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

Started to get my mouse cursor doing some odd things. It'd vanish, but if I picked up the mouse and spun the ball by hand, it'd reappear. Finally, I was online in the AM on the 17th, then experienced a disconnect, cursor freeze, and then complete keyboard lockup.The poor thing lived to a ripe old age of six years.A word of warning--what I discovered is a short in the cord...I found slight upward pressure on the cord, about four inches from the mouse, caused the cursor to act up. I was darn lucky I didn't fry the MB....I replaced it with an MS Basic mouse. Some prefer optical, some cordless, some optical and cordless, but I prefer basic, even though they have to get cl…

In the past, I have noticed in XPPro that some system restore points can be restored, and others cannot. It goes through the hold routine saying that it is restoring files, shuts down, boots up, but when it boots up for the final time, the message is that the restore point was not restored and nothing has been changed on my computer. Would I like to try another restore point?At the moment, none work, including three from today.Does anybody know what the limiting factors are to this provision, or how to get around them?Thanks:RTH

I've purchased a new system (P4, 3 GHz 800 H/T, ATI 9800 Pro (256 MB RAM), Western Digital 80 GB HD) for ACoF (this is DEFINITELY payware :-hah!). The fellow at my local friendly computer shop suggested that I could easily go with the on-board sound (Intel), unless there was a specific reason for adding another card. If I were to add a sound card, it would be the Audigy. Can anyone here advise me as to whether or not I should be adding the Audigy at this point for ACoF (or any other reason - being deaf in one ear, I'm definitely not an audiofile, so I don't need too much in the way of super recording capabilities :-), but I do want FS to sound really good, and I don't …

Hi all ,Sometime ago one member of the flightsim community released a basic tweaking guide for videocard and FS2002. Does anyone know where to find it?Another short one: I have currently a Club 3d GForce TI4200 128 MB Video card with 40.72 drivers installed. I want however try the 30.82 drivers. I tried to install it but my system was not happy with it (white screen) and I had to execute the system restore. Is there a way to install these drivers safely or someone point me to a guide how to do this in a saf manner....Many thanks

Hi!I need some good advice as to what is really a good 3D card forFS 2002/2004.As of now I have a GF 4200 Ti, a P4 2.53 gHz, and a Gigabytemainboard (only supports AGP 4x), 1 GB RAM.I read some discouraging reports about ATI Radeon (blurred image, etc.)So, which is the better, a GeForce or an ATI?Reasonable price is also important ($ 250- $ 350)Grateful for serious tips with comments......Thanks!Hans HermanssonSWEDEN

Hi all :-waveI have brought a XP2200+/1800 mhz AMD cpu for my Epox 8K7a+ mobo, up from a AMD 1.33 TB...In my BIOS the old clock setting was 133, am I correct in thinkingthe new figuire shud be 180..???I am not much of a techie chap so any advice whud be most welcome :Dkind regards,Steve

I've just lashed out and ordered a 9800 Pro video card, which shouls be delivered any day now.I did note tonight that my motherboard (ABit BD-7II) has in it's specs "Supports AGP 4X 1.5V device only".I recall having to upgrade my GeForce 2 card to a GF3 at the time I bought the motherboard, as it did not meet the "1.5V" standard, which I understood replaced an earlier standard (different voltage and a different keying arrangement on the AGP slot, as I recall). I also recall that the AGP standard changed when 4X cards (GF3) became available, and hope that it hasn't changed yet again now that the newer standard is 4X/8X.Can anyone conform here that the 9800 Pro will work wi…

Greetings,Thinking about upgrading my system (Dell Dimension 8200, Pentium 1.8, 500 SDRAM, GeForce 3 63 megs). Would I get more bang for my buck on FS by upgrading processor or video card to 9700 or 9800? Thx for any feedback.Regards,

Hi everyone,Just want to pick the brains of anyone with any experience of this card, or indeed graphics cards on the whole.I recieved a new Dell Dimension 8300 last week, complete with a 128MB ATI 9800 Pro. I installed FS2002, and found that despite very impressive framerates, there were some significant texture problems. When in spot view, or fly by, there is a lot of texture 'shimmering'. Usually around engine nacelles etc (POSKY 747), also landing gear struts etc (Captain Sim 727), and at night there tend to be huge black blocks all over the aircraft (POSKY 747). I DID have the most up to date drivers, until I read a recent post here saying that a new driver was r…

A quick question for all you tech heads, from a complete novice. I have an off the shelf P4 3.0Ghz system. The CPU fan (Intel) is amazingly noisy, It sounds like a 747 on takeoff. I was wondering if it is possible to change the fan, not the heatsink unit just the fan, and make it quiter. If this can be done can anybody recommend a make of suitable fan. Please remember don't get to technical on me. I'm a complete novice and I'll cry.Many Thanks

I am still confused about whether performance would increaseunder the following specific conditions.Say that my Anthon 2000+/GF4-ti4600 get 20 FPS in a certainFS2002 situation when using 2xAA and if I turn on 4xAA it goesdown to 15 FPS.I have heard that ATI cards can run 4xAA at 2xAA FPS speeds - is that true?If so then I should expect 20 FPS 4xAA with an ATI card in the same above FS2002 situation. Wouldn't it follow that using the ATI card in that same situation but at only 2xAA would mean greater than 20 FPS ?If so then an upgrade would improve performance over the GF4-ti4600 at the same AA level in the same FS2002 situation OR I could choose to get the same FPS but u…

