Something I have no business getting into. Special thoughts.

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Do you really need that shiny new PC?

How did we get here?

That question is actually very easy to explain this time around.

With the focus on AI, and companies diverting their resources to the corporate customer instead of the consumer, pricing has soared. Specifically, anything with a memory component has seen a drastic increase almost overnight. In some cases, increases were more than 100%.

Data centers use a different type of memory than consumers, so you might not see a problem, but the big three are committing to more data center products and less consumer. Good for data centers, bad for us. A shortage of newer memory means people panic buy any memory they can get, driving the price of DDR4 up. We’ll discuss the issue for one company involved in a bit.

There are three major memory manufacturers, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, with the latter recently saying they will drop their consumer effort completely. Crucial is a very popular and dependable brand, producing memory and storage, and now they are gone. That leaves two companies to produce the entire supply and they have already announced they are scaling back.

PC memory saw the most immediate effect, but pricing for everything that uses memory will increase. All solid state devices use some form of memory and now that will be in shorter supply with no end in sight. That means everything from TVs to mobile phones, and cameras to tablets get more expensive. Even if another company wanted to take advantage, factories don’t come online overnight.

The Biggest Loser? (Besides us)

There will be several, but one company that will suffer is AMD. This will be especially tough on them with the AM5 platform taking only DDR5. Any modern processor they make will be dependent on DDR5 and they are sure to see a downturn. Intel, and maybe even Qualcomm gain an advantage with some of their modern products using older memory.

Intel’s LGA 1170 socket has DDR4 version support available and Qualcomm has shown itself to be very adaptable. Their mobile sector may suffer, but their PC processors could have an advantage. AMD could save itself a bit though if they stretch the AM4 processors. It’s something they have done recently, and many of us thought it was a bit silly. It may be a genius move.

AMD has produced several new AM4 CPUs well after introducing AM5 and they have continued BIOS updates. It could be a great stop gap. It does not help their graphics division, though. Nor does it give high hopes for Intel continuing with the Celestial line of GPU, but that’s a different conversation.

So, what do we do?

The simplest answer for that is nothing. If you don’t need a new PC, don’t go shopping for a bit until thew market calms. If you do need a new PC, look at slightly older platforms like the AM4 or LGA 1170. Older generations are also a possibility, but you have to be mindful of the Windows 10 retirement. That’s a whole other story as well.

I have YouTube videos on using much older platforms, one of them here. I’ll also be writing and publishing videos on more current generations that will accept Windows 11. Don’t forget, Linux is also an option for your operating system instead of large corporations offer. Thank you Steam for pushing this to a higher level. If you would like to read my last effort discussing some older platforms, try this one.

I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, and of course, I’ll discuss it in the blogs.

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When a game is more aggravating than amazing.

How did we get here

It started simple enough. I needed more current titles for benchmarks. Comparisons of hardware need a reference and performance in popular games gives that. New components aren’t always better and sometimes you are better off with what you have. The new part doesn’t improve the experience.

This is usually straight forward. See what is popular, look at reviews, watch for sales. This sometimes leads you astray, however, which is the case with at least one game I’ve recently purchased. I won’t mention the title, but there is a video linked here. This used to be a very popular franchise but a number of moves have ruined that.

The First Issue

The first obstacle you face is the size of files to update or download. Steam told me I needed a whopping 463GB to install this thing. That is larger than many of the SSDs I put in budget builds and the entire drive on mid priced builds. AT that point, I should have known this was a bad idea.

I didn’t have the almost half a terabyte required for this on my portable SSD, so I removed older games I don’t test anymore. I know this will bite me in the butt later as I have older systems I need to test. Still, I carry on because the people need their benchmark. I find room, I load it and proceed to testing.

I’m then met with a series of warning messages. This is not uncommon, A lot of games will give a message about video memory, or a video card driver. This game gave several. The first being that I was using a hard drive instead of an SSD. I literally chose the SSD because it’s portable. Chalking this up to the settings thinking the external SSD may be an internal HDD, I moved on .

