[lennardseah]

in my years of experience this always fixes 99% of common problems:

1. always try installing latest drivers / bios / windows update

Why?
Because new drivers and bios and windows updates ALWAYS fix stuffs

Video Cards drivers (especially for game problems):
Nvidia cards - Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers
ATI cards - Drivers & Support | GAME.AMD.COM

2. system cannot boot/funny beeping sound/no display

reseat video card (make sure the gold connectors below sit flush into the slot of the motherboard)

reseat rams (the clips on both side must go in fully) - USUALLY THE MAIN REASON

reseat cpu and heatsink

check whether motherboard is being shorted by any metal

3. not stable/crash/stuttering/always blue screen of death/mysterious restarts
try 1. and 2. first.

up voltages of ram (usually called vdimm/vram) and northbridge (yea even unoverclocked systems sometimes need that extra bump to be stable)

if overclocked, save your settings first and then set everything back to stock and see the errors come out again - if yes means bad overclock

reduce ram timings/divider

to test memory/cpu stability, run intelburntest (IntelBurnTest v2.3 download from Guru3D.com) - if it lasts 5 minutes on full burn its probably ok

4. OHOH why my cpu/video card so "hot"
There has been a lot of misinformation around mainly due to outdated knowledge (the thresholds of older cpus/gpus last time were lower) . These are the acceptable temperatures of modern day stuff:

Idle - anything below 60s degree celcius (i'm serious)

load (gaming) - anything below 80 degree celcius

load (intelburntest/furmark/every core 100%) - anything below 90 degree celcius

anybody who tells you otherwise is still living in the AMD Althon/Geforce 2 MX era.
"Wouldn't a hotter cpu mean die faster" - not really unless you mean you want it to last 100 years. only overclocked extreme voltages will cause electron migration (aka something really nasty) and a fast death

5. why my internet so slow/game ping so laggy or spikey
follow step 1

scan your computer for maalware/spyware/adware (i find this one the most effective - Malwarebytes.org)

have you secured your wireless network against unauthorized access/cheapskate neighbours leeching your bandwidth?

are you running BT/p2p applications (TVU, sopcast,... also counts), if yes reduce upload speed if possible to 10kB/s.

follow my other guide (for xp): http://forums.vr-zone.com/networking...n-xp-only.html

you live in a congested neighbourhood. get another isp

6. Whats the best AV to use? Do I need a software firewall?
Antivirus - http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/ (its free, made by the same people who made your operating system, is light on resources, and havent misfired yet - I am a "ahem" heavy user)

Software Firewall (zone alarm and all that) - not quite neccessary if you are behind NAT/internet gateway (for nubs: your computer not plugged directly to the modem). usually it is a resource hog and more often than not cripples legitimate applications

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[lennardseah]

post here if you read my FAQ and it solved your problem!

[DannyDanny]

reseat rams (the clips on both side must go in fully) - USUALLY THE MAIN REASON

Bro you forgot something.

- Check whether the RAM is mounted Correctly.

Some people (especially me) sometimes blur blur , too eager to start the computer then anyhow put the RAM but didnt realise that its the wrong side :p. Happens many time

[sentinel011]

If wrong side, it shouldn't even be able to fit.

If it does, means you forcefully push the rams in, damaging both the motherboard and the socket. (unless you using SODIMMs)

[Blindkids]

can AV and Malwarebytes run together in a system?

[yantronic]

Memory "Lost" on Intel CPUs With Integrated Memory Controllers (IMC) residing on LGA1156/LGA1366



You will have to re-seat the RAMs, and in some cases, the CPU as well. Clean the contacts on the CPU and reinstall it.