Mathew Steel

That one is far more appealing to me! Thank you :)

I've heard ASRock aren't a great brand when it comes to motherboards. Any idea? As for the processor it seems like the right choice then :)

In the few months I'm planning on upgrading the motherboard and CPU of my system. I want a new one and I'm willing to spend about ?200 on the CPU and motherboard together. I'm looking for an intel CPU, possibly i5 4th gen. However, I want the board to be an updated one (PCIE 3.0, USB 3.0 etc) it needs to be ATX and support my black and blue colour scheme. I've looked at the i5 4460 for the upgrade. Would this be a good choice?? Thank you! :) P.S. exams finish this week so I'll be far more active :P

I second this. MalwareBytes has never let me down, even the free version, however, Avast tends to work well alongside it if you're looking for two forms of protection. I'm also struggling to understand what you mean here, could you elaborate? I'm aware by memory you mean drive storage but the rest is unclear :) Is it laggy as soon as you start? Stronghold 2 has always had a problem when it comes to multiplayer of becoming laggy after a long period of time. Sometimes in singleplayer too when lots of buildings are placed. Even with high end PC's this problem can occur. Otherwise, like Chris said, if there is no lag in singleplayer, then internet connection is the problem. If you do a speedtest, how much down and up are you getting (mbps)? Anything above 2mbps is fine but for optimal performance, you'll want at least 10mbps. Also, bare in mind this isn't the speed at which all files etc will download as many other factors come into play whilst doing so, speedtest is sort of like "the-best-situation-down-and-up-speed."

I thought it was worth coming back here with an update in case anyone runs into this problem. So all along after troubleshooting lots and lots, it turns out my PSU was faulty. It was being worn down more and more through use. I tested it one last time using the testing device that came with it and the fan instantly cut out. I've sent it back for a replacement and am awaiting it soon! :)

I've lowered the overclock on the GPU at last, and now everything seems to be good! Thanks for the help Chris :)

I figured out how it works, the last issue here is that I can't save my MSI settings. I've lowered the overclock and it won't save. EDIT: Completely reinstalled drivers to see how that goes. CPU and GPU temps aren't high while idle so if it crashes I'm sure I can completely wipe out the idea of overheating.

Spoke too soon. It switched off again and the temps were normal :/

The problem is that the GPU came overclocked by EVGA. I have no idea how to revert it, does MSI Afterburner say the stock settings as in "the core speed when I first connected the GPU" or "the default core speed as supplied by NVidia?" Do you think it's GPU or CPU overheating? The CPU never overheated before. Also, I'm monitoring my CPU and GPU temps right now, neither are above 45C, hopefully it should stay on while idle, otherwise it's going to open more possible issues.

Well that didn't last much longer. I have a feeling my CPU is under too much strain as the case feels warm where the CPU is. Will lowering the overclock fix this somewhat? But that doesn't make sense since it shouldn't be hot while watching YouTube.

So these last 3 days have been a huge learning curve for me. I installed a new GPU (EVGA SuperClocked GTX 970) along with a new PSU (EVGA 650W) on Christmas evening. It all ran fine without any problems, I ran it for about an hour and a half. Then, boxing day, I began downloading Fallout 4, during the download the PC randomly turned itself off. Instantly I thought it was just a power surge, so I turned it back on, it got to the Windows loading screen and switched back off.? I pulled the PC out of it's place and opened it up. Feeling the PSU and GPU, I noticed both were pretty hot considering they weren't under a huge amount of workload. I also noticed "eco mode" on the PSU was enabled, thinking that the mode wasn't working as it should, I turned it off. I connected the PC back up and continued to download the game. It finished downloading and I started it up and played it for about 2 and a half hours, before closing it and having a break from the PC. I got back later and restarted the PC, as I was watching YouTube it randomly switched off again, it was at this time I thought the PC was still overheating. If any of you saw the photo of my setup on another post, you'll see that my PC was in a compartment in the desk, where it was sort of boxed in. Thinking the new GPU was too hot to keep in that area, I've moved the PC onto my desk. This worked fine for the rest of boxing day. Today, I started the PC and started watching YouTube again, during which, it switched off again. I was starting to think this was a power issue. I swapped plug sockets and tried again, to my surprise, it turned off again after a random amount of time. I was now thinking the new PSU was faulty. Trying a few different things and an old PSU, I noticed the problem still occurred. I was back to the idea of overheating, since when the PC turned off, it wouldn't instantly restart and I'd have to wait a few minutes before turning it back on. I downloaded a program to monitor my components temperatures, all of which were normal operating temperatures. I have ordered better and quieter fans now, since the PC is next to me and hence far more audible when using.? Although, I wasn't convinced overheating was the problem. Which left me with the GPU. Perhaps it was the overclock, maybe EVGA pushed the overclock slightly too far for my PC to handle. I downloaded MSI Afterburner with the initial plan of lowering the core speeds. Until I stopped and thought, perhaps this wasn't the issue. I ran a Heaven Benchmark and kept MSI Afterburner open, I noticed the power consumption was right at 100%. So I paused the benchmark and went back into Afterburner. I increased the power allowance to the GPU and restarted the benchmark. Now power consumption was only at 107% max, with the allowance of 110%. The PC has been fine for the last hour, so I'm hoping it will be okay the rest of the day! Hopefully I won't need to return to this post for more assistance, but hopefully this post has helped you in some way, perhaps if you run into similar issues in the future! Happy holidays, Tom :)

Indeed! I don't know what was going on with the HTML format then by the way :P?

