Looking to buy a new computer

[Patrukas777]

I would be able to tell you within 5 minutes what was wrong with a few simple stress tests. Sounds to me that it is most likely the memory or the power supply. Most likely memory though as you usually won't get a BSOD with a PSU as it will either shutdown or hard restart without a BSOD.
Is this an OEM PC or a custom build? I would check the BIOS and make sure your timings and voltage are right for the memory that you have installed in the system.

My comp is a OEM. I don't know how to check the BIOS lol, and I would have no idea if the timing and voltage are right for the memory. I don't know much about comps.

 

[Patrukas777]

Here's the first stress test that I just ran using IntelBurnTest, set custom with 896mb ram. Why did it take so long?

Time (s) [Speed (GFlops)] Result
334.706 2.1626 3.936686e-002
338.535 2.1381 3.936686e-002
343.126 2.1095 3.936686e-002
350.971 2.0624 3.936686e-002
339.988 2.1290 3.936686e-002

2nd test was at 1024 mb ram:

Time (s) [Speed (GFlops)] Result
433.338 2.0628 5.122968e-002
431.642 2.0709 5.122968e-002
499.617 1.7891 5.122968e-002
401.136 2.2284 5.122968e-002
465.942 1.9184 5.122968e-002

 

[Patrukas777]

Here's the 3rd test thats set at Maximum.

Time (s).......... [Speed (GFlops)].......... Result
#1 687.878......... 1.6394......... 3.377808e-002
#2 530.136......... 2.1272......... 3.377808e-002
#3 563.231......... 2.0022......... 3.377808e-002
#4 543.520......... 2.0748......... 3.377808e-002
#5 634.570......... 1.7771......... 3.377808e-002


Do you guys think it may be the HD?

 

[Shock]

Not to be a downer but 99% of computer problems are linked to user error. If you're having so many problems with your computers I'm not too sure you'll find anything different with a new operating system or new computer.

I've used every operating system under the sun, and have never had a problem with crashes, bsod's or any other software related problems.

My advice, is and will always be build your own. Even if you don't know how to do it, BUILD YOUR OWN. It's just like putting together a home theatre. Do you feel good when someone else comes in hooks everything up then leaves you to your own devices? Once you educate yourself on what makes your computer do what it's doing, then fixing and taking care of it will come second nature.

In reality, putting together a computer is easier than assembling your home theatre. There are less connections and they pretty much can only go in one spot.

P.S. I haven't read the entire thread, so this might be out of place


P.P.S. Mac's are for little girly men.

 

[Shock]

I normally keep my computer running, and reboot it every few days...and sometimes daily, just depends. 3 of my crashes happened while I was typing something

Don't do this unless you're running something in the background like FOLDING or such. There's no reason to leave a computer on when not in use. Albeit they do not use a terrible amount of power idling, it still adds up and is a waste of electricity.

 

[Shock]

I agree with most of what you're saying. The arguments that I believe are mute are: the card is cheaper (sometimes 10-20 bucks...who cares- maybe if you only work a part time job), quieter (by 1-2 db..big whoop when within a range o 40 - 42db), better looking (really), or the famous "just because."...just to give few examples. I totally agree with what your saying when it comes to SSA and MSA...CUDA, Physx, Better DirectX 11 tesselation and others. Because some games were built using one cards features.

My research is pointing to the Nvidia 570/580, as opposed to the AMD 6970. If I were to utilize more than 1 monitor, then the 6970 all the way. For gaming the higher-end Nvidia cards seem a little better. Both definitely have their pros and cons.

The 580 is the fastest single GPU card out right now, but by no means is it worth the money. I actually just picked up two Zotac 560 TI's from NCIX on a daily special for 209 bucks each, which combined still comes in under the 580 by 100 bucks. The driver's on nvidia cards are, plain and simple, just better. In reality some of this has to do with their stability, but I just find the features of them are more intuitive and easier to use. Setting up multi monitors, and calibrating at a software level is easier.

I'd definitely say the 560's are the best deal in price/performance right now, even better than the 460's. Some 560's are coming massively overclocked right out of the box as well. It seems Nvidia took all of the great points of the 460's and improved them with the 560's.

 

[Patrukas777]

Not to be a downer but 99% of computer problems are linked to user error. If you're having so many problems with your computers I'm not too sure you'll find anything different with a new operating system or new computer.

