Tag: Intel

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When a PC Hardware Repair Goes Better than Expected

How Did We Get Here

Lately, I find myself making attempts to find broken or untested hardware on the cheap. I don’t go randomly selecting things that have no hope for repair; I search listings looking for clues that may indicate what the issue is before I start looking at prices. When I find something I may be able fix, and the price is right, I’ll take the chance.

There have been a number of such purchases lately, with the most success coming from motherboards. There have also been a few misses, mainly with graphics cards. The latest video attempting to repair a motherboard is here, while the extra details here. It doesn’t always work, sometimes you get a bad CPU and it’s difficult to tell on which component to lay the blame

This particular case is a Z390 Phantom Gaming 6 from AsRock. It’s a quality board and the price was right. The seller did disclose not testing the board due to bent pins, and they could be seen in the pictures. I set my sights on a cheap processor to test with and all in with shipping I was in for about fifty bucks.

Testing

The pins were tedious, but repairable. After about two hours of meticulous work, it was ready to test. My new Celeron G4900 was actually a used CPU, but the whole set up worked. The two cores of the Celeron aren’t a great match for the motherboard, but it’s a good starting point. At the time of this writing, an upgrade has arrived.

I have a suite of games I normally test, and these worked with one exception. Borderlands Three stayed on the intro screen, the entire forty-five minutes I let it. I point that game out because Borderlands Four actually did work on the new set up and the results were predictable. Neither the processor nor the graphics card are suitable for playing this game but it turned in a respectable 20-24 frames per second on low with upscaling.

I was able to update the bios, and run other games including Call of Duty, that requires anti cheat. The results weren’t great, barely reaching 30FPS in most situations, but we are ready to move on to the next phase. That is where things took a turn.

Failure

Having tested the Celeron, I looked for a more powerful processor and arrived on an 8700K with six cores and twelve threads. Ideally, this would rival newer budget type setups and I looked forward to it. This, however, didn’t go as well. The 8700K doesn’t post, even with a new BIOS, clearing the CMOS, and trying different RAM placement. The motherboard has a debug indicator that stays on ’00’ with the fans running full speed.

I tried several things to troubleshoot and have to believe that the CPU itself is bad. This presents me with two options. I can buy another board to test, whether its just a board, or an old Optiplex, or I can get another CPU. I have plenty of ‘broken’ prebuilts, and found a ninth generation i5, that should be here this week.

If the issue turns out to be the 8700K I’ll have to file a claim, but the platform I purchased on has a great buyer protection program, so I should be safe. If the issue is the board, it complicates things just a bit, because I can’t completely rule out the processor. Getting a new board means all new tests and by the time I am able to verify the 8700K is the issue, it may be too late to file a claim.

So, What’s next?

That was actually dictated by more shopping for used parts. Ideally, a score would have been a cheap office prebuilt with an eighth or ninth gen processor. That allows me to check both parts in question. What I’ve found so far is an i5 9400F, which allows me to test the motherboard. If it arrives quickly enough, I can at least test the three sock theory.

Okay, for those unfamiliar, it’s a dark laundry room and you have two different color socks in the dryer. How do you pull a matching pair? You have to pull at least three to take into the light, two of the three will be the same color, possibly all three. Having three CPUs helps me reasonably assess if the problem is the processor, or the board.

This won’t be the last stop for the 8th or 9th gen set up. It’s not a current platform, but collecting at least one working platform over the past several generations helps me test a variety of conditions. It allows me to test a variety of games, Linux distros, applications and even hardware for compatibility. I will eventually get another motherboard, but for the time being, I’ll go with what I have.

I spent as much time troubleshooting the new CPU as I did fixing the board in the first place and there are better things to do with the set up, even if I can’t get my money back. I’m still happy with the board and the initial testing and when I get the i5 to test, there will be a video and of course, a blog.

Feel free to check out the other YouTube videos and Blogs.

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Is buying untested parts an exciting opportunity or a complete disaster?

How Did We Get Here?

That part was easy. I bought a Z97 motherboard based on suggestions from my YouTube channel. Then it got complicated. The board failed almost immediately.

I tried a number of things to save it, but to no avail. It wasn’t the seller’s fault, and in their defense, it worked when I got it, for about an hour. Then it gave up, completely. If you are curious about that experiment, the video is here, and the blog is here.