My board supports this technology and I've studied it a bit, but I'd like the opinions of my fellow simmers.I'm a bit confused about the RAID options and how best to configure them. I would probably buy only one drive, but would like the option of adding a second SATA drive later. Are the new SATA drives easy to configure? How much different (and complicated) from IDE drives is the set-up of a SATA drive? Am I OK to use my on-board controller, or is an add-on card preferred?Thanks for your input.Sys specs:AMD 2400XP @ 2.1 GhzASUS A7N8X Deluxe 2.01 Gb Crucial PC2700ATI 9700 ProTurtle Beach soundMaxtor 40 Gb ATA 133Sony 52 x 24 x52 CDRW100 Mb Iomega ZipLian-Li w/ Antec …

Hi,sorry for this "embarassing" question, but I was wondering how to upgrade your computer. Do you just go to your local store and ask:"Give me 256MB RAM"? How do I install it? Can I do it myself or do I need some kind of computer expert to do it? Thanks for your help

Title says it all...What's the best video card out and whats the price? I currently have a GeForce4 Ti-4600 and willing to sell it for a reasonable price and wanting a better card...

I'm preparing to use Partition Magic and some HD housekeeping to get ready for FS2004. In prior years when a new version has been released I've also done a re-install of the OS (Win 98 in those days), a task that has always resulted un superior performance.I now have WinXP on C:. and am contemplating if I should do a re-install of it. I know that XP doesn't accumulate all that "junk" as much as XP obviously did, so I'm wondering if it's worth it. Has anyone else ever re-installed XP just for performance and found it to be justified? I have considered installing on D: and using multi-boot, at least until I migrate everything from C:.Thanks,Bruce.

Is there any way to get the backup function (Right click disk ID, choose backup)to export to a CDRW rather than to a tape backup? I assume that this is a limitation of MSWINXP Mr. Gates should do something about if I am reading this correctly.Thanks:RTH

Just found these!!http://ati.com/support/driver.html

Dear allI have had to reformat my hard drive and do a fresh install of windows XP home version. I have loaded up the software for MS sidewinder FF2 and it works okay.The problem is that when I boot up my computer and the joystick is connected, the keyboard will not work. If I disconnect the joystick (USB connector)and then restart, the keyboard works fine. I then have to plug in the joystick and both work okay.Since the joystick connection is at the back of the unit, this is a bit inconvenient. Has anyone come across this before and can anyone help me to fix it please?ps It all worked perfectly before I had to format the drive.ColinColin

I was flying w/ flight simulator 2002 and suddenly my computer (see specs below) froze up with an image of takeoff stuck on the screen. I rebooted and now this is what I get.....the first image is of the inital post screen, even the ascii characters look corrupt. The second image is the second page of the post after it detects the hardrive etc. However, notice that there are correctly displayed (althought scrambled) ascii characters, some of which change about 1 per seconds, like a clock. The third page is the windows XP loading screen, everything here is scrambled, however, at the bottom the image moves like it does when the blue bar moves to the right while loading …

I have now installed this board in my computer and I would like to get out of it all the performance it can provide for FS2k2. Is there any hints on the most adequate settings for the board and for FS2k2?The processor is an Athlon XP2600+ and I have 512MB RAM. The graphics aperture is set at 64MB, as recommended.Thanks for any help!

Hi,I have aparently been wrong in what I was using,or was I?I was told that if I wanted to run a duel monitor set-up then I should but a secondary GF2 PCI card to use my second monitor in FS2002,for example, I use the main monitor a 22"er for the forward/main cockpit view on a GF4Ti4600, I also use a GF2 for the second monitor so I can see FS Nav on the other 21"er whilst flying without having to keep pressing F9 etc, but I thought that if I just used the GF4 Ti4600 and plugged both monitors into it then I would get performance loss and stutters in FS, now I have just been informed that I wouldent get this at all,and that in fact it would probably make it all run better …

I decided to to update DirectX 8.1 to version 9.0a, just to see if there would be any performance improvement in MSFS, as I have read in some posts on this forum. (Boy, what a mistake that was!)However, before doing that, I set a system restore point in Windows XP pro, just in case.I am sure glad that I did that!Before version 9 of Direct X, MSFS was running very well with no stutters or pauses. After updating DirectX to version 9, major stuttering an pauses in MSFS started. After several hours of tweaking MSFS, I had no luck in smoothing out the sim!So, today I restored my computer back to the point before directX 9 and now everything is back to its optimum performance i…

Well here we go again. If anyone remembers last year I gave away my older Geforce card when i upgraded. Seems like the least I can do to give back a little for all the great work I've downloaded from here. Well I've upgraded again to a ATI Radeon 9800pro 256. I'm going to be giving away my Geforce TI-4600 128 on August 1st. To enter just drop me an email at [email protected] and I'll put your name in the hat. BRAD

Hey,I have a few questions on hardware.I want to get the best image quality I can with my graphics card.I bought the new GeForce FX 5200 PCI (no agp slot) and under performance theres a bunch of settings i can change.How do i get rid of those jagged lines.I have:P3 1Ghz256 MB RamGeForce FX 5200 PCI (latest Detonator)Win2kpro SP4My FPS arnt bad (15-30 daytime flying around chicago w/Normal AutoGen and Extrermly Complexe scenery)My main objective is to acheive better quality. I see so many people with super good looking screen shots.

Gentlemen, Well, I thought some of you would know what my problem is, here it is. Earlier today my sound worked great, and it still does, yet something is with my mic. When I have nothing plugged into my headphone jack on my left speaker, i hear a slight buzzing sound. Sound strange eh? When I plug in my mic into the headphone jack on my left speaker (and the mic is unmuted), I still hear the buzzing sound. Really strange... Now when I mute my mic in XP Home Sound Control Panel, I don't hear the buzzing sound. Wierd.... This has happened before yet my mic doesn't work this time, as it worked last time when this happened... I'm not too happy with this. If anyone could help…