+1 Also, If the drive is on a port that is a 3rd party chip (eg, non-southbridge ahci/raid controller for added sata ports), it will often be black-boxed behind a general "SCSI" or whatever setting in the BIOS boot menu (even if the chip is built-into the mainboard). You would have to go to a separate mini-bios for that chip (a different keyboard combo during boot) to see a listing of individual disks connected to that chip. -scheherazade
@scheherazade: I was thinking of adding more RAM modules, but unfortunately I was being a cheapskate when it came to picking the motherboard. The max is 8 GB and there are only 2 slots (which are currently both taken). I already regret having gone the AMD/ATI way. From now on, I only go Intel/nVidia. @att_user: That problem has been solved by now. The old problem however still exists.
Don´t use that Driver Genius software. A driver is a software component addition to your OS and not some fancy desktop stuff that you will change if the colour of it does not suit your mood. Install drivers once on system install if they function they are fine and no need to change them or always have the latest drivers installed. Only update drivers if you are using software that demands it. An exception to that is the video card driver. You may keep that up to date for lastest gaming performance updates and bugfixes. Using HDD you will need to clean up your autostart elements. Kick out everything you mentioned above except Realtek Audio and Microsoft Intellipoint. Everything else from the above list is crap and does not do any good. I guess you are using a Microsoft mouse or keyboard if not kick out intellipoint too.
Do NOT use any registry cleaning or optimising software. They where good on Windows XP but since Windows Vista or Windows 7 such tools tend to break your registry instead of making it faster or cleaning it. To help you selecting your autostart programs in Windows 7 use the tool "Autoruns" which is freeware and recommended by Microsoft. You can download it on the Microsoft TechNet website. Just click on the "Logon" register and uncheck every autostart software that you don´t use frequently. To keep system performance up it is recommended that you defrag your harddrive after you installed Windows. If you do that once it will be enough for a long time since your system files are defragmented. Those normally don´t get fragmented ever again as long as you use your computer. Some of those system files will be overwritten in time by new driver or software installations or windows updates but most of them will stay as they are.
See if the vendor will let you trade up the ram. $60 bucks for 2x 4 gig clips, -$X for your trade in, isn't that bad. Most custom shops do that kind of stuff, they'll just re-use your ram. Not like it's no good. I wouldn't swear off ATI. Even though I personally lean nVidia, I still buy ATI cards [for myself (and others)] here and there. They're a good value, a BETTER value, than nVidia. My personal experience is that both ATI and nVidia will burn you time to time. I've just been burned more often by ATI than nVidia, hence I now have a bias when I think of 'which one would I expect to work well more often'. But, that's been me, with my selection of games, with my usage pattern. You could pick a set of games to multitask that just refuse to play nice with nVidia - you never know. Plus new games come along, and the situation changes. Keep a level head, and pick what's best for your priorities. Balance performance, value, and expectations of reliability. -scheherazade
If I had the knowledge of hardware specs I have now, I would've spend about €200 more and get a lot more punch. However, I don't think that shop would replace the current parts with different ones and it would only cost me the value difference. I even have my doubts if they would take back bought parts at all unless they're broken.
Hmm yeah. Going from Q6600 to Phenom 965 is some kind of upgrade but a very minor one if any upgrade at all. The only good thing that comes to my mind considering this an upgrade is that you got rid of the FSB. Nevertheless for gaming 4 GB should be plenty.
Just try. Ask if you can pay up for 8 gigs of ram, and trade in the ram you have now. Doesn't hurt to ask. If they don't : no loss - no change - doesn't matter. If they do : win - you benefit. I think OP posted a pic of consuming most of his ram already, IIRC (multitasking, etc). -scheherazade
For running 1 high-end game at max and a few regular applications (music, internet browser, etc.), 4GB would be fine indeed. I'm just a guy that asks a lot from his computer lol. So a little more wouldn't hurt. I should be fine with 8GB for a lot of years to come. Anyway, I'll call them tomorrow to see if I could have a chance at that and make it fall under the warranty (the working hours, not the new parts of course )
Morning everyone. Once again, I got off the phone with the shop and they say they don't replace parts for the difference in value because their chef has disagreed on that multiple times in the past. They did however say I could drop it all off again, so they would look at it again. Good chance they won't find anything unless they never bothered to look closely the first time I brought it to them. Besides, all those trips back and forth cost most than a complete reassembly... If I'm going there again, I want to know it'll be fixed for good. Would it be possible to demand they replace it completely, because they're so sure everything is working correctly?
I would : Check the SMART data on your drive, make sure it doesn't have errors. Then (if that's OK), I would wipe your drive clean, and clean install windows. Download all the latest drivers, manually. Go to each component vendor's site and get their latest drivers. Not from some tool, and not from your mainboard manufacturer (although you can use your mainboard manufacturer's site to find out what parts are on your mainboard). DO NOT INSTALL ANY OTHER CRAP. No favorite gadgets, no helpers, no auto-updaters, NOTHING. And then turn off some useless services. Then run some benchmarks. Test how things work one at a time. Then try some multitasking. Basically, verify that things are actually not in order. Document what you did, and have results. If things are wrong, you can go to the vendor with that and ask them to figure it out / deal with it. -scheherazade
The HDD's Performance is max and Fitness is almost max. Temperature at a good 41C. However, I did saw something called Temp3 burning at 96C. Here's a screenshot. Anybody know what part that is? As you see, there's also a 54C reading at the core. Is that high for that part (because of the flame icon)?
54c is fine. 96c... still fine for the most part, but hotter than most 'enthusiasts' like to run. I suspect that's either the southbridge, or the cpu. But afaik Phenom2's don't run that hot, even on the stock cooler. Note that you can also have false readings on sensors that don't actually exist, but who's entries exist inside data structures. Not saying that this is the case. Just worth mentioning. (Sometimes you get an insane reading, like over 200, or negative 100, crap like that, and it's just a 'ghost limb' sort of thing.) Looks to me like your slow boot times are just that your system is clogged with junk-ware. Reinstall clean, and don't load it up with crap. -scheherazade
Speedfan is really unspecific in case of naming the sensors. You might try HWmonitor another freeware program. http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html There you should see what temperature sensor on which hardware component puts out those high values. For more detailed analyzing i would recommend AIDA64 (formerly EVEREST). There you can also get links to drivers for your hardware. However AIDA is not freeware you only get a 30 day trial for free here. AIDA64 includes a system stabilty test where you can stress test your complete hardware setup and write selected temperature sensor outputs to a HTML logfile. http://www.aida64.com/
Thanks. Here's a shot of the new results. It seems the high temperature reading belongs to my motherboard.
