Author Topic: Computer help. (Read 4138 times)

Xeroma · « **on:** November 18, 2009, 04:27:23 AM »

Okay guys, I've mentioned this in chat before to some folks and I'm sure some of you already know this, but I want to upgrade my PC really badly. It screws up anything since like 2007 release-wise and it annoys the hell out of me.

The source of the problem lies in my shitty graphics card and my AWSUM DUAL CELERON processor, from what I can tell.

Now, I don't actually know a whole lot about how to do this is the problem. I am told that getting a better graphics card is reccomended, and I even have one bookmarked for buying[link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150322 ]. I've heard that it may not work depending on my motherboard though.

So in short...

1. How do I change graphics cards?
2. How do I check what my motherboard is, and if the card I want works on it?

I know this is probably gonna come across as computer illiterate retarded, but I don't want to buy ANOTHER new PC when I got this one just last year.

Shale · « **Reply #1 on:** November 18, 2009, 04:40:48 AM »

WARNING: Do not buy that graphics card unless you will also buy a new processor at some point. It is so far beyond a dual-core Celeron that the processor will bottleneck it (the card can only churn out graphics as fast as the processor can tell it what to do; if the processor is slower than the card then you can't use the card at its full power).

EDIT: I may have overstated the case there; it's a more budget model than I realized. Still, what's your processor speed?

Anyway, that card uses a PCI Express connector. You need to open up your computer and look at the port that your current video card is plugged into. The card is easy to find - it's what your monitor cable plugs into. if it looks exactly like the lime-green ports in this picture: http://www.techpowerup.com/img/07-12-17/780i_right.jpg (you'll have to C+P that URL to see it), with the same arrangement of one small slot next to a very long one, then you have the proper port.

Changing graphics cards is simple. You unplug everything from the computer (you do not play with a machine that is still connected to power), take out the old one, plug in the new one. A card like that one also needs a power cable, which looks like the one on the far right in this picture. Its connectors will fit into the same holes on the computer case that the old one's did, and you can plug your monitor in like normal. After you switch the computer back on, install the drivers for the new card and you're good to go.

Xeroma · « **Reply #2 on:** November 18, 2009, 04:52:54 AM »

DXDiag says my processor is:

Intel Celeron CPU E1400 @ 2.00 GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0 GHz

SageAcrin · « **Reply #3 on:** November 18, 2009, 04:52:05 PM »

...they make *dual* Celerons?

That's like making two dogs pull a cart instead of one, as a design decision, when it costs about as much as one ox.

</celeronviolenthate>

However, putting a GeForce from like five years after my old 1.2GHZ computer came out showed noticable-if not extreme-improvement on the card I bought around the time I got it, so if your computer has the kind of video card that came with a dual Celeron processor it sure as hell *should* help out.

(The card I bought around that time was a massive improvement, meanwhile, since it wasn't bottlenecked at all. I suppose that's probably closer to your situation. At that, the TNT my computer came with was, at the time, not the lowest end card you could get. ...man that was a while ago...)

Cotigo · « **Reply #4 on:** November 18, 2009, 05:07:33 PM »

I'd recommend saving up and buying a new motherboard at some point. For less than 200 dollars you can probably get a fairly decent processor.

You don't need a very good graphics card, though. I got a GEFORCE 8400GS for ~50 bucks and it runs most games just fine. Sure, I don't play many graphics intensive games (the closest thing is Valve FPSes), but if you're on a budget it will get the job done.

Shale · « **Reply #5 on:** November 18, 2009, 05:14:58 PM »

The card he's looking at is actually the line that replaced 8500-and-below models, so that part is right on target. Plus, $60 for the card plus COD4? Yeah, price isn't a problem.

Xeroma · « **Reply #6 on:** November 18, 2009, 06:36:56 PM »

I completely missed that you get COD4 for free with it. Silly me >_> But yeah.

As for motherboards, how hard is it/how do you replace those?

Shale · « **Reply #7 on:** November 18, 2009, 06:49:02 PM »

Replacing motherboards is a pain at best, since you have to take almost the entire computer out of the case (disk drives and the power supply can stay, but they have to be unplugged completely), fit the new motherboard into the case properly and then plug everything back in, from hard drives to CPU - it's almost like putting together a new computer from scratch. And that's assuming it's even possible; if your computer is prebuilt by Dell or HP or somebody, they probably used a case that won't accept an off-the-shelf motherboard.

