Ironic that the bad brand turned out to be a system OEM/motherboard manufacturer!
They are so desperate to retain their customers that they design their components to be incompatible with officially recognised standards. Half the time components don't even fit.

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FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

After looking at the websites mentioned when I contacted HP last night, I decided that the person I contacted at HP last night does not know the difference between the hardware options I could have chosen when ordering that computer from HP and the hardware upgrades I could have bought and applied later, not necessarily from HP. The boss of their customer service department was asking for feedback on how the support went, so I sent that information to him this morning. I'm hoping that this will persuade HP to offer another BIOS upgrade for that model of computer that will allow booting with a GTX 750 Ti card, but I'm not sure how much to hope for this.

I've thought of another possibility to investigate - buy a new power supply for each of my desktop computers with the wattage rating of the one currently in the other computer, install those, and at the same time, swap the graphics cards between the computers. This won't increase the total power needed to run both computers, but if the other desktop will boot with a GTX 750 Ti, may allow me to resume running GPUGRID GPU workunits on the other desktop.

Card swapping sounds like you best shot there.

---

FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

After looking at the websites mentioned when I contacted HP last night, I decided that the person I contacted at HP last night does not know the difference between the hardware options I could have chosen when ordering that computer from HP and the hardware upgrades I could have bought and applied later, not necessarily from HP. The boss of their customer service department was asking for feedback on how the support went, so I sent that information to him this morning. I'm hoping that this will persuade HP to offer another BIOS upgrade for that model of computer that will allow booting with a GTX 750 Ti card, but I'm not sure how much to hope for this.

I've thought of another possibility to investigate - buy a new power supply for each of my desktop computers with the wattage rating of the one currently in the other computer, install those, and at the same time, swap the graphics cards between the computers. This won't increase the total power needed to run both computers, but if the other desktop will boot with a GTX 750 Ti, may allow me to resume running GPUGRID GPU workunits on the other desktop.

That brings up an interesting possibility for you...instead of doing ALL that buying and swapping how about taking the troublesome Asus card and swap it into the pc with the biggest power supply right now? If it works you have found that the 300 watt psu you are using is not big enough and you have a solution. BUT if it doesn't work then you are faced with the very real possibility that the card is just faulty.

After looking at the websites mentioned when I contacted HP last night, I decided that the person I contacted at HP last night does not know the difference between the hardware options I could have chosen when ordering that computer from HP and the hardware upgrades I could have bought and applied later, not necessarily from HP. The boss of their customer service department was asking for feedback on how the support went, so I sent that information to him this morning. I'm hoping that this will persuade HP to offer another BIOS upgrade for that model of computer that will allow booting with a GTX 750 Ti card, but I'm not sure how much to hope for this.

I've thought of another possibility to investigate - buy a new power supply for each of my desktop computers with the wattage rating of the one currently in the other computer, install those, and at the same time, swap the graphics cards between the computers. This won't increase the total power needed to run both computers, but if the other desktop will boot with a GTX 750 Ti, may allow me to resume running GPUGRID GPU workunits on the other desktop.

That brings up an interesting possibility for you...instead of doing ALL that buying and swapping how about taking the troublesome Asus card and swap it into the pc with the biggest power supply right now? If it works you have found that the 300 watt psu you are using is not big enough and you have a solution. BUT if it doesn't work then you are faced with the very real possibility that the card is just faulty.

That means that I have to stop running BOINC, or anything else, on the computer showing the problem. I've done it long enough to show that the ASUS card works in the other computer, but do not plan to make it permanent.

The graphics card in the computer with the biggest power supply needs too much power to run on the other computer, and the computer room does not supply enough power to just put a bigger power supply in the computer with the problem and still run both computers at the same time.

After looking at the websites mentioned when I contacted HP last night, I decided that the person I contacted at HP last night does not know the difference between the hardware options I could have chosen when ordering that computer from HP and the hardware upgrades I could have bought and applied later, not necessarily from HP. The boss of their customer service department was asking for feedback on how the support went, so I sent that information to him this morning. I'm hoping that this will persuade HP to offer another BIOS upgrade for that model of computer that will allow booting with a GTX 750 Ti card, but I'm not sure how much to hope for this.

