Tag: nvidia

Computer Refurbish for Work

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Well at the office, we have another cad guy coming in to do some designing. The only available computer we have for him is an old Dell computer. E-520 to be exact. This computer has a 2.6 gig P4 processor and two DDR2 pc4200 256mb memory sticks. We do not have a windows 7 disk for dell computers but we have the original install disk of Windows xp that came with that computer. So our operating system by limited selection, is windows xp professional 32 bit.

We cleaned out all dust, hair and carpet fuzz from the computer to make sure this design machine works (by default) at optimal condition for this old of a computer, and to do our best to make this computer run as good as it did the day it was first built. That is of course if the operating system runs at original condition. Just so you know why we formatted the computer.

Here is a look at the project computer before any hardware upgrades or updates.

XP Install on Board Video

This Dell computer we are using has been taken off site and used in another city at a coworker’s house for work. So yeah, it has been slammed with lots and lots of viruses. So many have been on this computer and removed from this computer, many of the normal functions did not work properly. So we formatted the computer.
We yanked out the two pc4200 256mb memory sticks and installed two 2gig pc 5300 memory sticks, and an Nvidia 9500 1gb vmem PCI-Express video card.

The Parts have been brought in for the computer while we were half way through the install of the operating system. We tied back some of the loose wires.

Before the parts installed. Xp installing

We used the Nvidia 9500 simply because the computer only has a 350 watt power supply and no available power connections to plug into a better video card.
We have done this install so many times, not one single error was capable of happening.
Except the small notice that says we have upgraded memory and video card.

Closest to an error we got.

This upgrade was at the cost of only $160 up front but also there is a $30 mail in rebate (we have not done yet) for the video card, and $25 mail in rebates for each stick of memory. If all goes well with the mail in rebates on these computer parts, then we are looking at an $80 upgrade to take this 7 year old computer that has been beat down and been a virus farm for at least 4 years, and turn this computer into a full on design machine.
After the operating system Windows xp pro was fully installed, we installed all 84 updates available. Of course that is after going to another computer and downloading network drivers and burning them to a cd, so we could sneaker mail them to the Dell project computer.

Design computer upgrade is complete

So now this computer is ready to go. He says he has autodesk 2011. If autodesk 2011 is as smooth of a success as autodesk 2010 was on my computer, then we are in the good and this computer will run like a monster.

Operating system is fully installed

So far, the computer is a sucess. We shall see what happens Tuesday when the final test of the design software puts the computer to work (stress).

Should You Overclock Your Nvidia 9400

Posted onAuthorComputer Tweaker

The question has always come up. “Should I overclock my video card?”.

We all want to know we are resourceful and frugal enough to make a good deal out of what we have. It’s in our nature.

Contrary to popular opinion.
Overclocking shows no actual performance difference.
It may show increase in certain feilds of benchmarking but will also show a hit in other fields. If the card makers made it so you could unlock magical sections of your gadget so you can save money, no one would buy better. The best you can get from overclocking is a cool score on a benchmark test.

Your video card is fine for what it is made for. I have seen some extreme benchmark scores come from that video card. Truth is though, once you put any weight on it like actually gaming and random processes such as gaming, you will see a drastic hit on it.

I have busted many video cards and processors and sticks of memory through the years (12 years) playing the cheap role.

For better performance buy a video card that performs better right out of the box. and then go back to your 9400 and overcliock the dogsquirts out of it and see what it’s full potential is. get benchmarks and play some games. Then toss it aside and put the newer better card in and see for yourself.

If you overclocked good enough the 9400 would have out performed a boxed 9600 right out of the pack. Low shader count means your video card will stop at the low number and not stress on drawing the greater shaders. In fact it will ignore them. So your benchmark scores could smear the 9500 9600 9200 210 video cards. but in actual game play. That’s a whole different story.

Just because a video card does not have certain features does not mean it will not perform as good. it just means it will look like crap and not have all of the image features. In some cases it will perform 1000 times better and faster when clocked like crazy, but you will not see what everyone sees in the game.

heck it was almost 3 years before I realized gtaiii billboards actually had crap on them. and that there was smoke coming out of the stacks at teh first safe house.

