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Whoo

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Status Updates posted by Whoo

  1. So instead of going for my usual "upgrade a few basic things" this year, I've decided that I'm going to do a total system overhaul since I should be getting a job within the next month.

    Here's a list of everything I'm looking to buy by the end of the year:

    Mobo: ASUS M5A99X EVO
    CPU: AMD FX-6200 Zambezi 3.8GHz
    GPU: XFX Radeon HD 7870
    RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3

    Total Cost: ~$622 before shipping

    I try to keep up with benchmarks and reviews, but I figured it would be a good idea to gather suggestions/input since some people here, *cough* huy *cough*, are more up-to-date with what's good on the market.

    So, post your suggestions if you have any. I'd prefer to stay around the original cost though.

    1. Show previous comments  10 more
    2. Whoo

      Whoo

      So now I'm in need of some decision-making assistance.

      I got an email from NewEgg notifying me that I can get this motherboard for a mere $85 from 9am PT to 3pm PT. The only con I can see is the fact that it's a Z68 (and not a Z77,) and it has PCI-E 2.0.

      I think that it's a great deal (almost $200 off,) but I'm trying to make sure the board will be as good or better than the ASUS I was going to buy before.


      Nevermind, the board isn't compatible with an Ivy Bridge CPU.

    3. Whoo

      Whoo

      After a month of work and some Christmas money:



      I'll post a new topic in a few days with more pictures, benchmarks and other stuff.

  2. <insert background info here>

    So I finally got around to getting the proper CD-ROM drivers installed this week, and Doom was the first thing I put on. Only problem is the fact that it barely runs at 1FPS. So I installed Heretic, and got the same problem. I tried some really old 80s games that I had on some 5.25" floppies, and of course those ran without any problems.

    So at first I thought it might be the virus scanner (which was 195 months out of date apparently,) but after removing it there was no change.

    I'm at a loss for what the problem is right now. The only guess I can make is that there's something wrong with the video card or the CPU. Here are the contents of AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS:

    AUTOEXEC.BAT
    CONFIG.SYS

    Any ideas?

    1. Show previous comments  13 more
    2. Whoo

      Whoo

      Okay running Doom with Turbo on makes it much more playable. Large areas still bog down to 12-15FPS, but it's still much better than getting a constant 1FPS. The heatsink's also getting hot so my extremely cheap mounting method seems to be working.

    3. GreyGhost

      GreyGhost

      Thanks for the pictures (I hate ImageShack - lousy advert-riddled shithole), I now know a little more about the video card but not enough yet to be of assistance. :(

      Whoo said:

      After some digging around and the use of Polish engineering I came up with this.

      Reminds me of a fan re-attachment I performed on a Cyrix Cx486 using nylon fishing line. That chip doesn't get particularly hot so the line's still holding after I'm not sure how many years.

    4. GreyGhost

      GreyGhost

      After chasing a bunch of red herrings into dead-ends I think I've hit the jackpot - copy this lot (except for the html files) to your hard drive. S24adndm.txt is an addendum to the Speedstar manual which should tell you much of what you want to know - including what the DIP switches do - and 00_index.txt is a annotated listing of the directory's contents, which includes a video diagnostics utility.

  3. So today I go to turn on my PC and it wouldn't pass the POST. I opened it up and spent the next three hours trying to figure out what the problem was.

    After replacing and removing almost every part I came to the conclusion that the PSU was bad. I tried booting 20+ times and it randomly booted successfully twice. I plugged my hard drive in and then it stopped booting once again. Unplugging it again didn't fix anything.

    So I go to Best Buy to get the PSU checked and it turns out that the 12V rails had gone bad and weren't putting out nearly enough amps. So I picked up a Corsair GS700 for $100. I installed it and played some games to test it for about two hours. The first attempt to boot failed, but I reset the CMOS and it turned on fine.

    Then my PC shut off and it started up the whole process of refusing to pass the POST again. I once again removed and/or replaced every part with no success. The CPU and video card weren't really that hot at all (GPU was around 60C, CPU was somewhere between 30-40C).

    I'm assuming I got a defective PSU, as I'm really hoping I don't have to replace my motherboard and be out another $100. Another trip to Best Buy tomorrow will reveal the truth.

    tl;dr version: My shitty Ultra PSU's 12V rails gave out and I bought a replacement that is probably defective.

