Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

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Nash
 
 
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Nash »

That reminds me of my old pair of ATI 4870 X2s. They were so heavy, I sometimes feel that they'll just break and fall off the PCIe slots. :P

Anyway it's intriguing me that I only see artifacts in BIOS but not in Windows. I <RV007>haven't installed my graphics drivers yet</RV007> but I have a feeling as soon as I install them, Windows won't start again.
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by XanderK9 »

Some of the previous generations (AMD also had that issue) had a design failure, which caused the soldering of the GPU's chipset to crack after few years of usage. This case was different because, back when I was working in a computer store, I had to RMA plenty of GTX 460 because the first few batches of the new Fermi's chipset turned out bad, If I remember correctly.
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Nash
 
 
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Nash »

Hey sorry for le bump. Anyway, I finally got the time to open up my computer (didn't actually do anything since this thread was made, I was THAT busy with other matters haha) and it does seem that my GTX 460 has slightly bent out of shape, probably because of the weight. I forgot to take pictures of it and now everything is put back together and shoved under the desk for now but I was just wondering if there is anything I can do to prevent this with my new GTX 960 which will arrive tomorrow. I don't want something I spent $300 on to be distorted and essentially be paperweight within 2 - 3 years.
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Kostov
 
 
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Kostov »

Would manufacturer designs really overlook a gradual change in shape on hardware nowadays? Just curious. :S
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Nash »

I hope newer cards are designed better to not distort itself over time but anyway I figured I could just DIY it and suspend a few cable ties tied to the top of the casing and support the entire card by placing the ties around the power cables... it's going to look ugly but I don't really care. I don't want $300 to go down the drain in 2 years. :P

SNEAKY EDIT:

Someone suggested I blow a hair dryer on to my GPU chips for 10 minutes and it might make the old card work for another week or so. Legit or April Fools?
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edward850
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by edward850 »

Joke or not, hot-boxing or applying direct heat to delicate hardware is a fire hazard.
GPUs shouldn't distort under their own weight, either. So one of two things happened: You system is actually a George Foreman Grill (or is actually running too hot, likely also causing physical hardware damage), or the GPU you bought was actually designed for a set top box rather than a tower.
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Nash »

If my tower's air circulation isn't good, shouldn't it have already triggered overheating and shut itself down a lot in the past? That hasn't really happened though...
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by edward850 »

It really depends. The heat sensor only works for the physical chips. If the chip itself is still cooling fine, then no issues. However, this doesn't include the heat in the box itself nor the environment it's in (i.e humidity).
If you remember the early Xbox360, it died because the solder caps where heating and the chips shifted as a result, despite the system itself still having a thermal shutoff.
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Nash »

Image

Is it alright to put the card this close to that little audio interface at the top? Also I think the angle doesn't look perfect... could it be that either my motherboard isn't oriented perfectly, or the back plate is somehow already not straight so it's producing this strange angle?

EDIT: Yes the screws weren't in yet, when I took this picture I literally just plugged it in and I was sort of adjusting it by hand and figuring out why the angle wasn't flush. If the screws were in at this point, it was just an inconvenience. And even with the screws in, the angle still wasn't flush. Lastly - I have 2 PCI-e x16 slots and I was flipping back and forth between the two to see which one would be better - another reason the screw wasn't in firmly yet. Too lazy to take an updated pic.

Lastly, ever since I added RAM, my pagefile.sys is huge, like 16 GB'ish... why does this happen!?
Last edited by Nash on Thu Apr 02, 2015 3:33 am, edited 3 times in total.
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edward850
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by edward850 »

The soundcard won't produce much heat, certainly not enough to cause a problem.
Your page file is precisely the size it needs to be, which is usually at least 1:1 of your physical RAM. Windows uses it to suspend old tasks to it to help prevent swapping with active programs, and thus needs at least the same size of your physical RAM.
Especially if some program accidentally tries to allocate all of your physical RAM. :P
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Kostov »

Uh... I can see there are no screws where they should be on your graphics card.

Image
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Nash »

I knew someone was going to comment on that. I thought it was Captain Obvious enough that I didn't have to specifically point out "I haven't put in the screws yet". Anyway even with the screws firmly in place, the angle is still a little off'ish and isn't a perfect 90 degree.
Yes the screws weren't in yet, when I took this picture I literally just plugged it in and I was sort of adjusting it by hand and figuring out why the angle wasn't flush. If the screws were in at this point, it was just an inconvenience. And even with the screws in, the angle still wasn't flush. Lastly - I have 2 PCI-e x16 slots and I was flipping back and forth between the two to see which one would be better - another reason the screw wasn't in firmly yet. Too lazy to take an updated pic.
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by darkhaven3 »

Just chiming in on this thread to mention I typically get sub-20FPS in GZDoom on doom2.wad with my GTX 980 and I would like to know what kind of FPS you are able to get on your new 960, Nash.
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by Kostov »

darkhaven3 wrote:Just chiming in on this thread to mention I typically get sub-20FPS in GZDoom on doom2.wad with my GTX 980 and I would like to know what kind of FPS you are able to get on your new 960, Nash.
wat
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Re: Computer upgrades - good deal or nah

Post by darkhaven3 »

True story. My Radeon 6670 consistently maintained at least 80FPS in dynalight heavy scenes, but my 980 barely ekes out 20FPS on a good day in doom2.wad.
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