[smax013]

I am essentially running an earlier version of the eVGA card (it is an 8800GT). It is less than 10" long (the spec sheet on the eVGA site lists the 9800GT as a 9 in card).

[coastie65]

Hi smax, OK. The 8600GT is a shade under 7" ( about 6 7/8" ). Now I'm wondering what was unplugged. The computer was running fine without that additonal 4 pin plug being plugged into the ATX socket on the MOBO ( 20+4 ). Could it have been power to the DIMM slot ? I have a six pin connector for the CPU. Curious. Anyway, the price on that 9800GT was considerably cheaper than what that shake down artist wanted for the 8600 GT ( $226 with shipping ).

[coastie65]

I found some interesting reading here: www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html Tells me I dodged a bullet as I could have over heated some stuff and may be the reason why my card wasn't working ( wasn't getting enough power although I haven't as yet tested theory.) I have noticed my CPU temps have come down though. They were running about 55C and has dropped to 50C. I owe rg a big THANK YOU. If he hadn't mentioned the additional power thing for tha card, I wouldn't have been looking at the stuff coming off the PSU and found the disconnect. From what I was able to get, without that extra 4 pins, I was power starved on the rails, not good if you have a PCIe card plugged in. Incidently, I had already ordered the card. BACKUP. ( If the other one works after plugged that thing in.

[rgreen4]

Yeh, sometimes it pays to go over things. My machine needs a good cleaning again. With the 2 Dobes coming in from outside and then tussling, I'm getting a lot more dust in the office.

[coastie65]

Yeah, I was cleaning the other day and some how pulled the connector loose. The ATX connector is still nice and white, so I didn't toast anything. AsI said, If the card works, than I'll have a nice back up card when it gets here. :D

[coastie65]

The card is back in and apparantly doing fine. It usually takes about 20 mins on the intial start up so we'll see.

[techie4fun]

Well, sound's like you've had quite the excitement, but not in an exciting way.


My ATI card was playing tricks on me weeks ago. As I started running anything graphic hungry, my monitor would hit into standby mode. After this happened the second time I quickly shut off the computer and opened the case to see what could be the cause. Once I had the case off and had the computer running again, I noticed that the card's fan was no longer moving ..... so, I unplugged the cable and plugged it into another source of power, and things seemed to work better.

[coastie65]

Hey Techie, Yeah, apparantly the 4 pin connctor on the ATX MOBO connector had come loose when I was cleaning. If rg hadn't said something about the additional power connections for the 9800GT card, I probably wouldn't have noticed it until I went to install the card. That 4 pin connector adds more juice to the rails. It will probably work for awhile as this did, but eventually something is going to get awful warm. I dodged a bullet. Oh welll, you live and learn I guess. I had already ordered the EVGA 9800 GT card, so I guess I'll have a back up just in case. Only have PCIe 1.0 x16, so won't get all the card has to offer.





Been up and running since 9 AM this morning without a hiccup. Guess I'll have a spare card that works when the one I ordered gets here. Not sure if this thing is ready for a 9800 GT anyway. :D Another lesson learned concerning power issues.

[techie4fun]

Now you've got a spare card :D

[coastie65]

Yeah. Still nor sure of how that connector got disconnected though. It is pretty snug when plugged in. I did notice that the 20 pin connector seemed to expand when it was hot or warm. It could conceivably worked itself out from contracting when it was cool and expanding when it was warm. The 20 pin portion has a clip, but not the 4 pin. Should have been a full 24 pin connector from the git go rather than 20+4. I am assuming that 500w is enough PSU, although all but one of my USB ports are being used. I have some USB ports on the monitor, so guess I could move my mouse & speakers over to that. Just a thought. It would relieve some of the demands on the PSU.

[rgreen4]

The Antec Tri-Powers that I have are scored between the 20 and the 4 so if necessay I can break off the 4 to use on a 20 pin socket. As for the USB load, moving the items to your monitor won't reduce the load on you PSU, because that hub will still draw power from the computer. I don't think they draw that much power unless you have external drives or external optical drives.

[coastie65]

The Antec Basiq were separate. How can the USB Hub ( Two ports I think ) draw power from the computer ? The monitor is plugged into the UPS and the only cable to the computer is the DVI cable.

[smax013]

coastie65 said:

The Antec Basiq were separate. How can the USB Hub ( Two ports I think ) draw power from the computer ? The monitor is plugged into the UPS and the only cable to the computer is the DVI cable.

