MAJOR Problem...fried my CPU!!

[nostick]

This is Mrs. goducks.....my husband has been banned from playing this game until the year 2010. Here is why....

Our last computer, simply put was not fast enough to run this game properly. So after listening to him whine, yes men whine...he finally talked me into buying a new one.  So we went out and dropped almost $800.00 on a new tower...nothing else. The new one is a " HP Pavilion w/ 200gb ultra DMA hard drive, 512 MB, 3200+ AMD Athlon XP Processor.

After bringing the new pc home he was as excited as a kid in a candy store to try and play the game. Unfortunately he tried and tried for countless hours and the only thing he was able to accomplish was freezing up the computer and cursing like a sailor! Seems the graphics card wasn't good enough to run the game. Evidentally he posted a few messages regarding this and waited. When the patches came out he instantly d/l them. This actually semed to help for a little while. Then the computer "freeze" again. This went on for a couple of days until he froze the computer up so badly I had to call HP for tech support. Long story short, they sent me an empty box to put my tower in and ship to them for repair. He had fried the graphics card and CPU. Evidentally this pc has an integrated graphics card. We just got the tower back today.

Call me old fashioned but I thought pc games and video games were for fun. I didn't realize you had to spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars just to try and make the &*@$# things run! IE...now we would need to buy a new graphics card if he allowed to play this game. NOT!

So my suggestion and complaint is this......make the games usable to everyone. A brand new pc SHOULD be able to run a game and not have to buy new cards for it!

Mrs. goducks.
ps......if you think I am being too harsh on him, you must realize this computer is also our only business computer as well. Now you understand................

[bockko]

May I chime in, "Mrs." Goducks:
- anyone who can cuss like a sailor must be a decent chap;
- Aces High is more than just a game, which is why there are so many addicted subscribers.
-Flight sims in general require better hardware than a typical game. The sheer number of calculations required to properly display the ground, sky, other aircraft, buildings, smoke, etc demand that the computer have fast components, especially the cpu, ram and video card. A cheap/slow video card can make a fast cpu immaterial.
- Having been through your scenario, I recommend kicking him off of "your" computer. Make him build his own. He can build a killer system quickly and relatively cheaply.
- let us know his online name so we can raz him about him being grounded by his wife...
- ask you husband to define wife ack...cuz this is a good case

[Karnak]

Mrs. Goducks,

That would be true if the manufacturers didn't try to maximize their profits by using absolute crap for their onboard video.

That said, the HP rep lied to you.  You cannot fry a video card, onboard or not, or CPU just by running software on it unless the cooling solution used by the manufacturer is well below the needed cooling on those components.  Further a fried CPU will not boot, let alone run a game.

The HP rep was passing the blame to avoid responsibility on HP's part.


A $100 card would be more than adequate to run AH2.  I'd have to check prices on lower end cards, but I'd bet you can get a usable card for less than $50.00.

[Furious]

You know you are in trouble when someone, describing their computer to you, starts out with the HD size.

[Roscoroo]

thats why most of us serious gamers build our own pc's and have been doing it since the 486 days ..

the pc's you by from the big companys (hp,dell,gateway,emachine,ect) are mostly a basic household or word processor type computer , most of them use budget mass produced mainboards and video . its hard to make a top end gaming machine out of one of these unless your very carefull and know your hardware.

I also seriously doubt that he fried the pc /cpu ect ...  he may have just fubared the operating system /drivers . or the cooling setup was messed up from the manufacturer .

(leave the biz pc as that and tell him to save his honey do allowence and build a real gamer)

[214thCavalier]

What Karnak said.
No game is going to fry your cpu or video card.

My bet would be the cpu heatsink and fan (cooler) was either not fitted correctly and had fallen off or in the process of falling off.
Alternatively they had used the cheapest component possible to cool the cpu that was not up to the task.

Of course they may have just completely botched the original build.

However to try and tell you the game had fried the cpu and video card was extremely unprofessional.

The guy telling you that has absolutely no idea what he is talking about or he was knowingly taking the piss out of you.

For future reference computer freezes are generally related to excessive build up of heat either in the cpu or the graphics processor.

Generally this is caused by either a cooler detaching in transit, a cooler not fitted correctly or in older computers the cooling fan failing due to age.

If the computer has not been correctly assembled internally its also possible they may have left a wire miss routed which then fouled the fan blades and prevented it from working.

However which ever way you look at it you cannot blame any game for your computers problems.

If any game stresses your computer all that is likely to happen is the game will run very very slowly or jerkily spoiling any enjoyment you may be looking for.

I hope they did not charge you for any repairs.

[nostick]

To answer your question, my husbands flying name is "nostick"

Now about the pc problems.  The computer would not even boot up after the processor "problem." We had nothing...........

Now as far as blaming.....who knows at this point. The problem is fixed and didn't cost us a penny.

As far as the wife ack...........I knew I would be catching hell for posting. But ifi I couldn't take it, I wouldn't have dished it out.

One last thing...thanks guys! I now have the ability to laugh about this.

[icemaw]

Yikes allmost $800.00 man just think of the tower you could build with that.

