Windows Gaming PC hardware, building, troubleshooting, & benchmarking

TheBeastie said:

...
On the subject of YouTube videos and downloading/running software from people you dont know, I have been watching this guys videos on TV manufacturer industry "FOMO on tech".
His main channel just got hacked the other week and now the channel has been renamed to push dodgy crypto coin by its new controllers.
...

Click to expand...

Please be aware that many of these hacks are done by three letter agencies and are aimed at discrediting cryptocurrency or services based on it (the banner now on that channel is an exchange that also created its own cryptocurrency). The first major cryptocurrncy mining botnet ran on security camera hardware, seriously underpowered hardware for that job but whoever was running it already had access. Most of the big headline hacks have been ransom demands on schools, hospitals and public transport systems and in many cases it was clear that there was no point paying the ransom because there was no way the hackers could know who had paid. They where very sophisticated attacks but there was very little chance of profiting from them so what was the point? Who is going to look favourably on cryptocurrency when it's "responsible" for stopping the trains running or loosing their medical records? Cryptocurrency is turning into a battlefield and there are some real dirty bastards hiding in the shadows and it's often your taxes paying them to be there.

@ TheBeastie
Good timing on cleaning issue. I have a i5-2500k pc in my 10' telescope dome, well about 3 weeks ago the pc did not fire up. The problem is the dome gets condensation almost nightly. I swapped psu, same (the fans still ran, but no boot), then i pulled the gtx7800 out and at least i got some beeps, I tossed in another spare video card and same, just beeps, no video, i then removed one 4gb stick of ram, it booted.

I swapped back in the second stick of ram and just constantly beeped, no video, then i swapped the sticks, same, then i took the one working stick out and tried the other stick, same. I took the mem out and cpu and will clean them up at work (pink eraser lightly, then clean with 99% alcohol). If that doesn't work, I will bring the mb in to work and attempt to clean the ram and cpu socket under the microscope.

I also have a dead gtx780ti I would like to get going, its was given to me, need to try the semi-reflow method. Maynot be worth the electricity, lol.

I got home and was going to drop in the i5-2500k and 2 sticks of ram, I then noticed a small pin in the cpu socket out of place, doh!
I took the mb out and will check it closer under the microscope at work.

EDIT: Up, it was tweaked, its back now, will test when I get home.


EDIT2: The i5-2500 is running good for 3 hours now with many reboots, maybe I'll try win10 on it.
EDIT3: Another night with the i5, still working well.

Also another night testing the i7-980x, zero bsod.

I got my second Zeon, I ordered a x5675 and they shipped x5670, doh! It was just under $19 shipped, and 24 days from order to my door in US.
Instead of 3.07ghz, its 2.93ghz, passmark 7960 and I got 7794 (from the web).
I hope to get to replacing the 11yo i7-920 tonight, will report back.

--Oz-- said:

I got my second Zeon, I ordered a x5675 and they shipped x5670, doh! It was just under $19 shipped, and 24 days from order to my door in US.
Instead of 3.07ghz, its 2.93ghz, passmark 7960 and I got 7794 (from the web).
I hope to get to replacing the 11yo i7-920 tonight, will report back.

Click to expand...

Looking around I think you should have no problems reaching 4Ghz to 4.2Ghz on that CPU as long as u are willing to push up the volts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79R8dLzsSfs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czBhJgEqtzE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NItI0J5ZR68

For the x5675, I think 4.4Ghz is the normal great overclock where you can possibly have it stable enough to sell it to someone else without having any complaint issues. For me running mine at 4.66Ghz is more of a freak overclock.

If you ordered the chip via eBay/Paypal you could open up a dispute and demand the money back that is the difference between the price of the x5670 and the x5675, even if its just $7.
I often do this to force/help keep them honest, its a very reasonable dispute asking just for the price difference between the chips. Often when you do this, they quickly concede and don't even wait for the Paypal umpire to make a ruling, instead they just send the money back and hope you leave them a good eBay rating. If they give me my money back for the amount I asked for that I felt was fair I would probably just omit any rating.

