The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Or an X-Power!!! Just replaced that joke of a PSU. It was VERY obnoxious in the end.

 

I would almost say get an Antec EarthWatts 380W. I've used a few of those now in fixing/building other systems and they really are dependable and nice quality. Plus they definitely have enough power for an HD4850.

 

Yeah they're quite good units. I don't think they've been Seasonics for the last year or so, and they're not that quiet when you load them up, but they're good units.

 

Why wasn't I made aware of this before!!! They're a damn sight cheaper then Corsair units. Although only Ebuyer seem to sell them with their stupid postage making them a mere £1 less then the Corsair off Dabs inc. postage. Hmm Corsair or Antec there's only one way to find out: FIGHT!!!

 

Just use super saver delivery, half the time it's still next day anyway.

 

It's still £4.72 compared to the £3.42 delivery off Dabs making the Antec £39.29 and the Corsair £41.12. That's the £1.83 it costs me that to get to sixth-form. So which unit is truly better?

 

I personally would go for the Corsair to be honest. The main problem with the Antec units is exactly this, the price has gone up several pounds.

 

Wow, Sam, you have a great memory! You're right, I had the Antec 1200 for about 30 days, which is not a mesh case - yes that's right, I remember now, we had that discussion about the mesh, based on you having had the 900.

Aww, I just "misspelled" it to be funny

I know you have an aluminum Lexa, Sam. That's good to hear you guys endorsing that metal - in my mind I had some last reservations about strength - but I'll put those aside.

Out of curiousity, when you say superior in every way to SECC, could you list those comparison benefits, which I assume would include lighter weight?

 

It looks nicer, it wears better against scratches, it's sturdier, it's lighter and as said, it conducts heat better, if you put any weight on that argument.

 

LOL! I noticed Aluminum's unusual properties at a rather young age actually. I think 12-13. I was cooking a pizza on aluminum foil. I noticed that it did not absorb nearly as much heat as steal. In fact, I could grab it with bare skin!!! Aluminum cools rapidly! While steal does not. Perhaps however, aluminum foil's reflective properties kept it cool too...

 

Well, aluminum foil is very thin. So how much heat can it hold, and yes, it cools rapidly. A piece of steel is not foil, and it will hold the heat, and burn the sh*t out of your little 12 year old fingers, lol.

But although I, too, used to cook on aluminum foil all the time, I have heard lately that there may be some link to Alzheimer's, so I don't use it for cooking anymore.

Speaking of burning, I chose yesterday to run the Intel Burn Test on my modest 5% overclock of fsb 210 instead of 200.

Do you guys remember that really hot series of days when my trailer temps were at 98, and my gpu temps hit 100. Those tests caused Jeff to advise me to get the Zalman after-market 3850 cooler, which sparked my after market cooler frenzy! LOL

Well, yesterday was another hot day. Earlier in the day I saw 98 degrees again on the thermometer. So with sweat breaking out on my brow, I ran the stress test only 3 times, noticing the cpu temp climb to 74, and then hit Sam's ultimate high number of 75!!

(Actually for some strange reason, on my 3.2 p4 - now 3.36 - I couldn't get the Intel Burn Test to open - the program said the configurations were wrong and to re-install???, although the program opens fine on my 2.8 p4. So I ran LinX which uses the same Linpack files to stress the cpu.)

The computer passed the test. Then I went over to the business end of the trailer and noticed the temperature at 106. Just now it shows 108. Hahahaha. Do I know how to pick the right days for stress testing, or what? It's friggin burning up over here!!!

(I ran the test last night after things cooled down, this time for 10 iterations - again no errors. I had upped memory voltage to 2.6 from 2.5 to help the overclock. My 3dmark6 is up to 5144 from 4860 or so - I'm so proud of my little P4, hahaha.)

By the way, what is a good stress test for the gpu? Somebody said use ATT for the artifact finder. I read a little about FurMark and downloaded that. The gpu temps by the way, never exceed 74 now with the vf1000, down from 100! Thanks Jeff.

 

I grabbed it directly out of the hot oven... The foil temperature was hardly even warm. Thats why I was impressed.

I heard about that study a while back. Alzheimer's that is

 

Oh, now I see what you mean. Well, the foil should have been the same temp as the oven of course - which was what, maybe 400 degrees. That would normally be enough to burn you.

But of course, one can hold a hot potatoe at the same temperature for a fraction of a second - what maybe a quarter of a second - before the heat penetrates the outer skin and hits the nerves. You can kind of toss it from hand to hand.

But being foil, unlike an equally hot potatoe, it immediately gave all its heat to your fingers, and cooled to body temp within that 1/4 second window.

