Hello. I built my current PC back in may of 2011. It was my first build and with no prior PC building experience I would say I did a pretty good job. I did a lot of research and here is what I ended up getting. (Please keep in mind I'm not an expert or anything)
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD4-B3 (I realize now I made a poor choice on this)
Processor - i5 2500k
Graphics Card - EVGA GTX 560ti
Memory - G.Skill RipjawsX 4gb (2x2gb) DDR3-SDRAM
Power Supply - Corsair Enthusiast Series TX650 (650w)
Hard Drive - Western Digital WD Black - 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache
Now here is where I could use some educated advice.
I'm 14, still in school and I don't work. My parents aren't very generous unless its a holiday which is why I need to get the most bang for their buck for xmas. I'm on a budget of around 300 dollars and my question is: What should I prioritize (ask for) in terms of upgrades/replacements?
Now the obvious decision would be to replace what is failing or doesn't work. Thing is, the issues I'm having with my PC I can't seem to narrow down to a specific part.
The issues:
That's pretty much it other than the fact that my motherboard ports (on the back of the PC) are getting pretty worn due to plugging in stuff. I should also mention that the hard drive I got was way over-kill in storage. I have only used a total of 80gb of space since I got it.
I'm sorry for the long post, but hopefully someone would be willing to give me some input. Thank you in advance.
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD4-B3 (I realize now I made a poor choice on this)
Processor - i5 2500k
Graphics Card - EVGA GTX 560ti
Memory - G.Skill RipjawsX 4gb (2x2gb) DDR3-SDRAM
Power Supply - Corsair Enthusiast Series TX650 (650w)
Hard Drive - Western Digital WD Black - 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache
Now here is where I could use some educated advice.
I'm 14, still in school and I don't work. My parents aren't very generous unless its a holiday which is why I need to get the most bang for their buck for xmas. I'm on a budget of around 300 dollars and my question is: What should I prioritize (ask for) in terms of upgrades/replacements?
Now the obvious decision would be to replace what is failing or doesn't work. Thing is, the issues I'm having with my PC I can't seem to narrow down to a specific part.
The issues:
- My whole computer locks up when I run any web browser with more than 1 or 2 addons. (most notably firefox will lock my PC up if I run it with Greesemonkey and/or Stylish) I really have no idea what this could be related to.
- At random occasions pink/green pixelated boxes will appear on my screen and the display driver will crash but will also successfully recover. This ONLY happens when browsing the web or when idling at my desktop and is completely random. I can run games for hours and have no hiccups what-so-ever. I know this is most likely a Graphics Card Issue but since I have no problems gaming I'm content with it.
- What appears to be wear and tear on my Hard Drive. I'm seeing progressively larger load times in my games and generally in all situations where files are loaded.
That's pretty much it other than the fact that my motherboard ports (on the back of the PC) are getting pretty worn due to plugging in stuff. I should also mention that the hard drive I got was way over-kill in storage. I have only used a total of 80gb of space since I got it.
I'm sorry for the long post, but hopefully someone would be willing to give me some input. Thank you in advance.