You do not want the video card with the first of a feature. you want the video card that came years later. The 9500 and the 9600 have huge shader counts yes, but they don’t have the nuts to use them.

move into the 200s or greater (which is the same processor as the 9000s) .. the freaking 500s are right around the corner.

Yank that card and stick it in a media computer. It’s great for dvd and 720p hd.

Computer Parts for Sale

Posted onAuthorGame News

I started a new site. Electronics Online Garage Sale.

I will be cleaning out my storage and adding Items Regularly.

Many items have accumulated over the past few years. Things that just worked well so I didn’t want to just waste them .. I hung on to them for the chance my new parts break.

Well i have accumulated quite a bit of computer parts. I don’t really want to use ebay and let the items go at some underbid price. Or have to ad prices for items that did not sell within the short time expected. so I will be removing items that have sold as they sell.

So enjoy the Online Yard Sale.

Computer Parts Shopping

Posted onAuthorComputer Tweaker1 Comment

At a local electronics store in America. I am sure many have one in mind when I say that. I decided to go to the video card section and check out some of the video cards when a ( I am uncertain if they are sales associates or stocking clerks with a strange desire to sell you something slightly more expensive) walked up to me and offered to help me. I told him I was looking for an Nvidia GTS250 1gb, this card was right behind us about mid back. The guy reached up and grabbed an Nvidia 275 card.$70 difference. He began to suggest I needed a card that was more expensive, before asking me if my computer can even handle it. Like do I have a strong power supply, Do I have pci express? Do I at least have windows xp. So I chuckle and said ” Why you gotta call me out??? I don’t have that much money”. We both chuckled at how I did that. I then broke out with specifics. I told him ” I am looking for a match to my card so I can run SLI” He started to butt in with ” this will run SLI” I laughed and continued with ” I need specs like  ‘Shader Clock 1836MHz,Memory Data Rate 2240MHz,GDDR3,RAMDAC 800 total to match exactly what I have” He looked at me with his eyes glossed over and then muttered ” well if you need me my name is” blah blah blah I got glossed eyed. He walked away

While I was walking around in the video cards section, I noticed that one of the video card’s box had the shrink wrap open. The price was kind of ok, and the box was super heavy. This usually means a large card or a really heavy heatsink. I actually had that exact same video card. It was a BFG 250. It broke on me. I was trying to see if it was the same exact model as what mine is Or if it was going to be a low profile with no sli. Mine isn’t completely broke I wanted to see what I could do with mine in SLI. An employee of the store walked over to me an said that I needed to take that video card over to the manager’s station . I told him that I just wanted to confirm that the video card was what I was looking for. He said that he was (I’m paraphrasing) certain that was what i was doing then he assured me that company policy was the way it was. So I waddled up to the counter/command center (lol), and when I get up there I explain what the request was of the employee. By that time I saw all I needed to see. So I asked a question. I said ” I notice there are a whole lot of items on the shelf that had the “returned item” price marked down sticker, Why is that?”. The guy at the stand looked up and had a look in his face that I can’t explain and said “well a lot of people do not know much about what they are buying and what they have. They get home and that parts do not match so they bring it back to us certain that it is broken”. I tried to have no expression as I replied ” Wow that’s a whole lot of people”. I then walked back to the video cards section.

 

I then walk over to the motherboard section and start looking at the motherboards, I mean since I do have an extra Athlon II processor and brand new, non functioning motherboard.

I noticed it was the same thing going on in the motherboard section as the video card section. Tons of stickers (well not as many but quite a few) of returned items with prices being marked down.

while standing there , my favorite motherboard associate was there telling some story about a video game. So I started to tell my story of how games for windows live some add in code to my GTAIV told me that I installed the game to many times and the whole uproar it caused for a week. The dude looked at me odd and walked away. So I finished my video.

Now my big question is : Why are there so many products on the shelves like that? Is it normal for that many products to be returned? could that many people not know much about what they are buying ? Could it be an occasional bad item gets returned then reshelved, and no one wants to buy the returns, so they build up in time? Is it because they have been burned so many time they just figure it’s easier to let the customers test it, if it comes back they finally send it back to manufacturer? Is it cheaper that way instead of sending a truck back once a month like all other companies do ?

