Pyroven

Mostly gaming, got the system really cheap. They were an upgrade from an FX-6350.

UPDATE: System crashes on LTT website (twice now). It crashed the first time immediately after submitting this post, and the second time as soon as Firefox loaded the webpage again.

The title is as bizarre as this issue gets. -Specs- Motherboard: Tyan s7012G4MNR (Link to manual) Chipset: Intel 5520 / ICH10R CPU: 2x Xeon X5660 GPU: R9 280 (Tested with GT 210 as well) Ram: 2x8GB, Single Channel PSU: EVGA 850W G2 Here is a look at how the Motherboard Chipset is set up. The problem is that I was using my graphics card (R9 280) for almost a year through slot PCIE3, however I recently worked out it was being bottlenecked from going through the two motherboard chips for whatever reason. So I installed it in slots PCIE4 and PCIE5 but in either, the computer hard crashes when *using a graphics card*. Be the graphics card an R9 280 or a GT 210 in either of those two slots. That means when playing games or watching videos. -Things it's not- Thermals are fine (Year of use in PCIE3 proves this) Power consumption is fine (Year of use in PCIE3 proves this) Edit: The PCIe slots have been working fine with a USB3.0 and a WiFi Card So yeah, I've narrowed it down to something to do with the Intel 5520 chip and the PCIe slots coming off it. I've reinstalled chipset drivers, reset the BIOS, reinstalled graphics drivers. I have no idea where to go from here. Please help! EDIT: I should add that it happens spontaneously, it could be 30secs into playing a game or half an hour but it always happens. In addition to this, it seems to take longer to occur if I turn it back on again just after the crash.

If I connect two computers to a Gigabit switch, then the switch to a 100Mbps router, will transfers between the two computers be 1Gb or 100Mb? I can't find a straight answer to this anywhere. I've found out that the Router attributes IP addresses but not really fully understood how integrated it is into LAN connections. Thanks for any help

The problem is very simple to describe; Completely randomly, in DOOM 2016 my framerate completely tanks for no reason. In Shadow of Mordor, my framerate is never perfect but seems to have the same root spontaneous performance tanking. In particular with Doom, the rest of the system slows right down as well, stuff like window animations are really slow. This makes me suspect it's something to do with the GPU, but I had this graphics card in an FX-6350 system before this and never experienced this issue. The only things which stick out to me as perhaps problematic would be: the PCIE x8 slot the card is now in; the two CPUs perhaps communicating with each other. But then again, the card shouldn't be bottlenecked by a PCIE 2.0 x8 slot and the CPUs shouldn't really cause any issue because I've seen youtube videos of other peole with similar systems playing Shadow of War just fine, and other games such as GTAV which are equally intensive have no issues. I'm completely lost here. I also haven't been able to find any forum posts about anything like this. Here are my system specs: OS: Windows7 Ultimate CPU: Dual Xeon X5660 @2.9GHz Mobo: Tyan S7012 GPU: R9 280 RAM: 16GB Single channel (2x8GB, one stick to each CPU) SSD: 240GB V300 (Boot drive, the game isn't stored here) HDD: 2TB WD Blue 5200rpm, SATA 2 connected (The game is stored here) Sound: USB 2.0 external sound card PSU: EVGA 850 G2 ***THINGS I HAVE RULED OUT*** -Nothing to do with Hyperthreading; Persists when on or off -GPU + CPU temps are good (No thermal throttling) -GPU VRAM usage is fine -RAM usage is fine -CPU usage is fine - Even single thread usage is fine; no one thread is very highly used. It's not a CPU bottleneck. One final thing is that it does remind me of a VRAM bottleneck, it feels like one the way it goes from 60+ fps and perfectly fluid and playable to suddenly choking down to an unplayable ~10-15 fps (in DOOM). The difference however is that it doesn't happen necessarily when the scene gets more intensive. In DOOM i've noticed it happens more often in the outdoor scenes, but in Shadow of Mordor it's comletely and truly spontaneous. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

That's the fake GTX960s

Did you make a post about it? I'm having trouble navigating your posts because I don't use the forum much. What would the soldering iron be for? How would it fix issues?

Because it's actually a decent price for a 550Ti

I mean, it's a pretty straightforward question, but I have no clue about BIOS flashing with regards to graphics cards. For those unaware, I'm talking about on of these graphics cards going around on Ebay, which have been getting a lot of coverage on YouTube recently. I bought one and want to legitimise it so that the BIOS says it's what it actually is. Has anyone tried this? Would I be able to flash it with a reference 550Ti BIOS? Where would I get the files to flash it? I know it would serve no performance difference or any functional difference.

A few times now on the WAN Show.

From three years earlier, and I'm pretty sure this was because NCIX had agreed to make videos on the remote controlled toys.

I did think of that, but I really doubt the new channel will be this. I don't know what it would be but I really don't believe, from what the hiring requirements were, that it would really have anything to do with PC hardware at all.

