but if he hasn't got bags of money to throw at it, why spend over the odds for small gains?
Better to save it and try and go for a newer mobo/cpu in the future like people have suggested.
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Best socket 775 upgrades
- Thread starter Camalot
- Start date
but if he hasn't got bags of money to throw at it, why spend over the odds for small gains?
Better to save it and try and go for a newer mobo/cpu in the future like people have suggested.
Soldato
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I agree with this. If you cant solve stuttering and stuff, might be best just to save up a bit. At your current budget even saving an extra £50 over a month would go a long way.
If saving money is not an option for one reason or another, you can grab that 8800 GT which is causing a bit of grief with the stuttering, walk to your nearest maplin. Then proceed to hit them round the face with it until they give up all their PC parts. Congratulations on your new Haswell and Crossfire Ares build now all you have to do is save money for the electricity bill!
Certain advantages to option two include the hefty weight of teh graphics. Ares 2 weighing in at nearly 3 times the the amount of your 8800, giving you three times the stopping power when you wield it the next time you get the upgrade itch!
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1440x900 dvi
Just uninstalled all graphics drivers and rebooted. The mouse is still laggy. Its like when something loads in background, the whole thing goes laggy, the mouse just shoots around screen and lags behind my movements.
I couldn't do a fresh install via the reboot / boot from cd method as the pc wouldnt let me, so i installed windows whilst the current windows was loaded, if that makes sense, you think that could contribute to my issue?
I couldn't do a fresh install via the reboot / boot from cd method as the pc wouldnt let me, so i installed windows whilst the current windows was loaded, if that makes sense, you think that could contribute to my issue?
When you went into your monitor control panel did you set the screen to be formed in the Graphics card or directly to the display. Also you stiplulate that you have it connected via DVI and your monitor doesn't have DVI, at least not in the ones I have Googled.
You are going to continually have problems if your graphics drivers are not installed correctly and your display settings are not set to a specific profile. Have you installed the IIC profile for your monitor, because it should have no issues with your 16:10 display setup, but you may have issues going above 60HZ because DVI is switching and frequency based. VGA has the ability to vary its frequency.
Your Monitor profile allows your Display adapter to shake hands and communicate correctly with the display parameters. If you have set your display frequency too high or it has defaulted too high you will get time lag and DirectX will obviously show no issues, but you will.
As for your other install of windows, well you should still be able to access it and make use of the user settings on that. In fact you should get a principal boot menu which allows you to boot into either version of the OS.
You are going to continually have problems if your graphics drivers are not installed correctly and your display settings are not set to a specific profile. Have you installed the IIC profile for your monitor, because it should have no issues with your 16:10 display setup, but you may have issues going above 60HZ because DVI is switching and frequency based. VGA has the ability to vary its frequency.
Your Monitor profile allows your Display adapter to shake hands and communicate correctly with the display parameters. If you have set your display frequency too high or it has defaulted too high you will get time lag and DirectX will obviously show no issues, but you will.
As for your other install of windows, well you should still be able to access it and make use of the user settings on that. In fact you should get a principal boot menu which allows you to boot into either version of the OS.
Also carefully assessing your setup I would advise you to get at least another 2GB of RAM which gives your work environment more space to cache in. At the moment your ram is being buffered back and forth to the Hard disk which will cause unnecesary disk activity. If you have any form of security like Anti-virus, Firewall etc. this will cause more and more interrupts. My guess is that you have more interrupts and tasks going before you get to Windows GUI than your installed memory can handle without dropping to Hard disk cacheing. Ad the 36MB memory space your Nvidia driver needs to function on even an 8 bit display means you are limiting yourself by the amount of RAM the CPU can Address via the BIOS and Operating system. I am not advocating buying a whole new system, just to add a few sticks of dual channel Ram to your setup. there are soe cheap budget ram about which are DDR2 which will fit your criteria. But upping the RAM from 2GB to 4GB would be the best and simplest solution to your problem. I am only sorry I got here half way through the solution phase with you. I don't know if Overclockers do a pair of DDR2 memory. I used OCZ in my ASUS and still have all 4 sticks. The good thing about 4GB is that it is gauged as the bare minimum for any OS now. Most software will advise you of this minimum anyway.
I am sorry I cannot help you any further on this but your setup is so minimal that I am surprised it still works. Your Hard disk must be thrashed to shreds and need defragmenting so much you could not get a version of Windows of any kind up and running without more issues arising unless you blanked the Hard Disk. Even if you did that you wouldn't last long before having to replace it.
