"Rate my Rig" thread

[Dominus Atheos]

The SSD would be a big boost, especially considering most laptops run 5400 spin HDDs.

Fun stuff: the fan I heard grinding last night. Of course, couldn't be a case fan nor my PSU fan. It's one of the 3 on my 980ti. Fuck.

Is it overclocked, by you or the factory? Because 2 should be fine for stock speeds (the reference design only has 1, 3 is just for e-peen)

[TheFeniX]

It's the desktop HP Omen, I don't need a laptop anymore, so went with the tower.

I should have picked that up from the GTX. But yea, a SSD would be a noticeable upgrade when you have the time/money. I can't recommend them enough, especially if you've already got enough RAM to get the job done. Don't get me wrong, 16GBs of RAM will help, but not like a SSD (or 2 or 3 or 4) will.

Is it overclocked, by you or the factory? Because 2 should be fine for stock speeds (the reference design only has 1, 3 is just for e-peen)

ASUS Strix (or whatever). It's factory OCed and I could only get another 2-3%, so I didn't bother. It runs cools 99% of the time. Fans don't run 99% of the time.

The grinding fan is just annoying as Hell.

Here's the really fun part. Last night it decided to start "stalling" like I've not seen in years after I replaced the GPU and slid it back into place and tried a game of Heroes of the Storm just to test and end the night out. No CPU/GPU utilization, no memory faults. Nothing: 0% being used but the PC had ticks trying to open/do anything. Fucking CPU was overheating. Watercooled and stock clocked (well, as stock as a 4790K can be). Did it again just now watching NETFLIX.

I've just run a stress test for 20 minutes after pulling it out. 80C at the max and that was in short sprints. Honestly, not damaging but way too high. Sits at ~35C. I checked the screws, seemed tight. Fans and pump are working. I'm going to keep an eye of it and see what happens. But either way, this weekend I guess I'll pull the block and check my paste, but I've never fucked that up before. I don't know what the Hell is going on, but I just wanted to do some last minute studying before my exam tomorrow.

Fucking computers. If it kicks up a fuss again, guess I'm going to the laptop.

[Executor32]

99.9% sure it's your paste if your fans and coolant pump are working properly. I mean, it could be the paste between the actual CPU chip and the heat spreader, but I've seen or heard of that failing exactly never, so...

[Zixinus]

I am wondering: is it worthwhile to upgrade my AMD Athlon X II 640 CPU to a newer FX 8350 or similar (a FX 8370)? Or would latest games, like Prey, still comfortably run on it?

[TheFeniX]

Getting pretty old there, but it's still a 3Ghz Quad-Core so you could get something to run on it. That said, the minimum CPU is a Core i5-2400 3.1GHz, which even that kicks the shit out of a 640. But this is 2017, so you can always buy it on Steam and refund if it won't run, either at all or at a level you consider acceptable.

I ripped my computer out to bring it up to the office today to fix it. Left it right by the front door last night so I didn't forget it. I walked right by it. I guess it kind of matches the wall color, but it's huge. I should have painted it neo pink or something.

[TheFeniX]

I summon the power of certification.

Ok, guess I screwed something up way back. Only explanation is that since I wasn't re-A+ certified at the time, I didn't have the required skills to put paste on a flat surface. Also, I'm glad I posted my resting temps because I couldn't remember them. I redid the paste on my heatsink. Pulling it, everything looked fine, but whatever. I cleaned it up, applied paste, and reinstalled the block. Resting temps are now around 25C.

My GPU was another story. The bearings weren't bad on the fan, the entire fan was loose and looks like it could fly off the housing at anytime and was just rattling around everywhere when at speed and was hitting the fan housing until enough friction stopped the motor with a "BRRRT." The 3 fans are all connected with one daisychain, though it's a single wire of the "vine" variety. I found the power connect for the 1st fan and disconnected it. That was a bitch. It's jammed between the fancy-ass plastic cover and the heat-pipes and is one of those semi-permanent connector types, I had to push in two different pins and pry it off while holding the main connect with my needle-nose.

All the while realizing just how close that PCI connector and a whole shitload of delicate parts are while I'm prying hard but not too hard: nerves of steel baby, I cannot afford a new GPU right now.

From personal experience and reading, this would be the "best" fan to go out as, even though the heat sink goes all the way across the card, the fan closest to the video connectors is really only over a few interconnects. Compared to the middle being over the GPU and the back being over the VRAM: "shit sucks, but shit could suck a lot more."

