Tech minor victory thread

PatrThom

PatrThom

Btw anyone out there looking for a cheap way to snag an i7-4790 might be interested to know there are plenty of places where you can buy an entire refurbished Core i7-4790-based system for right around US$300, probably swap the CPUs and then resell (or repurpose) the now-slower refurb to reclaim some of your cost.

--Patrick
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

I can finally redeem my hotel frequent stay points into *digital* gift cards instead of waiting for physical ones to arrive. Still have to wait 48 hours between transactions, though.

So I ordered a MSI Core Frozr L CPU cooler for about half off, and tomorrow will order the last of the ML120 case fans for virtually nothing.

If that cooler's good enough for Gamers Nexus, it's good enough for me. It's their test suite cooler for case evaluations.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
When swapping out CPUs, I accidentally dropped the i5 I was removing, and it landed corner-first in the socket, bending a pin. Luckily I was able to get in there with a flashlight and a pen knife and ever-so-gently bend it back to more-or-less where it needed to be. Apparently it was good enough, because I'm typing this on that computer, now with its i7-4770 up and running :D It's already making a difference in my VR games, so I think that was $120 well spent.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Why would they do something like that to an innocent GA-MA78LMT-US2H???
I mean, at least they used actual mayonnaise instead of Miracle Whip, but still.

EDIT: I also want to know how someone "happened" to have a full, faithful 3D render of that specific board just ... lying around.

—Patrick
 
Last edited:
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Temps way down as soon as the new cooler was installed. Time to go for that overclock. 4.2Ghz is a no go. 4.15 looks okay so far. 1.4 volts too hot, though. Dialing back until the spikes are below 80c or no longer stable.

ETA: 4.15Ghz failed at 1.375V. 4.1Ghz looks okay at 1.625v. Will keep going to see where the 4.1Ghz OC voltage gets me.
 
Last edited:
PatrThom

PatrThom

GPU upgrade has increased my performance 50-75% (before (7970 3GB) v. after (RX580 8GB)). Not too bad for ~$200, and should keep me happy until my wallet fills back up enough for a new build.
Here's hoping Optane prices come down and capacities go up by then.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
Why would they do something like that to an innocent GA-MA78LMT-US2H???
I mean, at least they used actual mayonnaise instead of Miracle Whip, but still.

EDIT: I also want to know how someone "happened" to have a full, faithful 3D render of that specific board just ... lying around.
Click to expand...
Holy...there's a whole gallery:



--Patrick
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

Minor victory: With the help of tech support, I got BeamNG drive working again by downgrading to an earlier beta. Only problem is, my wheel is a bit touchy for controlling vehicles.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Oh hey, my computer finally admitted to me just now that 1809 is available.
I mean, I should've been in bed about 2hrs ago, but yeah go ahead and install, I'll wait.

--Patrick
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Not long after I had all my apps and games installed, the Microsoft Store broke and wouldn't run. All the repair tips, including the reinstall in place, failed. The only suggestion left was a wipe and reinstall. Nope.

Today I got word the May Update was now available. Installed it, and the store is fixed. Might not use it for much, but now I've got it again if I need it.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Around 280 or so of my iTunes Match files I'd backed up to the cloud came back corrupted. Won't play and can't edit tags. Redownloading off of iTunes didn't help on any PC. Luckily, I have a backup I'd made years ago to an external HDD. Those copies are fine. Go me.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Always, ALWAYS make backups.

