PC troubles for real...

[ducati996]

Well... it seems that my current system seems to give me more worries than anything else...

I have already had a grafx card toasted on my current system: ASUS A8V Deluxe, 1024 MB Kingston Value RAM, now Gainward GS6800GS/XT 256MB RAM (AGP) and a BeQuiet 400Mhz PSU...

i won't go into too much details of all the weird bugs i encountered... but basically i had another recent random crash while playing online, and ever since then i cannot get my Windows to run proper no more...

I have installed like 6 times from scratch now, and still i cannot get it all to work. Currently the PC won't install my USB all-in-one Printer no more, i cannot play TDU and the dxdiag freezes my PC upon Direct Draw test in full screen mode... test works but it can't return to windows...

to cut it short... basically now i have these options:

- take the PC to the shop and let him see if he can figure out with reasonable amount of time and money what is wrong and if it's the mobo, i don't know if i can find one of those nowadays...

- since i wanted to upgrade at some point this year, i might have to do that sooner than later... but the trouble ther is that i don't know whether to upgrade of buy a complete DELL system for example...

- OptionA: keep my Thermaltake case i like and get a complete new system with Socket AM2 Dualcore, 2048 MB RAM, new 550 Mhz BeQuiet PSU, S-ATA HD, and a PCI-E grafx card.

- OptionB: get a DELL system with 3 years warranty but not all the stuff i like since i know someone that works there, and not have to worry about PC troubles and how to solve them myself...

and on top of that i was wondering... if i would get a Gainward 8800 GTS, would i have to go for directx 10 and Vista or can i run that on XP too with directx9??? (sorry but i'm a NOOB in that...)

if i could only run it with Vista... what other card options you guys suggest to keep it sort of average in price...? X1950XT or maybe a 8600 series...?

I guess from what you guys wrote it's not really worth buying a directx10 compatible card for now... so basically the 8800 GTS and the new ATI cards would not be worth getting for now?

i guess that's my problems and questions more or less resumed into one hopefully not too long topic... lol

[B-Buster]

You don't need Vista to run a 8800GTS card. It will work fine with XP, but you won't be able to use DX10, because that is, at this point, only supported by Vista.

I'd get a 1950pro or xt if I was in such a situation. By now we saw several benchmarks that showed even a 8800GTS doesn't have the capabilities to run a DX10 game really smooth. It performs better as a 1950xt but also costs like 100 bucks more. I'd rather save that money and get a next-gen DX10 card in a year.

[Krono]

:/

by religion, id never go into readymade like dell or such, but its only my :)

Waiting dx10, a much less cheaper 7950GT for instance can do the job with TDU, i suppose, then you wont need a new psu.

Check your rams with memtest86+, could be ... maybe : i just found 1 corsair XMS2/1024 defective causing probls here. lifetime garanteed anyway :)

gl

Ducat :)

For playing TDU decent, you would need this 1 (3'000.- frs)
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/dt_cat3_3?c=ch&cs=chdhs1&l=fr&s=dhs&~lt=popup (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/dt_cat3_3?c=ch&cs=chdhs1&l=fr&s=dhs&%7Elt=popup)

In the other hand, if you already get the PSU, HDD and case, then (just picked these for instance, maybe there are better choices) :
- GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3( P965 - Socket 775 - FSB 1066 ) 155.- frs
- DDR2 1GB [512MBx2] DDR800 (PC2-6400) CORSAIR [TWIN2X1024A-6400] 2x106.- frs
- INTEL Core 2 Duo (Conroe) 2.40GHz E6600 320.-frs
- ARCTIC Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 24.-frs
- Here you can buy a cooool 700.-frs GFx (8800GTX)

A nice system (here just for demonstrate) for 940.-Euros, half the price of the dell.

But peace of mind have no price ;)

a+

Edit : 1.00 Euro is 1.60 frs more or less, could be confusing, sry

[B-Buster]

Krono give ppl good advice or just leave it.. that XPS system is way too expensive and Ducati just need a few new parts.

Also don't double post but use the Edit button.

[Krono]

Sorry for that, but that was 2 different messages

The second one after i found a decent dell, and then picked up parts for only the half of its price just to compare the 2 approches.

:?

[ducati996]

easy guys... thanks for the help and support Krono.

I pretty much know what i am going to do now...

Only problem i have is that i don't know if i wanna try and find out what is wrong with my current system... i mean if it's the ram or psu it would be easy to fix... but if it's the mobo or grafx card... then screw it... socket939 mobo with agp slot is not easy to find these days and not worth buying really... and a new grafx card i won't get for this pc because it's the second one already...

and XPS from DELL, no way, that is way too expensive for me.

It looks like i will simply upgrade to a better PC that will hopefully work good and not cause me more mysteries like the current one does...

atm i have a running system with weird random crashes... can't install my printer nor play TDU and it also crashes upon DirectDraw test like i said. But i will either just use this until i got my new parts... or bring it to the shop next week and see what they can do without spending more than 150 Euros maybe...

we'll see. I will not go for a directx10.0 card though, i will probably try a ATI once... X1900XTX from HIS with 512MB... and some more. Thanks.

[thatbastard]

socket939 mobo with agp slot is not easy to find these days and not worth buying really...

thats what im running :lol: good luck with the new system :grin:

[Steveo]

You say your having problems when initializing direct draw. If thats the case it could be the video card or the drivers your using either for the video card or the agp chipset. It could also be the agp slot itself. I'd try updating the drivers first but if that dont work try another video card if available or try your video card in another system if you can.

[ducati996]

i will... thing is i have already run a system with those drivers before... didn't work this time though, and yes, i will test the grafx card as soon as i can... but i'm afraid it might be broken... and i already bought 2 for this setup... so i would be really pissed and wondering why this keeps happening... damn hardware...