Building a new PC - having hardware issues

[Kageru]

2) Same part of the documentation that tells me to put RAM sticks in B1 and B2 also says, "if you use a 32-bit operating system, it is recommended that you use as most 3GB of RAM".  Fast forward to me playing WoW - I play for a bout 15 mins and the system locks up.  I take 2GB out of the syste, and it plays just fine.  I'm guessing WoW is having these issues more then other games (HG:L, for instance) because WoWs textures are so much larger then other games.

This is more likely referring to the fact that the video card is going to map its internal ram into the 32 bit memory space. The operating system as well probably reserves some memory address space (Linux reserves the top Gb of memory). So the issue would be not being able to access all the 4Gb of ram you bought rather than it being an issue. That all vanishes with a 64 bit system of course.

In any case glad you eventually solved it all. I've never had that many issues with a PC build but it only takes one "mostly working" component to make things painful.

Asus documentation sucks too. And on my latest build their bios updater was broken and thus did nothing more than give me false confidence I actually had a recent bios. That caused me lots of video card lockups :/

[Lantyssa]

I only buy Corsair, personally, but I would not argue with someone buying Crucial either. I'm sure others here can think of other reputable brands.

Kingston, Corsair, Crucial, or so cheap you don't care if it fries.

[Pennilenko]

Kingston, Corsair, Crucial

I will only buy one of those three brands with Corsair being my favorite.

[Sky]

Evga once declined to honor a warranty, telling me that I hadn't registered the motherboard properly on their site. No explanations as to what was improper. Which is why I won't buy evga anymore.

Fuck evga, buy through newegg and use them for RMA. When I built my computer in 2007, I got a bum 8800gtx from evga. After a bunch of bullshit they finally sent me a refurb of a lesser 8800 model. I demanded the original card back, they refused.

Called up newegg, explained what happened and they took back the refurb card and refunded me full price for the original card and I was able to buy another one from newegg that day, which has been fine since.

Fuck evga.

Also agree with the memory branding. I prefer Crucial, even though I finally fried a stick by pushing too much voltage through it playing around. Good excuse to upgrade to 4GB now that it's stupid cheap, I paid $47 for 4GB, ffs. But other than that, crucial/micron has never let me down, been building computers since the mid-90s

[Hoax]

Corsair > all when it comes to memory.  Their PSU's have gotten high marks at sites like [h]ard but I prefer Seasonic if I can afford it.

Having a cheap PSU is probably the worst mistake you can make.  Typhoon you really should consider swapping that out asap.

[Dtrain]

I've been impressed by Patriot lately. Take care with the timings on the product - their offerings do run from 'below average' to 'great'.

[rattran]

I've been impressed by Patriot lately. Take care with the timings on the product - their offerings do run from 'below average' to 'great'.

I'm currently running 8gb of Patriot ddr2 as it was nearly free as a Fry's special. I was surprised at how fast and stable it's been. Not bad for $40 AR

And I've had mixed results with OCZ, sometimes it's great, but I've encountered several problems with different boards. Crucial/Corsair rarely disappoints, but you pay for that reliability.

[Typhon]

Corsair > all when it comes to memory. Their PSU's have gotten high marks at sites like [h]ard but I prefer Seasonic if I can afford it.

Having a cheap PSU is probably the worst mistake you can make.  Typhoon you really should consider swapping that out asap.

Ok, so it looks like the consensus is:

RAM: Corsair, Crucial, Kingston (in that order)
PSU: Seasonic

I've started watching the price on Seasonic PSUs and Corsair RAM (would be nice to run at 1333 and not hot), at the very least it would have been helpful to have a spare to swap in to rule out a particular component.

Note: EVGA is coming through with a "one time replacement", which will sit on the shelf as another replacement (I picked up a 295 GTX from BFG - I really like this card).  So it's kind of hard for me to be mad at them, especially since the GX2 buzz was that the product had issues regardless of who the retailer was

[Strazos]

Make sure you register that BFG card.

The 295 is pretty obnoxious. Have fun.

[Hawkbit]

I went Corsair RAM and PSU 620w this last goround.  No issues 18 months in. 

[Goreschach]

I've built several systems exclusively with GSkill ram, and I've never had a problem with it before. It's usually one of the best priced namebrand ram on Newegg.

[rattran]

I've built several systems exclusively with GSkill ram, and I've never had a problem with it before. It's usually one of the best priced namebrand ram on Newegg.

GSkill has been about the same as OCZ for me. Lots of odd compatibility problems where it should be fine.

[jope]

I went Corsair RAM and PSU 620w this last goround.  No issues 18 months in. 

I have the same PSU and it's totally worth the money, especially because of the 5 year warranty