I get the customary video driver warning for a driver that was released last week instead of last month, so I ignore it, knowing the driver is current enough, but the warnings didn’t stop. I also got one for a bios update, and the big one after that, Secure Boot.

Secure Boot Issues

Now, I understand that publishers want to keep players from cheating and exploiting the game, but Windows 11 already has some of these requirements and it shouldn’t take a tech expert to play a video game. A game should not make you go into the BIOS of your PC and make changes. It is too easy for someone to make the wrong change, and render the PC useless.

Sucking it up for the team, I make the changes on a couple of my PCs, because it is not a default setting, and carry on. That is until I get to a more budget system with an older AMD video card. What was a mid tier adjustment because a six hour adventure with no end to the ride.

The older AMD card would not allow the PC to post after the change, although, any card with current driver support would. I tried this with an RX480 and RX580 both, with no success. In the case of the RX580, it boot looped and required a BIOS reset. That is not something your average twelve or thirteen year old is going to try to do to play a game.

In the end, this set up won’t be testing that game. I may go back later and play with drivers, but it won’t be today, nor will it be this week. I move on without it and test everything else, which work great, by the way. The system is great, the game sucks.

Additional Feedback

The ironic thing is, that it seems more and more that people don’t even like this game anymore. They play because their friends still do, and many admit the fell out of love with this series a few years ago. I wonder why. Insert sarcasm here, I know perfectly well, why. The game, and indeed the series is more trouble than it’s worth and when you stray so far from a great experience, you end up like Kmart, or Blockbuster, or any number of fond memories from our past.

If you like like blog, maybe visit another on my blog page.

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Windows 10 has left the building, now what?

How did we get here?

With Microsoft kindly retiring millions of older devices due to new security constraints, I have been forced to explore options to either install a new Operating System or upgrade one of my PCs in an unconventional way. Having a YouTube channel centered mainly on budget PCs and PC related equipment, I find myself with several PCs that worked well on Windows 10, but for one reason or another, will not play well with version 11.

Some of these are justified. There are instruction sets on older CPUs that do not meet the new requirements, similar to how some video games won’t run on older hardware. This is normal and I wouldn’t expect to try running the new OS on a Q6600. Some of these ‘rules’ seem arbitrary, like the 7000 series Intel CPUs not being supported even though they have secure boot and the now required TPM 2.0. There is seemingly no difference in the architecture of the 7tb vs 8th gen. In fact, both of these are even on the 14nm node that Intel was so proud of for several generations.

For that matter, the 6th gen Intels were also on 14 nm and fit in the same sockets. The only thing I would be able to point to would be if DDR3 were an issue, but if so, make that the requirement, not the CPU. It is true though, that even though six through nine fit in the same socket, the motherboard chipset is different, but again ,make that the reason, not that it ‘can’t handle secure boot and TPM2.0″ .

I can complain endlessly.

What can we do about it?

The first thing and the least likely is just to leave the PC on Win10. It won’t get updates, but it doesn’t just stop working. Second, we can look at alternate ways to install version 11. I am actually exploring this with my laptop where I write this blog a majority of the time. It has an i5 7300 HQ, that is otherwise a solid machine. I am putting together a video to explore that and give it some totally unnecessary upgrades, and I may touch on that process a bit further in this blog.

The more interesting option is to try to install one of the many flavors of Linux Distros that are available. There are about a half dozen major distributions with more specialized versions forking from those. CachyOS off of Arch Linix, Bazzite from Fedora, and so on. There are advantages and disadvantages to all of them, but the requirements for my new OS are relatively simple. I have to be able to Play some games, use OBS to record video, and I have to be able to edit using DaVinci Resolve.

That doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but there are many that can do one or two, but the struggle is finding one that is intuitive for a newer user and can do all three. I believe i may have found that in Nobara Linux. I was able to easily install Steam and OBS, and they worked out of the gate. Steam gave me issues later, but I believe I just have to find the right combination of Proton and graphics card drivers.

