Modest Upgrade "Perhaps?"...... | Forums

[LEBillfish]

Well, I've been struggling and fighting with this PC to get by of late, most applications work fine that I use it for (AutoCAD 2004, Internet research, Photoshop, Word97 for writing)......Past that I do not do alot with it except play IL2-1946, and it is there I am having trouble. The trouble began with a dead AGP card, fixing that resulted in new problems that caused my OS to become corrupted, and then once installing the new GPU and a new HDD to reinstall the OS, found other problems beginning be they sound card related, CPU, ram, MB, PS (switched out to an older/weaker yet reliable one of lower W) or whatever unknown.....What is known is whatever happened has made IL2 unplayable in that 80% of the missions I fly the sim or hardware crashes roughly 3/4 of the way through the mission.

So I MUST do something.

Add to that we're on the verge of some new sims that will deffinitely tax the system to unusability those being RoF and BoB.....Now it has been suggested that I should just upgrade fully. IOW the latest and greatest MB/CPU/GPU/SC/PSU/Ram, etc., yet that also means a new OS in that it will take more then the 3-3.5Gb of ram you can get out of XP due to addressing........

Now to counter that point let me say that first off those two sims are not fully ready. Yes you can fly RoF now, yet by their own admission it's still somewhat a beta. More so, Windows OS out there (which I'm not that familiar with yet will be needed) as I have no intention of goin Linux and so on, folks seem to be having enough trouble with Vista that MS is driving "7" rather hard and fast, it my uneducated understanding it is a Vista fix....(it rather odd they're coming out with a new one so soon so sounds reasonable it sounding much like the 98>2000>Xp deal it now Xp>vista>7). Yet it's beta, and I have no intention of reinstalling everything over and over for new OS's.......Lastly knowing nothing of AMD always using Intel, it seems as though with the i7 cpu's they're making a new evolution as well, yet they're still expensive, very expensive in relation to others.

So I am of the opinion that 3-6 months will bring final change release "ready" software, and naturally in 3 months let alone 6 even what today is an expensive piece of hardware, will drop significantly in price.....Meaning, I can for the same moderate price tomorrow get the high end of today or better.

So what to do considering "something" is failing on what I have?

Currently what is on my system as I've removed HDD's, CDD's, Zip drives, and even the PSU as mentioned is as follows:
Intel P4 2.53Ghz, 533FSB CPU
Intel D845PESV MB (has lan, AGP 4x, 5 PCI slots, 2 184 pin DDR slots, etc.)
2-1Gb DDR333Mhz/PC2700 sticks of ram
ATI/Powercolor HD2600XT 512Mb 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X GPU .... http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16814131136
Creative Audigy SE (1) sound card
3-7200 RPM EIDE ATA Hard Drives
Promise Ultra 100 TX2 DMA/ATA PCI IDE HDD controller card
1-DVD drive, 1-CD RW drive, need to remove the A: drive
Antec Plus 1080 AMG SOHO full tower case
Antec True Power 430W PSU (swapped out the 550W in testing and don't want to bother putting it back it making no diff.)
Windows XP Home Ed. SP3

What I'd like is suggestions utilizing some of the above, yet replacing some of the major components this all to get me by 6 months at best (so spending $1,000 not reasonable)...or other options you might think of if they reduce the price.

My thoughts, ***= to remain, @@= suggestion needed:
CPU Core 2 Duo... http://www.newegg.com/Product/...15206&page=2&bop=And
MB ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 LGA 775 VIA PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard... http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16813157115
@@ 2-1Gb DDR400 or DDR2 667 (don't know the diff).
***ATI/Powercolor HD2600XT 512Mb 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X GPU .... http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16814131136
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI.... http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16829102006
***3-7200 RPM EIDE ATA Hard Drives
***Promise Ultra 100 TX2 DMA/ATA PCI IDE HDD controller card
***1-DVD drive, 1-CD RW drive, need to remove the A: drive
***Antec Plus 1080 AMG SOHO full tower case
@@ 650W PSU
***Windows XP Home Ed. SP3

Additional economical suggestions welcome.

