Build Thread

[mkreku]

You sit so close to that monitor that your nose will leave snail trails all over it as you look around.

[Keyrock]

No I don't.  Maybe you sit huddled over your keyboard, but I generally lean back with my arms somewhat outstretched typing and using the trackball.  my face is 2 to 2 1/2 feet away from the monitor, which puts it in perfect view to have it fill my vision.

 

Also, I like to lick the snail trails off my monitor.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Keyrock

[Bartimaeus]

I like number pads...although not for actually typing numbers. I use them for custom binds - e.g. with Cheat Engine.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

I just want the numpad for the extra Enter key. Use that quite a bit which is the sole reason I don't even consider compact or tenkeyless.

[ManifestedISO]

Oh, eh, never even seen that key, down there all longitudinal-like, let alone used it. Let me try it. 

 

Oh wow, it worked perfectly first time.

 

And again. 

 

I like that it's the bottom-most, right-handed key. How 'bout that, numpad--while slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose.

[Keyrock]

How 'bout that, numpad--while slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose.

"Go home, numpad, you're drunk."

 

/numpad tries to grad the car keys

 

"Oh no you don't, you'll kill somebody out there.  I'm going to call you a cab."

 

 

[Keyrock]

I gotta say, the default negative pressure setup of my Antec case is working pretty well.  I have my PSU set so it blows its hot air downwards, out of the case, which also seals off that potential entry point for air.  The side vent is conveniently located in the exact spot next to where the GPU fans are blowing the hot air off the cooling block, soit, along with the vent on the back, make for a place for the hot air to escape and simultaneously keeps air from coming in that way.  That leaves the front vents as the only remaining major point of entry for air, and since there are 3 fans blowing air out, new air must come in to displace it.  If I put my hand in front of the vents on the front of my case, I can feel the air being sucked in, conveniently, where there happens to be a dust screen.  So far, I've topped my GPU out at 63 degrees while playing The Witcher 2 at max settings (minus Ubersampling), and that's with the fans at only 55%.  I've never seen the CPU go above 60 degrees.  Maybe Antec know what they were doing after all?

[Sarex]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1493510/various-core-i7-4790k-devils-canyon-reviews

[Keyrock]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1493510/various-core-i7-4790k-devils-canyon-reviews

Seems my suspicions about Devil's Canyon were correct.  The chip runs a bit cooler than the 4770K, but, on average, the overclocking potential is barely higher than that of the 4770K, which confirms the theory (not my theory, mind you) that temperature wasn't a major factor in what was keeping Haswells from OCing as well as people had hoped.  It seems the silicon lottery is still very much the order of the day for the refresh Haswells.  I mean, there has always been some variance in the quality of each particular chip you get, both with Intel chips and AMD chips, but the range with Haswells is just really extreme, affecting overclocking potential by as much as 500 or 600 MHz.

 

Overall, I feel good about my decision to go with the Xeon I got, I would have been satisfied even if the DCs had been shown to consistently overclock like champs.  I have made my bed, now I get to sleep in it for nearly another year (until Broadwell).  The lower clocks of the Xeon will hurt my application performance a bit, particularly encoding and decoding work, which I don't do very much of.  For gaming, there will be no difference whatsoever in the majority of cases and a bit of a difference in a few heavily CPU-bound games.  Honestly, for gaming, I suspect that my RAM running at 2400MHz, as opposed to the standard 1600 MHz, has, on average, a significantly bigger impact on gaming performance that having the higher clocked 4790K in place of my Xeon would have had.  Although higher clocked RAM doesn't always have a positive impact, it can actually have a negative impact, in some cases, as higher clocked RAM tends to have slower timings, then you get into a bandwith vs. latency issue and things get really complicated.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Keyrock

[Bartimaeus]

Trying to get my older brother's computer to work. It's an old Intel i5-750 build that is having...problems. It would not boot or post or give error beeps when I first got it, but I'm at the point where I can now successfully boot to desktop. However, there seems to be something wrong with the CPU, or how the motherboard is handling it, as it seems to be unable to get out of idle speeds. It also takes about five minutes to actually get to desktop, which is unusually long. After hitting the power button, it spends a few minutes completely dark - absolutely nothing shows up. Then, it suddenly shows the motherboard start screen, and posts. Then, a few more minutes in blackness, and then suddenly the Windows desktop shows up.

