Cheers for the pointers. I went down to PC world today and managed to 'negotiate' from their inital response of it's your problem, to we'll exchange it with a 500gb and after an hour and many different members of staff to we'll replace it.
I've just reinstalled Windows 7 as my old hard drive died (not surprising since I dropped it onto a wooden floor). But everything was working fine and was adding my extra two hard drives which I use for audio and project storing. (The computer is for audio production not gaming). I connected both the drives and tried to switch the computer on, I heard a pop and nothing happened. I removed and reconnnected the power cable in case that was loose and then tried again. This time I smelt burning and the SATA cable connected to one hard drive started hissing and a flame appeared on it. I turned everything off and ripped it out before any major damage was done, but I've got a few questions: It was a Seagate 1.5tb drive which I only bought from PC world 3 months ago, the seagate website says it is still in warranty. Will a warranty cover this damage? I'm 100% everything was connected correctly, so what is likely to have caused this? Is it likely to be the drive or the PSU, as I don't want to spend £30 replacing the PSU if I don't have to, but equally don't want to risk it happening again. Specs: Seagate Barracuda LP drive (1.5tb) AMD Athlon 630 II X4 2.8GHz 4GB Ram Windows 7 Professional 450W ATX PSU (That came with Galaxy 3 case) Cheers
Nice one mate, you've been a great help. I'm not getting hooked up on the ram, but as I'm not playing blu ray or 3d games, don't need to give a large portion just to graphics Got a Radeon card in my laptop and have had no problems, so will pick up the 5450 and hopefully never have to worry about graphics again. Cheers
So can anyone be a hero and recommend me a graphics card: Cheap as possible VGA/DVI with dual monitors HDMI would be nice but not essential Not take up a huge amount of RAM Fit PCI express x16 Computer Specs: Windows 7 Pro (64 Bit) Biostar GF8200E 4GB Ram 450w PSU
Cheers for the quick reponse, it's not the monitor, because I tried connecting my computer to my main monitor, which works fine, and that had the same issue. Also, another thing to add into the mix, I've found a Winfast A250 LE of this at the back of my wardrobe http://www.leadtek.com/eng/3d_graphic/overview.asp?lineid=1&pronameid=16 But can't figure out what type of slot it needs, my motherboard has 2 PCI and a PCIE x16, could anyone tell me what that graphics card is and whether I could get an adapter or something?
Thought I'd point out at the start of the thread, this is not a computer built for gaming, but the members on here are the most knowledgeable out of the various forums I'm signed up to. I have a custom built computer I use for music production and just got given an old dell monitor by a mate, so I added this to my setup using the VGA port (my main monitor is connected via DVI) but the VGA screen seemed really dark because it wasn't displaying any red, and because it's hopefully going to be used for metering monitoring, red is quite important. I've tested different VGA cables and on different monitors to no avail, so just wanted to know what my options are. The graphics card is a NVidia Geforce 8200 (but doesn't have HDMI out like the NVIDIA website says) and the motherboard is a Biostar 8200e. Like I say, this is not for gaming, so graphic quality are of no concern, as long as I can see the screen properly. Ideally I'd like to have both screens working simultaniously as cheap as possible. I was thinking either: Try and fix the VGA port Buy really cheap VGA output from a PCI slot and use it at the same time as my main graphics card Buy a new better graphics card for my PCI Express x16 slot (but I don't really want to shell out a lot or take up anymore of my RAM on graphics, as they're not really a priority). Any tips or models you could suggest would be great, cheers.
If you are not already using your PCIe x1 slot, if your motherboard has that (I'm suggesting this because many have one of these), then a good solution might be this http://www.virtuavia.eu/shop/pci-express-to-pci-adapter-p29855.html I am a bit concerned as to how well it will mount and hold one of your expansion cards, it doesn't look like a lot of room.
A better link and explaination was found, it should hold the firewire card well though I wouldnt buy it from there.
http://www.beaglesoft.com/pcie2pci.htm
brownwhale
To be honest, may just remove the wireless card, hardly use the internet on it anyway, then just wait and see what parts come my way in the near future.
Thats awesome, amazing actually. For along time I've been admiring the UK music scene. I like drum and bass too, will definitely check your stuff out. brownwhale
Nice one mate, well if you're ever in the south of england and feel like a rave surrounded by a few thousand watts of subs, then give me a shout and I'll get you on the guestlist for one of our events.
[QUOTE="C_Rule"]If you need them, throw em in. What do you use the firewire card for? My audio interface, soundcard to most people USB apparently can't cope with 18 audio inputs/12 outputs at the same time Which sorta leads me onto a secondary question: I bought a Firewire PCIE card, but the company sent me just a normal PCI card instead, got a refund so it's OK but still got the card. So now I have 3 PCI cards I need to use; Firewire Port, Extra USB Ports & Wireless card, and only two PCI Slots, with one free PCIE card. What would you say the cheapest/most effecient way to fill the 2 PCI & 1 PCIE slots is?
Log in to comment