Not all Rosey

This distro did come with a few challenges that were harder to overcome. Davinci Resolve would install, but would crash every time I went to the edit screen. I was running out of time before I had to post a video, so I gave a review of what was a positive experience for the most part and published the video here. Almost immediately I got some helpful feedback on the installation and part of it worked. Resolve is working and although I haven’t editing a video yet, I was able to set up all of preferences and I haven’t had any failures.

While I was having my struggles with Nobara, I also gave CachyOS a try. The installation was easy enough though there were more choices to make and it wasn’t quite as intuitive. I did like the lightweight nature of the distro and it was very quick. The issues though were in trying to install the games and programs I needed . It seems CachyOS doesn’t support Resolve yet, and that takes it out of the running, at least for now.

I have recently tried a third distro and will go back again to see if OBS and Resolve will install, but Bazzite very easily ran most of my games, It’s not a far stretch for me to have a Gaming PC and a Creation PC. I have inadvertently set that up as my current default. My main PC is an AMD build with an RTX 5070, and my Editing Rig is an Intel 12700KF with a B570 in it. It’s not unheard of for me to split the workload even on the same OS.

What about Eleven

I won’t give a step by step, or tutorial, but it is possible with a USB tool for ISO’s to select some of the parameters beforehand. My ISO tool of choice is Rufus, and I actually use it for all of my Linux and windows ISOs. It’s easy to find and download and very intuitive, and although copying the ISO onto a USB can take ten or fifteen minutes, it’s a small investment to make for a free tool.

I don’t know what the eventual split will be between any of the Linux versions and finagling of new Windows, but I am relatively sure anything I sell will have windows installed. not because I prefer it, but because anyone buying it will be more familiar with it and I will have fewer call backs. There may be a time when Linux is a widely accepted as Windows, but that time isn’t now.

For an easy read on one of the PCs that won’t have any issues with upgrades click here or feel free to go back to the blog page here.

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A small repair that makes a great difference

How did we get here?

What do you do when your graphics card starts running warm and sounds like a jet engine? Set aside some time, trust yourself, grab your tools and it may help to watch a teardown video or two.

My adventure began when I started benchmarking the RX 9060 XT against some other cards that I have. The testing went well, but I noticed how loud and warmer temperatures for my 3060Ti. This card has been a workhorse for me , and I only recently took it out of my main PC. I didn’t notice anything as I was using it to game and stream, but it was very noticeable during the comparisons.

I also noticed that the NVidia card ran much warmer than the other two by several degrees. Benchmarks measure performance by stressing components, but this card had some abnormal behavior. It wasn’t hard to see I had a small issue.

The card I have, an EVGA RTX 3060Ti, is a two fan card with a slightly larger heatsink, but it was obvious the cooling on this card was working much harder than the others. In addition, the time to heat up was very quick and cooling off was more gradual. The card was in regular use since purchase, but very seldom was it stressed for long periods.

The next steps

At this point I was sure of a couple of things. The card wasn’t overheating, but was warmer than normal. It was time to make sure that the temps didn’t adversely affect the results I was getting in the comparisons. The only way to make sure was to tear it apart and reapply the thermal paste. I was just hoping the change wouldn’t skew the numbers I had already collected for the video I just released, here.

The teardown itself is straight forward. Several screws hold the backplate, but the ones near the GPU take special care. These four spring loaded screws are handled in an alternating pattern similar to changing a car tire. This ensures equal pressure on each side of the chip and less chance of damage. Standard thermal paste like MX4 works fine assuming you make sure coverage is full.

Testing

With the paste applied and the card reassembled it was time to re test all of the benchmarks. The strange thing is that in almost every benchmark the results were slightly lower than the first set of runs with a lower temp. So, what happened, it should have been better.

Actually, it was better, just not the final numbers.

Observing the tests, it was important to see not just the temperatures, which were slightly lower, but the noise levels and the ramp up and cool down. In the first set of tests, the card would heat up quickly and recovery was slow. In this set, temps rose gradually and cooled off very quickly. My first indication that the re-paste worked.

