HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

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Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

netwerk23 posted:

The Parts Picking Megathread is here, that list basically says "use any videocard you want."

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 22:15

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 16:07

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Number_6 posted:

This is more of a wish than a troubleshooting question, but will we ever have PCs that are upgradable in a modular or scalar way without having to scrap the whole box and start over with a new motherboard/socket/CPU? Many CPU socket designs have really short shelf lives so you have little to no upgrade path (in CPU terms). I'd love some kind of simple way to just plug in a supplemental co-processor through a simple interface like USB on steroids, without even breaking open the case. I'm sure the answer is some boring combination of issues with OS thread handling and memory bandwidth and system architecture limitations and computers being cheap anyway but I still wish for a simple way to add raw CPU juice to old systems that would otherwise be EOL. There used to be one or two companies that made funky socket adapters so you could (try) to run like a much later Tualatin Pentium 3/4 or something on Slot 1 systems, but nobody seems to make that kind of thing anymore.

By the time you need more CPU power you should be ready to upgrade everything else too. The only thing that really needs to be upgraded for performance during the life of the system is the videocard, and that is a slot-in upgrade on most systems.

# ¿ May 5, 2017 05:52

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Your SSD is fine and there is no need to replace it. HDDs have a 5 year expected lifespan and failure rate rapidly increases after that point.

# ¿ May 24, 2017 18:04

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

You want as little in the way of the airflow coming out of the fans as possible. That includes removing any unnecessary drive cages. Exactly where to place the drives depends on where your case has the fans.

# ¿ May 31, 2017 16:31

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

JibbaJabberwocky posted:

I'm a dumb baby who only has tenuous understanding of wireless internet. The bottom line is that we're getting 66mbps through the modem and only like 12-15 on wireless (the 15 is sitting 10ft from the router). AFAIK getting a newer router should help because ours is old as poo poo .

I was looking into replacing it with one of these two from amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IUDUJE0/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I4W388ERL1TVV&colid=37D300IH5YYMC
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXL1AR8/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=IAWWLO9GB4Q20&colid=37D300IH5YYMC

Will this help my problem? Which one should I get?

The Home Networking Megathread is over here.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2017 13:20

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

walruscat posted:

Open the case and look for stains and burn marks. Just based on the layout of most cases I would assume a fried motherboard, videocard, and/or power supply.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 16:24

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Bob Morales posted:

People are throwing 2600k's in the bin?

Remember when 6 year old computers were useless garbage?

# ¿ Jul 19, 2017 03:12

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Fragrag posted:

My girlfriend just bought a refurb X230 and since I still have an old stick of RAM from my own T530, I want to add it to her laptop. There's a slight difference between the two sticks though. Mine is this model: Hynix 4GB 2Rx8 PC3-12800s-11-11-F3 and hers is Hynix 4GB 1Rx8 PC3-12800s-11-12-B4. Is it ok to mix these sticks?

It looks like the voltage is different so they can't be mixed. It looks like yours is standard 1.5v, hers are low voltage 1.35v. It wouldn't hurt anything to try though, just don't use the system if it can't pass the windows memory diagnostic, and be prepared to have to remove the stick if it has problems.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2017 18:14

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Eletriarnation posted:

Usually in this situation I think both will run at 1.5V and I've never heard of DDR3L that actually had issues running at 1.5V, so it should be fine.

You probably don't want to mix 1.35V DIMMs with old desktop DDR3 that runs at 1.65 unless you know the old stuff is stable at 1.5 too and can set it there though, running >20% above spec could be an issue for longevity. I've never heard at 1.65V modules that wouldn't run at 1.5V either but if it's crazy low-latency stuff you might need to loosen timings some.

If I'm understanding he wants to run a 1.5v DIMM at 1.35v, and while that doesn't risk damage it has a very good chance of not working.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2017 21:52

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

IuniusBrutus posted:

I have a locked Intel processor (i5-7500) that I purchased because I wasn't paying attention, and since I have no need to overclock at the moment I haven't been worrying about it. The stock fan is way too loving load though - what is my best bet for something that will meet the performance of the stock cooler (i.e., not some strange $5 from AliExpress) but will be much quieter? I don't mind going overkill a little bit, since I will eventually get an unlocked processor.

If you turn on speed control in the BIOS it should be pretty manageable. The stock cooler is not loud at stock speeds.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2017 18:07

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Main Paineframe posted:

I got an aftermarket cooler (Arctic Twin Turbo III) for my video card, but in addition to the fans-and-heatsink assembly for the front of the card, it comes with a giant backplate heatsink for cooling the VRAM and stuff that doesn't fit in my machine.

I'm not planning on overclocking or anything intensive like that, I just want to replace my old broken stock cooler that makes a bunch of scary noises and occasionally triggers video crashes. I'm guessing that even without the backplate, this aftermarket cooler will perform better than the stock cooler did, and I don't really want to send it back and buy the version without the backplate and spend an hour pasting on separate heatsinks for every individual chip on the card. Will some huge calamity be likely to befall me if I leave off the extra backplate heatsink?