—Patrick
Click to expand...
That was why I just bought a 256GB thumb drive. Wasn't expecting the cloud backup to be corrupted like it was. But now the main set is fixed and I can backup it all over again... for the third time since I bought the drive.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Got paid today.
Found a good deal on 5400rpm 2TB 512b/sector enterprise drives.
Bought half a dozen, they should be here by Wed.
Then my DIY NAS project will break free from its long hibernation to trundle forward towards completion and I can finally get my computer rolled back to WinXP+7 by mid-August, well before the Jan 2020 deadline.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

The project above continues despite some snags, but that's not the victory.
The snags I mention meant I had to go grab some utilities I bought a while ago.
Bad news, they're on my dual-PIII system. The PSU on that system died in 2011. It's a hyper-specific PSU (still has AT connectors!) so I can't just swap it out BUT it was still under warranty, so I mailed it back and had it fixed.
And then it sat there, because I was too lazy to reinstall it, even through two moves.
[...time passes...]
Fast forward to two days ago, and needing my utility collection.
Finally reinstalled that PSU.
Computer booted first try. Didn't even have to reset the date & time. Hello, good ol' WinXP!
It powered off unexpectedly 10min in, but came back up and has been stable since, so I suspect a family of dust bunnies may have moved in during the 8yrs it sat inactive. Part of the reason I retired the system was because the GPU (a Quadro FX 4000--yes, an AGP Quadro!) was getting flaky. So I bought two more (ages ago), but they also had intermittent issues. So I'm not actually sure if the shutdown wasn't due to the GPU. We'll see.

tl;dr: Computer sat in a basement for ~8 years, powered right back up on first try.

--Patrick
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Ordered a 2tb NVMe drive just before heading out to Orlando on vacation last week. It was waiting for me when I got home yesterday.

It installed pretty easily (though I did have to temporarily remove the CPU fan to get the right installation angle), and it was pretty simple to use Macrium to move my OS partitions from the 500gb drive, and Partition Wizard to expand the partition out to fill up all the available space.

only hiccup is that Gigabyte makes selecting the boot drive a lot more complicated than it used to be. But once I got that figured out, I set the new drive as the boot drive, unplugged the old 500gb, and here I am. :D

Best part is that I had a ton of reward dollars from when i got my son his gaming rig as a graduation present, so it cost me a lot less than it otherwise would have.
 
Bones

Bones

we figured out last night you can screen share vlc with sound in discord video chat group dms, I am now converting many of "I want to see this" titles for my friends so we can sit and watch it together.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

NAS is working, testing it out before I move to put my full faith in it.
Just FYI moving 5TB over GigE takes longer than you probably want to sit and wait for.

--Patrick
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Bones said:
we figured out last night you can screen share vlc with sound in discord video chat group dms, I am now converting many of "I want to see this" titles for my friends so we can sit and watch it together.
Click to expand...
Odd, whenever I try to do that it crashes.
 
Bones

Bones

GasBandit said:
Odd, whenever I try to do that it crashes.
Click to expand...
dont look at me. the only thing we noticed is that because I have Nitro(we think) my streams dont hang as much and come through cleaner. its not internet because I only have a 200 mbps connection and my friend is on gigabit. I literally just converted them to MKV(cause lazy, also powerdvd ultra has man in the middle drm protections like crazy so vlc)
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Bones said:
dont look at me. the only thing we noticed is that because I have Nitro(we think) my streams dont hang as much and come through cleaner. its not internet because I only have a 200 mbps connection and my friend is on gigabit. I literally just converted them to MKV(cause lazy, also powerdvd ultra has man in the middle drm protections like crazy so vlc)
Click to expand...
Hrm, maybe it's because I've been using MPC instead of VLC. I'll have to try it the other way.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Ok, figured it out. Discord doesn't like to stream my VLC/MPC videos because I'm extending across 2 monitors, and so in "full screen" mode it tries to transmit the entire screenspace so it ends up only taking up half the screen, and when I change between full screen and windowed mode it crashes. Works fine on my laptop though, which only has the one screen.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Spent a little more than I'd intended yesterday. Asked some questions about the TV I'd had my eye on going in. Turns out even tough it's an upgrade from what I was running, it wasn't as capable as other similar models. Plus Sharp is really a rebadged HiSense using big brother's hand-me-down parts.

So I went with a TCL 50S425 instead. Only $10 more, but significantly more capable. Reviewed very well as a PC monitor, too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top