[MOSQ]

Mrs. goducks,

I strongly advise keeping your business computer and your personal/gaming computers separate!

Games can cause too many problems for a business computer.

For your business you want rock solid reliability, backup of data, and rock solid stability. Speed is generally way down the list if you are just using Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Publisher ect.
Did I mention rock solid stability? Did I mention backup?

Gaming computers by their nature are less concerned about stability vs speed and graphics power. They tend to have more issues.

A nice gaming PC can be  built for $800, especially if you share the monitor of the business PC. It sounds like Mr.goducks does not have the skills to build one, so I will  suggest: http://www.falcon-nw.com/talon.asp

Is Mrs. goducks going to buy Mr. goducks a nice gaming pc for Christmas?

[StarOfAfrica2]

As another note, HP has been putting one over on non-tech savvy people for years.  They use substandard parts, generally have so-so customer service, and use a compromised design architecture for their computers that just invites problems.  I have seen several of them over the years with bad hard drives, flaky memory, inoperative onboard sound and/or video processors, missing recovery software.............I could go on, the list is as long as there are parts in a computer.  To be short, they have a very poor reputation from a quality standpoint.  Even though some people do get lucky and have little trouble from their HP computer, those people are NOT gamers.  

At any rate, good luck to the Goducks family with their computer.  I sincerely hope you are one of the lucky ones that gets good service from your machine.

[bockko]

I am glad you can laugh about this..it will make a good story. I was once performing an upgrade and I had to preserve my wife's data; well, you know, somehow the p.o.s power supply smoked itself (i think a washer got into it) and whaddayouknow, hard drive, vid card and modem smoked. Well, wife ack was heavy that day....

[Kev367th]

Ditto what everone has said.

HP/Dell/Gateway all maximise profits by using crappy onboard video. But they will push it as having a P4 ultra fast CPU, most poeple not realizing that for gaming both count.

Their tech support is clueless or they outright lie to you to pass the buck.

It's impossible to create a game that everyone can play or we would still be flying with low color, low resolution planes etc to support older or current systems that just aren't up to playing the current version.
Brand new PCs come in so many different configs the game makers set a minimum requirement, if you don't meet it you will have problems playing it.

$100s - I wish, my current rig is prob closer to $2000.

[Karnak]

I could build a usable computer for about $600 to $700, monitor not included.

MSI K7N2 Delta MB: $65.00
AthlonXP 3000+: $110.00
Radeon 9800 128mb: $135.00
Micron 512mb DDR400: $70.00
Seagate 60gb SATA drive: $55.00
3.5" Floppy Drive: $10.00
Cheap Case: $40.00
Cheap Keyboard: $10.00
Logitech Optical Mouse: $15.00
WindowsXP Home Edition: $50.00

Total: $550.00 and way better than anything you'll get from HP, Dell or Gateway for anywhere near the price.  This system will run games like Aces High 2 and Half Life 2 adequately.  There is certainly room for improvement.  Doubling the memory would be the first suggestion I'd make.  Spend  a little bit more and get an AthlonXP 3200+.  Spend $55.00 more and get a Radeon 9800 Pro.  Do that and you're still under $700.00.

[nostick]

Hmm...where do I start? Someone asked if Mr. goducks was going to get a new pc for Christmas....no. Mr goducks get the "old" computer to do with as he likes. Before he can play the game again he first needs to upgrade.
 
We weren't aware of HP's bad reputation. Too late now to do anything about it, we are stuck with it. We'll just keep our fingers crossed and hope it doesn't crap out on us. Today absolutely everything of importance is being backed up.

We really appreciate all the tips and advice. Will definitely keep in mind as he is building his new system. Thanks guys!

Happy Holidays to all!!
Mrs. goducks

[stantond]

That sounds very aggravating.  I recently purchased a Compaq Presario:

2.8 GHz Compaq Presario SR1170NX (no monitor or speakers), which was advertised as a video editing machine for $850.00 at J&R music world online.    

It has 512MB 3200 DDR ram, Nvidia 128MB FX5200 video card, USB & Firewire ports, onboard sound, DVD +R/RW, CDRW, 200 GB HD, and of course the 2.8 GHZ P4 processor.  The mother board is an ASUS and the OS is XP home.

I have built many a PC, but for the price I decided to try it.  The only problems I had were when I let Norton AV stay enabled while flying AH2.  The tech people at Compaq told me to remove all startup programs (which is pretty easy to do btw), and that works, but NAV was my real problem with AH2.   It's probably best to disable all startup programs, but I usually don't.  The onboard sound is working out pretty well too.

Of course, your mileage may vary.  Hope you have better luck in the future!  Like a lot of consumer products, computers are caveat emptor.  



Regards,


Malta

p.s. building PC's, while somewhat satisfying, is never what I would call fun.  Bios upgrades, OS installation & upgrades, installing cables & drivers, static electricity worries, and trying to mounting everything in the case are never eagerly anticipated events.  Although, I will probably build my next one from parts.  I just lucked into this Presario being close enough to my specs at a reasonable price.