I don't think you can install without the backplate, as mounting is kind of a "sandwich" with the front heatsink and backplate squeezing the card.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 01:31

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Arivia posted:

So I finally got around to installing HWInfo64 and checking my temps after some gaming (a couple hours of WoW.) My GTX1070 got to 70c and my i5-7600K got to 75c. Ambient temperature was the high 20s, I'd guess. Should I be worried about these temperatures? The fan curve on everything is pretty low, so I could turn it up if need be. This is in a Fractal Define R5 with just the default case fans.

No that's fine.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 17:27

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

I would note that those are only 18 gauge cables, which is rather thin as electrical wire goes. I mean it'll work to at least 600W or so and it is a really short cable, but I worry about having thin cables like that around because people have a way of forgetting and using them for high-draw devices. "Ugh this AC won't fit due to the right-angle plug, good thing I've got this one-foot extension!" *sizzle*

# ¿ Jul 28, 2017 01:52

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

TorakFade posted:

That's what I have but with these days temperatures (37C outside, 33 inside) It's struggling. Might be the fan starting to lose performance too, that's why I am looking for a beefier cooler replacement

None of those coolers are really beefier than a Hyper 212, they're all in about the same class. I'd suggest cleaning and remounting your heatsink, and if that truly isn't enough, look at a higher-end air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15. You can find better values but anything that delivers noticeably higher performance is also going to have a noticeably higher price than the mid-range coolers you are looking at.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2017 17:13

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

TorakFade posted:

I will try repasting first but if I end up having to change the fan I would rather go for something a bit bigger and beefier anyway, just can't justify spending 85� on a top line cooler.

That's kind of the rub, when you already have an upper-mid-range cooler that's an excellent value, spending a lot more for a top-end cooler is the only way you get a meaningful improvement. The point is your existing cooler is already great so they have to try very hard to be much better, and trying hard is expensive.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2017 17:50

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

eames posted:

I recently bought this APC UPS for my small server.

My server idles at exactly 32W according to both a wall power meter and the UPS display. When I plug the wall power meter behind the server + UPS it measures around 54W. Yes, the battery is fully charged. Is it normal for these UPS to consume 20W doing nothing?

That's actually rather low for an older UPS like that. Did you test that your system can run on battery? Modified/approximated sine wave models like that aren't meant for use with modern power supplies with power factor correction, but if it's a very low load it may still work.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 13:05

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

eames posted:

Yes, I tested it at maximum load (~300W with NAS + monitor + switch + modem) and everything worked fine on battery and reconnect. Is the approximated sine wave output going to harm the PSU? I could still return this for a CyberPower if that's better.

Yes, get a UPS with true sine wave output. It's not really a big deal for trivial load but it really isn't healthy once you start drawing that much power. Best-case scenario is lower power factor and thus efficiency, worst-case is the PSU not lasting very long.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 18:20

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Why do you think you need a "power conditioner"?

# ¿ Aug 30, 2017 18:09

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Broose posted:

See, I'm not quite sure myself. I'm told the power delivery in the area I am is poor, I tend to agree since pretty much every heavy rainfall and icy snowstorm makes the lights flicker. And more than once this month I've woken up to alarm clocks blinking 12:00 at me. I've always lived fine with just a power strip with a token surge protector (hell if I know if it is any good though). Though I have plans to spend a couple grand on computers and other electronics and anything that helps keep them working is something I'm trying to look into. And also I'm running out of power strip room due to block plugs.

You don't need a power conditioner, that is a scam. Just get decent surge protectors to protect your electronics. If you are worried about electronics losing power while you want to use them you can get a battery back-up system (UPS), such as the CyberPower PFC Sinewave series. There are other options too, I just mentioned that one because it is a good value that provides the true sine wave output needed for sensitive electronics like computers. I also got a cheaper basic UPS to run my modem, router, and other telecom stuff since the power draw is so low.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2017 18:45

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Transient People posted:

Are there any significant differences between levels of 80+ certification for PSUs? A quick search suggests small percentile improvements in power efficiency, but it seems like as long as you work with the 80% efficiency minimum any will work just fine. Am I missing anything important here?

Here are the efficiency standards. These days it doesn't really make sense to get anything below 80+ Gold, but going to Platinum and much less Titanium is very unlikely to pay for itself unless you have a high-end system and are paying for air conditioning to remove waste heat. Really the biggest factor is to get a good quality power supply, if you're cutting corners you won't have a reliable solution long-term.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 01:54

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Yeah, programs like that are good for things like CPU and GPU core temperatures that have published calibrations, not trying to make sense of unlabeled sensors from the monitoring chips on your motherboard.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 20:59

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Hipster_Doofus posted:

Well, is there one out there that actually gets most/all of it right? I've long been under the impression that I could trust the readings from CPUID's products (the -46252879's and whatnot notwithstanding), but the readings provided which do seem realistic... I can't trust?

The most a generic program can do is make guesses about what sensors are what, your motherboard manufacturer should have a tool that knows for real which sensors are which. That said, usually what matters are the core temperatures that SHOULD be identical across all tools that are regularly updated for new CPU models.

