overclocking, driver and sata questions

[craig7]

so my hp didnt want to boot so i gave up trying. everyone here, everyone at a computer forum, and benchmark tests all said it was junk, when it ran, it ran great but when it didnt it was a huge pain to fix so i just gave up but now i have a new computer (mostly)

core 2 duo 6300 1.86 GHz
intel DG41TY motherboard
2 x 1gb ddr2 ram (getting 2 2gb sticks soon or maybe just 1 4gb)
some giant Chinese heat sink with no english instructions but it looks like a beast
my wonderful lg super multi dual layer dvd burner
some old cd drive filling in an empty bay
my 80gb ide hard drive
my hp's 40gb sata drive (my power supply has no sata power plug)
a soundblaster live 5.1 card when i get a reviever
some mysterious tv tuner card

so the questions:
1. would i be able to safely overclock to processor to at least 2GHz?

2.are there any generic tv tuner card drivers? it just had a coaxial tv input, s-video in, and rca audio in. i misht swap it for one in my moms computer that has fm antenna in, coaxial tv in and rca audio and video in but i want to make sure it will work if it goes into her computer so any ideas? it has a lsi dvxplore chip and the tv input part is made my philips.

3. my power supply has a 20 pin mobo plug and my mobo has a 24 pin plug,t i works but i should upgrade my powersupply but ive spent enough money for now. but it doesnt have a sata plug which i need for my hard drive with 90% of my files and windows on it, my old power supply has a sata plug on it so if i cut it, will there be any way i can cut off one of my IDE connectors and wire it up?

and now, some pics

 

[Adam]

Be sure to keep an eye on your processor temperatures at first, but I think you'd be fine overclocking with that heat sink. At least, if that's not a "quiet" low flow fan on it, and maybe even if it is. That's similar to the heat sink that I used on my 3GHz P4 that dissipated more power than your new processor.

As for hooking up your power supply to a SATA device, you could splice the wires, or you could just buy something like this for about $2. They have worked great for me.

 

[craig7]

just got windows 7 and it works great. i got a windows experience index score of 3.5. my graphics card is the reason its only a 3.5 and if i get a better card my score will probably be 4.9 because thats my processor score.

anyways i did some tests and stuff and my cpu temp is 40 idle and 60 under load so with this heatsink, overclocking is out of the question but i can watch 1080p hd on youtube with a good frame rate and i can even watch 2k videos with an acceptable frame rate. but i cant access the files on one of my partitions so ill deal with that in the morning on ubuntu but it seems like everything running smooth. tv tuner card works.... well not with my dtv converter box yet but the radio on it works. i dont think the soundblaster card works but 1. i dont need 5.1 right now and 2. my mobo does 5.1 sound too.

 

[Adam]

If you haven't seen it already, you might want to give this a read.

 

[Impelled]

You can overclock a bit, the CPU is OK up to 72C.

If you have a cheap PSU, replace it with a known good one (see HardOCP or Jonnyguru for good reviews).
This is to save your PC from damage if the PSU expires, some cheap ones really do go bang when put under a decent load or if you reach near its max output!
Many cheap PSUs cannot supply the power printed on the label.

The 20/24pin issue isnt anything to worry about.

 

[craig7]

after modifying a large computer fan to run off a 12v battery charger, my computer is running quite cool now (cooler than it was). i did a test with cpu load at 100% for 5 mins and the temp got up to 56C which is a big improvement (it used to hit 60C if i was listening to music while on safari sometimes)

so im thinking now that overclocking might not be such a bad idea, i just need a few more fans running off of the charger and probably a switch to turn it off when the computer is off because its somewhat loud. so how should i over clock it? should i use software? if so, what software would you recommend? or should i use the bios to overclock? if so, how because it doesnt seem very easy with my motherboard?

and also im getting new ram soon because my old computer had 4 ram slots and the new one has 2 so i gave my mom the extra ram so now she owes me
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146694
ive heard good things about the brand, it has a heatsink and it just looks freaking awesome
also im getting a power cable with the ram to fix my sata hard drive situation

 

[Adam]

after modifying a large computer fan to run off a 12v battery charger...

