MEPIS Community Forum

OK I've been looking through video cards but not sure what to do. My board has no video so I can't rely on that. Although I could fall back to my old nvidia MX400. But it seems a new card would give me better video. Right now my top choice is this card:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121422 I think I like that it doesn't have a fan. Thats one less thing to go wrong and should keep things quiet. But is this a decent chipset or should I spend more for something better. Or should I save my $26 and use my 10 yr old nVidia card? Please let me know your thoughts, I'm open to other suggestions too. I've been through the list so many times now I'm probably over looking the obvious. Thanks. I hope to place an order soon. Just need to chose a video card and make final decisin on Corsiar v Crucial memory.

EDIT: Keep in mind there is no gaming on this computer. So I don't need top gaming cards.

Just do it. Don't look back.

Sorry - late to the party.

Fargo - my 2c (I've built numerous machines - gaming and standard)

Mobo - either Asus or Gigabyte - they're the only ones I use.

RAM - first choice for me is always Corsair, then either Crucial or Kingston. All 3 are very reliable.

PSU - don't skimp - you run every component off this. I only use Corsair or Seasonic. Consistently always in top 3 list.

Your choice on video card - I always go Nvidia - but ATI has good price options.

Hope some of it helps.

I was looking at fanless ASUS and GigaByte video cards just a while back. That one should do what you want fine. And The whole bundle you've selected will be well balanced. Decide on the memory. Your choices there are good ones.

Wanted to let you all know I made final decisions and got things ordered a couple days ago. I went with the Gigabyte board and the FX4100 processor. FOr memoery I decided to try the Corsair for the sole reason that it was on Gigabytes list. (OK your recomendations gave me some comfort too). But I have concerns about that big heat sink. It looks cheesy and everything I've read on the memory says it falls off all the time. So I'll probably regret that later. I also went with the ASUS GeForce210 video card. I reuse things like video cards and figured future boards will likely have ATI integrated and this will give me an nVidia option if i have trouble with ATI in future boards. I got hung up on power supplies for quite some time. I really liked the Antec that was suggested above. But I was not overly impressed with my last Antec so I wanted to try something a little different. In my research I found a lot of rave reviews about the Seasonic S12II. It also appears the Antec power supply was based on that one. So I decided rather than getting the imitator that was tweaked to Antecs specs, I would just go for the original design. The 5 year warranty was also a nice little encouragement. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151072 So that is my system.

I also did some looking for stress linux. It took me forever to actually find a cd called StressLinux. But in my search I also found these cds that might be usefull for burn in. Does any one have knowledge or experience with them.

http://www.stresslinux.org/sl/ I believe this was the recommended burn in disk. Too bad its not GUI.

These are the others I found before I located stresslinux.

Phoranix Test Suite.
http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=features
I'm familiar with their website, and I trust this is safe software, but this looks to be more for benchmarking and not so much for burning in a new system.

Inquisitor
http://www.inquisitor.ru/about/
This is now an open source project that appears to have originated for a private Russian hardware company. Its likely safe, but I'm old enough to remember the cold war. In the words of Ronald Reagan "Trust but verify". Is anyone familiar with this project?

OCNix
http://ocnix.sourceforge.net/index.php
This was the first stress cd I found. It looks very promising. I don't see it now but i thought it had a GUI interface. Unfortunately, it appears to be early in its development and has been at prebeta for a year. So I don't know if its complete and reliable for testing my new system.

So basically these are the cds I've been looking at for testing my new system. Can anyone provide more insight into these? Any recommendations or warnings to stay away from them.

Seasonic make great power supplies. All the tests I've read are very positive.

I know little about stress tests but the Phoronix is probably what I would run. Wait a bit and see if Saist will post on the subject. He follows their site closely.

With regards to the so-called "burn-in": IMNSHO, there is very little to be gained. All you are really likely to achieve is shaving off of the overall life of your system. If you want to run a couple of passes of memtest, great, no harm done. If you want to benchmark your system with Phoronix, thats fine too. But otherwise, abnormal overheating of your system (as this is what "burning-in" achieves) is just as likely to cause more harm than good. The "burn-in" is an archaic practice that serves little purpose on the modern PC.

For what it's worth, I do build gaming, home and business PCs professionally on a regular basis.

Just my 6.3 cents (with inflation and all...).

Personally all I've felt was ever needed was a 24 hour state of being on. Normal use during that time and maybe a benchmark or two.

I've never felt the need to keep a CPU at or near maximum (or a hard disk for that matter) for any set or extended period of time for stressing the system.

After all a complex screensaver will keep a CPU (and monitor) pretty busy. Memtest will make sure the memory is okay. GSmartControl will test a HDD.

Thanks. I probably wont worry to much about burning it in then. Maybe just run a couple short test to see if anything turns up immediatly. I think I'll run memtest and maybe a couple benchmarks to see where I am at.

I'm feeling a little stupid and mad at myself right now. I got all my pieces for my new system on Monday and I planned on putting it all together this weekend. So I started tonight. I put the processor on the motherboard and put the mobo in the case and went to the power supply next. After installing the power supply I realized the Seasonic 380w I picked up only has the 4pin CPU connector and my mother board needs the 8 pin. I'm so made at myself. I was making sure every power supply I looked at had this. I don't know how I missed that the one I finally purchased didn't have it. Anyway, my question is. Can I get an adaptor for the power supply or do I need to do this right and send it back and purcahse a bigger power supply with 8 pin cpu power connector. I suppose I should do it right. I was just anxios to put it all together this weekend. But let me know your thoughts.