lexidobe

Long story short, I bought what was listed as a "100% new" tray i7-6950X to upgrade my main rig's i7-6850K. What I received was a CPU that appears to be in good condition and was cleaned up well and may appear new to an untrained eye, but has definitely been installed before since there's marks from socket pins on the pads and thermal paste in the hole on the IHS. I immediately contacted the seller, who was quick to say that the residue and marks was just from them testing it before shipping and not from use, which I can't think of a way to prove or disprove. Here's the listing if anyone is curious https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807490736954.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.3f709zue9zue8I&algo_pvid=0add411b-d540-4457-a50d-246f708fe85f&algo_exp_id=0add411b-d540-4457-a50d-246f708fe85f-0&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"2"%2C"eval"%3A"1"}&pdp_npi=4%40dis!USD!218.44!218.44!!!1563.66!1563.66!%40210337bc17479331808435976e1636!12000041770821832!sea!US!6292277706!X&curPageLogUid=4K3kuq9DgItf&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A I was about to send it back since I paid a significant premium for a new CPU, but with a 3 month return policy, I decided to give it a chance and was initially impressed when I was able to get a stable 85 mV core undervolt. From experience with 3 other Broadwell-E CPUs, it seems like the average stock core and cache voltage headroom on Broadwell-E was roughly 75 mV +/- 5 mV. The cache was never stable with more than about a 60 mV undervolt, which seems to have remained constant. However, over the last 2 months, I have had to gradually reduce my core undervolt to now just 64 mV to maintain stability and the initially stable 85 mV core undervolt now instantly crashes. At this rate (~10 mV degradation per month), after less than a year of use, it won't even be stable at stock settings anymore! For reference, the i7-6850K that I bought new in 2016 has been running 24/7 until 2 months ago ran at the same 74 mV and 76 mV undervolt on the core and cache respectively its whole life (an extra 2 mV on each for stability) and I never once had any stability problems or had to make adjustments. That CPU also spent years running at 100% running FAH, doing long renders, gaming, Prime95, Aida64, etc and I could still be convinced that it's new since it's shown zero signs of degradation, which I can confirm as the original owner. Aside for a couple hours of overclocking testing in the first couple days never exceeding 1.3V core, 1.85V input, or 75 degrees C and no heavy loads while overclocked other than a handful of Cinebench runs. It's cooled by a custom loop and never exceeds 40-45 degrees C stock, so nothing I did should have degraded this CPU. The other odd difference is the i7-6850K seems to "soft" crash when pushed slightly too far for the voltage and would tend to blue screen, crash the program, etc and would always restart gracefully with the reset button while this.... thing goes from seemingly totally stable to hard crashing to the point of the power and reset buttons being unresponsive once it decides again it wants another mV of core voltage (which has happened quite a few times), often forcing me to shut off the PSU. Not sure what that means (if anything) but that's another difference I've noticed. Any ideas of what could be going on? Maybe it had a hard life before I got it and the degradation is just now starting to become more exponential? Maybe it was actually new and defective and degrading rapidly? Either way, I'm thinking it may be time to send it back and either insist on a full refund or an untested verifiably new replacement because I don't want to get stuck with a defective CPU. I have never experienced any measurable CPU degradation like this before (although I run everything very cool, don't overclock long term, and never set high voltages), so any input or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! CPU: Questionable i7-6950X (previously rock solid i7-6850K) GPU: Titan V Motherboard: Asus X99E-WS Cooling: Custom loop RAM: 64GB G Skill Trident Z RGB 3200 MHz (only running at the 2400 MHz the CPU is rated for) PSU: Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 1000W Case: Fractal Design Define R5