I asked Greg from “Greg’s Snippets” and he had a great answer. He suggested that you have to consider the foul customers and the not very knowledgeable, the random dysfunctional parts, display items and items just like the one I stumbled across that was on the shelf and already open. Each of those items have to weighed in as some factors as to why these products are back on the shelf like that. This is a guy who always sees the deep seedy truth about everything he hears and sees, so him giving that response was a bit out of character. but hey it made sense.

You tell me what you think it could be.

BFG GTS 250 Review

Posted onAuthorTech Review Man2 Comments

BFG 250 GTS

Purchased one month ago aVideo card, BFG 250 GTS 1gb from the local fry’s store for $123.49. Heck of a deal coming from two Nvidia 9500gt 512 mb Video cards. Played a few games of Grand Theft Auto IV  with it. Saw the best in game benchmarks over my past video cards. Fan was quieter than my old cooling system on my  twin 9500 gt cards. Temperature was much Higher. On first boot with that card Speedfan saw the temperature at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. While my 9500 gt cards saw temps of 90 on average, 105 after stress, boot temp was around 85. My son’s 240 card temp after stress reads 95*. That’s after about an hour of playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

Gpuid aka Gpu-Z benched

GPU Z Screenshot

BFG NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 OC 1GB PCIe 2.0

Performance
GPU NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 250
Core Clock 750MHz (vs. 738MHz standard)
Shader Clock 1836MHz
Shader Model 4.0
Texture Fill Rate 48 Billion/sec.
Stream Processors 128
Memory
Video Memory 1GB (1024MB)
Memory Type GDDR3
Memory Data Rate 2240MHz (vs. 2200MHz standard)
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth 71.7GB/sec.
Connections
Bus Type PCI Express® 2.0
Display Connectors 2 Dual-Link DVI-I
RAMDACs Dual 400MHz
Multiple Monitor Support Yes
HDCP Capable Yes, Dual link (Requires other compatible components which are HDCP capable. Designed to meet the output protection management (HDCP) and security specifications of the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats, allowing the playback of encrypted movie content on PCs when connected to HDCP-compliant displays)
HDMI™ Capable Yes (Requires adapter and audio cable, sold separately)
NVIDIA® SLI® Support Yes, 2-Way & 3-Way

I got frustrated with the temperatures being so bad. Sometimes in game I would see temperatures all of the way up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. So I removed the heatsink to see what could be causing it.

Actual Board

After close inspection, I noticed a part had been hitting the heatsink.

Flaw in BFg 250 gts 1gb Design

Looking at the heatsink I see they had designed the heatsink to accommodate for this issue, but about 1/2 an inch away.

I tried sanding down the heatsink to get more clearance, I tried drilling holes the size of the part. That actually helped. So no longer was the heatsink pressing on it, it also wasn’t vibrating against it. Look at the wear.

One month later

The temperature had not lowered no matter what I tried (while still using factory parts). I boot up my computer and start to play Need for Speed Carbon. The screen filled up with speckles. I had to reboot the computer. After the reboot I let the computer idle for a moment and then I checked the temperature with Speedfan and statistics with cpu-z.

Read outs after crap out

Not a good read. 16x card reading at 4x. after 1 month.

but for the one month of testing, the card was amazing. It played every single game I threw at it. It’s speeds never hesitated, except when it got hot. once the card would get hot, I would see some pretty tragic lag. The nvidia 240 my son has plays modern warfare 2 with high resolution and never once budges or lags. The clock speeds of that card are a bit lower than the clock speeds of the 250. If you have a low budget a warning  because the one I got died after a month of occasional hard gaming light video editing and plenty of cad design and photoshop work.

I must inform you that I did not overclock my card. I did not overclock my motherboard. I did not overclock my memory or my processor. I save that for after I get new parts. I was happy with this card so, I never bought a new card. now I have to. Tigerdirect.com, here I come.

