Random Technology Questions

[WHAT!?]

Hi all,

 

hey my pc has a tendency to hang at startup -- about one in every seven bootups stops at this:

 

I need to turn it off at night because it's a little too noisy to leave on.

 

I did try having a look in the bios to see if there was something obvious that could be updated, but I couldn't find anything.

 

anyone know what I can do?

I had the same issue for a while. For me it was my SSD. I didn't have it listed as the first device to boot from in my BIOS (I had my Blu-Ray drive listed ahead of it) and for some reason that made my PC hang at the verifying DMI pool data screen.

 

So if it isn't already then I would suggest making your C:\ drive the first item your PC attempts to boot from.

 

I never really did figure out why this solved it for me. You might just have to mess with your setting for a while and see what works.

[WastedEngland]

@WastedEngland

The many difference between IPS and TN is the viewing angle. The more to the side you look at TN panel the more blacked out it gets. But then I have to ask, are you really going to be spending a lot of time looking at your screen at a very wide angle or straight on?

Yes the IPS panels do do better color reproduction, so if you're going to be using it with something like Photoshop that would be useful, but for gaming while it would be helpful I don't see it being that much helpful. However the downside to IPS is their emphasize blacks which means problems for contrast.

Thanks for the answer, I ended up having the decision made for me by managing to get a Dell UltraSharp U2412M for only £180, an opportunity I couldn't see the sense in letting slip by. Can't wait to get home over Xmas and see what it's like. I hope the response times aren't too drastic and the ghosting isn't too ghastly to ruin games but 60% of its use will be on the photoshop side of things, so if my fears are realised it's just something I'll have to live with.

 

 

GTX670...Talk to me. Is the Zotac one with the 680 PCB and insane standard overclocks really capable of topping most of the reference GTX680s for only £20 more than the reference GTX670s? If so and the various benchmarks are true, that seems like a perfect addition to my system for FC3.

 

I have the Gigabyte Windforce 3x 670, I can't praise it enough. It's also got the 680 PCB and whilst I haven't OC'd it to 680 standards, I don't see the need as it handles anything I throw at it with ease whilst temp wise it barely breaks a sweat. I think the Zotac Amp ed' has higher default clocks, However the Windforce cooler is better so there's nothing stopping you raising the Gigabytes clocks yourself without fear of the card baking. Also I believe the Gigabyte is usually a fair few £'s cheaper than the Zotac too.

[M. H. Hunter III]

Are there any newer or up and coming malware/spyware/scareware programs?

 

I currently use quite a few of the known programs; SuperAntiSpyware, MalwareBytes, Spybot, CCleaner (technically not one), and hijack this.

I used to run ad-adware but found that it was getting super bloated and slow since they changed the program to a more graphical GUI.

 

So are there any credible programs that are becoming a new item in the toolbelt?

[Shiva.]

I use SpywareBlaster which is extremely powerful and reliable.

 

You can also try Spware Doctor but it won't work properly until you restart your PC after installation. Unfortunately, the two spwares, I've suggested are pretty old.

[sivispacem]

Always keep TDSSKiller on your machine too. None of the antivirus or anti-spyware programmes have much success with kernel or boot-level rootkits, but TDSSKiller is very good at removing them, plus is an extremely small file. I always keep it squirrelled away on any machine build I do in case of a malicious attack or a drive-by rootkit/botnet programme.

[Guest]

Not sure if this section is for PC only, but I'm not sure where to ask this. Moving on to my question.

 

How come when I play Resistance 2 on the campaign (I dug it out and started the campaign, it's pretty fun) the PS3 makes a disc drive loading noise every 2 or 3 seconds? When I pause the game, it stops, but when I unpause it does it again. It's not wear, because I've had this PS3 for around 2 or 3 months. After my old one had a disc drive problem. I want to finish off the campagin because I was enjoying it, but the noise ruins the fun as I think I'll ruin the PS3/disc. This noise doesn't happen when the game is loading or in another mode like Co-operative, only in SP.

[Bad.boy!]

I increased the budget of my previous post, do all these parts work together fine. Is there something slowing the pc down?

 

Case:  € 41, 49  Cooler Master Elite 372

Power:  € 45,90  Sharkoon WPM500

Graphics:  €219,90  MSI N660 TF 2GD5/OC

Processor:  €209,90  Intel® Core™ i5-3570K

Motherboard: € 71,90  ASRock B75 Pro3

WLAN:  € 17,99  LevelOne WUA-1610

Memory:  € 38,99  Corsair 8 GB DDR3-1600

HDD:  € 54,90  Seagate ST500DM002

DVD:  € 18,99  LG GH24NS70

Screen:  € 99,00  Acer G226HQLBBD

Speakers:  € 13,99  HP Multimedia speakers - 2.0

Total:  €833,04

[sivispacem]

Pretty poor speakers are all that I can think of. Power supply isn't a brand I've heard of before, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's hopeless. Reviews err on the side of "distinctly average" so not somewhere I'd put my money, given that you can get a very good power supply for the same sort of money. In terms of "bang for your buck" I think it could be considerably better, IMO. Also, do you really need WLan for a desktop machine?

