Will my PC Run this? What CPU/GPU to get? What settings? System Specifications.

[chrisb 196]

So could you tell me how well this should run Arma II?

I would think, very well ;)

[Leon86 13]

Yeah, should run arma 2 and all other games very well.

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

Very nicely (especially if you OC your 3570k).

Seriously what resolution is your screen?

Sweet! It's 1920x1080.

Just ordered this monitor literally about a minute ago:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-S22B150-21-5-inch-Widescreen/dp/B006Z5GGN4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

Everything cost me £877 (including extra cheap case fan, anti-static wristbands etc) with ArmA II X Anniversary Edition (I just bought it in the Steam sales for £23.99!) by the way.

I think that's a pretty good price for a quite good gaming PC, and I'm paying £500 of that.

[chrisb 196]

Great price for the monitor, there again the whole thing sounds like a really good price. Hope everything goes well putting it all together, should be a really nice gaming pc when its all up and running.:D

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

Thanks, feels great to know I have got everything at a good price and cheers for the good luck too =D

Looking forward to being a part of the Arma community soon (as in an actual player)

Again thanks to everybody who helped me with everything.

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

Guys why are two of the nine standoffs included with my Cooler Master 430 case different? And where do they go? Thanks, please reply ASAP because I'm building the PC now.

[domokun 515]

It doesn't matter if a few standoffs aren't aligned.

As long as your motherboard in screwed using 2/3 of your standoffs, you'll fine, i.e. no change of your mobo being ripped out of your case.

However if you have a very heavy HSF (>1kg) and you carry your case about, e.g. to a LAN party, I'd advise unscrewing the HSF for the duration of the transport.

Take your time, especially when installing your HSF (3570k runs hot so you want the best interface between it's TIM and your HSF).

[Leon86 13]

maybe it's in the manual, anyway, as long as the top of the standoffs end up on the same height you should be good.

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

We're on the wiring stage now. I think everything's okay because during the test outside the case we had the post beep however the monitor didn't come on (the screen was blank with a flashing LED power button, but the instruction manual says this is either because cables aren't properly connected -which we have checked- or the screen is automatically on stand-by (although we can't get off stand-by because we need to fully assemble the PC to use our keyboard and mouse.

Unfortunately I need to ask for some help with the SATA data things. Does it matter which plug you go from? For example the motherboard instruction book informs me that SATA3 0/1 has a 6Gb/s connectors or something but the others are only 3GB/s.

We need to know how to install the ODD and HDD and no videos are helpful so we'd really appreciate if anybody could be able to explain it although I appreciate it must be hard to do so in words being so complicated (well for us it is)

I just really hope it will work because we have sort of guessed with some cables (but obviously they can't go in the wrong ones) and I keep worrying something will break a component, if we've done all this for nothing I will be understandably annoyed but I will pay some extra if somebody experienced can complete the build/fix it for us (like £100)

I know the whole point of building a PC is to save money but right now I'm really fed up of this, it's taken us almost all day (well about 10:30 to 20:25 - therefore approximately eleven hours)

So as aforementioned we'd really appreciate some help regarding the SATA cables, thanks.

Oh and sorry I know I should be asking all these questions on proper PC forums

---------- Post added at 20:34 ---------- Previous post was at 20:33 ----------

maybe it's in the manual, anyway, as long as the top of the standoffs end up on the same height you should be good.

Yeah they do, it's fine, thanks.

[Leon86 13]

sata 300 and 600 are compatible both ways, if you have a normal harddisk it doesnt really matter on which port you plug it in, 300 is faster than the harddisks anyway, I'd just pick a 300 port, probably you'll have 2 colors of sata ports, pick one of the colors that you have the most of, those are probably the 300.

As for the monitor to work you have to stick in the 24pin plug and the 8pin cpu plug, the cpu and the ram, if you then have the monitor turned on you should see something appear if you plug it in the connector on the motherboard and turn the pc on. If you're using the graphics card it needs a 6 pin power plug also.