If you ordered on Aliexpress then you have leave it as is, save your complaint attempt points for something more serious.

When I was looking for the x5675, it was just under $20, and the x5670 was $18, noth worth complaining for $2. Some aliexpress seller respond in a day or two, but some take a week or more, this part sucks, you cant have a decent conversation at that rate to work anything out, lol.

Anyway, i popped in the x5670 and it booted, bias sorta complained that it found a new cpu and to go into bias and setup, so i did and set factory defaults and see booted right up, ran a quick passmark, 7610, max temp was 50C (realtemp reported). The i7-920 was 4872, so pretty happy with the quick testing.

As I mentioned, I been looking at the E5-2678v3 32gb MB combo, it showed 17,000 on passmark, well until last night, on the search it shows 17,000, but then clicking on it shows 13,000, I am glad i did not buy it (would not of got any more out of it), it does not make sense its the same speed as the non V version, what do you think is going on?

Looks like passmark has changed from v9 testing to v10 (whatever that means), so the same processor on v10 is about 20% to 30% less rating than v9 results, will update again, with more info.

EDIT:Here is the email I got from passmark:
If you are using saved results or from an archive somewhere, then it may be caused by recent chart change to incorporate V10 results. We released new version of the benchmarking software. There is some volatility as we try to correlate the data to PT V9.

Details of the changes are here,
https://www.passmark.com/forum/pc-hardware-and-benchmarks/46748-cpu-benchmarks-huge-changes

If you want to look at the old V9 results, you can find them here https://www.cpubenchmark.net/pt9_cpu_list.php
This table should solve your problem for today. But it might not be so useful in a few months when more new CPUs are released.

EDIT#2: Looks like the V9 to V10 results can swing from +10% to -50% reading the posts in that forum, not to many happy people with the new v10 results at the moment. I think I might just go ahead and buy the e5-2678v3 combo, my finger has clicked checkout a few times now (but without paying), lol.

I just got my M.2 drive, wow, 80mm long 25mm wide and only 0.09" (2.3mm) thick, amazing its so thin. There is only 3 memory chips on one side of the pcb with big air gaps between them. Probably will try it tomorrow.

--Oz-- said:

I just got my M.2 drive, wow, 80mm long 25mm wide and only 0.09" (2.3mm) thick, amazing its so thin. There is only 3 memory chips on one side of the pcb with big air gaps between them. Probably will try it tomorrow.

Click to expand...

If I am not mistaken, the M.2 would use up some pci-e lanes, so an issue on micro mobo's if you require them lanes.

If I am not mistaken, the M.2 would use up some pci-e lanes, so an issue on micro mobo's if you require them lanes.

Click to expand...

I did some homework on the 2011 chinese MB's, and this came up at the top on the russian site (https://xeon-e5450.ru/) and one YT'er, it is true 4ch memory and has the 4 pcie lanes to its only m.2 slot. Time will tell when I test it.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33047903989.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.2c914c4dkTTjNE

This is the new 2011-3 mb i am looking at, again top dog for chinese (LOL), huananzhi x99 tf, it has 4 lanes to the 1st m.2 connector, but only 2 for the second.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000440445220.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.315d3c00qE0H9J&mp=1

I finally installed my m.2 drive, loaded windows in just over 6 minutes (lol), a quick test shows some of the writes are faster than the reads? First time I have run crystaldiskmark.

I also retested passmark (version v9, v10 seems to upset many peeps in the passmark forum, they should of kept the same numbers and shifted the faster cpu's with higher numbers)

All looks great mate, for the crystaldiskmark read tests, I don't have an answer but I wouldn't worry about it, from memory a mechanical HDD would only do reads in random 4k read mode like that in mere kilobytes/sec, so 32megabytes/sec is 1000s of time faster and it's all you need.

Thanks for the comments.

