Print

Add to Reputation:  

What do you think of this post?

I agree I disagree  
Comment:

[little 00]

has anyone considered new bios that can make a small difference?

[Rodney 1.666]

Edited post.

THAT is the motherboard; M2N68-LA, Narra 3.
Interesting that it just flat doesn't exist when searched for on the site, but Google hard enough and it'll be yours.

HP doesn't appear to offer a driver for it and Asus says it doesn't exist... Is it critical that I get the driver from the official source? (It's certainly important...)

[Proxie]

has anyone considered new bios that can make a small difference?

flashing a bios can be super risky

[CCsaint10]

Yes and no. Really depends on how it is packaged. If it a download in which you have to make a floppy disc out of, yes it can be risky. if its an executable, its not bad.

[Rodney 1.666]

Moar specs.
(CPU & motherboard)

[major]

well... yeah. Not sure what to say. Think this computer has seen its days. But hey look on the bright side, you only need to spend like ~$450 to get a very nice computer

[Rodney 1.666]

Yeah, Saint and I pretty much gave up on ever finding the chipset driver, so I went ahead with the with the rest of them.
Same old shit, no improvement.

He tells me that Source is dependent entirely on clock speed, and that that is probably why I'm seeing shit frames, and I would likely see much better speeds in other games. That makes sense being that mine is a 2.2 GHz.
That being said, I guess I'll return this GFX card (keeping the PSU) and bide my time for a new setup, and get it right next time.

Thanks to all for trying, anyway.

[kraid]

If original valve games such as TF2 are running faster on your PC, it might be because of the multicore support.
But even 2.2GHz should be enough to run Source on a half way decent framerate.
My CPU is a AMD Athlon X2 5200EE (2.6 GHz) and source is running smooth on it even on high settings.

While you cannot enable multicore for mods, you're still able to assign the HL2.exe to a certain core.
That way your main processor doesn't need to run the OS, FW, Anti-virus etc. and the game at the same time. Not sure if this will solve your problem but it's worth a try IMO.

[jjmusicnotes]

well... yeah. Not sure what to say. Think this computer has seen its days. But hey look on the bright side, you only need to spend like ~$450 to get a very nice computer

Agreed.

The mobo is old enough so that Asus dropped it from the product listing on their website - this also makes it hard for you to find drivers / support for your hardware; (their evil, capitalist way of telling you that you should just spend more money buying their stuff.  )

Since you already have a great video card, you could just get a bare-bones kit from newegg, throw some RAM in and a hard drive and you've got yourself a pretty decent machine.

Hope you get everything figured out.

[Kratos]

flashing a bios can be super risky

QFT! bro


Never flash a bios, UNLESS its mandatory!! I flashed a printer nand and after it said Flashed completed, it fucked up. Just turns on and off (loops)

[Rodney 1.666]

While you cannot enable multicore for mods, you're still able to assign the HL2.exe to a certain core.
That way your main processor doesn't need to run the OS, FW, Anti-virus etc. and the game at the same time. Not sure if this will solve your problem but it's worth a try IMO.

Affiliating hl2.exe with cores 2 and 3 (0-4) gave me around a 10-15 frame boost, so that was handy.

I also found that Crysis run on medium everything rather well. If Source mods had multicore support I'd be golden...

[Rodney 1.666]

ROUND II

So I've made a decision, and decided "fuck this shit".

After browsing around (because I love that store and it's within walking distance) I narrowed it down to three purchases. (Four if you count two for the RAM.)

I'm going to not have complete ignorance of what's smart and what's not walking in when I finally get there so I'm asking for advice on parts. (If you don't have anything better to do. )

• Motherboard
• Processor
• RAM

I linked the RAM to the RAM page because I have little idea of what goes best with what, and I know it goes beyond just matching numbers up.

So, think of this post as just step 1 of narrowing down the options pool. Thanks for any input anyone can give.

As a general rule (and let me know if it's foolish), I'm hoping for <$500 and strong but not stupid-crazy-powerful. (And something that can make good use of my 460 GTX.)

[namajnaG]

P7H55-M is a good choice, My friend has the same motherboard with the same I5 and trust me, He is not disappointed.
EDIT : Sorry, He has a I5 750, Not 760.

As for the RAM, 2x2GB of kingston should do the job. Don't overclock though, Reduces greatly the lifetime of your memory.
Personally, I never had any other RAM brands than Kingston (And I believe I had Samsung RAM once, But it was bull-.)

I didn't really follow up the whole conversation, But if you are building this computer for yourself, 4GB is the strict minimum for a great build. 6GB is even better, But I wouldn't go any higher than 6GB. Waste of money in my opinion, But some people find use for it.

[major]

I would really suggest buying a new case. Its a extra like maybe $100. And will allow for any motherboard, and future upgrades.

Those components are pretty good. Only issue is since that motherboard is M-ATX it only has two PCI. So if you ever get a dual slot video card, you'll be down to one PCI.

As far as RAM, you really can't go wrong with any brand. I've used about them all, and have have no issue. My computer has Corsair. My old computer had Kingston, and Corsair. I've built computers with Gskill, and OCZ. I even have some old Rambus Samsung chips that still work.

[namajnaG]

I would really suggest buying a new case. Its a extra like maybe $100. And will allow for any motherboard, and future upgrades.

The Antec nine hundred is a good way to go if you need a new case around 100$.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129058&cm_re=antec_nine_hundred-_-11-129-058-_-Product