"Refurbished PC Scam" - Help needed.

[Sephiroth720]

Hey Guys,

 

Didn't really know where else to come with this one. My friend has recently purchased a "refurbished gaming PC" which has the following specs:

 

CPU - i7-4770 (non k)

GPU - Gigabyte GTX 1080 Watercooled Xtreme Gaming

DDR3 RAM (8GB I think)

 

The problem is that all of this hardware is running on what is showing in HWMonitor as a "Lenovo Shark bay" motherboard and from what i can find is only out of Lenovo Office PC's. I have explaining that the performance issues are due to this motherboard. When contacting the IT store he bought it from they stated that "I know nothing about computers and that the motherboard was fine"

 

I've advised my friend to pickup a cheap 2nd hand 1150 mobo for the i7-4770 and his performance. Am i losing my mind or would this motherboard just completely "lock" all of his CPU features and bottleneck performance ? 

 

Any help would be great.

[scottyseng]

Since the CPU is a 4770 (non-K), a locked motherboard (OEM) is alright. You only need a Z series unlocked board when you have a -K CPU for overclocking.

 

As for his issues, have you tried checking GPU / CPU usage logs to see if maybe there is a bottleneck somewhere?

 

Also, for the 8GB of RAM, is it two sticks of 4GB or a single stick of 8GB? Not having dual channel could be hurting performance a little.

[Sephiroth720]

Definitely Dual channel for the RAM... Not sure whether 8 or 16 GB though. I completely understand that there would be a bottleneck with that CPU + GPU combo and he’s not trying to OC, Just can’t even get through a complete session of X Flight with crashing or blue screening (IRQL error mostly he says) He’s checked all drivers etc twice over. Have advised that he tries a Gigabyte G1 Sniper H6. 

[scottyseng]

I would try to run a disk check, then memtestx86 to just double check RAM isn't the the issue. A damaged sata data cable can cause this too. There's also the option of reinstalling windows.

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

23 minutes ago, Sephiroth720 said:

Am i losing my mind or would this motherboard just completely "lock" all of his CPU features and bottleneck performance ? 

what features do you expect? turbo boost?

 

the system shall be still usable, but oem mobo may have issues like not drawing enough power under load thus throttles down etc.if you are so worried, a cheapo H81 shall be good enough

[asand1]

Motherboard Is not going to hold that hardware back. In my case I had a dying CPU that was  throwing irql codes for every imaginable component. I f you could get crashlog codes that would help pinpoint the failing hardware.

[Sephiroth720]

2 hours ago, asand1 said:

Motherboard Is not going to hold that hardware back. In my case I had a dying CPU that was  throwing irql codes for every imaginable component. I f you could get crashlog codes that would help pinpoint the failing hardware.

Thanks  I'll let him know for when it happens again. Also... Your Corsair Vengeance LPX ram is listed in your signature as 32Ghz not 32GB (thought you'd like to know... Not being a smarta**)

 

Thanks for the help everyone!

[Mister Woof]

2 hours ago, Sephiroth720 said:

Thanks  I'll let him know for when it happens again. Also... Your Corsair Vengeance LPX ram is listed in your signature as 32Ghz not 32GB (thought you'd like to know... Not being a smarta**)

 

Thanks for the help everyone!

How dare you presume his GHz