I'd recommend you at least 4 GB of RAM (even 6 GB with my Win 7 wasn't too much for me just for surfing, now it's 12 GB), CPU is fine for laptops. And don't forget good GPU - its very important for 3D games!
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Yeah, it's good that RAM is so cheap nowadays. I know I need to get at least 4GB, luckily it has 4 RAM slots so I can add in 2 2GBs and get 6 in total.
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For non-hardcore gaming. Otherwise we have slowly crossed the line where a serious gaming rig now has to start at 16 GB and 3-4 GB VRAM. But 4 GB is enough for basic office and home use (plus home media servers), 8 GB for normal gaming needs and home file servers.
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I got a Titan X a couple months ago and had a ram bottleneck. 12gigs of vram and nvidia recommended 16gigs of ram. That's obviously the upper limit but I'd say 8gigs is definitely a normal gaming standard.
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You might get a fairly nice build with that.
A RAM upgrade is the first thing to do (at least, 4, but more likely 8 or even 16; 32 is the max for your motherboard).
Then a GPU.
Also: why do you expect wireless? Does it have any boards inside other than the motherboard? If it doesn't it shouldn't have any wireless capability.
Also: thanks for the giveaways.
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Yeah, I'm not sure if I've got the i5 CPU that people say is really good, but it looks like it has 4 cores. Luckily I have a friend who's great with computers, but I want to try and fix what I can before he takes a look at it. If the GPU is under Graphics in Speccy, it's Intel HD Graphics Family 8086-0102. I actually did expect there to be a wifi component, but I guess that doesn't make sense since she always had it hooked up. There'll be more giveaways pretty soon, I think I'm going to buy a Borderlands bundle to giveaway, plus the next weekly if that's good.
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If it says Intel Core i5-2300 it must be it and it's fairly good.
Yes, the GPU is under graphics, and the HD Graphics Family one is built into the motherboard. It's possible to play some 3D games on that one, but it's hardly different from the laptop experience.
You've got the PCI-E x16 slot (the horizontal blue one), which should support most of the modern graphics cards (if you want better 3D performance), so you'll be able to install one you can get. Although if you are getting a separate GPU you'd want to look up the power output of your power supply (not sure if you can look it up in Windows, but it should be written on the power supply itself).
Also if you can, try hooking the computer up to the network and see if it will go online. It might be functional, just missing a cable plugged in.
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Alright cool, thanks for all the GPU info. It seems like I'll be able to get a nice one for about $70- 120. I'll try to hook it up to the network tomorrow and see if I can get on, it should be able to work as long as nothing got damaged..
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It seems to be running really well so far, I've only had one hiccup with it not displaying on the screen. I read that opening it up and adjusting the RAM would work, which seemed to do the trick.
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I love that Criterion just put out a really nice Bluray, they got the rights to release Mulholland Drive next.
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The CPU is already better than mine, but you definitely need more RAM. From looking up your motherboard, I get this:
Sounds like there's 4 RAM slots, two of which are probably used (2x1GB). You could easily grab two more sticks (2x2GB would be the best value) for like $35.
I don't know what kind of video card it has, but I'm guessing she was using integrated graphics. You could throw a cheap video card on there and get great results.
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Thanks for the RAM info, I know that if you don't certain kinds for certain systems you can really slow your computer down. I believe it's an integrated video card, it seems like she mostly gets really nice PCs in some areas and cheap parts in others. I saw on her new computer that she has an i3 and 8 GBs of RAM.
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She didn't get "cheap parts" in some areas. There's no reason for a regular person to get a discrete GPU in their computer if they aren't going to game.
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That's true, I just meant that it was kind of odd for them to recommend a top of the line CPU back then with only 2 GB of RAM.
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Okay, you're right there, for sure. i5 + 2GB is an odd combination.
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It ended up being good for me though, it's so nice to get to play vanilla Isaac at a solid 30 FPS. I was used to about 10-15 on my laptop.
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Assuming this is a prebuilt, the ethernet drivers could be a specific oem version. Either way uninstalling it first wouldn't hurt. If it doesn't work, then maybe something on the motherboard did fry.
It probably has a 3.5mm headphone out (the green port). If your TV has RCA inputs for sound, you can use a 3.5mm to RCA adapter/cable to get sound. That's just a guess though; you'll have to check your TV for the inputs.
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Alright cool, I'll try uninstalling it once I make sure I can connect over wires. It looks like those converter cables are pretty cheap, thanks for the info. I have RCA, just no 3.5mm port.
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Thanks for the key drop, I had it so I don't think it's used yet.
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What AloXX said - you should be able to run from the ordinary headphone port, or worst case plug in headphones temporarily. When you get round to fitting a graphics card, you could look for one with an HDMI output that supports audio (probably most do these days?) and plug straight into the TV.
A new graphics card and some RAM should go a long way, and make a nice upgrade from a laptop. I would be tempted to run it for a while before investing in any expensive upgrades, and maybe give it a long scan with Memtest to see if there's a simple problem with the existing RAM as you mentioned some wobbles? It does seem odd that the PC repair place wrote it off completely though, so worth seeing if any intermittent problems crop up before spending lots of money on it. Having to open up and adjust the ram does sound a bit odd.
