hardware advice:

[Wiregeek]

No, not for an upgrade from a 9500 to a 9800.

Drives aren't the big power hogs anymore, the video cards are leaving them waaay behind.

All in all, it looks like a decent machine.

GiG P55 sounds like a Gigabyte p55 motherboard, which is a good solid brand.

Conclusion: Yay!
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Morganite]

Various circumstances forced my hand, so rather than getting that system later, I've acquired this one now:

http://www.bestbuy.com/si...8153428223&skuId=9697521

A little better in some places, a little worse in others. (Assuming I'm reading this right...) Ought to last me for a while in any case.

The guy in the store seemed to think that upgrading the graphics card would also require a new power supply.

-Morgan.

[Foxboy]

Par for the course. Circumstances forced MY hand as well to get the system I type on even now. *fiddles with control panel*

Lessee. Right now, it's a slimline Hewlett-Packard 3.0 GHz AMD Athlon II X2 250 with 4 G RAM...

Model Number: s5310y

I'll prolly need a new power supply for when I get my gfx card for ultramode... after Car and dental expenses

But MAN is standard CoH pretty on it as-is... I just have to do my standard fiddling for G-ville, etc.
According to Best Buy (where I picked it up on special), I have:
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE Graphics with 256MB integrated shared graphics
memory. Up to 1919MB Total Available Graphics Memory as allocated by
Windows® 7
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Ankhani]

What that means there Fox: You don't actually have a graphics card. The motherboard has it's own little dedicated graphics processor in some corner and it 'shares' (i.e. steals) memory from the rest of your system. It's not a bad thing for slim machines, mind, but it's not running graphics under it's own power.

I don't know much about AMD because I hate ATI, but who knows. The might not be totally worthless bastards when it comes to CPUs. (Their graphics card was like installing a furnace in my laptop)
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

[Morganite]

Well, got CoH installed and it runs great, except for one odd problem...

Trying to move around in the same way I always do, hold down "w" to move forward, and so on... but every few seconds, I'll just stop. Have to let go of all keys before I can move again.

Any idea what's up?

-Morgan. Also, it seems I've forgotten one of my FFXI passwords. Annoying. >.>

[Ankhani]

Check your keyboard cord/USB, maybe? You might have a stuck key or bad connection problem.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

[Shader]

Morganni... Check the side of your PSU - you might have to take the side of your case off to do it. If its a typical dell system, then yes you will have to. Typical Dell systems come with the BARE MINIMUM power needed to run PSU. Mine had a 235W PSU in it. If you want to upgrade your graphics, well, you basically need a PSU that is Rated over 500W... depending on how high on the graphically power scale you are aiming that is.

Also, it pays to do your research first. When updating your card, I can almost guarantee buying a card off the shelf will not fit. Why? Dell don't keep to ATX standards, making their customers buy from them.

HP are another offender in that regard... I've heard horror stories - some real clangers.

[Morganite]

Well... I *don't* really want to upgrade my graphics. This one seems to be able to handle anything I'm interested in just fine.

(Oh, and it did turn out to be a keyboard problem. Seemed weird, since I don't think I'd had that problem before getting the new machine...)

-Morgan.