The E5 2699 V4 would be the top readily supported CPU for that socket, but you'd have to make sure your board supports it. Many X99 boards do. It has 22 cores, 44 threads, and 55MB of L3 cache. It only has a base clock of 2.2 GHz with all cores active, but with less cores active, it can turbo up to 3.6 GHz. I'm not sure how good it would be for gaming though because no one bought ~$4500 server CPUs to game on, but they can be bought for less than $150 now and are still very powerful. There are slightly faster variants such as the E5 2699A V4 (2.4 GHz base clock). I haven't seen them specifically listed as compatible on any X99 board, but I have heard of people using them in X99 boards, so that could be another possible option. For gaming, your best option would likely be the i7-6950X, which seems to be available for around $150-$160 shipped. You'd gain 4 cores, 8 threads, 10MB of cache, a slight IPC improvement, and unlike the Xeons, you could overclock it. 10 cores at 4+ GHz is still respectable for the price. The nice thing about these CPUs is they aren't that expensive anymore and you could easily resell it for what you paid for it if you aren't happy with it's performance, so there's not much risk. What are your current specs and your goals? What are you planning on upgrading? What's your budget? What are your expectations? Those are all big considerations for what a sensible upgrade plan may be.

Thanks for your responses. I did try to contact Instagram for support but I was unsuccessful. They do not provide an option for help getting back into your account nor do they provide a phone number or email address to contact an actual person, they just have an automated email reset. I did change my password when I created a new account just in case it was hacked and my new password was very secure as well and the odds of someone guessing it are just about zero. The only other thing I can think of is perhaps I have some type of malware on my PC that is causing the problem somehow since I am only logged into Instagram on my PC and I always leave the tab open. But I regularly do scans with a couple different antimalware programs and I don't visit sketchy websites, so I don't really see that being the problem either.

Hello everyone, I am having a bit of an odd issue with Instagram deleting my account. About 2 weeks ago Instagram logged me out and asked me for my number to verify my account because they detected suspicious activity. Not sure what was going on, I verified it and got back in. They asked me for verification several other times and I got back in no problem until it gave me an error and refused to accept the code they sent me for verification. I tried to log in, but I got a "no users found" error. I tried to make a new account with the same email, but then I got an error saying my email address was already taken even though there were no users found under that email. Wtf. Anyways, I created a new email address to make a new account and the same thing happened again- I was prompted to verify my account a few times within about 2 weeks and then the verification failed and my account seems to be gone but I can't create a new account with that email either because it says it is taken. I never got any type of notification that my account was deleted nor was I informed of any violations. I don't understand why this happened. I never posted anything even remotely objectionable, I do not spam with excessive likes, follows, posts, comments, etc. The only thing I can think of is maybe someone maliciously reported my accounts even though there is nothing to report. However, I would think that someone at Instagram would verify the complaint before deleting an account. but I can not think of any other possible explanation. If anyone has any idea why this may have happened please let me know as I have no idea and do not want this to happen a third time. Thank you in advance!

That makes sense, thank you for clarifying! I will not be increasing the IMC voltages but I may try a little higher voltage on my ram (up to its rated 1.35V) then to see if that helps stability at higher speeds since that is what it's rated for. I won't abuse my ram with crazy high voltages, but I'm not overly concerned about its longevity since it has a lifetime warranty.

Hello everyone, I have a couple questions about ram overclocking and voltages that no one seems to have definitive answers to and I would appreciate any input on. 1. Can increasing ram voltage damage or degrade the CPU's IMC in any way. I have read that the IMC could not be damaged since the voltage is supplied to only the modules and isn't sent to the IMC, but I have also read that the ram's voltage is sent to the IMC also and therefore excessive voltage can cause damage. I have looked at my CPU socket's pinout, but I'm far from an electrical engineer so that didn't answer my question. 2. Can increasing the speed beyond what the CPU officially supports degrade the IMC? Intel says it can and has denied warranty claims due to higher speed memory being used, but of course Intel is going to look for any excuse they can to deny a claim so I take that with a huge grain of salt. Hell for that matter there's a page on Intel's website that says that using higher speed ram can "completely short out motherboard, the higher frequency RAM, processor. etc", which I really do not see happening. I understand that most enthusiasts upgrade their stuff every few years and therefore usually don't see the long term effects of the choices they make, but I need this system to last me as long as possible as I will not have money to replace it for the foreseeable future, so I will hopefully be able to use it for the next 10+ years before having to make any major changes to it and I don't want to do anything that could compromise its longevity or long term reliability. Thank you in advance as always! EDIT: I have a Core i7-6850K, Asus X99-E WS motherboard, and 32GB of G Skill Tritent Z RGB 3200 MHz RAM.