Other indicators were the sound of the fans during stress, and the sheer amount of heat put off. The first set put off a considerable amount of heat when opening the case, while the second test was closer to expected. The fans were much quieter as well. There was fan noise, but it not to catastrophic levels. This was a success.

Now What?

The most important thing is that my comparison to the other two video cards is still valid. The results from testing were still within margin of error, so the results of the first test were solid. The card is cleaner and with fresh thermal paste, it will have long life.

The next thing is that it really was something simple and well within my experience level to fix. There are several small thermal pads on the video memory chips, and of course the paste itself, but the hardest part of this was keeping up with the screws. Not only did the back plate have several, but the end bracket had three tiny ones and two for the back plate had very small nuts. (go ahead, insert joke here).

The only other worry was making sure I used a cross pattern to tighten the screws holding the PCB to the Heatsink. Those were spring loaded, so the chances of overtightening was slim, but there was still a chance. It pays to take your time and exercise patience here.

Overall, this was a great success. I wasn’t sure of that when I started seeing the benchmark numbers come back slightly lower, but the cards behavior was vastly different and I’m happy. This wasn’t a repair as much as maintenance, but it’s good to know it was successful.

The YouTube video for this blog can be found here.

Feel free to check out more blogs with other things I probably shouldn’t have done. here

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When 8GB is enough memory for modern video games.

The Rx 9060 XT 8GB

Yes, the step sibling of the better model from AMD, and the model that made much of the tech community collectively groan. It has half the memory of the 16GB, and arguably other architecture making it worse. AMD denies this and says they are identical but the memory, but board partners have a say as well.

Part of the reason for the collective dissatisfaction is performance, but a larger part is naming. AMD has chosen to follow examples set by its dominant competitor and confuse us. Yes, sometimes following an example can be great, but when the example is one consumers hate, we are left scratching our heads.

For years NVidia has pulled a bait and switch tactic on us and gets away with it. Multiple cards have identical naming and different specs. Some have slower memory swapped in. Some have artificial limits set on them so a lower model doesn’t outperform a higher one. Super versions and Ti versions knock on the performance door of the next tier up, but money is always in play.

And that’s the example AMD choose. Both cards have the same name and in prebuilt PC’s can have either. You expect high level performance, but get a lower tier card. Money.

But what about the card?

The card itself is a pleasant surprise. Drop the XT and this meets or beats expectations. AMD has done that before with cards like the RX 7600 or RX 9070. Yes, the current gen has plain and XT flavors. This card was destined for price drops. That’s why I bought it. A recent price drop well below retail on some models almost makes this a decent card.

A full set of testing on a mid range system showed great results. Matched with a Ryzen 7 3700X, Cyberpunk in 1080P Ultra had 103 FPS and Monster Hunter Wilds had 71 with no Frame Gen . Great numbers for a mid range 1080P build. Matching it with a 12700KF with 32GB of DDR5 saw 83FPS and 76 in 1440P, respectively. Those were the lowest marks with highest ranging up to 319 in CS2. All without borrowing from system memory.

I thought this card would have no choice but to borrow in the newer, more demanding titles, but it didn’t. The only time I saw it have to borrow was in MH Wilds while trying to make it do so with the settings for another video. Steam’s new Performance Monitor. This card works great in 1080P and 1440P.

I fully expected to hate this card because I was told to by most reviewers. The fact is, I didn’t. I don’t game in 4K and I don’t push Ray Tracing to the limit in any games I play. Yes, I can see where that would show it’s deficiency, but if you are playing with full RT or in 4K, you probably aren’t looking for a budget card.

This card is fine

Yes, it should have a different name. But so should the RTX 3050 6GB, or the RTX 3060 8GB. Yes, that one does exist, so does a 2060 12GB. If this card were a RX 9060, I think half the complaints go away. As it stands, if the price drops to around 250USD, it is the price of the now available B580, and clearly beats it.

