About two weeks ago, I blogged about updating my graphics card from the Nvidia GTX 260 to GTX 570. My power supply was just 525watt, but the minimum power recommended to run this graphics card is 550watt. I WAS SUPER SAD FACE ABOUT THIS! Everyone warned me that my system could overload and have a melt down so I needed to update my power supply right away. After purchasing a new 825watt power supply and watching some Youtube video tutorials, I’m happy to report that I have now installed my very first power supply! YAY.
If this does not help me take super amazing SL snapshots without crashing, then I give up!!!!
BTW YOU GUYS, installing your own graphics card and power supply is super easy. I’ve learned everything I know from Youtube video tutorials and saved myself a bunch of money by not having to hire GeekSquad.
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that is awesome! i am very impressed YAY 😀
Well done Gogo! Look forward to hear whether it delivers and would love links to any extra cool Youtube tuts you found along the path. Thanks for sharing
There are so many Youtube vids about PC repair/upgrades! I searched for videos with my PC brand, cos what really puzzled me was how to unscrew and which wires to disconnect, etc. Some brands have official YouTube channels so they’re very professional and shot clearly, they show you exactly what to do.
How many times have you replaced your memory (RAM)? Upgrading your memory is a really cheap, easy upgrade that boosts overall performance.
I have 9GB now. I will look into the RAM thing, and see if I can locate the slot where new RAM will fit. 🙂
9 GB – that’s sufficient. Really.
hmm great score on the graphics, wonder why your hard drive is bogging it down.
Regular hard drives will score lower on the test because the standard hard drives a majority of people use are.. well, slow. The only ones that score very high are solid state drives. Search Youtube for booting up comparisons with regular hard drives and solid state hard drives and you’ll see why they make such a difference. However, solid state drives are very expensive, so most people don’t have them, and most computers don’t come standard with them 🙂
You’re officially a geekette now!
Next step, your own rig from scratch!
Definitely a DIY system brings you joy, maybe not as much as a new pair of shoes but nearly! And it’s not that impozzible to achieve either as you say. I built my whole PC from scratch a couple of years ago just for SL and it was a super easy experience with all the tuts and info out there on the web. Since then, I’ve been upgrading it on my own saving tons of money, which I could invest in hardware instead of giving to the Man to connect a couple of cables.
I envy you Gogo! I’m nothing without my boyfriend… worse thing is he tried to teach me but I guess I’m just a wannabe geek, I don’t get how it works and how to fix things. o__O
I hope you have Windows 7 64-bit with the amount of memory you have! I don’t know if you know, but if you have 32-bit Windows 7, it limits the amount of RAM the operating system can support (maximum is 4GB). I think the same goes for Windows Vista 32-bit or 64 bit, but Windows 7 64-bit has a 192GB limit if I’m not mistaken. Something like that.
Nice job at replacing your power supply, and for recognizing that you needed to upgrade it! Better to do that now than suffer down the road if it melts down. I have one computer that has the GTX570 (just bought the GTX580 to upgrade it, waiting for it to arrive now 🙂 ) and I also have one that has the GTX470 and they both run extremely smoothly on SL 🙂
Also, do you mind if I ask how you have the 9GB of RAM set up? Do you have an extra stick that has 1GB of RAM on it? Just wondering why you have an odd number..
hiiiiiii! I don’t know how RAM is set up. I only know it has 9GB RAM because that’s what it says under System > Installed memory. And I have 64 bit windows 7 home premium.
Ah, then you’re probably going to have slower performance with your RAM.. because by having an odd number of RAM (that means you have what’s called a single channel RAM and a dual channel.. for example, a 1GB stick of RAM would be considered single channel, and 2GB stick of RAM would be considered dual), unfortunately your RAM becomes limited to as fast as your single channel RAM can go 🙁
It’s hard for me to explain in ways that make a lot of sense, but it’s like.. Imagine you have a car that’s only able to go 10 miles per hour. and you add something to your car that functions up to 20 MPH. Even if you added that something and it improved your car, your car would still be limited to whatever is the lowest miles per hour it can do, so no matter what it would still go 10 MPH. That’s the best analogy that I can think of.
So at some point, you should ask a friend / tech buddy you have or something about what kind of memory you have installed on your computer and see how you can fix that, because by doing so your memory will perform a hell of a lot better than it is now 😀
Just trying to help hehe, going back to lurking, take care!
I seriously hate geeksquads They so failed they fixed my computer only to die two days later and then I had to get a new one -_-
I used to work for Geeksquad. Unless you want a bunch of teenage-boys searching your computer for something they can fap to, laugh at, or make a meme out of… don’t give them your computer. Ever.
Your machine just missing a SSD