K2

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

I see where you are coming from and understand your philosophy on this, but you would really be shortchanging yourself by trying to cobble together an intermediary system, and ultimately will end up costing you way more money in the long run. You're best bet is to either A. Tough it out with what you have until Window 7 is released in oct and then build a kick@*** rig to last for the next 6yrs, or B. Build a kick@*** rig now using the windows 7 RC and then have to bother reinstalling the OS when windows 7 retail comes out in oct.

Trust me, I've tried your approach and seen it happen to others, you end up either being very disappointed in the intermediary rig and rebuild the whole thing as soon as you can, or you settle and end up with a half-@ssed rig for a few years.

In my pc building experience, it's best to go balls to the wall within your budget (not suggesting like GTX 295's and i7 extreme editions or drastic stuff like that, just as fast as you can get within budget) and it will last a long time. It's not so much about being cutting edge and as fast as you can get now so much as still being relevant 3-5 years from now. Last rig I built was a Q6600 with a Rampage Formula, 4gigs DDR2 1066 and a 8800GTS 512mb, and this will last me quite a while, I probably wont upgrade for another two or three years, and I'm a hardware nut so upgrade time is like christmas to me, lol.

[X32Wright]

Or you can just keep your current computer box and buy a whole new system with quadcore from HP. They do start at $599 and comes with X654 Vista with free upgrade to Windows 7.

"
HP e9110t

Operating system Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad processor Q8200 [2.33GHz, 4MB L2, 1333MHz FSB]

Memory 4GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [2 DIMMs]

Hard drive 500GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive

Graphics card 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 [DVI, HDMI, VGA]

Primary optical drive LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive edit

Networking Integrated 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet, No wireless LAN

Front Productivity Ports 15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, audio, video (for TV Tuner)

TV & entertainment experience TV tuner, dual format ATSC-NTSC with PVR, remote

Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium

Speakers No speakers

Keyboard and Mouse HP multimedia keyboard and HP optical mouse

Productivity software Microsoft(R) Works 9.0

Security software Norton Internet Security(TM) 2009 - 15 month "

This configuration came out to $869.99 from hp.com

Yes you can use Window 7 RC until june 2010. I am actually dual booting that with X64 Vista on my quadcore.

I used to build computers myself from parts (made computers for friends and family) but buying a whole system is alot easier today and I could only recomend HP because of my good experience with them.

What I did with my HP quadcore box is I bought a bare bones system and just added my own video card and used my old X-Fi Extremegamer soundcard for it. This is a much better deal because now you can just use your old computer for just web use and maybe just a 'server' for files and such but have a dedicated 'gaming system' too. This is what happened to my old Dual Athlon, it is now a 'server'.

PS: No I do not work for HP LOL used to buy Dells but no anymore

[RAF_OldBuzzard]

Would you consider something in the neighborhood of $400.00?

Something that would give you a decent performing system with a PCI-e card?

And, are you open to using an AMD/ATI system?

If so...

119.00 Phenom II X3 720. This is a 'crippled' X4, and there a LOT of people that have unlocked the 4th core with just a simple change in a BIOS setting. Not all unlock, but a lot do
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16819103649

89.99 ASRock MB with ATI chipset that will allow that 4th core to unlocked if possible.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16813157157

56.99 4GB of good, solid performing memory.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16820145184

109.99 Sapphire 4770 vid card. Not a real high end card, but exceptional performance for the price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16814102835

375.97 total, but figure that shipping will put it close to 400.00


Another thing you really should start thinking about is replacing those HDDs. It's almost impossible to find a MB these days that supports more than two EIDE devices. I see that you have that Promise controller, so you have that covered for now, but in any event, those HDDs have to be getting a bit 'long in the tooth' by now, and I'd start to worry about failure. Plus you will find that everyting will load a lot faster with the faster drives.