    1. Show previous comments  10 more
    2. Whoo

      Whoo

      I just requested an RMA from ASUS (as TigerDirect would've just pointed me in their direction), so I don't know if they'll be shipping back a new board or the repaired board.

    3. Super Jamie

      Super Jamie

      Unlikely you will get your individual board repaired. Manufacturer repair centres usually have an amount of stock onhand, so when yours comes in, you get someone else's repaired board and yours goes in the "to fix" pile.

    4. Whoo

      Whoo

      postin' from the gaming pc


      Right now I don't know if they didn't fix the problem (or gave me a faulty replacement), as the first two attempts to boot weren't successful. I reset the BIOS, and it then booted up 4 times in a row without a problem.

      It was doing this before I sent the board in though, so I'm not sure what to think. I'll have to do some heavy gaming later to see if it shuts off like last time.

      1/24 Update:

      Been running for a little over a day straight now and it hasn't shut off. Currently backing up all my files so I can reinstall Windows 7 in 64-bit format.

  4. My recently obtained ZEOS 486 has been sitting in the corner of my room for about two months, as I previously couldn't get it working.

    I don't know if the video card just wasn't seated or if the monitor I was using before didn't pick up the signal, but I started messing with it again and I got it to boot:



    As you can see in that image however, the CMOS battery is dead. I'd love to go replace it but here is the problem:



    This weird hunk of plastic (which was attached to the case with some sticky velcro) is the battery, and I have absolutely no idea how to replace it. I imagine I'm going to need to do some soldering to make a new compatible battery, but I really have no clue.

    halp

    1. Show previous comments  13 more
    2. GreyGhost

      GreyGhost

      Whoo said:

      CONIFG.SYS
      AUTOEXEC.BAT (The original booted into Win 3.1, but I got rid of the command)

      The system also has a virus scanner that runs on startup (ViruCide 4.12), but it's not picking anything up. The CD-ROM is also a CRE-BTB; one of those drives that has it's IDE cable connect to the Sound Blaster.

      Can't see anything obviously wrong in those files so you might try swapping CD-Rom drives. That's one ancient virus checker, probably hasn't been updated for 15 years and unless it has an excellent heuristic scanner is most likely next to useless.

    3. Super Jamie

      Super Jamie

      If you want to check for viruses, booting into a Linux LiveCD, installing and updating a virus scanner, mounting and scanning your DOS drive is probably the best bet.

    4. Whoo

      Whoo

      I'm actually just replacing it with an extra Samsung CD-ROM drive I have. My stash of floppies must have gone bad though, since three of them got corrupted when I tried copying the drivers over to them.

      I'm gonna have to go to ebay since the store by me stopped stocking them.

    1. Show previous comments  12 more
    2. Whoo

      Whoo

      Well I just turned on my processor's fourth core (was causing instabilities on previous drivers), installed a Win7 Service Pack and now with "+jobs_numThreads 0" on the command line the game is finally running at a flawless 60FPS with no stuttering.


      /endrantthread


      EDIT: Crashed as soon as I got into Hagar's buggy, but I'll just have to look around and try to figure out how to get past it.

      Random crashes occur often and any attempt to save results in a crash.

    3. 40oz

      40oz

      Craigs said:

      Although I general think AndrewB is a dumbass, he's right. This is just a stupid and childish response to having problems running a videogame


      I'm not really defending this kind of reaction to a video game, but I do think it's lame how drastically one's video game experience can be affected by not having the right hardware. If I were a game developer I would want my games to be as accessible as possible.

    4. DoomUK

      DoomUK

      40oz said:

      If I were a game developer I would want my games to be as accessible as possible.

      They are. That's why games consoles exist.

  5. Earlier in the week someone I knew was getting rid of an old ZEOS 486, so I asked if I could have it. Here it is:



    And here are some more shots:





    The rest are here.

    From what I can tell this thing is more powerful than my other 486, but the thing won't start. Upon turning on the power I get three really long beeps, a few short ones, and then it goes silent. I'm not sure if there is supposed to be some kind of special cable for that weird second input on the PSU, so I've been looking around for a manual on the internets.