When the B580 came out, people called it a great card, but something that beats it head to head will be marred by a confusing name and a higher retail price. It’s a shame, because if this card had hit the market right, people would have loved it. The fact is, it’s a solid video card and maybe a lesson in marketing.

Click here for the video run down.

I discuss whether you may need a High End Gaming PC in the first place, here.

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Do you really need a high end gaming PC?

How did we get here?

One of the biggest disappointments recently, if you are a PC Gamer is the 50 Series of Graphics Cards from NVidia. Fundamentally, these are the same as the 40 Series with extra features. Improvement is nominal without it, and the only real reason to buy one is if you are rocking a 30 series or older. Don’t get me wrong, there are some performance improvements, but most is a benefit of Frame Generation and DLSS 4.

That is where we get into the debate of poor optimization vs more demanding game titles. Insert Unreal Engine 5 joke here. Do we need the new features because games or more demanding, or because they aren’t done when they release? There are arguments for each.

Another disappointment is the new processor chipset from Intel. No longer do we have the traditional i-series of processors, but a step back named Ultra. Again, poor optimization, but also poor performance. Intel has actually had issues with processors for a few generations with 13900 and 14900 voltage issues. This led to not only poor performance, but ruined consumer hardware.

So, what’s the answer?

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to look for used parts.

Yes, I have a YouTube channel that concentrates on budget and used parts, but deals can be found looking for something like last year’s model at big box stores, or open box items. Previous generation components can often save a lot of money without much performance loss, and lower tier new items can also save a lot.

If you were buying a new dishwasher for your home, chances are you do some research. PCs are no different. If I can but an RTX 4070 Ti for significantly less than a new 5070 Ti, it’s worth considering. Or if you’re gaming and production habits are less than bleeding edge, maybe the parts can be two. I buy parts I need, not the ones that help me keep up with the Jones’. I simply don’t need an RTX 5090.

Not off the hook

I mentioned NVidia and Intel, but AMD is also guilty shady tactics.

They had a great opportunity to separate themself from team green by having clear model numbers and pricing that matches performance. Instead, they turned lemming on us and offer the same model number with different memory layouts. They claim it gives the consumer more options for graphics cards. Don’t be fooled.

Many prebuilts won’t list which graphics card knowing full well they will sell a card with half the memory. NVidia and AMD both have graphics cards with cut down specs, that will certainly be in those builds. It’s like ordering a burger off the menu that has a picture with cheese and not getting it.

So, really, what do we do?

Buy according to your needs. Yes, a brand-new PC will have a warranty and you should be able to rely on it, but more and more, that’s a fantasy. It’s not to say there aren’t great deals, but it may be on last year’s model, or an open box. Or even straight up, used.

I seldom trust a prebuilt without a lot of research, and I have a number of videos on finding used parts on sites like eBay. If you are worried about a site like eBay, try something like Jawa. The guidelines are tighter and many times the deals are better. No, I’m not sponsored.

If you are adventurous enough to use a local market place, use caution, but ask if they have other things they are getting rid of. You may score extras you weren’t expecting. It never hurts to try.

The big corporations won’t stop being shady; we aren’t their target audience anymore. The best we can do is not give in. Don’t pay stupid prices. Buy what you need, not the fancy upsells. Do your research. And if your computer does what you want it to do well, maybe you don’t need to upgrade. Sometimes, good enough is pretty darn good.

Here is my latest, ‘good enough’ build

Back to the blog

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Why the RTX5050 won’t be an complete failure

How did we get here?

The RTX5050 will be releasing this month and to most people in the PC community, this will be an abject disaster. At a two Hundred fifty dollar price point, my first reaction is to agree. That is until I start looking at NVidia’s behavior and success of previous budget minded cards. While it’s true that this card doesn’t have a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it may not be the worst thing since the GT1030 DDR4 version.

Since Nvidia’s “current” numbering iteration began around 2009, Team Green has often had a x50 at the bottom of the product stack. Well, they have for most series. There was also a GTS 150, but that was actually, I believe, the top of the 100 series. They have also occasionally mixed in something like the before mentioned 1030, but those don’t come every cycle. The last one being the 1630.