[TimothyC]

Seven years ago I built a system with the following two components

Core i5-750
GIGABYTE GV-R567OC-1GI Radeon HD 5670

With the death of my laptop however (RIP Cr-48), I would like to get a laptop that can run the games I play without stressing the machine out. I am looking at getting a refurbished ThinkPad, but I don't know what graphics I should be looking for. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[TheFeniX]

With the death of my laptop however (RIP Cr-48), I would like to get a laptop that can run the games I play without stressing the machine out. I am looking at getting a refurbished ThinkPad, but I don't know what graphics I should be looking for. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The newest and most powerful model of mobile graphics you can get for the cost. Such is the thing with laptops: you buy as much hardware you can afford to extend longevity. But no matter how beefy the card is, it's still a mobile one, so it's going to age much faster than a desktop version.

Avoid Intel Integrated. Drivers suck. OEM drivers usually always suck more. I avoid Mobile Radeons for the same reasons. Sure, a new driver won't unlock more gigajoules for a dated card, but my GeForces are always compatible in one way or another unless you end up in the unlikely scenario where your card just won't run whatever DirectX version your game needs. Compared to older Radeons where your driver is nearly as outdated as your card.

[TimothyC]

With the death of my laptop however (RIP Cr-48), I would like to get a laptop that can run the games I play without stressing the machine out. I am looking at getting a refurbished ThinkPad, but I don't know what graphics I should be looking for. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The newest and most powerful model of mobile graphics you can get for the cost. Such is the thing with laptops: you buy as much hardware you can afford to extend longevity. But no matter how beefy the card is, it's still a mobile one, so it's going to age much faster than a desktop version.

Avoid Intel Integrated. Drivers suck. OEM drivers usually always suck more. I avoid Mobile Radeons for the same reasons. Sure, a new driver won't unlock more gigajoules for a dated card, but my GeForces are always compatible in one way or another unless you end up in the unlikely scenario where your card just won't run whatever DirectX version your game needs. Compared to older Radeons where your driver is nearly as outdated as your card.

I was able to pickup a T540p on my budget, and I've got some upgrade potential (SSD, 3K screen, larger battery, optical drive, ect). I'm very happy with her.

[Marko Dash]

now that i've finally found another job upgrading my PC is in my top 5 'things that need doing'. so with one paycheck and some remaining savings to play with i felt safe to order something that will hopefully replace my (was midrange in 2005) core2duo...

with a (was midrange in 2012) i5... yeah i know, But at least i'm in the current decede now and won't be bottlenecked to 32bit.

will it pan out? dunno', will arrive in a week or so. was cheap and on ebay, so that's iffy, but it has a 6-month warranty from the seller (some refurbisher in NJ).

hopefully it's compatible enough i can just move my graphics card and secondary HDD into it without issue.

[Executor32]

As long as you have a halfway-decent video card you should be fine. I'm still running an i7-2600k that was brand-new and top-end when I got it in early 2011, and coupled with a GTX 970 and 16GB RAM I can still play almost anything on at least high settings.

[TheFeniX]

with a (was midrange in 2012) i5... yeah i know, But at least i'm in the current decede now and won't be bottlenecked to 32bit.

I don't know why you "yea I know." An i5 isn't an i7, but looking at the ones around 2012 you either had 2/4 or 4/8 cores/threads and i5s were about the standard "beefcake" CPU for gaming. i7s are generally overkill and more useful for compiling, video/grpahics editing, or other tasks where you're doing major number crunching and can't afford some of the insane money dumps out there. And most were around 3Ghz anyways.

The Xbone is some custom AMD 8-core at 1.7Ghz last I checked, and Intel historically pushes more per clock anyway. And the amount of 30FPS upscale 1080p is annoyingly prevalent. So, I don't see your CPU being a bottleneck. So, yea, it might have more cores... at almost half your frequency.

My aging 2.6Ghz i7 from 2010 rarely taps out and that's only on games that just beat up one core. My 4790k, nothing touches it. Even 4K. My issue with 4K is the 980Ti, while a monster at 1080p is really just an intro 4K card. So, 4K devours it's RAM and GPU.

hopefully it's compatible enough i can just move my graphics card and secondary HDD into it without issue.

I don't think I've ever had issue with an Intel accepting anything compatible. AMD on the other hand. Yeesh.

[Marko Dash]

the 'i know' was mostly because it's a 1st gen i5. still a league or so above my current system, but it's kind of like moving from a used 90s car to a used 00's car, sure it's an upgrade but i'm still cheaping out and quite a bit behind the curve.

supposed to arrive around the 10th, planning to use some of the next paycheck to up the RAM up a bit (to at least 8GB).

