New to pcs looking for help :(

Christurbo

Christurbo

Christurbo

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Joined
3 Apr 2013
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190
Location
Northwest uk
Hi finally bought my first pc lol well first pc of my own
It's oldish
Has 4gb of ram on windows 7 32bit
And using a 650w psu
And a ASUS M3N78_Pro motherboard
Amd phenom x 4 2.2ghz clocked to 2.4 stock cooler
And a GeForce 9800 gt 7** mb
And 2 x 500gb hard drives one for c drive and one for the rest

Now then i only got the pc of a mate for £80 haven't a clue if that's a deal of if I got ripped off

But I want to upgrade what should I do first :s???
Was looking at a amd phenom ii x4 965 black edition the 3.4ghz will this fit?
Also heard good reviews on the GeForce gtx 650 will this fit

Now I've learnt all this stuff in a week
One week ago all I new was u turn it on and it works lol
That's what google and Wikipedias for aye

Any help will be much appreciated
 
This should be in the General Hardware section, a mod should move it along shortly.

However, £80 is not bad for a starter computer and I have that processor myself [Phenom II 965], it's quite good. Does the computer perform slow? What do you want the computer for exactly?
 
You're probably best asking in general hardware. i havent kept up with computer bits for a while but i'll see what i can do since i'm here. A mod will probably move the thread eventually

The first thing i'll want to know is what kind of price you'll be wanting to spend on upgrading. if you're planning on spending a good amount of money then i would suggest selling the PC and starting again because it is quite old, but if you arent spending much then you can do some good with it

Next i'll really want to know what make/model of power supply it is. basically i need to know if its from a good company, or if its from a bad one and will blow up in 5 seconds if it tries to put out the power it says it can (since you'll be asking a lot more from it if you upgrade)

a quick look around the interweb tells me that the phenom II X4 965 can fit so if you dont want to go for the entirely new PC approach i would suggest getting one of those and a decent graphics card. AMD seem to be doing decent deals on their graphics cards at the moment so i expect they will be recommended over the Nvidia options.


hope this helps :)

*edit*
checking the CPU support list tells me that your motherboard will have to be revision 1.01G or higher if you want to use the phenom II X4. try downloading the free program CPU-z to get more info about your motherboard to see if it is the right one or not
 
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Owww it's just a part time hobby Ive have other cash demanding hobbies "cars" lol
But seems that CPU can get for about 70-80£ on eBay and that graphics cards like 100-150£

Also just been told off a mate that I will have to do a "bios update"? Is that easy to do? Download from somewhere?
Sorry for being a complete noob to it all
And it's gona be used for gaming hopefully like dayz
Battlefield 3 and Eurotruck sim aswell as the Internet , wouldn't mind the odd photoshop as cs6 is already on it
 
34E008C1-4F03-4D4E-926C-313DC432BFFF-1318-0000010BDBB74FC0.jpg


I made this yesterday for my wheel
It's a lOgitech g25 it seems ok , TV and pc is at end off bed so could not get anything of the shelf so thought make one :)
 
to be honest, if you can get the phenom II x4 to work then the motherboard should be just fine for what you're after. a GPU, CPU and probably a power supply upgrade will be all you need.

as for the bios update, see my edit. you might have to do one anyway with a replacement CPU even if the motherboard supports the CPU, i have no idea
 
Is there a link to that version of the bios? Do I just download and install ? Sorry for the noob give me a week more of googling I'll get there haha thanks btw really appreciate it
 
If you are using it for gaming I'd be tempted just to get a better GPU and see how you go. CPU speed isn't exactly needed with this current generation and is looking to be less needed next generation too.

That motherboard should allow a decent overclock, if you can get a good 3GHz or more you'll be set but by far the bottleneck is the GPU at this stage.
 
Gpu? What's that? The graphics card ?
Is a a gt 9800 in it ATM
Want to put a navidia GeForce gtx 650 or 660 if I can get a 660 cheap enough
Are they just plug and play on graphic cards ?
 
And I was just wanting to put that phenom ii x4 black edition in the pc just because there cheap enough and it apprently fits only thing I'm worried about is needing a "bios " update and haven't a clue how to do it , YouTube might help later tonight tho haha
 
Christurbo said:
Gpu? What's that? The graphics card ?
Is a a gt 9800 in it ATM
Want to put a navidia GeForce gtx 650 or 660 if I can get a 660 cheap enough
Are they just plug and play on graphic cards ?
Click to expand...

Yupp, Graphics card.

You should be good with either of those, the standard slot (PCI-E) will support it. Would like to know what brand/model of power supply you have though as you'll need a good quality one with either of those.
 
I'd suggest you open it up and take a picture of the PSU to post here, I'd bet it's a poor quality one which should not be trusted with higher end graphics cards such as the ones you suggested.
 
Definitely need to replace that power supply before upgrading the graphics card. Minimum you'd want to spend is £50. Seasonic do a nice 430w for that kind of money which will pretty much handle any single graphics card setup.
 
PSU needs to be replaced if you want to start upgrading the PC.

BIOS can be downloaded from here as well as manual, which will have instructions on updating it: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M3N78_PRO/#support_Download_8

Instructions on updating can be found on section 4.1.3, but a short version of updating BIOS:

1) Download the latest BIOS off the Asus site. Place it on a USB drive that's formatted in FAT32.
2) Restart the PC, when the big Asus splashscreen appears, press Alt + F2 to get into the BIOS flashing software called EZ Flash 2.
3) Once you're in this, select the BIOS file you downloaded on the USB drive and it will begin updating the BIOS. It will reboot when it's finished.

This will reset everything in the BIOS, so be best to note down the overclock settings and boot order. On the other hand it might be best to get your friend to help you with this.

EDIT: There are also screenshots in the manual to help as well which would be useful for first time flashers. Also, this method is the best way to do it compared to doing it within Windows, as it's more stable and avoids the possbility of Windows bugging up the flashing which could cause a dead motherboard.
 
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Also, go for a modular PSU, as the case you have may not have the space for all the left over cables, and could restrict airflow quite badly, and if you are running with an overclock, you want all the airflow available.

I am sure one of the chaps who are pretty up on these things will let you know the right one to go for.
 
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