    Here are known specs I got from just looking into the case:
    Intel 486DX (Unknown speed)
    16MB RAM
    Sound Blaster CT2230
    Diamond Computer Systems SpeedStar24 (Video Card)

    tl;dr: I got a giant 486 tower that weighs like 40 pounds.

    1. Show previous comments  23 more
    2. Maes

      Maes

      If ECC checking is turned on by the CMOS, a good first step would be to reset it. But yeah, having a full manual with error codes and everything would be nicer. Usually, they are a couple hours of googling away, at least if you are not willing to pay.

    3. Whoo

      Whoo

      Been doing some research and it looks like ZEOS ended up merging with MPC Corporation in 1995, which went defunct in 2008. I got really close to getting manuals, but the Internet Archive didn't have the .pdf files archived.

    4. GreyGhost

      GreyGhost

      They're still online, but I didn't see your motherboard amongst them.

  6. After eight years of using my Dell 19" CRT I finally replaced it with an Acer 20" LED monitor:



    It's max resolution goes up to 1600x900 (whereas my Dell went up to 1280x1024,) and the picture is much clearer than my CRT. I picked it up for $100 at Best Buy (Couldn't find a better price online or in another retail place) and I'm really happy with it considering the thing's only like 1" wide and has a 170° viewing angle.

    Graphic intensive games like Crysis look a lot better, although I might have to turn the settings down a little bit to make up for the slightly decreased speed running it at 1600x900. Overall I'm glad I finally bought this and hopefully it will last as long as my CRT did.

    1. DuckReconMajor

      DuckReconMajor

      I got a 1600x900 monitor for another computer in my house a while back and I ran through E1 on it because Doom is so oddly alluring at 16:9. The extended marble texture on the sides of the ZDoom status bar even failed to annoy me.

  7. So I've finally got a bit of free time from school and after failing to come up with any map ideas for TNT 2 I decided to do something I've been meaning to do since I upgraded my CPU in December: overclocking. Here's my setup that I did a bit of OCing on:

    Ultra LSP650W (I've heard it's bad but I've had no problems with it for over a year)
    ASUS M4A785-M Motherboard
    AMD Phenom II X3 715 Black Edition @ 2.8GHz
    Corsair XMS2 4GB(2x2GB) DDR2 @ 800MHz

    Conveniently ASUS motherboards come loaded with handy overclocking and management tools, so this was pretty easy. I already unlocked the fourth core months ago, but I never got into overclocking since I hadn't really looked into it. But since this past weekend I had little going on I decided to do something with it.

    After several hours of strenuous voltage and frequency modifying I've finally come to these stable settings:



    Going further to 3.4GHz crashed during benchmarks no matter what even if I changed the CPU-NB multiplier and voltage. I was going to speed my RAM up a bit, but after I accidentally forgot to check the minimum volts required and ended up setting it too low which caused a POST failure, I decided to hold that off for next weekend.

    So far I'm happy with the results of an entire day of testing. The temps were sitting around 45C while in the BIOS, and my fans haven't kicked up, meaning it hasn't gone above 55C. Crysis got a big performance increase(20-55FPS to 40-60FPS,) but I still sadly can't put anisotropic filtering on too high in Mass Effect 2 without a performance blow. Next weekend I'm hoping to get to at least 3.4GHz, and a max of 3.6GHz. I'd do it during the week, but I don't want to accidentally fry anything before the DNF demo comes out.

    tl;dr version:

    I did some overclocking and decided to post about it (Since nobody I know in RL is familiar with this stuff.)

    1. Show previous comments  7 more
    2. Bucket

      Bucket

      Well, for example, I have an old Athlon 64 I could overclock to 3GHz. But I can't see the advantage given (A) it's still a single core machine, (B) it's still limited to 1.5GB of RAM, (C) there's no way to OC the 100GB IDE drive and (D) I'm probably drastically shortening the life of the hardware doing so.

      I won't be running any new programs, only running the same old programs a bit faster. A clean install of Windows will do that much. You could argue that OCing brand new hardware wouldn't have these problems but for some reason I feel that's an even MORE pointless exercise.

    3. Doom Marine

      Doom Marine

      Bucket: Extra performance for a little bit of expertise work isn't as pointless as you think.

