kkcsm2495

Oh, and the PSU... will definitly look into upgrading, just for good measure. Oh, and I just got off the phone with a guy from Newegg (named Dave... got to give him credit). He was in shock that the RAM caught fire and starting smoking. He immediately got me the RMA # and sent out an e-mail explaining the process. VERY pleased with the response time. I am opting for a different manufacturer, Samsung... roughly $160 on Neweggs site. Just will take about a week or so for all the paperwork, and credits to take effect. About the GeForce card. It ran smooth as silk in my old system (PIII 600) for about 2 or 3 minutes. The screen then lost characters in colors, and locked up. On re-boot, some of the characters on the screen where it posts what is going on, they were replaced with strange symbols. Then the screen went blank... then a series of verticle lines (similar to Samantha Stevens on Bewitched when she contracted some type of virus for witches). It tried to continue to boot up, but I immediately stopped it, not wanting the card to get damaged. I had heard that when cards get over-heated, they sometimes throw out funky symbols. Anyhow, that's my story. And the moral is (drum roll)... DON'T BUY OCZ ANYTHING (that means NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH). Thank you guys once again - crisis averted. Well, almost. -Keith

Thank you so much for responding. I REALLY hope that is all it is. As far as the watts on the old tower, unsure. Seeing as how it was running 2 fans, 1 modem, 1 sound card, 1 graphics card, 2 hard drives, 1 floppy, 1 CD/DVD, and 1 Zip drive... I can only guess. I tried looking at the power supply, from the outside and from the inside, and I cannot seem to locate any indication as to what it is rated. At least with your input, I no longer feel like a blind man sweeping the lawn. I will get on the phone with customer support at Newegg, and see if I can send back the RAM and the Mobo. I hope that they are understanding, it took me about 6 months to save the money for this, and I hope that I don't have to eat the cost. I guess I should have watered that money tree more often, instead of letting the dog pee on it so much. -Keith

This has been dream of mine for years, to build my own computer. A Monster, power-eating, honkin' huge kind'a big. Well today my parts arrived, hooraay!!! Mobo: MSI KT3 ULTRA Socket A Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1900+/266 FSB RAM: OCZ DDR 512Mb PC-2700 266Hz and the topper: VGA PNY GeForce4 TI4400 Man oh man, dreams do come true. Seeing as how I am going to replace my old system: PIII 600 256Mb SDRAM TNT2 Ultra Times are good. Until... I take the old system apart and label the cables so as to keep them seperate. Carefully remove the old board, and taking the new board, I put on the RAM and Processor. Seating it properly, place the board and mount it into the case. Start putting in the sound card, the modem and placing the cabels in their new homes. Even went so far as to install the "D-Bracket". A nifty little tool for showing me some LED's about the status of the system. All is well, the small prayer is said, and the switch is thrown. Power on then it shuts itself off. No nothing, just on then off by itself. Hey, no proplem, maybe I left off a switch or maybe the RAM is loose. Check some things then power on. And it turns itself off again. Hmmm, think, think... let's check those nifty lights and see what they say. Power on... all lights are red, then #1 turns green, then red and #2 turns green, then it shuts off again. Frustration sets in. The world spins. Cold sweat beads on my brow. Dreams start to fade. My wife walks in, with my 3yr old and my 7 month old. Everyone sings little songs to daddy... thinking that daddy is getting that dream he always wanted. "Happy Happy Joy Joy" they all sing (except the 7 month old, he just grins). Daddy starts feeling a failure, unable to fix the 'puter (as my 3 yr old calls then). Well, shortly thereafter, the RAM has an audible FIZZ sound and starts a little smoking. One of the little copper colored tips is now black (3rd one from the left). HOORAAY... maybe that is all it was... bad RAM. Let's just send it back and get new stuff... then let's repeat this JOYOUS experience all over again. So I dismantle the system, and replace my old stuff in the case. I figured, let's keep that nifty GeForce running. So in it goes instead of the TNT2. Everything boots up well (slower than a snail, but faster than a brick), even recognizes the new GeForce... HOORAAY again. I get on the net right away to hit this forum for some help, then the GeForce locks up. Strange letters and funny looking characters and lines everywhere. HOORAAY !!! Maybe it was the RAM and the GeForce that made things not boot up on the new system. Please do not think that I am kidding about this experience. It is all true. My humor is the only thing that is keeping a grown man from crying in front of my wife and my two boys. Please help me with some advice, some way of making this dream come true. I'm asking for a hand, please. -Keith