Rate this potential gaming PC?

PJBC

PJBC

New Member
Basically, I can't spare £200 to fix my PC, so I was thinking of selling the working pieces (I'd get around £500 for it) and then saving up if need be and getting a new PC, and when I get a windfall in September, upgrading anything I need to.

I know this is a long way round, but it's either this or finance options and I really don't wanna take out a £200 loan and pay back double or anything so this is long but doable - anyways, enough about my situation - on a £500-600 budget, do you guys reckon this is decent?

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/amd-bulldozer-top-spec-pc/LgeOxnOOVL/



Any help/advice is much appreciated :D
 
PCunicorn said:
No, its a absolute ripoff. Build your own.
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Well I don't have the money to get it in parts, or I might as well save up and buy new parts for my current build but I need to invest about £250 on my PC as is to get it working again - I need a budget build, something that can play ARMA on high but can be upgraded easily - the whole upgrade and compatibility thing has always been my weakness.

Does it have good upgrade paths?
 
That build will not play arma at all, and you could build the same rig with a better PSU for 209 dollars less.
 
why not tell us your current issue with your computer and we can see if it can be fixed or upgraded cheaper and still work for Arma
 
jonnyp11 said:
why not tell us your current issue with your computer and we can see if it can be fixed or upgraded cheaper and still work for Arma
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Well... this issue happened twice, the fix of the first time didn't work the second time round.

I was playing Metro 2033 (I'm certain this spearheaded the events as I was playing both times it happened!!) and my PC turned off - no noise, no bang, no smell, no light, nothing - I thought it was a power cut till I saw everything else around me was still on - so I tried turning my PC on and it would load up the splash screen then go black with an underscore flash in the top left then nothing - I tried another GPU (due to a delivery error, I ended up with 2 HD7850's - go me!) and nothing changed - the first time, I managed to link up to a monitor via VGA(?) and reset the BIOS to get it working again as it wouldn't recognise HDMI beyond the splash screen - second time round, the same fix doesn't work and after spending about 5 hours trying different things like disconnecting drives and stuff I gave up and my PC has just been a very expensive paper weight since January - I've been told the problem could be the motherboard or the hard drive and I don't have the spare money to replace all of it on, quite literally, guesswork. So my current idea is to sell the whole thing for quick cash, bide my time and add to it, then buy a new rig - I know it's the pussy way out and everybody here would probably be ashamed of me for doing it, but I don't know what else to do lol :/
 
jonnyp11 said:
why not tell us your current issue with your computer and we can see if it can be fixed or upgraded cheaper and still work for Arma
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My build (as far as I remember)



Intel Core i5-3450k 3.1 GHz Quaddie
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H Motherboard
OCZ 550w ZS Series PSU
Corsair Vengeance 8Gb 2x4 RAM
XFX 2Gb HD7850

1Tb 7200RPM HDD - I'm pretty sure it's WD - I remember thinking it was Seagate and being surprised when I actually looked lol
 
Have you tried using the onboard graphics? Or removing the cmos battery for a while to clear the BIOS settings?
 
If you don't know what's broken, you can't sell it. It could be a bad drive, try using a Live Ubuntu CD. Also do what jonny said first.
 
jonnyp11 said:
Have you tried using the onboard graphics? Or removing the cmos battery for a while to clear the BIOS settings?
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Yeah, the first time I removed the GPU and connected via VGA (iirc) to my old PC screen, went into the bios and managed to reset it because the boot order had changed - but the 2nd time it happened (again, whilst playing Metro 2033) I was unable to get any kind of signal beyond the splash screen :/
 
PCunicorn said:
If you don't know what's broken, you can't sell it. It could be a bad drive, try using a Live Ubuntu CD. Also do what jonny said first.
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I was going to sell it 'as-is' to someone who could put more effort into fixing it - I gave up after about 8 hours and the thought of going back to attempt to diagnose it again makes me want to throw myself out a window lol
 
PJBC said:
Yeah, the first time I removed the GPU and connected via VGA (iirc) to my old PC screen, went into the bios and managed to reset it because the boot order had changed - but the 2nd time it happened (again, whilst playing Metro 2033) I was unable to get any kind of signal beyond the splash screen :/
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Try resseting the CMOS. I doubt it's the board, RAM, or CPU because you need all of those to access the BIOS. I think it may be a bad drive, so try a Live CD (or USB) with Ubuntu.
 
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PCunicorn said:
Try resseting the CMOS. I doubt it's the board, RAM, or CPU because you need all of those to access the BIOS. I think it may be a bad drive, so try a Live CD (or USB) with Ubuntu.
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Full on battery out? I'm guessing the "put a screwdriver between the 2 prongs" bit isn't effective?

Also, I have neither :/ all I have is one hard drive and a W7 64bit installation disk

I do have a 14gb USB stick though? Could I download Ubuntu on that or is it not enough?


Also, whilst I was thinking it was a mobo problem, my mate did think it could have been the HDD as the splash screen indicated it was booting, but wasn't able to load the OS (as it hit the white underscore in the top left then went black)
 
PCunicorn said:
http://pcsupport.about.com/gi/o.htm...tp://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000239.htm Read this for resetting the CMOS.

If that didn't work, you will need to use a Live CD of Ubuntu (do not install Ubuntu when the option comes up)You will need another computer for this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick This will tell you how to put Ubuntu on a USB drive. Download a 64 Bit Desktop Ubuntu ISO.
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I'll give it a go in the morning after a refreshing sleep when I have better concentration and ready to go - cheers (03:43 right now)
 
I GOT IT WORKING... (Well, you 2 got it working for me!!)


I dunno why it didn't work last time, but I took the CMOS battery out for about a minute then put it back in, loaded up via VGA then entered BIOS and set it to onboard graphics and exited and now I'm logged on - I sold my GPU for money so I'll have to put my old 9800GT in for now but I'm so glad it's finally working...


Cheers you 2, if you're in the UK, I owe you a beer each minimum :D
 
PCunicorn said:
Cool man, glad you got it working :)
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Yeah :D I'm using my old 9800GT - had graphic issues that set me back more than they should have whilst I got rid of the AMD Cat Centre and put NVIDIA back on but everything is in tiptop shape now, spent the whole night gaming - even my 9800GT looks superior to consoles, can't wait to save up and get my GPU back now though lol, might go for a GTX 660 Ti if I can stretch to the extra £60
 
If you are going to save up, I'd wait a while.
NVIDIA has already released GTX 780 and 770 (which sounds like they are out of your budget), but that means the mid-end GPUs are coming soon. Something like 760 Ti or 760 shouldn't take too long to get released.
 
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