Hi, Turned my PC on today and got 3 beeps from the POST. Swapped the RAM around and tried some from another PC - no joy. It is 5 years old, so it's certainly had plenty of use (though my husbands PC gets used much more and is nearly the same age!) I guess it's time to upgrade. I couldn't justify doing it when the current PC was fine for my needs, but a dead mobo is no longer fine! I've checked out the Buyer's Guide for the all-rounder, and I'd be happy with the Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H - I have this one in the Media PC I built last year. That's got an i3 in it as I wanted to use the onboard/chip graphics. However I read the review for the Pentium G6950 CPU - it's appears to be recommended because of the overclocking potential. I've never overclocked a CPU - I not sure if I should buy this CPU or get one I wouldn't need to overclock. I'd probably give this PC to my husband, who'd use it more, and take his current one for me. (I get enjoyment from doing the build, not so much using it as I use a PC all day in work). He plays online games like Battlefield 2, and offline games like Dragon Age. The LCD isn't huge, just 17", but I may get him a larger one in the future. There's also the standard internet, email & office usage. Will probably stick with Win XP 32bit. However, this should be as future proof as possible - if it lasts another 5 years, I'll be happy. Should I get the recommended CPU, or go for a more powerful one? Also, will the exsiting graphics card work in newer mobos? It's a Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT. Many Thanks, Janine
Hi. First things first, 3 beeps could indicate a graphics card problem depending on your motherboard. Have you tried reseating it the power off? Do you have another you could pop in to try?
As said above, try another gpu. Also try booting without it. The G6950 is a good chip; i've used one myself, but its "the runt of the litter" as i was once told. *nudges adidan* For the extra £10, get an i3 540. It has hyperthreading and a faster clock speed, and will do 4ghz without much of a voltage increase. As for the graphics card, we don't know what your budget is. If its for gaming, get at least a 5770 or the popular GTX460.
Thanks for the tip about GPU. The POST beep codes I found indicated 3 beeps was a RAM problem. Turns out it WAS the GPU. So, I only need a new graphics card now. It's a cheaper fix, but kind of boring. My mobo is an ASUS A8N-SLI SE, takes PCI-e cards. I don't think they've been phased out yet, considering how quickly everything moves in hardware? Won't be doing much gaming - a bit of Dragon Age or Neverwinter Nights is about all I do. No FPS or MMPORG's for me. No video editing either, just the occasional photo editing. Not sure what the budget is, probably don't need much more than a low-mid end card. Thanks, Janine
I've lost hours/days to that, just waiting on DAO2 pre-order now. I guess it all depends how much you want to spend on a GPU TBH. A 17" screen won't need anything too powerful. If you're sticking with XP you can pick up a good 4series ATi card, like Neil says. If, however, you do move onto Windows 7 a low end 5series may be worth considering as it will have DX11 support (only available to W7 and 5series onwards). Not sure how nVidias low end GPUs are rated to be honest.
Thanks, I'll have a look at the 5 series then. When it is time to upgrade to Win 7, would be good to not have to buy another graphics card. Is there a recent shoot-out of graphics cards anywhere? Thanks to all for the help, Janine
I don't think there's been a big comparison for a little while TBH. The current card on the Affordable All Rounder on in the hardware guide clicky is the 460. I believe that's DX11 as well but new you're looking at £120ish, not sure how much 2nd hand. You'll probably have to look elsewhere for lower specced cards to be honest. Saying that though there is a review of the 5670 clicky in which the tables also compare with some in the same sort of bracket that could be of use. I think you can find that for around £50ish new. That saying a card like the 5670 gets outperformed by the older 4770 but if you will need DX11 in the future that is too old hat. Personally, if it's to last a while you may want to invest a bit more and go more towards a 5770 which is a pretty capable card for the price (just under £100 new) and should keep up with things on your resolution for a while. Edit: 5770's have gone for 65-70 in the Sales thread (I think you need 50 posts to get acces to that part of the forum).
I've been looking at the 5770's - look like a good choice. I just want to be sure my old mobo can run it. I've got an Asus A8N-SLI SE nForce4 board. It's got PCIe v1.x (not sure which). I know v2.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible, but what about v2.1? I've seen a few forum threads from last year with people having problems with the 5770 and older boards, but I don't know if it's been sorted by now or not. Does anyone know if I could run a 5770? Thanks, Janine
It is supposed to be backward compatible but, like you say, I've heard rumblings about some people and 5series/nforce chipset but whether it's been a problem because of that per se, or because with an older board people generally have lower powered PSUs that aren't up to the job, I couldn't say for definite I'm afraid. What's your PSU like as well? The 5770 needs 1xPCi-e power connector IIRC.
Oh, I know I'm going to need a new PSU - my current one doesn't have the PCI-e connector, and is only about 380W. A quieter one would be nice too
I got the HD5770 and it ended up in my PC rather than my husbands as his motherboard refused to work with it, despite being a higher spec'd one (A8N32-SLI Deluxe vs A8N-SLI SE). Though it also refused to work with XP SP3, so maybe it's not so surprising. It turned out my PSU did have a PCI-e connector on it, and it is running fine with only 380W so far. I haven't tried gaming yet, though. Maybe I'll give it a go, see if the power gives out. Thanks, Janine
Good to hear it's up and running and it was the GPU afterall. I think the min spec PSU is listed as 450W but I guess it depends how good yours is and what else is connected as to why is actually running on the 380W. I wouldn't feel confident about that myself though. What happened when you put it in your husband's PC, did it just not boot up?