I've used every operating system under the sun, and have never had a problem with crashes, bsod's or any other software related problems.

My advice, is and will always be build your own. Even if you don't know how to do it, BUILD YOUR OWN. It's just like putting together a home theatre. Do you feel good when someone else comes in hooks everything up then leaves you to your own devices? Once you educate yourself on what makes your computer do what it's doing, then fixing and taking care of it will come second nature.

In reality, putting together a computer is easier than assembling your home theatre. There are less connections and they pretty much can only go in one spot.

P.S. I haven't read the entire thread, so this might be out of place


P.P.S. Mac's are for little girly men.

Well, on this computer all I do is roam the internet. It does not have enough horsepower to handle the games these days. In regards to user error...Don't really see what I'm doing wrong aside from leaving my computer on for long periods of time. I don't download silly programs, I don't open files/download images in emails, I run virus scans daily, and I only go to trusted sites and check my email (sites such as audioholics, facebook, hotmail, and murder city). I also check and update windows constantly. A lot of what I read has told me that Vista OS has lots of instability problems (I think this is a major contributing factor in my comp problems).

 

[jeffsg4mac]

Well, on this computer all I do is roam the internet. It does not have enough horsepower to handle the games these days. In regards to user error...Don't really see what I'm doing wrong aside from leaving my computer on for long periods of time. I don't download silly programs, I don't open files/download images in emails, I run virus scans daily, and I only go to trusted sites and check my email (sites such as audioholics, facebook, hotmail, and murder city). I also check and update windows constantly. A lot of what I read has told me that Vista OS has lots of instability problems (I think this is a major contributing factor in my comp problems).

I wish that I would have made a screen print of my uptime before I did this last Apple OS update. It was like 264 days or something

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I wish that I would have made a screen print of my uptime before I did this last Apple OS update. It was like 264 days or something

Some of my windows servers have uptime over two year...

 

[The_Source41]

P.P.S. Mac's are for little girly men.

I don't think we should completely say this because alot of the music out there is produced using Macs. As much as I don't like them for personal computers since I Game there are lots of things that Macs do well.

 

[krzywica]

Here's the 3rd test thats set at Maximum.

Time (s).......... [Speed (GFlops)].......... Result
#1 687.878......... 1.6394......... 3.377808e-002
#2 530.136......... 2.1272......... 3.377808e-002
#3 563.231......... 2.0022......... 3.377808e-002
#4 543.520......... 2.0748......... 3.377808e-002
#5 634.570......... 1.7771......... 3.377808e-002


Do you guys think it may be the HD?

Hmm......got all the way through the stress testing. This test puts extreme stress on the memory and CPU. I'm thinking this sounds like a bad Power Supply if it is in fact a hardware issue. I would try a fresh install though as often times when you have several crashes some of the sectors on the hard drive will get corrupted and cause major headaches that are extremely hard to troubleshoot.

I've used every operating system under the sun, and have never had a problem with crashes, bsod's or any other software related problems.

Obviously you've never use Windows ME or windows Vista. Both were steaming piles of crap when stability and efficiency were concerned.

Don't do this unless you're running something in the background like FOLDING or such. There's no reason to leave a computer on when not in use. Albeit they do not use a terrible amount of power idling, it still adds up and is a waste of electricity.

Or unless you are hosting any services....

 

[Shock]

Obviously you've never use Windows ME or windows Vista. Both were steaming piles of crap when stability and efficiency were concerned.

I didn't use ME as it wasn't really out for a long time before something better came along. However I did use Vista quite extensively, and never encountered any problems with it besides finding good drivers when it was first released.

People complain about vista because it really was just a side-grade from XP, and jumping on the "Vista sucked" bandwagon is the thing to do.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

People complain about vista because it really was just a side-grade from XP, and jumping on the "Vista sucked" bandwagon is the thing to do.

Lets be honest, before Vista SP1 - original vista rtm sucked. It was very slow to say at least.

 

[Patrukas777]

Hmm......got all the way through the stress testing. This test puts extreme stress on the memory and CPU. I'm thinking this sounds like a bad Power Supply if it is in fact a hardware issue. I would try a fresh install though as often times when you have several crashes some of the sectors on the hard drive will get corrupted and cause major headaches that are extremely hard to troubleshoot.

