Help once more, upgrades required

[Allotmentman]

So back in 2014 I can on here literally knowing nothing and asked for help. This community was fantastic and helped me to build a brilliant little system for me to game on. It’s been super reliable and suited my needs but is starting to get a little slow and so I feel it’s time to upgrade. I’m no wiser than in my first visit here so would again appreciate guidance.

As everything works fine other than high disk % and as said it’s running a little slow when the likes of Steam is running.

Do I upgrade some features or build a whole new system? I am not one for throwing stuff if it’s still performing but would upgrade where performance can be improved.

Spec is as follows:

Radeon R9 270 2048mb
Intel Core I3 4150 3.5
TeamGroup Vulcan Orange 8gb DDR3 2400mhz channel kit
EVGA 500w 80 plus power supply
Direct contact cooler
120mm golf ball fan
Gigabyte Z97-hd3 intel DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Sea gate Barracuda 7200 1tb Sata 6gbs 64mb cache HDD

 

[Allotmentman]

Yes gaming and writing. Would be nice to have everything run a bit quicker. Anything to have my games run better would be nice.

So a solid state drive and a better CPU than the I3. I7 maybe? And as for the SSD what would you recommend?

Is it worth upgrading the motherboard? Is there a benefit to that. Sorry for my nativity. It’s frustrating to know so little.

 

[Allotmentman]

That system cost me under £500 in 2014 and I couldn’t justify spending much more than that again. This is why I thought upgrading would be better but I’m open minded. If someone thinks I can build a new one for say £600 or below I’m game.

In regards to the other questions, I was uncertain as to what direction to take so started here as open minded as possible. But games I play are mostly steam bases like Day Z, Age of Empires 3, Battlefield, Elder Scrolls etc so a good mix of stuff.

My monitor supports 240hz so it’s a fast little thing.

Again I want to take the time to thank everyone for taking a few minutes of their days to advise me, I’m very grateful.

 

[Allotmentman]

Well thank you to all of you, really appreciate your help. I was going to stick with what I have but add a better CPU and add more memory and see how I got on but it didn’t seem worth it as the budget spec build that HAZ123 suggested seemed ideal. I dropped the cooler fan and added the better Mesh case as suggested and it all arrived tomorrow. I’ll source Windows 11 somewhere.

Again thank you all for your help. I will come and and share pics etc as I o ow that’s what you all like.

 

[Allotmentman]

Hi All, I have had this computer since June and it’s been brilliant. I added another 2tb and also another 32gb ramps have 48GB and it’s been sweet as a nut but I finally relented and purchased Starfield and the Pc has been switching off very quickly into the game.

Has anyone got thoughts on this? Temp on GPU is 63 degrees, CPU around 60-66, GpU power is at 88W, GPU Utility is at 99% and CPU is at 60%.

 

[Allotmentman]

Those temps are all perfectly acceptable so it could be windows itself has a issue.

Have you got the latest gpu drivers installed?

Is it just playing starfield?

All up to date. Just Starfield. I can run Forza 5 with everything on max graphics settings and the same goes for Call of Duty.

Never had an issue like this before. Computer turns on just fine after as normal. It’s something relating to Starfield.

 

[Allotmentman]

Does it all power back on once its off without any issues?

With the GPU, did you run 1 x cable with 2 x 8 pin connecters or have you ran 2 x cables with 1 x 8 pin connecter on?

I would run 2 x cables with 1 x 8 pin connecter rather than running 1 cable which splits of to 2 as the gpu could be pulling more power when running starfield

Turns back on perfectly. It’s two separate cables as advised by another for such a reason. Thank you.

 

[Allotmentman]

Is Windows fully up to date?

is there anything in event viewer around the time of the crash?

If you have any overclocks it might be worth removing them for the time being and test again

Windows bang up to date.

Nothing is logging. Launched AMD aoftware and that’s not suggesting anything either. I overclocked and undervolted to bring temps down just in case. Both back to normal and it’s turning off on starting the game. What’s odd is that sometimes it allows me to play the game and sometimes doesn’t even load past the main menu and just switches the whole PC of again.

 

[Allotmentman]

Turn the game detail down and lower the resolution, if it doesn't crash the GPU is tanking out.

I did this and turned everything to low and it still crashed. Then I mixed things up according to setting that should work with a 6600 XT which had lots of high and some Ultra and I got the game to run for 2 hours this morning and it’s since tanked again for no obvious reason.

 

[Allotmentman]

Tried doing a bios reset?

unplug the PC from the mains, remove the cmos battery, hold the power down for 30 seconds and leave it for 10 mins.

put the battery back in, plug back in to the mains and then give it a try, I would not even enable expo on the ram and just leave it all default for a bit and test.

Are you using 1 monitor or 2? If 2 try with just 1 monitor and see if the issue happens again.

Edit, what's the system spec at all?

It’s just one screen and the spec is as follows:

Gigabyte 550M
WD Blue 1 x 1GB SSD and 1 x 2GB SSD
Radeon Power Color 6600RX Fighter 8GB GDDR6
AMD Ryzen 5 5600 six core 4.4ghz
Lexar Hades 42gb 3600mhz quad channel kit
Be Quiet 600w 80 plus power supply