What Should I Look For Or Get For The Sale

[mikenmike0001]

well, let's see, i'm kinda new to looking at specs and making comparisons........my last motherboard seemed to have fried on me, cuz i was loading up win 2000 and then all of a sudden i hear these popping noises, and the windows just shuts off, but th epower is on......

so i smell smoke, and the next day i open it up and i find three of those black boxed shaped things on the motherboard...i guess transistors......had a hold in the middle.......so with that in mind, i looked up on frys sales and i bought a amd 2700+ motherboard that comes with a 333mhz cpu...for 99 bucks!! woo hoo....or at least, that sounded good.....i jus ttalked to a friend about that and he told me there's supposedly two versions of them, a burton and a througough bred, and unfornately i found out from the receipt that it was thorough bred, whihc is a slower version......but oh well....

see, that's the problem, i dont' knwo how to look for good or bad specs....

that's why i'm holdin off until 4th of july comes up to by more memory, but the problem is that when i see memory advertised with it's specs, i dont' knwo what details of the specs are good or bad.....i usually go by sale pricing.....

can someone help me out?

[razorsharp013]

Are you going to stick with that motherboard, of are you going to bring it back for a better one?

And in order to tell you what memory you need to get, you will need to know what kind is compatible with your board...that should be listed with the product specs...so find that out. For example the board I am about to buy uses:

DDR 400 PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC DDR RAM Memory

Oh, and an excellent guide on RAM can be found here. (http://www.mcbriens.net/liam/index.htm?ram.htm)

[clocker]

Mike,
The only difference between a Barton and T-bred core is the size of the L2 cache ( 512 v. 256).

I have a 2600 T-bred and I can't say that it's slow.
You probably couldn't tell the difference, either.

[tesco]

Tell us what motherboard you have now, along with how much ram u have and what slots are filled with what amount.

[mikenmike0001]

okay okay....i haven't opened the box yet cuz i'm waiting to see if there's going to be any special sales during the 4th of july weekend...

so let's see

it says...

"

ECS ELITE GROUP

N2U400-A
Form Factor :ATX
Chipset : NVIDIA nFORCE2 SPP
VGA/Audio:No/Yes
Modem/LAN:No/Yes
DIMM/DDR:0/3
ISA/PCI/AGP/CNR:0/5/1/0


K7 FSB 400
Dual Channel
DDR 400
6 CH Audio
USB2.0
AGP 8X
Color Map
Over Clocking
ATA 133

"

and on the receipt it says

"

AXP 2700 Bare/N2U400-A
ECS N2U400=1 Mainboard
AXDA2700DKV3D Thoroughbr D1 T
ATHLON 333 MHz FSB [2167]
AMD Bare CPU 1 YR Warranty
TH-BRED 256K L2 CACHE

nForce2Ultra400 w/ ScktA

1(8x)AGP;5PCI:3DIMMs for
DualDDR400:LAN;6Ch snd

total 108.24

"

WOW ... all those things i have no idea what they mean.......the terms and all...damn.....

[tesco]

Ok, for ram go with either pc2700 memory (two sticks) or pc3200 memory (two sticks).
(two sticks so that you can use dual channel. Clocker says it makes no speed difference (noticably) but it's still worth it to have imo)...now to choose between pc2700 and pc3200, decide if you want to OC (overclock) or not. pc3200 is better for OCing, pc2700 not as great.

[mikenmike0001]

i don't know how or what overclocking is.....is that like tweaking out your performance to the max? will that damage anything?

what do you mean by two sticks?

oh and also, with sales and prices these days, do you think it's worth it (affordably) to buy a single gig memory or just stick with 512 memory?

[razorsharp013]

Overclocking is simply making your CPU run at faster speeds than recommended by the manufacturer. So yes, it is tweaking out your performance to the max so to speak. It can be dangerous if you over do it without sufficent cooling, as you could fry the chip.

Memory actually looks like a stick, a circuit board that's about the size of a really big piece of gum.