I've thought of another possibility to investigate - buy a new power supply for each of my desktop computers with the wattage rating of the one currently in the other computer, install those, and at the same time, swap the graphics cards between the computers. This won't increase the total power needed to run both computers, but if the other desktop will boot with a GTX 750 Ti, may allow me to resume running GPUGRID GPU workunits on the other desktop.

That brings up an interesting possibility for you...instead of doing ALL that buying and swapping how about taking the troublesome Asus card and swap it into the pc with the biggest power supply right now? If it works you have found that the 300 watt psu you are using is not big enough and you have a solution. BUT if it doesn't work then you are faced with the very real possibility that the card is just faulty.

That means that I have to stop running BOINC, or anything else, on the computer showing the problem. I've done it long enough to show that the ASUS card works in the other computer, but do not plan to make it permanent.

The graphics card in the computer with the biggest power supply needs too much power to run on the other computer, and the computer room does not supply enough power to just put a bigger power supply in the computer with the problem and still run both computers at the same time.

So the card DOES work, when you put it in the other machine with the bigger power supply, but it won't work in the machine with the smaller power supply, did I get that right so far? AND you can't put a bigger power supply in the 2nd machine because the circuits won't handle it, again right? Sounds you may be in a pickle then until you either run a new circuit for the pc that needs the bigger power supply, or put that pc somewhere else.

After looking at the websites mentioned when I contacted HP last night, I decided that the person I contacted at HP last night does not know the difference between the hardware options I could have chosen when ordering that computer from HP and the hardware upgrades I could have bought and applied later, not necessarily from HP. The boss of their customer service department was asking for feedback on how the support went, so I sent that information to him this morning. I'm hoping that this will persuade HP to offer another BIOS upgrade for that model of computer that will allow booting with a GTX 750 Ti card, but I'm not sure how much to hope for this.

I've thought of another possibility to investigate - buy a new power supply for each of my desktop computers with the wattage rating of the one currently in the other computer, install those, and at the same time, swap the graphics cards between the computers. This won't increase the total power needed to run both computers, but if the other desktop will boot with a GTX 750 Ti, may allow me to resume running GPUGRID GPU workunits on the other desktop.

That brings up an interesting possibility for you...instead of doing ALL that buying and swapping how about taking the troublesome Asus card and swap it into the pc with the biggest power supply right now? If it works you have found that the 300 watt psu you are using is not big enough and you have a solution. BUT if it doesn't work then you are faced with the very real possibility that the card is just faulty.

That means that I have to stop running BOINC, or anything else, on the computer showing the problem. I've done it long enough to show that the ASUS card works in the other computer, but do not plan to make it permanent.

The graphics card in the computer with the biggest power supply needs too much power to run on the other computer, and the computer room does not supply enough power to just put a bigger power supply in the computer with the problem and still run both computers at the same time.

So the card DOES work, when you put it in the other machine with the bigger power supply, but it won't work in the machine with the smaller power supply, did I get that right so far? AND you can't put a bigger power supply in the 2nd machine because the circuits won't handle it, again right? Sounds you may be in a pickle then until you either run a new circuit for the pc that needs the bigger power supply, or put that pc somewhere else.

I've looked into adding another circuit. The circuit breaker box does not have room for another circuit breaker, so that would be difficult and expensive. Moving to a different building that already has another circuit might be a possibility.

I do not have a suitable place to move one of the computers to.

It currently looks like a BIOS update, rather than a bigger power supply, is what is actually needed. I'm looking into getting HP to produce one; the one already available does not help.

If that fails, the cheapest alternative appears to be getting each computer a new power supply with the rating of the one currently in the other computer, and when they are installed, moving the video card of the other computer to this computer and installing one of the GTX 750 Tis in the other computer.

I've looked into adding another circuit. The circuit breaker box does not have room for another circuit breaker, so that would be difficult and expensive. Moving to a different building that already has another circuit might be a possibility.

Talk to an electrician, they make double breakers that will fit where a single breaker does now, they take up the same space as one but are actually 2 separate circuits. My own electrician was able to do that for me and I now have 3 20amp circuits just for my pc's.

There is such a thing as drawing too much thru the whole circuit breaker box, but again your electrician can help you decide what is or is not possible.

Mine even added a 'whole house surge suppressor' so no more outlet strips with them built into it. It also means my every outlet in my house is on the surge suppressor! It was about $150 US dollars installed for me because he was in there anyway.