SATA HDDs have gotten rediculiously(sp?) cheap these days. You can get a 250GB one for $45.00, and there are 500GB ones for not much more:
250GB drives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...me=250GB%20-%20320GB

500GB drives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...035307886&name=500GB

[Lemky]

Hi Bill before you buy recheck your ram speed on your old computer,in the bios and in windows,It is weird how a new card can all of these problems.If ram is running at 333mhz maybe run at a lower mhz to see what happens.Had a problem like your had to run lower mhz to run the 1950 pro

[rjb1fgc]

For what it's worth, I agree with Lemky. RAM isn't always "good forever" and IMHO is the most fragile part of any system, Susceptible to all sorts of "untraceable" stressors (not limited to power surges, power dips, heat, lint, pet hair, etc. ). The least expensive thing you could do would be to run a memory checking program ( after trying the "run memory at a lower mhz" suggestion).
In my experience the "run at lower mhz" would seem unlikely given that your problem seems to occur after being well into a mission. Seems to me more likely that when "well into a mission" the RAM may be becoming almost completely full (or just accumulating data till it finally gets to a "bad location". That's the way it seemed to work in the original IL2 game engine anyway.).
Anyway, (Short Story) back in the "old days" I had a similar problem that Hunter82 tried to help me with and when all was said and done one of my 3 sticks of RAM had a fault in it that didn't show up till it was almost 90% full, if I recall correctly.
Changed that stick and all was well again ( better than well since Hunter's suggestions for settings were certainly better than my own choices as a "newbie" and "non-professional" had been ). Since then I periodically "check the memory" on every machine that I have to use ( even if only turning off the "Quick Boot" option in the BIOS and making the machine go thru the full "memory test" on Boot-Up - though that alone may not always show up an intermittent RAM failure ). Occasionally a previously good stick does show up as bad.

[LEBillfish]

Actually past the first and last ATI card I have now, I'm done with them and don't know enough about AMD to even consider them.

Something you have to remember too is, it's not just MB/CPU/Ram/GPU that I'd need going that route, it's also an OS to make use of the ram, and a new PSU to power it all.

What I proposed is basically $350....That includes a PSU and sound card.....WHat some of you are suggesting takes it up perhaps double for the CPU, MB, Ram, then requires a new GPU, even more powerful PSU, 1-2 GPU, and a new OS and if I'm doing a new OS another HDD......So 350 turns into say $750-1,000 and will then require a new OS soon enough.

In any case I'm debating......The big catch here is by the time I really need all the extra to last another 6 years, the new OS will be ready and what is premium hardware today out of the price range will be half priced and well within it.

K2

Keep it coming though please...

p.s....I also intend on doing a ram test, simply need to burn the disc and do it.

K2

[grndragon57]

To get you by for now your list looks OK. I'd go with the Intel E6300 and save a few dollars, the E7xxx have a larger cache, but I doubt you would notice the difference. For the memory go with the DDR2 667.

[LEBillfish]

OKay, well i've rethought this with the recent release of the I5 and learning about the 1156 Socket Mb's out, so I'd like any input you folks might offer on what I'm looking at below. Also, at this point due to so many of the local PC suppliers having closed I'm most likely going to buy from NewEgg, however other reputable PC component suppliers I'd be glad to consider.

What I will say right off is however, I have absolutly NO intention of using AMD, and most especially ATI....To be frank this ATI card has put me off beyond all imagination, and my problems with it seem to be many folks without resolution. In kind quite frankly, my old Nvidia 6600 produced a MUCH better picture, heck even my old 4200Ti did..........Otherwise, please feel free to make suggestions and help correct any flawed thinking in this proposed system based upon the follwing;