Another question. When installing the M.2 drive, I unplugged my current SSD drive with win10 on it, installing win10 on the new m.2 drive, checking device manager showed a strange to me mark under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. I first removed my PCIe 6 port sata3 card, it did not go away indicating that is not the hardware that has the issue, I tried to install the intel x79 chipset driver, but same thing. Then I plugged in my SSD and booted, it did not find it, so that must be the issue, when the m.2 drive is being used, the MB onboard sata3 ports are not useable, does this sound correct?

I have read some MB are this way.

I just moved to Windows 10 Lite by operkin and its performed great, all that crap you dont like is removed, windows update and store works if you run this file
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/24742-reset-windows-update-windows-10-a.html
and then reset the windows update service process

@ Acido, I am assuming your going to be gaming with the OS, I would think it would give better benchmark results, have you tried and compared the two, if there is a difference?

Now that Win7 is "dead", have you guys heard any hacking that has been done on Win7, I have not?

FYI, after many attempts of putting the X99-MB/32GB/E5-2578v3 into cart and looking but not paying (lol), i finally pulled the trigger. See how long it takes to get here.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000440445220.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.5f7873d9T5A8kc&algo_pvid=a1c51096-c192-4503-90e5-a8745f205b3e&algo_expid=a1c51096-c192-4503-90e5-a8745f205b3e-0&btsid=ec610ab0-e5b6-47ea-8cbe-bcff87b881ec&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_6,searchweb201603_55

and this heatsink, btw, I am totaly impressed with these direct contact heatpipes
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000307321126.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000014.7.5a774ec8i6QY9D&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.13338.128125.0&scm_id=1007.13338.128125.0&scm-url=1007.13338.128125.0&pvid=82ebc400-7a19-4b64-80ec-1d8294646b09
When i bought my i7-920 11 years ago, i also bought one of the best heatsinks for OC, its was super massive for its time , the size is 6x6x5 (w/o 120mm fan), nice polished surface, but when pushing the i7 max on stock freq, I have seen high 90'sC. The heatsink I got for my e5-2689 is the same tall and width, but only half as thick, the i7 stays max 55C. Its got me wondering, maybe the heat pipes have leaked and are no longer working??? I know the direct contact heatpipe is better, but not that much better with half the volume of fins, thoughts? How could i check if the heatpipes have failed?

I also bought a Port 80 card, I bought one long ago (early 80's, ISA version) when I was working for mitsubishi repairing pc motherboards, it cost $80 back then, this new card is PCI and PCIe and under $3 shipped, lol.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000065690567.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000014.21.5ae064b8cxouyH&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.13338.128125.0&scm_id=1007.13338.128125.0&scm-url=1007.13338.128125.0&pvid=86e21d65-40d0-4de5-b9f2-e94ca7f4902a

I noticed some intensive web-apps were kind of sluggish so I decided to turn back on Hyperthreading for better web browsing performance, Windows 10 reported the browser was using a huge amount of CPU/ram/threads when using intensive web-apps.

But I couldn't keep my PC stable with 4.66Ghz overclock with HT enabled, so I significantly increased the core CPU voltage and while I was at it upped the bus speed as well and tweaked the memory timings for lower latency, it all helped.. As far as I understand it when you lower memory timings it reduces latency and makes the windows interface feel more "snappy" which I believe I noticed.

Anyway here are my voltages, in the X58 motherboard bios every CPU voltage is in RED color now, indicating its all very high.
While CPU temps did report to be higher they weren't a lot higher,I have been able to use it all day with playing video games and watching streaming videos/YouTube on my second screen at the same time so seems quite stable.
I included a snapshot of all my voltages from AIDA64, its only practical to look at for X58 platform/chips.
For me its a kind of crazy sight to see my 10-year-old PC running at 4.7Ghz, lol, quite satisfying.

