newchemicals

Yes, the ever so confusing world of OEMs.

Even if you do know who made the thing, without a test on rather expensive equipment and disassembly its hard to really judge how good it really is since most of the OEMs are BTO and will use the parts specified in the design.

Handy chart. It could certainly help eliminate a few choices.

You could switch over to a WQHD monitor (2560x1440) that should give the 680 something to power.

I'm glad its working out for you.

Delta makes their fair share of PSUs, mostly known for Server PSUs. However, they do make PSUs for resellers such as Antec's Earthwatts 380D, 430D and 500D models.

If you do a windows re-install. use a different drive. If it still has the same issue you will have resolved that its not the OS. you can then put your old drive back in since its not an OS problem.

Edit: Did the "pro" yank it apart and check for bad caps?

Was about to comment about the PSU, but that is just the standard model that goes into Lenovo thinkstaions. (Delta lists it under 1U)

I would start by cleaning it out and running it while open to make sure all of the fans are spinning up. Its possible that one of them has died and needs to be replaced.

30,000 posts worth reading.

Let's see what is on BETA first and see if it will be true.

The 3800 series is quite old and having 2 monitors is not going to help performance.

Price not a concern? 3xGTX 680 and you are set.

Now add in a $2000 liquid cooling system.

Joking, but what are the specs of the rest of the build? The standard answer will probably be GTX 670 unless you have some other real need.

I thought nvidia only made quality drivers.

Just wait for the next update and rollback to a faster more stable version. It happens.

Steelclaw is back!

So what happened on your video card swap then?

The cooler master unit allows you to height adjust the fan. So you can just raise the fan higher to clear the memory. You can't do that with the Thermaltake Gaia for example. Not all units are built the same. For the price the Cooler master unit is pretty tough to beat. (Sadly the clip to attach the thing isn't so easy)

It would be easier to just tell us what case you got so we don't have to go over a bunch of pages of stuff about what part(s) choices you were going though. Not like it takes up more than a few keystrokes.

Edit: I have that cooler and it works very well. You can spend LOTS more and get very little benefit. Also, those more expensive coolers are HUGE and you'll need lots of skill with needle nose pliers to get stuff in place.

Edit2: Okay found your case, I've never worked with that case, however from the looks of things the CM Hyper 212 Evo should have no issues fitting.

Pretty good. I would say EVGA for the video card. Monitor choice 24" 1920x1080 is a bit "pedestrian" and I am not a big fan of liquid cooling but that's just for CPU and a closed system type.

I'd love to build something like that. Other than a couple of very minor details it should put you into the top 1% of systems playing CoH.

CoH helper reveals quite a bit.

However, based on your symptoms it looks like a video card failure. It could possibly be other things, motherboard failure or PSU going bad. Every tiny bit of info could sway what I would test for first.

The impression I get is that you just turn your PC on and just play games right? Maybe some web surf etc.

I would say the first step is to try and borrow a spare video card from a friend and see if that is your problem. The old trade suspect part for working part.

9500 GTs are in the budget segment of the market and have to be profitable for their lowly price tag. Most of these things don't have long lives, just long enough to cover warranty.

I don't have a 48xx series card to test with. I do have a 4650 and it runs fine with 11.9. YMMV

Next time it asks you to update your drivers, "Just say NO!"

I've been using 12.6 on my test box and it runs with no issues, the real game PC is still on 12.1

As the person who runs the "safe AMD drivers list" for CoH its honestly not much of a problem. The Nvidia drivers have issues too.

So far no one runs a good nvidia list yet, but I am in the process of getting a couple of nvidia cards for testing. If you think Nvidias are immune feel free to go and look over at the technical issues section of the forums, you will nvidia cards there too.

I'm a value for the dollar guy and I have no loyalty for AMD or Nvidia. If you want an Nvidia I'll point you to an Nvidia.

I'm not really good with pre-built systems. I'm more into custom built ones.

I would suggest going here first.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=253272

Sometimes you can find a very good deal on a pre-built system when for whatever reason they are trying to unload them at a loss. Kinrad got a pretty good deal on a laptop for $600 which based on components sells for $800 to $1000.

I would say the typical rules apply. Shop around, be patient and verify.

Actually, things have gotten easier on BIY these days. The last 10 or so I built worked on the first try. I haven't seen as much weird stuff as I used to. The last weird thing I ran into was an IDE cable that was keyed backwards and the fix was to cut the key off. These days things are serial ATA and are cake.

Probably going to have to pay extra for good phone service or its going to be sent someplace out of the country.

If your set on getting a GT 430.

Get this one. At least its 128bit, still has DDR3 ram but what do you expect for ~$50? Most GT 430s are 64bit.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130579

Its really your call Z, I already have my opinion on the matter.