Make sure you put the right 8 pin plug into the motherboard, it should be a single 8 or 4+4. the ones that go in graphics cards are usually 6+2.

[chrisb 196]

Not sure, but this looks o.k.

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

I've finished building it and the CPU fan, PSU, GPU fan are all works. I've heard the POST beep but with two monitors we've tried, neither work. On the first one (the new Samsung) it said if the power LED is flashing and the screen is blank (yes) it either has a screensaver on or your cables need rechecking. We checked them numerous times and still no signal. Also we plugged in the keyboard and mouse and pressed keys/moved mouse to see if it would go away, still no result.

One thing you should note is that when I press a button on the monitor it says 'Test Good' in the top left along with a picture of the VGA plug.

The second monitor hasn't worked either, the power button's on but we have no picture.

I have looked for videos on this issue but none were helpful (one said it could be RAM but this is for like 12 year old machines with very early RAM e.g. DDR1)

Please help! I fucking new this would happen, I really hope it isn't the processor we've broken or another component. If so I'm prepared to pay another £100 or so because I'd really like a gaming PC but they'll probably charge more than that to build one, plus if I have damaged something I have to pay for another one.

[Leon86 13]

maybe the memory isnt in properly or something, try removing it and putting only one stick back.

[domokun 515]

Have you plugged power into your GPU?

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

We did it and nothing has happened although one thing we've noticed is that the 'test good' message does not appear when the PC is turned off so the monitor must have some kind of connection to the PC if you know what I mean.

We are going to try and but both RAM in again or swap the two sticks around or something; try anything although unfortunately, being realistic, I don't think we'll get it to work and we'll have to get it repaired.

I't's so annoying this's happened to us cos for everyone else building their first PC seems to go so easy...

Wait EDIT I ACCIDENTALLY CONNECTED A SATA THING TO SATA 2 PORT 5. It says this will be disabled when mSATA slot is in use.

MSATA slot is not in use though??

---------- Post added at 14:30 ---------- Previous post was at 14:25 ----------

Changing SATA ports hasn't done anything...were we supposed to do anything else with the RAM when we removed it? Try again? Thanks.

---------- Post added at 14:39 ---------- Previous post was at 14:30 ----------

Have you plugged power into your GPU?

Yes, we've plugged in the PCI Express cable from the PSU.

---------- Post added at 14:49 ---------- Previous post was at 14:39 ----------

WTF is going on?? FFS! This is fucking shit

[Leon86 13]

relax dude.

disconnect the harddrive and dvd, remove the memory, then put one stick back in, in another port. remove the gpu and connect the monitor to the output on the motherboard. then try to boot.

also, make sure the 8 pin cpu isn't a gpu plug, the cpu should have 4 yellow and 4 blacks, if the psu does standard color coding.

[doveman 7]

We did it and nothing has happened although one thing we've noticed is that the 'test good' message does not appear when the PC is turned off so the monitor must have some kind of connection to the PC if you know what I mean.

We are going to try and but both RAM in again or swap the two sticks around or something; try anything although unfortunately, being realistic, I don't think we'll get it to work and we'll have to get it repaired.

I't's so annoying this's happened to us cos for everyone else building their first PC seems to go so easy...

If it makes you feel any better, I've been building PCs for years and recently had one die after moving it from the bench to the case and it appeared to be the motherboard (all the other components worked on another system) so I replaced that twice before discovering that actually the PSU was faulty, so I had to buy another one of those. I also had a stick of RAM go bad on me recently, so it's not just you that has trouble with PCs sometimes ;)

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

relax dude.

disconnect the harddrive and dvd, remove the memory, then put one stick back in, in another port. remove the gpu and connect the monitor to the output on the motherboard. then try to boot.

also, make sure the 8 pin cpu isn't a gpu plug, the cpu should have 4 yellow and 4 blacks, if the psu does standard color coding.

