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Posted by: Rewan Nov 9 2006, 20:28

Ok, because the Community Chatter thread is going to be renamed the PC community chatter, I create this topic

HERE you can talk about PC and all stuff with it

Have a nice PC day


EDIT: I edited the topic title, moved it and pinned it - NeMeSiS

EDIT 2: Danke NeM

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 10 2006, 01:05

well, ill get the topic started. So lets talk hardware supplyers. theres got to be some good internet based supplyers of hardware that is cheaper than using a shop. does anyone know any good uns? i dont particularly want to use ebay and would rather use a shop ( i got £500 stolen of me on ebay once ), but i would definatly use an online retailer if they were able to undercut high street prices.

Posted by: King Homer Nov 10 2006, 23:18

Just got all my new hardware today. After work tomorrow, I'm going to set up the whole system.
I guess the new CPU and mainboard will require a fresh installation of Windows.
Hopefully my 600 W power supply is powerfull enough to guarantee a stabile system.

One more thing I noticed: VGA card boxes grow steadily. I remember my first new card, coming in a box, just as big as the card itself. And the current paper box is about 6 times as big as the 7950GT, coming with 1.000 of extras.

Posted by: NeMeSiS Nov 11 2006, 00:41

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 10 2006, 23:18)

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 11 2006, 01:19

yes important. my motherboard got fried so i needed a new motherboard and cpu , windows was rejected, i guess they though it was a copy. i rung technical support and dont do it, im not being racist but i got threw to an indian lady who obviously didnt know the first thing about computers. Anyway i managed to register my windows online and it didnt seem to think i was being funny by doing it that way. i got a complete new rig since then so i dont need to worry about it anymore, just somtimes new motherboard will be funny with a used version of windows

Posted by: King Homer Nov 11 2006, 06:39

QUOTE(NeMeSiS @ Nov 11 2006, 00:41)

Nope, but you do need to activate your windows version again, so you better have that serial ready

Posted by: da rat Nov 12 2006, 02:12

I've had nothing but bad experience with installing new hardware. Installing my new graphics card fucked my whole system up the ass, and installing new RAM on 2 separate occasions buggered the whole thing too (got the BSOD )

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 12 2006, 02:15

i had a similar problem with installing the software for my router. it clashed with windows software and my pc would just keep freezing, in the end i just installed the drivers and used the windows software.

Posted by: da rat Nov 12 2006, 02:45

I can't wait for my new PC
According to the Czech guys who post pics on the BI forums, theyre all running on 512Mb Ram and Geforce 6600's!
If that's the case, my new PC should (hopefull) blow ArmA out of the water

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 12 2006, 03:04

Hey fellas,

I'm looking at upgrading my processor. ATM i have a 2.4GHz P4 w/ 1024mb DDR2 RAM and she runs a bit slow, mind you I only have an 80gb hard drive which is 80% full. I was wondering, what should I upgrade - the CPU or the HD?

Cheers

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 12 2006, 03:13

cpu, by sounds of it, the new dual core pentiums kick ass, depending on your budget of course. This is what i hear of Nemesis.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 12 2006, 03:16

How much $$$ would I be looking at for, say, a 4.0GHz? or something powerful-ish. Dont mind what currency you post in

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 12 2006, 03:31

£400 i believe was the figure. may be higher.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 12 2006, 03:36

Ok, maybe 3GHz one then.

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 12 2006, 03:39

could just go with the AMD duel core, cheaper, not as good, but there still kick ass.

Posted by: da rat Nov 12 2006, 03:41

lol, it's all well and good speculativley, but you gotta make sure your Motherboard would support it
I have an uber old PC, so that's why I'm getting a whole new one instead of just replacing the CPU, mobo, gpu, and going the whole hog with an Intel E6700 dual core processor @ 2x 2.66Ghz

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 12 2006, 03:44

QUOTE(da rat @ Nov 12 2006, 02:41)

lol, it's all well and good speculativley, but you gotta make sure your Motherboard would support it
I have an uber old PC, so that's why I'm getting a whole new one instead of just replacing the CPU, mobo, gpu, and going the whole hog with an Intel E6700 dual core processor @ 2x 2.66Ghz

Posted by: King Homer Nov 12 2006, 09:05

Best thing you can do: Upgrade your system to AM2 if you go for AMD. I did it aswell, new VGA card, new RAM, new CPU, new Mainboard. I recently noticed that I need a new HDD, but that ain't no real problem.

My mainboard is missing a second IDE slot, so I only can use either HDD or Drives. Need to get a S-ATA HDD for instance, 300 GB will do the job.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 12 2006, 09:08

Jeez, 300GB! I am living in the 80's with my 80GB.

Posted by: King Homer Nov 12 2006, 09:25

Well, prices for HDDs are low at the moment. You have to pay around 150 Euros in Germany for a 300 GB HDD. 200 = 120 Euro, so everyone would give the 300 a go.

And I already have 180 GB, so no real difference, don't you think?

I'll buy a 300 GB Samsung S-ATA HDD, I've always had Samsung HDDs even if there's a Western Digital 320 GB HDD for less Euros.
It's the same with video cards. Always had Asus Geforce, and will always buy Asus Geforce.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 12 2006, 10:28

Righto. Will look into that

Posted by: da rat Nov 12 2006, 11:30

Do HD's really count towards performance on games? I'm getting S-ATA II 160Gb HD with my new PC... Sounds alright?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 12 2006, 11:38

Well, in these days it's easier to get bigger HDD. Go for a 300 GB drive, won't cost much more.

300GB SEAGATE ST3300622AS Barracuda = 99 Euros (0,33 Euros / GB)
160GB SEAGATE ST3160812AS-RK Barracuda = 66 Euros (0,41 Euros / GB)

Posted by: da rat Nov 12 2006, 11:41

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 12 2006, 10:38)

Posted by: Wittmann Nov 12 2006, 23:50

Yes I got a 250GB SATA hdd for a good price and I ahve alraedy filled half of it

Best value card is the 7600 Series, they are a bargain and still a solid card.

Posted by: da rat Nov 13 2006, 00:23

Howabout we all post our specs, then we can be all nerdy and compare them

INTEL® Core 2 Duo E6700 (2 X 2.66GHz) 1066MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache
2048 MB CORSAIR DDR2 667MHz
160GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)
512MB GEFORCE 7950GT PCI Express + DVI + DVI + TV-OUT (x2 in SLI)
INTEGRATED 8 CHANNEL (7.1) AUDIO (6 CHANNEL ON P5NSLI)
All for £1184.68

I'm worried though, not being hugley hot on PC's, how long this PC will last before I have to upgrade/ before it becomes ancient :wierd: Having spent that money on it, I guess I'm just looking for confirmation that I've made the right decision =S I just hope I can play ArmA on full!
Cheers

Posted by: NeMeSiS Nov 13 2006, 00:49

Posted by: JdB Nov 13 2006, 00:58

You all know what they say about the person that is the shortest in height (biggest saucage on the block ):

AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1,81GHz)
Soltek SL75 DRV5 Rev3
1GB DDR (PC2100)
Geforce 4 TI4200 (128MB version)
Creative Audigy + 5.1 Creative speakers

Posted by: Wittmann Nov 13 2006, 02:12

Amd Athalon 64 4200+X2
Gigabyte SLI AMD mobo, forget the model without reference on this work pc
2GB Corsair II DDR2 RAM
GeForce 7600GS 256mb card
250GB SATA HDD 16mb Cache

Not a bad little machine for my needs

Posted by: King Homer Nov 13 2006, 06:31

PIII 700 Mhz
Some Mainboard
nVidia TNT2 M64
128 MB SDRAM PC133
Seagate 20 GB IDE HDD

...that was my PC back in 2000

upgraded this PC with following

+ 128 MB SDRAM PC 133 - to play OFP lagfree
+ Geforce 2 MX400

2002, new PC:

AMD Athlon XP 1800
K7S5A Mainboard
Geforce 2 Ultra
256 MB DDRRAM PC 266

upgraded this PC with following

+ 256 MB DDRRAM PC 266
+ Geforce 4 Ti 4200

2003/2004, new PC:

AMD Athlon XP 2800
Asus A7N8X Mainboard
Geforce 4 Ti 4400
512 MB DDRRAM PC400
Samsung 160 GB IDE HDD

upgraded this PC with following:

+ 512 MB DDRAM PC400
+ Geforce FX 5700 Ultra (mid-2004)
+ Geforce 6600GT (March 2005)

2006, new PC, current system

AMD 64 X2 4000+ (1024 KB L2 Cache)
Asus M2NE Mainboard
Asus Geforce 7950GT
1024 MB DDR2 RAM PC800

will upgrade following:

+ 1024 MB DDR2 RAM PC800
+ 300 GB S-ATA HDD (currently running the old 160 GB IDE)

The history of my hardware
Before 2000 I was using my dads PC, which was even worse...

Posted by: Serial Killer Nov 13 2006, 07:45

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
Socket 939
512Mb RAM DDR1
ATI 9600 pro. graphics card
160GT SATA hard disc

Posted by: Wittmann Nov 13 2006, 08:24

Until a few months back this was my rig:

733Mhz Pentium 3
30GB HDD
Some old MoBo
32mb TNT VidCard
128mb SD RAM

Upgraded with:

GeForce 2 MX 400 64mb
Boosted to 512mb SDRAM

That PC, dubbed 'mighty mouse' by my clan mates saw me through so many things it should not have been able to handle but by the end of its run it was a temperamental beast

Posted by: King Homer Nov 13 2006, 11:48

Well I need to get rid of my 160 GB IDE HDD. Anyone needs one? I need money for a new 300 GB S-ATA drive

Posted by: T_D Nov 13 2006, 17:03

AMD Athlon64 3500+ (with fu**ing old Newcastle core)
ASUS A8V Deluxe
PowerColor X850XT P.E. (AGP)
1GB Corsair TwinX PC3200 XL (2-2-2-3)
Creative Audigy 4
around 1TB of space dispensed on 5 HDDs (3x S-ATA, 2x IDE)

Posted by: da rat Nov 13 2006, 17:13

Old PC (current - at least until my new one arrives [15 days:D])
Intel P4 1.8Ghz
Some crappy "dublin" MoBo
Geforce 6200 256mb
1024Mb SDRAM
Some crappy onboard soundcard

Posted by: King Homer Nov 13 2006, 23:19

SDRAM? I thought this was just a myth, didn't know this existed in reality?

J/k

How does it come you have 1024 MB SDRAM? I guess I wouldn't even have wasted so much money for 512 MB of it (of course I did). The problem is, you can't sell it because no one wants it. I tried it, but in the end it's settled between some other old hardware stuff now.

Posted by: JdB Nov 13 2006, 23:28

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 13 2006, 23:19)

Posted by: da rat Nov 13 2006, 23:50

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 13 2006, 22:19)

SDRAM? I thought this was just a myth, didn't know this existed in reality?

J/k

How does it come you have 1024 MB SDRAM? I guess I wouldn't even have wasted so much money for 512 MB of it (of course I did). The problem is, you can't sell it because no one wants it. I tried it, but in the end it's settled between some other old hardware stuff now.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 14 2006, 09:03

OK, I have found a Celeron 3.33ghz 533FSB MODEL D 355 LGA775 64Bit for $125AUD. Good price? (Socket 775)

I am currently on a standard 2002 Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz

Worth upgrading to? AND Would this require me to get a new motherboard?


I've also found a SeaGate 250 gig 7200rpm SATA-2 NCQ 16meg Cache 7200.10 for $115AUD. I'm currently on a 80GB HD. Worth it?

KH, if you are willing to sell your 160GB for about $70 AUD I might be in

Posted by: King Homer Nov 14 2006, 09:48

Depends on the socket your P4 uses. And I won't go for a Celeron. Better get a new Core 2 Duo CPU.
And the S-ATA HDD is a better choice than my old IDE HDD.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 14 2006, 10:02

Rager that. Well, lets see..

INTEL PENTIUM 4 Processor 541 LGA775 3.2Ghz 1MB L2-Cache 800FSB > $205AUD

Any good?

Cheers for the help. I'll bookmark that HDD

Posted by: d@nte Nov 14 2006, 10:02

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
venice Socket 939
1024Mb RAM DDR
ATI x600 pro
hd: 250 go

Posted by: Nuker Nov 14 2006, 11:03

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ socket 939
1024 Mb DDR RAM
GeForce 6600GT 256Mb
180 Gb HDisk
22" Widescreen TFT Monitor

I must say the 6600GT has a great price/quality ratio.

Posted by: King Homer Nov 14 2006, 16:08

Today I decided to buy a new S-ATA. 250 GB should enough for me. Any advices for good HDD's? I either thought about a Seagate ST3250824AS Barracuda or a Samsung SP2504C SpinPoint P120. What do you think?

Posted by: NeMeSiS Nov 14 2006, 16:10

QUOTE(LooseKannon @ Nov 14 2006, 10:02)

Posted by: d@nte Nov 14 2006, 16:50

Posted by: T_D Nov 14 2006, 16:53

QUOTE(Nuker @ Nov 14 2006, 11:03)

Posted by: da rat Nov 14 2006, 18:13

I think 160Gb will be enough for me. My friend has an 80Gb and he's never filled it over 3/4 of the way. I have no troubles with my 40Gb now, got plenty of shit on here too. If I find that I'm grossly mistaken, I'll get an external hd. Do they work just like normal HD's but on the outside? (can install shit straight onto them?)

Posted by: T_D Nov 14 2006, 18:22

They nearly working the same but they are a lot slower because of the slow connection like USB. eSata solve this problem, because it is as fast as normal Sata HDDs just extern

Posted by: da rat Nov 14 2006, 18:29

So basically it's not a good idea to run programs off of it?

Posted by: T_D Nov 14 2006, 19:18

Small programs should be no problem, music is also ok but nothing like games or video editing stuff.

Posted by: JdB Nov 14 2006, 20:02

Basically it's meant for datastorage/back-up purposes.

Posted by: da rat Nov 14 2006, 20:05

Ok, I kinda guessed that as soon as I heard the slow USB bit. Cheers for claring it up for me dudes

Posted by: Deadeye Nov 14 2006, 20:06

I won't buy a new HD for my new system I'll use an IDE Adapter

Edit: Sry missed a few pages

Posted by: T_D Nov 14 2006, 21:11

I won't upgrade my system until DirectX10 cards are standard, as well as DDR3 memory modules. I think these are the technologies I can wait for although I know that the moment I buy hardware it is outdated a few seconds later.

Posted by: Red Square Monkey Nov 14 2006, 21:14

Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz
ASUS P4P800-X Mobo
AGP 8x, 512 MB ATI Radeon X1600
1 GB DDR RAM, Frequency 200MHz
160 GB Samsung HD (ultra quiet)
80 GB Iomega External back-up drive

Also spended a lot on making my PC reaaally quiet.

Posted by: Helping Hand Nov 14 2006, 21:40

well seeing as its related i guess, anyone use a slot style cpu?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 15 2006, 06:47

Dudes, I have a problem, yesterday I bought my new S-ATA HDD and I wanted to install Windows on it but it didn't work.

I divided it in 4 partitions all the same size but Windows set up kept telling me some XP compatible files where missing on the drive. I don't know how to fix it, anyone has an idea? I don't want to use my slow IDE's anymore.

Posted by: Nuker Nov 15 2006, 09:04

QUOTE(T_D @ Nov 14 2006, 21:11)

Posted by: da rat Nov 15 2006, 22:03

I'd still much prefer to be a PC Gamer than a console'er Got a Ps2, and all it's good for is some mindless fun I decided to start playing San Andreas on ps2 again, but euch... I hate gamepads That's why I'd rather spend money on an updated PC ^^

Posted by: King Homer Nov 15 2006, 23:38

Well, I'm fiddling all day long with that HDD problem but no solution yet. Someone told me to press F6 while Windows setup is loading, to install third party S-ATA drivers. But I don't know where to find drivers to put on the Floppy.

Anyone knows a better solution? It's really slows down my whole work, I tried it for 3 hours now... no luck.

Posted by: da rat Nov 16 2006, 00:14

I think http://www.computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/35404.html site might be pretty useful for ya Homer

Posted by: King Homer Nov 16 2006, 21:56

Okay got it working, wasn't the problem with the drivers. I just had to set up the different partitions via XP installation.

Posted by: da rat Nov 16 2006, 22:55

Trivial Question #234:
I clicked exit by accident on my Nvidia system tray icon and now it's gone (even after reboot) Any ideas how to get it back?
(I left it on full AF+AA )

Posted by: King Homer Nov 16 2006, 23:45

Rightclick on Desktop - select properties - settings - enhanced (I don't know if it is called like that in English, I just have the German XP version) - select the video card tab and then you can enable it somewhere again... I guess you'll find it at "Tools".

Posted by: da rat Nov 16 2006, 23:51

Yey! Thanks Homer, working now

Posted by: Helping Hand Nov 18 2006, 00:37

Any ideas why this happens?

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/5061/untitlediz6.jpg

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 18 2006, 06:38

I have decided on what kind of upgrades im going to get - a whole new PC.

I have a mate of mine that can get me some quotes on good setups and I have a fair ammount of spending money. My PC will be something along the lines of:

2.66Ghz Quad Processor (10.5Ghz total )
2GB RAM
256mb Video Card
500gb HD + 250gb Ex.

Posted by: NeMeSiS Nov 18 2006, 12:22

QUOTE(LooseKannon @ Nov 18 2006, 06:38)

2.66Ghz Quad Processor (10.5Ghz total )

Posted by: da rat Nov 18 2006, 13:15

Shouldn't you maybe go for a faster videocard too? Or are you waiting for Dx10?

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 18 2006, 13:21

Yups. Waiting for DX10 then I shall get a proper vid card.



What kind of performance can I expect on this rig? (dont really know much about this)

Posted by: da rat Nov 18 2006, 13:22

I'd expect it would be better with 2 Cards in SLI/ Crossfire or whatever if you're investing in such a processor, but seeing as you're getting a new one soon..

Posted by: King Homer Nov 18 2006, 15:33

If you have more than 2000 Euros to spend you should really wait for the new year and buy the coming highend generation VGA-cards and the new mainboards etc.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 19 2006, 02:39

Sounds good, KH. I have $3,000 AUD to spend = 1,798.89 EUR so I may be a bit short for the next-gen cards.

Posted by: King Homer Nov 19 2006, 04:10

Well, GF8800 will be your choice and maybe a FX-series AMD CPU.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 19 2006, 05:15

Can anyone recomend a total system from that price range? ie. 2gb DDR2 RAM, x video card, etc

Posted by: da rat Nov 19 2006, 11:37

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 19 2006, 03:10)

Posted by: King Homer Nov 19 2006, 13:29

QUOTE(LooseKannon @ Nov 19 2006, 05:15)

Posted by: RAVEN Nov 20 2006, 23:28

WHY WOULD MY PC KEEP CRASHING WHILE PLAYING OFP RES?

Posted by: da rat Nov 20 2006, 23:57

How do you expect us to help you if you don't provide any informational at all? What mods do you use? In what circumstances does the game crash? Have you ever been able to play it? What mods have you installed since being able to play it 'till now? etc..

Posted by: King Homer Nov 21 2006, 07:02

QUOTE(RAVEN @ Nov 20 2006, 23:28)

WHY WOULD MY PC KEEP CRASHING WHILE PLAYING OFP RES?

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 21 2006, 09:01

WELL, I have found the right rig for me



Look any good?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 21 2006, 14:50

Well I don't trust pre-build PC's, they always add parts of low quality to save the last amount of money. And you don't need it all new, do you? I guess you already have some CDROM drives and a ATX case!

Posted by: da rat Nov 21 2006, 18:13

Looks very good LooseKannon

Emailed the company building my baby for me, and they recommended a different motherboard and PSU

Posted by: T_D Nov 21 2006, 19:26

I also have a Thermaltake Armor ( I don't think I have a Jr. but not sure) and I want to warn you that the black one is really heavy. If you dont go to LANs very often you can this shouldnt be a problem but otherwise...

