Dual Core? 64 bit? Help!

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Hello.

My pc has just died. The bios won't load up. It gets as far as:

'verifying DMI pool data.......'

and then displays:

'YoYo_'

but with funny o's and stops. Could this be a virus or just the 6 year old machine throwing in the towel?

I'm looking to get a £50 Asus motherboard and similar priced AMD athlon CPU as it is a budget set up and is only used for photo editing and internet access with some music/sound work thrown in.

I had been after a dual core processor as there supposedly the next big thing but a friend has recomended a 64bit Athlon something or other. He said that dual cores seem to be going out of fashion a bit. Do you reckon I should still hunt out a dual core or will the straight 64bit Athlon be better at my budget level?

Cheers for any help.

Smiler.

 

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OK, that still sounds within my budget. Will it cope with running the new Vista Home Edition on 64bit? Looking at the OEM versions advertised for approx £75. Should keep the missus happy.

Cheers.

 

[Smiler]

It's unlikely to be a hardware fault - if you change the boot order you should be able to boot from the Windows CD and then repair the HDD install of windows.

It doesn't even get as far as trying to load windows or boot from any device. It falls on the initial bios start up bit (assuming that's what it's called).

spb - cool. Though I'm not sure what the aero bit is though.

 

[Smiler]

Youy're right!

I knicked the old HDD from a defunct pc at work on it's way to the skip. Put it in and fired it up. Was greeted with Windows 98!

I'll try formatting the original HDD tonight ans reinstalling.

Smiler.