My second attempt included buying an untested MSI Z97 and giving that a shot. I could see in the pictures it had a few bent pins, so I knew it didn’t work, but forty bucks was a good price to risk a fix. Getting the board, II discovered more bent pins. It turned riskier with that discovery.

Did it Work?

An hour later I had all pins but one in place, and it was ready to test. That one pin broke, and it would make or break the whole effort. My hope was that was for ground or for future use, but if it were a memory controller or something, then it’s bad.

A series of boot loops, a BIOS reset, and reseating memory, and it booted. Success, sort of. That was only part of the challenge, I still didn’t know if it actually functioned. I updated the BIOS, added more memory and installed an OS, and it still worked. Now I was feeling better.

The last thing was to stress the CPU. I was using an i5 4430 to test, and downloaded Cinebench 2026. And, although the 693 score is not groundbreaking, it was a valid test and I could breathe again. I had a platform and a baseline and I could do some more aggressive testing with a more powerful CPU. Mission accomplished.

Wait? That’s it?

Of course not.

First, I did see bent pins in the pictures from the seller and knew what to expect, but my first attempt failed because there were pins I didn’t see that were bent. It wasn’t until I ran my finger over the pins for an idea of top alignment, that I found problem areas. A closer examination showed other bent pins. One of which snapped off instead of bending back into place.

Whether it’s for ground or future use, I don’t know, but all four memory slots worked and the CPU didn’t show timing issues, so I now have an LGA 1149 socket that seems to work. We’ll see if that holds with the XEON CPU.

My other nitpick is with Maxon. A lot of people still use Cinebench R20, or R23, and they have made it incredibly difficult to find on their site. R20 is a much more appropriate test with older hardware, even without full support. I need to bring back ‘Shady’ or Brilliant’ in one of my videos. This is definitely Shady.

Other than that, this worked great and I’m happy. Next will be tests with the 4670, the Xeon 1270v3 and eventually, it may be my NAS server. I only have one case that fits an excess number of HDDs, but a recent purchase may help. It’s not a case, it’s a hard drive cage. Now if I can only find a case to put it in.

The video for this adventure is 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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ARC B570: Better than it needs to be

How Did We Get Here

My adventures with Intel Arc video cards begins shortly after their release. I bought an Arc A750 in the spring of 2023, and immediately found issues. The price was fair at around two hundred fifty USD, but performance on many titles was insufferable. Some games couldn’t use the Direct X 11 API at all, and although Vulkan worked on many titles, games that had that as a choice, wouldn’t let you choose it. World War Z, for example, had horrible performance, drivers were broken, and the Vulkan API couldn’t be chosen. Some of my thoughts on it are here.

Performance on titles that had Vulkan as the default were okay, and many Direct X 12 titles worked, but the price was too high. The only hope was that Intel would do what they promised and fix the issues. Otherwise, this card one step above a paperweight. Then came the drivers. An update here, one a few weeks later, and a major one later. It also didn’t stop with just one or two. Updates continued to come seemingly every week. A major release at around the year mark fixed DX11 issues including some of those on WWZ , mentioned earlier. It also cleaned up most DX 11 issues. This card was now decent. A follow up video is here.

The one thing the Alchemist cards going for them was the adoption of the AV1 video encoder. The second thing was platforms like YouTube allowed AV1 and the encoder on the Arc A750 was outstanding. In fact, the Intel AV1 encoder for all of it’s cards performed well, even the lower tier A380. AMD and NVidia were both behind, here. With a smaller file size, little quality loss in compression and fast rendering, small creators had a gem.

But What About the Arc B570?

Shortly after the two year mark for Alchemist came Battlemage. The B580 released for desktops and the first thought was driver performance. The first thought should have been if these would be available. No one seemed to have these cards except reviewers, who were actually positive. It was a stark contrast from the previous release, and a great sign for consumers. Two months later, and the B580 is still not available. Okay, technically it is, if you want to pay a one hundred percent mark up.

One thing that did become available, at least occasionally, was the B570. The A770’s little brother was the A750 and likewise for the B570. Similar to the A750, the performance might not be up to the more expensive card, but it was still good. In this case, good enough to beat the RTX 3060 in many benchmark tests. It was also slightly better in the video encoding mentioned earlier.