Posted by: JdB Nov 21 2006, 19:33

QUOTE(da rat @ Nov 21 2006, 18:13)

Looks very good LooseKannon

Emailed the company building my baby for me, and they recommended a different motherboard and PSU

Posted by: da rat Nov 21 2006, 20:08

Posted by: King Homer Nov 22 2006, 06:52

That's the reason why you shouldn't go for a prebuild PC. I trust my own eyes better than any PC company and setting up your own system isn't really that difficult - see mine, runs beautiful

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 22 2006, 10:00

Well, then. What should I change in that lot?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 22 2006, 13:40

I ask again, do you need all parts or just the primary things? I mean, you have an ATX case, CDROM drives and a powerful PSU?

Posted by: da rat Nov 22 2006, 17:55

QUOTE(da rat @ Nov 21 2006, 19:08)

Posted by: Nuker Nov 22 2006, 19:27

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 21 2006, 14:50)

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 22 2006, 19:53

does anyone here have a trackir? are they worth buying, they always seemed a bit expencive to me. also do they work on flat screens? (i mean do they clip on or.....?)

Posted by: Sniperwolf572 Nov 22 2006, 20:06

Motherboard: Abit AX8
Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor 3000+, ~1.8GHz
Memory: 1GB Kingston
Hard Drive: 2x Maxtor 80GB 7200rpm
Video Card: eVGA nVidia GeForce 7600GT KO
Monitor: ViewSonic E-70
Sound Card: Realtek AC97 Audio
Speakers/Headphones: UMAX (Model unknown)
Keyboard: MS Industrial (Model unknown)
Mouse: Genius (Model name too long to type)
Mouse Surface: Desk


^^Taken from X-fire.

Posted by: King Homer Nov 23 2006, 00:11

QUOTE(Nuker @ Nov 22 2006, 19:27)

Posted by: da rat Nov 23 2006, 00:14

By self/custom-built, do you mean you buy all the components from shops then assemble it yourself, or buy it from a website/ shop with customised specs?

Posted by: JdB Nov 23 2006, 00:41

By self/custom-built, do you mean you buy all the components from shops then assemble it yourself, or buy it from a website/ shop with customised specs?

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 23 2006, 07:43

Negatvie, KH. I have no parts to use on this new one. It will be totally from scratch.

I'll be buying the parts separatly then getting a proffesional to put it together.

BTW - Just got 21" Widescreen monitor (CMV 938D)

Posted by: King Homer Nov 23 2006, 08:19

Well, if you're no modding freak or a showoff you should have no problem. Get a cheap ATX case, IDE DVD Writer or something like that and a minimum 500 W PSU. Abot 100 Euros and the rest for good internals.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 23 2006, 09:58

Well, I want to get max performance for $3,000AUD. My aim is to run ArmA at 100FPS +

Posted by: King Homer Nov 23 2006, 12:03

So what do you prefer, AMD or Intel, ATI or nVidia?

Posted by: NeMeSiS Nov 23 2006, 14:55

QUOTE(LooseKannon @ Nov 23 2006, 09:58)

Posted by: Nuker Nov 23 2006, 15:59

I love widescreen monitors, I am running a resolution of 1680x1050 on my 22" Acer AL2216W

Posted by: da rat Nov 23 2006, 17:35

Is 8m/s fast enough for a gaming monitor?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 23 2006, 19:05

Current standard is 8 ms, so yes, all good. If you have enough money, go for a 2 ms, even if you can't notice the difference of 15 or 2 ms anymore.

Posted by: JdB Nov 23 2006, 23:10

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 23 2006, 19:05)

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 24 2006, 08:09

Since ArmA doesnt use Dual-Core Processors, what kind of Processor should I get on my new rig? I'm guessing something like 4.5GhZ

Posted by: King Homer Nov 24 2006, 11:43

This won't increase your performance. The future is based on multicore cpu's so it would be senseless to get a singlecore overpowered CPU if you have the opportunity to buy a multicore CPU.

Just because ArmA doesn't support them doesn't mean they're senseless, ArmA isn't everything.

Posted by: da rat Nov 24 2006, 17:02

So what exactly would be better? A dual core cpu at 2Ghz, or a single running at 4Ghz o.O?

Posted by: NeMeSiS Nov 24 2006, 17:30

That depends, in a single core application the 4ghz will be faster, while in a dual core application the 2ghz will beat the 4ghz easily.

Stop staring blindly at the mhz, it only means that the intel marketing department did a good job in making everyone believe that the only way to see how fast a CPU is is measuring its mhz -.-'

Posted by: King Homer Nov 24 2006, 23:22

QUOTE(NeMeSiS @ Nov 24 2006, 17:30)

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 25 2006, 09:25

Hey, ArmA IS everything!

Well, I think an E6600 Series Dual would do the job, yeah?

Posted by: da rat Nov 25 2006, 11:22

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 25 2006, 11:40

Thank you, Mr.Spanel . And say cheers to Marek for me

Righto, well, is there a better processor than that?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 25 2006, 15:58

X6800 Extreme

Posted by: Nuker Nov 25 2006, 20:40

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 25 2006, 15:58)

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 26 2006, 01:52

I will have a look around for a X6800 Extreme, cheers KH.

Now - as for RAM. What kind should I be looking for, and how much?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 26 2006, 02:51

QUOTE(Nuker @ Nov 25 2006, 20:40)

The 6600 has a better price/quality ratio if you ask me

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 26 2006, 09:31

OK, Lets say 2GB of RAM. I heard of DDR3 - any better than DDR2? Is there a better RAM?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 26 2006, 10:52

No, DDR2 is the current standard. DDR3, didn't heard of that yet. Nvidia videocards use GDDR3 memory but there's no DDR3 RAM iirc.

Posted by: T_D Nov 26 2006, 12:41

GDDR3 is technically the same as DDR2. GDDR4 which is used on the newest ATI cards is technically the same as DDR3. It's just marketing

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 27 2006, 09:58

Ok then!

So we are looking at :

X8600 Intel Duo Processor
2GB DDR2 RAM
320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Drive
ASUS P5B-E Motherboard
GeForce 8800GTS Graphics Card


^Any improvements on this take?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 27 2006, 14:31

Yeah what about a 500 GB HDD?

You need at least a 600 W PSU.

Posted by: Deadeye Nov 27 2006, 17:25

QUOTE(LooseKannon @ Nov 27 2006, 09:58)

Posted by: da rat Nov 27 2006, 17:27

Looking good
2x Geforce 7950GT 512Mb in SLI
or
1x Geforce 8800GTS 640Mb

Posted by: T_D Nov 27 2006, 22:38

What about a Western Digital Raptor HDD with 10.000rpm? ^^

Posted by: JdB Nov 27 2006, 23:57

Of course, for OS/application drive (larger 7200RPM for data storage).

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Nov 28 2006, 01:10

dont forget a trackir

Posted by: Elliot Carver Nov 28 2006, 04:55

Forget the Geforce 8800GTS 640Mb you want:
Dual 1024MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 7900 GX2 - Quad SLI Enabled
**2GB** of the hardest core graphics on the planet

oh sorry...was price an issue?

Posted by: King Homer Nov 28 2006, 06:45

Well, he talked about 3.000 AUD (1,778 EUR) so it will have a limit somewhere.
The CPU and video card will already cost 1.500 Euros

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 28 2006, 10:29

Yep. So nothing too fancy . No 500GB HD, I dont need such space. I have used a 80GB since 2001, never filled it.

Forget that grahics card, for now, Carver . A bit too much

Posted by: Blackscorpion Nov 28 2006, 11:19

LoosaKannon, just my OFP stuff would nearly fill your HD.

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 28 2006, 11:52

Wow! My OFP folder is 7GB?

Ok then. Lets have a look over what kind of money I'll be looking at for these parts...

All are in Aussie Dollars (AUD)

Processor - $1250
RAM - (1GB DDR2) - $149.50 ea. (2x)
300GB HD - $137.50
Motherboard - $199
Graphics Card: GeForce 8800GTS

2 Options here, Either the 768MB version ($968)
OR
the 680mb Version ($700)

So. Without the case, keyboard etc the price comes down to:

With 768mb Graphics :
$2704 AUD

Wit 680mb Graphics:
$2436 AUD
-------------------

I'm looking at getting http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Chassis/midtower/armorjr/vc3000_index.asp to put it all in.

Hopefully this rig will get the job done

Cheers

Posted by: King Homer Nov 28 2006, 14:32

We don't do things by half-measures, do we? Buy the freakin' Geforce 8800 with 768 MB GDDR3!

Posted by: JdB Nov 28 2006, 15:47

And the best thing is that regardless of money spent, it will still be outdated in 2-3 years time

Posted by: CJE Nov 28 2006, 17:14

I got a tech question if anyone's interested..
I've got:
P4 3.2Ghz E
1024 mb ram
256 nvidia fx5500
some c-media sound card.

Alright, when idling, the pc is fine and dandy, but the moment I start up a game, or do something cpu intensive, the fan on the back of the pc goes crazy, switches on, switches off, switches on again etc. There is no effect on the games I play at all though, everything is ok. After about 30 mins or so of playing, I get a blue screen saying "Paged error in non-paged area".
Anyone know what the jesus this is?
Any help would be appreciated.

Posted by: King Homer Nov 28 2006, 17:21

You checked the temperature of your system?

About the fan going crazy: Not plugged in correctly? Fan broken? Too much V?

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 29 2006, 07:17

768mb 8800GTS w/ DDR3 it is then!

Posted by: Old Bear Nov 29 2006, 17:02

What is the right config to play ArmA ?

I am "west european " player, so I am waiting for the release of ArrmA in 2007 by 505Games and as I have not enought money to buy a new PC now, I am in no hurry ...

As you can understand, I am looking at what may be the right config : CPU/Ram/Video card to play ArmA without going to bankrupcy.

I can probably play it with my :

AMD XP2000 (1,6 Ghz)
1280 Mo Ram (yes, all in DDR 133 Mhz !)
7600GS (an upgrade from my good old Radeon 9000, probably not a good move but ...)

with all turn on low as seems to prove the test made by Dupě.cz website, I quote :

"Minimální konfigurace: procesor 2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 128MB grafická karta
Doporučená konfigurace: procesor 3 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 256MB grafická karta
Testovací konfigurace: Athlon XP 1600+, 1.5GHz, 768MB RAM, 128 MB grafická karta"

During a chat with Czech players, they were quite quite about shader 2 being present in their videocard. As I have not the box under my eyes , I must rely on indirect "official" informations, so I've found on Akella web site :

"Минимальные требования:
* CPU: 2 Ghz
* RAM: 512 MB
* Nvidia Geforce FX with 128 MB RAM & pixel shader 2.0, ATI Radeon 9500 with 128 MB of RAM & pixel shader 2.0
* Free HD Space: 3 GB
* Software: Windows XP or Windows 2000 and DirectX 9

Рекомендуемые требования:
* CPU: 3 Ghz
* RAM: 1 GB
* Video Card: Nvidia 6800 and above or Ati x800 and above with at least 256 MB RAM
* Free HD Space: 3 GB
* Software: Windows XP and DirectX 9"

As you see minimal or recommended config are asking for Direct 9X so shader 2 is not a problem.

So what about the right processor ? You can read everywhere that CoreDuo is the leading CPU, so perhaps an intel Core2 Duo E6300 will do good but as I understand that that ArmA is running on 32 bit code that mean that only one core will be used for the game so ... I must look for a 6600? And what about my good resolutions ? And why not an Athlon X2 3800+ ?
Well, I will stand for Core2 Duo E6300.

I had got experiment with OFP how ram can change an near unplayable game with 256 Mo to a real pleasure with more than 1Go. XP is running with more than 400 Mo, game needs 1 Go. Even if it costs more than the CPU,
I think that 2 Go will do good

The Video Card seems a crucial item in the battle and if what I've read is true : video ram amount seems more decisive than central ram.
Nvidia 6800 or Ati x800 ? that's the question !
And if the question was GeForce 7900 GS 256 or Radeon X1950 Pro 256 ?
Well, ... saying Gigabyte Radeon X1950 with Zalman cooler.

Just a look at piggy bank, no ....
I must wait again for a while.
Hopping to find a nice cheap config for ArmA
Waiting for your opinions and advices.

Posted by: JdB Nov 29 2006, 17:12

QUOTE(T_D @ Nov 26 2006, 12:41)

Posted by: King Homer Nov 29 2006, 18:56

VGA cards with 2000 Mhz? Man, my CPU got that much power.

Posted by: JdB Nov 29 2006, 19:25

Posted by: Nuker Nov 29 2006, 19:27

QUOTE(JdB @ Nov 28 2006, 15:47)

And the best thing is that regardless of money spent, it will still be outdated in 2-3 years time

Posted by: LooseKannon Nov 30 2006, 09:59

Woot! Im getting a 8000 series nVidia card

Hopefully the 8800GTS will have the 3.2Ghz?

Posted by: da rat Nov 30 2006, 17:34

QUOTE(LooseKannon @ Nov 30 2006, 08:59)

Posted by: King Homer Nov 30 2006, 18:33

Yes, the GTX variant has 768 MB GPU memory.

Posted by: LooseKannon Dec 1 2006, 04:09

My Error! GTX version I am getting.

So thats a no, huh? Damn. Oh well

EDIT:

Ok folks. Here are the final specs:

-----------------------------------------------
Intel© Core2 E6700
ASUS© P5B MoBo
2GB DDR2 PC800 RAM
GeForce© 8800GTX
Barracda 320gb HD
Creative© Audigy 7.1 Sound Card
Thermaltake 850W Power Supply
Thermaltake Tai Chi case

Logitech© G11 Keyboard
Logitech© G5 Mouse
Zalman 5.1 Surround Ultimate Gaming Headphones

Coming in at around $3,200 AUD. Just broke the budget


Cheers

Posted by: Marxist Dec 17 2006, 11:40

GTX is a real kick ass! Direct X 10 and Shader 4.0 support! You think that if i buy it in June , will own for a year and a half at least?

Posted by: LooseKannon Dec 19 2006, 04:59

At least. I dont plan to upgrade my computer again untill 2010

*Updated that list, ordered it today. Should be here soon

Posted by: da rat Dec 20 2006, 14:38

Well, I'm experiencing some problems with my new speakers
That is to say that they're incredibly crackly when playing louder noises, and basically don't sound the same. I was wondering if it's a problem with drivers (sound card drivers?)?
I got them new with my PC, and haven't touched them with any new drivers or anything- could that be my problem? Any ideas?

Posted by: King Homer Dec 20 2006, 20:09

You plugged in everything correctly?

Posted by: da rat Dec 20 2006, 20:24

Yeah, everything is plugged in like it should be
I just can't understand it.. Sitting in the driver's seat of a tank in ofp now is terrible because of the huge, constant ripping sound..

Posted by: NeMeSiS Dec 21 2006, 01:54

What kind of speakers do you have?

Posted by: da rat Dec 21 2006, 02:11

Creative Soundblaster 260's (they were the cheapest on the list of the website I bought my PC from - I didn't think it mattered too much, but I had heard the name Creative before, so I though they'd be good anyway)

Posted by: King Homer Dec 21 2006, 08:25

Well, is this a 2.1 system or just 2 speakers, do you have installed the latest driver, did you plug it the differens speakers corrently into the back of your PC? If you switch to the wrong connectors, everything goes crazy... happened to me aswell with my Creative 5.1 system.

Posted by: da rat Dec 21 2006, 12:30

QUOTE(King Homer @ Dec 21 2006, 07:25)

Posted by: Zipper5 Dec 21 2006, 21:22

I get my super-computer on Christmas day! Damnit... I can't wait that long... Ah well, at least I'll be able to run ArmA fine. Especially with the 2.4GHz Quad Core, Quad SLI GeForce 7950GTX and 4GB of RAM.

Posted by: NeMeSiS Dec 21 2006, 22:36

What do you need a quad core for? I cant even fill both of my cores for 100%, unless i play 2 games at the same time, which is quite.. hard

Posted by: LooseKannon Dec 22 2006, 01:58

QUOTE(Zipper5 @ Dec 22 2006, 06:22)

Quad SLI GeForce 7950GTX and 4GB of RAM.

Posted by: Zipper5 Dec 22 2006, 11:08

Might aswell buy the best system available and use it for a long time than buy a bad one and buy more and more of them. And the quad core thing, that's just so I can have tons of stuff on it and it wont slow down. At least, not until I get too many files on there, which is unlikely for a quad core...'d computer.

Edit: And for those of you who are wondering, this is costing about 14,000 QR (Qatari Riyals) which is about £4,700.

Posted by: NeMeSiS Dec 22 2006, 12:42

QUOTE(Zipper5 @ Dec 22 2006, 11:08)

At least, not until I get too many files on there, which is unlikely for a quad core...'d computer.

Posted by: Zipper5 Dec 22 2006, 14:29

Ah well, I have 20,000 QR to spend, what better way to spend it then to buy the best computer out there?

Edit: For those of you who want it, here's a picture:

Posted by: da rat Dec 22 2006, 16:48

Huargh! I need some drivers, but which ones? I tried the ones for the Nvidia Go 7 series, but I got this message on setup: "Setup could not locate drivers compatible with your current Hardware. Setup will now exit."
I have 2 Geforce 7950GT's in SLI, perhaps I'm doing something hugley stupid here, but which drivers would work with them? :blush:
Cheers for any help

Edit: NVM, managed to find a good one

Posted by: King Homer Dec 23 2006, 16:20

There ya go for the next time: http://www.nvidia.com/

Posted by: Deadeye Dec 23 2006, 16:43

I'd go for NGO Drivers. Arma used to crash when I installed unmodified Forceware drivers

Posted by: Serial Killer Dec 27 2006, 21:17

What program do you guys use to record video of games? I've used Fraps since now but got tired of it when it dropped my FPS from 60 to 5 (in Operation Flashpoint) and it's almost impossible to play.

Posted by: da rat Dec 27 2006, 21:49

I downloaded Gamecam the other day. It's awesome, no fps drop whatsoever while recording, and no 30-sec limit! The filesizes of the movies are generally lower too

Posted by: da rat Jan 7 2007, 21:25

Hey guys, I need urgent help please!

So I was playing Call of Duty 2, and a custom map pops up and starts downloading, which is fine because I play on that server alot recently and it's very cocher (I don't auto download from other servers).
When the map is finished downloading, I get in for a few seconds, and bang, my PC has crashed
There is a kinda red overlay on the screen, and I restart. The PC gets past the loading screens ok, then my desktop pops up. I can't click on anything, and the PC proceeds to restart of it's own accord. Now it won't even display the desktop, just a black screen. After about 5 seconds, the mouse also popus up and plays the "waiting" cursor. Now if I leave it alone, it starts a perpetual cycle of start up, restart, start up, restart etc...

I tried to start up in safe mode, and got in ok to the desktop, and went to do a system restore. It did that, but it's still doing it's restart, start up thing. And now I cant even load up safe mode, I hold F5 all through the loading screens, but nothing..

Please Help me!!!!! This is so frustrating

EDIT: OK, so now I'm in "Safe Mode with Networking" and with that the forum! Please help! I need to get this sorted out, preferably without having to reinstall XP....

Posted by: D@V£ Jan 8 2007, 15:13

Judging by the problem it sounds like one of the startup files is corrupted, you'll probabley have to reinstall windows

Posted by: da rat Jan 8 2007, 17:24

Egad, I thought as much
By the way, I was wonder if it's normal for safe mode to not detect any graphics devices? Same goes for sound card. Any ideas? I assume it's just a normal feature of safe mode.

Posted by: NeMeSiS Jan 8 2007, 19:22

Safe mode doesnt detect any drivers (in case there is a problem with them safe mode would be usless).
Alot of things may be wrong (faulty memory, overheating, etc)
Check temperatures, and if you can find another stick of memery, try replacing that with your current one, and see if it works.

Posted by: da rat Jan 8 2007, 19:44

Ok, cheers for the advice NeM. Unfortunatley I don't have any spare sticks of RAM, and the temperatures should be fine (I've never seen them change abnormally and I see them every time I use the PC -in the system tray-)
So I think I'll reinstall windows and if the problems persist, call on my warranty.