Just curious - why are you using a battery charger? Do you not have any remaining 12V feeds from your computer power supply?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I haven't yet seen a bitter place to ask for O/C advice than HardOCP forums, AHs crowd may not be best place to ask for such advice.
Google and read more articles.

Define clear - what is your goals? Watch 1080p videos aren't really hard goal to reach. Make sure you are using right software and drivers.

http://imouto.my/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva-clearvideo-version/

 

[craig7]

I haven't yet seen a bitter place to ask for O/C advice than HardOCP forums, AHs crowd may not be best place to ask for such advice.
Google and read more articles.

Define clear - what is your goals? Watch 1080p videos aren't really hard goal to reach. Make sure you are using right software and drivers.

http://imouto.my/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva-clearvideo-version/

really i just want good gaming without lag. i can watch 1080p vids fine, i can even watch 2k videos pretty good. i get 5-fps less than 1080 but im not complaining.

right now i have a game called red faction: guerilla. i usually get 7-10 fps when im just walking around and the point of the game is pretty much just blow up buildings . if you hit something with a sledgehammer, you will knock a decent chunk out of the building, if you detonate some remote charges in a building it will explode into a few hundred pieces.

my cpu is really the only part that doesn't meet the minimum specs for the game, it says 2GHz dual core processor. the rest of my system meets the recommended specs (my graphics card probably isnt exactly what it wants but it says 256mb and it is 256mb). the reccomended cpu is a 3.2GHz dual core.
anyways im sure the physics from all of the pieces of building flying through the air would be alot for my cup to handle.

that is why i want to o/c (and 1.86GHz just sounds pathetic even though 2.5 years ago i was using a 700MHz celeron)

here is a pic to show what i was talking about

 

[craig7]

Just curious - why are you using a battery charger? Do you not have any remaining 12V feeds from your computer power supply?

i have no idea what that is and all of my fans run slow when they are hooked up to my mobo

 

[Adam]

i have no idea what that is and all of my fans run slow when they are hooked up to my mobo

The four-pin connectors from the power supply typically have one yellow wire, one red wire, and two black wires. The black wires are ground wires. The red wire represents the 5V supply, and the yellow wire represents the 12V supply. Fans connected to 5V will run slower than when connected to 12V.

You can swap the wires inside of connectors, and you can also go the very easy route of getting an adapter like this one shown below (available at several stores) if the connectors fit your fans. I got that connector with some Zalman fans, and that's how I learned about the different voltages.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

really i just want good gaming without lag. i can watch 1080p vids fine, i can even watch 2k videos pretty good. i get 5-fps less than 1080 but im not complaining.

right now i have a game called red faction: guerilla. i usually get 7-10 fps when im just walking around and the point of the game is pretty much just blow up buildings . if you hit something with a sledgehammer, you will knock a decent chunk out of the building, if you detonate some remote charges in a building it will explode into a few hundred pieces.

my cpu is really the only part that doesn't meet the minimum specs for the game, it says 2GHz dual core processor. the rest of my system meets the recommended specs (my graphics card probably isnt exactly what it wants but it says 256mb and it is 256mb). the reccomended cpu is a 3.2GHz dual core.
anyways im sure the physics from all of the pieces of building flying through the air would be alot for my cup to handle.

that is why i want to o/c (and 1.86GHz just sounds pathetic even though 2.5 years ago i was using a 700MHz celeron)

here is a pic to show what i was talking about

O/C cpu will be good for gaming, but you must get video card.
I have Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 PCIe 512mb card I could sell to you. PM me your offer if you're interested.

 

[craig7]

O/C cpu will be good for gaming, but you must get video card.
I have Gigabyte Radeon HD4870 PCIe 512mb card I could sell to you. PM me your offer if you're interested.

it doesnt seem like i can overclock with motherboard after alot of research. but i had a thought -.-
my mobo supports the newer pentium processors. and they are better than the core 2 duos. and faster. and reasonably priced ($67. my birthday is coming up so im gonna save my money for that probably

and im not sure about the graphics card... mine seems to do an ok job but i suppose there is room for improvement.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

it doesnt seem like i can overclock with motherboard after alot of research. but i had a thought -.-
my mobo supports the newer pentium processors. and they are better than the core 2 duos. and faster. and reasonably priced ($67. my birthday is coming up so im gonna save my money for that probably

and im not sure about the graphics card... mine seems to do an ok job but i suppose there is room for improvement.