Anyway, congrats on your new rescued machine! I hope you're able to get plenty of use out of it.
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I'm a dope, I didn't even think of using the headphone port. That works fine, so the audio's good at least. I'll try out Memtest, that seems like a good idea. I'm not sure what's up with the RAM, I do have to plug and unplug it after I turn off or put the computer to sleep before it boots again though. It sounds like from what I've read that it's tied in with the internet problem.
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Having to re-seat the RAM each time is definitely not right. If you can run Memtest, try and leave it to run for a few cycles. You could also try checking the slots and RAM sticks individually to see if an obvious problem crops up: take out all the ram, and try each stick on its own in slots 1, 2, 3, then 4, and see if it boots normally each time. Also, are you sure that it's un-plugging RAM that's 'fixing' the problem, or could it also be turning the power off for the time it takes you to do so, possibly suggesting problems with another component? Hopefully someone else with more computer knowledge can advise.
I would definitely avoid spending cash on the machine until you can get it running stable or pin down the problem to something you can fix. Still, if all else fails, remember the computer would probably be in landfill, and you'll gain a lot of confidence while trying to sort it out.
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I haven't had to re-seat the RAM the last two times I've booted, so I'm not sure what's going on with it. I'll try them out individually the next time I open it up though. It seems like I'll need to burn Memtest to a disc unless I installed the wrong version. I'm thinking that I might just reinstall Windows 7 and see if that fixes up the driver stuff though, I can't connect to the web even through the ethernet port. Yeah, i'll probably hold off on the GPU for a while until I'm sure that it's working pretty well. I think the worst case now would be that the motherboard is damaged and pretty faulty, and at least then I still have the i5, some fans, RAM, and a case for the PC I was planning to build.
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I'm using one to transfer over files. It looked like I needed to burn Memtest to run it, but I think I didn't install the USB one.
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Sound when connectiong to a TV is a common issue, at least initially. Right click on your volume/speaker icon in the tray when connected to the TV and select playback devices. My TV is listed as Digital Display Audio, yours may differ. After that it should auto switch when you connect to the TV.
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I tried that, it didn't seem to work. Right now I don't have any audio cords that can connect to both the tv and PC, I should be getting one pretty soon though.
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Unfortunately the PC tower doesn't, people said that I should be able to get a GPU that has HDMI support though.
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Sure thing, here're links to the computer inputs and desktop inputs. http://imgur.com/J70wG4L
http://imgur.com/OBOWdkP
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the 2 rca imputs (red and white) on top right, next to the orange one should be used to bring the audio in for the tv, you just need a cable like this: clicky
Black jack on the green hole on the pc, the other 2 in the tv, you can try if it works in this way :)
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Doesn't look like your board supports HDMI. A new GPU would enable you to use HDMI to get audio out of the TV.
As others have said though, you need to ensure that your new desktop will hold up. Try some of the stability/stress software, like Prime95 or MemTest86. No sense spending money on upgrades for an unstable system.
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Thanks for the advice, I'll try out Prime95 on it. I have it downloaded, I just want to have enough time to watch it all in case it starts to overheat.
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Yes. Though for your purposes, you probably don't need to be as cautious or thorough as an extreme overclocking enthusiast.
Also, who is your grandma's computer guy? Is he incompetent or greedy or what?
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Thanks, I've been wanting to build one for the past year or so. :)
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Got an extra Trine 2 in the new weekly. Need to get some more paypal, I'll add some more giveaways soon though. http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/nZiIb/trine-2-complete-story
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I've been wanting to buy myself a cheap desktop PC for about a year now. I mostly play indies, but my laptop just can't handle some of the 3d indies that I'd like to play. Now that I'm out of college for the summer, I go over and help my grandma out with yard stuff or heavy lifting. Last week there was a thunderstorm here, and she said that her desktop got fried. She had a computer guy come over and look at it, and he said it wasn't worth fixing and they ordered her a new one. I asked if I could have it because I figured that I could use the case at the least, and maybe some RAM or parts if just the motherboard got fried. I booted it up, got one error screen, and since then it's worked fine. I transferred over her Hand and Foot game to her and installed her old programs, and she said that I could keep it.
I've been testing some stuff out on it, and it seems like it's working pretty well. It plays Eldritch perfectly, and even vanilla Isaac runs very smoothly on it. There have been a few issues that have cropped up though.
Here's the specs, I'm not sure how good these are. I know I need to upgrade the RAM at least. Windows 7 64bit, Intel Core i5 2300 CPU, 2GB DDR3 RAM, Intel DB65AL Motherboard, Intel HD Graphics Family 8086-0102.
I'm a PC noob, so I'm not too sure of what I'm doing. I opened it up to get dust out and check out the parts, and noticed that I wouldn't be able to add in some spare laptop RAM, the PC RAM is much bigger. Any advice or help would be appreciated.
Edit: I'm helping to build a porch right now, so this is the first chance I've had today to get online. I'll try to hook it up online and check out everyone's advice.
Here's a base Eye Candy bundle and Trine 2 to get us started. They're all private and Level 1.
http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/ZXWFa/tengami
http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/LOTub/where-is-my-heart
http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/kYhSa/back-to-bed
http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/nZiIb/trine-2-complete-story
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