Posted by: da rat Jan 8 2007, 21:01

I'm currently experiencing feelings of great confusion, fright, and joyous relief.
I just inserted the windows disk, and expecting it to start the reformat process, my PC proceeded to start up perfecly normally.

W T F happened?!
Has anyone got ANY ideas?!

Posted by: JdB Jan 8 2007, 22:47

QUOTE(da rat @ Jan 8 2007, 21:01)

Posted by: da rat Jan 8 2007, 23:19

So you're saying it could happen again when I reboot?
*rebooting*
edit: Ok, so it started up normally and the disk wasnt in the drive. 'spose it's fixed now then
Thanks for the help guys

Posted by: NeMeSiS Jan 9 2007, 01:33

QUOTE(JdB @ Jan 8 2007, 22:47)

Posted by: Russki Feb 4 2007, 18:09

I don't know much about hardware, but can anyone tell me if I will be able to play with this card? Geforce 7300 SE 128MB (due to the fact I have very little money, I will not be able to buy a decent computer )

Posted by: King Homer Feb 5 2007, 14:51

Well I guess it would be better to save the money to buy a decent video card.
Everything ending with SE won't be good enough to run ArmA.

Posted by: NeMeSiS Feb 5 2007, 15:57

You dont really want to play ArmA with anything less then a x1600 (pro/xt) or a 6600 (dont know the extensions), preferably the x1600xt, the extra pixel processors/pipelines/whatever they are called give it a big advantage.
For 120-150€ you have a good card, and its not THAT expensive, and hey, you live holland and you are 16 years old, theres more then enough work and you can earn quite alot at that age

Posted by: Russki Feb 5 2007, 18:01

NOT in Kampen!

Posted by: King Homer Feb 8 2007, 12:40

You got the choice. Either save some more money/find work or buy that card you mentioned. But this one won't bring more performance.

Posted by: da rat Feb 12 2007, 00:59

Just a quickie here guys

My PC is acting kinda strange recently, and I'm not really sure if it's a driver issue (I have a feeling it is)
eg:
- On Dark Messiah when I get out a certain type of weapon that uses different lighting effects (will make very strange green lines appear on my display - has happened once in COD2 and once in ArmA demo)
- Dark Messiah will make loads of repeating noises while freezing pretty frequently
- Dark Messiah will crash unexpectantly sometimes when large physics objects fall on the player

There's definatley something not right here, and those wierd green lines that appear are kinda worrying =/

Any Ideas?

Posted by: Russki Feb 12 2007, 12:41

When was the last time you installed (a) new driver(s)?
And, did those things occur before you installed the new driver(s)?
Had this once to with my laptop, turned out that the graph-card was not good in place.

Posted by: Deadeye Feb 12 2007, 17:04

Try some NGO Drivers. These are optimized nvidia ones. I had problems with ArmA and Doom (random crashes...) while I was running on the official drivers.
It's worth a try

http://www.ngohq.com/news/3525-ati-catalyst-5-11-beta-cp.html?go=cat&dwn_cat_id=10

Posted by: da rat Feb 12 2007, 17:06

QUOTE(Deadeye @ Feb 12 2007, 16:04)

Posted by: Deadeye Feb 12 2007, 17:39

Woopsi, the link is redirecting to ati ones

http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=Files&go=cat&dwn_cat_id=10

^nvidia

Posted by: da rat Feb 12 2007, 18:10

I worked it out
Well, thanks for that deadeye, it seems to have fixed the wierd graphical bugs, but there is still the AWFUL sound bug which seems to be worse now after installing the new drivers.
Basically, it tends to only happen in source games, and when I click on a menu item the sound repeats sometimes for as long as a whole minute (I still have mouse control, but the game is frozen untill it decides to work)
Could that be a sound driver issue or something else?
Cheers!

EDIT: Nvm, apparently the sound skipping was due to the 4.17Gb of save files that built up over the week that I've had DMoMM
Ty

Posted by: da rat Feb 16 2007, 22:47

It just doesn't stop with this PC does it?

I think you were right NeM about the faulty memory. My PC keeps completely locking up every few minutes, sometimes in games, sometimes while doing nothing. I've emailed the company I bought the PC from, but they will probably email back on monday seeing as they dont work at weekends.
Anyone got any ideas what I could do?
I really wanna play ArmA

Posted by: King Homer Feb 17 2007, 11:42

Well probably some overheated hardware I guess. You had a look at the CPU and GPU temperature?

Posted by: da rat Feb 17 2007, 12:56

The GPU is usually at around 44°C - 48°C
Doesnt actually tell me my CPU temp, but my Motherboard is at 33°C
Normal I think?

Btw: Could this be related?

Pics I take now come out like this

Edit: For what it's worth, I've heard that mis-measurments of RAM in dxdiag/ other tools could point to faulty RAM? Mine shows up as 2046Mb... (should be 2048)

Posted by: NeMeSiS Feb 17 2007, 15:26

I posted a link for memtest on the previous page, try running it and see what it says.

Posted by: da rat Feb 17 2007, 15:51

Truth is, I don't know where to start with that webpage

Which one do I need to download? :blush:

Posted by: NeMeSiS Feb 17 2007, 16:29

Well memtest is quite hard to use so you may want to try this, not as good but its worth a try, if this returns no errors you still may want to try memtest.

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/MemTest.zip

Posted by: da rat Feb 17 2007, 17:21

Posted by: D@V£ Feb 17 2007, 21:24

What are you using to take screenshots? Try using the latest version of FRAPs (or if your using that already use prntscrn method), if that doesn't work use a digital camera to take pictures of your screen

Posted by: da rat Feb 17 2007, 21:28

Lol, well, I already asked on the BIS forums, and someone said that it could be down to my SLI being turned off - which it was!

I turned it on, and boom! Black screen... No way to turn SLI off now and try new drivers or something, so I'm in safe mode at the moment untill I find out how to do it

This PC is doing my nut* head in..

*sounded awful

Posted by: da rat Feb 18 2007, 01:48

Right!!
Here we go - Did a restore to about 2 months ago, now there are:
- No Lockups
- No Wierd Screenshot bugs
- SLI DOESN'T WORK NOW!! *screaming*

When I try to enable SLI, the screen just goes black - and that's it!
Why the hell wouldn't SLI be working? Now I'm getting about 15 fps on Rahmadi, which kinda doesnt make sense even for one card...
I'm thinking this could be driver related though... Perhaps SLI needs certain drivers? But SLI has worked before with the drivers im using right now.
Argh, I just don't know where to turn..


Somebody... Anybody help me!!

Posted by: Buttockhat Feb 25 2007, 18:08

Hi, I was referred here from another topic that I started: http://forum.armedassault.info/index.php?showtopic=393.

Basically, I have a major computer problem (graphics card way too old), which means that ArmA is totally unplayable.

My current system specs are:

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700VE w/ 256 MB RAM, driver date = November 2006
DirectX: 9.0c
OS: XP Home
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.20GHz
Memory: 1022 MB RAM

I was told (on the other topic) that I should try to buy a GeForce 7600GT graphics card, so I checked the website of a local PC shop. That card is available for 161 Euros (it's described as 256mb 'XFX'). But then I noticed that they have what seems to be a better card, available for a little less money: a 512mb 'Gainward' 7600GS...for 157 Euros.

Could someone please explain the difference to me? And also, is there anything a hardware noob like me should know before taking my computer to the shop? (because, as you'll see if you read my other topic, the technicians and salesmen here are notorious for trying to fool customers).

Thanks.

Posted by: Deadeye Feb 25 2007, 18:53

Have a loom at this test. It compares the Geforce GT with the GS. It is in german but the Benchmark Result speak for themselves. (Don't bother the galaxy one, it is a tuned GS)

http://www.hartware.de/review_595_8.html
(you can also watch more benchmarks by using the dropdown box below)

But as I said in the previous thread, we also need to know your type of Motherboard. I am pretty sure that the cards you want to buy are PCI-e , but Geforce FX cards are usually AGP.

Posted by: da rat Feb 28 2007, 17:39

Well, I'm on old faithful now! My new PC's given up the ghost it seems.. There was definatley something wrong with it. The lock-ups, the Blue-screens, the random restarts, the non-stop BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP occasionally when you turn it on...

It's going into hospital in a few days. I hope they just scrap it and give me a new one, I'm sick of the trouble I've had recently

Posted by: Buttockhat Feb 28 2007, 20:36

Hi,

OK, so I had GeForce 7600GT installed as recommended. But ArmA is STILL very slow even at Normal graphics settings (and there's no way I'm playing at anything less than that- I've waited too long and paid too much for shit graphics).

This is really frustrating me, because a friend whose computer is marginally better than mine is running ArmA at 'Very High' settings with no problems at all...

Is there anything at all I can do to fix this problem?

Posted by: da rat Feb 28 2007, 20:38

Have you tried all the latest drivers? Also, I hear the latest DirectX update (december?) improves performance for some people.

Posted by: Buttockhat Mar 1 2007, 17:18

Latest graphics card drivers are installed, can't download latest ver. of Direct X because the computer in question isn't connected to the net. I think the problem is far too serious anyway, something minor like having to install the latest drivers is not the case...my comp meets all the RECOMMENDED requirements!!!??

Posted by: JdB Mar 1 2007, 17:56

Posted by: CJE Mar 19 2007, 23:19

Recently got a 7600GT and a new 550 Watt Power supply. My pc is 4 years old. But still good. It now has a Pentium 4 3.2 ghz Prescott CPU, 1024 mb Ram, 256mb 7600gt. It's ok until I can afford a new pc. Plays Arma nicely, so can't complain.

Posted by: da rat Apr 4 2007, 23:56

Right, so got my PC back a few weeks ago, everything seems to be working ok now.

Apart from when I have been playing ArmA for a while (10-20 mins or so?) I get these wierd graphical screw ups - and no they arent the normal ArmA lod bugs or missing textures, theyre full blown distortions on my screen - the cursor will flash some wierd, archaic colours and such, and the rest of the screen blinks with the same thing...

You think it could be due to one of my graphics cards overheating? The people at the company where I got the PC from said that those problems I had before were due to one of my graphics cards being faulty, so they replaced it and the system now seems to be running ok..