https://valid.x86.fr/zn0ul5
https://valid.x86.fr/cttrxr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*ADD/EDIT* Update.
I decided to up my QPI voltage a tiny bit more and my PPL voltage 1 notch. And then moved my bus speed up to 206Mhz for 4733Mhz which is a nice round number.
I have now used this a fair bit and am satisfied it's stable enough for me, I have used it for at least 1 day with no problems passing benchmark tests, my prefered unstable finder-test is playing video games and streaming YouTube in full-hd in the other screen at the same time for a few hours, if I can do that I am happy.
The voltages are high enough now that if the PC was stressed loaded at 100% CPU for long periods of time it would probably get too hot to be a healthy PC long-term, but playing video games and streaming youtube at the same time results in about 50% CPU usage, so the CPU doesn't get that hot, so it can take the higher voltages for a useful extreme overclock.

The other interesting thing to note is increasing the QPI frequency (currently at 3704Mhz) definitely helps with heavy multithreading/memory-bottlenecked workloads as every time I increased QPI frequency and ran Cinebench I saw higher scores.

I think having the core CPU voltage and the QPI voltage too far away from each other causes instability, so its theoretically possible lowing my current core voltage to be closer to the QPI voltage might still allow for these very high clock speeds.
https://valid.x86.fr/xwa4rl


Here is the Xeon X5675 CPU Voltages for CPU Core/PLL/QPI/DRAM/IOH/ICH BCLK Mhz memory data from ADIA64.



I think I am finished for now. But every time I finish driving my CPU higher, I start thinking about how there is theoretical room to overclock it even more, for example, the max multiplier for my CPU for ALL cores is x25, but I chose to run it at x23 with a higher bus speed instead, because it seems to be more stable and the higher bus speeds allow for faster memory performance, and it does well under this configuration in multithreaded benchmarks in Cinebench.
But now I am wondering if I could run it at x25 CPU multiplier and instead aggressively lower/tighten my memory timings to compensate for lower bus speeds, then maybe it is possible I could get a usable full 5Ghz overclock .

I've only just begun to learn how apeshit you can OC the Xeon processors. I have never overclocked anything- I try just to overbuild lmao- but that level is damned impressive.

Honest question for you TheBeastie- how much of an OC do you think OEM Dell motherboards can take? I ask because I've gotten some 5040/7040 parts on the REAL cheap and I thought about trying to do some cheap mods to it for kicks (with a bigger power supply, of course).

CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING said:

I've only just begun to learn how apeshit you can OC the Xeon processors. I have never overclocked anything- I try just to overbuild lmao- but that level is damned impressive.

Honest question for you TheBeastie- how much of an OC do you think OEM Dell motherboards can take? I ask because I've gotten some 5040/7040 parts on the REAL cheap and I thought about trying to do some cheap mods to it for kicks (with a bigger power supply, of course).

Click to expand...

Not much of an expert in Dells, as far as I know depending on the Dell model you can overclock in various ways, I think the most common way is via software programs, not sure which ones exactly maybe ThrottleStop
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-throttlestop/

The key to finding how to overclock your particular PC is to Google search the crap out of your particular Dell Model number and be creative with the keyword searches... On the web and even YouTube these days has pretty cool videos https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=overclock+using+throttlestop+dell

With words like "overclock Dell 7040", "overclock Dell 7040 memory timings" or "bios mod for Dell 7040" etc see where it leads you. Just keep digging, if you get tired, give it a rest and do some web searching the next day.
https://www.google.com/search?q=overclock+dell+optiplex+7040&oq=overclock+Dell+7040

Also, try search inside websites that talk about overclock systems https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/Over-Clocking-CPU/td-p/4665896

I wouldn't have to big hopes for a big overclock, CPUs/Desktop platforms vary hugely in their configurability. The X58 platform was a major new platform for Intel from where they then somewhat tweaked and worked on from its creation for the last 10 years, so Intel probably felt it was important to have it's first major new platform (X58) being super-tweakable for the sake of being able to deal with any unforeseen problems after product release, in the immediate years after Intel reduced the overclocking and tweakability of their CPU/platforms.

