need help with hardware upgrade

[MOST_WASTED]

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anybody know what this means? RAM should read 16gb. i've tried swapping slots all day, i've tried using them one by one even, they all work. frankly i'm ready to snap these things in half but i thought i'd ask around first. do you guys know what i could do to correct it? thanks.

* - no hurry. im tired of working on it. ima leave it this way for now. thanks for any help you guys could give me on the issue. http://virtualcustoms.net/images/smilies/61576.gif
68780

[idle]

From everything you've said above, I would say reinstall windows time me thinks ...

If you don't want to do that, I would suggest at least trying to narrow down the problem via serices - cmd -> msconfig and go to services tab and tick "Hide all Microsoft services" and see whats left over in the list.

Then untick those services one at a time, reboot, plug in devices and see if you get a BSOD and continue the process until you do, or don't, to rule out anything installed in your system that may be causing conflicts resulting in a BSOD.

It can be a long drawn out process, and sometimes just easier to do a fresh install of winodws. But you run the risk of a fresh install going fubar when reinstalling the offending program again too lol - don't ya just love trouble shooting ...

This why it is essential that you BACK UP your system. Personally I use Macrium Reflect, you can download their free version here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
I have 3 backup images stored for just such emergencies - 1. A clean install image. 2. A modded image. 3. A hacked image.

The clean image is self explainatory, the modded image is my system modded/themed and the hacked image is a bunch of windows regedit scripts and hacks that have taken much of windows 8 control away from itself and given it back to me whre I feel it belongs in the first place - take that Microsoft!

Either way it gives me some confidence that if one or more of my hack attempts fails or I completely screw things up, I can revert back to an image and not have the nightmare of losing data and reinstalling windows. It really is one of the smartest things you can do for yourself.

lol as for the 600W PSU - yes it could handle another stick of RAM in your current set up. That's not to say your PSU isn't faulty, you can test the rails if you know how - look it up online ...

My guess, there's a software conflict that's causing your BSOD to happen when you plug a device in.

[MOST_WASTED]

From everything you've said above, I would say reinstall windows time me thinks ...

If you don't want to do that, I would suggest at least trying to narrow down the problem via serices - cmd -> msconfig and go to services tab and tick "Hide all Microsoft services" and see whats left over in the list.

Then untick those services one at a time, reboot, plug in devices and see if you get a BSOD and continue the process until you do, or don't, to rule out anything installed in your system that may be causing conflicts resulting in a BSOD.

It can be a long drawn out process, and sometimes just easier to do a fresh install of winodws. But you run the risk of a fresh install going fubar when reinstalling the offending program again too lol - don't ya just love trouble shooting ...

This why it is essential that you BACK UP your system. Personally I use Macrium Reflect, you can download their free version here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
I have 3 backup images stored for just such emergencies - 1. A clean install image. 2. A modded image. 3. A hacked image.

The clean image is self explainatory, the modded image is my system modded/themed and the hacked image is a bunch of windows regedit scripts and hacks that have taken much of windows 8 control away from itself and given it back to me whre I feel it belongs in the first place - take that Microsoft!

Either way it gives me some confidence that if one or more of my hack attempts fails or I completely screw things up, I can revert back to an image and not have the nightmare of losing data and reinstalling windows. It really is one of the smartest things you can do for yourself.

lol as for the 600W PSU - yes it could handle another stick of RAM in your current set up. That's not to say your PSU isn't faulty, you can test the rails if you know how - look it up online ...

My guess, there's a software conflict that's causing your BSOD to happen when you plug a device in.

hey idle i appreciate the reply. im kinda glad nobody has replied with a "be safe and get a PSU." lol as for the BSOD i think it was the different phones, we had androids and my friends had a blackberry, iphone and one other kind, i wouldnt doubt that it was a conflict. i dint happen again after that though. the 2nd bsod happened days later. and that was the last one so i think im okay. thank you for the tip though, its good know it :peace:

* is there a way to tell when i need to upgrade the PSU? like a software PSU meter or something that would tell how much of the 600W my rig is consuming in realtime? i will google it but if anyone knows any software like that please post it, no link necessarry just the name of it will be fine. thank you very much

[2635599]

MOST_WASTED (http://virtualcustoms.net/member.php/216192-MOST_WASTED) i agree 100% with what idle (http://virtualcustoms.net/member.php/243562-idle) said. as for your psu 600 watts should be plenty, evrn though amd's do eat more power than intel cpu's.