When I alt tab out of game and tab back in, the problem is gone and I can play again alright for a shorter amount of time and then they seem to come again, and the GPU's are also showing at a normal temperature, so I'm at a loss...
I haven't been able to screenshot the occurences because theyre so unpredictable and dont seem to come out of screenshots.

Little help?

Posted by: Linker Split Apr 5 2007, 00:21

QUOTE(da rat @ Feb 28 2007, 18:39)

Posted by: Elliot Carver Apr 5 2007, 23:42

lo dudes,
Heres the problem:
Old PC with a Radeon Saphhire X700 working fine up untill around lunch today. Was playing Sims2 on it when suddenly the screen went like this: http://www.rainbowbunnie.co.uk/images/SS/simsarefucked.JPG Then tried it on RFonline with this result: http://www.rainbowbunnie.co.uk/images/SS/untitled.JPG
Its been working fine for 6 months since i got it and the card itself is only a year old. No settings have been fiddled with. The only new thing to happen within the last 24 hours is a standard windows update came through and was installed. But the computer worked fine with the new update untill lunch when it went wrong.
Is it teh fked up or can it be saved?
Cheers
Carver

Posted by: JdB Apr 6 2007, 00:20

I think the GPU is either overheating (unlikely since you've had it for about a year) or just plain busted.

There are some other possible causes as well, but I can't think of them at this late hour...

Posted by: hotdog Apr 6 2007, 05:50

QUOTE(da rat @ Apr 5 2007, 00:56)

Right, so got my PC back a few weeks ago, everything seems to be working ok now.

Apart from when I have been playing ArmA for a while (10-20 mins or so?) I get these wierd graphical screw ups - and no they arent the normal ArmA lod bugs or missing textures, theyre full blown distortions on my screen - the cursor will flash some wierd, archaic colours and such, and the rest of the screen blinks with the same thing...

You think it could be due to one of my graphics cards overheating? The people at the company where I got the PC from said that those problems I had before were due to one of my graphics cards being faulty, so they replaced it and the system now seems to be running ok..

When I alt tab out of game and tab back in, the problem is gone and I can play again alright for a shorter amount of time and then they seem to come again, and the GPU's are also showing at a normal temperature, so I'm at a loss...
I haven't been able to screenshot the occurences because theyre so unpredictable and dont seem to come out of screenshots.

Little help?

Posted by: da rat Apr 6 2007, 08:25

Ok guys, cheers for the responses.

Well, let's just say, do you think a 600W PSU is even good enough for 2x 512Mb GPU's? (Dunno if the cpu or comes into the juristicion of the PSU, but it's an E6700 2x2.66Ghz)

Also, I'm thinking this could be how one of the other GPU's snuffed it causing all those other problems - You think the PSU being broken / underpowered / insufficient might have caused that? Sure seems likley to me

Posted by: JdB Apr 6 2007, 12:23

What brand is it?

Cheaper brands can be labelled as 500 watt or 600 watt, but what they output is often alot less than a PSU of a good brand with the same amount of watts indicated on it.

I personally prefer Zalman's because the test results are always good, and I have good experience with them (they are expensive though, the one I have in this pc is 360 watt and cost me €60). OCZ or Coolermaster are also good brands.

Posted by: da rat Apr 6 2007, 12:33

Hold that thought a minute, there's a whole lotta crap going on with this PC, it's f*cking ridiculous!

I'll just give you a quick rundown of all the nonsense that's been happening with it these last few days in the hope that anyone can make sense of it-

- Firstly there's the issue of the GPU possibly overheating, but that's not the main issue right now (I think)

- It keeps freezing up!
Even in ridiculously small apps - eg, a minute ago, I got a message on MSN (no other convo's going at the same time, I had just signed in.) I click on it and BOOM! Frozen up. I tried all the normal stuff, alt+tab, task manager etc, but they didnt come up/ help to bring it back to normal. So I struggle through trying to bring up the shut down box (10 mins at least) and click it.... *another 5 mins* the box come up, I click shut down *20 mins* of "are you sure you want to end this process?" until finally I just turn it off at the button.
It freezes up on everything, sometimes on IE, sometimes in Photoshop, and all for minutes at a time... (the mouse is still working throughout - working as in movable, not clickable)

- I tried to turn it back on a min ago, but lo and behold, nothing except a rhythmical noise that sounded alot like the HDD (?) (wasn't a BIOS beep, sounded more like something struggling or some such...) It actually failed to start.


For the love of God, has anyone got ANY IDEA what the hell is wrong with this PC???

EDIT: I'm not exactly sure of the PSU make, the company doesn't actually specify what brand the components are because they use many. Is there any way I can find out other than taking the PC apart?

Posted by: Old Bear Apr 6 2007, 13:01

To know what's in your PC try http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php , its free

Posted by: da rat Apr 6 2007, 14:11

Ok, thanks Bear. What info do you need about the PSU JdB? (I have looked, but not entirley sure what I'm looking for - doesnt say the brand or anything so what numbers do you need? )

Posted by: JdB Apr 6 2007, 15:18

QUOTE(Old Bear @ Apr 6 2007, 14:01)

Posted by: da rat Apr 6 2007, 17:07

http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=systeminfoscreenshotgq5.jpg -There you go.
I'm not sure if that will suffice, so just say if you need any more

1. Very fresh install of Windows [~1 month] (clean too, no sponsor programs, done a couple of virus checks too and it's clean)
2. Case not opened recently by myself, or moved (apart from transport, but there was quite alot of protective packaging) [now you come to mention it, there is a dent on the forward top of the case ]
3. Never had any problems before with positioning, and the fan is working etc.

Cheers again for the help

Posted by: da rat Apr 10 2007, 14:07

The thing that angers me most about all these problems I'm having is that one minute they're there, another they're gone. The previous problems are now nowhere to be found, and I cannot replicate them. At least if they were constant, I could have someone diagnose and fix them...

I have a new problem now. My sound has gone wierd.. I can hear sounds from MSN and Windows sounds (startup, shutdown), but things like Youtube are distorted. The sounds I do hear from Windows and MSN are distorted too - they sound really strange... Not normal at all...

Anyone got any ideas?

EDIT: I can hear youtube sound when a sound comes through from MSN (message beep) etc.. Like, when the message beep comes through, behind that I hear youtube, then when the MSN sound is finished, so is youtube's...


EDIT: FIXED I plugged my speakers into one of the other speaker ports, and they work fine there... Makes perfect sense ehhh.....

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Apr 25 2007, 00:01

thinking of getting new computer soon. Heres a noobish question, Mac or PC?

Posted by: Red Square Monkey Apr 25 2007, 14:35

QUOTE(BigglesTrevor @ Apr 25 2007, 01:01)

Posted by: Lt. Earth Apple Apr 28 2007, 12:11

If you want to play ArmA on your old computer and everything else on Mac, it's ok... but no way to choose a Mac because of RSM's quoted compatibility problems as your main computer

Posted by: Sgt Savage May 16 2007, 15:20

After contemplating what new rig I will need to run Arma effectivley, i came across this post. I gathered enough information to determine how my new rig might be set up. However has anyone got Arma running on these specs or similar and if so whats the performance like?

Specs:

MSI 8800GTX SLI Gfx Card
Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo dual core chip(2.4 Ghz)
2GB DDR 2 800Mhz ram low latency 4.4.4.12
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 motherboard

QUOTE(King Homer @ Nov 24 2006, 20:43)

Posted by: JdB May 16 2007, 16:52

QUOTE(Sgt Savage @ May 16 2007, 16:20)

has anyone considered when OPF 2 (am i allowed to say that here? ) is released that it may ultilize both cores?

Posted by: Sgt Savage May 17 2007, 09:25

QUOTE(JdB @ May 17 2007, 01:52)

And have you considered that your new computer will be far outdated by the time it is released (it was set for 2008 until ArmA got pushed back by over a year)? 2009 if we're (really) lucky...

Posted by: da rat May 30 2007, 17:53

Quick nooby question:

Is changing drivers for GPU's and such actually in any way dangerous? Could doing so cause permanent damage?
Could the problems I had not too long ago with my GPU have come as a result of a driver change, or do you think it would have had to be faulty in the first place?

Cheers

Posted by: kennedy Jun 26 2007, 11:38

Can someone please tell me, or preferably PM me, and let me know if the Aurora™ mALX from Alienware is a good laptop to buy, games wise? It seems to be a beast:

Display: 19" WideSXGA+ 1680 x 1050 LCD Display with Built-in 1.3 Mega Pixel Camera - Space Black
Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Professional UK with SP2 - English
Processor: AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile ML44 2.4GHz 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
Motherboard: Alienware® NVIDIA® NForce 4 SLI Chipset
Graphics Processor : Dual 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GTX - SLI Technology
Memory: 1GB DDR SO-DIMM at 400MHz - 2 x 512MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 160GB 5400 RPM SATA
CD/DVD/RW: DVD-Burner: 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo w/Software
Sound Hardware: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA
Keypad: Mobile Keypad - English
Optional Mouse: Logitech® MX™518 Gaming-Grade™ Optical Mouse
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Wireless Network Card: Internal Wireless 802.11a/b/g miniPCI Card
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive

Please advise!

Posted by: pMASTER Jul 11 2007, 00:18

if i may interrupt the line with a software question...does anyone know a software tool to record sounds that are played on your pc? i mean, for example a tool that runs as a programme among other active applications and tapes every sound in arma, only as an example?

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Jul 15 2007, 01:18

hey guys about processors

whats better a Intel CORE 2 QUAD CORE Q6600 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Dual Core Processor?

Posted by: Linker Split Jul 15 2007, 01:30

QUOTE(BigglesTrevor @ Jul 15 2007, 02:18)

Posted by: FABfm Aug 2 2007, 15:18

QUOTE(pMASTER @ Jul 11 2007, 01:18)

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Aug 14 2007, 11:21

hey all, getting a amd athlon x2 6000+, g force 8800gts (256mb), 2gb RAM. Good system? will this play arma and other demanding games (eg. oblivion) well?

