My New System

[Hoby]

thats the same problem i was having, thats why i decided to do a complete reinstall of uo and cart.  worked after that.

[Cerveza]

Probably installed with permissions allowing UOCart to access the directory.

[Hoby]

yea, of course.  After i spend all night reinstalling and patching you find a simple way to fix it! lol

[Cerveza]

So if I do decide to add a video card....

Since the motherboard has ATI on it already, I'm assuming I should just get an ATI Video Card as well, to avoid doubling up on drivers? It's PCI Express 2.0 x16 and unfortunately Asus only has 2.1 for their ATI cards. I'd really like to stick with the same company for MB and Video, oh well.

Hows THIS ONE look?

[Cerveza]

This is actually a little confusing.

The Asus site shows a card as being 2.1 while it's 2.0 on tigerdirect and 2.1 on newegg.

Another card is 2.0 on Asus, 2.1 on newegg and 2.0 on tigerdirect.

*Actually, after reading a little more, it doesn't matter at all. You can use a 2.1 card in a 2.0 slot.

[Kalaka]

Ya was gonna say you should be able to. Don't you just play UO though? Why you need a good graphics card?

[Cerveza]

Oh I don't. I don't need a lot of stuff LOL.

[gimlet]

You still most likely will most likely have two sets of drivers unless the cards are identical - but will probably save on support files. I'd check to see that 2 ATI config programs are not loading.

[Cerveza]

Since I can go with 2.1, then I might think about THIS CARD.

[UOMaddog]

How many monitors will you be using? I do recommend sticking with the same companies (nVIDIA vs ATi) just so that if you have issues they can't blame it on the other guy so to speak. I'd recommend a card that has a lifetime warranty if possible just to alleviate any potential headaches. It's been awhile since I've looked at ATi cards so I'd have to do a little more research before suggesting one

[Cerveza]

See, I knew if I just waited, something would come along.

Guy posted on the work email for sale thingy... A pair of eVGA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB.

I have two of these video cards for sale, used. Original box included, I think each has all the original cables/adapters except for the DVI to VGA converter it came with.

Both cards came from working machines and have never been overclocked or run hot. Just light to moderate gaming usage. Purchased in Feb 2008 and used until about Jan 2011.

Perfect card for a budget gaming rig or as a spare replacement.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-512-P3-N801-AR-GeForce-512MB-Graphics/dp/B0010T8XFY

Asking $35/ea or $60 for the pair. Reasonable offers also accepted.

Emailed him and he has them available. Mine, all mine!

I only have the one slot so I'll put one in my PC to upgrade from the motherboard video (which has been good enough) and put the other one in my son's PC as an upgrade to his 6600GT. I can move the 6600GT to my father's PC to upgrade from his motherboard video.

I think $60 is a great price for a pair of 8800 GT's... think so?

[Masscre]

Definately a good price !! To bad Twinkle McNugget was not here to disagree with me on this being a good buy !!

[gimlet]

A good price for sure.

[Cerveza]

Okay, latest on my pc.

Haven't gotten around to putting the video card in. I've had some power problems that screwed something up with my PC.

I've had a couple times that required multiple (like 50+) reboots to get back to win 7 screen.

I bought an APC BackUPS ES 750 to help with the weird power outages. It's awesome. Connects to PC and you can set up how long to run on UPS and it monitors everything including how much power your using. Got it for a nice price on sale at Office Depot.

Still had some random blue screens and crashes. I suspected ram. I took out one of my chips and ran with only one and things seemed to stabilize. I ran both sticks in NON-dual channel (ran them in 1-2 instead of 1-3 for dual channel) and ran pretty good. Still got a reboot though.

Ordered some G.Skill ECO (1.35v) ram, 4G of the 12800 (1600) to replace my 1333 sticks. Put them in dual channel and have run solid for over a week. Very happy with the purchase.

Same order I got a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus heatsink/heatpipe/fan for my CPU. I'm just tired of hearing the default tiny fan spinning at 6000rpm all the time. I was going to have it put in as I haven't done it before, but they wanted $45 to do it. I felt I could learn for that price.

Installation went really smooth. As to the cooler itself, couldn't say more about it. Awesome. Works for like every chipset out there!

Here's some real numbers:

Stock Fan
27*C (78*F) on the cores
40*C (104*F) on the cpu
5921rpm CPU fan

Hyper 212 Plus
20*C (68*F) on the cores
34*C (93*F) on the cpu
1864rpm CPU fan

The 120mm fan is virtually silent. Cooled the cpu down by 10 degrees and turned it into an almost silent machine.

I'll see how things go, but I might have finally gotten all the gremlins out. If it stays up for a week or so I'll toss in that video card