OT need some help upgrading my computer

[SNAKE1937]

My rig was built buy Monarch( a long and hatefull process ) in April of 2006.

The basics are :
Athlon 64 FX60, 4 gigs of Ram,550w power, 10,000rpm Raptor(74GB) SATA with 250GB backup,two 7900GTX Nvidia in SLI, all sceen on a 24" DELL wide screen set at 1900X1200, and using Wxp Pro. The whole thing is AIR FAN cooled.

The 7900's have been replaced TWICE, once in Aug. of 2006 and once in Mar. of 2007.

The Raptor 10.000rpm was replaced last July(2007)

Questions that need to be addressed are:

The Raptor and 7900's prone to failure( or just my bad luck)

With all that is in this rig what could be updated?
Better video cards? A better CPU.

What is your advise.

THANKS SNAKE1937

[TarJak]

There may be a reason that you are seeing failures on your HDD and Grfx card. If I were you I'd up the size of the PSU. 550w is probably at the low end for the rig you are running and I'd look at going for something along the lines of at least 600w if it were mine. When I first tried upgrading my old rig I found that the PSU was causing what looked like faults with the HDD and Grfx card and as soon as I upped the PSU I got flwaless performance from all the kit. I went for an 700w unit for future upgrades and to allow for the USB peripheral load, Joystick, Wheel, Printer, scanner, wireless mouse and keyboard, microphone, webcam etc...

I'd go Seagate or Western Digital for the HDD everytime. I've used both of these extensivley and can say I've never had one fail on me. (touches nearest wooden object i.e; my head).

I've got a 7900GS and also haven't had a problem with that either. If I was in the market now I'd got for an 8800GTS.

One other thing I've found invaluable is a pair of 500GB external USB 2.0 HDD drives which are slower to access but great for being able to back up images of the system and data drives on the PC. The cost of these has gone through the floor recently and to be able to pick up an extra 1TB of storage for less than AU$400 is a huge boon for data hoarders like me.

[SNAKE1937]

I had never heard that( about the power supply that is) but will look into it ASAP.
Question--- at what point will the heat build up be come a problem with the rig if I
increase the power supply?


I looked into upgrading to the better VGA cards but will hold off until I build a new rig in a year or so.

I am not handy at building a computer( a house with a barn no problem) so If you or anyone else has a prefered gaming computer builder PLEASE let me know.

SNAKE1937

[Flappy]

Hey Tar,
Just curious why the GTS's? I ask bacause I just bought a pair of evga G80 models w/ 640Mb of RAM a piece and since they have the 112 shaders I see darn near double the frames in most apps over my old x1900xtx. You are the ONLY person I've seen recommend 'em as everyone says to go with the newer GTs w/ 512 of RAM.

Snake: I saw on here somewhere someone posted a pic. of blown capacitors on the 7XXX series of cards,apparently a bad batch was sent out and a LOT of cards were affected.

[Flappy]

Snake:
Doing a bit of upgrading to a PC is not hard at all, and the cost savings are considerable. I would seriously check out anandtech or Tom's Hardware for guides on how to proceed and go for it. I haven't bought a pre-built Computer in almost 10 years and my success to failure ratio is VERY good. Just make sure you buy good quality parts from a reputable dealer that has a good return policy and you should be set. And as far as Power supplies go if you go with a good brand of PS it will actually help to reduce thermal problems due to the increased efficiency and better cooling.