Snowy posted:

That's a lot of money for a rather old computer. Despite its name the PC Building and Parts Picking Megathread is probably a good place for suggestions on what to get.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2017 03:01

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Snowy posted:

It is 35% off, so $285. I tried that thread but didn't get an answer, I'll give it another shot, thanks.

For comparison, here's a current-gen Acer i5 system for $399 new. That's not really a good computer and I'm not suggesting you buy it, but in a market where 8th gen is coming and manufacturers really want to shift a lot of new current gen and refurb 6th gen it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me to pay that much for a refurb 4th gen. That's just my opinion though.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2017 04:47

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

DildenAnders posted:

I just got a (used) Radeon HD 7850, and tried install it into my HP and it did not post, instead blinking and beeping 6 times, which HP tells me means is a GPU problem. I put my old (8400GS P.o.S) back in and it's working fine. I still have the stock PSU (350 W) and was wondering if it was maybe drawing too much power. Does that seem likely? Id heard most OEM PSUs are actually underrated but maybe that wasnt true. If it matters i have 3 GB of RAM, an ancient laptop HDD, Core i5 (not sure which one but Quad core 3.2Ghz) so nothing that would really draw too much power. Also if it matters it seems there is a power plug on top, seemingly for a fan, my PSU doesnt have enough plugs for it, is that why it isnt working? Thanks for any and all input.

Radeon 7850s often require a 6-pin PCI Express Graphics (PEG) power cable to function, if your power supply doesn't have one you can get molex-to-PEG adapters. The R7850 draws about 130W so you PROBABLY have enough headroom with the stock power supply, but your mileage may vary.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2017 01:53

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

future ghost posted:

This PSU is gold rated and JG approved, but am I risking damage by running it at such low load levels? Or is it fine to keep using it with just lower efficiency? At max draw from this PC it's supposed to get around 90% efficiency, but the Jonnyguru testing showed about 85% efficiency at 10% load. Trying to find out whether selling this PSU for a lower capacity model is worth it or not. If it's just the lower efficiency I don't really care, but if it's a fire hazard I'd rather know in advance.

It is good for power supplies to be run at low load levels and extends their lifespan.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 17:43

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Josh Lyman posted:

I thought it was best to runs PSUs in their peak efficiency range which usually isn't the lowest load possible.

If you have a 250W load, it's more efficient to have a 500W power supply than a 1000W power supply. A 1000W power supply will last longer at 250W than 500W, even though 500W would be its peak efficiency point. A decent power supply with enough headroom should last you the life of the system, if you try to save $10 by getting something smaller that's "big enough" you're setting yourself up to have to replace it when it's not stable with an upgraded videocard.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 18:13

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

glynnenstein posted:

Some power supplies will not tolerate the simulated sine-wave power from the cheaper UPS units. I don't know how common that is or how to tell if your's cares, hopefully someone can chime in, but my PC works fine with the cheaper versions.

Yeah it's very important to only get true sine-wave out put UPSes for use with PCs. Using an approximated waveform UPS with a modern power supply will cause it to draw short bursts of high current instead of a smooth steady load, potentially overloading the UPS.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2017 21:52

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

lllllllllllllllllll posted:

Recently built a PC for somebody (i5-8400, Macho Rev. B, and Asrock Z370M Pro4). It's the perfect combination of performance and quiet efficiency as far as I'm concerned but mostly due to the mainboard's "silent" profile for the fan. If I need to I can create my own custom profile too. I haven't seen any other modern mainboard's options, so my question is: Is this exclusively for the overclockable boards or do even the cheaper boards provide these options nowadays? I plan to buy another board when the cheaper coffe lake boards are out, but if this is exclusive to the 3xx boards I'll stick with them. Thanks.

Pretty much any motherboard can tell the CPU fan to adjust its speed based on temperature. Where they differ is in whether additional fan headers are controllable, and if they can actually control the amount of power supplied for fans that don't support their own speed control. Good fan speed control is considered a premium feature.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2018 21:50

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Statutory Ape posted:

I feel like writing this out effectively answered my questions, any angles im missing?

Spectre and Meltdown patches mean that Haswell and older CPUs are slower (sometimes very significantly) than older benchmarks would imply, but yeah if you can get a good deal on a 4790k that seems like a no-brainer.

# ¿ May 7, 2018 20:26

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Mark Larson posted:

No, going from one SATA SSD to another isn't a big upgrade, it might be worth considering if you were looking at a PCI-E SSD like a 970 Evo.

# ¿ May 22, 2018 22:04

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 16:07

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

friendly 2 da void posted:

For the future when this happens the issue is usually that the network adapter has hung, but power cycling the computer doesn't fix it because the network adapter remains powered when the computer is turned off. To reset it, shut the computer down, turn the power switch on the power supply off at the back (or unplug it from the well), then press the power button to drain the capacitors. Let it sit for 15-30 minutes, sometimes even longer (I've seen it need up to overnight), and the device should be working again when you power back up.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2018 23:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > HARDWARE Short Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread - Reloaded

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