Need some help with hardware

[Sirius 16]

My brother recently gave me his old cabinet with a MSI K8N Diamond plus motherboard.

Would any of you be so kind as to tell me how to max it out with GPU's and memory?

I've been looking around on the net for some answers, but my computer skills are not high enough to fully understand the information.

I got a friend who is willing to give me a XFX GeForce GTS 250 1GB.

Will this card work?

 

I need:

 

Two videocards that goes in my motherboard

 

4 GB of RAM

 

A sufficient power supply

 

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Timotheus 416]

My brother recently gave me his old cabinet with a MSI K8N Diamond plus motherboard.

Would any of you be so kind as to tell me how to max it out with GPU's and memory?

I've been looking around on the net for some answers, but my computer skills are not high enough to fully understand the information.

I got a friend who is willing to give me a XFX GeForce GTS 250 1GB.

Will this card work?

 

I need:

 

Two videocards that goes in my motherboard

 

4 GB of RAM

 

A sufficient power supply

 

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

1. If the GTS250 works, it probably will, I would not bother going SLI.

Even when using the max processor for that board (the quite rare socket 939 Athlon x2 4800+), SLI'd 250GTS will be overkill (your CPU cannot cope with the GPU power in games). It is possible, however.

 

2. Get 4x 1GB DDR1 dimms. Any brand will do, think Kingston, Corsair, etc. Just use basic sticks no overclockers with heatspreaders. Sometimes motherboards have problems with those. More specifically: with the power requirements of those sticks, they usually are higer.

 

3. As for a power supply: get a 400-500 watt leading brand, 400 will do just fine in most cases. Examples of some good brands at this moment: Seasonic, Corsair, XFX, OCZ. Preferably choose an 80 plus certified PSU or better. More specific examples:

Seasonic S12II-Bronze 430W

Seasonic S12II-500

Corsair VX450W

Corsair Builder CX500 V2

XFX Pro 450W

XFX Pro 550W

OCZ StealthXStream II 400W

OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W

 

I hope this helps.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Timotheus

[Sirius 16]

Thank you very much, Timotheus.

That was excactly what I needed to know.

So I should basically just forget two videocards?

I've been searching different sites online to find memory chips, but I've only found some on ebay (which can be a little risky).

I guess I'll just look around some more.

 

Thanks for the info anyway.

Perhaps now I can finally run Age of Empires 1 without lag...

[Sirius 16]

I found some parts on a Norwegian computer site.

Will this do for power supply? :

 

Corsair CX V2 500W PSU

ATX 12V V2.3, 80 Plus, Standard. 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 5x SATA, 120mm Fan

 

 

 

And this for memory:

 

Corsair Value S. PC3200 DDR-DiMM 2GB

Kit w/two matched Value Select 1024MB (x2)

 

[Timotheus 416]

Does your motherboard come with a processor or not? It can be troublesome to acquire a good processor for that socket, since the better models are highly sought-after in the second hand market, and they are hard if not impossible to find new. If you do not have a processor, I would do a search for that first and make sure you can get one. Otherwise you might be better off with different parts.

 

Anyway, if you could do me the favor of finding a Norwegian hardware store with a good website, I will be able to help you out selecting the parts.

 

 

 

EDIT:

Our posts were basically at the same time.

Your selected parts are perfect. Exactly what I would recommend.

You could even downsize on the PSU if you would want to, as I said, a 400 watt PSU like that one would fit your needs as well.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Timotheus

[Sirius 16]

Does your motherboard come with a processor or not? It can be troublesome to acquire a good processor for that socket, since the better models are highly sought-after in the second hand market, and they are hard if not impossible to find new. If you do not have a processor, I would do a search for that first and make sure you can get one. Otherwise you might be better off with different parts.

 

Anyway, if you could do me the favor of finding a Norwegian hardware store with a good website, I will be able to help you out selecting the parts.

 

 

 

EDIT:

Our posts were basically at the same time.

Your selected parts are perfect. Exactly what I would recommend.

You could even downsize on the PSU if you would want to, as I said, a 400 watt PSU like that one would fit your needs as well.

 

Yes, the processor is still there.

I hope the computer will run. There's a reason my brother bought a new one.

It stopped working for some reason. I just hope the problem was in the power supply or GPU, and not the processor or motherboard.

And by the way, the picture I posted of the power supply is of a 500W one.