 

Here's an example build for the kind of budget you are looking at. Anything I've changed is the lowest price from http://www.idealo.de, who ship and price compare Europe wide:

 

Case: Cooler Master Elite 372 €41.49

PSU: Corsair CX430 II €39.95

Mobo: GigaByte GA-970A-UD3 €74.21

CPU AMD FX-8350 €176.39

GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3072M €274.90

WLan: TP-LINK 300Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter €8.85

Memory: G.Skill 8GB Kit DDR3 PC3-12800 €30.39

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB €62.53

DVD-R: LG GH24NS90 €17.50

Screen: Acer G226HQLBBD €99.00

 

Total: €825.21

 

Assuming a ~€850 budget, that gives you €25 to play with for speakers that aren't terrible (I'd advise them myself, but I have exactly zero clue about what low-end speakers are best). Logitech and some of the other makes do stuff in that price band.

 

Eight cores with enough single-core performance to do well on any current game, a decent motherboard, top-brand power supply, 3GB VRAM GPU, 8GB decent speed memory, seems pretty decent as a general build.

[Bad.boy!]

I can't get all that for those prices, most of the companies only deliver in Germany. And importing it from another country is probably going to cost as much as ordering it from a Dutch company anyway (which are to expensive). I did make some changes to the built I posted. The speakers are probably still pretty bad, but that isn't that much of a problem.

 

[sivispacem]

It's a personal thing, but I'd avoid OCZ power supplies. I've been through three of them (well, 2 OCZ and one PC Power and Cooling, who are owned by OCZ) in recent years- they seem to have issues with abnormally high rates of capacitor failure for a named PSU brand, and all but the absolute-top-spec models use cheaper Taiwanese capacitors and hardware, instead of the top-shelf Japanese stuff.

 

Can you get the ASUS GTX660 in budget, instead of the MSI one? The ASUS custom-build PCBs and power circuits mean that they're a notch above most of the other reference-based designs, and tend to perform significantly better than them. For instance, the ASUS GTX660 isn't far off GTX670 performance, and performs somewhat better than a reference GTX660Ti.

 

Where are you pricing from?

[yoječ]

CoreXStream is just an entry level PSU. Not bad, though it has short cables. The Sharkoon I 've mentioned earlier (WPM500) seems to be a better option - it's modular, and it's based on the same CWT platform as Corsair CX500.

 

Also, if you're goin to buy a processor with unlocked multiplier, you should consider a mobo that allows overclocking. ;P

Edited December 1, 2012 by yojo2

[Pat]

 

Also, if you're goin to buy a processor with unlocked multiplier, you should consider a mobo that allows overclocking. ;P

This. It's absolutely redundant to spend extra for a K-series i5 if you can't overclock it, because their entire purpose is more or less to be overclocked. As for the GPU, I really don't think Nvidia is worthwhile if you're on such a strict budget. To me, Nvidia has always only been worthwhile if you have a big enough budget to go balls-to-the-wall with your GPU setup, now more so than ever. Then again, I've always had a tendency to stick with AMD, so I'm biased.

[sivispacem]

I still think at this kind of budget the ~£50/60 saving from going AMD (even 8-core) for the processor is more than made up for by the extra GPU power you could go from stepping up to HD7950 level on the GPU. I question the value in any NVidia card below the 660 Ti at a push, or the 670.

[Pat]

I still think at this kind of budget the ~£50/60 saving from going AMD (even 8-core) for the processor is more than made up for by the extra GPU power you could go from stepping up to HD7950 level on the GPU.

Absolutely agreed. I was talking to a guy about a week ago who has both an HD7950 and an HD7970 and he showed me some benchmarks while running both cards overclocked as high as he felt comfortable with, and there was literally no more than a 4FPS difference between the two cards. Now, consider the fact that the HD7970 is designed to compete with the GTX 680, Nvidia's strongest single-GPU card, and I really don't know why you'd pick a GTX 660 over an HD7950. Yes, you save some money, but I honestly don't think it's worth what you save when you consider just how much power you're sacrificing.

[Bad.boy!]

I searched the internet for the cheapest components, and I can built the AMD version. But I still think it's to expansive. Does anyone know a very cheap HD monitor*? If I could take just take €10 more of the price it would do. And about my price, my budget is between €800-€830. My PS3 has recently crashed and I think that buying a PC will be cheaper than a ps3 and after 3 years a ps4. But I have to pay the full price now, so that's a big down side. And I have another question btw, does this thing actually come with enough screws?