But Intel in more recent years have again started selling more affordable/general extreme overclocking support with their K series CPUs that don't have a locked multiplier https://www.pcworld.com/article/3433556/ask-a-pc-expert-should-you-buy-an-unlocked-k-series-intel-cpu-or-save-money-on-a-non-k-chip.html

I learned to overclock as far as I did just by looking around the web, I ended up taking other peoples overlock insights and building on them and managing to overclock even higher AFAIK, but it was merely a long process of trial and error and having the ballsy willingness to increase the voltages etc. I now view my CPU/PC far tougher than I thought it could be, if someone suggested these voltages to me when I first looked at overclocking without any proof I would have been sure I would have a dead PC in one week, but I don't. That said anything is possible and you might not have much luck and have a BBQed PC, but as far as I can tell all this gear is designed to take a lot of abuse these days.

I want to record live tv OTA antenna (PVR), I have a HDhomerun quatro (4ch tuner), a couple different android based TV box's.
I am not sure how to get this going?
Do I need a NAS drive? (or just a usb drive plugged into the android box)
Links?
TIA.

quad tunner
https://www.silicondust.com/product/hdhomerun-connect-quatro/
android box
https://www.banggood.com/Eachlink-X3mini-Amlogic-S905X3-4GB-DDR3-RAM-32GB-ROM-5G-WIFI-bluetooth-4_1-Android-9_0-4K-8K-VP9-H_265-TV-Box-p-1599841.html?rmmds=myorder&ID=533601&cur_warehouse=CN

--Oz-- said:

I want to record live tv OTA antenna (PVR), I have a HDhomerun quatro (4ch tuner), a couple different android based TV box's.
I am not sure how to get this going?

Click to expand...

Almost everything on FTA is available via online "catch-up" services that are free.
I just use my PC hooked up to my 65inch TV and use the Brave web browser, everything via Brave web browser has the advertisements filtered out, so when you watch something on "catchup" it's like its been PERFECTLY edited for you without the adverts.

https://brave.com/ <- Best browser, to not get adverts make sure you have "shields up"

I mostly only watch catchup services for the local news to watch it advert free.. frock "fast-forwarding" with a PVR, that is a dying business.

I can just bring up the local nightly news bulletins/current affairs shows in a single click via an air-mouse.

https://7plus.com.au/seven-news-melbourne
https://www.9now.com.au/nine-news-melbourne
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/abc-news-vic
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/7-30
^For these local news "catchups" the channel Seven nightly news seems to be the fastest to release their nightly bulletin for online stream watching, but all up they are all a tad slow to upload it after going live. All of the local stream live as well.

Major live news stream channels in Full-HD 1080p with time-scale slider-bar rewind ability, so you never can miss anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Auq9mYxFEE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Ma8oQLmSM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd-YQreyfpk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp8PhLsUcFE
^There isn't ANY reason why ABC Australia can't live stream in full-HD 1080p to YouTube, they are just cunts playing power-play games trying to force everyone on super-blocky/grainy video iView.

https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-wBAxgUX9P0fXZ6-D0frRA/videos

https://www.primevideo.com/
https://www.stan.com.au/
https://www.facebook.com/watch
https://www.netflix.com/browse
https://www.bitchute.com/
https://www.foxtel.com.au/now/index.html
https://10play.com.au/

You can also catchup on news via Twitter and Facebook, as far as I have noticed everything on their nightly bulletins are on their Twitter/Facebook channels
https://twitter.com/9NewsMelb
https://twitter.com/7NewsAustralia

