[gapsta]

Just having a quick scan on your ramblings joe, did you try a bios update? my last board was gigabyte, which i updated with a beta bios avaiable from the gigabyte site...worked fine

gigabyte boards have dual bios? so if you stuff it up you can rollback

EDIT: Should of read page one, but hey flash it again i fixed some obscure SSD drive last week by flashing 3 times.

Another thought wipe the HDD with Ubuntu Gparted editor to Fat32 then wipe it again with your Windows disc and install

Seen this work some weird kinda wonders too

[JoeLouie]

I have the most recent bios available. I think that I've updated it since I got the board, but it didn't fix any of the problems I was having.

[Jim]

JL,

Time to Punt!

If you really want Cheap and Cheerful from the ground up=>

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...4&sku=B69-0960

Or if you want to step up and reuse more of your box /PSU / Optical Drives:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...4&Sku=M69-7034

[JoeLouie]

I always forget about Tiger Direct. Thanks Jim!

I like that first bundle. Unfortunately I'm not ready to buy anything at this exact moment, but I'll keep my eyes open and probably end up with something like that.

[JoeLouie]

Just ordered myself a ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 2GB video card.

[JoeLouie]

I actually have 3 video cards in the mail heading my way right now

• GeForce GT 610 1GB for my aunts computer
• GeForce GT 640 2GB for my computer
• GeForce GT 620 1GB that was originally going to be for my computer until I found the deal on the GT 640. I plan on returning this one as soon as I receive it.

[JoeLouie]

So, I ended up getting a few things from my brother. I got an Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard w/ Athlon 64 3500+ (the exact same mobo and cpu as my previous setup before the mobo died), along with a case and PSU. He had been having problems with it for a long time and it was just collecting dust, so I took it and put my Athlon X2 7750 and my Radeon 5450 512MB in it and have been using it problem free for the last week.

Fast-forward to today, when I got my GeForce GT 640 2GB in the mail.
I ran some benchmark tests using 3DMark 11 using all 3 video cards listed above, along with my Radeon 5450 512MB, and here are the results.

All benchmarks were done using this setup.
Windows 7 64-bit
Asus M2NPV-VM
AMD Athlon X2 7750 @ 2.7GHz
2x 2GB Mushkin DDR2 @ 400 MHz
2x 1GB OCZ DDR2 @ 333 MHz
80GB Seagate SATA Drive

AMD Radeon HD 5450 512MB: 383
EVGA GeForce GT 610 1GB: 582
Zotac GeForce GT 620 1GB: 835
Zotac GeForce GT 640 2GB: 1954

I still have my aunts computer downstairs with my Phenom X4 9550 (2.2GHz) that I was planning on using to upgrade her computer along with the GT 610, but I think I might
give her the X2 7550 instead with the GT 620, and use the X4 9550 in my computer.

[JoeLouie]

Just bought a new motherboard, (ASRock N68C-GSFX). It takes AM2/AM2+ and AM3/AM3+ processors, and DDR2 and DDR3 RAM, so I can use all of my current stuff, and upgrade to an AM3/AM3+ processor, and then some DDR3 RAM when the budget allows for it. There seem to be mixed reviews for this board, with some people receiving DOA mobos, and driver issues with Windows 8, but if that's the case I can easily return it without having to worry about shipping it back, or getting an RMA. Besides, I ditched Windows 8 in favor of Windows 7 the last time I reformatted.