q6600 quad core cpu?What's a good ASUS or other brand motherboard? I doubt I will overclock it. Thanks in advance.

I am a very good rationalizer...When my Baron went in for its' first annual a week ago with two brand new engines-I thought it would be a quick turnover (150 hours total time). When they found a crankcase crack on the right engine it was a shock-further shock that though even still under warranty it will be a minimum of 6-8 week turnover.So lets see -6-8 weeks of not flying-better start using the sim more. 28 gallons of gas an hour being saved for not flying two months...hhhhmmmm ...(even my wife bought this argument :-lol)I have always maintained that until hardware is better there can't be much improvement in any sim-after all much of real flying is perceptual, feel, an…

I can't believe I just tried this for the first time since getting TH2G some months ago: sitting in the PMDG 747-400 at KIAD at night-time, I hit ALT+ENTER and got a flawless full screen mode, thereby cutting out the bright blue top bar of FS2004 in windowed mode. But, in addition, I was able to bring up the FSNavigator map, resize it and keep it apparently undocked on the right monitor screen. I was then able to bring up the FMC and resize it on the left screen.I wondered how this is possible and suddenly it dawned on me that all 2D panels are "un-dockable" in full screen mode because TH2G treats all three LCDs as a single screen of 3084x1024! So now I have been able …

I have the following harddrives1) Maxtor D740X 60 Gb IDE U-133 purchased April 2002. Here I have Win XP home2) Seagate Barracuda IDE 7200.10 250 Gb ATA/100 purchased recently3) Two Western Digital RE-2 160 Gb SATA/300 16 Mb connected to a Lycom Raid Sata 2-Port PCI card and setup as raid 0 disc.I have tried to have games and FS9 on both the Seagate and the raid and got these unexpected loading times in seconds The Seagate The raidOblivioncontinue last game 13 sec 19 secStart FS 46 sec 51 secFalcon allied force 19 sec 20 secLoad a flight in FS 79 sec 56 secI woul…

Hi everyone, first post from my new rig, very happy with it so far :D:D!I was wondering what the best drivers are for the ASUS 8800 GTS. I know that sometimes the latest ones are not as good others.Thanks!Matti

Dear fellow simmers:I have a meager Dell Dimension5100 with 3.2Ghz CPU with HT, 2gb RAM, stock NVIDIA6800 PCI express with 256 memory running WinXP Pro. I have had FS2004 for about 2 years now and looking to upgrade my graphic card. Due to my PC limitation, the fastest card that can be sensibly mounted in my machine is either Nvidia 7900GS or 7950GT as per Dell support forum. So here are the following questions I hope I my get inputs from experienced flight simmers:1) Will I need 512 RAM on my graphic or would 256 suffice?2) Would it even make sense to upgrade my graphic card i.e. would I notice a jump in performance? I have a limited budget and would only upgrade i…

Hi, i am planing to get me a 3d goggle.http://www.relaxview.nl/nl/images/pictures...cts/lg/0004.gifAr there players online who use a goggle like that fore flight sims?And if so, what do you think of it?I am planning to use it whit the Tracker3 What i have right now.I hope to use it instad of 3 monitors that use a lot of power.Greetings Ronald

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Please see my specs on the bottom of this post.I've been told that to go to the 8800 series card for DX10, that my 7950 GX2 card has only ONE power connection to my processor, and the 8800 series cards have TW0! Please tell me which card I can UPGRADE to and have it connect properly to my processor. I really want the GTX but I can't seem to find information on how it is connected. I have enough room lengthwise to put in an 8800 card, but I want to upgrade to a 1) Faster card, and 2)DX10 compatible card.Above all, I don't want to buy a card that can't be installed in my Dell XPS 410.I'd appreciate your advice.

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I couldn't find any discussion on this.Regarding the change to the boot.ini file, where, in XP/3GB /userva=XXXXis added to the end of the following line:multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetectFrom Phil Taylor's blog:"Note this switch needs to be used with care, since PCI-Express maps the entire address space of the graphics card into the OS address space. If you set the app to use 3G with a 768m graphics card, that leaves 256m for the OS. A better setting is XXXX=2560, eg 2.5G, since that leaves 768m for the OS with a 786m graphics card. Much more reasonable."No…

I've been reading about this setup. I have the CH Yoke and pedals (USB). I'd replace the CH Yoke with the Saitek, add the throttles and keep the CH rudder pedals.Is anyone else running this configuration? I really like the CH Rudder pedals.Thanks!Jim

Hi All,I've just installed 2 new hard drives that I want to have dedicated to FSX, but they don't show up in Vista. In the BIOS it doesn't show any drives in SATA 1/2 but I did set up a raid array which showed both of the new drives in the list, so I am confused. When I boot I get a screen which says detecting raid array and reports that it is healthy and shows the 2 drives.I have a Packard Bell i8850/Vista 32 bit home premium.I would apperciate any help as I thought it was just going to be a matter of installing the drives and that would be that.CheersMikeI have just disable the nvRaid and now both drives show up in bothe the BIOS and the device manager, so they are be…

I built a new rig last January, but put off getting a good video card. From what I've been reading, there isn't anything that's going to be better than the 8800 GTS and GTX until -- December? January? February? I know I can't afford the GTX.I've also been reading about new Nvidia cards coming out later this month. My impression, though, is that they won't be as good as the existing GTS. Advice?