I've looked into adding another circuit. The circuit breaker box does not have room for another circuit breaker, so that would be difficult and expensive. Moving to a different building that already has another circuit might be a possibility.

Talk to an electrician, they make double breakers that will fit where a single breaker does now, they take up the same space as one but are actually 2 separate circuits. My own electrician was able to do that for me and I now have 3 20amp circuits just for my pc's.

There is such a thing as drawing too much thru the whole circuit breaker box, but again your electrician can help you decide what is or is not possible.

Mine even added a 'whole house surge suppressor' so no more outlet strips with them built into it. It also means my every outlet in my house is on the surge suppressor! It was about $150 US dollars installed for me because he was in there anyway.

I already talked to an electrician. Apparently. there are no double circuit breakers available that will fit into that type of circuit breaker box.

I talked to HP today, second level technical support. He said that the motherboard used in that computer is incompatible with the GTX 750 Tis I was trying to install, and probably with all the other graphics cards that GPUGRID workunits are still able to use.

I tried a Google search for that motherboard (a Pegatron IPISB-CH2) and found many other people complaining about problems using that motherboard with GTX 700 series graphics cards, and no one reporting success doing it.

I've thought of replacing the motherboard with a newer one more likely to work with newer graphics cards, and decided that I just don't have enough information on how to match motherboards to the rest of computers to be likely to choose a suitable motherboard without buying an entire computer with the parts already matched.

Brands i kinda trust.
Asus
EVGA
MSI
Zotac (not really sure about this one)

Brands that are on the warning list for me.
Powercolor
Gigabytes (sometimes there make shit stuff.)
XFX
PNY

I thought about replacing the power supply in each computer with one of the rating of the one in the other computer, so I could make more changes without increasing the total power used.

HP offers only one wattage rating for the one currently with no problems, and I don't have sufficient information to choose one that HP does not list.

I've asked if a nearby apartment building has two circuit breakers, rather than just one, per apartment. The owner isn't sure, but plans to ask someone else.

In the UK most small houses and apartments have about 7 circuit breakers.
Separate loops for high Wattage electric stoves and showers (usually 7.5mm cable).
In a house, upstairs and downstairs lighting and sockets are usually separate.
10A, 16A, 20 and 40Amp fuses are common for our 240V loops/rings. Even a 10A ring has the potential to deliver up to 2.4KW.
40A tends only to be used for ovens and showers which are typically 6 to 8.5KW.

---

FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

I'm in a rather small apartment, not a house, and with no upstairs.

The circuit breaker panel for the whole building has about 3 dozen circuit breakers, with no room to add more. Each of the 16 apartments has one 15 amp breaker, 120 volts, for both its lights and its outlets.

Pairs of apartments share one of the 8 electric water heaters. Probably a breaker for each water heater.

All 16 apartments share one kitchen and one dining room, which use breakers not shared with the apartments.

I've seen 20 amp, 30 amp and 60 amp breakers used in other buildings; not enough access to the circuit breaker panel to check if this building does also. 240 volt circuits, using double breakers that fill the space that would otherwise be used for two single breakers, are available for high wattage appliances.

Older buildings, but seldom the newer ones, use fuses instead of circuit breakers.

Electricity for showers? We must use a different word for what you mean - our showers use only hot and cold water.

Electricity for showers? We must use a different word for what you mean - our showers use only hot and cold water.

In the UK we have electric showers that are only connected to the cold water supp;ly. The water is heated within the shower unit on demand.

Of course we also have the same type as yourself which is connected to the hot water supply.

Electricity for showers? We must use a different word for what you mean - our showers use only hot and cold water.

In the UK we have electric showers that are only connected to the cold water supp;ly. The water is heated within the shower unit on demand.

Of course we also have the same type as yourself which is connected to the hot water supply.

We have those too but call them 'point of use electric water heaters'. They are becoming the new thing as keeping hot water hot in a tank can be a waste of money. I put an electric timer on my water heater so it only heats up, and stays hot, during the hours I am most likely to be using it, morning and evening. The water stays plenty hot enough for a couple of showers in between cycles. My dishwasher, and most modern ones, comes with it own built in heater so it will pause the cycle if the water isn't hot enough, and then heat it up and continue all on its own. That let me lower the temp in the hot water heater too, saving me a bit more energy.

