Installing a new graphics card

This may not be related, but I thought I should share...

When I upgraded video cards from an ancient GF4-Ti4600 to a 6800-GT, I encountered weird artifacting on the new card. I got on the phone with my card manufacturer (BFG), but nothing they suggested had any effect. Then I started playing with the memory timing settings on my Asus MB and dropped the CAS timings from 2.5 down to 2.0. Voila, problem solved.

If your system board BIOS allows you to adjust memory timings, you might want to take a stab in the dark and try this. Just make sure to write down the original settings before changing anything, so that you can restore them if something goes wrong.

First off, chack the Brand of your PSU. If its a Q-tec, your PSU gives you max 255-300W. 400W from Chieftec aint necessary as powerful as a PSU from Ocz on 400W.

Secondly. I have not yet seen any Graphic cards or PC motherbords with support for PCI-X. I have seen PCI-Express. These are to different things and should not be considered the same.

PCI Specifications

Well the problem was happening before I got my new graphics card anyway, that was the whole reason I bought the 6600GT. I don't think power is a problem...

Just came to think on something. Have you heard noises just like the drive is powering down then starting again, it could be your PSU is dying. If so get it replaced. A PSU dying will slowly grind the other stuff in your PC aswell.

Take a look in the Bios on Power setup. and its reading on 3.3 / 5 & 12V. If the fluctuation is more than 10% up or down, you have a problem.

A friends Q-Tec dying sent 17V out on the 12V. It was bye bye Motherboard, cpu, graphic card etc..

Is this what you mean?
Voltage Values:

CPU Core: 1.78 V
+3.3 V: 3.26 V
+5 V: 4.92 V
+12 V: 12.48 V
+5 V Standby: 5.05 V

Are these levels the right ones, or bad, or normal? I don't think they fluctuate much while I'm playing (or trying to hahaha) and no, to answer your question, there isn't any audible variations in noise coming from the computer. The only thing I haven't tried is updating my BIOS because:

1. I am unsure of where to get the update (like apparently it's using some American Megatrands BIOS at the moment, but my motherboard is Gigabyte or something... I don't know where to go or what to download)
2. I am hoping tech support will say to update it and where to get the update from. And how to do it aswell, haha!

whoopsie! I made this mistake not long ago -- I meant to say "PCIe". I knew they were different, but I keep getting the acronyms screwed up.

Worst part is it seems to make sense - PCI-X(press).

Sorry for the mixup,

-sam

Yes, thats what I was after. They look fine. A little low on 5V and 3.3, but nothing to worry about.

Updating Bios. This is different from Brand to Brand, but basically somethuing they have in common.

Take a floppy disk. Format it, choose "create a MS-DOS startup disk"

List the files on the floppy, make sure it shows every file. It will hide alot of them. Delete every file except "IO.SYS" and "COMMAND.COM"

Download the new bios from the site belonging to your motherboard.

If its Gigabyte, the url to bios is here Gigabyte Bios

Find your motherboards and download the Bios

The bios is an self extraxting Zip file. Put it in its own foolder. When you run it you will probably get three files. Copy these to the floppy.

Reboot the computer. follow onscreen instructions. When this is done, shut it of. Some motherboards require that you "reset" the bios after upgrades. Some don't. Look in you motherboard manual.

If you have to move a pin to shortcut two pins, remove the power to the computer first. Turning the computer off is not enopugh. Unplug the 110/220V cable connected to the computer and wait for 1-2 minutes. Then find the jumper to shortcut for 10 sec, then move the jumper back to the position it had. Connect the power cable again and restart. If you don't unplug the powercable here, your motherboard could be damaged.