Zenskas

Wow I did not think that the 3450 would use that much power. Anyway there is no power issues there. It really depends what people think of hot. Some may think anything above 50C at idle is too much etc. The one you looked at seemed to have a half-decent fan on it, and I know many of the ATI HD4xxx cards do run hot but still go strong. I have a friend with an ATI X1650 Pro and the fan on it is smaller than the one you are looking at, and it runs very hot, but he games on it for hours even though he has a low ventilated Acer case. What is the cooling setup like in your PC case? Any case fans or ducts etc? Most Dell's have a very neat interior and are fairly quiet, but do not have much of a cooling setup. EDIT: Found a photo of the inside of your PC and it looks like there is only the two fans (on the CPU and PSU). It does have a decent side vent and also has rear and front vents but no fans. Really though I don't see a 4650 making a hell of a lot more heat as it has a fan moving air and a 3450 does not have a fan at all and relies on just a heatsink.

I'm guessing they will just bump up the number a little on the retail version then? Sounds great though! And many manufacturers have already made drivers etc for win 7 thanks to MS's two free public releases so upgrading will not be difficult at all!

Just what Romeo29 said. Anyone know if it is better or worse to slipsteam SP3 on a no-SP disk or one with SP2? Or does it make absolutely no difference?

Yea kinda sucks because COD4 is such a good game. Another map pack would have kept it a bit more interesting though. Ah well at least I found user created maps and the modding tools.

Yes autoruns is very handy and I use it to stop taskbar icons and background processes from running. Here is a link for you.

Like it has been said, overclocking is optional It can reap performance benefits, however it also uses more power (although often power-performance efficiency will be greater) and creates more heat as well as other problems. But in this day with modern CPU's OCing is pretty safe. Read a few guides on websites about how to overclock and just start off small (take it from 3GHz to say 3.2GHz just to try out overclocking then aim higher like 3.5GHz).

Hmm, I installed XP Pro SP3 on a P3 933MHz (now upgraded to 1GHz) with 256MB PC133 RAM (now upped to 512MB), a 40GB IDE HDD and a GF4 MX440. I do not think I saw any lag in install but many options were skipped as it was a mostly unattended nLited install. You could try slimming it down with nLite. BTW what is the CPU? And what are the games you are trying to play?

That ASUS TUSL2-C is actually only a motherboard and not a whole PC. By the sounds of it, it probably won't run an OS like XP or newer if it slows down during install. What are the specs of the other parts (CPU, RAM, HDD)? Your motherboard only supports Pentium 3 CPU's so I would probably not recommend installing windows XP on it unless you have a decent amount of RAM (512MB) and an nLited operating system.

Yep CoffeeFiend has hit the mark, that 350W PSU won't handle a half-powerful card at all! I had a friend with a very similar setup who went and bought a 9800GT (which was fast, and he loved it) but his cheapo 400W PSU couldn't handle it when he added just one extra HDD (only two drives!) and blew a fuse. A new PSU that is QUALITY 400W+ will handle it however. Look at the PC in my sig with an older (about 2 yrs old) 430W PSU. Its quality, and even though it is getting on a little bit, it handles my PC with ease and only cost AU$35 second hand (which is like US$15 second hand as prices here for parts are terrible). Buying a new PSU will make your PC more electrically stable and will output more power when needed and shouldn't cost much at all as CoffeeFiend has shown.

Speaking on hawkecho125's account (I know him), he only just bought the graphics card so it is not a dust issue. He came from an NVIDIA 6600LE to this (without a reformat in between) so could it be a driver issue?

So COD:WAW gets its third map pack soon but COD4 only ever got one! Was wondering if it was possible at all to get new maps as I am getting bored of the current ones. Four extra maps isn't a lot of extra content that has been made I hope MW2 gets more extra map packs than COD4 does when it comes out EDIT: Wow this is the 1000th topic in gamers hangout!!! EDIT 2: Found out that people have made extra maps so now I guess does anyone have recommendations for good quality user made maps?

The one you posted here off Newegg looked fine I would say.

Yep its graphics cards that suck a lot of power and it only has a 4770 which does not use that much power at all so a high quality 520W should be fine.

