help me choose a new motherboard and graphics card

[wilkinsi]

I wanna go seperates. Every motherboard with onboard graphics I've had don't seem to last longer than 9 months at the most. It sucks when you lose all the blues and everything looks trans green and yellow, not to mention have to put back my plans to buy more recording gear. So far, I've been looking at NVIDIA graphics cards. Just one of those is £100-ish. I'm not sure if I should risk keeping this motherboard and just add another 1GB SDRAM2. I want at least 2GB RAM and possibly a bigger power supply, as occasionally this PC hangs. All my important data is already stored on a USB 500GB HD.

[OnlineStageGear]

Your PC haning up is probably not the power supply. I would think it would be the ram or the motherboard, but then again anything IS possible. 9 times out of 10 a power supply issue will cause your PC to all of a sudden reboot or just shut off. If you do end up going with a new motherboard, then I would recommend Gigabyte or Asus but it will depend on your processor.

Unless you are running Vista or doing some serious gaming or something then 2 Gigs or ram may not help you much. You said you are running onboard video so you are probably not doing much gaming.

Matt

[Iced Dragon]

Hey,

how many watts is your PSU?
as for motherboards, I upgraded to a Gigabyte EP45-DS3R 2 weeks ago, with an Intel E8400 cpu. So Gigabyte or Asus are good, and other, depending on how much you'd like to spend. For standard use go for something £60-80. Cheaper ones can cause your graphic cards/sound cards not to work a 100%, troubles with the FSB and so, so go for a somewhat more expensive and more stable one.
Within 2-3 months the new intel socket and chipsets will be released, though, so I don't know how urgent your search is?
As for graphic card, I myself bought an Asus EN7600gt secondhand, as I just need one to see what I'm doing, not playing games and stuff You might find one for 20-30£. Or go for a secondhand 8*** version.
If you have XP, 2GB ram will suffice.

I wonder though how you seem to fuck up your graphic cards each time? :p
what mainboard do you have?

[Trem]

Hanging can be caused by all sorts of things, heat might be an issue if your onboard graphics keep going out. heat can also make you hang, and if your northbridge is overheating for sure.
my old mobo i used to build my mom a machine with it has an nv6150 onboard graphics has lasted her more than three years no problems.

anyway withought knowing what your currently running, hard to recommend something.
but, if you have an intel core 2 already, i'd go with a gigabyte board, with a single pci x16 slot, they make solid boards, and the GA-EP35-DS3L is a great no frills board, at around a hundred bucks.

If you really just need no frills, i have some stuff from my last upgrade that's worthy for a media pc on the cheap, cpu, mobo, 2g ram, and a pci card (new).
depends on what you already have...

[wilkinsi]

According to hardware properties, my graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce 6100. Last time I opened up my PC, I couldn't find any physical graphics card.

Here's my spec:
AMD Sempron 3400+ processor 1.8HGZ
ABIT Motherboard
960MB RAM (1GB)
Plus Sony DVDRW, 2X 3 way USB hubs.

Nowhere on the PSU can I see how many watts it is, and the only monitor port is on the motherboard suggesting graphics are "on board" rather than seperate.

[Trem]

well, the stuff i spoke of is basically the same as what you already got.

The thing is, that your stuff is somewhat dated, i wouldn't spend to much to upgrade it because for only a bit more you could get something much newer that would be 4 times better.

Whati would do is, just get another stick of ram and a cheapo video card, like a 30 dollar card.
Something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102704
First you need to determin if that mobo has a PCI or PCI-E or AGP card slot tho.

Also i would check the mobo capacitor caps and see that none are bulging
or look like they are going to burst, that would be a sign it's on its way out.
If all good, make sure they cpu fan is clean of dust, and working,
I don't know if you built that pc or , it sounds like a compaq or a pre built you get from like Costco or something, but if the powersupply came with it, it's probably just fine, you don't need much to run that system, and generally if they are going out or bad, they just die.
Just make sure it's not over heating or anything, and depending on how long it's been, it might just be time for a reformat of the hard drive.

OH, On a side note, i have an external HD as well for backup a USB one, and they can cause your PC to hang as well, in fact i don't keep mine plugged in all the time only when i'm going to transfer data i plug it in, because it will sometimes hang at boot if it's connected, USB is kinda flakey that way.

[wilkinsi]

There's a spare PCI-E slot. I was thinking of getting another monitor (being as the two have wound up with the same colour problems, not straight away, but certainly within a few days of fitting them to the PC). I still think it's worth adding another 1GB RAM and dedicated graphics card. I'll try the new monitor and see how long it lasts. If it shows the same problem within days, I'll get the graphics card. Failing that, I'll buy a new motherboard. Thanks.

[Rsmacker]

I wonder though how you seem to fuck you graphic cards each time?

By putting his willy in that little slot on the front.

He needs a card that shows up lots of the colour brown .

Oh, and red, for his Goatse wallpaper!

Wilksy-baby, is this for your hollowed-out volcano base, are you going to be sitting there plotting world domination and the downfall of Sky TV, in front of a wall of monitors? Hmmm, thought so.

(Erm, just a thought, old bean, but you know when you change your graphics cards, do you change your cable to your monitor........?)

[wilkinsi]

Yes, I already changed the cable, duh! I've already decided what to do next as stated in my earlier post. And its the blue elements that have changed green. Why would I want it to go brown? If I wanted to destroy Sky TV, I'd need a missile and some way of masking it from being detected. Out of my budget, dumbass! Don't worry marmite miner - if I have to replace any of the cards, I'll send the faulty ones to you to shove up your arse. You can't have the monitor - my dad wants that back.

[Rsmacker]

Bah! Foiled again eh? Never mind sweetie, I still love you, even if you aren't Evil Dictator of the Year 2008. There's always next year.

[Iced Dragon]

By putting his willy in that little slot on the front.

Wow major typo

squeeze me

[OnlineStageGear]

That system is a little dated but too bad for XP. Look up the specs on that motherboard and see if you can get an Athlon 64 X2 processor. Unless you are going up to Vista, that extra gig of ram is going to get bored.

[Spivonious]

The fact that your 1GB (1024MB) of RAM is showing up as 960MB gives me a clue that maybe your RAM is bad. If an app hit that section of bad RAM it could explain the hanging. I'd get more RAM and take out your existing and see if it helps. If it's not the RAM, then you'd have your 2GB anyway.

The other thing that could be happening is overheating. Clean out all of the dust and make sure the fans inside the case are running. It's also possible that the thermal paste has broken down and is no longer doing its job. It might be worth cleaning off the old and reapplying.

[OnlineStageGear]

That's becuase it is shared with Video.

[Ben...]

That's because it is shared with Video.

Yeah that's what our video card on our old computer did. It had a MASSIVE 16mb of VRam and 240mb of RAM. Our newish computer has 512mb of VRAM (Ati Radeon X1950 512) and 1024mb of regular RAM and it seems quite fast, we have XP Media Center Edition.