[bysmitty]

@ Huz: Sounds like you are on the right track man. First off, you mentioned the possibility of going SLI in the future. I guess I wouldn’t invest too much extra $ into getting a SLI capable motherboard. SLI is a fun toy to play with but honestly; it is not much of an economical upgrade. Generally doubling up on the video cards will only give about 60-80 percent more power. The thing is that in a year or so when you are ready for an upgrade, hunting down what will be then be a rare old card will be time consuming and more expensive than just picking up a new card all together. Two years ago, the 6600gt was the mid-range card to own. You got great performance for about $150. Today, 6600gt owners are noticing the age of their cards. Buying another 6600gt for SLI will give them more power but these cards still retail for about $100. It makes much more sense to sell the 6600gt for about $75+ then add that profit to the money they would have spent on it and get a 7600gt or better. You will get better performance, latest features, and generally more video memory. There is nothing wrong with seeking out a mobo with SLI capabilities, but I wouldn’t’ recommend going too far out of your way to get that functionality.

For the Intel vs AMD memory speeds, both take the same DDR2 memory. Some motherboards won’t be able to handle certain faster speeds but as far what speeds the CPUs handle, there is no difference. As for getting the el-cheapo memory modules, just note that you will lose a bit of performance in doing this. Cheaper memory will have lower clocks than performance memory. It is not the most noticeable of differences; I just wanted to make sure that you were aware. Also, make sure you buy exactly matched memory sticks so that you can run them in dual channel mode for a little extra boost. Most mid range motherboards support dual channel memory out of the box, just make sure you have the sticks in the proper slots so that bios will detect it.

Congrats on picking the silent computer option. I personally love computer hum but I know that is just me. Quiet computing is not as much of a pipe dream as you might think. Careful hardware choices like the video card you found make it very doable. Which case you pick out will play a huge role in what you hear and what you don’t. A case like this is designed to be as quiet as possible while still allowing great airflow. It also comes with a very quiet yet descent power supply and silent case exhaust fan. The other thing is that many aftermarket CPU coolers will be silent where as the stock ones can be annoying. Let me know what other components you are in the market for and I can give many more recommendations.

Lastly, I’ll have to check out the e-tailor you linked. Looks like a good selection and nice navigation. Newegg is the the best online computer part retailer in the US. I’m just so used to using them for my needs that I forget that there are other retailers out there.

...bysmitty

[The Viking]

bysmitty,

You are truly invaluable! Answering questions, providing expert advice, providing site links for us ... I think you could make some cash for yourself doing this!

I downloaded and ran CPUz and you're right - I do have an AGP board. I then went to the link that you provided from NewEgg. Since I totally trust your recommendation, I was about to pull the trigger on it, but then I hesitated because a few related questions popped up:

1) As of this writing, it has 4 reviews. The person who wrote the latest one mentions that although he loves the card, he had to upgrade his power supply. Is there any way for me to tell if I'll need to do that as well?

2) The extent of my hardware upgrade experience is adding another 512 MB of RAM to my PC. Will I be able to handle this job myself, or is it a complicated process? People have told me that it's a "cake" job, but those people are usually "hardware savy".

Thanks again, bysmitty!

[Huz]

That's awesome stuff, bysmitty. Thanks again.

I think I've finalised my components now - I won't bother with SLI (I can save myself a bit of money and hassle that way), so I'm going for the next model down to the motherboard you recommended. The case I've picked is similar to the one you recommend, but with added noise dampening. I'm getting one of the Zalman CPU coolers, most probably the top one. I'm really hoping it'll be whisper quiet!

I don't know if I'll need to install an optional 92mm fan for that case, but I won't bother getting one unless the machine turns out to be crash-happy. It's not as though it's going to be stuffed full of HDs or anything.

I'm going on holiday soon so I won't order anything until I get back! Hopefully things won't have changed utterly over that time - with any luck some prices will have come down.

Thanks again - I'll let you know if I have any last-minute questions, such as "Are the cables for SATA and SATA2 the same?" Actually, that is a real question, though as far as I can see the answer is 'no'?

[bysmitty]

@ Viking: I would venture a guess that power supply you have will be capable. Dell seems to actually have pretty conservative ratings on their PSUs. I can’t make any promises, but I don’t think it will be a problem.