[idle]

There are options to testing your PSU's usage. Please remember that no matter what you use to test your PSU's usage, the most important factor when considering power supplies is your rails amperage, ie. 12v rail, 5v rail & 3v rail.

These are both equally good sites for what you need.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

http://psucalc.info/

As for actual software for download you can try this: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/llztjtjywsaxwil/AACCieh6lTUFF79QkgADYVpCa/PSU%20Calc%20%5BPrototype%20V2%5D.exe?dl=1

[Mr GRiM]

The new GTX980 and 970 should have no problems with a 600 Watt PSU, $550 for a GTX980 and i think it was about 200 less for the 970, both amazing cards on performance and power from benchmarks so far.

If your going to go for a new internal drive I would get a 1TB SSD not a HDD, they are coming down in price a fair bit now, the 1TB Samsung 840 evo is pretty good value for $499 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147251 although I have seen them for less, or if you are looking for a real performer with a extended life span and 10 year warranty then grab a Samsung 850 Pro, $380 for a 512GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147361

[MOST_WASTED]

There are options to testing your PSU's usage. Please remember that no matter what you use to test your PSU's usage, the most important factor when considering power supplies is your rails amperage, ie. 12v rail, 5v rail & 3v rail.
thank you for the links idle i really appreciate it, i will visit those sites for sure. :)



The new GTX980 and 970 should have no problems with a 600 Watt PSU, $550 for a GTX980 and i think it was about 200 less for the 970, both amazing cards on performance and power from benchmarks so far.

If your going to go for a new internal drive I would get a 1TB SSD not a HDD, they are coming down in price a fair bit now, the 1TB Samsung 840 evo is pretty good value for $499 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147251 although I have seen them for less, or if you are looking for a real performer with a extended life span and 10 year warranty then grab a Samsung 850 Pro, $380 for a 512GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147361

thanks for the reply Mr GRiM (http://virtualcustoms.net/member.php/1-Mr-GRiM). the cards sure sound nice and to tell you the truth if i did win that much $ i would take your advice in a heartbeat and get that gtx980 but i did good just not that good. im surprised the card runs on a 600W i know it has a reputaion for being a powerhouse. about the hard drive, my brother only needs it for storage but he is bothered by the windows 7 experience index score of 5.9 because of his current drive lol. i think he will be okay with the normal hdd. those SDDs they have really steep prices for such small space, performance i guess is what you are buying there.

thanks for the 2nd and 3rd opinion The Nude Dude (http://virtualcustoms.net/member.php/177825-The-Nude-Dude) & Mr GRiM (http://virtualcustoms.net/member.php/1-Mr-GRiM). i will definitely get RAM now instead of a PSU. cheers!

[Mr GRiM]

Did you end up getting an upgrade?

[MOST_WASTED]

Did you end up getting an upgrade?

i did. i ended up buying from newegg coz my bestbuy dint have what i needed in stock, got another 8gb ram and i bought my brother a hard drive. still waiting on it.

hey by the way that tip of yours the gtx 980 was one hell of a tip. i dint realize til i saw that it was out of stock and just today i saw it is being sold for 900 bux. from 550. holy sh*t :amazed:
oh no wait i went to take a screenie then i saw it comes with a power supply. thats why its 900 lol
68772

was stil a good tip though and that thing sold out pretty quickly. from the reviews it seems everyone was satisfied too

[Mr GRiM]

That one is with a 700W Power suply, you can still get it for $550
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127834&cm_re=gtx980-_-14-127-834-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127831&cm_re=gtx980-_-14-127-831-_-Product

[idle]

