PC Tech Talk

[XX0wnsXY]

Well, my computer has taken a dump. I'm using my laptop temporarily, but I'm not exactly sure what the root cause is. I will explain the issue and the specs here, perhaps someone can provide some input:

The specs are:

Processor:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+ (2 CPUs), ~3.2GHz


Motherboard:
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard

Power Supply:
OCZ GameXstream (either 600w or 700w, not sure).

Memory:
4094MB RAM (Patriot - 4 1gb sticks)

Hard Drive:
Seagate 250 GB

Video Card:
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT


Operating System:
Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6000) (6000.vista_gdr.071009-1548)

No parts have been replaced. The computer itself is about 3 years old.

Ok. My issues first started when I would reboot my computer. It would come on and the power supply would act like it wanted to start, but it just wasn't getting there. The fans would go but it just kept recycling with no boot up. I would flick the power switch in the back, and that seemed to give it the boost it needed to start...no issues other than that every time I restarted.

Then today, My computer shut off...the same thing as before happened, only when I got it to reboot this time, it would load to the windows loading screen, then just shut off. Now, I can't get the computer to boot past the windows loading screen.

It has to either be my hard drive or my power supply, right? What do you guys think?

[mag36]

hmmm what your first described was your power supply what it sounds like but if you getting to windows Loading screen and it freezes it would sound like a hard drive failure. Usually you can tell by a hard drive failure if you start hearing a ticking noise. I would recommend seeing if you can get it to boot to BIOS screen or a Boot CD and let it sit for a few min.... this way you can tell if the Power supply is failing.
Specifically look at the Power supply Fan itself see if its causing it to overheat

Im really leaning towards the Power supply over-heating or just dieing.

[XX0wnsXY]

hmmm what your first described was your power supply what it sounds like but if you getting to windows Loading screen and it freezes it would sound like a hard drive failure. Usually you can tell by a hard drive failure if you start hearing a ticking noise. I would recommend seeing if you can get it to boot to BIOS screen or a Boot CD and let it sit for a few min.... this way you can tell if the Power supply is failing.
Specifically look at the Power supply Fan itself see if its causing it to overheat

Im really leaning towards the Power supply over-heating or just dieing.

my computer has made a ticking sound before, but i assumed it was the fan or something on the side because when I smack it, it stops... haha. Oh god...

[mag36]

my computer has made a ticking sound before, but i assumed it was the fan or something on the side because when I smack it, it stops... haha. Oh god...

lol well you can put your hand on the hard drive and feel it click when it makes the noise but you would normally have corrupt files and stuff some time before the hard drive going bad.

I keep a good look at the psu fan inside cause it the psu overheats it would shut of your pc so many times for it just dies and thats usually cause the fan stopped working in it. But OWNS!!! Dont SMACK IT!!!! leave that find of stuff for the bed bedroom

[StarsMine]

owns needs a RL computer nerd with spare parts to test what went bad.
or a keyboard that registers in the bios... get yourself a ps/2 keyboard, they are better for gaming anyways due to that it interrupts when you press a key instead of waiting for a ping from your computer to see if a key got pressed recently

[maynard]

when I smack it, it stops... haha. Oh god...

atta girl

[mag36]

owns needs a RL computer nerd with spare parts to test what went bad.
or a keyboard that registers in the bios... get yourself a ps/2 keyboard, they are better for gaming anyways due to that it interrupts when you press a key instead of waiting for a ping from your computer to see if a key got pressed recently

Well i got all the stuff to test at my place but i dont think she wants to drive 4 hours. Far as the bios I really surprised it doesn't recognize usb being that old. and I still prefer usb or PS/2

[StarsMine]

im building my friend a $1000 workstation tomorrow and I have a question on what does better GPU acceleration for things like photoshop and flash, Cuda or DX11?

(basicly i need to choose between a 9800 or a 5670)

She isnt very much into gaming so I couldn't care less about those benchmarks

[mag36]

im building my friend a $1000 workstation tomorrow and I have a question on what does better GPU acceleration for things like photoshop and flash, Cuda or DX11?

(basicly i need to choose between a 9800 or a 5670)

She isnt very much into gaming so I couldn't care less about those benchmarks

Well what you really compare is Cuda vs OpenCL..... most of what Ive heard and read is currently Cuda is somewhat better via support and been more developed then OpenCL but OpenCL has alot of potential. Really we are talking backs photoshop and not a whole bunch of 3D rendering. Id probably lean slightly toward Nvida i guess, but I just really would get whatever is cheaper for your build.

[StarsMine]

Well what you really compare is Cuda vs OpenCL..... most of what Ive heard and read is currently Cuda is somewhat better via support and been more developed then OpenCL but OpenCL has alot of potential. Really we are talking backs photoshop and not a whole bunch of 3D rendering. Id probably lean slightly toward Nvida i guess, but I just really would get whatever is cheaper for your build.

As far as I know OpenCL is open source and works on both. I know that such a question is difficult to answer, dx 11 and cuda are to very diffrent things but they both make a difference when it comes to GPU acceleration.

wish I could put a gts 450 in the build w/o going over budget :/