The (new) Official PC building thread!

I'm glad I said something about that before I continued to use Vista. I will make that my project tonight, to get all the necessary drivers and then reformat with XP.

Acer Aspire 5610-4648

Intel Core Duo Processor T2350 (1.86 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 2 MB Cache)
15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite LCD (16 ms)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
160 GB HDD (5400 RPM)
DVD-Super Multi Double layer
2 GB DDR2
802.11 a/b/g Wireless LAN.

And to top it all of (as of now) Windows Vista Home Premium.

Another thing I was wondering was, is there any way to fine out if I can upgrade to a 7600 GeForce Go, or something like that so I can atleast play some games? I tried to fine a laptop with atleast a graphics card installed and not a Graphics Adapter. But the only one I could find was the Sony Vio with Blu-Ray and it was around $3,000. I honestly don't even know where to look to find a graphics card for a laptop. I searched on Google a little and tried to see if my laptop was capable of having a GPU but I didn't fine much.

 

I don't think so unless you can use an expresscard or PCMCIA card depending on what you have and override the onboard graphics. I was sure to get a graphics card preinstalled on mine when I ordered it. I wish I would have got a sound card too but creative just came out with a X-Fi soundblaster expresscard sound card that I'm looking at.

 

Here's this page by Acer. link

Another utility to back up your drivers. Don't know if this will help but here it is anyway. link

Driver Magician Lite - link from MG...

Driver Packs BASE - link

There's a couple of different places to look and try to back up your drivers. I'm at the extent of what I can do. Maybe one of the guru's will kick in here and have more input.

...gm

 

I tried to get mine preinstalled but I was too impatient to order one, and like I said the only one in the store with anything but a Graphics Accelerator was around $3,000.

Sorry, but I don't know alot about laptops. What exactly is an expresscard, or a PCMCIA card? I thought it was the slot located on the side that is sometimes used for wireless cards, but I wasn't sure.

 

@greensman, thanks for the links.

I have one other problem though. Any copies of XP I have are just recovery disk for other computers. I don't have any full copies of XP, and I have heard they don't sell them anymore. I have one copy that I got a long time ago and I used it on an old custom built PC. However when I used it I got the Genuine Activation message when I installed drivers sometimes (if you know what I mean). I cold use that version but I don't want to get it installed and then run into that problem with my laptop. Believe me, I would buy it if I could but I don't think I can any more.

Sorry for bringing that up, but I just wanted to know if it might work or not before I went off and formatted my computer.

 

some have an expresscard slot and some have a PCMCIA card slot.

expresscard

PCMCIA card

 

Ok, yea I know what your talking about now. I have the PCMCIA slot.

 

you can still buy XP home or XP Pro. google or check at B&M stores. the recovery disc won't work. you can even download it although I never have and don't know if I would trust it.

 

Well I knew the recovery versions wouldn't work. But I just wondered if a version off of the internet would give me any problems. But I'll buy it when I find it. I would rather pay to have a version that works fully than a free version that tells me to activate it all the time and that it isn't genuine.

 

link for XP

try that and see what you can find.

..gm

 

Wow, that makes me feel stupid, but I could have sworn that last time I looked I didn't see it. Also I was at Bestbuy one day and asked them if they had it, and they said it wasn't produced anymore. I guess thats where I went wrong though.

Thanks for the link.

 

NOW who here can say that they've thought that before? hehehe. Raise your hands, please.

...gm

NO problems Spenman, we've all been there. I think you can find something but not real sure on that. Some of those are updates and such, be sure to read everything and make sure you get what you need.

 

I'll have to wait a week or 2 to buy it since I just got this laptop and that kind of took all my money for a while. But when I do I'll be ready. I've got all the drivers and utilities on a disk already, so now all I need is XP.

I hope I can suffer through Vista another week.

Thanks for the help everyone.

 

here's another highly recommended place to buy XP

 

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. But which would you recommend, Newegg or Zipzoomfly. I've bought things from Neweeg, but I've never herd of Zipzoomfly.

 

both have a very good reputation. I've ordered from both, mostly newegg. same price for the same product but if you will notice zipzoomfly has free shipping. in this case I would go with zipzoomfly.

 

Yea, I saw that. That would be enough for me to buy from them.

But I have a question actually concerning "PC Building". I bought PCI slot fan a while back for my 7950 GT. And I was wondering if they usually help, or if the one that I got just sucks. Because the only decrease in heat I've noticed is about -3 C?

Thanks

 

doesn't your 7950 gt have a fan on it? I didn't think you could buy a 7950 gt without a fan.

 

No, sorry I made than unclear. The 7950 GT has a fan but I didn't like my card running at 95 C on a full load so I bought the fan listed below to help cool it off. But it doesn't seem to help alot so I was just wondering if I should get a different kind of fan, or if that one just sucks.

But going by what I've read lately it's not uncommon for cards like that to get that hot. I've herd that the ATI X1900 runs at those temps normally.

 

you can buy aftermarket fans to replace the oem fan on the card. a couple companys that make aftermarket performance replacement fans is zalman and arctic cooling. there is also some software (free) that will let you overclock your graphics card as well as control the fan speed on the card. for nvidia: riva tuner or ATI Tool. for ATI: ATI Tool. you can google for these.

I use ATI tool with my X850XT. I have my fan speed set up dynamically based on GPU temp and it stays around 50C under no load and as it is loaded up the fan speed increases per my settings. I'm not a gamer but very rarely has it been over 70C.