If you expand the RAM as I have suggested and perhaps replaced your boot drive you can start afresh and your drivers and input/output devices will all get a fresh start. It is often the simplest thing we replace and everything else follows. I don't often replace things but like everyone else there comes a time when you have to make a serious decision to either upgrade the things you need to or to replace everything and start all over again. I believe you have come to this crossroads. You can either replace things piecemeal as you have done up until now or to do it all in one go. Frankly it is up to you, but remember the ram and hard disk in the end are going to have to be replaced or upgraded for efficiency. You hard disk cacheing is slowing down your input andd output to your setup and not yor graphics card.
I am sorry I cannot help you any further on this but your setup is so minimal that I am surprised it still works. Your Hard disk must be thrashed to shreds and need defragmenting so much you could not get a version of Windows of any kind up and running without more issues arising unless you blanked the Hard Disk. Even if you did that you wouldn't last long before having to replace it.
If you expand the RAM as I have suggested and perhaps replaced your boot drive you can start afresh and your drivers and input/output devices will all get a fresh start. It is often the simplest thing we replace and everything else follows. I don't often replace things but like everyone else there comes a time when you have to make a serious decision to either upgrade the things you need to or to replace everything and start all over again. I believe you have come to this crossroads. You can either replace things piecemeal as you have done up until now or to do it all in one go. Frankly it is up to you, but remember the ram and hard disk in the end are going to have to be replaced or upgraded for efficiency. You hard disk cacheing is slowing down your input andd output to your setup and not yor graphics card.
I don't understand everyone telling me to upgrade this or that. My pc has always ran fine, this issue has only happened since i went back to xp for a week then tried to go back to windows 7 with a new graphics card, thats the only two things i have changed.
Defrag says my drive is 1% fragmented.
Defrag says my drive is 1% fragmented.
The problem lies with the type of system you are attempting to go back to and the amount of ram you have available. Like I said if you upgraded to the recommended 4GB of ram I do believe most of your problems would go away over night but that does not stop them from reappearing overnight again.
We are creatures of habbit and sometimes we pick up good habbits and some bad but no matter what you are putting wear on your boot system drive which was meant to be done by Ram. In todays life there is very little need for cache on a Hard disk.
Say you went out and purchased an SSD tomorrow, would you run it on the same system with the same amount of memory without windows clogging up the system state with a massive pagefile. On your system you will have at least 2 pagefiles which are not ideal because they are taking up space and asking the filesystem to write back information time and time again. If you did the same to an SSD it would not last very long. Either way your hard disk though showing only 1% fragmentation only shows that in file performance and not in data used by windows to compile the record.
If 2GB of ram is too expensive to even think about, then think about the alternative. Being unable to do things on your PC because you are restricted. I still run Windows Vista 32 bit and on an SSD, but I have restricted the Pagefile size to virtual zero and increased my memory on my motherboard. About the only OS that will run on 2GB of memory is Windows 8 because it is optimized for tablet PC use on 1GHZ processors.
I am not saying this is your answer but if you are sticking to your guns and think that 2GB is enough then by all means upgrade to Windows 8. Though I cannot guarantee it will work with your hardware.
Like someone mentoned here earlier a Q6600 might do your setup wonders if your motherboard can handle a quad core 800MHZ FSB at Double Data Rate, much amounting to the same as DDR3 1600MHZ know as standard today. I know some of the E processors did a data rate of 133mhz FSB but it is at half the flow of the Quad core frequency.
I hope you look around and look deeper into how windows handles files and filesystems and its prefetch cacheing and temporary file storage. Then of course windows has a backup record of everything it has done in a single session and a copy somewhere on your system of it hidden until it is rebooted or shut down. Then there are system restore points and failsafe points hidden on the Boot record and the system partition. Thes will be hidden all over the drive and would not show up as fragments because they are system files and as such cannot be touched by a defragmenter. There are many hidden tasks that windows does that you take for granted but without the headroom to do the job they often fall down. So RAM and Hard disk could be your answer. But like I said it sounds like a cascade of failures to me. Once you tamper with one item it affects another thus the Butterfly effect.
We are creatures of habbit and sometimes we pick up good habbits and some bad but no matter what you are putting wear on your boot system drive which was meant to be done by Ram. In todays life there is very little need for cache on a Hard disk.
Say you went out and purchased an SSD tomorrow, would you run it on the same system with the same amount of memory without windows clogging up the system state with a massive pagefile. On your system you will have at least 2 pagefiles which are not ideal because they are taking up space and asking the filesystem to write back information time and time again. If you did the same to an SSD it would not last very long. Either way your hard disk though showing only 1% fragmentation only shows that in file performance and not in data used by windows to compile the record.
