Subj : Re: USB port issue -follo To : Barry Martin From : Ky Moffet Date : Thu May 21 2020 10:46:00 BARRY MARTIN wrote: > Hi Ky! > > KM> Excellent, in fact. Some have been good, but the problem with > KM> companies that cater to gamers is that everyone gets to beta-test > KM> hardware. Gamers have a hard-on for AMD, so those are usually > KM> worse. > > Yes, it would almost seem the gaming excellence would translate to > super-fast CPU and GPU reaction -- how much work is it to put up a black > or any coloured letter on a screen read from a hard drive compared to if > an objects strikes another at a 47ø angle..... Actually it's very difficult, but it's also a distinct subset of CPU math -- so to wow gamer benchmarks, the CPU only needs to be good at game-related math, not at math in general. Have repeatedly seen this problem with AMD "gamer" CPUs, where when you ask 'em to do math that's not-gaming, they get really sluggish. (Windows Tubes screensaver is actually a good test; it's apparently very math-intensive.) > Sounds like what I did here: the 'kit' had a motherboard, CPU + that > AMD-Approved heat sink and fan, maybe some other stuff -- been a while > plus I've taken kits and used parts in two (or more!) different > projects. Problems, found out the original 125W cpu is a little too > much for the motherboard specs - heat and data-wise, so get the next one You CAN underclock 'em, ya know. At least if the BIOS lets you mess with CPU settings. Most CPUs will work just fine underclocked, including set at lower voltage. Oh, another AMD shortfall: Double Vision (of the Socket939) CPU is one that can be severely overclocked. Nominally 2.0GHz, but can be clocked to nearly double that if the BIOS supports it (mine will only give me 10% more). So... have found I can either set RAM to its correct 400MHz (instead of the 333MHz the BIOS wants to default to), OR I can set the CPU to 2.2GHz, but not both. Clocking RAM where it belongs made WAY more difference, so guess which I did. > down (90W?, similar specs -- a few someones had experimented and > appeared they knew what they were doing so went with their suggestion - > worked except for now finding a bad RAM stick -- maybe would have worked > after all? Anyway, now I have a not expensive but not cheap CPU, so get > a compatible mpotherboard..... > Haha, yeah... Johnny Cash's Computer. In fact the one I'm using til I finish setting up Silver II is named Cash for exactly that reason! > Yeah!! ...Can you use 4x 4GB DDR3 PC3-10600 (1333)? A few years ago I > accidentally picked up this server memory. HP 21576835. (Googled - > didn't seem to show anything.) Oh yes, this is *exactly* what I can use!! Frankenservers R Us. :D > > So never assume what isn't working is due to what the obvious seems to > > be. > KM> Yeah... frex, when old Silver's USB was failing, it looked like > KM> it was the external hub that failed... but nope, that's still > KM> perfectly good. > > Yup: I thought my semi-new USB 3 Hub was failing so swapped out with a > "spare" USB 3 hub - not really spare as I was planning to use with the > new computer and bought while on sale and I could get a discount ont op > of that. Original hub was fine, just the 'static electricty issue'. EXACTLY the very first issue (20-20 hindsight) with my bad southbridge -- USB3-to-IDE adapter acted like it had an electrical fault. Made shorting-out noises and quit. (USB2-to-IDE adapter worked fine, at the time.) Stuffed the adapter away as faulty and didn't try using it again... until after this debacle. Yep, the adapter is fine; Silver's USB was faulty. > OTOH did find in that position the original 4-port hub was 'tight' and > the 7 port replacement was better. (One port has a dead thumbdrive in > it - metal case so I tap it to discharge.) Being annoyed with crappy port positioning vs oversized plugs, I got a bunch of short extender cables, and now use those instead of arguing over who gets what space. Um, remind me and I'll look up the vendor; these are both inexpensive and really good quality, and BLUE so I can tell they're USB3 at a glance. > Yup - now any 'super systems' around here will probably also be built > using heavy-duty cooling rather than stock cooling. May waste a little > money if comes-with -- maybe take the fan off and use it for general > moving of air. Copper instead of aluminum makes such a huge difference that I will not buy a heatsink that isn't copper core, and preferably solid copper. And you don't necessarily need Super-Duper... for the New! Improved!! systems I tried a little HP stock heatsink that costs all of $25 new, and it's excellent, even tho it's very small as heatpipe types go (the i7 idles at about 85F!!). Uses a standard case fan, another requirement (I won't do HSFs like Zalman where if the fan fails, you have to replace the whole monkey because the fan is this weird custom thing). Solid copper foot, lots of fins, no bigger than two packs of playing cards (plus fan). One of the weird blingees I've seen is a mirror-shiny nickel-plated foot on the heatsink. Um... nickel is a poor conductor of heat... > KM> (I always forget I have Paint It Black, possibly because it runs > KM> Vista.) > > Sometimes a real system is better than a virtual one! True. Lightfoot came with Vista64 but it was awful -- dreadful performance even after nuking all the Stupid Crap -- got replaced with Win7, which runs okay, if not stellar. But Vista32 on Paint It Black runs very well, even tho that's a much slower system. So decided since they love each other, I'd leave well enough alone, just in case I ever need it. (Tho I should try Vista64 on it and see if maybe THAT was the problem... x64 vs consumer desktop was then a relatively new thing for Microsoft. XP64 was really Server2003 and doesn't count.) > > > > AMD seems to have a not-so-stellar reputation! OTOH Intel has also had > > a few screw-ups, notably the "2 + 2 = 5 for vary large values of 2" > > table error. > KM> Everyone has bugs. But when they still published errata, AMD's > KM> list was 3x longer than Intel's. And that was when they were > KM> still using Intel's codebase, so they were capable of messing up > KM> what wasn't already broken. > > Hmmmm.... (Why am I getting more and more certain I won't bother with > AMD in the future?) I dunno... maybe the same reasons I stopped buying 'em.... > KM> game bugs... and dismiss bugs that came with the hardware. But by > KM> damn if it has enough bling, they'll buy it! > > Nancy and I have a thread over in ChitChat sort of about the > bling. Personally I prefer the plain black 'discreet packaging' cases. > I don't need a whirling LED pattern flying around the case perimeter nor > inside around the fan. OTOH it would be nice if the fan was having an > issue to have a warning light. If be the blinken lights do something > useful -- blinken light ist fur Chrrrristmas! LOL, same sentiment!! I don't mind the odd extra light (Silver's case has extra LEDs, tho I disconnected all but the front pair that double as nightlights) but generally, give me plain black or beige, all metal, normal stacked drive bays, no blinking or rotating doodads or LEDs in weird places (what's with LEDs on RAM, fer ghu's sakes??) and none of those windows with no function but to show off your bling. I swear they remind me of the French court, where everyone had to be more foppish than the next, and concomitantly less functional. > KM> As a friend puts it, gamers ruin everything. > > I have avoided buying 'gamer' systems, usually because they didn't come > with what I wanted. Now I'm seeing there's a deeper reasoning. Yeah. Let them work out the kinks, at their own expense, not mine! > > What was 'funny' is I did not hear a fan revving up. Maybe on a scale > > of one to ten a three but I expect a slight change when doing something > > CPU-intensive. At 180øF I'd expect the fan to be in full-throttle Holy > > Mode. > KM> No !! > > Of course they probably either throttled the fan speed or > kept the dB level down to keep the gamers from being distracted. They do complain about noise... of course, if they didn't overheat the system to where it needs six fans just to keep gasping along, they might not have this problem! > > > Why it's so dark out?! > KM> The light all prismed away! > > I'll have to reflect on that! I don't see anything. Is it dark? þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .