Thread: This Is All DJ White's Fault

Originally Posted by AetheLove

I was in on this discussion in July. White's playing around w/a Mint variant and I'm still running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

So I just ordered a WD Black 1T drive.

It should be here Tuesday. I'm going to install something Debian-ish.

Turned out it came on Wednesday. I put it into my box this weekend.

... subsequent to which my box wouldn't boot. It got stuck on "Initializing USB..." and wouldn't complete the POST. Wouldn't recognize the keyboard, couldn't get to BIOS.

So, uh, that sucked. I disconnected the power and data cables from the drive. Same non-booting behaviour.

Noodled a couple things... nothing. Then the monitor wouldn't even come on to tell me how far I wasn't getting in the boot sequence. The fan on my video card isn't spinning up.

Seems like I need a new power supply, or a new video card, or both.

[another option is to just build a whole new system, which I was already thinking about, but which I'd rather avoid just now]

I need advice on what sorts of either you think I should be looking at.

My power supply is a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 610 EPS12V

It's allegedly still under warranty (4 years, 4 months of a 5-year warranty), but PC Power and Cooling was bought by OCZ a few years ago and I don't see me getting very far with it. I'll try, but whatever.

Who makes good power supplies these days? Because of the way my case lays out, the 8-pin CPU power lead needs to be long. The lead on my current supply is 23" and only just makes it.

Harder call is the video. I've got an Nvidia 8800 GTS (640 MB). My motherboard is an Asus P5K Premium (with a Core 2 Quad). If I have to buy a new card, I'd like to have it be a bridge between my current system and the new one I'll build next year. That is: it needs to work on the current board, and maybe be a good enough card to keep me happy when I build a new system next spring.

I can pick up a GTX 550 Ti (1 Gig) for $100-$120. Is there a better choice in this price/performance range?

Cheers,


AetheLove

Originally Posted by dex71

^^ I'm pretty sure that Seasonic also makes all of the psu's for the XFX brand as well as their own. I've also had nothing but great luck with Corsair psu's.

Originally Posted by triggerhappy2005

Seasonic, Corsair, Enermax. These are great brands you can't go wrong with.

PSU is the one component you don't want to skimp on.

Agreed on the skimping. Thanks for the recommendations.

I'm looking at this:

CORSAIR Gaming Series GS700

... which my local BestBuy has on sale for $99. Normally I'm an order-it-on-line guy, but in this case the price is right, the return policy is easy, and I can get it today (which I'm going to do).

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

Seasonic and Kingwin make good ones. Kingwin also makes several that are platinum eff., but can boost up another 100W at Gold.

As far as vid cards, here's the latest Nvidia in that price zone:
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics Cards, NVIDIA, GeForce GTX 600 series, $100 - $200

I'm not sure about the 600-series. My motherboard has a P35 chipset. That means PCI-Express 1.1. At the time the board came out, most video cards were already PCIe 2.0; and most 2.0 cards fall back to 1.1 and work just fine (my old card is PCIe 2.0). The 600s are mechanically compatible (they'll fit in the slot), but I don't know if it will run correctly.

The 500-series is PCIe 2.0, and that's why I was looking there. If someone here has experience with a 500-series (or an old one they'd like to sell), I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Cheers,


AetheLove