Half-Life Fallout: Ahh! Hardware Problem! - Half-Life Fallout

My computer keeps screwing up. If I leave SC2 on for a few minutes while I go do something, and even a few times mid-game, the screen will gets a bunch of horizontal green lines and then turn gray and my computer will stop responding or doing anything. Is this a video card problem, or could it be something else? I have an ATi Radeon HD 4890 that I just got about a year ago. I opened up my computer and cleaned out the dust about a week ago after this happened the first time. Now it's done it 3 times today, twice during SC2 games (now it's ****ing with my ladder rating, which is unacceptable! I'm perfectly capable of screwing up my rating on my own, without my computer helping).

I've been considering getting a new computer for about a month now, but I need another month or so to save up to get a good one. I'm not tech savvy enough to upgrade it piecemeal. So if it's a video card problem, I'll just replace that now. If not, I'll have to whore myself out for some quick cash so I can a new computer now.

May be your video card. Download CPUID and post the temperature when it's running a game.

El Inspector, on 05 September 2010 - 07:55 PM, said:

Alright, I'll try that.

So I'm planning on buying a new computer in a few months anyways. If this problem is my video card and I have to buy a new one, when I buy a new computer, could I buy one with a mid-level nVidia in it and then just use that for PhysX and install the card I buy soon as my main video card? Is it difficult to get that set up and working?

If it happens only during games, than it might well be a GPU problem.
If you cleaned it out and are certain all the fans are running, than replacing it might work, but only if it's the GPU. Take a look what CPU-ID says about the temperature.

Also do you still have warranty on it?

Sounds like video card.

Yupp, I had similar issues ingame recently when my 9800 GT decided to die on me. Time for a new card

And I don't know anything about SLI, maybe someone else does

So I built a new computer on cyberpowerpc.com. Is this a good computer for the price?


• CPU: [Special] Intel® Core™ i7-950 3.06 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366
• HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Hard Drive)
• MEMORY: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module
• MOTHERBOARD: * (3-Way SLI Support) GigaByte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Ultra Durable™3 Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 Dolby Audio, eSATA, GbLAN, USB3.0, 2 x SATA-III RAID, IEEE1394a, 4 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI
• SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
• VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card
• VC_PHYSX: NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 1GB 16X PCI Express

This totals $1,368

DyingTickles, on 06 September 2010 - 05:00 PM, said:

Did some pricing on Newegg with some middle of the price items on each one since you didn't list the brand...

I got just over $1,000 and that's not including the price of a case or HS or PSU so it's a decent price as far as I'm concerned. I'll vote velociraptor or SSD, but that's another hundred or two for either with decent space.

DyingTickles, on 06 September 2010 - 11:00 PM, said:

Not really, if you build your own computer from buying all the parts off of newegg.com, the total comes out to $1060. I guess the extra $300 is labor for building it. Always build your own, it's much cheaper


EDIT . . . dammit

Cake, I know I should, but I'm willing to pay a little more to have somebody who actually knows what they're doing build it. I'm sure I'd either screw it up or spend way too much time trying to put it together, to the point where it wouldn't be worth saving the money.

You really have to try in order to screw it up.

C'mon, I overclocked my PC with motherboard jumpers back when I was 12, and I'm really not a computer genius.
If you never try, you'll never learn.

As long as you have the right components, which the nice people in this thread are helping you choose, you'd have to be Homer Simpson in order to screw it up.

Brumisator, on 06 September 2010 - 03:40 PM, said:

Well that's comforting to know.

But if the parts I listed are coming up as just over $1,000, then the parts I didn't list (including Windows 7), would probably make up that difference, or at least most of it. I'll try to find all the parts on newegg and if it's still quite a bit cheaper, I might try building it on my own.

EDIT:

Motherboard:
ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131641

Processor:
Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601930
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115225

Power Supply and Hard Drive combo:
Diablotek PHD Series PHD650 650W ATX12V V2.2 Power Supply
Western Digital AV-GP WD15EVDS 1.5TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal AV Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.co...st=Combo.495967

Memory:
CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8 G
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820145236

Video Card:
GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814125333

OS:
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16832116754


This all totals $1,149.93

I think I can recycle my case.
Are there any hardware components I'm missing? I'm fine with onboard audio from the motherboard and will pick up a dedicated PhysX card elsewhere.

If you're gonna recycle your case, then no, that's pretty much everything. The only thing you might be missing is thermal paste but cpu's these days already come with some spread out over the processor when you buy them. But putting your own onto it is something you can do very easily. The ONLY thing you have to worry about when building your own is static electricity, other than that, it's very easy.

The one thing that you can royally screw up during assembly is the CPU cooler (if you have to install one). I have destroyed several CPUs this way, plus one GPU. It's better if you let a shop handle that.

they see me rollin, on 07 September 2010 - 03:32 AM, said:

I've built four computers and never had a problem with that. The heatsink used to be a bitch to fit on, but that was years ago and the one i built a year ago was super easy.