Have questions about hardware? anyone?

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    • Have questions about hardware? anyone?

      Hey everyone! I am here to ask all of your questions about hardware! I may not be able to answer everything, but I will try my best :-). I have had experiences with electronics and how to build computers from scratch along with making different kinds of robots. I once even made a robot to clean floors for my senior project during high school. So does anyone have any questions?
    • Was wanting to install a graphics card for my pc, but havn't got a clue if my PSU has enough watt's left to be able to power it. At the moment i have a 255W PSU at 88% efficiency however it may not be that efficient as it's not particularly new, my pc is a Dell Optiplex 760 (small form factor) i'm running 4 GB DDR2 RAM (4 x 1GB Sticks), Pentium Dual Core E2200 2.2GHz per core, NIC, 7200RPM Sata HDD, at least 3 usb ports running at all times. The graphics card i want to get is an Asus HD6450 1GB Silence Low Profile which claims to require no more than 75W but i would add an extra 10W just to be safe, not sure where i can find out how many watts i have available without buying an expensive multimeter, and i don't want to buy a new PSU. At the moment i'm running off internal graphics which, as a guideline, can just about smoothly scrape Black Mesa Source using the Source SDK 2007 engine, i believe it is using 64MB virtual VideoRAM.

      Do you know of any way i could calculate the Watt's left over accurately, or if you know whether or not my hardware spec's would be using a lot of Watts as i'm not running particularly powerful hardware.
      We used to wrestle Hunters to the ground with our bare hands! I used to kill ten, twenty a day, just using my fists!
    • That is a high efficiency. I think you'll be good.

      extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

      try calculating your specs there.

      edit: System Type: 1 physical CPU
      Motherboard: Regular - Desktop
      CPU Socket: Socket LGA 775
      CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2200 2200 MHz Allendale
      CPU Utilization (TDP): 90% TDP

      RAM: 1 Stick DDR SDRAM
      Video Card 1: AMD Radeon HD 6450

      ATTENTION: FOR PERSONAL, NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY

      IDE HDD 7200 rpm: 1 HDD

      DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive: 1 Drive

      Fans
      Regular: 1 Fan 80mm; 1 Fan 120mm;

      Keyboard and mouse: Yes

      System Load: 90 %


      Minimum PSU Wattage: 171 Watts
      Recommended Wattage: 221 Watts

      Reasonable enough? And it's on 90% load mind you.
    • it sounds like it should cope, it's just the fear of spending a large amount of money on hardware and then it not working, or when i'm playing Black Mesa Source for the power to shut off cos i put a memory stick in, with running it so close to the borderline i'm having to be extra cautious. I'll save my money up and give it a go, if it doesn't work i guess i can always keep the graphics card and wait for some more money so i can upgrade the PSU to something more future-proof like a 360W. Thanks for your help bro.

      *brofist*
      We used to wrestle Hunters to the ground with our bare hands! I used to kill ten, twenty a day, just using my fists!
    • Help anyone?

      Okay, is anyone reading this familiar with the Elgato Game Capture Device? Okay, good. Well, about amonth ago on the boot up screen it'd just keep on saying Please Wait a Moment and wouldn't stop saying that. So then like three days ago, I unplugged it from my Windows 8 Hewlett-Packard Laptop and back in and then it says that the USB was not recognizable. I tried it in every port but no success. Can anyone help me?
    • FrostHazSkittz wrote:

      Ill list my specs and one question, how can I make my GC better? Besides getting a better one?
      Processor: i5 v pro 2.5 GHz, but I over clocked to 3.5 Ghz
      RAM: 8 GB ram
      GC: Intel HD Graphics 3000
      Dual-Core
      300 physica memory
      Anything else I should add?


      No go, you must buy a graphics card. But seeing that your CPU is i5v pro. It's a laptop right? So No go. Can't make it better.

      Psiseb Toluca wrote:

      Okay, is anyone reading this familiar with the Elgato Game Capture Device? Okay, good. Well, about amonth ago on the boot up screen it'd just keep on saying Please Wait a Moment and wouldn't stop saying that. So then like three days ago, I unplugged it from my Windows 8 Hewlett-Packard Laptop and back in and then it says that the USB was not recognizable. I tried it in every port but no success. Can anyone help me?


      RMA it if I were you or try using it on a Windows 7 PC or laptop to see if it's incompatible with the OS.


      Requiem wrote:

      it sounds like it should cope, it's just the fear of spending a large amount of money on hardware and then it not working, or when i'm playing Black Mesa Source for the power to shut off cos i put a memory stick in, with running it so close to the borderline i'm having to be extra cautious. I'll save my money up and give it a go, if it doesn't work i guess i can always keep the graphics card and wait for some more money so i can upgrade the PSU to something more future-proof like a 360W. Thanks for your help bro.

      *brofist*


      Corsair and Antec and FSP make good budget PSU. Antec VP450 80% is a really low price psu yet it is really a good one.
    • Quoted from "FrostHazSkittz"
      Ill list my specs and one question, how can I make my GC better? Besides getting a better one?
      Processor: i5 v pro 2.5 GHz, but I over clocked to 3.5 Ghz
      RAM: 8 GB ram
      GC: Intel HD Graphics 3000
      Dual-Core
      300 physica memory
      Anything else I should add?


      No go, you must buy a graphics card. But seeing that your CPU is i5v pro. It's a laptop right? So No go. Can't make it better.

      Ah, thats ok then, I can play Amnesia fairly good anyway. I get around 50-60 Fps even with SSAO on and High Texture
    • ok sorry for not really responding, lol I had a lot to do right after I posted this and I sort of forgot about it. For getting your video card better (knowing if it is a laptop) you should see if you have a better video card in your computer and your power options are forcing you to work with intel graphics instead. Just choose the advance settings in the power options in control panel. If that is your video card then there might be some software out there that can help... but other then that there isn't too much to do.