And a single stick of 512 would be half as much a a whole gig. And something tells me that you would only need 512 anyway.http://www.pricewatch.com/ri/T4956860-1616.JPG

[clocker]

Originally posted by ROSSCO_2004@28 June 2004 - 15:08
Clocker says it makes no speed difference (noticably) but it's still worth it to have imo)...
That's not exactly what I said.
Apparently, due to the architecture of the nForce2 chipset, "dual channel" is not effectively implemented.
Placing my RAM in various DIMM slots did not result in appreciably better performance.
With a different board, who knows?

[tesco]

Originally posted by mikenmike0001@29 June 2004 - 02:51
i don't know how or what overclocking is.....is that like tweaking out your performance to the max? will that damage anything?

what do you mean by two sticks?

oh and also, with sales and prices these days, do you think it's worth it (affordably) to buy a single gig memory or just stick with 512 memory?
By a stick i mean a ram "module"...e peice of ram...whatever u want to call it, most call it a stick of ram.

you have a choice, if you want 1 gig of ram, to either buy a single stick of 1024mb(1gig) or to buy two stick of 512mb and they add together to make 1024mb. When you have two sticks, and put them in the right slots (says it in motherboard manual what slots) then you will be in dual channel mode.

Basically it is just supposed to be faster then single channel. ;)

Before you overclock, make sure your temps are good. You can do this in the BIOS. If they are around 40 or under, then they are ok for overclocking. Then read the hardware guides for a guide (second post in there) on overclocking by peerzyboy. :)

[clocker]

About the RAM stick size....

The guys at my local shop report that they have some trouble with 1GB sticks on some boards.
They much prefer to use 2x512 if at all possible.

Again, this is a "sometimes" kinda thing, it does not always happen.
512's seem to slip right in and the PC will recognize them fine.

[mikenmike0001]

oh okay, 512 it is......... i actually wanted to put in a 1 gig of memory because i want to start learning how to use final cut pro, but supposedly people say you need at least a gig for it to run smoothly..

how do you check the temperature inside your pc again? is there a good program to download and install for that?

i'm thinking that's the reason why my last motherboard blew.......cuz i tend to turn off the monitor and let it on downloading torrents overnight.......which, well, i was hoping that if i leave it alone and turn off the hard disks and what not, then it would stay fairly cool.....

[tesco]

Originally posted by mikenmike0001@30 June 2004 - 02:37
oh okay, 512 it is......... i actually wanted to put in a 1 gig of memory because i want to start learning how to use final cut pro, but supposedly people say you need at least a gig for it to run smoothly..

how do you check the temperature inside your pc again? is there a good program to download and install for that?

i'm thinking that's the reason why my last motherboard blew.......cuz i tend to turn off the monitor and let it on downloading torrents overnight.......which, well, i was hoping that if i leave it alone and turn off the hard disks and what not, then it would stay fairly cool.....
motherboard monitor 5, or speedfan will check temps.

anything under 50 is good, over 50 is ok, over 60 is bad...

about the ram, if u want 1 gig you can buy two sticks of 512mb, and it will run at 1gig. This is what clocker was saying. Not that 1gig doesn't work, just the 1gig single sticks don't work sometimes...get it?

[mikenmike0001]

yeah i got it.....um.....how about the amounts of fans that you have in your case? what's adequate...and is there a certain type that's better? i usually just go for whatever's on sale or cheap......but after what happened to my last motherboard....i'm going to be more careful

golly....a few more days till the 4th of july weekend...can't wait to see what they got on sale..... :P

[Tormentor]

Originally posted by mikenmike0001@30 June 2004 - 00:37
oh okay, 512 it is......... i actually wanted to put in a 1 gig of memory because i want to start learning how to use final cut pro, but supposedly people say you need at least a gig for it to run smoothly..

how do you check the temperature inside your pc again? is there a good program to download and install for that?

i'm thinking that's the reason why my last motherboard blew.......cuz i tend to turn off the monitor and let it on downloading torrents overnight.......which, well, i was hoping that if i leave it alone and turn off the hard disks and what not, then it would stay fairly cool.....
Theres final cut pro for windows???

[clocker]

Originally posted by mikenmike0001@30 June 2004 - 00:37
oh okay, 512 it is......... i actually wanted to put in a 1 gig of memory because i want to start learning how to use final cut pro, but supposedly people say you need at least a gig for it to run smoothly..


