Finally upgraded to Intel

mvlaplante

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Mar 20, 2010
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I've been reading Tom's Hardware for many years now and finally decided to upgrade to Intel from AMD.

Intel I5-3550P processor, MSI Z77A-G45 mobo, 8 Gig of ram, Nvidia 650TI-boost and an SSD (240meg).

SSD died during install, constant blue-screen and then complete fail.

Okay, fall back to the 1TB WDBlack hard drive. Finally got Windows 7 Home premium installed.

System won't recognize the Nvidia Card. Can't upgrade the driver even with the disc that came with the card. Ditto for online driver install.

So far, extremely sorry I ever decided to make the move to Intel. This is easily the worst experience I've ever had putting together a computer. I could understand if this was 15 years ago, but by now everything should almost be automatic.

$600 down the drain and sitting in my closet.
 
Solution
I find this surprising at I just finished building two systems on that same motherboard and it was a real pleasure to work with. One thing you can NOT do is put your old SSD or hard drive (if is has your old OS on it) in the new machine that is using a totally different chipset and expect it to work. This will always cause a problem unless you are going from one intel chipset to another or an AMD chipset to another and even then sometimes there can be issues. As far as your video card goes you might want to make sure that your BIOS is set to use your PCI-E card and not the internal intel graphics.

Last but not least, It is a misconception that anyone with money can buy parts, slap them into a case and TADA new gaming rig. Plenty of...

counterc

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Apr 23, 2007
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I find this surprising at I just finished building two systems on that same motherboard and it was a real pleasure to work with. One thing you can NOT do is put your old SSD or hard drive (if is has your old OS on it) in the new machine that is using a totally different chipset and expect it to work. This will always cause a problem unless you are going from one intel chipset to another or an AMD chipset to another and even then sometimes there can be issues. As far as your video card goes you might want to make sure that your BIOS is set to use your PCI-E card and not the internal intel graphics.

Last but not least, It is a misconception that anyone with money can buy parts, slap them into a case and TADA new gaming rig. Plenty of people try this and the end up with machines that perform poorly and never meet their expectations. Building an outstanding gaming rig takes research, knowledge and experience which is why I personally enjoy the people who frequent Toms Hardware forums. So if you want automatic then you really should stick to buying per-assembled systems or get one of the many gurus here on the Tom's Hardware forums to assist you. Best of luck with your new system.
 
Solution

mvlaplante

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Mar 20, 2010
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18,510
Guess I wasn't clear on my original post. All of my components were new. The only things I re-used were the mouse, keyboard and monitor.

I have put together at least six or seven systems over the years and have never had as many problems as this one. Still can't get the new system to recognize my video card and don't know where to start. If I had known that it would be such a mess I would have had it pre-assembled. I certainly didn't save any money by doing it this way. Don't need luck. Need some useful suggestions on how I might update the drivers.