 

Additionally, I cannot get into the BIOS in any manner, as having a USB device plugged in when it's booting causes the motherboard to scream bloody murder and give me one huge long beep that lasts for about 30 seconds straight, and then freezes at the motherboard startup screen. I tried using a PS/2 keyboard, but no matter what I do, I can't get the PS/2 ports to work. I also tried resetting the BIOS, multiple times, but to no avail. Anyone have any ideas?

Edited July 8, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

I'd start by disconnecting all the drives to begin with and see if you can boot from a CD or USB - maybe a Linux LiveCD or even just Memtest - or hope that it at least allows access to the BIOS setup. If even that is still a problem, then it's probably time to strip out all the hardware and start over, reseat the CPU and heatsink (fresh thermal goop), connect a different PSU if possible, and try the memory one sticks at a time with nothing else plugged in. If it's more convenient to do so, remember you can power on by shorting the two power switch pins with a screwdriver or similar.

 

 

P.S. Not all the USB ports would necessarily be connected to the same controller chip, so it might also be worth trying out different ports to see if maybe only some are being temperamental.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Humanoid

[Bartimaeus]

Sorry, I guess I should've expounded upon the "but I'm at the point where I can now successfully boot to desktop" - I swapped out the PSU with one of my own, switched out the GPU for a low powered 6450 to reduce any strain the system might be having, tested the RAM in my own system and tested my RAM in it, (both are fine), am using my own OS HDD, (none of his drives are connected), a different SATA cord, reseated the CPU as well as reapplied thermal paste and then reseated the entire motherboard to boot in case there were any objects underneath it causing it to short...which lead me to where I am now, which is better than I was then, but not exactly where I'd ideally be.

 

I actually did just wait about half an hour after that long beep occurs when I have a USB device plugged in, and it finally went to an actual visible POST, and then repeated the beep again, but then gave me this simple error: "Keyboard/Interface Error", and then tells me to either hit F1 to continue, press Delete for the BIOS, or F11 for the boot menu. And now I can't do anything, because my USB devices will not work before Windows is actually booted up, (and my PS/2 keyboard will not work no matter what).

[Bartimaeus]

P.S. Not all the USB ports would necessarily be connected to the same controller chip, so it might also be worth trying out different ports to see if maybe only some are being temperamental.

 

Yes...unfortunately, it's worse and worse: roughly half of them will not power on anything at all - the other half will give power, but not actually work. At this point, I'm pretty sure there's something terribly wrong that I can't really fix with the motherboard - what I'm really trying to ascertain is whether the CPU is salvageable. Not sure how to figure that out at this point.

[Humanoid]

Don't really have much else ....maybe the BIOS battery needs replacing? Because short of that it's probably just flat out hardware failure and it's probably not worth finding parts to fix up a 5-year old system.

[AwesomeOcelot]

In my experience it's more likely the motherboard than the CPU. I've never had a CPU die on me, they can last for decades. You can actually boot normally and get into the BIOS without a battery, it's just the settings aren't persistent.

[Bartimaeus]

Hah. Yeah. The weird thing is the circumstances of the problem: it had been working perfectly...but one day, he decided to move it to a different room for whatever reasons, and upon trying to boot it up, it was "dead". I am guessing static electricity got the best of the poor thing...but the strange thing is, his video card is fine, his RAM is fine, his power supply is fine...only two things show any signs of having problems - his CPU and his motherboard, which I cannot swap out with anything, as I simply do not have the parts. I physically inspected both, and I don't see any signs of damage anywhere. That's weird, if it was static electricity that did something.

 

So what's he to do...buy a motherboard and pray that the CPU is still good? It's still a pretty decent CPU in this day and age - not great, obviously, but decent...about equal to the Phenom II 970 I'm currently running, in fact. I think if he could spend $50 on a used motherboard and get it back up and running, it'd be worth it vs having to shell out a $250-350 on buying a "modern" equivalent motherboard and CPU. What to do...