If 2GB of ram is too expensive to even think about, then think about the alternative. Being unable to do things on your PC because you are restricted. I still run Windows Vista 32 bit and on an SSD, but I have restricted the Pagefile size to virtual zero and increased my memory on my motherboard. About the only OS that will run on 2GB of memory is Windows 8 because it is optimized for tablet PC use on 1GHZ processors.
I am not saying this is your answer but if you are sticking to your guns and think that 2GB is enough then by all means upgrade to Windows 8. Though I cannot guarantee it will work with your hardware.
Like someone mentoned here earlier a Q6600 might do your setup wonders if your motherboard can handle a quad core 800MHZ FSB at Double Data Rate, much amounting to the same as DDR3 1600MHZ know as standard today. I know some of the E processors did a data rate of 133mhz FSB but it is at half the flow of the Quad core frequency.
I hope you look around and look deeper into how windows handles files and filesystems and its prefetch cacheing and temporary file storage. Then of course windows has a backup record of everything it has done in a single session and a copy somewhere on your system of it hidden until it is rebooted or shut down. Then there are system restore points and failsafe points hidden on the Boot record and the system partition. Thes will be hidden all over the drive and would not show up as fragments because they are system files and as such cannot be touched by a defragmenter. There are many hidden tasks that windows does that you take for granted but without the headroom to do the job they often fall down. So RAM and Hard disk could be your answer. But like I said it sounds like a cascade of failures to me. Once you tamper with one item it affects another thus the Butterfly effect.
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I understand the point with the 2gig of ram but I've ran it this way for years, never had this issue. Its only appeared after the operating system change.
I can only hear the system paging the hard drive when I play games with windows/music playing, when the system uses up all 2gigs of ram, that don't happen much. I have over a gig available when the lagging/juddering of the system happens.
I understand your points regarding hardware, but its always ran fine under more intense times, the only thing changed is software, since this problem has happened.
I can't understand the logic in a system running perfect for the past few years, I reinstall the os and suddenly I need to double the ram. Just not a logical answer.
I can only hear the system paging the hard drive when I play games with windows/music playing, when the system uses up all 2gigs of ram, that don't happen much. I have over a gig available when the lagging/juddering of the system happens.
I understand your points regarding hardware, but its always ran fine under more intense times, the only thing changed is software, since this problem has happened.
I can't understand the logic in a system running perfect for the past few years, I reinstall the os and suddenly I need to double the ram. Just not a logical answer.
Like anything. Wear and tear is all part of the quantum of probability with any electrical component. Software drives the existing hardware. If the hardware is not performing in accordance with the hardware, you really have to look closely at what may be causing the problem. Your hardware is not interfacing with the software efficiently.
Not true at all. I recently installed Fedora Linux on a netbook, which runs perfectly with 256 MB (although 512 MB is recommended) of RAM. I'm sure most *nix and BSD OSs are the same.
On top of that, it can also use all 32 GB in my workstation at work. You have to pay extra to do that in windows 8. Typical.
Associate
- Joined
- 26 May 2008
- Posts
- 1,837
OK, if you only have 2GB of ram, I would guess your Windows 7 was 32bit? I don't think XP is worth the bother these days. If you have a Windows 7 64bit OS I would state a minimum of 4GB.
Was there a preferred OS, and a reason why you were trying an alternative?
You state issues arose since a new OS install. Then why not start again and go back to your old OS and old GPU and see if the problem resolves itself? Or you could try a full HDD health check and erase with something like DBAN, then a fresh install of your chosen OS and fresh driver installs?
Is the recent second hand 8800 graphics card in proper working order?
What PC issues were you actually experiencing which led you to waste money on that old graphics card, then ask here for upgrade advice because you wanted to max out a sluggish old PC, only for you to turn around and state your PC was fine before and complain about people advising you try a full system upgrade or add more memory, better CPU etc?
If you did want more memory I would not add another kit to your current 2GB, but buy a 4GB kit and sell the 2GB kit. But 4GB of DDR2 PC-8500 would cost around the same as 4GB of DDR3 1600MHz. Your motherboard states DDR3 support, but only 2x2GB at 1333MHz?, maybe it would be worth considering 4GB of DDR3 1600MHz and try running it at 1333MHz? That would be £30. It may be hit and miss regarding what memory is compatible with that old board. I would Google up for any DDR3 issues first, as I have read of some success with BIOS F12 and 2x4GB of DDR3.
