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 Post subject: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 5:32 pm 
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Location: Pennsylvania, USA
My system has been running so well for so long I figured it was only a matter of time before something happened.

And so it did. Last evening I was flying and an electrical storm came over. Should have shut things down but didn't. A five second power outage/surge happened, just enough to shut down the computer. Started it back up and all I got was one monitor and ugly default video resolution.

I have a surge protector, but it turned out the GeForce 570 card got fried. I actually got it up working again with a driver re-install, but this morning it was totally gone. Fortunately, I had my old card, a Geforce 460, and I got everything back up again. Looks like no other damage.

I can't quite afford the latest cards, but I found a GeForce GTX 760 with 4GB on New Egg for $300 USD so I ordered it. Should be here in a few days. The old 460 just doesn't do what I have come to like in the sim.

Word to the wise - when you see lightning, shut down your system and unplug it!



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 10:08 pm 
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Location: Brockville, ON
That's why I keep my equipment plugged into a UPS - has a little more protection than your run of the mill surge protector power bar.

Interesting the video card went and nothing else. I'm wondering if there may be an underlying problem still with the power supply. Might want to keep that in the back of your mind if you see anything funny happening over the next while...but glad to hear you are not totally down and out :)

Cheers! :mrgreen:



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 10:48 pm 
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That's interesting Darryl because I was, at first thinking maybe one of the 2 plugs into the GPU might be bad, but I didn't check them. And I just picked 2 of 4 when I put in the old 460 not paying attention to which was which.

I'll check them things when the new card comes.

Kind of excited about a new card anyway.

Yeah I had a UPS when I had my business/office. They work. The battery went dead and when I retired from all that I never got a new one.

Thanks



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:57 pm 
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CVA0190 wrote:
That's interesting Darryl because I was, at first thinking maybe one of the 2 plugs into the GPU might be bad, but I didn't check them. And I just picked 2 of 4 when I put in the old 460 not paying attention to which was which.

I'll check them things when the new card comes.

Kind of excited about a new card anyway.

Yeah I had a UPS when I had my business/office. They work. The battery went dead and when I retired from all that I never got a new one.

Thanks



You will definitely enjoy that new card...and with that we should see a whole new raft of awesome screenshot photos from you :D (Still need to figure out how you get those awesome realistic looking shots!!!)

I've seen power supplies where they are putting out the correct voltage with no load (i.e. - voltmeter test) but under load they cause problems. Replace the power supply and all is well. Hopefully you will be good to go with no further problems!



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:58 pm 
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On second thought, those new modular PSU's look pretty darned nice! Had not checked them for a while. You can get a modular 850 - 1000 W for less than $200. (New Egg) I have a huge case -36x24x12, and it's still a pain with all the un-used cables to get out of the way down around the bottom where the PSU is. With modular, you only use the cables you need



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 12:00 am 
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Yeah if this works I'll screenshot like crazy! I really need to fly CVA some more soon and use some of Gary's liveries.



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:51 pm 
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New Card up and running. That New Egg has fast delivery! Looking good so far with small aircraft. Here are some shots around San Francisco in Gary's mail plane.

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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 1:19 am 
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Queenstown, New Zealand:

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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 2:13 am 
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Very nice Barry, I lave your sim the scenery is awesome.



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 2:48 am 
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Awesome as always!!!

Barry - Can you refresh our memories of what you are running again in terms of add ons to give you that incredible scenery?

Cheers! :mrgreen:



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 4:26 pm 
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Well let me think.

Still running an I5-2500K CPU OC'd to 4.4 on an ASUS MB-no hyper-threading. Showing some age but still working well so far. CPU has a water cooler on it, although I probably don't need it. It's a hold out from when I ran an I7-920 which ran really hot OC'd. 8 GB RAM installed.

New GeForce GTX 760 with 4GB just installed. All running with a Corsair 850W PSU. Win7 64 Bit.

A Seagate Hybrid Drive has the Operating System and a 500 GB OCX SSD has FSX. Old HD's and a 1TB used for storage and backups (when I remember). Using a single 30 inch display for the airplane with 2nd monitor for weather program and ACARS. Second small computer is networked to run Plan G or Flight Sim Commander on a 3rd screen for mapping and flight plan prep.

I'm running FSX in DX10 Preview mode using the Steve Fixer program. Only tweak in FSX I can think of is highmemfix.
FSX Display settings are mostly maxed out, I cut back the autogen some for the big jets.

Pilots Global 2010 mesh installed - covers entire world.

Orbx Global Textures installed - entire world except where their regions are turned on.
All Orbx Regions are installed and most of their airports.

I don't like Orbx Vector much so far, so I've kept all Ultimate Terrain Regions installed. Recently got Orbx Open LC Europe, and disabled the UTX Europe Landclass layer only-kept the roads. Looks great to me.

Using REX4 Texture Direct for Sky Textures, Water etc. Then I use Active Sky Next for a weather generator. Still not real happy with my Inland Water-too many waves like the ocean show up, so I'm working on it. New GPU may open up new possibilities.

Also have tons of other add-on airports and scenery from Aerosoft and others.

This post is starting to give me shudders thinking about the investment I have in this stuff!

Let me know if I forgot anything.



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 2:30 pm 
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Nice shots Barry!
Where did you get that Cessna? She's a beauty.



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 7:01 pm 
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Just the Carenado 172. A bit nicer than the default but not fussy like the A2A. I use it as my default. Might add that the floatplane version (think it costs extra) is very nice also.

At Yes Bay, Alaska 78K - scenery-RTMM Misty Moorings.

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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:25 am 
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CVA0190 wrote:
At Yes Bay, Alaska 78K - scenery-RTMM Misty Moorings.


Sweet!



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 Post subject: Re: Finally had a Hardware Failure!
PostPosted: Sat Sep 20, 2014 1:17 am 
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It seems Darryl was right when he told me a month or so to watch out for my PSU and Motherboard when I reported my Graphics card failure back then. My new GEForce 760 card failed, and I immediately thought PSU problems so got another one. This time a 1300W so should not have to worry about power. But it may be too late for the card. Got my old 460 card in now and all is working good but have to do some major re-installs since I stupidly re-installed Win 7 when it was absolutely not the problem and completely UN-necessary. Now I'm paying the price for not backing up properly. I'm learning some important lessons.

Still, it has been going good, and actually a fresh Windows install is not bad because there was an awfull lot of crap programs in there that i never used and should have purged. So we are plugging on.

Probably won't be on-line or even flying for a while though. FSX is still safe on another drive, so I should be able at some point to bring that back up.



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