      The theory behind the cost/benefit of overclocking is closely related to how manufacturers bin chips.

      In a given line of chips, say the Phenom II, all different variations of the lineup from the basic X2 all the way to the X4 black edition came from the same 45nm manufacturing processes. In the beginning, all those chips are specified with same amount of transistors and caches, and made on the same wafer.

      For those who are not clear about the general idea of how CPU's are made:



      Due to variances in the fidelity of the manufacturing process that affects the reliability of the electrical gates (and other components), not all chips will be able to maintain a certain clock speed given an absolute voltage. Some chips are faster than others.



      Like an IQ test, CPUs as part of the binning process are subjected to performance tests that encompasses their ability to perform at a given temperature and voltage. Also like IQ distribution, certain chips from the same silicon wafer batch will perform better than their peers. Some case scenarios:

      Phenom II CPU #1 Test Result: 3.4GHz@1.1V, stable up to 3.8 GHz with voltage and/or multiplier increases (but generate excess heat).
      Binning: Phenom II X4 Black Edition

      Phenom II CPU #2 Test Result: 3.0GHz@1.1V, stability wall hit early.
      Binning: Phenom II X4

      Phenom II CPU #3 Test Result: 2.8GHz@1.1V, fourth core exceeded heat output standard.
      Binning: Phenom II X3 (fourth core disabled)

      Phenom II CPU #4 Test Result: 2.8GHz@1.1V, third and fourth core exceeded heat output standard.
      Binning: Phenom II X2 (third and fourth core disabled)

      Note that chip manufacturers are conservative about the binning of their chips, as the CPU's may face harsh, poorly ventilated environments that can test the limits of their specified stability. In other words, the manufacturers are binning their chips towards worst case scenario.

      ...But the question still remains: Why is binning relevant to OC'ing?

      Given the conservative chip binning process, the end user can easily provide an environment to maintain the stability of their chips beyond manufacturer specifications. Such as having a very well ventilated case and a better-than-stock heatsink.

      To what extent can one can push the performance and maintain stability is a matter of luck (the standard deviation of chip performance) and technical expertise (the understanding and execution of parameters to maintain chip stability).

      Overclocking, to many people like myself, is less about melting the chip and more about optimizing performance versus stability in a logical way. My example:

      i7 920: 2.6GHz@1.1V (approximate), 30-50C

      Some stable overclock results:

      4.0GHz@1.35V, 45-85*C
      3.9GHz@1.30V, 43-85*C
      3.8GHz@1.25V, 35-70*C
      3.6GHz@1.20V, 30-60*C


      Note that the very high upper temps are the result of the highest stress test: the Intel Burn Test, which is not encountered in everyday desktop/gaming usage, but it does ensure that the overclock is indeed stable in the worst case scenario applications.

      These overclocks provide a theoretical 35%-50% increase in CPU performance. I chose the optimization between performance and temperature at 3.8GHz.

      Having more performance is nice, but so what?

      When a chip manufacturer bins their CPU's and finally put them out on the market, the pricing increases exponentially versus performance. The market price of respective Intel chip bins during 2009-2010.

      i7 920 2.66GHz $280 (I got mine for $150 with a bid sniper)
      i7 940 2.93GHz $400(?)
      i7 950 3.06GHz $500-600
      i7 965 3.20GHz $999 (this is considered the Extreme Edition CPU)

      Knowing the chip manufacturing process, an i7 920 when OC'ed to 3.2GHz will have the identical performance as the Extreme Edition CPU. Now take the overclock to 3.8GHz and the EECPU will be smoked.

      By overclocking, I have not only maximized my system's performance by a significant margin, but also made the chip more worthwhile than keeping it at stock.

    4. Use

      Use

      Doom Marine said:

      By overclocking, I have not only maximized my system's performance by a significant margin, but also made the chip more worthwhile than keeping it at stock.


      You left out the best part..it's FUN!