Now your motherboard, you will need BIOS F9 to run a Q6600 (£30+ second hand), BIOS F10 to run an E8400 or E8500 (£30+ second hand), you will need BIOS F12 to run a Q9550 (£60+ second hand). So if you can, update your BIOS to F12. Be mindful that a second hand CPU is as much as a new CPU. And updating that BIOS may require a Floppy drive and carries the risk of an unuseable motherboard should it go wrong.
I wasted a hell of a lot of time with side steps and what I thought was a more financially sound upgrade process going from Socket A and DDR1 with AGP to LGA-775 and DDR2 with PCI-E, in the end all I achieved was spending more money for less performance and left with parts not worth much.
You could update your BIOS to F12, spend £30 on DDR3 ram, £30 on a CPU such as the Q6600 or E8500, and buy the best available newest model second hand graphics card you can afford. Which would end with little scope for future upgrading. Or, you could sell everything and put it toward better second hand kit, the socket 1155 Ivybridge kit will have a reasonable shelf life, with much available second hand, 4GB DR3 1600MHz, a Z77, and even starting out with a Pentium 1155 CPU would be a good improvement, with a second hand HD-4870/HD5750 or such at beer prices these days. All sellable for not much loss, all upgradeable, and you would probably recoup a little money selling your old kit.
To be honest, as others state, it seems pointless to add anything, because any memory upgrade would be enough to buy 4GB of DDR3, any CPU upgrade would cover an 1155 cpu (a new Pentium would still be an upgrade), selling your old kit could help toward a Z77 motherboard and better graphics card, most of it is findable on second hand sites.
And I still have to ask,
What is your current BIOS?
What power supply you have?
What case?
What CPU cooler?
What hard drive? IDE or Sata?
What optic drive? IDE or Sata?
32bit or 64bit Windows 7? Windows XP? What OS licences do you have?
Is any of your old kit worth reusing in a new build?
OK as examples of old systems that can get you by, and to let you see old is not all doom and gloom, these are a couple of my LGA 775 systems, which I now find a bit slow but capable of some gaming with medium settings on all but the latest top titles, and general PC use. My sons use the Gigabyte set up, the other is currently in an HTPC chassis. These are both old systems from old parts, I have another LGA-775 system and even a Socket A, but I would not upgrade any of this stuff with second hand LGA-775 or DDR2 because new stuff is not much more.
Asus Maximus II Gene.
Intel E8500.
Scythe Kama Angle cooler.
4GB Corsair Dominator GT memory.
AMD HD5750 graphics card.
Samsung F3 500GB Sata II HDD.
Corsair HX-450w modular PSU.
Silverstone TJ08B-E case.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
Gigabyte EP4-DSP3.
Intel Q9550.
BeQuiet Dark Rock Advanced cooler.
Corsair PC8500 8gb.
Sapphire HD4870 1gb Toxic.
Samsung F3 500GB Sata II HDD.
BeQuiet L8 630w modular psu.
Gigabyte GZ-X1 ATX case.
Kama bay cooler on three 5.25 bays, with Akasa Viper case fans.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit .
Was there a preferred OS, and a reason why you were trying an alternative?
You state issues arose since a new OS install. Then why not start again and go back to your old OS and old GPU and see if the problem resolves itself? Or you could try a full HDD health check and erase with something like DBAN, then a fresh install of your chosen OS and fresh driver installs?
Is the recent second hand 8800 graphics card in proper working order?
What PC issues were you actually experiencing which led you to waste money on that old graphics card, then ask here for upgrade advice because you wanted to max out a sluggish old PC, only for you to turn around and state your PC was fine before and complain about people advising you try a full system upgrade or add more memory, better CPU etc?
If you did want more memory I would not add another kit to your current 2GB, but buy a 4GB kit and sell the 2GB kit. But 4GB of DDR2 PC-8500 would cost around the same as 4GB of DDR3 1600MHz. Your motherboard states DDR3 support, but only 2x2GB at 1333MHz?, maybe it would be worth considering 4GB of DDR3 1600MHz and try running it at 1333MHz? That would be £30. It may be hit and miss regarding what memory is compatible with that old board. I would Google up for any DDR3 issues first, as I have read of some success with BIOS F12 and 2x4GB of DDR3.
Now your motherboard, you will need BIOS F9 to run a Q6600 (£30+ second hand), BIOS F10 to run an E8400 or E8500 (£30+ second hand), you will need BIOS F12 to run a Q9550 (£60+ second hand). So if you can, update your BIOS to F12. Be mindful that a second hand CPU is as much as a new CPU. And updating that BIOS may require a Floppy drive and carries the risk of an unuseable motherboard should it go wrong.
