upgrade – Page 2 – TruXter Tech

BFG GTS 250 Review

Posted on2010/05/172010/05/18AuthorTech 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.

PC Repair Tips

Posted on2010/03/19AuthorComputer Tweaker1 Comment

For the most part, this link is the reminder of the basics.

So if you are new, this link is a great starter.

If you are a know it all like my friends and I

Well this link refreshes your memory as to what the simple is.. keeps you from overlooking the simple answer.

Why rebuild the computer if you could have fixed it for free????

Computer Repair tips.

Sorry but that is my old site and it has been there for at least 4 years.

ok short post :-)

Is Nvidia Doing the ATI Thing?

Posted on2010/03/102010/03/10AuthorComputer Tweaker

ATI decided a while back not to make that many low end video cards that have SLI. This of course takes away the chance of you buying two low end cards . One while you can, and later one when you can afford it again. I can see the plus in it for the video card makers. Less newbies screaming about crappy manufacturing. but also less newbies becoming pro by problem solving and wanting to upgrade and get more performance.

I kind of notice this after the 9800 cards. Look at compusa and fry’s and look at teh PCI-E cards you will see that the low end cards 2xx all of the low end budget cards no longer have SLI connections on top.

I am disappointing in this. I guess I can start using ATI again, my motherboard is just about obsolete anyway.

I mean if NVidia is going to be like them, then why not just use them.

Windows 7 Beta 7100 Ends 2 days

Posted on2010/02/27AuthorGame News

Sure did not feel like very long on that dang thing. 2 days as the drum beats and it’s lights out or upgrade.
I did find few Windows Vista installs that come with free windows 7 upgrades. for around 130. To me that sounds like
a peach of a deal. Found it at zipzoomfly, not going to link it because heh. I’m not getting any kick back.. nah because I don’t feel like searching for it till I’m ready, but I did saw it earlier today. So I know it’s there

Good Luck

Windows 7, Tiny7

Posted on2009/10/19AuthorGame News

I have always liked the work of a person named eXPer1ence, with his tiny stripped versions of windows products. This guy makes Microsoft feel like Linux. Open source and all you know?.

I did a search just to see if he had done anything with Windows 7. Well he did. Google pushed out some very promising results. On the popular Torrent search site it showed eXPer1ence, modded programs and his name for user account that created and uploaded the torrent files to the search engine. So I knew it was genuine and not from some virus freak that renamed a bad file.

I decided i would test it in benchmarks against the current Windows 7 that i have installed, straight from Microsoft’s website. Legit cd key and all .. of course. I just wanted to see if a stray dude could create mod a well appreciated operating system into a fine video game running o/s. I broke out the extra Sata Hard drive and connected everything. and yes it was the exact same make as the current drive I was using.

I did the full entire install. I installed my need for speed carbon and most wanted, shift and undercover, grand theft auto iii Vice city, San Andreas and gtaiv. All installed fine and smooth. I tried to install DirectX 10. It said I already had an equivalent version installed. Ok that was cool. I started my benchmarking. I played all my need for speeds on both versions of windows seven, 64bit full install and 32 bit tiny7. Tiny played a tad bit smoother but I got artifacts on occasions, I moved on to my Grand Theft Auto games. III was so smooth and impressive I was sold to tiny7 in a flash, same for Vice City and San Andreas. I started to try GTAIV. No go. GTAIV would not play. The command prompt would open and then quickly disappear. So I started searching online. I see that the latest version of tiny7 says it will play Grand Theft Auto IV Listed here. I confirm that I have the version stated. The game would not play. So i double check my directx version. It seems that some items of direct X would not install. I fully uninstalled Direct x 10 to see if I could solve the issue with a reinstall. Now direct X 10 would not install, at all.

I also got an issue with items on the desktop. If I tried to paste from or to the desktop, I would get an error saying that the desktop was not found. um… ermmm??? No version of Autodesk Or autocad would install. So it was useless for working on drafting. Would not sign into network and save settings. Some of my media editing tools would not work either. Like magix music maker and video editor. If magix does not work, then it’s useless to me.

For gaming, I have to say that Tiny7 is not a complete failure, but it did fail my trial. I have since uninstalled tiny7. I am really liking windows 7 ultimate 64 bit. Maybe next time eXPer1ence until then , I think i will go up the street and purchase 7, the proper way… It is worth it.

Windows 7 At home, good, bad, it’s ugly

Posted on2009/06/29AuthorTech News

Ok for starts,

I did do a big full test of windows seven at work on a machine and threw everything at it that makes vista and xp crash. the version we used for that test is windows 7 32 bit, here is Windows & in Workplace Environment.

I have to say that anyone who preaches on about 7 being better than windows Vista, You really did not even try both with an open mind. I like vista, Seven is not impressing me at all. All the stuff about vista I heard everyone complain about but never noticed myself, I am seeing it in Windows 7. I think by now it’s just common enough to blame everything on George Bush and Windows vista, it’s the first two things out someone’s mouth. But ok here is what I get in the trial at home on windows 7 64bit.

