Upgrading graphics card

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Good point. It's not a matter of bottlenecking, but a matter of maximizing performance.

OP, you should throw another 2GB of ram in there if possible. Also might consider OCing a little, as a Q6600 can overclock like a boss.
 


yeah, but eBay customer services are great, and the card has sold 10 within the last 2 days.

2gb of ram should be fine (he has 4 ram slots so he could add another 2 ram cards if he currently has 2x1gb ram) as for the Q6600 its still a great performer and shouldn't really give a bottleneck, (but with a 6870 i think an OC to about 3Ghz should help it to keep up.)
 


Hi Striker, while that deal looks extremely tempting, I think I'll probably buy new and, after a bit of poking about and looking at some benchmarks and reviews, will probably go for the 6870 HAWK.

As for RAM, I've been planning on adding some more anyway, so I will probably add an extra 2 GB. I've had a good look at my computer and have a few questions, as I think this would be an excellent time to carry out any necessary maintanence.

The computer sits in a hollow built into my desk which has a number of holes drilled into it to disperse the air, and so cooling is very important. I have a 10cm, crappy stock fan at the back of the computer and noticed that the case can also facilitate a 12cm fan. Do you think it would be a worthwhile investment or a complete waste of time? Here is a picture:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/biggerfan.jpg/

Secondly, can anyone tell me if my cooling compound looks like it needs renewed? To me, it looks quite patchy.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/6/renewmycompound.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/828/coolant.jpg/

Finaly, any difference between the slots for the RAM? And I'm assuming if I were to add more, I should look for the same model?

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/838/ramha.jpg/

Thanks so much for all the help so far. This is a brilliant forum. : )
 
a larger rear fan will mean more airflow, do you have a front intake fan? and you will need to replace that paste, if you remove the CPU cooler for more than 30mins or so, i would definetely go for some new thermal paste (remember to take all of the old paste oof first.) a nice aftermarket cooler would help you with overclocking.
 
Yeah he need's at least 4 gb of ram it's the best right now. Then O.C his cpu to like 2.8 or higher. And everything would be AWESOME with the 6870.
 
Ok guys, I'll see about finding out my exact module type.

EDIT

And I have!

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-ddr2-pc2-5300-%28667%29-240-pin-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-5-5-5-15

There isn't a front intake fan in the computer and I'm unsure of the dimensions at this moment in time, but it's something I will look into. For a rear fan, would something like this be suitable? Ultimately, I think anything would be better than the cheapy one I have at the moment. Should I be thinking about something a bit fancier? Ultimately a fan is a fan I suppose.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120mm-noctua-nf-s12b-flx-ultra-quiet-flexible-%28veri-speed%29-cooling-fan

And I will get some thermal compound to replace my old one. I've been told that Arctic 5 is pretty good...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/arctic-silver-5-thermal-compound-for-cpu-and-chipset-coolers-35-gram

Looking good?
 
Ok. I'll (happily) go for the cheaper fan. Thanks to everyone on the thread for helping me out so far. I'm very glad I've found this forum, it's perfect for someone who hasn't got a clue about computer hardware :)

All going well, I will order the parts within the next few days!
 
Problems problems problems...

So I got the parts. I didn't realise quite how massive the 6870 was! To get it to fix we had to cut a piece of the framework holding my harddrive etc (I think my next investment will be a new case). This wasn't so much of a problem, but something completely unforseen happened. A single, long capacitor on the motherboard was in such a position that it was pressing against the card when we tried to fit it, obstructing it from fulling clipping into the PCI-E slot. It just so happened that my last card had a little gap in its design exactly where this capacitor was. The Hawk did too, but it wasn't as well placed as that of the GTS and the capacitor couldn't pass into it. Very suddenly the Hawk clipped into the slot and on closer inspection the capacitor had bent itself around the card slightly - very, very dodgy.

Gave the computer a boot up and behold, it worked... for a while. Since I've put in the card and RAM, i've been getting a STOP 0X0000001E blue screen. I got it when closing BFBC2, I got it talking on Steam, I got it when opening a picture of the Bluescreen online to get a better look at what it was saying and I got it when closing my web browser. It's defintely something that isn't going to go away and it's extremely frequent. I'm currently running Memtest86, although I very much doubt that my memory is the problem. If Memtest doesn't flag anything up, how should I proceed? I'll reinstall the hawk and drivers and might also run with my old card for a bit to see it the error goes away, but beyond that I'm stumped.
 
^Have a look at capacitor connections on board. Are they loose or broken ? Because without capacitor your system can boot but will make overall hardware/motherboard unreliable (might possible without that capacitor there are ripples in signals to different ICs and its doing some corruption in memory).

Try taking out your graphics card and check if everything is working ? You never know which component is actually effected due to that capacitor bent.

First check capacitor connection on board.
 


yep this, you can just easily solder that capacitor back on, or if its quite badly damaged, just look at its value(farads) and buy another (10p max) from an electrical store and solder it in.
 
As the others have said, sounds like a driver related issue. Try running a drivers sweeper and start fresh.

Now, about the capacitor. Could you take a picture? It might help to assess the situation.
 
Sure, here are some pictures of the capacitor, as you can see, it's at an angle.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/225/2007111824.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/2007111825001.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/717/2007111825.jpg/


As a quick side note, after 9 hours of memtest86, I came home to find this:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/818/2007111746001.jpg/

It seemed that the test had also frozen. I wasn't able to exit and had to turn the computer off by using the power button. I assume that this ISN'T how memtest reports errors, but having never used it before I'm unsure. Could this suggest a RAM issue? I will take the new sticks out and see what happens.

I am also pretty confident I removed all the nvidia drivers. I removed them from device manager and then did a cleanup of nvidia drivers using Driver Cleaner Pro. Also cleaned up the registry with CCleaner
 
Quick update:

After removing my 2 new pieces of RAM, I've had no crashes. It seems to be working! I am going to the sticks on at a time to see if I can find the one that is causing the crashes. My friend has also offered me two 2GB sticks of RAM, which, if compatible, I could use instead of the four 1GB sticks.

Further update - I added 1 stick of new RAM and it worked - I then tried adding the second stick and suddenly I was just getting beeps at start up and nothing onscreen. I've had to take the graphics card out every time I've changed the RAM. Now however, suddenly no ram combination works. I've tried both new ones and the two originals - Nothing. I'm getting beeps at startup and nothing more. I'm now out of ideas...
 
Hmm.... Is it a single beep, or is it a series? And I think you'll be ok. Could you give us the specs of the RAM?

last thing that might fix it all: CMOS clear. You accomplish a CMOS clear by jumping the pins on your mobo. Look in the manual and find the pins, then jump then with a screwdriver or other metal object. There's a more detailed guide >here I believe.
 
Hi Striker,

I turn the computer on, it sounds like it's starting up, but then I get 3 beeps - 1 long, 2 short. The computer then sounds like its starting up again and the same thing happens. This loops until I turn it off.

As the computer isn't working I can't get detailed RAM specs from CPU-Z, however, here is everything on the labels:

PC2 5400 CL5
DDR2
1GB
5-5-5@1.8v

I'll update this with more info if I find it!

I'll give a CMOS clear a go tonight or tommorow and see how it goes.
 


have you looked in your mobo manual for what those bleeps mean?
 


I found the manual online, but no beep codes listed in it. I did find a random page on the general Foxconn FAQs which had beep codes on it, and mine was related to a video error. Whether this relates to my particular mobo i'm not sure, however it sounds about right.
 
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