[Humanoid]

I remember back when the P55 boards were first released, issues with a crappy socket/retention system led to some poor contact between the pins and the pads on the CPU, which potentially led to it "burning out" on the pins that handled power delivery. While this is probably unrelated, it's possible that shifting the system exacerbated the poor contact issue.

 

EDIT: Reference - http://www.anandtech.com/show/2859

Edited July 8, 2014 by Humanoid

[AwesomeOcelot]

Yeah, my first option would be try to get a used motherboard. I'm still running a i5 2500K from 2010.

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, I physically inspected the CPU and the motherboard itself, but did not notice anything strange looking. Anyone know how good MSI support is? Just finished sending them an information/advice inquiry, and wondering if they'll actually help after having written about a page and a half's worth...

[Bartimaeus]

Oh, I forgot to say: I was finally able to clear the BIOS this morning. I had tried using the CMOS clear pins, but it would simply not work after having tried multiple times - so I took out the CMOS battery, and that finally did it. I no longer get that horrendous beep/30 minute long wait when I have USB devices plugged in, but now I can't boot to desktop: it says "Keyboard/Interface Error", "CMOS Time/Data Wrong", and "CMOS Settings", and then tells me to either go into setup, or load default settings. I can't do either, though, because again, none of my keyboards will work - they'll power on, but they won't actually work...and nor will my PS/2 keyboard. Can't do anything at that point. Ack...one step forward, two steps back.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Sarex]

Oh, I forgot to say: I was finally able to clear the BIOS this morning. I had tried using the CMOS clear pins, but it would simply not work after having tried multiple times - so I took out the CMOS battery, and that finally did it. I no longer get that horrendous beep/30 minute long wait when I have USB devices plugged in, but now I can't boot to desktop: it says "Keyboard/Interface Error", "CMOS Time/Data Wrong", and "CMOS Settings", and then tells me to either go into setup, or load default settings. I can't do either, though, because again, none of my keyboards will work - they'll power on, but they won't actually work...and nor will my PS/2 keyboard. Can't do anything at that point. Ack...one step forward, two steps back.

 

Reflash BIOS, to the latest version if possible. Also when you get to the point of scraping the mb, try to reflow it.

[Bartimaeus]

How would I reflash it without being able to get to desktop? (e: and without being able to press anything while outside of Windows, too...)

 

I have no idea what any part of your second sentence means.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[AwesomeOcelot]

Good idea, not sure how a BIOS would get corrupted apart from a virus but flashing it might fix that. Most MoBo manufacturers supply their own bootable media for flashing the BIOS. Have you tried a Linux Live CD yet? You get those CMOS errors from windows if the BIOS isn't set with defaults.

 

Reflow means heating the solder of the MoBo in the oven. scraping = scrapping. When it gets to this point I usually just get a replacement.

Edited July 8, 2014 by AwesomeOcelot

[Sarex]

How would I reflash it without being able to get to desktop?

 

I have no idea what any part of your second sentence means.

 

You don't reflash bios from the desktop, that's just asking for trouble (especially on a faulty computer). Make a bootable usb or cd and flash it like that. Most mb have an option in post to flash bios. If you can't figure it out give me the make and model of the mb and I will find out for you.

 

As for the second part of the sentence, if you decide that the mother board is bad, ie you want to trash it, then before you do try and reflow it. (google "reflowing a motherboard", there are a lot of guides out there)

Edited July 8, 2014 by Sarex

[Bartimaeus]

But I cannot get past POST at this point. It asks me to hit either F1 or F2 to either enter setup, (the BIOS), or to just load the default values. I can't get a keyboard to work, so it just sits there, forever. Can't get past it. So even if I did make a flash CD or something, I wouldn't be able to boot to it, because it won't pass POST because I have to press a dumb key before it'll try to boot anything, haha.

 

Only thing I can think of is...maybe a third party PCI USB or PS/2 controller? Not sure. I tried plugging in the front panel USB, just to see if that might work, but still nothing.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Bartimaeus