I wasted a hell of a lot of time with side steps and what I thought was a more financially sound upgrade process going from Socket A and DDR1 with AGP to LGA-775 and DDR2 with PCI-E, in the end all I achieved was spending more money for less performance and left with parts not worth much.
You could update your BIOS to F12, spend £30 on DDR3 ram, £30 on a CPU such as the Q6600 or E8500, and buy the best available newest model second hand graphics card you can afford. Which would end with little scope for future upgrading. Or, you could sell everything and put it toward better second hand kit, the socket 1155 Ivybridge kit will have a reasonable shelf life, with much available second hand, 4GB DR3 1600MHz, a Z77, and even starting out with a Pentium 1155 CPU would be a good improvement, with a second hand HD-4870/HD5750 or such at beer prices these days. All sellable for not much loss, all upgradeable, and you would probably recoup a little money selling your old kit.
To be honest, as others state, it seems pointless to add anything, because any memory upgrade would be enough to buy 4GB of DDR3, any CPU upgrade would cover an 1155 cpu (a new Pentium would still be an upgrade), selling your old kit could help toward a Z77 motherboard and better graphics card, most of it is findable on second hand sites.
And I still have to ask,
What is your current BIOS?
What power supply you have?
What case?
What CPU cooler?
What hard drive? IDE or Sata?
What optic drive? IDE or Sata?
32bit or 64bit Windows 7? Windows XP? What OS licences do you have?
Is any of your old kit worth reusing in a new build?
OK as examples of old systems that can get you by, and to let you see old is not all doom and gloom, these are a couple of my LGA 775 systems, which I now find a bit slow but capable of some gaming with medium settings on all but the latest top titles, and general PC use. My sons use the Gigabyte set up, the other is currently in an HTPC chassis. These are both old systems from old parts, I have another LGA-775 system and even a Socket A, but I would not upgrade any of this stuff with second hand LGA-775 or DDR2 because new stuff is not much more.
Asus Maximus II Gene.
Intel E8500.
Scythe Kama Angle cooler.
4GB Corsair Dominator GT memory.
AMD HD5750 graphics card.
Samsung F3 500GB Sata II HDD.
Corsair HX-450w modular PSU.
Silverstone TJ08B-E case.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.
Gigabyte EP4-DSP3.
Intel Q9550.
BeQuiet Dark Rock Advanced cooler.
Corsair PC8500 8gb.
Sapphire HD4870 1gb Toxic.
Samsung F3 500GB Sata II HDD.
BeQuiet L8 630w modular psu.
Gigabyte GZ-X1 ATX case.
Kama bay cooler on three 5.25 bays, with Akasa Viper case fans.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit .
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As mentioned if you insist on upgrading that system then I would add more memory first. 2GB is low for Win7 and one thing you need to bear in mind is that having gone from a 256MB to 512MB VRAM card you've increased the amount of [system] RAM that will likely get used as well when using increased texture sizes (some people don't realise that typically the more VRAM you use, the more RAM you use as well, so by upgrading your video card you've increased the likelihood of system paging).
Personally I think your current setup is fairly well balanced and thus I wouldn't bother upgrading it, save up for a full system upgrade instead.
Personally I think your current setup is fairly well balanced and thus I wouldn't bother upgrading it, save up for a full system upgrade instead.
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If it's jerky then it's some type of driver issue. The chipset drivers need to be installed before the GPU drivers.
Check device manager for any exclamation marks.
Are you sure you have PC3200 ram .... that's DDR1 whereas your board takes DDR2 / DDR3
I'd pick up a little more ram to hit 4GB, windows is a pain with less these days and then add a Q6600 and OC to 3Ghz. More than enough for a mid range gaming PC. Q6600 / Q6700 preferred as these use 1066FSB so simple change to 1333FSB for an easy OC of 3Ghz. Later quad cores were 1333FSB so you need to push the board much harder to OC.
I had a Q6600 with a GTX560Ti, no significant bottleneck, only upgraded when I went SLI
AD
Check device manager for any exclamation marks.
Are you sure you have PC3200 ram .... that's DDR1 whereas your board takes DDR2 / DDR3
I'd pick up a little more ram to hit 4GB, windows is a pain with less these days and then add a Q6600 and OC to 3Ghz. More than enough for a mid range gaming PC. Q6600 / Q6700 preferred as these use 1066FSB so simple change to 1333FSB for an easy OC of 3Ghz. Later quad cores were 1333FSB so you need to push the board much harder to OC.
I had a Q6600 with a GTX560Ti, no significant bottleneck, only upgraded when I went SLI
AD