Fair enough but don't pay too much money for installation or you could have used the money to buy COD4 And make sure you install the latest drivers too, as they fix bugs and often make some games run faster.

Yep I got COD4. But live in Australia so ping would be high. Its only $55 so it shouldn't be too hard to convince your parents I hope

That's not even impressive, not even a deal, that's everyday prices I got a passively cooled 4670 for like $5 more (not a low profile card though -- no use for one). For $90 USD ($100 CAD at today's rate) here you could get a 4850 or a 9800GT. Just sayin' ... Anyhow. That 4650 is a decent choice for sure. Great for playing HD stuff too. Yeah will be much faster than a 4550. I know, Australia sucks for PC parts. Cheapest price for a 9800GT round here is about $140 if your lucky. My CPU goes for about $160 on the cheapest online shops here. My 9600GT cost me $150 late last year. Oh and in local shops in town the 9600GSO was $190 while I was looking for parts to build the PC in my sig.

That card is very nice and has a decent fan so hopefully won't overheat. An anti-static bag helps protect computer parts from static electricity which can damage them. The new card will come with an anti-static bag so you can put your old card in that. I wish graphics cards were that cheap here in Australia! That card would cost me $90 over here. Also just read a few user reviews of that card you posted on Newegg and one comment said it worked in their Dell Vostro 200 Slimline case with just a 275W PSU. Another customer said it worked in their slim HP case with just a 160W PSU! So I don't think power will be an issue thankfully

Yep it will work in your PC but make sure you get a low profile one. It does not need another power connector from the PSU either, which shows it doesn't use much power. While the 9500GT is half as powerful as the 9600GT it is a whole lot better than what he has and sucks less power than a 9600GT. Looks like he will get a HD 4650 though. Low power cards like these aren't going to produce much extra heat either.

I would say going up to a 4650 or 9500GT would work fine and offer triple the performance (over a HD 4550-which is not a whole lot faster than what you already have).

If you don't have more than one hard drive and optical drive, as well as no extra cards like sound and LAN (they are built in), and your CPU is not a quad core, then going to a 4650 or 9500GT will probably work with your current PSU as they only use another 20-25W or so.

So its not too bad then Yeah only ever one person looking at it and the picture and brightness is always spot on. I will probably get a 22 or 24 incher next though and aim for a quality panel. For gamers though, a low response is very important! At a LAN party I had not long ago one of my gamer friends brought along a 17 inch Dell LCD he just bought to replace his old 17 inch CRT. He did not know the response time of it and said it was cheap. Viewing the desktop looked fine with a very clear, colorful picture. As soon as COD4 was fired up and we looked at the ghosting that was happening we were so desperate we put him on an 11 year old 15 inch CRT running at 800x600!!!

Its mainly just everyday use (internet, word), gaming (I'm plenty happy with 5ms response time and never see ghosting) as well as very light photo and graphics work. Do you know what sort of a panel it uses? It has a very sharp picture when facing it directly and I do not look at it from different angles.

I am in need of an 8 port 10/100 Ethernet switch and the D-Link DES-1008 and TP-Link TL-SF1008D are my two choices. I was going to buy the D-Link but read a review saying it was cheaply built, big and too lightweight so I just wanted a few second opinions as I wish to use this switch for a few years. The D-Link is $60 here and the TP-Link is $50. It will be used mainly for LAN gaming and very small to 5GB network file transfers. Any opinions? Cheers EDIT: Oops wrong forum. Please move to networks and the internet section.

Sorry to hijack this thread, but CoffeeFiend seems to know whats he is talking about so while I'm here what do you think of my monitor "Samsung SyncMaster 940BW Plus"? As far as vs CRT monitors? It's got a 3 year zero dead pixel warranty so I thought it would hopefully last a bit with no problems.

Well you would need to get a low profile 9500GT or HD 4650 but it would be worth it as they are much more powerful than the 4550 yet probably do not cost a lot more in the US. As a bonus, the HD 4650 or 9500GT do not actually use much more power than your current card so you do not need a PSU upgrade, yet get a four times faster card!