Upgrade / Truoble shooting

[owen53]

Hello i was wondering for some upgrades for my pc. My budget is 300 US dollars (short on cash)
Id like to play games on high settings and my system is outdated.

And also i have a problem with my pc turing of randomly. about a year ago it was worse then now it turned of every time i was in the middle of gaming. And i tried getting help from my family and he said he tought it was the cpu cooler becouse if we applied pressure on the cooler it would start. i then bought a new cooler (H45) and problems was solved for a while. but recently it started coming back. After som digging in the pc i found out the pc would shut down and start again if i put a little pressure on the bottom right of the motherboard (sometimes)
It also turns on an off if i punch or kick the pc (not hard)
Sorry for bad english and writing.


Specs:

Processor AMD FX(tm)-4100 Quad-Core Processor

Cooler: H45 Corsair

Ram 8gb

Psu 550 80+bronze

Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

Motherboard: Asus m5a97 le r2.0

 

[clutchc]

Normally, shutdowns hint to a PSU problem. But after reading your troubleshooting description, I'd have to wonder if it isn't motherboard-related. If so, you will be needing a replacement. And there's no sense getting another obsolete AM3/AM3+ board. That would be throwing good money after bad.

Since you stated your budget in US dollars, I'll presume you are US based and can buy from US retailers. Here are some CPU/motherboard combos to look at. https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=StoreIM&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Depa=1358&Order=PRICE&PageSize=60

An economical yet powerfull way to go would be a Ryzen 3 and a B350 board. Your GTX 670 is still good for gaming at 1080p. About equal to today's GTX 1050 Ti. Do you need a mATX board or can you use a ATX board?

 

[owen53]

Normally, shutdowns hint to a PSU problem. But after reading your troubleshooting description, I'd have to wonder if it isn't motherboard-related. If so, you will be needing a replacement. And there's no sense getting another obsolete AM3/AM3+ board. That would be throwing good money after bad.

Since you stated your budget in US dollars, I'll presume you are US based and can buy from US retailers. Here are some CPU/motherboard combos to look at. https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=StoreIM&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Depa=1358&Order=PRICE&PageSize=60

An economical yet powerfull way to go would be a Ryzen 3 and a B350 board. Your GTX 670 is still good for gaming at 1080p. About equal to today's GTX 1050 Ti. Do you need a mATX board or can you use a ATX board?

I use a normal atx but i dont really care what board unless it fits the fractal r4 case, oh and the ram is ddr3 to btw

 

[clutchc]

OK, then you'll have to add some DDR4 memory to your budget as well. RAM is really expensive right now. And so are gfx cards as you are probably aware.
This combo would be within your budget and let you upgrade to 16GB with the addition of another stick of RAM when you feel you need more. The Ryzen 3 1300 gives you 4 real cores, and is easily OC'ed with its unlocked multiplier.
I've recently put together a couple Ryzen 3 budget builds, and they were very fast. (Personally, I have a Ryzen 5-1600X and GTX 1070 for my main PC)