It broke coz I fcked up my bios settings trying to do a hackintosh. And now it's just stuck in this on off loop which is freakin me out. I got some of my games including sims there. It might be the power supply because I have to restart my pic several times to get to the desktop.

And also again, the pic above (first post) is actually a set so the dudes at my local computer shop will assemble it for me. They probs know this works coz it's a set. Although I might be willing to switch the hard drive for a 128gb ssd. (I'll use the old one in my old pic) and yes, my i5 is a ivybridge.

I can absolutely recommend using an SSD. Ever since I put my TS3 on an SSD, it's just gotten so much quicker.

Do you mean, you flashed your mobo with incompatible BIOS file? If that's the case then nothing harms to your RAM or i5 ivybridge processor, and you can try googling or search it on youtube how to fix your motherboard BIOS, if it can't be fix then you'll only need an ivybridge motherboard replacement to bring it to live again, like the Asus Maximus V maybe? Ivybridge vs haswell are not too different apart, you won't feel or see any big different between the 3rd vs the 4th gen of Core i3/5/7 series, in fact you're downgrading from an i5 to i3 even the i3 is newer, the turbo boost from your i5 will boost your gaming experience instead of an i3, i3 doesn't have turbo boost.

But if flashing your mobo with the wrong BIOS file wasn't the case for your system to stop working, maybe you can try these following steps to check if your motherboard still can be fixed, try to unplug everything that connected to the power line, and then do a manual CMOS reset, if you still have your motherboard manual book, (follow its instruction to reset your CMOS), remove your CMOS battery for temporarily (or you can replace it with a new one as well while it's being removed), and then removed the CMOS jumper to the position to reset for about 10 seconds and place it back to the previous position, and then just put your CMOS battery back in.

And then when you're ready to power up your motherboard, to check if everything is normal, before you plug back in all the power cords, remove your RAM module from your mobo, make sure you have the small/internal speaker installed to your mobo front panel connectors (so you'll hear beeps signals when turns on), and then power up your system without the RAM module installed, if you hear the 4 beeps sounds/signals, 1 long beep followed with 3 short beeps, then your motherboard is normal in working order, just place your RAM module back in and try to start it up as normal.

as an 11 year old, i'm a bit tech-savvy but not as techy as THAT. seriosuly my pc is 3 years old. i lost the manual a long time ago. and how did i fck it up? well, i set the proper bios settings for hackintosh, but then it accidentally booted to windows, then it just crashed. maybe i could bring it to the repair shop, but THEN the price there when i made them reset my bios settings was $15. kind of expensive if you ask me. maybe i should just buy a mac mini? i like mac. or i could upgrade my pc? GOD DECIDING IS SOOOO HARD. that's why i asked you pros.

Alright then, can you tell me, are you able to access your BIOS menu or not? If you able to access your BIOS menu, that means you don't need to do anything to your motherboard, your motherboard is fine, all you have to do is.. just reinstall your Windows OS, do a wipe out (delete its partitions and create new ones) of your hard disk drive if you have to and then reformat prior reinstalling your Windows OS.

But if you can't access your BIOS menu, and you don't want to pay $15, first you need to know the brand and model of your motherboard and write it down, go to its website and download a digital copy of your motherboard's manual book in pdf format, then you can try by resetting your CMOS as I described above (with the help of your dad of course.. since you're an 11 yrs old), or you can try to re-flash your BIOS with its original BIOS if you want to, how to re-flash it.. , you might find some tutorial how to re-flash your motherboard on youtube, but ONLY do this with the company of your dad and your dad is at least as a bit techy as you

But on second thought, in my opinion, it still a lot way cheaper to pay $15 to take your motherboard to the repair shop and have their technician re-flash it for you, instead of buying an i3 4170 plus Asus H81M-A and etc.., because all your hardware from your 3 yrs old PC are still usable, or in worst case scenario.. you'll only need to replace the motherboard, and there's a lot of brand new or second hand ivybridge motherboards for you to choose, but if your motherboard is still fixable and you don't have to buy its replacement, you can even use the rest of your budget to upgrade it with graphic card, an SSD and another stick of 8 GB RAM

PS: oh wait.. you're an 11 yrs what?? you're 11 yrs old and got banned already by MTS?? what did you do and got yourself banned??

Being 11 years old. minimum age limit is 13 here.

When the Sims 3 came out, not a lot of people had 4gb of ram. I'm waiting on my new ram to come in the mail because I had a stick go bad, so I've played Sims 3 with 2 expansions on 2gb of ram without lag. It might get worse if you have more expansions though

Also I recommend getting the 1.67 super patch and not the origin required newest patch for ts3 (1.69 I believe?)

Ouch...
Sidenote: never heard of that rule before. Thankfully I turned 13 just before I signed up here, though I vaguely remember having an account on here in the TS2 days, just for downloads...

Not to be that person, but...

^first thing you see if you click register .

The vast majority of sites which have logins require members to be 13 in order to create an account (of course anyone of any age can browse). That's because of COPPA - the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which essentially says that you have to get parental permission to collect any personal information about anyone under 13.

Generally speaking, if you look at sites which do allow under 13s to register, such as Neopets, they won't provide any opportunities to give personal data - they won't have a "location" or "about me" profile field, they won't allow you to post your social media handles, and they generally have extremely limited and moderated forums and comment spaces. They might also have a page in the registration process which asks under 13s to show their parent the page and tick a box to say that they're happy for their child to use the service, though ofc most kids will just tick the box themselves. It's what I did at that age!

I'd much rather have that than alternatives, like not being able to swear. Can't fucking deal with that shit. The officials are such a big pain in the ass when it comes to profanity. But anyway, I've been entering fake dates for longer than I can remember. Says here on MTS that I was born in 1991. Yeah, right.

By the way, I came across your profile on the Yearbook (I love seeing this forum's real faces) and it said that you'd lived in Limburg. But you moved. Are you Dutch?

I'm not Dutch, I'm English - I lived in Limburg for three years while I was doing my undergrad degree at Maastricht. It's a really lovely city, even if it's not quite properly Dutch .