[TheFeniX]

the 'i know' was mostly because it's a 1st gen i5. still a league or so above my current system, but it's kind of like moving from a used 90s car to a used 00's car, sure it's an upgrade but i'm still cheaping out and quite a bit behind the curve.

Fair enough, but unless you're really scrimping on your CPU, I'm talking <i3 or equivalent levels, then "last gen" doesn't really mean a whole lot unless you're pushing cutting edge applications, of which games (laughably) do not count. Or at least, not the stuff you would find filling adspace. I mean, yea there's new instruction sets and you might have more cache, but up until recently a majority of PC games were terribly optimized.

The new architectures also push a bit more data on the FSB, but the last time I maxed one of those out was on a 440BX.

And it's only now that we're even seeing expectations that games are 64-bit and using multiple-cores. And, sadly, most of this is coming out of the design differences between the last gen and current gen consoles. For just the 360, we went from a 3.2Ghz Tri-core to a 1.7Ghz 8-core. This means developers don't have the option to just load down 1-2 cores at a high frequency and are forced to spread that damage across multiple (if not all) cores. And since the Xbone is running a cutdown W10 OS, the benefits are apparent. So, your i7 can actually see lifting on 6-8 threads, though it's still usually on 3-4, of which even the most unoptimzed heap can't max out.

Now, you still have issues with poorly optimized games like Fallout 4. But at the least, "fixing" their issues is a lot easier when on a 64-bit app that's at least attempting to use your cores. But even still, these games bottleneck much faster at the GPU. And a lot of this IMO is poor optimization of models/textures and shit like Godrays and particle effects.

So, it can get rough even on a PC with 4 times the hardware of the Xbone. But then again, framerate drops into the single-digits are somehow acceptable on their console version.

supposed to arrive around the 10th, planning to use some of the next paycheck to up the RAM up a bit (to at least 8GB).

8GBs is a good start and should hold you for a bit, but it's going to become the minimum at some point in time and you still have overhead. Though, before considering the move to 16GBs, I would recommend a SSD. Or multiple SSDs because they are fantastic upgrades.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Reading this, it explains how my i7 X58 rig (2009 vintage!) has kept going up until now. Of course it might have something to do with installing 24GB, back in 2012.

More recent upgrades include a high-end (for 2012) GPU- I'd been forced to get a (single) older 2nd hand card as the latest counterpart would have cost three times as much. The PSU gave up the ghost not long after the 7-year warranty expired so I had to bring forward the upgrade I had planned.

The latest and most important upgrade was a Sandisk 960GB SSD that (once configured) did result in the OS loading much faster. I did get a great deal, even if the sale wasn't exactly smooth. Didn't help that Gigabyte had turned 4 out of the 10 SATA ports into G-SATA that necessitated remaking both my RAID arrays.

I've maxed my current setup, because the SSD is SATA-III and the chipset is SATA-II I've got a bottleneck in terms of data transfer, only by upgrading my mobo and CPU can I get more out of it.

[TheFeniX]

I've maxed my current setup, because the SSD is SATA-III and the chipset is SATA-II I've got a bottleneck in terms of data transfer, only by upgrading my mobo and CPU can I get more out of it.

If you have no other bottlenecks, you might look into a PCI-E SATAIII controller card to drag your CPU/Mobo into it's grave. It's been years since I messed with one, but I assume the driver issues aren't nearly as bad as they were when SCSI controllers (or even some IDE controllers) had next to no native windows support (even in server OSs) and you had to hit the installer with a hammer to get the drivers recognized. Either way, the cards are exceptionally cheap. So, for $30 you might learn something and let me know.

If you're using this controller on your boot drive, I think W8 and W10 don't even care. The BIOS will attempt to load if configured and Windows will cope. However, on W7 prior, you had to (going off memory here) delete your HDD and SATA connections out of Device Manager, then shutdown to install your new controller. Otherwise, NTLOAD (or whatever) would black screen you no matter what since, even though it was loading off that drive/controller it was like "I shouldn't be loading on this controller, so fuck you."

I don't miss those days.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I've maxed my current setup, because the SSD is SATA-III and the chipset is SATA-II I've got a bottleneck in terms of data transfer, only by upgrading my mobo and CPU can I get more out of it.

