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

I just abandoned an attempted upgrade of my DELL P4 from 2.53Ghz to 3.06Ghz. It's a big let-down for me, technically and psychologically. But here's my gig:I did careful analysis and research before ordering the processor, including software analysis of my chip, but the processor didn't work when I installed it. There was an immediate IRQ issue or conflict and I could not even get Windows XP to boot up. I decided after 6 hours of work, and sweating about flashing upgraded bios among other steps, not to take it further. I just finished restoring my P4 to its original condition. Took about 10 hours in all. Man, never again; never again!I got various advice from folks…

I've currently got an AMD Athlon XP 1800+,512MB RAM and a Radeon 9600Pro 128MB card. I see from the motherboard doc's that the most I can upgrade to on the CPU side is an XP 2600. What is likely to be more worthwile? CPU, RAM or card upgrade? I know that the cpu can be a bottlekneck but would I see much of an improvement with the motherboard cpu limit? I'm not really interested in something that gived me just a few extra fps. However, like most people, I get lowish frames sometimes in busy areas and I do sometimes get blurries in the scenery when running the PMDG 737NG. How easy is a cpu upgrade? I've done ram and card upgrades but never cpu?Thanks.

Hello Everyone,Would using a USB port adapter on a CH Products gameport rudder pedal solve any incompatibility issues with my CH usb control yoke. Any tried and failed / suceeded ?Thanks,TP

What is the difference between the hardware forum here and the one just below the Avsim screnshots forum?JimCYWG

I am installing a second ( D: ) Hard Drive on my computer, I was wondering if moving the swap file to a seperate physical drive, would I increase my performance? FPS?Thanks!Barry

Hi, I'm thinking about the best way forward (on a limited budget) of upgrading my pathetic system for better performance. Here's the current setup:AMD Duron 1.2GHzPC Chips motherboard M825LU512Mb PC2100 RAMOnboard graphics (32Mb - Yeah, I know, I know... ;) )60Gb HDFS2002I'm looking at improving the performance by installing a Sapphire ATI 9800SE 128Mb card, which has an 8x AGP port. My mobo only has a 4x AGP port. Am I right in thinking that the graphics card will fall back to running at 4x AGP?btw, changing the CPU, motherboard and RAM will probably happen later.... (wife and bank manager permitting... :) )

Anyone have such a monitor? Mine (NEC MultiSync FP955) does not support that resolution (according to the user's manual), though I have read that FS panels look best with a 4:3 aspect ratio resolution, such as 1280 x 960, 1600 x 1200, or 1024 x 768. I have to agree, as I had been running 1280 x 1024 for a long time, but discovered that I could not read some of the text on the Eaglesoft Citation X panel at that resolution until I changed it to 1024 x 768. The Eaglesoft support forum recommends 1280 x 960 for the 4:3 aspect ratio, and I believe that is also the recommended resolution for the LDS767, which I also have. My montior _will_ display something at that resolutio…

I recently purchased a Dell P4 3.4 G 800 FSB 1 gig Sdram 128 mg radeon ati x300 series comupter. I have everything maxed out and I'm getting 35-40 fps. But this is with just 2-d clouds. I was wondering what can I do to my graphics card to get better and use real clouds. I turned anti-alising off on COF and everything is real smooth. But i still have 2-d clouds. Also where can I learn about how to apptizmie my graphic card settings.ThankJonathan

After rebuilding my PC anti aliasing does not seem to be working to it's full extent.My video card is an ATI Radeon 9700 PRO using the lastest drivers from ATI.The anti aliasing options and other settings are set to maximum. The AA option in FS is not selected as suggested by this forum.The image below shows the problem. When viewed from an angle scenery in the distance looks jaggered.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/108780.jpg

Can anbody help me with recomending a suitable video card for operating up to 3 monitors in fs9? I am running XP Home in 3.2Ghz system. I have no experience at all in running multiple monitors so any advise would be most welcome.KY

My Dell 2.6 Gig that I bought about 7 months ago when I didn't think I was going to get back in to Flight Sims, and having no AGP bus for a fast video card ( on board video could only be upgraded with a PCI card), forced me to order a new PC today. PCI Express with a Nivdia GT 256 Meg card, 3.4 gig Pentium, 1 gig of the fast ram, etc.. I have FS9 set up on my PC now with a bunch of add on scenery and aircraft, and I love the way it is set up. Is it ok to use a Program like PC Relocator Ultra, to move the programs and files from the old PC to the New One, or should I Reinstall everything and hope I can remember what and where everything is that should be loaded to the…

I wonder why I keep 'losing' my anti-alising. One second everything looks OK. Then, maybe after switching to cockpit view and back, everything (planes, including AI, scenery etc.) is like a saw blade. Sometimes reloading the plane, or even pressing the alt key once and then again, will bring back the smooth edges.I've treid various drivers for my graphics card (ATI and Omega versions), changing settings for anti-aliasing on the card and in FS9.1, so that I must have had every combination of on and off that is possible (bilinear, trilinear, none, off entirely, all with and without the antialiasing set up on the graphics card). My default is AA off in FS9 and on high on the…

Having just reached the big seven0 I thought I might treat myself to a CPU and mbo upgrade. However I have been looking at the posts on the hardware forums at FlightSim and AVSIM which make me wonder whether in fact I can get a justifiable improvement in fps. My current system consists of:AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton)Gigabyte GA 7VAX mobo Albatron GEForce4 Ti 4200P Turbo128MB video card (61.77drv)1Gb Samsung PC2100DDR RAMIBM 40GB 7200rpm hard driveMaxtor 80GB 7200rpm hard driveCreative Sound Blaster PCI128 with latest driversCHProducts PCI yoke and pedalsWindows XP Home edition with SP1 and SP2DirectX 9.0(:(ATX case with four fans - one suck, three blowI have my FPS set …