If you have USB ports on the monitor and you want to use them, then you will need to connect the monitor's built-in USB hub to the computer by way of a USB cable. If you do not, then those ports won't do squat. You must have a USB data connection to the computer.

If you do that, then it kind of depends on how the built-in USB hub is powered. If the monitor is wired such that some of the power from the monitor's power cable is used to power the hub, then the USB ports from the hub will draw no power from the computer (by way of the USB cable to the computer). If the hub is NOT powered by the monitor's power cord, then it will be "bus-powered" USB hub and draw power from the computer's USB port that it is connected to by way of a USB port. If so, then the power that hub can use is limited by what the USB port on the computer can supply. As such, you would only want to use low power level devices (such as a keyboard or mouse...but NOT a bus powered hard drive).

[coastie65]

Thanks smax. I haven't really checked this thing out that far so don't know how the USB is configured. I was assuming the USB's got their power from the Monitor that was plugged in to the UPS. I hadn't given any thought to the other option. :p

[smax013]

My old CRT monitor had hub in it. Never really used it so I never bothered to check if it was "self" or bus powered.

[coastie65]

Hey smax, Not self powered. They are on the side of the pedestal. There are two USB ports and the bottom one is the same port that is on my printer ( Square ). So that means the same type of USB cable that is with my printer and the power is coming from the PC for the two ports. The printer is for data transfer though, as it is plugged into the UPS. It was just a thought anyway. I don't think I'm pushing that 500w PSU any hoo.

[SnyperTodd]

Coastie, just to let you know, you can change motherboards without wiping and re-installing Windows. Microsoft makes a program to do just that called Sysprep. It's pretty simple, I've used it several times on several different computers. You won't lose anything in the process. It wipes the hardware IDs and when you restart the computer it re-installs all drivers, including the chipset drivers which usually causes the no-start when changing motherboards. If you ever decide to swap motherboards, I can help you through it.

[coastie65]

Hey Snyper, I have looked at a couple of Micro ATX MOBOs that would give a bit more as I am pretty well maxed out on this thing. Having to wipe & redo everything because of the hardware ID's has been an issue for sure. I have two OEM copies of XP (MCE 2005 SP2b & Home SP3) that are unused. At present, I have a 200 GB PATA Hdd. I am thinking of getting a SATA and just mirroring everything on to that. Beyond that, the processor is maxed out & the memory is maxed out. Had to replace the optical drive and replaced it with what I had CDRW / DVDRW, DL and the new one had DVD RAM and LIghtScribe as well. Ramped up the PSU to 500w to accomodate the PCIe card. It has been fun to see what I could squeeze out of this emachines and it does perform pretty darned well all things considered. It definitely isn't your typical eMachines..........now. Anyway, as I said, I have checked out Micro ATX MOBO's at times. Haven't heard of Sysprep, interesting.

[SnyperTodd]

It's pretty simple once you get it installed, and I've never had an issue with it in about 15 uses. You check "PnP", "Mini-Setup", and then click "Reseal" and it'll do it's thing then shut the computer down. Once the computer shuts off, you change your motherboard and whatever else you want to change then power it back on. When it boots, it looks like the first time you installed Windows except all of your stuff is still intact. It installs drivers for everything, and you're all ready to go.

http://technet.micro...y/bb457073.aspx

I had an old HP about 5-6 years ago that I pushed to the limit much like your Emachines. I even went so far as to force-flash the original Asus P4G800-V BIOS over the OEM HP P4SD-LA BIOS after I found out they were the same motherboards with crippled BIOS for HP. It didn't open up too many new options, but I was able to bump the original 2.8GHz P4 up to 3.3GHz 24Hrs Orthos stable. That is the rig that really got me into overclocking, modding, troubleshooting, etc.



Okay, sorry, you can have your thread back now... :^0

[coastie65]

Hey Snyper, I have no problems with a little wandering as it is tech related and all good. I was playing with the BiOS in this thing and had rg cringing. :D Actually, I went to an Intel bios for this MOBO rather than the eMachines. It seemed to do okay, but was a bit nervous so went back to the eMachines Bios. The only thing I noticed was with the Intel BiOS, I had an extra splash screen ( Intel ) at start up. Anyway, when I rolled it back and restarted, it didn't. I got the message unable to restart and to put in the CD. I said OOPS, now I done gone and done it. I finally got the idea to reboot and go into BiOS. I had to reenable my Hdd and make sure to Boot from it. All was good, and I decided that I need to find something a little safer to play with. Anyway, I don't mind a little extracurricular activies in the thread, as it has been Technical in nature anyways and informative. coastie