Any reason why it took so long? From what I read, it was supposed to take only a few seconds each lol

 

[krzywica]

I didn't use ME as it wasn't really out for a long time before something better came along. However I did use Vista quite extensively, and never encountered any problems with it besides finding good drivers when it was first released.

People complain about vista because it really was just a side-grade from XP, and jumping on the "Vista sucked" bandwagon is the thing to do.

Vista was really bad, period. I was in the Alpha, Beta, and RC stages and it was bad all the way through. Just look at some of the kernel changes from Vista to W7 and you will go "holy crap why didn't they fix that sooner?". For example the VGA and system memory used for the window handler in Vista used memory exponentially for each open window....making it extremely slow and unstable for multitasking.

Any reason why it took so long? From what I read, it was supposed to take only a few seconds each lol

Your CPU is just slow, look at the Gflops portion of that app and think of it as the "horsepower" of your PC. Mine runs 5 passes in only 125 seconds...but look at the Gflops that it can put out.

Thats with an Intel i7 860@4Ghz.

 

[Patrukas777]

Your CPU is just slow, look at the Gflops portion of that app and think of it as the "horsepower" of your PC. Mine runs 5 passes in only 125 seconds...but look at the Gflops that it can put out.

Thats with an Intel i7 860@4Ghz.

LOL...then I must have one of the most weakest cpu's out there haha

I can't wait to build my own. I think its going to be fun, and then I can use this comp as a backup. I still want to wait for the sandy bridge fix. I can't really do anything with this computer. I've installed Win 7 on this machine...so far so good (Thanks Warp..ur the best). I want to rule out any other hardware problems while using a more stable system.

 

[krzywica]

LOL...then I must have one of the most weakest cpu's out there haha

Well my workstation has a ridiculously fast CPU due to the very high overclock ( 4Ghz from the stock 2.8Ghz) and being a quad core with hyper-threading (8 usable threads).

I just ran this on my HTPC that I just put together for my bedroom and got this. Thats only an old AMD 7750 BE (2.8GHz dual core). 395 seconds to run the same benchmark. Just for some comparison I put that entire PC together for $220, where as just the CPU in my workstation was $180 and even that was a steal. When you factor in good memory, high end graphics card, high end motherboard, power supply, ect.....you are talking thousands even when you pick up stuff used like I usually do when building my own rigs, or rigs for friends that want to do it on the cheap.

 

[Patrukas777]

Well my workstation has a ridiculously fast CPU due to the very high overclock ( 4Ghz from the stock 2.8Ghz) and being a quad core with hyper-threading (8 usable threads).

I just ran this on my HTPC that I just put together for my bedroom and got this. Thats only an old AMD 7750 BE (2.8GHz dual core). 395 seconds to run the same benchmark. Just for some comparison I put that entire PC together for $220, where as just the CPU in my workstation was $180 and even that was a steal. When you factor in good memory, high end graphics card, high end motherboard, power supply, ect.....you are talking thousands even when you pick up stuff used like I usually do when building my own rigs, or rigs for friends that want to do it on the cheap.

Yeah, thats pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to building one. I should be able to build a pretty good computer for 2 grand or so. My goal is to build one that will be able to play most games in HD with good frame rates. I want to start checking out monitors too, just in case there is a good deal to be had. I think I'll go with a 24-27 inch.

 

[krzywica]

Yeah, thats pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to building one. I should be able to build a pretty good computer for 2 grand or so. My goal is to build one that will be able to play most games in HD with good frame rates. I want to start checking out monitors too, just in case there is a good deal to be had. I think I'll go with a 24-27 inch.

You can cut that budget in half if you wanted and play most games maxed out at 1080p resolutions if you wanted to save some money. I can put a built list together if you want and have everyone second guess every part that I choose (because I know you douchebags better than that).

 

[Patrukas777]

You can cut that budget in half if you wanted and play most games maxed out at 1080p resolutions if you wanted to save some money. I can put a built list together if you want and have everyone second guess every part that I choose (because I know you douchebags better than that).

I'm trying to hold out for the sandy bridge processors. I do like the current i7's...I really want a computer that will kick some a$$ for quite some time. Is it possible with a 1k budget?