It performs well in both 1080p and 1440p, and the model I picked up runs extremely quiet. Temperatures were also outstanding with the two fan model Sparkle brand card never going above the mid-60’s Celsius. The RTX 3060 I tested it against has 12GB of video memory, where the B570 has ten, but the only game that the NVidia card beat it soundly in didn’t use more than half the available memory. I used the RTX 3060 because it’s the most popular card on Steam, so it’s a realistic comparison.

So, what now?

The Sparkle card is actually a very attractive card as well. It has a few curves and a nice blue color, with small amounts of accent lighting and a nice fan design. I loved the original reference design from intel, and was hesitant to buy this one, but the reference looks to only be available on the higher model which is harder to find than NVidia’s new 50 series. The A380 I have is a Sparkle Brand card, but the design of the B570 actually impressed me.

This card will soon go into an upgraded editing rig. The color scheme for that machine is blue and white, so the new motherboard and this card will match well. The AV1 encoder is a definite feature, and now I know the gaming performance is as well. I’m sure I’ll write more about this card, and probably compare it to any new card I get from the other two companies, so stay tuned, but in the meantime the video with benchmarks can be found here.

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Yet another simple, missed opportunity for a good PC

How did we get here?

That part is relatively easy to explain. I have an HP prebuilt PC that I bought a few years ago to review on the YouTube channel. You can find the first video here. I found several ‘flaws’ with it that with a little help could have gone from a PC for basic web browsing and email, to a productive machine. Proprietary parts also made it difficult to upgrade with new ones.

Solutions did come with other companies making products that would also work in that PC, but HP’s choice to try to lock you into their eco structure limited those, and still does. Still, aftermarket power supplies and new types of video cards, added to the range of available upgrades. These could take this basic machine into something that would last longer than HP intended or may have wanted. I get it, make a computer that’s obsolete in a few years and someone has to buy a new one. Make parts hard to find, or have you as the only source and you make even more money. Eventually, though, consumers stop trusting you.

I struggled with a few of these, but managed to find a power supply for a similar machine, I upgraded the memory, and I added a small cooling fan so this prebuilt became a better version of itself. It could still fulfill it’s intended purpose, but now it was able to game and stream because video cards with reasonable power requirements could be added. The computer had a Ryzen processor with AMD graphics, so adding an RX 6400 became possible. That card is not particularly good, but it works. It is also much better than the onboard graphic.

Other Goodies in the HP PC

As it turned out, Nvidia video cards were also supported. By supported, I mean the BIOS for the motherboard recognized the card, and I could put things like a GTX 1660, or even an RTX 3050 6GB model, which could both drastically improve this simple PC into a small beast. I’ll have some feedback and right about the RTX before long, so please check back. For now I’ll simply point back to the blog page, here, but hopefully I remember to come back and update to the RTX 3050 blog when I write it.

By adding a small Noctua fan, the PC managed to stay cooler and the existing processor was more than capable. This prebuilt had all of the tools it needed to be a solid build. It had solid CPU performance, decent graphics performance and plenty of memory. But what if we could do more? The Intel Arc cards have an AVI video encoder. A very good video encoder. Surely we could make a solid editing machine.

The Rub

As it turns out, this PC doesn’t recognize the ARC GPU using the very same slot AMD and NVidia graphics cards use. In fact, the machine doesn’t even post or properly start up. Why is this an issue? Because other HPs from the same era, recognize Intel graphics. They may not have recognized Intel Discrete graphics on a stand alone card, but the CPU has it built in.

Why do I say it’s a simple problem to solve, maybe the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) isn’t set up to be able to do that. The only issue with that statement is that they have current BIOS available for other PCs that already have that option. The BIOS on many of their prebuilts is extremely limited, but they already have the very same feature available in other PCs, and the motherboard used in this prebuilt is very common. The worst part, there have been BIOS updates AFTER Intel video cards have been released. It shouldn’t be very hard. What good were the last several updates? It’s a straight miss for HP.

So, What do we do with the Prebuilt PC?

That part is easy. It’s a solid machine and eventually, it will again become someone’s every day driver. But, it does make for a great test PC and a fine experiment. My early experiences with this model were frustrating, but this thing now is almost like the family pet. Well, if I had a family living with me, or a pet. Still, this PC is solid and much more than I thought I was getting when I first reviewed it. I don’t think HP can take the credit for that , though. And I’m certainly not giving it any.