A. WIll retain my Antec 1080 SOHO server case. Quite simply it is way too modified to not for cooling, plus being about as big as it gets have lots of room. Granted, some newer cases are better laid out (ex. have to take out GPU to pull out HHD's), yet in the end it's paying $200+ for a "box", so see no need.
B. Will retain 3 of my EIDE HDD's. With newer MB's however this is a concern in that I'll need a PCI slot for my Promise Ultra 100 TX2 DMA/ATA PCI IDE HDD controller card. That will allow me 4 (2x2, Master Slave) ATA ports, and with old components such as DVD drives and so on I'll just hook them to there.
C. Cooling is fixed for me in all regards except CPU and Ram. Currently my entire system which does not rely on liquid cooling keeps my system at roughly 98-112F at its hottest points. In brief, all the intakes draw from forced air ducting running deep into the ground lowering it's temp to approx. 55-60F. The flow through the case to pass over components has been optimized, and as it routes out to exhaust is taken away not recycled even through room air currents. Finally all fans are run from a second PSU except for the CPU and PSU. That helps insure fewer spikes as fans age, and they are kept running at 100%....Call it the Musclecar of cooling, not energy efficient, loud, yet does the job in spades.
D. Primary software run past the OS is: AutoCAD 2004, Photoshop 7, IL2 1946, MS Office 97, and once I have the system Rise of Flight. Why not use newer software? Well why? It works for me, anything newer will not do anything more past make me have to learn it.

Past that what I need:

* = Am not sure at all, need suggestions.
** = What out of this range of products (will supply a NewEgg list) or other suggestions?
*** = Am willing to consider other brands/products
**** = Am firm, selection fixed at this date (though who knows what tomorrow may bring)

OS****/* = Will be Windows 7 Professional Edition in 64bit once released (Currently have XP Home SP3), and am currently thinking 7 Professional for the XP compatibility (more to be safe then anything) however would not be adverse to hearing arguments as to just going with "home edition". Though I'm not really sure about the advantages of 32vs.64bit, one aspect is clear and that's the ability to rum more ram....and ram is good, so most likely will install 64bit. Now frankly I don't like the idea of an "Upgrade" version vs. a full version. Yet I do like keeping the extra $100 it would cost. In kind it looks as though it's not really an upgrade as we've known in the past, more of a "confirm you have a legit copy of XP, then install fully".

CPU**** = Intel Core i7 860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16819115214

CPU Cooler* = unsure, I like the idea of copper, it MUST be active (have a fan), and obviously fit a 1156 socket....Also, I see no reason to spend over $100, and a liquid cooling "system" quite simply is un-needed with my set up (see above).

MB** = What I MUST have is an ATX or ATX expanded form factor, an estimated 2+ PCI (old form) slots, one to utilize an ATA card for my EIDE drives, and at least one more for "whatever". In kind my experience has been with Asus and Intel boards both of which I've had great luck. However, I have included EVGA, ASRock, and Gigabyte though know nothing about them......Other aspects are PCI Express which I know nothing about for either GPU's or Sound (both discussed later), and finally I would like the ability to have 6 USB ports and Lan for my Cable Modem.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...21387&page=2&bop=And

Memory* = Obviously the memory I can use is ultimately determined by the MB. However, it will be DDR3 dual channel, and most state they can accept DDR3-1600 or higher (listed as OC which I assume is overclocking yet know nothing of that...need to learn as the CPU is capable of much). I expect to purchase 2Gb sticks, and will either have 6 or 8Gb ultimately though may just to get it running start with 4Gb minimum.

Memory Cooling* = Like above, the MB will ultimately dictate this. Now I long before they offered heat sinks on, let alone fans have been doing both to my ram for years....However, since you can now by the stuff and not have to fake it out, I'd like to just save myself the trouble and buy something.

GPU* = Will be Nvidia without exception as to chipset. Past that I know nothing of PCIexpress cards except supposedly better to run one then 2 or 3, though will want it to be SLI capable just in case. However, maybe I'm just cheap yet I'm not prepared to spend much over $300 if that for one. It's all good and fine to have the biggest and baddest, however if middle of the road does fine the balance is just bragging rights so not worth it to me.