AAA · « **Reply #8 on:** November 18, 2009, 07:02:06 PM »

If you do decide to install a new graphics card, make sure you don't static discharge when you're fooling around in there. Keep yourself grounded at all times.

Cotigo · « **Reply #9 on:** November 19, 2009, 01:09:21 AM »

You may not even need a new processor, anyway. I haven't swapped mine out since I got it 5 years ago, and it's not nearly as slow as you'd expect from that. It could possibly be all the graphics card.

Laggy · « **Reply #10 on:** November 19, 2009, 08:26:09 AM »

Modern processors are generally utter overkill for most games. I'm running a P4 3.0ghz processor, not quad core or even dual core (though it has hyperthreading) from years ago and the recently installed L4D2 runs fine on my comp at default settings.

Graphic card matters a ton and is very likely the cause of your issue. I couldn't run TF2 sanely when I first got it until I upgraded my NVIDIA 6000something to an 8800 GTX, and after that it worked like a charm.

You do absolutely need a motherboard that can support PCI-X though, because those are standard for all graphic cards nowadays. Assuming your comp isn't overly old it was the standard long ago, though, so it *should* have it.

Xeroma · « **Reply #11 on:** November 19, 2009, 08:34:29 AM »

For frame of reference... my graphics card according to DXDiag once again is:

NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / nForce 610i

Shale · « **Reply #12 on:** November 19, 2009, 02:55:06 PM »

Okay, you don't actually have a graphics card. You have a motherboard with a built-in graphics chipset, which explains why it sucks for gaming. In practical terms, all that means is that you have nothing to unplug when you put a new one in.

SageAcrin · « **Reply #13 on:** November 19, 2009, 05:33:38 PM »

>_> What did you think would be coming with a dual Celeron? <_<

Laggy's right, more or less, though. Dual-core coding hasn't caught up to the point where two cores mean twice the power; It tends to more mean "Oh your OS is on one core, with some occasional minor stuff on it, and everything else is on the other.". It's harder than hell to be perfectly efficient with it. Multiple cores isn't a big deal, main clockspeed and processor power is moreso(And graphics card).

You'll probably be able to do whatever you need with a solid graphics card, in other words. Just, don't expect highest settings, since the basic processor(unlike Laggy's example) is relatively quite slow. Celerons were worse than P3s, IIRC, so unless they've vastly upped all the hideous bottlenecks for speed inherent in that processor in the eight or so years since I did that computer shopping(Which, alone, tells you the quality of Celerons-they're an eight year old chip.), they aren't the best chips in the world.

(And, honestly, I can say they haven't. My stepfather's computer runs a Celeron. It's awful, far slower than the processor speed would indicate.)

But...gaming relies on main processor much less than graphics card, so don't worry about it. It sucks more for emulation than anything. That's where you'd see a realistic bottleneck, and it's not like it's not still enough to run everything up to Dreamcast emulation without a problem.

Xeroma · « **Reply #14 on:** November 19, 2009, 08:12:43 PM »

Oh I missed this earlier, but my PC was a prebuilt eMachine. I didn't buy it, my parents did it :/

Grefter · « **Reply #15 on:** November 20, 2009, 12:10:04 PM »

Celeron is just a brand, it has passed on and up beyond P3 range.

You undersell dual cores though (even quad cores are sexy). Coding hasn't really reached the point where one process will efficiently use all your cores, but they are fantastic for multitasking and users multi-task all the time in the real world. This way I can play a game, listen to music, use IRC, have my virus scanner running and leave Steam up preloading another game all at the same time and the CPU is just fine with it (bottle neck in my system is RAM pretty much which is why I am looking to get x64 version of 7 Ultimate when I get around to it). But yeah if you are using onboard video just getting dedicated card for it will probably help wonders Xer.

SageAcrin · « **Reply #16 on:** November 21, 2009, 12:02:35 AM »

Quote

Celeron is just a brand, it has passed on and up beyond P3 range.

And yet, if my stepfather's computer is any indication, similar processor levels for them are still worse than a...what the hell was my old computer, a Athlon Thunderbird? from ages ago.

And this is after a clean install. Respect still not found.

Quote

You undersell dual cores though (even quad cores are sexy).