Thanks. The supplementary power CPU plug for our mobo is a four pin but the GPU plug (PCI-Express cable?) is labelled with a large sticker so I'm sure they're right.

I'll try it now then.

Thanks again and sorry if I'm being annoying or anything for getting like this and ranting on the forums.

[t0t3m 1]

Maybe you have to change the default output for the display in the motherboard bios, in my bios (i have an old mb) i have the voice "init display first" where you can change the default output, try to connect a single monitor on the mb integrated video card connector and the other one on the PCI-E video card, if you see the bootup enter the bios, change the parameter to PCIE-16X, save the bios changes, reboot

[chrisb 196]

Where you running your vga from?

On the back of the card there probably is no vga socket, if that’s the case you need to use either a hdmi cable or get a dvi-vga connector to the monitor/s Plugging the monitor into the top vga from the pc may not be any good as your running the visuals from the card directly..

Don't panic (as corporal Jones would say), the thing beeped so its alive! stop and think before unplugging and replugging things in, you need a picture, the fact you got a test would make me feel that its o.k. just plugged into the wrong vga, not sure, but on mine i have a vga at the top that does nothing as its a gaming pc and its all from the card directly, I use a hdmi cable.

Edited November 25, 2012 by ChrisB

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

We followed your steps although TBH didn't remove the GPU. My dad says he isn't going to do it because he doesn't have an explanation as to why it'd do anything and secondly it was a pain in the arse to install so he doesn't want to have to remove it and put it back in again. It hasn't worked, sorry.

t0t3m - we can't access the motherboard BIOS because nothing shows up on the screen.

---------- Post added at 15:47 ---------- Previous post was at 15:43 ----------

Where you running your vga from?

On the back of the card there probably is no vga socket, if that’s the case you need to use either a hdmi cable or get a dvi-vga connector to the monitor/s Plugging the monitor into the top vga from the pc may not be any good as your running the visuals from the card directly..

Ok thanks, I don't think we have a DVI-VGA adapter thingy (looking for one but doubt we'll just have one laying around). There isn't a VGA socket on the graphics card. Also neither monitor is compatible with a HDMI cable anyway because they only have a VGA socket and power socket.

[chrisb 196]

Ok thanks, I don't think we have a DVI-VGA adapter thingy (looking for one but doubt we'll just have one laying around). There isn't a VGA socket on the graphics card. Also neither monitor is compatible with a HDMI cable anyway because they only have a VGA socket and power socket.

I have one here, if I could pm it to you I would.. Could put it in the post if you get stuck..

---------- Post added at 16:01 ---------- Previous post was at 15:49 ----------

Have you got a tv in the house that has hdmi ? If you do and can move the pc to there use a hdmi cable from a dvd or freeview or sat box just for now, just to see if you have a picture..

Just a thought.:)

[Leon86 13]

We followed your steps although TBH didn't remove the GPU. My dad says he isn't going to do it because he doesn't have an explanation as to why it'd do anything and secondly it was a pain in the arse to install so he doesn't want to have to remove it and put it back in again. It hasn't worked, sorry.

t0t3m - we can't access the motherboard BIOS because nothing shows up on the screen.

---------- Post added at 15:47 ---------- Previous post was at 15:43 ----------

Ok thanks, I don't think we have a DVI-VGA adapter thingy (looking for one but doubt we'll just have one laying around). There isn't a VGA socket on the graphics card. Also neither monitor is compatible with a HDMI cable anyway because they only have a VGA socket and power socket.

Didn't the gpu come with a dvi to vga plug? you can use that on the motherboard too if it has a dvi-i port.

[ArmaIInoobATM 1]

Didn't the gpu come with a dvi to vga plug? you can use that on the motherboard too if it has a dvi-i port.

Oh yeah I think I've seen it before!! Thanks

---------- Post added at 17:22 ---------- Previous post was at 16:29 ----------

IT WORKED! Thanks to everyone that has helped from about five pages ago. Installing Windows 7 now :yay: