Both components vary highly depending on the needs of the user building the PC. A gamer naturally wants a fast video card to play games, someone who collects photos or videos needs lots of storage and Office worker a quiet video card.

Build your own PC: Storage

Storage devices are hard drives and optical drives. Hard drives can be divided into the two categories Solid State Drives (SSD) and conventional hard drives.

There are basically two options for selecting hard drives:

• Pick only conventional hard drives
• Combine conventional and solid state drives

Conventional hard drives have the advantage that they provide more storage for a cheaper price than Solid State Drives. Solid State Drives on the other hand are more expensive, offer way less storage but are way faster than convention drives. This is beneficial during system boot, playing games or loading applications.

The PC budget plays a big role in deciding the storage components. A good reliable Solid State Drive sells for about $250 for 64 Gigabytes of storage. Good conventional hard drives provide more than ten times the storage for that price.

PC users with a budget of about $400 for hard drives can consider combining Solid State Drives and conventional hard drives. The SSD would be used for the operating system and important applications (or games) whereas the standard hard drive would be used for storage.

Users with a lower budget should concentrate on buying a good fast hard drive instead that will be used for all files and the operating system.

When buying a Solid State Drive buyers need to make sure that it supports TRIM and garbage collection either out of the box or with a firmware update. TRIM and garbage collection ensure that the performance of the drive does not drop over time. This was a huge problem with first generation SSDs.

Hard drives come with speeds of 5400 and 7200. The former are more quiet while the latter are faster. A user who only works with light applications could consider buying a 5400 rpm drive whereas gamers or users with high end applications should buy a 7200 rpm drive.

The best combination at this point in time is to use a SSD as the boot drive and a 5400 rpm hard drive for storage.

Our Picks

• SSD: Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2R5 80 GB ($300)
• Hard Drive: Samsung EcoGreen F3 2000GB SATA II 32MB ($200)

The Intel X25-M is one of the fastest SSD when it comes to read speeds. The write speeds are usually lower in benchmarks but better in real life situations. It also offers 80 Gigabytes instead of 64 Gigabytes that most SSDs offer in that price range. It supports both TRIM and garbage collection.

The Samsung EcoGreen F3 is a drive with a speed of 5400. It has slower access and read speeds but offers 2 Terabytes of storage space. It is used to store everything but the most important applications, games and the operating system.

Build your own PC: Video Card

Selecting the right video cards usually depend on the level of gaming activity on the PC. We currently would suggest to buy an Ati Radeon 5000er video card as it is the only video card series currently supporting DirectX 11.

Gamers need to look at the Radeon 5850 or 5870 video cards for optimal performance. The selection here again depends on the budget. The Radeon 5870 retails for about $400, the 5850 for about $300. The 5870 is the faster card of the two and manages to beat the 5750 by 10fps+ in all benchmarks. Both cards can be used to play all modern games just fine.

Casual gamers might want to take a look at the ATI Radeon 5770 video card instead which retails for about $180.

Our Picks:

• High End Gaming: Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X ($440)
• Mid Level Gaming: ASUS EAH5850/2DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 5850 ($300)
• Casual / No Gaming: POWERCOLOR PCS+ AX5770 ($170)

Our PC System:

Case: Lian Li PC-8NB ($100)
PSU: Enermax Modu 87+ 700W ($200)
CPU: Intel Core i7-860 ($300)
CPU Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B CPU Cooler ($60), 120mm fan, for example be quiet Silent Wings USC (BL013) ($20)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3 ($120)
RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 ($270)
Hard Drive 1: SSD: Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M080G2R5 80 GB ($300)
Hard Drive 2: Samsung EcoGreen F3 2000GB SATA II 32MB ($200)
Video Card: High End Gaming: Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X ($440)

Some components have not been discussed yet. This includes optical drives, keyboard, computer mouse, monitor, printer, sound adapter, network cards and other peripherals.

Put in the CD that was supplied by Sapphire and started the installation only to be greeted with a “Zero Display Service Error” during video driver installation. All additional tools and programs installed fine though. Back to the low resolution desktop I began a search on the Internet for a solution. I tried firing up a web browser but discovered that my Internet connection was not working. Rebooted the computer once, checked the System Control Panel to find an yellow exclamation mark next to the video card entry.

The properties of the video card were displaying another error message: “Code 12: This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use”. I experienced those situations a lot back in the days of Windows 95 when two hardware devices were sharing the same resources.

I combined that the possibility was high that my network card and video card were sharing the same resources. Radical solution was to remove the network card from the system to see if that was the cause. What can I say, Windows XP booted fine and offered me the usual choice of resolutions. Last step was to put the network card into a different PCI slot.

I read about two dozen forum threats and posts about both error messages and none posted this solution. Hope this helps a few users who are experiencing the same problems (I know many are from the Google searches that I conducted).

The guide will walk you through creating a 2D and 3D video card profile that will automatically switch the fan speed and the clock speeds of the video card depending on the application that is running on the computer. This generally means low clock and fan speeds in 2D mode and normal (or even faster) clock and fan speeds in 3D mode.

The program that can do all of that is called Rivatuner. It is compatible with both ATI and NVIDIA video cards. The advantage of using Rivatuner is that the software can do everything that we need and works both in 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Please note that the clock and fan speeds are valid for the Geforce 8800 GTS video card that was used in the test and that the values for other video cards might differ. There is however a general pattern to it which will be explained.

1. We are going to create the following two profiles:

2D Mode: Low Fan Speed, Low Core Clock, Low Memory Clock
3D Mode: Fan Speed that cools the video card sufficiently, Default Core Clock and Memory Clock speeds. Advanced users could overclock if they like.

2. Configuring Settings:

Before we can start to apply the profiles we need to make sure that we can set the clock speeds and fan speeds to lower values in 2D modes. This is done by clicking on the Power User tab and locating the following entries:

RivaTuner \Overclocking \Global

• MaxClockLimit: 200
• MinClockLimit: 15

RivaTuner \Fan

• MinFanSpeedlimit: 10

The first two values in Overclocking \Global enable a wider range of clock speeds that can be configured in Rivatuner while the second sets the minimum fan speed of the video card fan to 10%. The default without that setting would be 25%. Restart Rivatuner afterwards so that the changes can take effect.

3. Configuring core and memory clock profiles for 2D and 3D modes

Open the System Settings menu of Rivatuner by clicking on the icon next to customize next to Driver Settings in the lower half of the main window and selecting the leftmost icon in the appearing icon pane.

The System Tweaks window will show up displaying Core, Shader and Memory clock speeds. The first profile will be the 2D mode. Remember that we need low settings for core and memory clock in that mode which will save power, reduce video card temperature and allows to reduce the fan speed because of this. The effect is a power saving, low temperature and low noise profile.

The value depends on a few factors and it is probably a good idea to start with relatively high clock speeds and reduce them further if no problems are experienced. A minimum core and memory clock of between 200 to 250 should be the goal for the 2D profile.

After setting the clock speeds check the Apply Overclocking At Windows Startup box. Hit Apply at the bottom and save the profile under Overclocking Profile Settings. (2D Profile)

Now do the same for the 3D clock speeds. A click on Defaults will load the default speeds for the video card. Make sure the Startup Settings box is unchecked. Click Apply again and save the profile. (3D Profile)

4. Configuring the fan speeds for the two profiles

After creating the two clock speed profiles for 2D and 3D mode we have to create a fan profile for each mode. The fan setting can be loaded by clicking on the icon next to Customize under the Target Adapter area of the main interface and selecting the first icon of the icon row called Low-Level System Settings.

We start by defining the fan speed for the 2D profile. A click on Enable low-level fan control will provide access to the fan speed settings. Select Fixed from the check boxes and move the slider to the left. Clicking Apply will change the fan speed to the selected value. It’s a matter of listening to the fan and selecting a fan speed level that is barely, if at all, audible. A value between 10-20% should be perfect for most video cards and ears. You should not set it to low unless you keep an eye on the temperature levels of the video card.

Check the Apply Fan Settings At Windows Startup box, hit apply and save the profile. (2D Fan).

Now do the same for the 3D profile. A click on Defaults will load the fan speed defaults again. Select a Fixed fan speed value that you are comfortable with, apply the changes and save the profile. (3D Fan)

5. Monitoring System Settings That Reveal 2D or 3D mode

We have created two clock speed and fan speed profiles and set the low clock and low fan speed profiles to load at Windows startup. If you keep the settings this way the 2D settings will be loaded in 3D mode because Rivatuner does not know when to change the profiles. You would have to change them manually whenever switching from 2D to 3D or vice verse.

What we do know is to configure hardware monitoring which will give the profile launcher the information needed to change profiles automatically.

Hardware monitoring is another icon in the Target Adapter icon row that appears when clicking on the icon next to Customize. The Hardware Monitoring display will open. A click on Setup in the lower right corner opens the settings which allow us to define additional values that should be monitored.

There are a few options to distinguish between 2D and 3D mode. One is to monitor Hardware Acceleration which is unfortunately also triggered in some 2D applications. A hardware acceleration of 0 means that it is off and would trigger 2D mode while a hardware acceleration of 1 would mean it is turned on and would trigger 3D mode. Another option is to monitor the Framerate instead which is always 0 in 2D mode.

You can enable one or both settings in the Data Sources menu in the lower half of the menu. A click on the checkmark in front of the name of the source will activate the monitoring of the source. A click on OK will close the setup window. Now find the Hardware Acceleration graph in the Hardware Monitoring window.

