I used to order from zipzoomfly.com once in a while. They used to be reasonable. Don't know now.

I typically check pricewatch.com before buying. Sometimes you can find small companies with good deals.

And if you're lucky enough to have a Fry's around, sometimes their in store deals are good. I got a q6600 quad care intel processor two months ago for 189 bucks because they were having a price war with someone in town. You still can't typically beat that with the prices I've seen online now.

You were talking as if having multiple rails is a good thing which is wrong.There are pros and cons to both and the very best and most powerful PSU's on the market have only a single 12V rail.Spybot_9

True, many power supplies in high wattage outputs use a single 12v rail, despite UL stating that there should be no more than 240 volt amps on any given output at a single time. But not all high end "most powerful" PSUs use single rail outputs. Of course, that depends on what you discern as a "high end" PSU, and that is relative, but there are plenty of companies that are generally regarded are "high end" PSU manufacturers that have multiple rail high wattage output PSUs.

So find me then??Spybot_9

I'm assuming you meant examples of equal to or greater quality power supplies than corsair at a lesser price. That's not too difficult most of the time. I can typically find better prices on just as good power supplies than corsair at below the 700 watt range. Simply look around. That's cost effective, and more "value" than corsair. Above 700, its a tougher job, as you can indeed find some corsair power supplies that have good list prices. Typically, above 700 is overkill, even if you are running SLI, and frankly, you can never futureproof a computer by buying a larger power supply. More than likely, you'll have to self mod it to make it work on a pin configuration or connector that wasn't available on your power supply at the time of purchase. Therefore, buying a much larger power supply on a home computer usually isn't wise or necessary unless you're buying poor quality or you have voltage regulation concerns. Most people don't.

Which comment was plain wrong?Spybot_9

I was referring to DGFreak's comment about a 620 watt power supply not being able to power Roland123_basic's SLI setup, and referring him to just buy a 500 watt supply. He was wrong. I apologize for implicating you in saying that, because when I wrote the second post I mistakenly thought you had said that. You haven't said anything absurd. My mistake. I just get upset when individuals seeking help on a forum are given poor information and instead of giving some helpful advice or pointing someone in the right directions tell them to "forget you sli setup, just get a 500 watt supply"

The entire point behind multiple +12V rails is to keep the power transferred over any single wire under 240VA (20A at 12V). Any more than that and, supposedly, the risk of fire due to an overloaded wire increases. In fact, the vast majority of multiple rail power supplies don't feature discreet rails. They feature multiple current-limited leads connected to a single 12V source.HowardB

Yes.

The idea that multiple rail power supplies offer better stability, performance, or load balancing is an invention of power supply manufacturers that offer multiple rail power supplies. Other than the safety issue mentioned before, there's no practical advantage to multiple +12V rails. HowardB

No, multiple rail power supplies are not the invention of the power supply manufacturers, it was directed by underwriters laboratory when they were tasked to evaluate and approve power supplies. They were alarmed at the amount of wattage in a single wire that power supply manufacturers were selling to the public. The manufacturers DID jump on board are started using multiple rails as a rally cry and advertising gimmic, even if it wasn't completely true. (the more is better concept)

No, there has not been a significant amount of reported or validated increased it power supply failure, either standard or catastrophic from single rail high wattage power supplies, because the UL mandate forced power supply manufacturers to either use multiple voltage carrying rails from a single source, or use better guage wire and safer construction in higher wattage power supplies to avoid the risk of failure. A majority of the manufactures have done so, from what I know. I don't regularly examine power supplies outside of my list of trusted manufacturers, so I can't say in all honesty what's going on in the budget psu area.

If you are buying a power supply, and you don't have practical knowledge of what you're getting, I still beleive that getting a multiple rail supply is the safer bet.

[QUOTE="darkmagician06"][QUOTE="Spybot_9"][QUOTE="darkmagician06"][QUOTE="Spybot_9"]

That's not a very good power supply.

Get this.It has plenty of power to handle whatever upgrade you may throw at it and the price is reasonable as well.

Wesker776

When you are buying E8400,9800GTX and 4GB RAM,I would expect no reason to not get the PSU of the highest quality.

You can get a lot better than Thermaltake branded PSU's, which was what Spybot was referring to.

Yes, I'll generally agree to that.

[QUOTE="woelfel60"]

And frankly, corsair power supplies are lovely, but certainly are not the best price/performance option on the market. They're overpriced slightly, with many options that are just as good for less cash.

If you want to sli with two 9800GTXs a good 620 watt three 12 v rail power supply will do just fine. The ENERMAX PRO82+ 625 Watt will do you just nicely, and is only 120 bucks with rebate right now.

Spybot_9

And what the hell is up with 3 12V rails determining whether the PSU is good enough or not?Seems like you dont know what you are saying.

12 volt rails have nothing to do with the quality of a power supply. They do have everything to do with ensuring that a set of video cards, like 9800 gtxs in an sli configuration get the power they're supposed to get and do not starve it from any other component in the computer, thus allowing him to use a 620 watt power supply effectively in that configuration. It's called rail balancing.

And like i said, there's nothing wrong with corsair. I can still find psus that are just as effective from brands that are just as reliable for less price. I think that's the definition of "overpriced".

As for earlier, I'll state it again. You do no service to an individual on the forum to give them wrong information. It's twice as bad when you give him wrong information and then point him toward buying an overpowered psu that he doesn't need for his application. That's not help. I'm not directing this solely at you, but your earlier comment was plain wrong.

That's a good power supply for the money, but I don't think that 620w would be enough if you wanted to SLi anyway; you might as well get the 500w unit.DGFreak

That's completely absurd. A 620 watt power supply is plenty for an sli option depending on the power supply used.

Just about any 620 watt power supply with three 12v railsshould do the trick from a quality company with a history of products with good voltage regulation.

And frankly, corsair power supplies are lovely, but certainly are not the best price/performance option on the market. They're overpriced slightly, with many options that are just as good for less cash.

If you want to sli with two 9800GTXs a good 620 watt three 12 v rail power supply will do just fine. The ENERMAX PRO82+ 625 Watt will do you just nicely, and is only 120 bucks with rebate right now.

Sure, I could suggest you buy a 1000w power supply and feel confident you wouldn't have any power issues, but I sure as hell wouldn't be helping you out by saving money on something you don't need.

Anit aliasing takes a higher resolution signal, such as that from your computer, and removes the signals that cannot be displayed properly on a lower resolution medium (your hdtv) before rendering them to minimize distortion, and thus provide a better picture.

My only idea is that your television is having trouble identifying the resolution, and how to display it properly without anti-aliasing, when you launch the game because of the excess signal beyond the scope of the television capability.

Why it works fine under a different account is beyond me without a similar setup to experiment with. Ensure that there isn't any resolution difference between the admin account and the account that you cannot play the game with without antialiasing on. There has to be a difference in settings between the two to account for the difference, which should help you avoid such problems in the future.

Generally, pci cooling fans do not generally lower overall system temperature, but can help cool specific components that do not receive much airflow.

If the pci cooler is a model that actively exhausts air from your system from the rear of the pci slot, it should be placed beneath the gpu fan.

If the pci cooler is simply a fan or a pair of fans that does not specifically vent air out the back of the computer, it should be placed above the card, on the opposite side of the gpu fan.

Either way, pci slot fans are a very poor cooling solution, and in the best case scenario you might see a five degree difference if used correctly. More often than not, they disturb airflow in the case and can even pocket warm air, and i've seen a few cases where they have increased overall system temperature.

Use the tasklist /svc command to determine which services run under the svchost that is having the problem.

Assuming he's using XP Professional. Home edition doesn't support it.

Simply write down your bios settings before resetting it if you can't remember what your settings currently are in bios. You're correct that it won't recognize the drives and load windows, but it will after you reset your bios settings after clearning the cmos. You're just checking to make sure the funky light show you're getting is not because of a bios setting, which shouldn't be the case if you boot into a factory default setting.

Just as a suggestion in the future, if you're using this computer as a gaming rig, ditch the raid 0 array. File access time is the same, read/write speed is faster or slower depending on your stripe size. Not worth it for the headaches that you're going to experience if anything goes wrong. I've been there.