 

Here's a link to the site on which I found those parts:

www.komplett.no

[Timotheus 416]

Ah there is a Komplett in Norway as well. Easypeasy then.

 

 

Expensive by the way. I don't know whether that's normal for Norway?

This basket is EUR 154,42. If I would shop here in the Netherlands for that equipment, I could probably get it for EUR 30 less...

 

 

 

EDIT: If you're unsure whether the PC still works, is there no way which you could test it with parts from other PCs?

 

It's a quite an expensive gamble to order these parts. Simple reasons: DDR is outdated and not in use on newer motherboards; socket 939 is outdated, motherboards are incredibly hard to find new, and processors are only available second hand.

 

If it is a motherboard/processor problem, you're stuffed. You will have spent close to NOK 1200,- to get the needed parts. You would have to spend a similar or greater amount of money again to get a working system.

 

Just for giggles, the absolute cheapest setups @ Komplett for a working setup you would 'have to' buy if second hand parts are unavailable and taking into consideration you already made the earlier purchase of a power supply:

 

 

Memory is interchangeable between the two examples, you could choose to use a single 4GB stick for now and maybe pick another one up later on if necessary. Or you could get the dual stick setup. Your choice.

CPU and mobo are not interchangeable, they need to match eachother in socket type (but I think you know that much?).

 

A problem with cheap setups: they usually involve (near-)EOL hardware, as do these.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Timotheus

[Sirius 16]

Well, 1.187,00 NOK is quite alot for a gamble, true.

Yes, it's expensive. Norway is a very expensive country. That's why it's rich, along with the oil ofcourse.

 

I have a 400W PSU in an old computer. I also have two memory chips that makes for 1024 MB RAM.

But there's no chance to getting the computer up and running without a GPU, is there?

Btw, what is EOL hardware?

[Timotheus 416]

I would wait until your friend can lend you the 250GTS, personally.

Although I do not know what brand and capacity that PSU has, it would be enough for testing purposes if the card comes with a 4-pin molex to 6-pin molex like this one:

 

 

Then, you will not have to order *anything* and you can verify whether the pc will run.

 

 

 

EOL = E.nd O.f L.ife

It means that the product type is out of production, the items in shops are mostly stock remainder.

 

Cheap options are often the result of old technology, and here that's also the case.

Intel's socket 775 will not have a future with the Core I# approach. The new processors require different socket types.

And if I'm not mistaking, AMD is gearing up for new processors which will not be supported in all AM3 motherboards because of chipset limitations.

[Sirius 16]

I didn't recognize those wires you showed me. I took a picture of my motherboard for you.

Doubt it will be very helpful, but here you have it:

 

[Timotheus 416]

Sirius, thanks for the picture. However, the cable I mentioned is mostly shipped with graphics cards which require additional power through a 6pin connector (located at the end of the board).

 

For example:

 

If you look closely, all these cards (including the GTS250 in the last picture) ship with those cables included. The 3870X2 was an exceptionally powerful card which required two PCIe connectors, hence it shipped with two adapter cables.

 

What are they for? They enable you to power the graphics card through the common 4pin molex when the PSU does not have a 6pin PCIe connector. If that is the case, you would need such a connector to power up your system.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Timotheus

[masteff 64]

I'd either find a friend w/ similar hardware (that could be temporarily mounted on your system) or take it to a repair person. Until you know for certain that the CPU and motherboard are both working, I'd spend very little on it.

 

You need a PSU either way. But a newer motherboard would need different memory. DDR2 memory is actually cheaper than DDR. So if the mobo and CPU are bad and you have to buy newer ones, then at least some of that cost would be offset by less expensive memory.

[Sirius 16]

I asked my brother today what happened to the computer in the first place.

He said that his first original GPU started to show signs of error in games.

Finally, the whole videocard broke down, so he swapped it for another.

Bear in mind, his computer was delivered with a strangely low 250W PSU for the entire system.

 

After he bought the new video card, he purchased a more powerful PSU of around 750W.

It worked for a while, until his system started to show more signs of failure.

He then purchased a new computer, and dumped the old one with me.

[Timotheus 416]

It all depends on the PSU. If it was a bad brand, even a 750 watt PSU could fail.

As I've said, and masteff's on the same page, spend as little money as possible on this system until you can determine the faulty component.

[Sirius 16]

Alright, I'll do that.

Thanks for all the help and support.