An icon is displayed next to the Hardware Acceleration name. A click on it will check the hardware acceleration continuously. A new icon will appear in the system tray. Right-click that icon, select Setup and check the Run At Windows Startup entry. Now that we have done that it is time to configure the profile switcher.

6. Configuring the Profile Switcher

Before we can schedule the profile changes we have to create two launcher items. Selecting Laucher from the main tab and clicking on the green + icon will initiate that. Select Regular item from the next menu.

Enter a name (2D / 3D) and check the Associated overlocking profile and Associated fan profile boxes. Select the corresponding profiles created earlier. You should have a 2D and a 3D launcher item afterwards in the main Launcher window.

Now it is finally time to configure the Scheduler. A click on the Scheduler will load a window that resembles the Launcher tab. A click on the green + will open the menu were we can configure when to change from the 2D profile to the 3D profile.

Give the task a name, select the 3D profile from the list of profiles under Name and select Run Task on hardware monitoring range event under Schedule. Pick Hardware Acceleration as the Data Source and select a range from 1 to 1. A click on OK will save the new scheduled event.

Now create another scheduled event for automatically switching from the 3D profile to the 2D profile. All settings remain the same except for the profile which obviously has to be the 2D profile and the range for the hardware acceleration setting which has to be 0 in both cases.

Conclusion:

We have created two profiles which switch automatically from 2D to 3D and 3D to 2D profiles. The 2D profile will make use of a low noise fan, low power consumption and lower temperatures while the 3D mode will use the default video card settings to ensure that all 3D applications function properly with decent framerates.

If you have any questions about the procedure feel free to ask. Please note that Rivatuner will automatically start with Windows when setting this up this way.

The interesting question for NVIDIA video card owners is obviously about the new features that those system tools offer after installation. It does add two new entries to the NVIDIA Control Panel that can be used to tweak various graphic card settings. The NVIDIA System Tools add a Performance and Update entry to the Control Panel.

The Updates entry can be used to check for video card driver updates and schedule these checks to be performed regularly. The Performance tab adds an option to create usage profiles that use specific clock and fan speeds and voltages. Those profiles can then be loaded automatically by defining rules in the Profile Policies menu.

A user could for instance create the rule to load the profile high-speed which is using an overclocked video card and full fan speeds whenever the game Crysis is loaded on the system.

Besides switching profiles three other actions can be specified when certain conditions are reached: Signal a warning tone, pop-up a warning message and to launch an application. Conditions include temperature reaching certain levels, loading of applications or when a certain time is reached.

The NVIDIA System Monitor is the last tool of the NVIDIA System Tools suite. It brings up a few widgets on the screen that display cpu and memory usage of the system by default but can also include information about the video card and bios.

The downside of the NVIDIA System Tools suite is that it uses lots of computer memory and is therefor only advisable to be used on systems with enough computer memory.

More interesting is the Open GL Caps tab which provides extensive information about Open GL capabilities of the video card among them the OpenGL version, texture size and number of texture units. The same tab lists the Open GL Extensions that are supported by the video card.

The core temperature of the video card is always displayed in the title bar of the software and several stress test demos and one named Open GL Burner are provided to stress test the video card.

It’s possible to start multiple demos at once to put lots of strain on the video card to see how it handles the load. The data can be exported in XML format. Another nice feature of GPU Caps Viewer is a links section that provides links to the latest drivers and information about the video card.

The guys from Laptop Video 2 Go have come up with a solution to this problem. They provide an inf generator and driver downloads so that most notebook users can updated their notebook’s graphic card by downloading those files from the website. The modded inf files not only work with most notebook graphic cards but do provide access to several hidden features as well that fix issues and add tweaks to the drivers.

Basically the user selects a driver that he wants to install, downloads the modded inf file from the website, replaces the inf from the driver package with the modded one and starts the installation of the driver.

I suggest you read the FAQ on the site which explains the process in detail and provides links to the pages that are needed to download the files.

This file can cause a high load on Windows systems because it seems to require a Registry key and if it cannot find that key it will constantly bombard the Registry with lookups, a thousand for instance of spawning a new window. Sounds crazy right ? Now the easiest way to check this out would be to install an application like Process Monitor and check if a lot of Registry calls are made that point to NVTweak \ DisableWindowCaching.

If that is the case you can either create a new DWORD DisableWindowCaching and set it to 0 or disable nwiz.exe from starting with Windows which is probably the best option if your system does not make use of multiple monitors.

To fix missing display properties tabs you need to use the following two commands in the Windows command line. To open the command line press Windows R and enter cmd in the run box. The first command that should be issued is “regsrv32 themeui” and the second “regsrv32 /i shell32″ without the “” of course. You need to restart the computer after those two commands so that the changes take effect.

Those two commands register and install the two dll libraries again which are, among other things, responsible for the display properties dialog.