The x50’s were once reasonably priced entry level cards. The 3050, however, broke that and was confusing. It had a 8GB version that needed external power and a 6GB version that didn’t. Both had the same exact name. On purpose, and shady. The RTX5050 will be priced too high as well, at 300USD, but there is a possible bright spot.

What Bright Spot?

Someone going from a GTX 1650, which was a solid card, saw an improvement going to a 3050, even with the 6GB, no external power version. Oh, that one. But that was a different card with the same name, that doesn’t count. I’m not done.

Yes, the RTX3050 6GB should have been called the 3040 or even 3030, but it had some advantages. AMD and Intel failed to take capitalize. AMD’s budget offering was the RX6400 with 4GB of VRAM and no encoder, and Intel insisted on Resizable Bar. Both of these completely impeded any use in an older system that was trying to hang on for a few more years. Check out the blog on the RTX 3050, here.

Offering a 6GB version that took no external power, meant saving thousands of old office PCs from landfills. A twelve year old playing Fortnite doesn’t need a high end Gaming PC to play online with friends. He or she needs something affordable that won’t quit on them. NVidia is reliable.

Yeah, but the RTX5050?

There are other forgotten bright spots from the x50 cards. Anyone remember the 750Ti, or the 1050Ti? Icons. No one can argue that although the 50 base model was decent, but the Ti version far exceeded it’s sibling. Although the 1650 didn’t have a Ti, it had a Super version as a step up. That could be this cards saving grace. An RTX 5050Ti makes sense.

If NVidia has the vision enough to make a 5050Ti, I think it can very easily regain some of the respect that has tarnished this series of cards. The 3050 6Gb did have the advantage of coming in a single slot, that could save older Optiplexes, but with Window10 reaching end of support, that might not be the “go to” it was a year or two ago. A 12GB 5050Ti with a faster clock and more cores, though, could absolutely reign as a budget king. Well, unless Team Green gets greedy again and marks it up to a stupid price. They would never do that, would they? Of course they will.

I’m not sure if I’ll spring for one of these base models, but if I do, it will be on the YouTube channel, here.

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Build it like I’m starting something new

How did I get here?

First, I need to explain myself. The purpose was to find out how well a PC from when I started my YouTube Channel would do now. That would be 2018, so I gathered my parts. My actual build still existed in one form, but it had upgrades, so I needed to make adjustments.

When I began my channel in 2018, I had a Ryzen 7 1700x, an X470 Asus motherboard, 16GB of DDR4 running at 2400MTS, a 1TB HDD, and an RX480, all in a Lepa 502 case. (below). Strangely, I do have all of the components, but they are spread out or put away.

lepa case
Lepa 502

What I DID have on hand, were most of the pieces and instead of the RX480, a GTX 1070 graphics card. I did have to make some changes. I no longer use the HDD as a boot drive, but this was a test to see how well the old system would hold up to modern gaming. The games were also on SSD.

So, I put everything back together, including the 600W EVGA power supply. I was so proud, as I clicked the power button. Nothing. Oh, I got power and the fans ramped up, but it didn’t post. Then I remembered why. I knew all of the components worked, but there was an issue with the motherboard.

Big Problems?

The AM4 platform has been around for ten years now, but some of the early motherboards abandoned support for older Ryzens with a BIOS update. The eprom didn’t have enough memory for every series. I have updated the BIOS on that X470 more than once for 3000 series, and for 5000. It wouldn’t post with a 1700X without another flash.

I had two solutions. I could reflash the BIOS to an earlier version, or use the next generation CPU. It was time for the Zen 2 processor. In this case, a six core, twelve thread 3600X. I do have a 3700X, but I wanted to keep this more of a mainstream experiment and the Ryzen 5 would be fine. I swapped in the 3600X and she came right up.

Another odd thing about this PC is that it runs on Windows 10 Education Edition. This is more of an enterprise version, and for quite a while it didn’t automatically upgrade to 11. It will also most likely be support past October of this year.

