Windows 7: Lay your knowledge on me.

Hi everyone,

As usual I'm here to pick your brains in order to further my computing knowledge. I have a few questions regarding a couple of different things and just want anybody to jump in with their thought. So here I go.

1. Can a PSU bottleneck performance or if there wasn't enough power would the system simply crash?
2. How can I test a CPU to make sure it is running at it's optimum performance?
3. What sort of temperature is considered good whilst running high performance applications like high spec games?
4. Lastly, on finishing up a build and everything is where it needs to be. When turning on the power will the normal boot screen come on (motherboard branding or whatever)? If so, is installing Windows just a matter of following the the boot from disc option?

Any answers to any of the questions would me much appreciated.

Cheers guys!

yes but it is rare.
Run PCMark, 3DMark or SiSoft and compare to these lists (also iirc SiSoft has baseline scores built in when you run tests).
good question, someone else will have to answer but I feel that it might change depending on which line of processor you have.
yes and yes

1. Yes and yes. Read about 'brown power'. Not all weak PSUs/builds are weak in the same way.

2. Are you working without mysterious delays? Are you waiting for anything?

3. A better question is at what range do temps become too high. Playing HD video is not the same as encoding HD video. Temps that are 'OK' for the latter are 'too high' for the former.

4. Pretty much. Others will elaborate. Insufficient data.

So I just did a few tests on the CPU using SiSoft. Damn, a wall of text appeard after which meant nothing to me.

Computer runs sweet for most things. I'm asking in regards to games more than anything. Things like GTA IV, Metro 2033 and Crysis. I know GTA IV is a bit of a mess and pretty much takes a super rig to run, but as with the other games, the frame rate fluctuates a lot. I want to figure out if the CPU is struggling or if the graphics card not holding up. Or possibly a bit of both. Edit: I know all those games require a good set up but Metro for example can go from 25 FPS to 90 in a second.

Cheers for the fast replies guys.

In thousands of service calls I've never yet seen a case where a computer runs slowly because it's not getting enough power... This is digital circuitry driven on crystal controlled clocks... it works or it doesnt. An inadequate power supply is going to cause hardware errors, usually occuring randomly throughout the system, a very long time before it's going to slow it down or speed it up.

Is your computer working?

A cpu is, again a digital and clock driven device... it works or it doesn't.

Overclocking might speed it up a little by changing the clock rates, but still the chip is going to simply do what it does, or not.


Now here's something we can talk about... All chips, all electronics actually, have a maximum safe temperature above which you risk converting it into s puddle of solder. Generaly the goal is to keep things as cool as possible. In my own work I generally consider 55 degrees celsius as the point where I start paying attention to heatsinks and fans... under heavy load 65 is generally a safe upper limit for most CPUs.

If you want to look up your own chip you can usually find the thermal limits on the manufacturer's website...


Generally I will get into the BIOS and check it over before proceeding to install windows (or anything else). The goal is to ensure your drives, memory and other hardware is all correctly recognized. You should also let it run on the hardware monitor making sure your temperatures and voltages are ok and stable. Also there are system wide parameters --boot order, drives, etc.-- that can be adjusted to help it start up reliably every time. DO NOT overclock until you are sure the system is stable for several days.



Then you can install windows...

Well I've checked my temperatures a few times whilst gaming, and I don't think it's ever went beyond 56 degrees Celsius. I'm planning on a new cooler because the stock AMD one is noisy as hell.

Not as simple as I had thought then. I'll have to read up a bit more on this. Cheers Tater, you've been answering a lot of my questions as of recent. Good man! Much appreciated.

I think that there is a greater danger of oveloading an individual rail of a PS, and having complications arise. For instance, some PSs have only a single 12v rail, thus all components will share it's amps, but others have multiple rails, and not all of these rails are equal. Let's say that you connect a high performance video card to a low power rail, you may experience problems, if this rail is shared with other components and the sum of their power needs exceeds the amount of power available to the rail.

Another question to add. If I'm playing a game, in this case Far Cry 2 and have all the settings maxed out. When things start to get a bit hectic in game and the frame rate drops, but my CPU is only working a 40-45% is it safe to assume that there is a GPU bottleneck, or could there be another explanation for the drop in FPS.

There are multiple explanations possible... GPU is most likely, but also hard disk, controller speeds, etc.

Part of etc. is RAM.