April 2010 In Tech News

Posted onAuthorGame News1 Comment

That was a very busy month for tech news. Lots of great things came, some not so great but that is almost unnoticeable. Looks like good news for the gaming world all the way around. Bad news for the business phones. Then again, no one really used palm anymore anyway.

Apple Released the IPAD

Steve Jobs Says ” No Adobe”

Smart-phone maker Palm For Sale Would have done Motorola some good to buy out.

Hewlett Packard Buys out Palm

Free Android Phones for Adobe Employees

Nvidia, Intel vie for lead role at Apple

AMD Talks To Apple

Nvidia Launches 400 Series cards

Rockstar Games  releases patch 6 for Grand Theft Auto gtaiv

Droid Incredible  Released.

Get GTAIV Patch 1.0.6.0 Working

Posted onAuthorComputer Tweaker

On my original install I had the game running using live to download and install the game.
During the install I got an error
user posted image
but after I closed the error window, I saw that the install was still going on.

Well later I uninstalled the game and then just installed patch 1.0.4.0. (alternatively you can do this Roll back patch without uninstall )
Played for a while.
found a link in GTAForums.COM linking to the XBOX website that allows you direct download of the 1.0.6.0 patch.
download.xbox.com/content/5454083b/tu10000083_10000b83.cab?n=F1F2863FCD63C802
Use winrar.
and I tried it wondering if there would be any issues that it would resolve by getting it this way… I have no idea what I was thinking.
but.
In actuality something good did happen. I got the full install without an error. why? because the game was not running (I guess). No errors in the install.
so now I try the game and see a marginal increase in frame rates. but now I want to see more. Call me greedy.
I go to video settings for video card (nvidia control panel,ati has it under 3d setting [sorry work pc but sure they are similar throughout])

Nvidia Control Panel

Nvidia Control Panel

anistrop ati settings

and I go to the 3d settings and manually select GTAIV and turn off Anisotropic filtering.

LaunchGTAIV.exe

CODE
“C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto IV\LaunchGTAIV.exe” -availablevidmem=.8    


run the game from the Launch
Go to the Video settings and select “automatic”
Then go to aspect ratio and pick the size that fits.
turn texture filter to tri-linear

Setting for gtaiv defaultish

Now don’t change anything. Just save at this point and give it a try.
I would assume it will not work as well for others but it should for some
and should show a nice change for many.
The shadows look wonderful.
It will not stop the ped cars from dropping, but who cares. right? Just get the game flowing better.
It looks better than it did before the patch and plays about as good as patch 1.0.4.0 maybe a lil shakier.
I have no desire to crank the settings hire, heck it looks better already.

Best Video Drivers For GTAIV (Nvidia)

Posted onAuthorGame News

Forceware 196.21 Windows XP (32-bit WHQL) http://downloads.guru3d.com/Forceware-196….nload-2457.html
Forceware 196.21 Windows 7 | Vista (32-bit WHQL) http://downloads.guru3d.com/Forceware-196….nload-2458.html
Forceware 196.21 Windows 7 | Vista (64-bit WHQL) http://downloads.guru3d.com/Forceware-196….nload-2459.html

Despite the FPS listed in the results, I really felt a smoother game play, even with the settings set higher.
I did exit and run GPU-Z and found 52 degrees Celsius. a bit high.  I mean all game play signs were smooth and even flowing
but after exiting, for the first time on this pc, it took longer than 2 seconds to open my start menu. So I think I may have been
running a bit hot. I will work on better cooling.

I also saw that the drivers defaulted my machine to run gtaiv in SLI mode. since SLI is not supported on this game, I just flashed red
Felt like a seizure. I had to go through a few settings to turn that off

For anyone With a budget card wanting to GTAIV. It is very much worth it to try these drivers.