Posted by: Deadeye Aug 14 2007, 12:00

yes

Posted by: Helping Hand Aug 14 2007, 13:01

Quick question frome me now i have my money.

What do you guys think to;

An nvidia 8800gts 640mb
2GB of ram
an intel core 2 duo e6550 2.33GhZ processor

decent system ?

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Aug 21 2007, 18:43

im about to buy a very similar system. the guy im buying off showed me some tests and the benchtests of the 8800 is insanely good.

Posted by: Helping Hand Aug 22 2007, 11:28

I've heard of problems with ArmA and it though...

Posted by: King Homer Aug 22 2007, 13:28

Just read the quote few posts above. ArmA isn't everything. Buying a Geforce 8800 is an investment for the future. Due to the fact it uses already the DX10 technology it the best choice for the coming 2 years. My advice: save enough money for the 8800 Ultra and you have the ultimate gaming rig and of course you may buy the E6600, it's just a few bucks more.

Posted by: Helping Hand Aug 22 2007, 15:08

Thoughts?

Will cost me £746.01 to purchase.


System Configuration

Motherboard
Asus M2N4-SLI AM2, SLI, SATA2, GBLan, 5.1Snd, ATX

Processor
AMD Athlon64 6000 Socket AM2 Dual Core Processor - Retail

Memory Slot 1
OCZ Platinum XTC v2 2048MB PC2-6400 DDR2 Dual Kit

Graphics Slot SLi 1
640MB nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS PCI-Express VGA Card

Modem
PCI Full Rate ADSL MODEM CARD £16.95
TV Card

Optical Device 1
NEC AD5170A-0B 18X+/-DVD-R Dual Layer Dvd Writer- Black

SATA Device 1
250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax21 SATAI/II 8Mb Cache Hard Drive

Floppy Drive Bay 1
3.5 1.44Mb Floppy Disk Drive -Black Facia-

Floppy Drive Bay 2
33-in-1 USB2.0 Card Reader 3.5 Internal/External -Black

Case
CoolerMaster Centurion 532 Black ATX Case, No PSU

Power Supply Unit
CoolerMaster Silent Real Power 550W ATX PSU w/ Power Disp.

Operating System
MicroSoft Windows XP Home Edition -OEM-

Regards HH

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Aug 24 2007, 23:29

its a good price thats for sure. you building that yourself?

Posted by: Helping Hand Aug 25 2007, 09:31

Its changed a little since that but nah its built for me by eclipse computers.

Posted by: JdB Aug 25 2007, 15:50

QUOTE(Helping Hand @ Aug 22 2007, 16:08)

Posted by: Helping Hand Aug 25 2007, 17:12

As I said it's changed a bit. RAM is still the same clock speed etc but no longer the "platinum" stuff.
Intel CPU will cost me considerablly more so not sure if i'll get one.
got rid of the modem.
also got rid of the floppy.

as for a scuzzie drive I will see what I can find.

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Aug 25 2007, 19:19

is corsair the best RAM out there?

Posted by: JdB Aug 26 2007, 00:33

QUOTE(BigglesTrevor @ Aug 25 2007, 20:19)

Posted by: Helping Hand Aug 27 2007, 12:36

System Configuration

Motherboard
Asus P5NESLI S775,DDR2,PCI-E,SATA2,5.1Snd,GBLan, ATX £92.95
Processor
Intel Core2 Quad 6600 2.4Ghz LGA775 Processor £161.55
Memory Slot 1
2048Mb (2X1024Mb) Dual Channel DDR2 800Mhz Memory £41.77
Memory Slot 2
None
Graphics Slot SLi 1
640MB nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS PCI-Express VGA Card £189.95
SLi Slot 2 (Must be same as SLi 1 Slot)

Network
Onboard
Optical Device 1
NEC AD5170A-0B 18X+/-DVD-R Dual Layer Dvd Writer- Black £15.95

SATA Device 1
250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax21 SATAI/II 8Mb Cache Hard Drive £28.50

Case
Briza ATX Black Case with 400w PSU, Side Dust Filter £34.63

Operating System
MicroSoft Windows XP Home Edition -OEM- £51.95
Application Software
MicroSoft Works v8.5 -oem- £4.95
Internet Security
None
Anti-Virus Software
None
Optical Drive Software
None
Warranty
Bronze Eclipse System Warranty (1Year RTB + Premier30)

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Aug 28 2007, 16:01

just bought my new system, should be ready monday.

athlon duel 6000+
8800gts 640mb
2gb RAM
2 x 250gb HD

pricy at £900 but what the hell i dont mind supporting a local buisness.

Posted by: da rat Sep 2 2007, 21:57

So, I'm getting a laptop for school - I say ~for school~, but of course I'd like to be able to play games on it if at all possible (not anywhere near full-settings-uber-recent games I might add like ArmA)

Basically I'm wondering if anyone knows good sites or shops for decent laptops around the £350 mark.

So far I've turned up http://www.staples.co.uk/eng/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?webid=391058&catIds=%2C&affixedcode=WW. What do you think? I'm pretty happy with that so far, but of course if you guys know anything different I'll take a look Anyone heard of that graphics card before? "ATI Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M up to 256MB"

I'd appreciate your input on this one guys
Cheers

Posted by: JdB Sep 2 2007, 22:04

Most laptops meant for "work" only (meaning of little use for playing games) are in the €600-€900 region. That "graphics card" is only good for office applications, since it uses shared memory (meaning it takes some of the RAM and uses it to process graphics).

Posted by: The Lord Sep 2 2007, 22:04

try www.cyberpowersystems.co.uk

No idea what their laptops are but they custom build PCs and they seem pretty good, got my new rig off of them.

You aint gonna get that good a lappy for £350 man!

Posted by: D@V£ Sep 2 2007, 22:32

I can't confirm this, but AFAIK, the XPress series of cards are motherboard intergrated.

Posted by: da rat Sep 2 2007, 23:09

Ok dudes, thanks for your respective inputs (inpies? )

I've tried a few custom build sites, but they all start pretty high in price seeing as they're built for gaming

I guess I'll just go with that one from Staples that I linked to (http://www.staples.co.uk/eng/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?webid=391058&catIds=%2C&affixedcode=WW)
Seems like the best one I'll be able to get for that money.

Quick question though, when it says:

Posted by: JdB Sep 2 2007, 23:12

QUOTE(da rat @ Sep 3 2007, 00:09)

Quick question though, when it says:
Would you assume that to mean it has an inbuilt wireless reciever (I would have imagined they would list that under the "Modem" section )

Posted by: da rat Sep 2 2007, 23:19

QUOTE(JdB @ Sep 2 2007, 23:12)

Posted by: JdB Sep 2 2007, 23:30

Wouldn't install Vista on it btw (don't think it can even be installed), it will produce a smoking sensation most likely. I'd either install a Linux build (More secure, and just as easy to use once you get the hang of it. Compatability doesn't matter since you won't need to play games anyway, and it connects easily to Windows (though not the other way around)) or good ol' Win XP.

Posted by: Helping Hand Sep 2 2007, 23:33

IMHO XP Pro suits most needs. At work we had vista for browsing the web and making the office look nice the rest of the machines had either XP pro or Linux and we had one Mac.

Posted by: D@V£ Sep 2 2007, 23:33

Actually, dispite all this Vista bashing, I've heard it's quite a reliable operating system and can run most old software. Other than being a bit of a memory hog that is. But, not having tried Vista I wouldn't know...

Posted by: Helping Hand Sep 2 2007, 23:35

It takes a bit of getting used to and is quite weird with all the gymics of trasparency etc.

Posted by: JdB Sep 2 2007, 23:39

QUOTE(Helping Hand @ Sep 3 2007, 00:35)

Posted by: da rat Sep 3 2007, 00:06

Hmm, well it comes with Vista pre-installed Was reading a review of it too and they said it didn't seem to have much trouble running Vista

Well, I guess I'll try it out and if it has trouble with it I'll wack XP onto it

Posted by: Helping Hand Sep 3 2007, 00:10

Could just try eclipse...

Posted by: da rat Sep 3 2007, 00:23

Well, the ones on Eclipse didn't have inbuilt wireless capabilities (needed for school) and from the tinkering I did, I think I'd be getting more out of this one from Staples than from them.. I'll have another look and compare prices.

EDIT: Yeah, the best one I could do from Eclipse was £426.67 against Staples' £339.99 - and that was without wireless and a DVD drive

EDIT2: Goddammit, I was going to order it today (3rd September) but the promotion for a free Multimedia kit (speakers, keyboard, mouse, headset) ended on the 2nd

Posted by: JdB Sep 3 2007, 00:26

QUOTE(da rat @ Sep 3 2007, 01:23)

Posted by: da rat Sep 3 2007, 00:34

Thanks for the headsup

I currently have a wired router, so I'll just ethernet cable it up to that rather than get a wireless one. I only really need to use the school's network wirelessly so that's alright

Thanks again for your help dudes

Posted by: pMASTER Sep 5 2007, 16:44

Something different...I've got the image of a data cd I'd need now. Unfortunately my brother created it once, I don't have an idea how exactly he did that. The concerning folder contains 36 equal files named after their ordinal...

Posted by: JdB Sep 5 2007, 18:19

QUOTE(pMASTER @ Sep 5 2007, 17:44)

Something different...I've got the image of a data cd I'd need now. Unfortunately my brother created it once, I don't have an idea how exactly he did that. The concerning folder contains 36 equal files named after their ordinal...

...and so on. Last but not least, there is a datencd1.sfv-file. How do I open this kind of image? I've already tried to handle this with Deamon tools but it doesn't work either.

Any help is very appreciated!

Posted by: pMASTER Sep 5 2007, 20:23

QUOTE(JdB @ Sep 5 2007, 19:19)

Posted by: pMASTER Sep 8 2007, 13:46

I've forgotten to mention that it worked fine, thanks!

But I have to come up with another question, namely whether it is possible to create an image file, regardless of which kind exactly now, with data from my HDD directly on the HDD itself, without using a CD?

Posted by: JdB Sep 8 2007, 16:29

To be able to do this you need to have Nero Burning Rom installed. I use Nero 7 Premium, depending on different versions this process might differ a little.