  8. So as I was browsing through the oh-so-lovely Skulltag Drama Thread on Blogs, I was notified of a trojan by Norton. It "deleted it", and shortly after a message box appeared that read something like this: "Windows has encountered a critical error and will restart in one minute. Save your work.". My computer did not restart, but virtually everything stopped responding. I then proceeded to restart. Upon logging back in I am greeted with a black screen and the same message box. After one minute there was no restart, so I pressed the restart button again. This time there was no Windows startup screen. Instead there was a blue screen. I set a restore point recently, so that was my relief. I wasn't too relieved however after running the Startup Repair twice without it asking me to restore. The third time it had finally asked me to, but all was not well. I was able to log in, but everything was very slow. Norton would not open, USB drives would not work, and explorer.exe would freeze if I right clicked anything. So I restarted in Safe Mode. I was able to run a scan, but it was interrupted. How? A loose power cable on my computer. I removed my external hard drive to see if it still worked on another computer, and in the process of doing so I bumped the cable and my computer shut off. At this point nine tracking cookies had been found, so I decided to boot normally without any internet connection. Norton now worked, but the other problems were still present. I ran a full system scan, which picked up eight more tracking cookies, and a "Heuristic Virus"(Which is Norton's way of saying 'I'm guessing this is a virus.'), which was a 'Suspicious.MH690.A'. I believed that was a false positive, but I let it go. Explorer.exe now works perfectly, and I am currently typing this from the said computer that was infected. My final thoughts are: COINCIDENCE????

    tl;dr version:

    Got a trojan while looking through the Skulltag Drama thread, which caused hours of frustration.

    1. Show previous comments  25 more
    2. Planky

      Planky

      Csonicgo said:

      http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

      Get this, and ditch fucking Norton.


      QFT. A very nice, clean product, never once had a problem with it.

    3. SaladBadger

      SaladBadger

      When I had to set up my neighbor's machine, I set them up with microsoft security essentials. They wanted norton, but I wasn't entirely impressed with it when my dad tried to run it on his machine, and my friend had recommended security essentials in the first place (he was over there earlier looking at their hard drive, which had gone bad from all of our looks at the thing). (plus they also didn't know any of their comcast account information so I kind of couldn't install it). In any case, they didn't complain and the thing is sitting there keeping them safe.

      I also run security essentials on my laptop. I can say it's a good product.

    4. Whoo

      Whoo

      Csonicgo said:

      http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

      Get this, and ditch fucking Norton.


      Downloaded, and Norton said: "mssefullinstall-x86fre-en-us-vista-win7.exe requires attention."

      HAHAHA

  9. Last night at the eerie Horror Fest located in Erie PA, I met up with the awesome Reggie Bannister from Phantasm, and other various films. All and all, he was a really interesting guy. We(My dad, and his friend) talked to him for a good twenty-five minutes or so, until we went to see Phantasm on the big screen again. He was just extremely intelligent. After the movie was over he answered some questions, and really went in depth with the answers. Before the show while I was talking with him he mentioned something that totally caught me off guard, I didn't expect him to talk about it: The slaughtering of the buffalo in the Mid Western US. He clearly knew what he was talking about, as he was bringing up several key points, such as the police officers helping kill them, who's badge mascot was a buffalo. While I was their I got a copy of his album called "Naked Truth", and got him to autograph it. The album is fairly good, and I'm not even into the kind of music he does.I might as well upload a picture I took with him while I'm here.



    To finish this topic up I might as well talk about the other things that were at the horror fest.

    There were various other things at the horror fest, such as vendors for Halloween supplies, movies, and posters. One vendor even had four tables worth of movies that had movies never release before, all preserved on DVD with covers. Then a vendor across from that table, there was a sculpter who was making Jason masks, and head props. Was pretty interesting, but the masks were a little too much($70) Before I go overboard with all the vendors, I'll just finish with one more. Another one carried a ton of stuff. They had movies, posters, toys, even t-shirts with horror movie titles on them. It was a great Horror Fest, anyone in, or near Erie PA should go to it(Just bring some money with you!)

    1. Show previous comments  6 more
    2. DuckReconMajor

      DuckReconMajor

      He just looks like the type that doesn't feel like he needs to do something cute whenever someone pulls out a camera. He doesn't even look fat.

    3. Technician

      Technician

      DuckReconMajor said:

      He just looks like the type that doesn't feel like he needs to do something cute whenever someone pulls out a camera.

      We need more of these people.

    4. kristus

      kristus

      Who's the guy that is too ugly to be featured in the shot?

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