The actual video card upgrade isn’t that bad. If you are prompted to restart during the following steps, say no.
First thing to do is to uninstall the old drivers:
-To do this go to ‘start menu’ -> ‘control panel’ -> ‘add/remove programs’,
-Uninstall just about anything that references Nvidia.
Next, delete the old card from your hardware profile:
-Right click on ‘my computer’ and select properties.
-Select the hardware tab then click the button for ‘device manager’.
-Expand the section for ‘display adapters’ and you should see your fx 5200.
-Right click on it and select ‘uninstall’ from the list.
At this point, shut the computer down, pull out power cord from the power supply, and crack that case open. Pull out the old card which is usually held in with one screw to the chassis and a pressure device to the motherboard. Next, just pop the new card into the slot and secure it into place with the screw. Don’t forget to plug in a spare power connector to it. Put the side panel back on, plug the computer back into the wall, and boot ‘er up. Things should look a little funky on first boot. Once you are into windows, head over to Nvidia.com and download / install the latest drivers. After a reboot, you should be all set and ready to hit up some games.

@ Huz: Nice choice for case. It isn’t the flashiest thing on the block but it is very practical and quiet. I highly doubt that adding the extra fan to it will make much of a difference. The 120mm exhaust fan already in there should allow for plenty of airflow. The Zalman CPU coolers are very good but there are others coolers out there that will offer you the same performance for less money. My personal recommendation would be to get a ThermalRight xp90 (bottom one) and add on your own brand of silent 92mm fan such as this one (2nd one). Since the fan is separate, you don’t have to ditch the whole unit if the fan motor fails as you would on the Zalman. Another nice thing is that since it blows into the board instead of away, it will help cool your north and southbridge heat sinks which is important since yours will be passive. One quick knock against it though is that it is not quite as simple as the Zalman to install but it isn’t too bad. For you SATA question, yup, the cables are exactly the same. Don’t worry too much about the different versions of SATA. In practice, the differences are very negligible. Enjoy your holiday bud.

edit: I just realized that the xp90 isn't natively am2 compatible. It will need something like this to fit. I'll see if I can find someone who sells these in the uk.

...bysmitty

[Sage]

Oh great and wise Bysmitty,

Is it still necessary to set the jumper switches on hard drives to "Master" and "Slave" modes (or whatever the current politically correct terms are) when adding a second hard drive?

Or do modern operating systems see the drives regardless and ask you to assign status to each one via the user interface?

ScottMate

[bysmitty]

Welcome back Scott. You have been missed around here. There are two types of drive interfaces out there now. The older style that you are used to is referred to as PATA or Parallel. These drives still need to be set as Master (MA) or Slave (SL) if you are putting two devices on the same ribbon. No, they still haven't ditched these possibly offending terms. Sometimes you can get away with leaving the jumper set at Cable Select (CS) but I usually don't have any luck with this. Most drives will have the jumper diagram directly printed somewhere on it.
Now a days, newer drives are being shipped with SATA interfaces. To use these you need to have a SATA supporting motherboard. Instead of using the wide flat ribbons that PATA uses, SATA uses nice thin pink cables that are very easy to use. The other benefit is that there is no jumper anymore. You just plug any drive into any SATA port and are ready to rock. Depending on the age of your computer, your motherboard may or may not have SATA capabilities.

I hope that made sense. Let me know what other questions you think of.

…bysmitty

[The Viking]

bysmitty,

I just finished placing my order for the card you recommended at NewEgg. Have I said "Thank You" enough? Seriously, you've been most helpful, and it's VERY appreciated.

Also, your instructions for card replacement have put me at ease because it's pretty much what I expected. The only thing I wasn't too sure about was your statement "Don’t forget to plug in a spare power connector to it", but I'm sure I'll get some instructions with the package and it will make sense when I see it. Again, thank you (there I go again)!

Sincerely,

The Viking

[bysmitty]

Congrats on the purchase Viking! You will see what I mean with the power comment when you open up your case to install the card. Nearly every device in your computer gets power from your power supply. The power is supplied through multi-colored wires from the power supply unit to each device. Nearly all power supplies have extra power connectors for adding extra devices like more hard drives or in our case, a video card. The power connector for the video card will look like this. All you have to do is find a spare one and plug it into the video card. Again, it will all make sense when you have the parts in front of you. Best of luck with the upgrade bud. Let me know if it gives you any guff.

...bysmitty

[The Viking]

Got it! I'll let you know how the "surgery" turns out. You're the best!

[samIamsad]

Dear bysmitty,

I baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadly want to get a copy of Vampire:Bloodlines. Bad thing is: My DVD drive doesn't recognize DVDs anymore, only CDs. I haven't bought a new one yet. It's a Samsung 612S. Apparently many people have had problems with this drive, particularly running under WinXP. Samsung's support is crap, the autopudate (firmware) tool doesn't work with the drive. It's not supported anymore, it seems. And the firmware updates I found all didn't work for me. What would you do in my case?

[RLacey]

I'm not bysmitty, but...

