[Xero4006]

ah ha! thats what my cousin said who worked for ibm. Is nortan really that bad? I remember my old computer i had avg and norton i ran both scan and avg found a trojan but nortan didnt find anything =[ I was really mad! I was wondering if i unistall nortan would zone alarm go away too? What possible threat would i be vulnerable?

[rgreen4]

xero4006 - uninstalling norton with the norton removal tool should only remove symantec products. Our resident anti-malware guru SpiritWind recommended to me Avast home anti-virus and I have been very pleased with it.
As MPH has said, remove norton and then try the games. You can then install Avast if you desire, I have AVGFree on some of my older machines, but I am in the process of changing over. Here is the link to the download page.

[mphenterprises]

Yes, Norton is that bad. Those who know stay far away from Norton. You have a good assortment of security applications. Zone Alarm is its own application so no, it will not be removed once Norton is gone. Personally, I use all the applications you have. In addition to all of this, I would advise adding SuperAntiSpyware as a definite plus.

[Xero4006]

thanks guys. It does seem to run a lot faster. I havn't tried the high-quality games yet but i was wondering if it still does freeze then its my power supply? if not then do i still need one? I also want to upgrade my video card and i just bought a XFX Geforce 8600GT XXX 256mb gddr3 1600mhz. What do you guys think?

[mphenterprises]

Well, I think we have found the source of your problem; however, to be proactive, since you have high quality games and you are looking for a more advanced video card, I would suggest that you upgrade the Power Supply anyway. As mentioned, I would suggest a Power Supply rated between 650-700Watts. Now, I just did a search on NewEgg.com and there is only one Power Supply that fits your needs:

Broadway Com Corp Okia-black-650 ATX 650W Power Supply




As for the other hardware components, I will open the floor for our other forum members to make suggestions.

[phillypa800]

Hello Xero4006, many moons ago I posted a similiar issue in pcworld. I got tons of feedback and finally decided to purchase a new power supply. I just got this bad boy for christmas and so far no freeze, crash, etc.

I calculated how much wattage my rig was using and in total I was running 412 watts. My power supply was only 350 watts. Well I'll be dang...

Power Supply

Click on this other link below for power supply info., tips, etc.

Power Supply Tips

Good luck and let us know your final outcome.

[mphenterprises]

phillypa800 said:

I calculated how much wattage my rig was using and in total I was running 412 watts. My power supply was only 350 watts. Well I'll be dang...

Hi PhillyPA. One full day back and you are at full steam. :-) Anyway, can you detail exactly how you calculated how much wattage your system used? This may be a good excercise for other to use as well.

[phillypa800]

Hello mphenterprises, sure no problem. Below is a chart illustration:

Component Wattage Required

Motherboard 15 - 30

Low-end CPU 20 - 50

Midrange to high-end CPU 40 - 100

RAM RAM 7 per 128MB

PIC add-in card 5

Low to midrange graphics board 20 - 60

High-End Graphics Board 60 - 100

IDE Hard Drive 10 - 30

Optical Drives 10 - 25

So determine your total wattage usage by adding them up. I hope the above info helps anyone out who's experiencing PS issues.

[mphenterprises]

Beautiful. If you wouldn't mind, can you create a Document detailing exactly what you just posted and link it to this Power Supply Document?

...or if you would like, I can edit my Document to include your calculations...

[spike]

thats an older list, to bring it up to date , just add 25%, to the "high end" components, as a great many of the recent dual and quad core CPU's , .....use 125-145 watt's,.............as well as the the newest GPU's......CAN.....use as much as 140 watt's, and thats not even SLI/crossfire, which can go as much as 200 watt's, ............just for graphics! ! ! !

[phillypa800]

mphenterprises, go ahead and link it to yours. Thanks.


Hello spike, you are correct. It is an older list but it's something to start with for now.

Goes to show how quickly technology advances...

;-)

[rgreen4]

Phillypa - fantastic info on the post.

Xero4006 - I have the 8600GT in my new machine, the Antec case came with a 420 Watt PSU, but I was a little nervous about that card in conjuction with my Core2Duo E6750 CPU, so I installed a 530 Watt. It may be a little underpowered still, but I don't play intensive games. When I get back to S. Georgia, I think I will calculated the draw on all of my machines (laptops excepted as what you get is what you have) and see how they rate.

[Xero4006]

well thanks guys. So far i left on the computer today for about 12 hours. on and off but my cousin takes turn playing the computer. The computer froze three time. One time playing couner-strike source, another one clicking on mozilla firefox, and one in counter-strike 1.6. It can't just be my graphics could it? I noticed i have a 420 watt power supply and i just upgraded 1gb of ram so total of 2GB DDR2 533mhz. When you say low-end CPU what do you go buy? What about mid-end and high-ends? For the power-supply link @ newegg it looks great and cheap but not so great reviews... 1/3 customers liked it. And I don't think I am willing to take that chance. I'm also wondering if any power supply would fit in my computer case(its custom built i dont know whats its called but it has a Z on the front aluminum plate with lights).
www.hardcoreware.net/image.php?src=2935&ts=1091808262 <... thats the picture of what my computer chassis looks like if anyone knows what it is.

Also does anyone know whats the stock power supply on a dell xps 600 generation 2?

[mphenterprises]

Xero4006 said:

I noticed i have a 420 watt power supply and i just upgraded 1gb of ram so total of 2GB DDR2 533mhz.

>
>

Hi Xero. Well, since the freezing has reduced to a minimal, we can conclude that Norton was partly to blame. However, playing graphic intensive games require a higher rated Power Supply. Within the next messages, we will address the Power Supply issue.

Xero4006 said:

When you say low-end CPU what do you go buy? What about mid-end and high-ends?

>
>

I could be mistaken, but I believe the difference between low/mid/high end processors could be broken down as follows:

- Low-End: Anything from a Single-Core processor and down

- Mid-End: Dual-Core processors

- High-End: Quad-Core processors



Now obviously, this is a very liberal list and only based on Intel chips. You can use this as a starting point.

Xero4006 said:

I'm also wondering if any power supply would fit in my computer case

>
>

Yes, any Power Supply will fit in custom cases. Custom case are merely elaborate cut-outs. The opening for the Power Supply has pre-drilled holes which line up perfectly with the holes on the Power Supply. What you need to make sure is that you get the right Power Supply to match up with your motherboard. For example: (Rhetorical Questions)

- Is the power connection a 20 pin or a 24 pin?

- Are your existing hard and optical drives IDE or SATA drives?

- How many devices actually need to be connected to the Power Supply?

Xero4006 said:

Also does anyone know whats the stock power supply on a dell xps 600 generation 2?

>
>

I could not find anything specific; however, from the specifications of the system, I would say no less than 700Watts. After doing a more thorough search on Newegg.com, here is a list of available Power Supplies sorted by popularity.

[coastie65]

Hey mph, I played the Crysis Demo on High last night with a 500w PSU & GeForce 8600GT in this thing and it did fine. I mean, I'm all for lots of memory and power and all, just that Crysis, which is pretty intensive did fine on what I have. coastie65

[VladTheImpaler1990]

Hey, what were your settings:
* Resolution
* Anti analysing
* Model detail
* and so on.