Well I am on day two of windows 7. The default drivers it installed, amazed me, almost as much as windows vista did. Video card drivers, not so much. I am forced to use almost one year old nvidia drivers. Fine.
For the record, my machine is a mid way between work horse and light gaming machine, nothing to brag about in either direction.
Specs are
AMD 5600+ 2.9g dc
3 gigs pc6400 800mhz
Nvidia / evga 9500 gt 512 mb
some ecs motherboard
air cooled.

Well the video drivers have been iffy on me and would not let me use the manufacturers drivers. This has always been my special sweet spot, using EVGA drivers instead of nvidia drivers has always givin me a cooled advantage. but no, win 7 rc is forcing me to use the ones they have from the update service at Microsoft, if I install anything else I look at 8 bit graphics at best.

Well I tend to do my benchmarking at pc pitstop.com (full test) . to say the least, my scores drop dramatically over my vista scores. I usually use the old test , it’s hard to find but it’s there it’s a link in the description kinda hidden there. my scores have been i the 3000’s for about a year now. With windows seven they dropped to 1500. strangely it shows my 2d fps increased by nearly 100 fps. Well that’s cool…..
So I turn to my faithful typical benchmarking methods of real testing. :-)
I crack open every version of Grand Theft Auto and install them all.
On gtaiii I get the same hesitation I used to get about 6 years ago. While passing under bridges and through tree covered areas there is a lag that comes in spurts. with vice city, the yellow almost takes over the screen and the cut scenes are jittery just like it was the day the game came out and I was on out dated hardware. San Andreas, well not much better.
GTAIV For me to achieve the 23 FPS at best in game I had to turn everything off or all the way down. When I was on Vista I was seeing 35+ FPS with some things turned to medium. Yes I know my video card is not the best in the world, but it was the same one I was using on windows Vista and it makes a great “before and after” comparison.

Now for the lock out issues everyone complains about with windows Vista.
I head to MVPS Hosts site to update my hosts file to block bad sites and advertisements. Nothing fricken happened. Wouldn’t block anything, So I head to the ETC folder to modify the file by hand. HA! No administrator rights to modify that file. Meanwhile in the background I am playing myspace mobsters. I refresh a page and bam new advertisement, all my browsers drop and fricken notice comes up telling me my computer might be compromised, and it offers this virus scan. then it scans my computer anyway and says I have a virus then tells me to update. I freak out and try and close the page and notice, it’s not windows explorer, it’s Mozilla. it’s a fricken spam scam. See if I could have changed my hosts file, that never would have happened. so I head to bit defender to scan my disk onlline. would not allow me!!!!!! WTF!!!!!
So I head to emsi and get a-squared and do a scan, sure enough… I am infected with 4 types of Trojans. I am upset now.

The hardest thing for me to find, I still have not found it yet, is how in the blue hell do you turn it so that you can see your file extensions? Have they disabled so much user ability that they have turned that off? I feel as if I am being dumbed down and pacified with big shiny buttons.
You can like windows seven all you want, but I really have this whole thing figured out.
Either it’s going to turn out to be Mojave, or windows ME 2.0

still the same issue with Windows Seven that bothered me most with Windows Vista , No Ftp. You have to download Fire FTP for firefox and use that . You no longer have direct access with windows Explorer. I find this unacceptable. It really feels like we are being dumbed down.

After some help, someone linked me to how to use notepad as administrator to modify files such as the hosts file
Here

Windows Seven Work Environment Day 2

Posted on2009/06/03AuthorTruXter1 Comment

Day 2
Auto desk did not install directly, had to do sp2 update for autodesk/ autocad 2007
video card is an 5200 pci-e Nvidia bfg.
Scrolling within Autocad is smooth, no hesitation as my dell computer with 8500 pci video card seems to lag and work in spurts.

Printing with Autocad to the Ricoh Aficio m wp2400, came out very well.
line weights fine, antialliasing is fine and smooth

directory mapping via cross network is the same.

switching through desktops and backgrounds, umm.. these people.. um to be nice and prevent my sponsors from dropping me
let’s say the people who made the themes, lived in the sixties, and chewed on small peices of paper, and or plants that
grew on cow dung.. these desk tops are weird!!

ESC 9 installed fine, no patches needed, no updates needed.
Peach Tree 2010 install.
Error notice was “there was an error” gives a phone number.
We continued install anyway.
Got notice “change firewall” and “change virus scan”
We just selected “um Ok”
Setup status is fine. looks like 30-45 minutes.

install of peachtree 2010 on windows 7 is faster than peachtree 2009 on xp.

Had error with “Crystal reports” failed to execute the install/setup file.

Peach Tree installed, but when we started to run it, and sign in to the peachtree server, it said “not compatible with current version of esc” well that blew all the earlier great goings. Now we are updating Esc. For now there is no update for ESC9 to comply with Peach Tree 10

Windows 7, Day one of the workplace testing.