Sound Card** = Now as you read above, all that I need sound for is IL2, RoF (which I know nothing about), and occasional applications like YouTube, MSMP, and so on....Yet I'm not watching DVD's, TV, etc. on this PC, and really except for IL2 or RoF sound quality is not an issue...Yet PC performance is. That said I wonder if I even need a sound card for those two sims based upon how Win7 works, direct sound routed through the processor. IL2 supposedly I would not, RoF I don't know. In either case here would be my two choices, one PCI, the other PC express.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...06%2CN82E16829102019

PSU*** = Antec TruePower Quattro TPQ-1000 1000W Continuous Power ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC "compatible with Core i7" Power Supply............This area really concerns me in that looking over reviews of MB's I noted that some had issues due to the power to the CPU was less by 2w. Unfortunately I'm not sure what PSU they were using, yet in any case it is fairly obvious with today's equipment we're seeing the need for a Kw of power. This is what I selected simply due to my experience, though others may be fine as well (naturally they're suddenly sold out), yet what I think I'm not prepared to do is spend $250+ for a PSU. Suggestions welcome however.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...Item=N82E16817371012

HDD*** = Currently I have no SATA drives and as policy on new builds even simply reinstalls of OS's install a new drive for it (mostly so I can pull setup aspects off the old)....In any case, I prefer more smaller drives then one huge one and even they get broken up into partitions. I'll not be going SSD in that they're not quite worth it yet. So I guess I'll be getting my first SATA or two, my guess not over 500Gb if even that, and 7200 RPM should work fine having heard too many bad things about high rpm drives failing.....Finally I'll most likely go WesternDigital. Have used them since 98, and never had a failure in fact my MASSIVE 3.2Gb & 8Gb drives still run fine (though are on a shelf to lazy to toss them).

Monitor* = Say what you want, yet my old "get a tan while you work" 19" CRT works fine......However it's time to shift to something more modern and larger in that we all know, size matters To that end knowing nothing of monitors past an Etch-A-Sketch, I'd like to hear suggestions yet would rather not get much past $500-600 IF THAT....What I don't however want is one that is very wide, yet shorter in the vertical then my 19", in fact I'd like to see the vertical improve in size.....

DVD/CD Burner*** = Old one not working (though not sure why), and since they're cheap I'll just get a new one....Not really something I need suggestions on it pretty straight forward, however if you wish fire away.

Filtering**** = My old filters work okay, yet think I'm going to change them out. This such a custom thing however I'll not seek advice this just a reminder for me.

Cables*** = If you'd like suggest data cables, yet is no biggie. I already know of a couple brands I'll not buy in that I did and they failed after a couple weeks (how is that even possible??????)....Anywho.

Fans**** = As is tradition with me, a new build or rebuild gets new fans. Old ones working fine, yet over time the bearings/bushings go, they begin to drag, require more power, etc.. So I just replace them. In this case will be 5 80mm fans, and one that is like 4-5", will have to look it over to remember. All of my fans run off a second PSU so do not affect PC Wattage performance. However I think I'll shift them from the 200+W PSU they're on to my 430W though that will entail messing with its wiring a bit.


Thanks for any suggesttions.

K2

[Ba5tard5word]

When thinking about new computers/components, the MOST useful thing to me is to set a budget and try to work with it.

And you could easily get a new computer that would max out Il-2 for probably like $500 or less. One that is $700 to $900 with say a Core Duo and an 8800 card or higher would be better for other newer games but would still struggle a bit.

Or to save money maybe consider getting a card like an 8600GT, I had one on my old computer and it ran Il-2 really well. They're like $50 and are small so they don't need a huge PSU--430W for it would be plenty. Dunno if it would work with your motherboard. Maybe your RAM needs updating?

As for OS, if you are happy with XP then I would stick with it unless you get a new computer. I bet win Win7 comes out there will be a lot of sales and deals on it, also I wouldn't worry too much about early adopter bugs, it's been out as a beta for a while so hopefully MS has them ironed out but you never know. And for the record Vista is a perfectly fine OS. Unless you've used it and have valid reasons for not liking it, don't believe the bad press it gets.

If you want to be ready for ROF and BOB:SOW though, you will have to spend some serious cash and might as well just get a new computer, but you'll have to spend at least $900 or so. I have an i7 920 and a GTX 260 and ROF just barely runs well on it, I could imagine it having trouble on a weaker GPU and CPU--though honestly I don't think ROF is worth getting right now for offline flying, and it's certainly not worth spending several hundreds of dollars on a new computer to get--it's pretty but there's just too little offline content. SOW will probably need more power but we don't have the specs yet of course.