Hardware wise the manufacturers have got it down to a fine art for the most part. Its the drivers that can be the issue for new hardware and anyone with the $$$ should realize that when you go out and grab the latest and greatest, you are going to find issues because it takes time for driver developers to iron out the bugs.
They do their best to get the latest drivers out to market, and personally I think they do a good job of it for the most part, but its sometimes both funny & sad when you hit the forums and Mr I Got The Latest is crying foul because he payed big bucks and his spanking brand new videocard doesn't work perfectly with his favorite game lol

My gaming rig is a monster. But I'm still using 1366 architecture - yes you read that correctly lol
Intel i7 990X CPU overclocked to the shitzenhousen - watercooled of coarse, and my videocard is an ATi single GPU HD 7970, running off an ASUS Rampage III Extreme Black Edition motherboard.
By all accounts my system is like 4 generations old and it can handle anything I throw at it. Everything is watercooled, ram, mobo, CPU/GPU, twin pump set up, separate loops for GPU and CPU mobo & ram.

Picked everything up real cheap, by then there was new hardware on the market and the above was going at bargain basement prices lol
All new when I got too, only it wasn't the latest and greatest, but with a bit of water, and a bit of overclocking, this thing ran like a screaming banshee from the get go!
No driver issues, none, zip, nada. Out of the box, update everything and booyah baby, rock solid from day squat.

I'll do it again too one day. Sit a generation or two behind the pack (if possible) save a bundle of cash, and still have a killer rig able to do anything I throw at it. As you can probably tell, I aint a huge fan of early uptake of technology. Too many issues when its the latest and greatest. But a generation behind, drivers, and the hardware itself is tried, tested and good to go.

About the only thing lacking with the above philosophy ...my e-penis is isn't as huge as others :cheeky:

[Mr GRiM]

Hardware wise the manufacturers have got it down to a fine art for the most part. Its the drivers that can be the issue for new hardware and anyone with the $$$ should realize that when you go out and grab the latest and greatest, you are going to find issues because it takes time for driver developers to iron out the bugs.
They do their best to get the latest drivers out to market, and personally I think they do a good job of it for the most part, but its sometimes both funny & sad when you hit the forums and Mr I Got The Latest is crying foul because he payed big bucks and his spanking brand new videocard doesn't work perfectly with his favorite game lol

My gaming rig is a monster. But I'm still using 1366 architecture - yes you read that correctly lol
Intel i7 990X CPU overclocked to the shitzenhousen - watercooled of coarse, and my videocard is an ATi single GPU HD 7970, running off an ASUS Rampage III Extreme Black Edition motherboard.
By all accounts my system is like 4 generations old and it can handle anything I throw at it. Everything is watercooled, ram, mobo, CPU/GPU, twin pump set up, separate loops for GPU and CPU mobo & ram.

Picked everything up real cheap, by then there was new hardware on the market and the above was going at bargain basement prices lol
All new when I got too, only it wasn't the latest and greatest, but with a bit of water, and a bit of overclocking, this thing ran like a screaming banshee from the get go!
No driver issues, none, zip, nada. Out of the box, update everything and booyah baby, rock solid from day squat.

I'll do it again too one day. Sit a generation or two behind the pack (if possible) save a bundle of cash, and still have a killer rig able to do anything I throw at it. As you can probably tell, I aint a huge fan of early uptake of technology. Too many issues when its the latest and greatest. But a generation behind, drivers, and the hardware itself is tried, tested and good to go.

About the only thing lacking with the above philosophy ...my e-penis is isn't as huge as others :cheeky:
Good advice but not always easy to hold back when you see all the new features that come with the latest and greatest, I waited a while to get my GTX580 and still paid top dollar but then less then a month later the 600 series came out and they had support for new G-Sync monitor.

I love this card it goes like a champ but all of a sudden I felt like it had become obsolete, as for the new GTX980 at $550 it cost $200 less then what I paid for my GTX580 that was out for almost a year, so for that price I would still probably jump on it if I had the chance, although I expect GTX 980ti wont be too far off so would be interested to see how that compares.

[idle]

lol I had to look up G-Sync monitor ...