BEFORE
Statistics
Average FPS: 23.33
Duration: 37.58 sec
CPU Usage: 96%
System memory usage: 82%
Video memory usage: 87%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1440 x 900 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 24
Detail Distance: 36

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Video Driver version: 195.62
Audio Adapter: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+

File ID: Benchmark.cli

AFTER
Statistics
Average FPS: 20.20
Duration: 37.28 sec
CPU Usage: 99%
System memory usage: 86%
Video memory usage: 79%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1440 x 900 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 56
Detail Distance: 56

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Video Driver version: 196.21
Audio Adapter: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+

Finally Nvidia’s Drivers have caught up with Windows 7. These probably will not make it to the final release version. These are leaked and tweaked by the gur3d community. but if you are on a budget video card and just want to play the game on medium settings, do this, these are great drivers.

I do warn that I did not creat these drivers and am not in any accountable for the outcome or effect or results of what these drivers might do to your machine. So don’t thank me and don’t scream at  me for what ever happens. Not all video card vendors are the same, not all video card vendors have the exact same configuration. Not all computer combonations are the same. For my machine, these are exactly what i need to play grand theft auto IV.

Here is my computer Configuration.

Next to bench Need For Speed Under Cover

Tech Forum Relaunch

Posted onAuthorTruXter

I just got done rebuilding the tech forum.

My hopes is that we will help each other find solutions to their tech issues. so please sign up and check in from time to time. Maybe someone will ask a question you can answer. I know you guys out there have plenty of witts about you in the computer and electronics field. Not everyone is as good as you guys.

So come to http://iworkwithtech.com/forum/

Sign up. Leave a greeting somewhere or start a new thread, or heck make a request.

Work Pc bad performance, Pci Slot Need Help

Posted onAuthorPoit388

Ok I am going to post a copy and paste of what I was saying in forum on pcpitstop. Not much help there, even though the title says, well… you will see..
actual convo : http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=165060

<i>I am using a dell dimension 3100 with a 2.9 g single core
2 gigs pc 3200
I have a video card in this old beast I bought from staples
the video card is a verto pny 8400 pci (not pci-e)
when I take the bench tests without the card, I get a better score in 2d.
in fact , if i have the card in it takes about 45 seconds to perform that part of the test.
without the card it is instant.
Anyone have any old pci tips I can use to get this thing off th ground and moving faster?:
I really need the tips, since I am limited to this machine and use it for cad and flash and photoshop

I understand that.
But the 2d takes about 40 seconds to complete.
as apposed to less than a second like it used to do.
or as it does with my home pc. i’m just looking for some old school tweaks.

Bios only allows me to select auto or onboard. sadly enough.

I have two gig pc3200 (the machine is a bit dated but it’s a work pc)
when I am in cad, as I scroll down pages I actually see waves like as if I haven’t installed drivers
although it will allow me to crank video setting to 32 bit and 1280/1024 and i have the nvidia control panel
just like if if the drivers are installed. so it acts like there is no drivers while it shows drivers. have uninstalled and reinstalled and updated and updated . I think I’m at the latest 181.22 or something .

The thing acts worse than if I used onboard.
I mean while in adobe flash, in autodesk,cad, photoshop, or anything that uses video. I have probably 12 grand in software installed on this machine so moving to another is not foreseeable any time soon.
and yes I am a long time pc gamer so I know how to reduce start up programs and disable items as I run another that uses tons of resources.
as i remember there used to be a driver addon we used to use for agp slots called a “gart”. and if i remember correctly, there was something for pci slots, but of course it’s a dell pc so drivers and software are limited.

I am tempted to locate a modded bios for this and set it so I can turn that dang onboard gpu off.

and yes what finch was saying is perfectly correct. But for the 2d segment of the pcpitctop test (the part with the descending rings) to take 45+ seconds. Something is clearly wrong. I have taken this test on probably all of about 17 computers here in the office, some with radeon pci-e some radeon agp some with nvidia agp and or pci-e some with onboard gpu and the ring portion always takes less than a blink. never does it take it take 45+ seconds except on my machine with an 8400 gs pci card or on a machine that has no drivers yet (we recently added monitors to a few pcs for the ladies here to watch a buncha junk going on with our installers and tracking). i just know i am forgetting to do something.</i>
Sorry, but reallu I am that dang lazy, I wrote all that out once, and it seemed to hit the mark. but erm it fell on wrong ears, or at wrong pace.
Heck I dunno.

and yes, that is pci slot, not pci express.