Dalo Harkin

Unscrew the PSU holder - is it an Antec case by chance? :)

Well it supports PCIE so its not that. Do you have onboard video on that MOBO? and if so have you disabled it in the BIOS

SO this is an IDE cable then. http://www.kids-online.net/learn/click/details/idecab.gif Look at the example above ok, the very top is the Master, then the middle is the Slave and then it attaches to the MOBO. You have to set the jumpers (the little plastic thing) to match what the cable is doing...

Nope that wont do. on the side of the PSU it states the Wattage:- http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/theoracle/files/2007/09/psu_itz_1300w_abs.jpg

If your PC will not even install with the card in then its either the wrong type of card for the MOBO or the PSU cannot supply the power needed to make it function. That spec is very low by todays standards and that card should be fine with it. Check that you have connected all the power cables etc and supplied power to the GPU properly

If you goto control panel and then admin settings, then computer management and then disk management on the left hand side. it should show there if nowhere else

Seems it started when you added the RAM did you check that the RAM is the same speed etc as the old RAM or did you switch/upgrade the RAM rather than add to it. Depending on what the RAM is, it may need to be 'setup' within the BIOS to its correct voltage and speed settings

Onloy change the startup ones for now and apply and exit or just ok it. It then brings up a box saying restart now or later. choose now and see if its any better - Google you can also untick if you want as from memory you can manually update it from Control Panel

I know I keep banging on about it, but you NEED to try the onboard video. You originally mentioned that the PC makes at lease some noise when it boots (even if thats fans) yes it could be the MOBO and it could be the PSU, the CPU, GPU, Northbridge or Southbridge that have died. just try the onboard and then i'll be happy :D and if it still doesn't work, get the parts out of it and reuse them/sell them to fund some if not all of your new build :)

Ok, As pets is an 'add on' you sometimes have to use the original games play disk, which in this case would be the Sims 2 disk :) Hope this helps

that still involves 'buying' it though

Your initial post makes no sense, you said you installed the game (for which the disk needs to be in the drive for it to install) then you say that it didnt see the disk in the drive. And I wouldnt be advising an upgrade of the firmware at this point - if you get it wrong you will need a new CD/DVD drive

That's the weirdest thing - is that what's known as a brain fart :D

Volume licences and I cant remenber the name of the other one where if you buy licences for say office 2010 and a new one is launched in say 2012 they dont have to pay again... cant remember, but they apply to corporate only

If you are using it for 'academic' purposes you should be able to get it through College/Uni for free, or you used to be able to :confused:

There isnt an issue with the download or the installation process. The Open AL error is a Creative file (sound) go to creative and get the latest driver (uninstall the old one and then install the newly downloaded one) :)

Hmm, we still havent established if there is onboard video, if there is onboard and an add in card when the CMOS battery is removed it would divert back to the onboard and then would need changing in the BIOS back to PCIE first. I dont bet on anyone installing the 'speaker' on the MOBO on home builds as I never do, and as it was built at a fair the 'builders' time I feel would not be on quality. It all depends on what Madon would rather do, we are all members helping one another so chip in whenever KenB. *UPDATE* ASRock > Products > Motherboard Series R3.0 R3.0 there are 3 revisions of this board all have onboard video - Madon - plug the monitor into the onboard

Hi and welcome, I'm 3/4 of the way into an MCSE and I work in the IT industry :)

It may sound daft, but take one of the RAM sticks out (there are 2 tabs, one at the top and one on the bottom of each stick) they are normally white and you can just lift them up/down to release them and then pull the RAM stick out. Post whats written on the label As for the CPU, that's not as easy i'm afraid, but we can do that later :) just done more research and some of them came with AMD chips too.... we will get there dont worry

You can leave it on, just dont stick your fingers in it :eek: also if it has an 8500GT and you are looking at a 9800GTX+ then I would have thought there was enough juice in the PSU to cope with the upgrade, but better to check just incase :)

Technically you can use the disk to install W7 (but you would need to source a valid licence for it to stay activated, or it would run out after 30 days)

Yes, you can just buy a replacement Motherboard, but you need to know what type of RAM you have, and what socket Pentium D it is and the Iqon PCs were discontinued in 2006 so its not easy to find info on them. Do you have the manual?

Hi and welcome, here is as good a place as any to learn - there are some people on here who know their stuff :)

Yeah the MOBO (Motherboard) is made by Asrock and you have an ASUS GPU (but you need the drivers from ATI not ASUS :D) You should have more than one DVI or VGA port (where the monitor cable plugs into the PC) on the back of the ASUS card, try the other one. (as its not uncommon for one of the ports to fail) If you have one on the actual MOBO where you can put the monitor (I dont think you will) try that too. From what you have said, is there anyone you know that could lend you a PCI-E graphics card, to rule the card out as being faulty?

open a cmd (command window) and type msconfig when it opens you want the furthest right tab called 'startup' you will probably have a lot on there that is unnecessary, using resources. As you say its not always been like this, I would say this is the cause rather than RAM