"Steam is back up and running without any known issues," a Valve spokesperson told GameSpot. "As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved. We believe no unauthorized actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information and no additional action is required by users." This is according to Valve :)

So today Steam has been experiencing some huge problems on their end. People have been seeing wrong details on their accounts, been randomly logged into other people's accounts and so on. This is obviously a HUGE security breach. It appears to be a caching error, not a DDoS attack. Steam has not said anything on the matter yet, but it's recommended to leave your account alone, if you're logged in, either log out or do not attempt to visit the store etc. Playing Steam games however should be fine. Since a lot of us here have Steam, I felt it was important to share this with you! If you have any cards or PayPal accounts linked with your Steam, contact your bank and change your PayPal passwords!

Welcome MisterEast, glad to have you here! I personally love Stronghold 2! It'll be nice to see all your contributions to the site. Any questions feel free to ask away and I, or someone else will definitely reply! Best regards, Tom

I'm a little confused on what you're asking for here. Do you mean what stores you should check? Or what online stores you should check? Feel free to elaborate and I'll gladly help :)

The GPU is an MSI 2GB GTX 960, and the console is, well simply an Xbox One. However I'll be adding a controller, a few games and a HDMI and power cable as well. I'm okay for console pricing it's mainly the graphics card :P

Ebay is more of a last resort for me. I'm just wondering if there are any better (as in more efficient options).?

With Christmas coming up I've decided to upgrade my graphics card in my pc and sell my current one. Along with this, I've decided to sell my Xbox One as it hasn't been used in over 3 months and nor can I see it being used by myself, for a long time.? However, I'm unsure on how to go about selling these items. I'm not familiar with using Ebay or such sites, and other than selling to friends, my knowledge is very little on these sort of things. Any suggestions? Thank you! :)

Steam Offline Mode lasts for as long as you'd wish. Your brother can download the game, launch it while online, close it, go offline, then he can stay in offline mode forever if he really wanted to. It all really depends on whether he can use Steam properly (which is very likely, as it's as simple as clicking library, then play :P) I don't see any reason why you shouldn't buy a steam version :)

I'd like to apologise about my recent inactivity. I feel it's about time I explain :P School work has seem to been getting the better of me recently and it's causing a lot of stress on my behalf. Until my first set of exams are done (in January) I doubt I'll be active much on the website. I will still check in now and then but for the time being I won't be contributing greatly to many threads. Sorry if this has caused inconveniences along the lines of the role play or to any other part of the site. I hope you are all doing well :)

If you have been, or are in, a situation like myself, then you'll notice there aren't a lot of options. I refer to connecting an SATA drive to an ATA connector. A lot of PC motherboards use ATA connectors over SATA. Now there is actually an easy fix. I introduce, the SATAPOW. It's simple. It comes with a SATA 22-pin (although you can get different ones), with a power cable (10-inch or 18-inch) as well as a female ATA connector. Simply connect the SATA connector, connect the two ATA connections and connect the power cord to a SATA 2/3 slot and voila! Power! The device costs about ?5-?12 depending on how long the power cord you choose is. Although, I warn you, the 10-inch one is going to be cutting it short for a lot of PC towers. Just to be safe, and save you paying for two devices, I'd go for the 18-inch. You can buy the devices from Amazon, SCAN, or from the StarTech website (http://www.startech.com/). Regardless of what you may think, if you are using an SSD, it will not affect the speed. The device supports speeds of up to 6.0Gb/s. I have this device myself and so I can definitely tell you this is a fact! Hopefully this was quick and easy to understand, and if you weren't looking for this sort of device, hopefully it made an interesting read. I wanted to share it with you, since there aren't many devices like this, for a 3.0Gb/s or 6.0Gb/s SATA drive.

"Down! Down!" Whispered Lloyd, to the 10 men accompanying him. "You are not to arm your bow, nor aim it. Not without my word, is that understood?" The men looked at each other confused. Clearly they were not aware of the situation. After a brief moment, they nodded. Sir Lloyd spoke to himself, "Goodman. What have we gotten ourselves into now?" Letting out a quiet laugh. He and the men continued to observe the scene from the small hill. Using the trees as cover as well as to remain unseen.

Looks great! It's an awesome price too! Considering Intel processors tend to cost a lot more than that of ATI/AMD, and that the PC comes with an activated version of Windows 7, I'm surprised, but not at all disappointed. If I hadn't recently purchased my PC, then this would be a great steal ;)

[OoC] Whenever you talk of the chest thumping and bowing your head, I'm immediately reminded of the older Assassins Creed games, ahh those were the days :D Sir Lloyd, noticing Goodman in the distance called over "Goodman!" Clearly Goodman didn't hear him. He shouted louder "Goodman! How are you?"