As long as you buy the same exact set and it should work fine. If the second set differs in any way (timings, speed, or voltage) there's a good chance it will still work, but it is best to not mix ram sticks when possible.

Why wouldn't someone buy it? I buy older stuff all the time if the price is right, it can be a great value compared to buying new. Fun fact: I only bought one new GPU in my entire life (my EVGA GTX 970) and I only bought it because it was open box and marked way down. You could easily sell that system as a gaming computer or sell the parts individually if you prefer. Being a few generations old doesn't automatically make something useless or worthless, especially if it was reasonably high end when it was released.

That is a great point, thank you for the suggestion! Would the drive work okay sideways or should I mount it right side up?

Hello everyone, I just built a wall mounted computer out of used parts I had laying around and I am wondering what you think of it. I built this computer as an early Christmas gift for my disabled grandma because she needed a decent computer and doesn't have money to build something modern and expensive, so I built her one out of parts I had laying around since I am a bit of a hoarder. She doesn't need an ultra powerful gaming system, just something that will browse the web, play videos, and run basic online games reasonably well. So here's what I came up with: CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 Motherboard: EVGA 790i Ultra SLI RAM: 8GB mix and match DDR3 Storage: Sandisk 120GB SSD GPU: XFX R7 240 Power supply: Corsair HX750i OS: Windows 7 X64 The only changes I plan to mount the PSU to the wall too and I may add a DVD drive so she can watch movies on it, but other than that it runs great and serves its purpose perfectly fine. Here's a pic of it. Questions and feedback are welcome as always!

Thank you. I guess there's no point in worrying about it since it doesn't seem like there's anything I can do about it anyways, I think that's something the FAH team will need to resolve.

Right now the 290 and one of the 970's is running at full power, one 970 is not. Both 970's are at around 12-14% bus interface load, not sure about the 290 because it doesn't feel like reporting it. And yes I am folding on my CPU also

It may be around 50% on either or both cards at any time. Right after I posted this the program started using both 970's fully and I was getting around 1.5-1.7 million PPD, but it's only using the 970's about 50% at the moment and I'm only getting around 1 millon PPD. I believe it is using the 290 fully though because it's scoring about 440K PPD and the 970's are around 275-300K PPD. So weird

Hello everyone, I am having a bit of a problem with FAH only using around 50% of my GPU's. I am folding on my Core i7-6850K, two GTX 970's and an AMD 290 and I am sometimes not getting as many points as I should because even with folding power on full, the program is sometimes only utilizing up to around 50% of my 970's, not sure about my 290 because Afterburner doesn't feel like reporting its usage. I am wondering if my CPU may be holding me back because if I turn off CPU folding while it is doing this, my GPU utilization will go up to around 65-70% and my PPD actually increases because the GPUs are being used more effectively. I have noticed that sometimes the program uses around 100% of my GPU(s) as it should, but sometimes it won't. Right now it won't use all of either card. It doesn't seem to matter if I use Windows 7 or 10, it will sometimes does this on either OS. Do you have any idea what the problem could be? Is this just a bug in the program that I can't do anything about or is there some way I can fix this? Thanks in advance, I appreciate any input or suggestions!

I didn't see anything bad in the logs and the system didn't have to wait a ridiculously long time for new WUs. Right now I'm folding on my CPU and 2 970s but my 960 is waiting for a WU and I'm getting around 170K PPD