If you have no other bottlenecks, you might look into a PCI-E SATAIII controller card to drag your CPU/Mobo into it's grave. It's been years since I messed with one, but I assume the driver issues aren't nearly as bad as they were when SCSI controllers (or even some IDE controllers) had next to no native windows support (even in server OSs) and you had to hit the installer with a hammer to get the drivers recognized. Either way, the cards are exceptionally cheap. So, for $30 you might learn something and let me know.

If you're using this controller on your boot drive, I think W8 and W10 don't even care. The BIOS will attempt to load if configured and Windows will cope. However, on W7 prior, you had to (going off memory here) delete your HDD and SATA connections out of Device Manager, then shutdown to install your new controller. Otherwise, NTLOAD (or whatever) would black screen you no matter what since, even though it was loading off that drive/controller it was like "I shouldn't be loading on this controller, so fuck you."

I don't miss those days.

Interesting, I didn't know that SATA-III controller cards are a thing. However being a 2009 model my Mobo only supports PCI-E 2.0, so the bandwidth restriction might mean I'm trading one bottleneck for another. The SSD is the boot drive, relegating the WD Velociraptor array to the D drive and I'm running windows 10 so theoretically it should work.

I certainly have the requisite slots free (my board has 3x16)- it was during the course of installing my X-Fi soundcard (which died long ago) that I found that an x1 card could fit in an x16 slot. I miss the days when this machine was running a pair of monstrous GTX-295s in a sweet SLI configuration, this ended when one expired!

[TheFeniX]

Interesting, I didn't know that SATA-III controller cards are a thing. However being a 2009 model my Mobo only supports PCI-E 2.0, so the bandwidth restriction might mean I'm trading one bottleneck for another. The SSD is the boot drive, relegating the WD Velociraptor array to the D drive and I'm running windows 10 so theoretically it should work.

You're looking at like 500MB/s a lane on PCI-E 2. SATA2 is 300MB/s and SATA3 is 600MB/s.

So, you would be trading one bottleneck for another. But, as for gaming, I seriously doubt that extra 100MB/s would be very noticeable. In fact, even moving to SATAIII at all, you might only notice a difference during file transfers. I couldn't tell you for certain, as I haven't looked up benchmarks. But, if you can find a decent card for cheap, it's a duct-tape solution that might get a few more months/years out of your current build.

NOTE: this isn't taking into account any overhead.

I certainly have the requisite slots free (my board has 3x16)- it was during the course of installing my X-Fi soundcard (which died long ago) that I found that an x1 card could fit in an x16 slot. I miss the days when this machine was running a pair of monstrous GTX-295s in a sweet SLI configuration, this ended when one expired!

Ah for the old days of ISA 16-bit vs 32-bit. My mantra is usually, "if it fits in the slot without needing a hammer, it's probably compatible."

There's probably a sex joke in there somewhere.

[Marko Dash]

if anybody's interested here is the ebay page for the i5 tower i ordered. they've got 9 left.

[Marko Dash]

doing a little looking around it seems my graphics card ( a Radeon 4550) is also a good bit under par, so i'm planning on either a gtx 730, 750, or 960. depending on budget and availability, as i believe my 450w PSU can handle those without needing to upgrade THAT as well.

[The Infidel]

Got myself a new monitor, 32" for NOK 3000. A 2560x1440 60hz and for that price, it's great value for money. I swapped my old 27" HD monitor with this one and also have an additional 27" 2560x1440 monitor. Great for playing Elite:Dangerous and my old eyes. Don't need no 4K when the screen is less than 40"...

(Sorry for the Norwegian in the link, but you'll get the idea.)
https://prisguiden.no/produkt/philips-bdm3270qp2-279077

Also, I swapped my old nVidia GTX680 4Gb with an GTX 1080 with 8Gb.

Current build is now:

Fractal Design XL
Cooler Master V850 PSU
Intel i7 4790K (w/ ThermalTake Archon)
Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK (Black Edition)
32Gb Kingston HyperX 1866 DDR3 RAM
HDD 3Tb
Samsung 840 EVO (system)
OCZ Vector 180
nVidia GTX 1080

Thing is, I get blue screen from time to time. Hate it. It gives inconsistent error messages, so no idea what is wrong. Checked the RAM, no problem. MB reports no problem, but CPU cannot be overclocked even 100Mhz before everything dies, but runs y-cruncher with no problem at stock. Temperature is always less than 70c. Idling around 25c. Tried to under clock it 100Mhz, but to no help. Could maybe try to swap it with another one? Maybe time for an upgrade? Thing is, this build is more than fast enough for me and I don't want to spend too much money on it right now.

