michelin_boi

If you remove the HDD, does your computer boot to the SSD?

What games and settings ae you using? Can you run a couple different benchmarks and post results, Rise of the Tomb Raider for example?

What specs are you running your games at? Have you tried older games, maybe something that isn't graphics intensive? Have you checked your graphics drivers for an update? Did you do anything to the internals of the computer when you recieved it back from the shop? What peripheral devices do you have connected? Do you have your computer connected directly to the wall or through an ups?

I tell this to a lot of my friends who say the same thing. TLDR: GPU > CPU for gaming most of the time. For a long time I was running an old AMD phenom series quad core processor and getting fantastic gaming results. CPU upgrades have much less impact on gaming benchmarks than most people relize compared to a GPU upgrade.The building market takes advantage of this by marketing expensive CPU's to gamers uneccessarily. The benefit from upgrading you processor is seen in other places, like multitasking, video and effects rendering, streaming content, and other programs that require intense levels of CPU saturation. More cores is better for multitasking, andhigher clock speeds can help make calculations faster in a thread, but if you're running a midgrade CPU from the last 5 years you're likely fine for gaming alone. Good luck, enjoy your 1080! (Its a good card.)

Glad to hear it!!

Here's another idea, if your case utilizes USB headers on the motherboard for usb portson OR a card reader on the case, try unplugging those cables from the motherboard.

I was going to suggest PS2 keyboard and CMOS but you already tried that, I just built a NAS with a SM mobo, so I'm curious the see what the problem is... It has been sitting for a year, in what conditions?

Hey guys, I'm new to the forums as of today, and I've already started hunting around and posting on topics. I love how easy these forums are to navigate, and how active the mods are. I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Nate, but you can also call me michelin_boi. I'm a pc and linux savvy IT guy, amateur programmer, and I also love offroad motocycles (enduro) and photography. I just started a youtube channel, linked in my profile. I'm planning on adding content and becoming more active here once my move to Hawaii is complete. It will have anything from offroad moto stuff to pc hardware reviews and photography tutorials. If you want to keep in touch, follow my new twitter @michelin_boi. I'm always happy discuss anything or answer questions about tech stuff. Cheers, michelin_boi

Go for it. Don't think it could hurt.

It's likely not the RAM, agreed at this point, but without being there I can't say for sure. Troubleshooting would be much easier from a distance if we could rule out your GPU.

Any time! As for RAM, just keep an eye out. It's all up to whether or not the memory manufacturers decided to stop gouging the market. Right now they're not even producing DDR4 modules, all the plants are producing the memory used in cell phones. There's almost no knowing until it takes a sudden dive in price. I pay attention to the news. I'm hoping that prices will drop by the beginning of of Q2 2018, but don't quote me on that.

Yes, getting a CPU upgrade would help a little bit, BUT not as much as a GPU for gaming. You don't necessarily have a bad CPU for gaming, as most games are bottlenecked by GPU well before CPU. It is highly likely you'll see a stark increase in gaming performance by upgrading to a faster GPU that also has more VRAM. More VRAM will definitely help since you card only has 2GB. 8GB RAM is a good starting point for most gaming machines. Wait until you upgrade your GPU before you purchase more RAM. I'd also wait for RAM prices to go down before you do. EDIT: I had a rig with that same CPU up until very recently running 1440 at 60 FPS on a 1070 without bottlenecking the CPU, so trust me its a solid processor. 4 cores @ 3.7GHZ is great.

What trouble exactly are you having? What tool are you using to clone the OS?

Did you find a bad module?

Down the road if you plan to keep this rig for a while, and once you have a bit more money, other things you can do to further increase gaming performance will be to grab a couple good SSDs: a small one for your OS and a larger one to store your steam library on. You can also add more RAM, which up to 16GB should help a bit too. More than 16 is honestly overkill for the average gaming rig. The % increase from upgrading RAM will be hardly noticable unless you multitask while you game.