 

*Full HD that is, otherwise the expensive graphics card wouldn't make much sense.

[sivispacem]

You could take about €8 from the price by switching from a 300mb/s PCI-E wireless card to a 300mb/s USB wireless dongle. You might be able to shave €5 off the HDD price by going for something like a Samsung Spinpoint F3 instead of the Seagate drive. Speaking personally, but I wouldn't trust a 1080p monitor any real quantity under €100.

 

For an eight-core PC with 8gb RAM, a motherboard reasonably well suited to overclocking (though you'd need to upgrade cooling for that), a 3GB graphics card and most of your additional hardware, €850 seems seriously cheap to me.

[Bad.boy!]

I have another question btw, does this thing actually come with enough screws?

And a final question, isn't a 3 GB video card overkill? Isn't it beyond ultra in games?

[Crokey]

Anyone here used the Bittorrent Proxy from BTGuard or can you recommend a good VPN, you know, for stuff.

[Finn 7 five 11]

I have another question btw, does this thing actually come with enough screws?

And a final question, isn't a 3 GB video card overkill? Isn't it beyond ultra in games?

Nope, can't go wrong with video cards that are too powerful, you'll be thankful in a few years time.

[yoječ]

Personally, I think i5 is a better choice for games... not that FX-8350 is a bad CPU, just not as good all-rounder as i5.

 

Also, if anything, I'd go for FX-8320, not FX-8350 - unless the price difference isn't noticeable.

Edited December 2, 2012 by yojo2

[sivispacem]

 

Also, if anything, I'd go for FX-8320, not FX-8350 - unless the price difference isn't noticeable.

I was considering suggesting this, with spending the extra on a better CPU cooler.

 

I hear what you are saying about the i5 being a better processor, but it's also quite a bit more expensive, especially if you factor in a motherboard that really lets it loose. The 8350 is benchmarked, price-wise, against the i5-3470 which it trounces in most heavily threaded applications (and that's certainly the way programmes are going at the moment)- the FX8320 is even cheaper, some £20 here in the UK. The difference between the i5 and FX series at this price point is enough to stretch to a much more powerful GPU, which in my view is a far better return for your investment for gaming.

Edited December 2, 2012 by sivispacem

[Shiva.]

LazyBoyEight Such disc loading noises are considered normal in one of the other game support forums. Those noises are either triggered by your disc which is old or your old PS3. I know you said your PS3 is not old but there seems to be no fix for it.

 

Gareth Croke I don't know much about VPNs as I don't use one but I've heard that Vypr is a good VPN service provider. According to the reviews given to it, it offers a complete protection from data as well as neighborhood eaves dropping. It also allows you to select a US or European online identity.

[Bad.boy!]

I selected the MS-Tech 550W MS-N550-VAL, it cuts down the price with €10. So I'm satisfied with my built. An FX-8320 would be €35 cheaper, but I'd rather pay more for a better processor. An i5-3570K would add €30 to the price, so that would be to expensive (unless someone knows a cheaper motherboard than a GigaByte GA-Z77X-D3H).

[yoječ]

Do not get noname PSUs, it's the worst thing to cheap out on.

[Bad.boy!]

I've updated all prices including delivery cost. And is 430W really enough?

[yoječ]

If you plat to overclock this rig, I'd go for something more powerful (like the Sharkoon I've mentioned earlier).

 

You can save a few bucks by going for FX-8320 instead of FX-8350.

[sivispacem]

For overclocking a decent swap. If you don't intend on overclocking I would say not to worry. 430w is more than enough on standard clocks.

[Ryan]

If you're getting tight on cash, I'd suggest switching that 7950 for a 7870. Obviously it's not quite as powerful, but considering you're only running a single monitor at 1080P, it would still be more than sufficient.

[WHAT!?]

Question...

 

Every now and then I'll play a little World of Warcraft. It has been a couple weeks since I was online with it. I go to log in and find my account has been banned.

 

Apparently someone got into my e-mail account associated with WOW and sent a request to change my password, then used my account to advertise cash for in-game currency. It's being sorted out.

 

I've run Malwarebytes, I'm running a virus scan with MS Security Essentials, and I'll be using the TDSS Killer that sivis just posted. I'm also changing all my passwords. Is there any other steps I should be taking to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future?

 

I'm generally pretty careful online. I've been using the internet since communicating through the phone line was hi-tech. I've never had this happen... I'm really not sure how this person came by my information.

[Shiva.]

I've run Malwarebytes, I'm running a virus scan with MS Security Essentials, and I'll be using the TDSS Killer that sivis just posted.

Plus, you should have a legit anti keylogger software. I'm not sure if TDSSKiller has anti-keylogger feature but it's always good to have one.