Tough to find info on this subject in searches throughout the various forums. I just discovered that my cheap ATI graphics card has two ports on the back and I have this old Packard Bell 15 inch monitor so I went out and bought the adapter to let me hook it up. I'm running a pretty beefed up system - (AMD 64 3200, 1Mg of memory and my FS system on a SATA hard drive) so I normally get very good response from FS9. However, when moving an undocked second window to the second monitor, polygons from the autogen scenery below simply wack out. Now, were I really stoned, these giant distorted buildings growing like crystals off the landscape might be pretty cool but those old…

Hi all,I'm hoping someone might have some advice on what may be causing my mouse to act strangely. It keeps freezing and then will drift across the screen. Even now it keeps pausing. I have done a virus check, spybot, and even Microsofts new antispyware beta, to no avail. (Have also done system restore)I did read somewhere that the cpu may be getting to hot and causing it to freeze. I have done a Hijackthis report if anyone who knows what there looking for may peruse. Any advise what be great.Regards Adam ________________________________________________________Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1Scan saved at 23:59:14, on 03/03/2005Platform: Windows XP SP1 (WinNT 5.01.2600)MSIE:…

Ok, I have the 56.64 drivers with my GeForce 4 Ti 4200 128MB graphics card. I have Verticle Sync enabled for global driver settings, because most games I own benefit from it or don't have an option in the game to enable it. So for Far Cry and Mafia I created profiles and set it to application controlled, because they both have the option in there set up to use it. So I am guessing this is how it has to be set to still use becasue if I turn it off, it will override the game setting will it not? Flight Sim does not benefit from Verticle Sync, at least for me anyways, so I created a profile for it and then set Verticle Sync to off. Now one of my questions is, as soon as that…

Left my computer on last night to let xp defrag my HD and when I woke up this morning the defrag was hung on something in the software section of the registry. It was about 25% of the way through, but was stopped so I turned it off. Anyone have any thoughts before I start messing with it? Thx!billg

Hi,I recently converted to FS2004 and almost at the same upped my RAM from 256mb to 1gig. The difference was fantastic - changing views was instantaneous and the whole thing was much better to fly. Funny thing is - I'm convinced things are slowing down again. I'm sure when I first upgraded that the views changed instantly including aircraft paint jobs. Now when I swap views, it changes straight away but I get an unpainted plane for a few seconds. Is it me or something starting to slow it down again and is there something in FS2004 that needs to be cleared out now and again. I'm using VFR scenery and British airports so i also wonder if its now trying to automatically…

Hi guys, I wanted to build the best possible game system for myself, so I got a job in the summer and earned the money to buy my own game pc.Now I have all the items, I

Hi all, During my weekly PC cleanup, I came across two items in the start-up of the system config utility that are not identified. The location is given as 1) HKLM/Software/Microsoft /Windows/Current Vers., and 2) HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/ Current Vers. Can anyone tell me if it is safe to remove these items from my start-up.Thanks for any assistanceJ.C. (MYNN)

hello there to all flight simmers. just want to know if anyone out there can help me with this problem i'm having with my CH Product usb flight yoke, usb rudder peddals, and the new throttle Quadrant. i have an AMD 2800, 120gig hd, 1gig mem, 256mb video card, and running Windows XP. the trouble i'm having is configuring everything to my liking. once i've done the calibration, and setting then go and assigning them to my liking. when i start a flight, my rudders don't work, only one stick on the throttle quadrant works. some switches that i have assign trims to does not work. and the list goes on. i've tried reconfiguring it three times and still not success. can any of yo…

hello everyone this one occured i dont know when ...i have all my 3d cockpit veiws but all of a sudden i have no 2d veiws for every single a/c installed .I was in the process of adding 2-3 a/c but not totally convinced that it was then ,this happened however this may be the case. sorry for explanation im no comp wizard....im wondering wether this has changed something in my config ,or i need to or maybe its just a simple muck up on my behalf that ive overlooked. Any help would be greatly appreciated thankyou

Hi AllI recently acquired an analog/gameport CH flight yoke LE. I copied the driver file chanlg08.exe from thier site. When I try to install the drivers in XP with SP2 XP stops the installation and tells me that the the driver installation has been cancelled. I didnt have this problem before SP2 was installed.Any ideas guys?:-mad

hello there to all flight simmers. just want to know if anyone out there can help me with this problem i'm having with my CH Product usb flight yoke, usb rudder peddals, and the new throttle Quadrant. i have an AMD 2800, 120gig hd, 1gig mem, 256mb video card, and running Windows XP. the trouble i'm having is configuring everything to my liking. once i've done the calibration, and setting then go and assigning them to my liking. when i start a flight, my rudders don't work, only one stick on the throttle quadrant works. some switches that i have assign trims to does not work. and the list goes on. i've tried reconfiguring it three times and still not success. can any of yo…

I finally took the plunge and upgraded my PC from Win98SE to WinXP-Home(SP2) and have to report the upgrade went great. Don't know what took me so long (I've had the XP disc for over a year!)... Anyway, I have a GeForce Ti4200 with 128Mb of 266Mb SDRAM. I inadvertently ruined a stick of RAM while doing the upgrade and thought it was my video card so I ran down to BestBuy and purchased a GeF 5700VE with 256Mb 400Mhz DDR Ram thinking that I was upgrading. Well, I ran some tests last night with the two cards and had the exact same results. I set up at Houston using SimFlyers KIAH and was in the 7 fps range on both cards. I was certain that the 5700 with 256 Mb of RAM wo…