So, now what?

With the system up and running I started testing. Just how well a six year old system holds up was a pleasant surprise. Games ran smooth and benchmarks were consistent those run with the GTX 1070 and a modern CPU. Yes, modern CPUs run better and more efficiently, but this build is still solid.

The case, all be it large and with a plexiglass side panel, still has great airflow and a lot of room for larger video cards should someone choose to still use it. I don’t still have the original fans, but it does have room for 120mm or 140mm and room for an All in One liquid cooler. This thing holds up.

I then started comparing to PCs that were five or six years before this. Intel had the 4000 series, which were great, but AMD had the FX series. There were huge differences between the processors from 2013 to 2019, and AMD in particular looks to have made a lightyear scale jump.

Overall, this was a good little trip back, and except for the BIOS issue, I realized most of these components are interchangeable with brand new ones from today. CPUs are still being made on the AM4 platform and applications like FSR and XESS can make older Nvidia cards perform at very playable levels. I wonder if we will be able to say the same about current releases six years from now.

I will be posting the YouTube video soon, the link to it is here. If you like, there is a blog about another older build with a Xeon, here.

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Turning a dozen bad things into one great donation.

How did we get here?

The donation in this case, is a half dozen Optiplex PCs. I acquired these at a yard sale for the whopping sum of just ten bucks, and was convinced I could make something of them. Unknown at the time, there were going to be several factors that would keep most of that from happening. There is a link to the original blog, here.

I made progress in some areas, but soon found out why these machines ended up abandoned. The first issue is that they are very old by PC standards. In an age where consumer PCs work on 16 or 32 cores or threads, most of these had two. I also discovered that these were a BTX design instead of the now standard ATX. This means that the board was an inverted design, and the case was as well.

I couldn’t use the cases for anything else, and the PCs worked off of a nearly twenty year old design. Even trying to create a custom sleeper PC would be very difficult. Still, I managed to salvage a couple for upgrade and began repairing others by cannibalizing. It wasn’t what I was looking to do, but it got several working. It was then that the thought of a donation came to mind.

How did you fix them?

To answer that, I have to explain a bit about some of the actual issues. None had drives in them, but I got HDDs at the same yard sale. Several had bad power supplies and were missing memory, and still one other had a bad memory module. A bad stick of DDR2 tied me up for an extra hour or so of troubleshooting, but the donor PCs had plenty.

I also learned that older PCs are finicky about which port SATA cables are plugged in, and the Bios is not helpful at all. It seems that these older systems want you to plug things in in order. I couldn’t use SATA port 0 and 2 for instance, I had to use 0 and 1. That meant some cables weren’t long enough. Some had floppies, some didn’t. This was going to take a while.

I methodically moved through several steps including new batteries and testing SATA cables, until I got a PC working for every good HDD. That meant six working PCs, all with working drives, and all with a copy of windows 10. I wanted to use an older OS, but don’t have a copy of Win7 or XP to use, and they can always change it. The important part was to get everything working together and gut as few as possible.

It was long, and tedious, but by the end of a day and a half, I had six machines. All of them worked, all had good parts, and all were in good shape, even if they were old. The most important part in my case, was that all of them were off my shelves. I also had one PC that was a donor, but it cleared a lot of room.

You said a donation?

I did. Partially for selfish reasons, but it was also practical. They were taking up space, as were a lot of clothes. For that matter until this morning, so were a lot of boxes and packing material. The boxes, etc. could be recycled, but so couldn’t the PCs and clothes?

I determined last week, that one of the things that would happen in my mini break form work would be catching up on the stuff lying around. The pile of PCs ranked high on that list, so did the mail on my dining room table, and some other stuff, but that’s a different blog.

In the end, I had six working PCs, one that didn’t, and a box of clothes. There is also a Salvation Army donation center not far away. I loaded the car, drove down and I hope helped more than just myself. My goal is not to shift my burden, but to benefit someone besides myself. These are still useable and someone will get a decent computer to check email, or web games or file their taxes. The can’t serve that purpose for me.