I didn't say NOT to install 1 GB of RAM.
I said it might be better to do it by using two sticks of 512 rather than I GB stick.

[mikenmike0001]

oh well, yeah, that's what i meant,....hahah.......there should be ads starting tomorrow, so i can check it out....

[mikenmike0001]

well, let's see.....i'm recovering after my house got broken into this past weekend....shit.....lost my laptop..........well anyways......

i installed the motherboard and cpu......into my old deck, so i kept my video card and all that.....and well....when i booted it up.nothing showed on my monitor.....power was okay, but nothing on.....so at first i thought that my video card was dead........i went to buy a 133 dollar one from frys and installed taht........and the same shit happened.....

so now i'm confused.....i got a new motherboard and video card.....and yet, i can't even go into my bios screen to adjust anything......

q1 ) hm......what's wrong.....? could my new motherboard be fried already?

also, someone mentioned to me with the new atx models that whenever you unplug your power from the case there's always a little but of leftover power circulating inside and you have to press the power button in front a few times to get it out......otherwise when you install your motherboard, it will fry along with some other components....

q2) ...is this true?

[tesco]

Doubt that's true, hasn't happened to me and i've done that lots of times...

Try resetting cmos, or maybe the heatsink isn't attached properly and the overheat protection is kicking in. Try reseating the heatsink...what's in between it and the cpu? arctic silver? or thermal pad? (don't say nothing...)

edit: oh ya, sorry to hear about the stolen laptop. :(

[Twist3r]

god people breaking into your house and stealing your laptop :angry:
I would be so pissed if someone stole my laptop :ph34r:

I spilt pop (soda) on my laptop the other day it sucked :frusty:

[mikenmike0001]

yeah, and what's freaky is that i didn't see the person, they got away with it clean, and i didn't see the car...so i'm like.....damn, this is scary, the guy probably knows my house in and out now easily and might come back one day......which freaks me out........should i stay paranoid about it?

well anyways, back to the computer problem......i guess i'm going to exchange the motherboard processor with cpu combo tomorrow and get another one and try installing that one.......i was just thinking of just buying a laptop, but then the 80 gigs of crap that i have in my old 2 harddrives would be thrown away......ahhhhhh....just horrible...

[mikenmike0001]

interesting........i went to frys cuz my return deadline was today....and surprisingly i met a guy there in the return line with the same fuckin problem......

actually, he had the 2500+ amd motherboard, while i had the 2700+ one......none the less, his and i was practically the same box with the same specs .......both were ECS ....WHICH NOW I FOUND OUT FROM HIM AND THE RETURN SALES WORKERS THERE.......

ECS SUCKS>>!!! I WILL NEVER BUY IT AGAIN

he exchanged three of those boards with cpu and the same thing happened.....d

so now i know the good brands are asus, abit, and gigabyte.......i think shuttle too..

but yeah........i'll have to wait until i find a good deal on them........

do you guys know any good sites or forums for hardware reviews like this? or any good sites that have good deals on buying hardware?

[tesco]

Originally posted by mikenmike0001@9 July 2004 - 02:33
interesting........i went to frys cuz my return deadline was today....and surprisingly i met a guy there in the return line with the same fuckin problem......

actually, he had the 2500+ amd motherboard, while i had the 2700+ one......none the less, his and i was practically the same box with the same specs .......both were ECS ....WHICH NOW I FOUND OUT FROM HIM AND THE RETURN SALES WORKERS THERE.......

ECS SUCKS>>!!! I WILL NEVER BUY IT AGAIN

he exchanged three of those boards with cpu and the same thing happened.....d

so now i know the good brands are asus, abit, and gigabyte.......i think shuttle too..

but yeah........i'll have to wait until i find a good deal on them........

do you guys know any good sites or forums for hardware reviews like this? or any good sites that have good deals on buying hardware?
OH, IT'S AN ECS!

Why didn't you say that before!?

:lol:

(look in sig)

[mikenmike0001]

i did, i put that in the specs when i listed it down.....haha......