Her guys... I'm new and I hate being that noob that provides little information that ends up turning threads into a bashing fest. So I'll try to give you as much information as possible for the best feedback. I know my way around a computer and know some stuff, but by no means am I tech saavy so if you could please ease up on the lingo and simplify things for me, that'd be cool .
I think I need to upgrade my motherboard and CPU and MAYBE my graphics card.. Lately, I've been having a lot of little problems here and there. They all started when I reformatted my main hdd with XP. I have 2 HDD's, both are hooked up and working but I boot off of 1 that has XP, the other has Vista. Problems are as such: NTLDR is missing, beeping when it's first started (1 short, pause, followed by 1 long. I believe memory related issue), and a missing driver the computer and internet cannot seem to find so it opens the "new hardware driver" installation window every...single...time...I log on.
With that being said, I think I just want to wipe it all clean and upgrade a couple parts in the mean time. My budget is fairly low since I don't need a whole lot of performance. I game but not a lot. World of Warcraft is the only game I play, and that doesn't require a ton. I also use Adobe Photoshop CS3, I have dual 23" monitors, I watch Blu-Ray, surf FireFox... I think that pretty much covers it. Oh and I love to have 20 things open at once . Ventrilo, AIM, MSN, Winamp, I'll have a couple media folders open to drag movies/songs in/out, usually 5+ firefox (I hate tabs), then I usually have 2 World of Warcraft's going, then I have a movie on the other monitor... Needless to say, I keep my computer working lol. So having SOME speed would be nice because my computer gets kinda slow at times.
My current mobo:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA78LM-S2 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
My current cpu:
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition Kuma 2.8GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core Processor AD785ZWCGHBOX
My current gfx card:
Newegg.com - XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Otherwise, I have an OCZ 750W PSU, 4GB RAM, and a WD Cavier Black 7200RPM 3.0GB/s 32MB cache HDD.
I think I'm safe with going with another dual core. I dunno..what do you think? Mobo could definitely use an update. I tried looking for more RAM on newegg but under 240pin DDR2 PC2 8500, I couldn't find any 4GB sticks. I don't know if my current mobo can take DDR3. I just looked up the same spec sticks as the ones I have. I'm pretty sure my gfx card sucks by now. I was thinking about making the switch to NVIDIA for a GTX or something, but I don't want to spend a couple hundred on a card that I don't need. Again, World of Warcraft is all I play.
Any input is appreciate guys! If you need more info from me, please ask! Thanks!
I think I need to upgrade my motherboard and CPU and MAYBE my graphics card.. Lately, I've been having a lot of little problems here and there. They all started when I reformatted my main hdd with XP. I have 2 HDD's, both are hooked up and working but I boot off of 1 that has XP, the other has Vista. Problems are as such: NTLDR is missing, beeping when it's first started (1 short, pause, followed by 1 long. I believe memory related issue), and a missing driver the computer and internet cannot seem to find so it opens the "new hardware driver" installation window every...single...time...I log on.
With that being said, I think I just want to wipe it all clean and upgrade a couple parts in the mean time. My budget is fairly low since I don't need a whole lot of performance. I game but not a lot. World of Warcraft is the only game I play, and that doesn't require a ton. I also use Adobe Photoshop CS3, I have dual 23" monitors, I watch Blu-Ray, surf FireFox... I think that pretty much covers it. Oh and I love to have 20 things open at once . Ventrilo, AIM, MSN, Winamp, I'll have a couple media folders open to drag movies/songs in/out, usually 5+ firefox (I hate tabs), then I usually have 2 World of Warcraft's going, then I have a movie on the other monitor... Needless to say, I keep my computer working lol. So having SOME speed would be nice because my computer gets kinda slow at times.
My current mobo:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA78LM-S2 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
My current cpu:
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition Kuma 2.8GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core Processor AD785ZWCGHBOX
My current gfx card:
Newegg.com - XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Otherwise, I have an OCZ 750W PSU, 4GB RAM, and a WD Cavier Black 7200RPM 3.0GB/s 32MB cache HDD.
I think I'm safe with going with another dual core. I dunno..what do you think? Mobo could definitely use an update. I tried looking for more RAM on newegg but under 240pin DDR2 PC2 8500, I couldn't find any 4GB sticks. I don't know if my current mobo can take DDR3. I just looked up the same spec sticks as the ones I have. I'm pretty sure my gfx card sucks by now. I was thinking about making the switch to NVIDIA for a GTX or something, but I don't want to spend a couple hundred on a card that I don't need. Again, World of Warcraft is all I play.
Any input is appreciate guys! If you need more info from me, please ask! Thanks!