-Open Nero Express;
-There should be a button on the left side of the window that opens with an arrow pointing left, click it;
-Under "Recorder" there will be a button, with text "Use Nero Image Recorder" next to it, hit the empty square so it is checked;
-Then choose Data - Data CD or Data - Data DVD from the main screen, it should be the option at the very top of the list;
-Click on "Next" at the bottom right of the screen;
-Choose the things you want in the image in this screen, when done click "Next" again;
-Be sure to choose "ISO" when naming the image, it is the most supported image-format, unlike .NRG;
-Name the image-file that is about to be created;
-Hit the button that says "Burn";
-Done.

Use Daemon Tools (freeware) to load the image (in effect creating a Virtual Disc).

Posted by: pMASTER Sep 8 2007, 16:37

Thanks for the help

Posted by: da rat Sep 10 2007, 20:07

Who knows about WiFi stuff?
My laptop keeps saying "connected with limited access" when trying to connect to the WiFi network I installed last week - basically meaning I can't connect to the internet or anything with it... It was working fine earlier, so I'm completely lost... It's all set up correctly and no settings have been changed.

One thing that might be worth noting is that earlier I had a power outage that caused my base PC to lose power and shut down instantly - could that have buggered up the WiFi antenna? (Dunno if I told you, but it's a small antenna that plugs into the back of my Motherboard) ( looks like this: http://www.hardwarezone.com/img/data/articles/2006/1958/p5w_DH.jpg) - so it's only a small little thing..)

Could it have been fried or something? I'm completely lost...

EDIT: When trying to connect, it says:
"Connection unsuccessful
This computer is connected to 'my network' but does not have access to the internet
- this may be caused by an incorrect WEP key or low wireless signal strength*"

*Yet it still says "Signal Strength: Excellent"

What the hell.. I wish I knew more about this stuff...

Tried restarting router, changing settings etc.. just wont connect..

Help!

Posted by: JdB Sep 10 2007, 20:42

QUOTE(da rat @ Sep 10 2007, 21:07)

Could it have been fried or something? I'm completely lost...

EDIT: When trying to connect, it says:
"Connection unsuccessful
This computer is connected to 'my network' but does not have access to the internet
- this may be caused by an incorrect WEP key or low wireless signal strength*"

*Yet it still says "Signal Strength: Excellent"

Posted by: da rat Sep 10 2007, 23:32

Yeah, it runs off my main PC - "Access Point"

I don't remember setting an actual WEP key when I configured it the first time, but a password instead.. Do you think it's possible to bump it back to factory settings or something? I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with this WiFi stuff, it's a whole new ball game for me

Tried turning off my router, both computers, playing with lots of settings who's meaning I have no idea about...

The laptop says it can connect to the network, the signal strength is excellent, but it either says: "Limited Connectivity" or "Local Only" ...

Posted by: JdB Sep 10 2007, 23:54

QUOTE(da rat @ Sep 11 2007, 00:32)

Yeah, it runs off my main PC - "Access Point"

I don't remember setting an actual WEP key when I configured it the first time, but a password instead.. Do you think it's possible to bump it back to factory settings or something? I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with this WiFi stuff, it's a whole new ball game for me

Posted by: d@nte Sep 11 2007, 00:10

what does that mean? this is for my pc

"2.19 GHz Performance Rated at 3.40 GHz"

sorry but i'm a noob for all these questions.

Posted by: JdB Sep 11 2007, 00:19

QUOTE(d@nte @ Sep 11 2007, 01:10)

Posted by: d@nte Sep 11 2007, 01:19

Posted by: Blackscorpion Sep 11 2007, 14:05

AMD chips differ from Intel ones technologically, in that they can deliver the same amount of calculations as a Pentium with smaller clock rate, basically. Thus the 4-digit designations, i.e. AMD Athlon XP 3000+ is rougly comparable with a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, while being frequency rated at around 2.2.

Posted by: da rat Sep 11 2007, 16:24

QUOTE(JdB @ Sep 10 2007, 23:54)

Posted by: d@nte Sep 11 2007, 17:37

QUOTE(Blackscorpion @ Sep 11 2007, 15:05)

Posted by: JdB Sep 11 2007, 18:22

QUOTE(da rat @ Sep 11 2007, 17:24)

Posted by: BigglesTrevor Sep 11 2007, 19:16

hey small problem, i acidentgly wacked a key on my keyboard and now my taskbar and command bar hide themselves on internet explorer so its always full screen, how to a take this back?

Posted by: da rat Sep 11 2007, 19:22

@JdB: Have done some hunting on the net, and it seems that it could be a bug with Vista itself?
http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?t=229064
and
http://help.lockergnome.com/vista/DOA-Unidentified-Network-Access-Local-ftopict22152.html
Seem to have the same problems as me
Vistas end or mine?

EDIT: OK, scratch that for an idea I think at this moment in time.. The other laptop in the house (XP) says exactly the same thing as my Vista one (Limited or no connectivity) - Basically it's 'connected' to the network, but can't access the internet.

So now I'm totally stumped... It must be a problem with my Wireless coming from my main PC.. But I have no idea what to do to try and fix it..
Ideas?

Posted by: JdB Sep 11 2007, 21:55

QUOTE(BigglesTrevor @ Sep 11 2007, 20:16)

Posted by: The Lord Sep 11 2007, 22:14

Hmm! Well if it is nothing to do with the range, which I assume you have tried, perhaps you havent set it up to share the internet from once PC? I cant remember exactly how, but theres an option to Allow Users To COnnect To The Internet Through This PC somewhere in the settings.
Just an idea, that would explain why its connected but cant get at anything.

Posted by: JdB Sep 11 2007, 22:17

QUOTE(The Lord @ Sep 11 2007, 23:14)

Posted by: da rat Sep 11 2007, 22:33

Yeah, it had worked fine before, but really suddenly (with no changes made to the settings) stopped...

I'm not exactly sure what I should be uninstalling + reinstalling though?

Posted by: JdB Sep 11 2007, 22:42

Uninstall the wireless devices, than use the autodetect to reinstall them. Then set up a new network between the pc and laptop.

Also try to post some screenshots of the settings of your wireless device and network.

Posted by: Helping Hand Sep 12 2007, 12:32

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0776148012.1189596526@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdiaddlmijfhdfcflgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=203886&category_oid=-27751

That will be the laptop that I'm getting in addition to my new PC instead of an airsoft gun... Any issues cept vista ?

Posted by: D@V£ Sep 12 2007, 13:54

It's from PissyWorld!

I'd consider getting one with a higher battery life though, my old laptop had a similar life, and, to be honest 1 and 1/2 hours goes damn quickley.

Posted by: Helping Hand Sep 12 2007, 14:13

I'll have a looksy around.

Posted by: da rat Sep 12 2007, 16:50

Uninstalled all wireless devices and reinstalled on the main PC - no luck.

The laptop says:
"Windows cannot connect to 'nameofwirelessnetwork'
This network is marked as a "hidden" network and is either not in range of this computer or the wireless settings saved on this computer do not match the settings of the network."
Wha? It's definatley in range...

I'll PM you some screenshots of settings in a min

EDIT: Hmm, I've been looking around on Yahoo Answers (actually a really useful site, loads of questions and answers on there ) and some people who are describing identical problems to me are getting answers saying stuff like:

Posted by: da rat Sep 13 2007, 16:54

Yet another bloody problem...

This one to do with the internet directly. When downloading, progress just stops..

That's it basically - the download window just stops updating and even stays saying the download speed (e.g. 60kbs) like it was still downloading, although it isn't..

Also, videos on youtube etc seem to just stop buffering too...

It's like this on Firefox and IE... Anyone ever experienced anything like this?

Posted by: Helping Hand Sep 13 2007, 21:55

Yep I get it all the time constantly on my current PC.

Posted by: D@V£ Sep 14 2007, 00:02

Hmm... Do you have anything like a mobile phone near your PC? I used to have mine next to my PC and it caused problems with the wireless, I've moved it now and the problems gone.


(I don't know why I had it there in the first place... no one calls me anyway! )

Posted by: Helping Hand Sep 14 2007, 07:14

... But mine is a wired connection.

Posted by: JdB Sep 14 2007, 11:50

Start - Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt (assuming the path is the same in Vista, if you have a "Run" option in your Start Menu it's even easier, just type "cmd" and hit enter)

cd\ <hit enter>
ipconfig /all <hit enter>

Post the data (in a screenshot) that shows up there on both the pc and the laptop.

Posted by: da rat Sep 14 2007, 16:25

I think that's PM stuff
PM'd

Posted by: JdB Sep 14 2007, 17:22

You're laptop is not getting assigned an IP address by the DHCP server (should be the router in this case, or otherwise the pc, depending on how much the configuration is off).

The easiest thing to do is to set fixed IP addresses thereby bypassing the DHCP server.

Edit: do you know the IP address of your router for configuration? Have you looked in there?

Also do the following on both machines:

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

To have new IP addresses assigned (well, hopefully )

Edit #2: Haha, I see that the 3 devices you aren't using are acting as DHCP servers, look at how many Networks you have, at disable all those that you don't want to use (so only the wireless network should be left enabled).

Do the following to get static IP's:

Go to the Control Panel, then to Network Connections. Select the network you want to use with the right mouse button and choose Properties. Select Internet Protocol TCP/IP from the list and choose Properties. Choose Use the following IP address, and enter these settings:

PC:
ip adres 10.0.0.150
subnetmasker 255.255.255.0
gateway <router IP> (I don't know what it is)

Do the same for the laptop, but with the following data:

Laptop:
ip adres 10.0.0.151
subnetmasker 255.255.255.0
gateway <router IP> (I don't know what it is)

Alternatively you could use 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2, but shouldn't matter.

Posted by: da rat Sep 14 2007, 18:13

Rushed for time now, gotta leave
I'll do this on sunday, thanks for your help

Posted by: da rat Sep 16 2007, 19:43

Christ, why can't I just steal you and force you to fix it for me in person

Posted by: JdB Sep 16 2007, 19:50

About the elevation, it means you need higher user priviliges, Administrator.

To get around this go to All Programs, Accessories, right click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator.

QUOTE(da rat @ Sep 16 2007, 20:43)