Finally, an answer from the owner. All three of the buildings have only one circuit breaker for each apartment, and all three have no more room in the circuit breaker panels to add another circuit breaker.

Months ago, GPUGRID had a link to some company that offers computers with three GPU board slots. I've lost that link since. Their computers were offered mainly for gaming. Do any of you know which company that was?

I'm also looking at some HP computers that will have more CPU cores, each hyperthreadable. Hard to find information on how much power they would use, though.

I found the information on how to find power supply ratings for HP computers where this isn't something you can choose when configuring the computer.

On the store.hp.com web page where you have selected which model of computer and would normally click Customize & buy, click Specs instead to find more ratings. Scroll down to Power Supply.

I've found an HP model with a power supply only a little above the maximum rating I was planning; I'm looking into whether changing the CFL light bulbs in my apartment to LED bulbs will free enough power to make that model acceptable.

On another subject, do you know of any computer brands other than HP that will stand the 24/7 heavy use needed to run both GPUGRID and some CPU BOINC projects?

On another subject, do you know of any computer brands other than HP that will stand the 24/7 heavy use needed to run both GPUGRID and some CPU BOINC projects?

I build my own PC's and they all run 24/7 on various BOINC projects with no problems. I use standard motherboard brands: Asus/ASRock, Gigabyte or Biostar, whatever has the features I need for that particular machine. For reliability, the most important factors are the quality of the power supply and the ventilation, both of the case and the CPU and GPU.

For power supplies, I use Seasonic or more recently the Rosewill Gold models; you want a high-efficiency (90%+) one to minimize heat in the case and power supply. Also, get a good CPU heatsink/fan; I usually use the 120mm ones, but a good 92mm fan will work also. And the GPU should not only have a good heatsink and fan, but not be overclocked very much (they almost always factory overclock to some extent).

Finally, be sure to get a case with good ventilation, with room for a 120 mm exhaust fan at the rear and a 120 mm side fan blowing into the GPU.

But if you have real power problems, a good uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is also required; some projects do not tolerate crashes due to power loss very well. I now use the Cyber Power "pure sine wave" ones, since the provide a sine-wave output that works better with high-efficiency power supplies that use PFC (power factor correction) circuitry.

There is nothing wrong with HP; I have used them myself, but you can do better by picking your own parts.

On another subject, do you know of any computer brands other than HP that will stand the 24/7 heavy use needed to run both GPUGRID and some CPU BOINC projects?

I build my own PC's and they all run 24/7 on various BOINC projects with no problems. I use standard motherboard brands: Asus/ASRock, Gigabyte or Biostar, whatever has the features I need for that particular machine. For reliability, the most important factors are the quality of the power supply and the ventilation, both of the case and the CPU and GPU.

For power supplies, I use Seasonic or more recently the Rosewill Gold models; you want a high-efficiency (90%+) one to minimize heat in the case and power supply. Also, get a good CPU heatsink/fan; I usually use the 120mm ones, but a good 92mm fan will work also. And the GPU should not only have a good heatsink and fan, but not be overclocked very much (they almost always factory overclock to some extent).

Finally, be sure to get a case with good ventilation, with room for a 120 mm exhaust fan at the rear and a 120 mm side fan blowing into the GPU.

But if you have real power problems, a good uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is also required; some projects do not tolerate crashes due to power loss very well. I now use the Cyber Power "pure sine wave" ones, since the provide a sine-wave output that works better with high-efficiency power supplies that use PFC (power factor correction) circuitry.

There is nothing wrong with HP; I have used them myself, but you can do better by picking your own parts.

How can I pick parts so that the motherboard, the graphics board, the power supply, and the case will be known in advance to work together, with NO metal cutting? That question is the main reason I don't choose the parts myself yet.

My power problems are mostly strong limits on how much total power my computers can use; I already use a UPS for each of them, since one of the BOINC projects they participate in has been know to have workunits run for 6 months with NO checkpoints.

How can I pick parts so that the motherboard, the graphics board, the power supply, and the case will be known in advance to work together, with NO metal cutting? That question is the main reason I don't choose the parts myself yet.

My power problems are mostly strong limits on how much total power my computers can use; I already use a UPS for each of them, since one of the BOINC projects they participate in has been know to have workunits run for 6 months with NO checkpoints.

https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

This site will tell you what is compatible and what is not... as well as parts that have not been tested for compatibility.