I've been looking at perhaps buying a cheap PC case recently, and as a result a lot of slightly older cases have come up. I've been looking at stuff like the Fogus G, MasterBox and BitFenix Nova. As a result, while I've been looking I'm been coming across a lot of slightly older cases like the Corsair 100R, 230T and review videos of things like the N600 and Fractal Core Series. The only way I can articulate my emotions to these old LTT videos is oh my god. They're just so good. Core 3500 Video Corsair 230T Video Coolermaster N600 I saw these videos when they were new, they're what got me subscribed in the first place and I had, like a lot of people, become more and more disinterested as LTT stopped reviewing products and started going more the buzzfeed route. However I hadn't realised just how much better they were, I just assumed I was being nostalgia baited, but now that I am actively seeking out a PC case these videos are invaluable. These videos are all so thorough, they have such attention to detail and are so well edited and shot. The B-Roll is still excellent, the script is packed full of information while containing lots of side information and flowering to really give a beautifully emcompassing understanding of the product; Its features, why the features exist, why they matter, and why not having them matters. They're just, so good. I often find I just get bored watching the recent videos from the channel. I usually end up watching them because I have nothing else to watch rather than because I want to, which makes it kind of frustrating to hear Linus when he talks about how people are illusioned when they talk about how 'the old videos were better'. The reality is, they actually were. You can watch any of the videos from this time and they all exemplify these qualities. So what's the point of me posting this thread? It's not going to change anything, LTT has to serve the mainstream audience now. Linus himself has said that the channel is never going back to this style of video. I understand that, I know they're never coming back. What I do wish for is that LMG would perhaps do a sister channel for this style of review, not necessarily hosted by Linus himself but under his guidance. Perhaps LukeTechTips could be a thing? (I know he's in charge of Floatplane now but maybe as a side project.) Of course content in such quantity as daily wouldn't be to be expected. None of the other review channels have this level of excellence nor do they deliver such full information so succinctly and beautifully. I just really want more content like this.

As I said, I intend to take a normal side panel and cut a big hole in it and then attaching the glass to it with nuts and bolts. So I won't be able to use a larger piece of tempered glass and then cut it down to size?

What exactly is so special about tempered glass? Is it purely aesthetic?

Basically I have no money and I want to put a huge window on my define R4 so I can see inside it. What do I need to look for in a piece of glass? where can I get a piece of glass? what sort of places should I go? My girlfriend suggested finding an old oven door, which would work perfectly because they're usually slightly tinted, so going to a dump and seeing whether I could salvage one could be cool. Beyond that I was thinking about going to a builder's yard and seeing whether it's possible to just buy a big pane. How difficult is it to cut glass down to size? How difficult is it to drill screw holes into one? I'm really not worried about aesthetics. My idea is to buy one of the spare side panels fractal sells, cutting almost all of it away so it just be the outline, then getting nuts and bolts and just putting a piece of glass on the outside. Similar to what Paul's Hardware did with his "Arctic Panther" Define R5, but much less professional. My concerns are how strong the glass would be, and whether I'd have to specificaly find glass which is heat resistant or anything. Also as a side note if anyone knows whether a Define R5 or Define S side panel fitts on an R4 that would be really handy.

Because people still use them, for many things not including CD Drives. Fan controllers, temperatures displays etc. I personally wouldn't want a case without a 5.25" bay.

The amount of misinformation in this thread is unbelievable. For those of you who don't realise it: SSD performance does decrease with capacity used. Look it up. This is not a debate about the verification of that fact. I simply wanted to know where to find comparisons of full SSD drives, because different drives are affected to differing degrees, which someone did actually link and so now this thread has essentially been solved.

So, I bought a Kingston SSD Now V300 two or so years ago. Now, two years later the read speed is about 200MBps at less than full capacity. About 170GB usage of 240GB. This is about half what it was when new. It's still faster than a Hard drive, but I feel the need for something much faster for big games like GTAV and Shadow of Mordor. So I've been looking for a secondary SSD, but I can't seem to find read and writes speeds for drives at 90% capacity, or over time, and that's what I really need to make a purchasing decision. Where can I find such information? What SSD has the least performance degradation over time?

My first one didn't seem to work so here it is again: Overclocked Dual Socket Xeon X5660 at base frequencey 2.8GHz, Turbo up to a possible 3.1GHz. Not a big overclock but cool stuff regardless.

I've an R9 280 and it helping with the rendering is why the CPU usage is so low as far as I can tell. But what I like more than anything else is the ability to do stuff like that in the background without it crippling the other applications I'm running. That's what makes me truly happy.

Edit: Dual socket

It's all in this Imgur album I've made. Basically for £100 I bought two Xeon X5660 and a Tyan S7012 Motherboard to replace my FX-6350. The interesting part about this is the overclocking and I'm sorry to say that due to a lack of webpages about overclocking dual xeon X5600 Series processors I just had to make a call on which I thought looked the most likely to support it. Thankfully the CPU multiplier was unlocked up to a maximum of 21x, which meant I could set the base frequency to 2.8 GHz up from 2.4GHz rather than that being the turbo frequency, and the turbo went up to 2.9GHz, so that's cool. Unluckily however the Base Clock could not be altered, so this is the limit it will go to on this motherboard. May other curious googlers learn from this thread. I could've learned that had I read the PDF manual properly before buying. I was far too excited to sit still through a whole manual though, but I'll know for next time. So what's the performance like? Pretty much the same for gaming as before, but now rendering a video takes 20% CPU usage rather than the previous 60% and I think Minecraft got a big boost but it's impossible to benchmark that game reliably so who knows. The GPU is definitely the bottleneck in this build. I can't think of anything else people might want to know, so please ask any questions which cross your mind Thank you for reading and I hope this helps someone out there. EDIT: Album Fixed

Here's some pictures, I did it in a Define R4. Had to cut a hole in the 5.25" bay and had to cut the socket backplates down to normal size. THen finally to fit the HDD cage back in I had to install it wonkily. Overral though I'm quite pleased, just need to work out what's up with the GPU. It's showing up in Furmark as being in crossfire for some reason, and it keeps dipping down utilisation to 60% every ten or so seconds. EDIT:: Also there's a USB3.0 card in there off ebay, a Wifi Card and a SATA3 card in the bottom slot, haven't tested the speed of the SATA3 card yet.

I've actually just done exactly this. Going through tests etc. now; I'm having a weird GPU issue and I'm not sure whether it's a PCIE bottleneck.