But I have to agree, that IS kind of remarkable. I would not have guessed, until you told us all just now, that one could grab foil from the oven and not get burned.

So what does anybody think of our sunny southern california 105 outside temperatures? (Typically reserved for Las Vegas.) What's the temp in overcast Britain, 65?

 

Stop it with the Fahrenheit Celsius for the win!

Been in London for the last few days and it was (at a guess) about 35oC in the sun, so not much colder than there (at night in my room it was constantly 27oC...)

If i can point out how odd the Fahrenheit scale is:

"The zero point is determined by placing the thermometer in brine: he used a mixture of ice, water, and ammonium chloride, a salt. This is a type of frigorific mixture. The mixture automatically stabilizes its temperature at 0 °F. He then put a thermometer into the mixture and let the liquid in the thermometer descend to its lowest point. The second point is the 32 degree found by putting the thermometer in still water as ice is just forming on the surface. The third point, the 96 degree, was the level of the liquid in the thermometer when held in the mouth or under the armpit."

Celsius:

0oC - Freezing point of water, 100oC - Boiling point of water.

Plus, Kelvin goes directly off Celsius, so science is on our side

 

More specifically, it's been quite hot here by our standards, temps around 75-85 during the day. Had a bit of the post-heat thunder and rain here tonight.

 

@Rich

The best GPU stress test I've found so far is FurMark.

 

so i have an 80GB PS3 and a Dell S2409W Monitor which have been connected via hdmi for 8 months.

but now i turn it on and its black.

i have turned it on by holding it down, by resetting the display settings, i have formatted the HDD and done the master reset on the PS3 to no avail, but all i get it a blakc screen.

if i jiggle the hdmi (at the back of the PS3) it shows red dots. i have tried a different HDMi cable to no avail, i have used both HDMI cables with my PC to this monitor and it works.

so i assume its the PS3, but i went to my aunts, and she has a sony 42" bravia which can do 720p/1080i max.

SO i thought why not connect it up. i did and it worked instantly, BUT i connected it back to my monitor and nothing

WTF can i do?!

 

FurMark it is then - thanks Jeff. I've got it downloaded.

Oh Shokz. Celsius vs Fahrenheit. Of course science is on your side! It's so much cleaner. But other than for computers, if I said to somebody around here -"It's a ghastly 42 degrees" they'd think I was hallucinating.

Anyway, let's see, 106 degrees F here, and Shokz is in London where it's 35C. Oh, conversion conversion - 35 x 9/5 (is that right, 212-32 = 180 versus 100, yes, 9/5 - it's 5/8 for KM versus miles, oh dear) = 7x9 = 63 + 32, = 95 degrees Fahrenheit - quite warm.

Come on Shokz, you're just giving me trouble for nothing, don't tell me you walk around using Celsius, lol. (That's only for cpu and gpu temps, hahaha.)

Seems like where Sam is, is quite a bit cooler, but maybe more humidity with the rain and all.

Edit:
Hey does everybody like memtest for testing memory? I finally got it onto a floppy and it's running right now.

 

(sorry for second post - shaff was posting while I was editing)

Nothing Shaff. You're screwed. (How quickly he forgets about Shaff's help with the southbridge lanes, lol.)

Well, all right. You have proven that the ps3 works - at grandma's house. Did you take both hdmi cables with you to grandma's house?

Your display works from your PC, but not (at this time) through the hdmi from the ps3. And you are using the same identical hdmi cables from your PC to your display that you were trying to use from your PS/3 to your display?

Why does this remind me of my ide intermittent cable problem that caused me to wipe my disk drive. The cable would work with the drive in a certain physical position - you would think that in itself would have said to me "CABLE dummy! Not DRIVE!" But it didn't alas.

My point of that sad little story is maybe the methodology of your test. You didn't expect it to work at grandma's so you didn't take both cables, #1. Secondly, if you move the cables around a bit at Grandma's is there any problem at all?

If the identical cables absolutely work between PS/3 at grandma's, and identical cables absolutely work at home between computer and monitor - I would tend to think not a cable problem. Then why did your ps/3 all of a sudden become incompatible with YOUR monitor, but not grandma's. Your monitor is compatible with your computer, but not the ps/3.

In my case, the problem was the cable, but in your case, it probably is NOT the cable - although I am not sure you have completely rigorously tested the cables yet.

What setting on your monitor recognizes the PS/3 as opposed to recognizing the computer? Have you fiddled with your monitor in the setup settings so something that used to work, now doesn't?

 

i tried both cables in both senarios, and all the possibilites