Quote

Coding hasn't really reached the point where one process will efficiently use all your cores,

Yeah, you answered why I undersell them. Dual cores are great, don't get me wrong, generally they're not a normal straight % boost though, it varies wildly on what you're doing.

There is a clean boost, though. Two cores of bad quality is better than a similar one core of any quality, good, top of the line, whatever. It's just better. How much better

As to the rest, I have a single core and can do enough of that so that there's a question as to why you aren't just leaving your virus scan for later. Don't get me wrong, it helps, but the appeal to that level of multitasking will vary. Dual cores are completely awesome if you're multitasking a lot. If you're doing one thing at a time, or one thing+low processor intensive stuff like leaving non-animated browser windows up or IRC or whatever, the main boost you'll see is either things specifically coded for dual-cores or from the OS being offloaded.

Basically I see it as about 50% or so of a boost in general, but situations vary wildly, and it bottlenecks in some odd ways, etc.

Grefter · « **Reply #17 on:** November 21, 2009, 12:13:09 AM »

Quote from: SageAcrin on November 21, 2009, 12:02:35 AM

I have a single core and can do enough of that so that there's a question as to why you aren't just leaving your virus scan for later.

Because I stay up until 4 in the morning gaming when my virus scanning in scheduled to take place.

I am not saying you should all totally go out and get them right now they kick arse and rule your face, but if you are upgrading man I don't honestly even know where I could buy a single core processor anymore without specifically hunting it down. They have a purpose and there is a good reason they are so dominant in the market now (and it isn't just to jack up the price) They really are and do have a quantifiable boost to your performance. Just because you can do all those things on a single CPU doesn't mean that the single CPU is doing it well. You take a much bigger performance hit to the main application to have those low CPU usage programs running while doing something that likes to hog all available cycles than you do just running them by themselves (pro-tip, any game whatsoever these days will use as much CPU as it can get its hands on).

So yeah. If you are upgrading your mobo and CPU anyway, there isn't much reason not to pick up say a Core 2 Duo on the cheap, if you only intend to upgrade your Graphics card, then by all means don't go out and splurge on a new Mobo and CPU just because they rock your face.

SageAcrin · « **Reply #18 on:** November 21, 2009, 12:40:08 AM »

Actually they're pretty easy to find, still, sadly.

Did some recent shopping and they were all over the place at the low end of the computers. Which is pitiful as even the manufacturers can't evidently justify this; Half the single cores were Atoms or whatever that weird-ass low end new Intel processor is, and the other half were clearly just random stock that they were clearing out. You could get dual cores for 25$ more, it was sorta sad. They're around to dump on people that don't know better. ._.

But yeah, if you're upgrading processor, get dual-core, period. Agreed 100% on that.

Grefter · « **Reply #19 on:** November 21, 2009, 01:31:37 AM »

Oh yeah Atoms. They sell those by themselves? Fuck me that shit isn't worth putting in anything that isn't designed specifically for it (they be very sexy for netbooks).

Xeroma · « **Reply #20 on:** November 21, 2009, 03:34:10 AM »

Ack. I heard from a friend of mine tonight that my PC might not even let me modify it because it's an eMachine. Anyone want to help me with that?

Grefter · « **Reply #21 on:** November 21, 2009, 03:49:45 AM »

Best to check the official forums and possibly open it up and take a look.

Xeroma · « **Reply #22 on:** November 22, 2009, 10:38:33 PM »

Talked to my engineering major friend, he said that my PC has a spare PCI Express slot. So I'm good to go for getting a new card in! He might even be able to help me install it, though I haven't asked him about that yet.

Grefter · « **Reply #23 on:** November 23, 2009, 07:54:14 AM »

They are not to hard to install, I highly recommend the chance to do it yourself to learn a bit, but having a hand with it is always good.

SageAcrin · « **Reply #24 on:** November 23, 2009, 07:41:35 PM »

Quote from: Grefter on November 21, 2009, 01:31:37 AM

Oh yeah Atoms. They sell those by themselves? Fuck me that shit isn't worth putting in anything that isn't designed specifically for it (they be very sexy for netbooks).

They sell 'em in standard laptops, if I'm not crazy?

If they've sold them in a desktop I haven't had the misfortune to run across it. <_<

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Author Topic: Computer help. (Read 4138 times)