Get the CD version of Vampire: Bloodlines? Is there even a DVD version?

[samIamsad]

The German budget release comes on a DVD. Since they only had the normal CD release, which still costs 30 bucks (budget: 10), I bought Gothic 2 instead. Next time.

[bysmitty]

I would just chuck the old optical drive in the trash and pick up something like this*. DVD burners are at rock bottom prices right now so there is no reason to struggle with a broken drive. I can walk you through the installation step by step too if you need.

* Sorry to link to a US only e-tailor. If you post back an online store that you would like to buy from, I can link to a more appropriate recommendation. Not that there is all that much difference between drives.

...bysmitty

[The Viking]

bysmitty,

I just thought that you'd like to know that the video card "operation" was a complete success!

I received the card yesterday (that was quick!) and performed the replacement this morning. The only thing that threw me a little was looking for a spare connector. I expected to find one on the power supply itself, but there was only one set of wires (a big bunch) coming out of it. So I poked around and found two "danglers" with plastic caps. "Ah", I thought to myself. "Surely I must piggy back off of one of these."

I did that, closed the hood, and fired it up. BTW, a very simple process because of YOUR directions (the instruction book that came with it was a tad confusing). I bagged the CD that came with it in favor of the latest NVIDIA drivers that I just downloaded last week (again, per your instructions), and installled them.

Then came the moment of truth. What started this whole video card dilemma was the Broken Sword demo and how it was handled by my incompetent GeForce FX 5200. How will this demo behave for me now? Will there be any difference? Will the issues be resolved? The answer, of course, was positive to all questions. I am now ready for Broken Sword and any other graphics-intensive game that comes my way ... ALL THANKS TO YOU!

So for the last and final time bysmitty ... THANK YOU!!!

The Vike

[bysmitty]

That is awesome Viking!!! I'm very glad to hear that the upgrade went smoothly and that you are now fully game-able! Enjoy bro.

...bysmitty

[samIamsad]

Hi bysmitty,

It's a f****** tragedy.


Ever heard about anything like that?

[kuze]

I'm not bysmitty (thus you don't have to pay special attention to what I say), but it certainly sounds like your drive is toast. I had experiences with misflashed dvd-drives in the past and read quite a bit about possible resolutions to non-bios-detectible drives (even if your matter is not too related). First, you should try Knoppix nevertheless - as far as I know the linux ide drivers bypass the bios so you still have the chance of the HDD being recognized. Second, ... well, there is no second really. Other than take the drive to a data recovery company, of course. Oh, and like every SecurityNow listener I know about this "miraculous crashed-HDD saver app" called SpinRite. Maybe you should give it a try, even though it's not free.

Man, crashed HDDs suck.

[samIamsad]

Mh........ tomorrow. I still don't understand. WHY? I had it for 5 years, ok, but it can't just drop dead like that. This is my first broken hd ever.

[rlpw]

Originally Posted by samIamsad

Mh........ tomorrow. I still don't understand. WHY? I had it for 5 years, ok, but it can't just drop dead like that. This is my first broken hd ever.

I have replaced HD's less than a year old before. That's why I usually do a monthly backup

[bysmitty]

^ Monthly backup? I backup my file server 3 times a week plus keep off-site backups in case my house burns down. Yup, I'm paranoid. I too have seen drives of all ages the dump.

@ Sam: Wow bud, we have a serious situation here. I'm kinda' confused on the current state of the computer. There are 2 40gig drives but only 1 doesn't work? Which drive is the OS on? Does it show up in bios at all?

If you can get into windows, right click on the ‘My Computer’ icon and select ‘manage’ from the list that pops up. In the computer management screen, expand the ‘storage’ section and click on ‘disk management’. In the right panel, windows will report all known partitions and drives, even ones that don’t have drive letters assigned. Report back if there is any sign of the bad drive in there.

If you can’t get to windows or the above step yielded nothing, my only other recommendation is to try changing the location of the bad drive on the IDE chain. Say it is your slave hard drive that isn't working, unplug it from its current IDE ribbon, set the jumper on the drive to master, unplug the ribbon from your optical drive(s) and put it at the end of that IDE ribbon as the only device. The goal is to rule out that it is the drive at fault and not the motherboard or ribbon.

If BIOS still doesn't recognize the drive, you can try it in a different computer as a slave drive but I wouldn't get my hopes up for that to work. Last resort, you can take it to a data recovery specialist who has special equipment for stuff like this. Of course, this is usually expensive.

I'm real sorry buddy; I wish I had a better answer for you. I know what you are going through; I developed my paranoid backup habits going through situations like myself this unfortunately.

...bysmitty