I still do have a couple of the PCs. One, upgraded (in a way), one got turned into a sleeper build, video here, and at least two will be for an experiment. If the experiment succeeds, I’ll write about it. I also imagine there will be pics on the custom build page and at least one YouTube video. Speaking of that, here it the link to this story. Enjoy.

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When ‘sold broken’ turns out to be great.

How did we get here?

Part of this started when I managed to snag a Dell Optiplex for less than fifty bucks listed as not working on eBay. I could clearly see the issue from the pictures in the description, and grabbed it. As it turns out, this wasn’t hitting the lottery, this is quite common. Items, especially tech, are listed if someone lacks the skill, resources, or time to test or repair them.

In this case, the pictures showed that the PC itself worked, but it was missing a drive for the operating system. Knowing it would be a simple fix, I ordered the PC, added an SSD, and opened the door to a whole different adventure. I entered the Realm of Broken and Untested. My buying habits haven’t been the same since.

This obviously hasn’t always been successful. Graphics cards in particular, have turned out to be a loss, but each only cost about forty dollars and I’m not ready to declare defeat on both, yet. There has been much better success with cases, motherboards, and full PCs. Most items have cost forty five bucks or less.

Any hidden Gems?

Actually, there have been two of them, both DDR5 motherboards. The first was a B760 for sale as not working with what looked like very minor damage on one corner. The seller had several pictures of the motherboard and box, which was helpful. It looked like it got dropped on the corner during shipping, but wasn’t damaged badly. Some very careful work to gently push things back into place, a full load of tests with a known working CPU, and everything checked out well. A video containing my used parts adventure is here.

The second motherboard was a swing for the fences. Bent pins were clearly visible in the socket, and it was cheap. I had fixed bent pins before, but this was much more.

My own carelessness had prepared me for the attempt, but that was on an older socket with a lot fewer pins. It was also my own fault. I didn’t secure the CPU heatsink after removing the processor, and the predictable happened. An effort to save me five minutes cost me nearly three hours, but it prepared me for the next attempt.

I was ready to be adventurous and sat down with a few tools, a good flashlight and a lot of patience. After doing what I thought was a pretty good job, I took a break to regroup, then went back to finish. I should have looked at other sockets, though. (That parts coming). With the socket square, I dropped in the budget CPU and some test RAM and started it. A few minutes later it posted and I remembered to breathe.

What happened then?

At this point, I felt good about myself and didn’t bother checking the rest of the board. (I told you I would get to this part.) I slapped it all in a case, and set up to start running tests. This is where being in a hurry bit me again. I have my games on a portable drive that I tried to plug into the front panel. I say tried because it reset the PC. This is the part where I kick myself for not looking at everything.

Two pins on the USB3 connector were bent all of the way down, and needed repair. Very patiently I put them in order and tried again. It reset again. I checked the connection and the same thing happened. Ready to chalk it up to a forty dollar motherboard, I gave up. I should say I was ready to give up, because when I went to go remove the USB plug to the external drive I noticed the reset pin pushed all of the way in. Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Somewhere during my haste to test, I didn’t notice the reset button pushed in, and each time I put pressure on the front of the case, it reset. I was so careful with the CPU socket this time and confident that I knew what I was doing, that I forgot the basics. In my defense, though, I wouldn’t have expected multiple issues with both a motherboard and a case. And it gives me something to laugh about.

What about the testing?

Oh yeah, the testing went great! I found that the 7500F compares very well against the 5800X I currently use, and beats it in most tests. I’m debating between that CPU and a small upgrade to completely swap out systems, and couldn’t be happier. I’ve done all of my testing and let it sit idle overnight making sure there were no unexpected resets. She’s working great and I’m very happy. That video is here, and pics of the build are here.

Oh, and I did give it a once over to make sure everything else was good on both motherboard and case. I learned my lesson. Okay, that’s not a true statement, but I learned something. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to conquer at least one broken GPU.