I either use a regular wireless mouse from the sofa or I use an "air-mouse".
There are tons of different air-mouse designs, they tend to be universally compatible with any device that accepts generic mouse/keyboard. Some include scroll-wheels, and the ability to IR learn to turn on TVs/AV-receivers etc.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MX3-Wireless-Remote-Control-Keyboard-Air-Mouse-2-4G-For-KODI-XBMC-Android-TV-Box/253258483943
https://www.gearbest.com/other-consumer-electronics/pp_3006420168250748.html
https://www.amazon.com.au/Rii-Wireless-Keyboard-touchpad-Backlit/dp/B07MHKMQ7J
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/323834030984
https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=G30+Voice+Remote+Control+Air+Mouse
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000348397854.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.44b72e0ecTIbcs

I like the MX3, I have used it to teach via IR learning to turn on my 2 tvs and AV receiver.
I also have the Windows 10 OSK app (On-Screen Keyboard) pinned which is pretty convenient rather than hitting keys for light keyword searching.
https://www.isunshare.com/windows-10/6-ways-to-turn-on-on-screen-keyboard-in-windows-10.html

As for the Android boxes, some of those are getting pretty fast these days, I have been interested in getting one and trying out using Brave or some other web browser that has good adblocker support and continuing to just access all "TV" via the web browser.. Having everything you frequently watch bookmarked so you can bring it up in a single click is just much easier for me. I don't like or believe in having an app for every service, I think it's dumb and messy.

I also have a second smaller side TV plugged into my PC, so I can bring up something on Netflix or some social media video and "drag n drop" the browser-tab to my second side TV and let it play and continuing browsing what I am doing on my main TV.
I am typing this message up now from my sofa on my 65inch TV with YouTube streaming to my side TV.
It's a 4k 65inch TV but I use Windows 10 scaling at 200% so that all the text is easily readable from a distance.
4k resolution at 200% scaling is essentially 1080p sized text/fonts etc but sharper. Or if I haven't been watching anything in 4k lately I just run the screen res at 1080p.

HolyCrapBatman! I have a lot of good reading/research to do, thanks for steering me in the right direction!

I been playing a few games lately on my xeon E5-2689/32gb/rx580-8gb, this cpu is laughing at these games, mostly around 30~40% use, my video card is 100% used, but no lag or stuttering, seems these days its mostly about the video card is the limiting factor. I am truly a beleiver of the YT video, 8core $52 is enough to feed a 5700 video card and on par with a i7-9900 cpu.

I have tried; call of duty ww2, dirt 2 and UT2020

I tried to load my unreal tournament 3 game but winblows10 is blocking it, while looking for a workaround, unreal is now free
https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtournament/
The issue I have loading my UT3 disk is:
"An administrator has blocked you from running this app"
Some report to run the game setup exe as an admin in the cmd prompt, well this gets it started, the install window pops up and then computing space and then just sits there. Ideas? tia

I am thinking I could of saved some money on the video card and just got the rx580-4gb version over the 8gb ($134 vers $82), currently i am running 1920x1080 on three 24" monitors, soon i will also drive my 65" 4K TV (for movies) thoughts?

"An administrator has blocked you from running this app"
Some report to run the game setup exe as an admin in the cmd prompt, well this gets it started, the install window pops up and then computing space and then just sits there. Ideas? tia

Click to expand...

Well this time I let it sit there on "computing space" for 10 minutes, then I clicked cancel, about 1 minute later a window popped up saying "if you quit the instal now, the game wont be installed, so i said, dont quit, then is installed right away.

I then loaded the titan pack (second disk) and its playing well for 2 hours. The cpu is under 10%, gpu is mostly under 20%, game is smooth and fast.

Regarding my i7-980x WHEA BSOD issue. I upped the cpu voltage 5 clicks (1.24375 to 1.26575) but it failed to boot, so i put it back to the stock voltage, but instead of AUTO, I manually set it to the default value (1.24375V). Is there a difference from AUTO and setting it to MANUAL? (like auto changes voltage on the fly and manual just keeps the same voltage, or)

I also turned off the built in 1394 port.

It has been running all day without a hint of WHEA BSOD.

What voltage above stock are you using on your x5675? (20, 50, 100, 200mV, or)