MaximumPC 2008 11

Can’t Hear Jack

I finally took the plunge and

built my own rig. Everything

worked fine until I plugged

my Boston Acoustic Digital

BA735 speakers into my

EVGA 680i motherboard’s

onboard outputs: Nothing

happened. I received no

sound at all. I tried the

same speakers with a

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi

XtremeGamer card and got

the same result: zilch. Am I

missing something here?

—Rich M.

The BA735s can’t be used

as digital speakers—at least

not with your hardware.

The Sound Blaster X-Fi

XtremeGamer supports optical

out, not coaxial digital audio.

And your EVGA 680i also sup-

ports only optical SPDIF out.

The Doctor believes that the

BA735 speakers support only

coax SPDIF in for its digital

mode. You can’t run optical

digital-out to a coaxial input.

Fortunately, the speak-

ers have an analog port.

You should buy a standard

1/8-inch cable and connect

the analog-in port on your

speakers to the green audio-

out of your soundcard or

motherboard.

A Two-PSU Kind

of Day

My Tagan TG900-U96

Turbojet 900-watt PSU

recently burned out. I

returned it, but it was no lon-

ger being supported through

the third-party vendor I got

it from. The vendor sent me

an Apevia Warlock 900-watt

PSU to replace my Tagan.

I swapped it out, but now

when I turn on the computer

it won’t boot all the way. I get

power lights, and the key-

board and mouse light up, but

the monitor never kicks on,

nor do the other connected

peripherals (external Zip

drive, printer, and scanner).

What could be going

wrong with my computer? I

never had this happen with

the Tagan. Could something

have been corrupted when

the original PSU died?

—Ben Locke

First, you should have con-

tacted Tagan. The company

offers a three-year warranty

on its PSUs. There is certainly

a chance that the components

were damaged when the first

PSU blew up—especially if it

blew up due to, say, a lightning

strike. But before you go any

further with your new power

supply, go back into the case

and make sure everything is

firmly inserted—you’ll want to

make sure there are absolutely

no loose connections.

You’ll also want to make

sure nothing is shorting out

in the case. The Doctor will

assume that you are using

motherboard standoffs in

all the appropriate places—

simply screwing your mother-

board to the case itself would

be one cause of a short.

If you’ve done these

steps and you’re still hav-

ing boot problems, try using

another PSU from a friend to

see if your new power sup-

ply is at fault. The Doctor

has seen many startup issues

caused by the power-good

signal timing that some

boards require. Finally, don’t

rule out the possibility that

your new power supply is

bunk. It does happen.

Stock Cooler Safety

How far can I safely overclock

a CPU if I’m using a stock

cooler? I was building a budget

rig and when I had money left

over, I decided to upgrade from

a high-end Athlon 64 to a really

low-end 2.2GHz Phenom. I

want to up the performance,

even by a tiny bit, but I’m hesi-

tant to do it with a stock cooler.

Please help!

—Andy Shores

There’s no clear-cut way

to determine how much

performance you’ll be

able to squeeze out of your

processor. It depends on a

number of factors, including

your motherboard’s ability to

overclock, the reliability of

your power supply, and the

prowess of your cooler.

The Doctor has found that

AMD CPUs tend to be more diffi-

cult to overclock than Intel CPUs

in terms of how far you can push

the processor’s speed. That said,

you’re not going to destroy your

machine simply because you’re

using a stock cooler—not as long

as you follow a conservative

approach to your overclocking:

Start by slowly cranking down

your HyperTransport speed and

ratching up your CPU frequency.

After each modifica-

tion, you’ll want to test the

stability of your machine.

At first, just reset your com-

puter and see if it boots into

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First,

grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has

fizzled, email the doctor at [email protected] for advice on how to solve

your technological woes.

This month the Doctor tackles...

Power Supply Failures

Digital Audio

Power Supply Failures

Digital Audio

Power Supply Failures

Overclocking

The Doctor often runs Prime95 instances to test his machine during

overclocking. If his rig can run reliably during this torture test, he’s

found a stable speed.

DOCTOR^

IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE ONE STEP AT A TIME

72 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|NOV 08 |www.maximumpc.com