DDebbil

I have a Gigabyte Z87X SLI that is behaving oddly on restart: if I press to restart, the motherboard shuts down completely for a few seconds, then turns on again, activates the video card but no signal (monitor comes on but is black screen), then shuts down completely again for a few seconds, then turns on again and boots normally. Normally motherboards I've had restart seamlessly without powering down, first time, without having to have 2-3 goes at it. All other components have been tested elsewhere and a fully working. No overclocking is applied. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be here?

I'd take either provided it met the other specifications.

Location is UK. I'd consider any budget apart from ultra-high end stuff. Battery life is a nice-to-have but not as important as the speakers and screen (matte is better). The N56 I currently have is 2.7kg, so I'd say any weight other than the really meaty gaming notebooks.

I carry the laptop all around the house with me so a set of external speakers isn't really an option. Wireless headset maybe but I'd rather just have a laptop with decent speakers. It's definitely possible but seems like manufacturers are choosing to prioritise other things. Seems like a doubtful choice really as the N56 to this day sells second hand for much higher prices than its contemporaries, and I can't help thinking that's because people actually want the decent speakers. I'd definitely get the XPS 15 but unfortunately they chose to put the (quite good) speakers on the underside, instead of the side where they are on the XPS 13. The 13 still sounds OK resting on a bed or lap (perish the thought) for that reason, but the 15 sounds muffled.

I'm still rocking an ASUS N56 from 1923 (my third or fourth one) because it has good speakers. Unfortunately, in its successors, ASUS shuffled themselves back into the herd and made the speakers crapper. I can't work out why people don't care about laptop speakers (is that actually true?) - most reviews don't even bother to mention them. Don't people consume media on their laptops any more?

I like the speakers on my laptops to not suck, but unfortunately most manufacturers don't seem to feel the same way. Does anyone know of a 15.6" laptop model with decent speakers that aren't on the underside (because my ears aren't in my thighs) which isn't a giant hulk of a machine?

How about that - it is a micro B port! For some reason it didn't look like one to me, but the charger cable from my PS4 controller plugged straight into it. D'oh!

I bought an ASUS HS W1 wireless headset second hand the other day, however it has turned up without a charging cable. The port on the headphones doesn't look like any USB interface that I recognise: https://imgur.com/a/GzclALA I don't think it's a micro B port as is seems to be too narrow in relation to its height (but maybe I'm wrong). Can anyone identify it?

They all seem to be around 45g actuation force (except the clear which apparently isn't on anything) - so does that mean I'm going to be accidentally actuating them all?

I've been dabbling in mechanical keyboards for the first time, but am not enjoying the experience so far. First I tried a board with Cherry MX Speed (silver) switches, which I found was far too sensitive, such that I was accidentally activating keys due to having quite big/heavy hands. I read that the reds were like silvers but with longer activation length, so changed to a Cherry MX Red keyboard, but I'm STILL accidentally activating some keys. I'm also a bit iffy about keys that seem to travel so far but the bottom 3/4 of the travel is apparently just for show as the key has already activated. It reminds me of the clutch in my car. Can anyone recommend better keyboard switches? I'm thinking maybe browns, as I understand these have a little bump that might stop be accidentally activating them.

Would you Adam and Eve it? It was the power saving settings after all.... why would Windows have a setting by default that gimps the CPU on a desktop system? Unfortunately going to high performance mode has made the system unstable to the point where I can't even run it 4GHz @ 1.3V. I can run 3.8GHz fine, but that's pretty pitiful for a 5820k. Still, it is getting me 60fps solid at last.

I have a system based on a 5820K (@4.2GHz) and a GTX1070, and I mainly use it to play one particular game at the moment (World of Warships.... yes ok) - but I cannot get 60fps solid out of it. Through testing I've become quite sure the CPU is bottlenecking the system, but I don't think Haswell cores at 4.2GHz should be struggling to hit 60fps. Others have reported reaching easily over 100fps with not too dissimilar i7 setups. There is no thermal issue, as both GPU and CPU are well under 60C. The PSU is a Corsair AX850, the motherboard is an MSI X99S SLI Krait, and the RAM is 3200MHz Corsair stuff running XMP settings. Actually both CPU and GPU are reporting low average loads (around 40% for GPU and maybe 50% for CPU), but changing the clocks on the CPU scales the FPS, whereas changing the clocks on the GPU does not, so I'm sure it is the CPU that is bottlenecking. No one core on the CPU seems particularly heavily loaded, but it's hard to tell for sure as I can't watch it closely while gaming. Can anyone suggest what the problem could be here?

Ok so an update after some more testing: I ran an FX9370 in the board and that was fine, so I'm sure the RAM is fine now. I ran the FX9590 in a Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 and that was fine, so I'm sure the CPU is ok. Put the FX9590 back in the 990FXA UD5 and errors within 1 minute. So it seems like the motherboard cannot run this CPU despite being cleared to run it. It can only run up to the 9370, but the extra power needed by the 9590 does it in.

I don't think Memtest will allow me to isolate RAM problems from CPU problems.

Test the RAM in this board how?

Yes, C bios installed. RAM should be fine.

I doubt it's VRMs as the errors are happening in the first minute or two of running. RAM is also tested elsewhere.

I'm testing an FX9590 on a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 rev 3.0 (one of the boards that supports it), however having some trouble. The system is not stable at stock speed (4.7GHz) under Prime95, with or without XMP on. The PSU is a Corsair TX850, and temps are fine. I tried to lower the multiplier but anything other than 23.5 will not boot. Any ideas how to get this thing working?

Nvm - I discovered it was an ES chip. Thanks for replies anyway.

I'm trying to find the max all core turbo frequencies for a Haswell-based Xeon chip I'm looking into, but can't find the information anywhere. The Intel website just lists the base clock and the maximum turbo. Does anyone know where I can find this information?

Worth a try I suppose. I was thinking maybe the 12GB VRAM was making the motherboard BIOS spaz out.

I have several graphics cards and several motherboards, however two of them in particular will not get on with each other. The graphics card in question is a Titan X Pascal and the motherboard is an ASUS P9X79 WS. The Titan X works fine in all my other motherboards, and the other graphics card all work fine in the WS, so I do not think either the board or the graphics card are faulty. However when I put the Titan X in the WS, it just gets stuck on Q code b2, and will not POST. I have tried changing PSU, RAM etc, but nothing helps. Any ideas what could be going wrong here?

Does anyone know how I might get rid of the following device manager warning for an ASUS P9X79E-WS? https://imgur.com/a/GvudEMD It happens whenever I plug the boot SSD into one of the bottom four (white) SATA ports, which I assume are on the Marvell controller. Windows boots from the SSD fine, but I'm getting this warning in the device manager. I'm running Windows 8.1 (the latest officially supported for the motherboard), and I've tried installing all available drivers from the ASUS website, but none have fixed this warning.

OK let me come at this from a slightly different angle: are there some motherboards that you can't really bench test because the componentry (especially on the rear of the motherboard) will struggle with the weight of the motherboard on top of it, and therefore the board must be mounted in a case in order to be properly tested?

There's nothing under the motherboard apart from an anti-static sheet. I started off with the board sometimes behaving badly, which I narrowed down to something around the power/reset button (which are naturally pressed). Then out of curiosity I tried pressing the top of the RAM (not very hard - about the force required to insert the RAM), and that also caused the system to lock up. As far as I'm concerned, a normally functioning motherboard should not just lock up with a small amount of pressure applied to to the top of the RAM.