Wonder if that CPU is still under warranty and if this problem can cover it. ARGH! Don't feel like doing hardware surgery and give it a heart transplant right now.

[TheFeniX]

Thing is, I get blue screen from time to time. Hate it. It gives inconsistent error messages, so no idea what is wrong.

Post one of them or more. When does it blue screen? Totally randomly? During 3D applications? When did they start? Shortly after an upgrade? If so, what upgrade? Did you update any firmware or drivers?

Checked the RAM, no problem. MB reports no problem, but CPU cannot be overclocked even 100Mhz before everything dies, but runs y-cruncher with no problem at stock.

Define "everything dies." You getting a blue screen or a hard-power off? That CPU should OC pretty high, not that you really need to do so. Is your CPU cooler tight enough?

A couple things.
Check Event Viewer and cough up any info on Application or System errors/STOPS. CPUs are one of the most reliable PC parts. But, if you did some recent work on your CPU, it is possible you bent some pins. Got a magnifying glass? Before that, you can check your board for shorts (brown "burns" on the board) and popped capacitors.

Since you also talked about a new GPU, check it for damage or shorts. Also, any thermal paste you might have spilled on parts. Those type of shorts usually cause hard power-downs, but they can cause blue-screens.

But logs, error messages, those are always the place to start.

[The Infidel]

Thing is, I get blue screen from time to time. Hate it. It gives inconsistent error messages, so no idea what is wrong.

Post one of them or more. When does it blue screen? Totally randomly? During 3D applications? When did they start? Shortly after an upgrade? If so, what upgrade? Did you update any firmware or drivers?

Checked the RAM, no problem. MB reports no problem, but CPU cannot be overclocked even 100Mhz before everything dies, but runs y-cruncher with no problem at stock.

Define "everything dies." You getting a blue screen or a hard-power off? That CPU should OC pretty high, not that you really need to do so. Is your CPU cooler tight enough?

A couple things.
Check Event Viewer and cough up any info on Application or System errors/STOPS. CPUs are one of the most reliable PC parts. But, if you did some recent work on your CPU, it is possible you bent some pins. Got a magnifying glass? Before that, you can check your board for shorts (brown "burns" on the board) and popped capacitors.

Since you also talked about a new GPU, check it for damage or shorts. Also, any thermal paste you might have spilled on parts. Those type of shorts usually cause hard power-downs, but they can cause blue-screens.

But logs, error messages, those are always the place to start.

Hm, had almost forgotten the event viewer, but I have been looking for something like that. Nice! Am going trough/learning it now. 1 critical (kernel-power), 151 errors and 23 warnings last 7 days.

I just got another blue screen as it rose from sleep, but was out of the room and saw it just as my PC rebooted, so I didn't read the message. Do blue screens also show in the event viewer?

Yesterday, I got a blue screen while playing a game. Very annoying and unusual, since it normally only happens after sleep. That particular one mentioned IRQ something.

I bought mobo/cpu/cpu-cooler/ram already put together used from this guy who seemed like he knew a thing or two about hardware. CPU temperature is good (idling below mobo temp (less than 25c), stressing with y-cruncher makes it up to 70-75c, but that is really rare on normal use). Haven't touched any of my hardware after install except moving cpu-fan from pull to push and inserting new graphics card. I'm VERY careful when I do that, always minding static charges and using an antistatic strap. I have cleaned the inside carefully with compressed gas (no condensation) to keep the vents and coolers clean. I haven't had any goop in there, but haven't really looked after burned stuff. Need to do that next after I figure out the event viewer.

[Ace Pace]

Event Viewer isn't a good place to look if you don't know what you're looking for, at any given moment there are many errors/warnings, the details matter.

If you can upload the dumps or minidumps somewhere (look up how), I can take a professional look.

For the rest, yeah, what you mention is quite likely totally ancillary to the problem.

[TheFeniX]

"IRQ not less than or equal" is usually a driver issue (or anti-virus/anti-malware services), but I have had them pop-up due to hardware failures (a blown capacitor on my board). You said you upgraded your video card, is this about the time you started noticing the blue screens?

Either way, I would try a complete uninstall of the Geforce Experience and Drivers and do a fresh install. After that, look for any updated drivers for your motherboard chipset, NIC, and audio. Also, you could update the driver for your new monitor, but that's a stretch.

There could be corrupted Windows drivers, which would mean you have to mess around with "verifier.exe," but I'll pass on that for now.