Sounds interesting synchronizing display refresh rates to the GPU. Pretty nifty idea actually, shows how much I'm out of the loop with the latest and greatest ...
I'm using the Dell U2711 IPS Display for my gaming rig, and was always under the impression it don't get any better than that. But I've had that thing for YEARS now, shows how much I'm behind the latest tech.

"new GTX980 at $550 it cost $200 less then what I paid for my GTX580" that *^#@! just shouldn't be allowed to happen. Nvidia should at the very least have some kind of loyalty program, present your receipt of purchase and get the $200 extra you payed back then off the price of the new card. Shows why I ain't a multimillionaire lol

[MOST_WASTED]

anybody know what this means? RAM should read 16gb. i've tried swapping slots all day, i've tried using them one by one even, they all work. frankly i'm ready to snap these things in half but i thought i'd ask around first. do you guys know what i could do to correct it? thanks.

* - no hurry. im tired of working on it. ima leave it this way for now. thanks for any help you guys could give me on the issue. :)
68780

[idle]

Two things off the top of my head (its only 8:30am here, so I'm yet to fully wake) :cheeky:

Firstly check your BIOS. Sometimes just going into BIOS kind of slaps it into action and its realizes you've made changes. Unless you can specifically make changes to your BIOS, ie. a memory setting located in your BIOS settings ...
If there is no such settings, just go to BIOS, then F10 back out and see how that goes.

If that don't do the trick - right click my computer/this PC and select properties, device manager and select the name of your PC, top most icon anyway, right click and select detect hardware changes. That might do the trick too.

Hope this helps :Peace:

[MOST_WASTED]

Two things off the top of my head (its only 8:30am here, so I'm yet to fully wake) :cheeky:

Firstly check your BIOS. Sometimes just going into BIOS kind of slaps it into action and its realizes you've made changes. Unless you can specifically make changes to your BIOS, ie. a memory setting located in your BIOS settings ...
If there is no such settings, just go to BIOS, then F10 back out and see how that goes.

If that don't do the trick - right click my computer/this PC and select properties, device manager and select the name of your PC, top most icon anyway, right click and select detect hardware changes. That might do the trick too.

Hope this helps :Peace:

i've done the hardware change because i also installed a harddrive. no luck with the memory. my BIOS actually does have settings for memory, i dont understand it though so i put them all on auto

by the way from the bios my memory reads only 8192. getting in windows it becomes what you see in image
my board has a MEM.OK! button, should i press that?

also good morning idle. have u had breakfast yet? its the most important meal of the day lol

[idle]

Okay dude, time to pull the C-Mos battery :Peace:

[MOST_WASTED]

Okay dude, time to pull the C-Mos battery :Peace:

oh no. i dont wanna open it again, or not right now anyway. i'll leave it this way for now lol. thanks man i appreciate the help. by the way whats a cmos battery lol

[idle]

The cmos battery in on the motherboard, right next to the install Justin Bieber wallpaper button :laughing:

[MOST_WASTED]

The cmos battery in on the motherboard, right next to the install Justin Bieber wallpaper button :laughing:

heeeey. who told you about that?! she is so pretty. lol

[MOST_WASTED]

i dont think its the sticks. i think one of the slots is broke. is it okay to use 3 4gb sticks or should i just use 2 since they have to be paired? thanks

[2635599]

The cmos battery in on the motherboard, right next to the install Justin Bieber wallpaper button :laughing:

that's the install Justin Bieber Anus wallpaper button lol . most_wanted go to asus page for you mobo and find the recommended memory list for that board.

[MOST_WASTED]

that's the install Justin Bieber Anus wallpaper button lol . most_wanted go to asus page for you mobo and find the recommended memory list for that board.

i fixed it! :Smile: :gun: :-Dwhoopee lol beiber tickets for everyone

thanks to all who helped i love all of you lol. but no really thank you. i appreciate it very much

[2635599]

MOST_WASTED (http://virtualcustoms.net/member.php/216192-MOST_WASTED) o.k. now that you got it fix spill the beans dude. did you have to cant ab incantation? did you have to do cartwheels? did you have to sacrifice a virgin(good luck finding one)? spill the beans so we know what it was. (http://virtualcustoms.net/member.php/216192-MOST_WASTED)lol