You haven't listed a video card at all and I assume you're using one onboard - which is why your win7 video rating is in the crapper. For gaming, dedicated video card will be like night a day.

You board does support E6800 cpu - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116371

it's very cheap at $99. This cpu and video card will make games fly and you'll never see 7-8 fps ever again.

Speaking of this game - without dedicated gpu - your system doesn't meet minimum requirement of this game:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/49067/Red-Faction-Guerrilla-PC-Release-Date-System-Requirements-Announced-DX10-Screenshots-Released

 

[craig7]

You haven't listed a video card at all and I assume you're using one onboard - which is why your win7 video rating is in the crapper. For gaming, dedicated video card will be like night a day.

You board does support E6800 cpu - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116371

it's very cheap at $99. This cpu and video card will make games fly and you'll never see 7-8 fps ever again.

Speaking of this game - without dedicated gpu - your system doesn't meet minimum requirement of this game:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/49067/Red-Faction-Guerrilla-PC-Release-Date-System-Requirements-Announced-DX10-Screenshots-Released

1. i am using the onboard one

2. i was looking at a 3GHz pentium for $67 which is more affordable but we will see what i get for my b-day

3. the onboard graphics card meets all of the specs, it has shader model 3 support and all that other stuff. i have configured the bios to allow it to use 256mb of ram. and im pretty sure its a glitch but i hope not, windows is telling me i have 780mb of video memory...

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

1. i am using the onboard one

2. i was looking at a 3GHz pentium for $67 which is more affordable but we will see what i get for my b-day

3. the onboard graphics card meets all of the specs, it has shader model 3 support and all that other stuff. i have configured the bios to allow it to use 256mb of ram. and im pretty sure its a glitch but i hope not, windows is telling me i have 780mb of video memory...

1) I actually looked it up - it's intel gma 4500

2) the difference b'ween 3 and 3.33 is not huge, but the price difference isn't ether, i'd get the fastest one i could given o/c is not an option

3) amount of ram is insignificant. Let me try to explain it to you in rough terms - your "video card" has 10 Execution units which are roughly equivalent to ATI's stream processing units... but you see Radeon HD 4870 has 800 of them...
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-4000/hd-4870/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-4870-specifications.aspx


In addition to that, your "video card" is using your regular DDR2 memory which tranlastes to 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth. 4870 uses GDDR5 with 256 bit access which translates to 115 GB/s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R700#Memory_and_internal_buses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA#GMA_X4500

In short version. You could do your self a favour - Instead of getting new CPU, invest it in new GPU and your games will thank you.
There are plenty of choices ...
btw: your power supply wont be able to support 4870 anyways.


This is an excellent build guide:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/diy-gaming-pc,2970.html

 

[craig7]

your "video card" has 10

but i still think 1.86GHz is unnacceptable

 

[craig7]

my new ram will probably be here when i wake up tomorow XD
lets see... it left new york at 11pm yesterday, picked up in toronto at 9:56 and left toronto at 10:14. they work fast... but i guess its not too far when you think about it....

 

[craig7]

new ram is in, stil cant run games very well though. i played red faction for about 10 seconds and then my computer crashed...... at least i know its not the rams fault now. anyways, im not noticing the performance boost i expected but it is nice to know that i have one component in my computer that i cant really upgrade any further without it costing me a ton of money (4gb ddr2 sticks are EXPENSIVE like $100+ per stick). i am noticing that with google sketchup its running a bit faster though which is nice. now i have to decide what to do next.... probably graphics card -.-
maybe BoredSysAdmin should reply to my private message about the graphics card...

 

[craig7]

more hardware trouble, yay. wintv-pvr 150 is the device. it has problems on computers with more than 4gb of ram. it works ok without virual ram enabled but one i have virtual ram i guess it counts a more than 4gb. my virtual ram is set to 4700mb though so i might try setting it to 4000mb and see if it makes a difference. but is there any way around the 4gb limit that any of you know of or have heard of?