Day 4 Testing Windows 7 at work

Testing Windows 7 on a Work Environment

Posted on2009/06/02AuthorTech News2 Comments

Day 1

Splash screen

We use an Intell(R) Pentium(R) p4 2.81 GHZ with 1.5 G Memory

Full format deleted all partitions Let 7 control partitions
Our install of course was the 32 bit version of Win7

Splash Screen says Windows(R) 7 Ultimate, that was free one year from Microsoft’s(R) website. Thanks guys. We appreciate that.
Boot up was fast , about 17 seconds.
3 printers and one plotter on the network.
We have the goal to test all drivers and handling of certain used machines.
At first boot we saw all printers, but when we started the test page to print, there was no printers in the list.
We are now manually installing drivers. Last we tried with vista, the drivers would not install. with seven The Gestetner 525 installed within seconds. Smooth. We now go back and try the Lanier LD122. Next will be Ricoh Aficio mp w2400 Plotter copier

. Server Driver spoiling, is not an option , finds drivers on the server and installs them. Be sure and install the drivers. Twain untested as of yet. Scanner issues will come.
Test page 1 on Gestetner now. print was good on Gestetner.

printed one test page on network win7

Testing windows 7 printing color

We have now consumed 10 gigs of storage. So far we have not installed anything Except printer Drivers

Windows typical keystrokes working as we try.
Loading Symantec Endpoint 11 Work Station Virus Scanner and Firewall To test compatibilities.
noted incompatibility issues, we selected “install anyway”. . So far no prompt for install and no shortcut in quick launch for Symantec, nothing in programs area either, it has been 7 minutes since we started . We are restarting manually to see if we get a boot error.
after reboot, no sign of Symantec.
They did make it clear that Symantec was made for Win Xp, Win 7 is x86/32 bit
Offered to check solutions online, Note is “no solution found” Incompatible. Now we try the 64 bit version of Symantec to see if there is a difference.
Right off we get the “ehh dude, it might not work, doesn’t work for anyone else” notice.
This time it did create the directory for symantec, but quickly uninstalled it. and said that it was interrupted and nothing was modified.

Next we try installing Symantec Server sbe11

More testing to come throughout the week. We want this on our work machines pretty bad. Interesting point, Win7 Identified that the version we have we got from the symantec website, even though it said we had compatibility issues. hmm odd.
Over the next few days we will check Symantec’s site for help on the issue/matter.
We do find a help saying “copy to desktop, run lusetup.exe, reboot, run setup.exe” and all should be good ?????
Maybe ???? Tomorrow we will see.

We install Mozilla Fire Fox 3.0.10 , No Thunderbird today.
good , no notice of compatibility issues. We import nothing, because explorer is a clean install. FF as default.
Install is fine. Fire fox is running well. No issues.

Day one is complete, next tests tomorrow, More writing.

Day Two of Windows 7 Workplace Test.

Latest Firmware on BlackBerry

Posted on2009/05/24AuthorGame News

Well I locked myself out of the options area on my phone, pulled a wild card and decided to reinstall the entire operating system of my phone and see what that does.
Well it turns out that the new themes that are free on the net, work now.
The firware on Tmobile’s website is ancient compared to what’s on blackberry’s website.
This Forum Post was my lifesaver.
Blackberry Forums . Com

In summary you download the new firmware and get the new desktop manager, run the install for the firmware and install the desktop manager, do not run the dtm till you get to the folder where you delete “vendor.xml”
in that same folder you will see “Loader.exe” once you delete the vendor file, run the loader.
It will tell you that you have a more current version on your pc than on your phone. Go through the full install.
After the 40 minutes or so of loading and installing close loader when it says it’s done. Now run the DTM do the install/update in that list you will see a whole lot of stuff, if it’s really techy and you don’t know what it is, install it, you need it, or your phone will be stuck in a boot and crash loop. Actually that’s what i did. I installed everything except for languages I can’t speak.

I actually went a whole day of the phone crashing and rebooting while at work before I tried that final step. So at least test out your phone first before that final step.
now my phone shuts down and reboots faster than it ever had. Programs load faster than ever.
One strange thing happened, was there was an image in my memory card that was corrupt, so every time I tried to change my desktop background, the phone would crash again.
Plugged in my cable deleted teh file and all is good again.

GTAIV issues, what works for me.

Posted on2009/04/18AuthorTech News

Playing Grand Theft Auto IV I was having the issue of images vanishing after just minutes of gameplay. The more the stuff I had going on, the worse it got. I looked online for the capacities of my motherboard. I found that the native memory I was using, What the manufacture says on the box that my motherboard came with is 667mhz. No where on the box did it signify that I could go any further. So I Googled my motherboard. What I found was lots of people like myself did what I did. We all bough what we thought was the max memory for the board. 2 Gigs of 667mhz ddr2. but others experimented and found that it can handle greater than 800 mhz ddr. So I headed to the electronics store and bought 4 gigs of pc 6400 800 mhz ddr2 memory. Then when I got home, I tried to find teh forums that I saw earlier. By that time I found a handfull sites selling the same motherboard, the specs they had on those sites showed greater than 800 mhz..Dang. but I did the install.
You would not believe the speed increase I gained from this. The game has no lag issues. I stay at 30 fps min, and never have any stutter, never have any vanishing items. just that small step up and doubling my memory, the game plays like a gem.
The canned air in the heatsinks didn’t hurt me . So I think I am well on my way. See you online. I will be at gtaclans.com when I am not actually in game.