PC Tech Thread

DDR4/5 thing is quite a dilemma

I had a look at DDR5/4800 vs. DDR4/3200 pricing for my upcoming (eventually) build, and amortised over the life of the machine it's only a few pence a day. Oddly, the Z690 mobo with DDR5 support seems to be less than the equivalent Z590/DDR4 one which was in my build list before I updated the plan to Gen12

Just trying to work out the case fans. I seem to have a 3 pin power connector for each fan and I connected these up and they are spinning away. I also have a 4 pin connector marked PWM which I believe is to give more control over fan speed. Do I plug this in too?

It's usually one or the other, DC or PWM. PWM fans give you a wider range of speeds afaik, so that would be preferable.

I'm having an issue with a shucked Seagate hard drive. Wondering if anyone had experienced the same or had any tips.

4TB drive, works fine in the USB caddy. When I connect it directly to my PC the drive shows up in Windows 10 and is assigned a drive letter but can't be read and says it needs to be formatted before use. I put it back into the USB case and it still works OK. It is formatted as NTFS.

Disk manager for the direct connection shows:

Disk manager for USB connection shows:

Any ideas?

I could copy the content over to another drive and format it but only really want to do that if it's going to work as copying 3TB over USB takes a while.

Cheers. On further investigation I suspect it may be for connecting to PWM fans or something. Documentation is pretty shit for the case.

I've had a shit headache for a week or so. I've also been struggling to sit in front of my computer for anything but short periods.

Just noticed that my refresh rate was set to 24Hz for some unknowable reason. It should be on 60. Its like looking through a freshly cleaned window! Could that have been the cause of my headache?

If anyone is wondering how to turn their 10 year old case designed for low noise into an airflow case I can tell you it is possible. I mentioned here about getting a fan instead of 3 blanking plates for optical drives.

I got this

Snipped the fan guard out, put a 120mm noctua in and then slapped a magnetic filter over the top for easy cleaning

I realise that I probably my old AIO probably was so noisey as it was working super hard as the only 120mm extractor fan in the case, with two flow limted 120mm intakes (covered by a noise reducing filter). So I have gone down the 'more big slow fans is better than lots of little fast fans route'

3 x 120mm intakes
2 x 120mm on the CPU cooler
and 3x 140mm extractors
= a whole lot of beige and brown

However; its totally worth it as the machine is effectivly inaudable next to me unless I sit and do nothing, typing on my keyboard easily drowns it out.
The CPU now idles at 36c which is great. I could add another 3 x 140mm (1 on the bottom, two on the side pannel) but I dont think that would do that much really)

Well that's knocked off almost 15c under load (after an hour of gaming)

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Does it work if you boot up with a live CD?

I didn't have one handy so decided to copy stuff off and try reformatting. Initially it seemed to be split into two partitions and I could only format one, regardless of attempts to wipe, extend, etc.

Eventually ended up using Diskpart to Clean it and then creating a partition with Minitool Partition Wizard. So far as I could gather the problem was something to do with a missing GUID Partition Table but works fine now.

@sacredhart and others. It's always worthwhile considering upgrading your existing desktop/laptop and it's a fairly simple process. I'm not in an IT role but I did the following with my circa 10 year old Acer desktop:

• download Speccy (or some other equivalent) a free programme that identifies all your existing components
  
• using this I identified that I could increase my RAM from 6GB to 8GB (2 x 4GB is the max that the motherboard will allow). RAM at those low levels is as cheap as chips
  
• I also checked the various processors that my existing motherboard would allow and upgraded from an Intel Core i3-3240 to a second hand Intel Core i5-3330 I had spotted on Amazon for less than £50
  
• I added an SSD and use it as the boot drive
  
  

It's all good now and super whizzy even when editing large video files which had been it's shortfall previously.

Thanks

So I've had an i9 12900k sitting in its box a week. Thought I'd be waiting until the end of the month for an LGA 1700 water block but that's due to be delivered today.

Absolutely no sign of any DDR5 or even an idea what it might cost (probably lots). Sensible thing would be to just get a DDR4 board and re-use the RAM I've got, but I hate the thought of wanting to replace that when DDR5 becomes cheaper and faster.

Admittedly very first world problems.

Finally sorted my new PC. Strange combination of NAS, Plex server ( @Mr_Sworld ), various other stuff (media download, network controller, etc) and occasional remote desktop for when I need a bit more grunt.

Ended up going with a Fractal Design Define 7 case as it can fit a shedload of hard drives and isn't, relatively speaking, that big. Still a fair size though and pretty heavy. Very solid and well designed but poor instructions.

Went with a Ryzen 5600G and 32GB of RAM plus MSI B550-A PRO Motherboard (had 6 SATA ports that worked even if you were also using M2). Came to about £700 in total, a bit more than I'd wanted to spend due to going with a pricier case and 32GB of RAM but it's replacing three other PCs, two of which I've had for 10 years.

Nice and neat on this side

Couldn't quite get this side as neat

This does mean that I'll be getting rid of a few other machines.

HP Microserver Proliant N40L with updated BIOS, 4GB RAM and 60GBSSD. This has been running flawlessly 24/7 for the past ten years (although obviously that means it's been running 24/7 for the past ten years). Happy to let it go for a forum donation, collection from N15 or possibly near Warren St.

Also will need to get rid of my old Plex server/HTPC. Happily transcodes 3 or 4 streams simultaneously. Runs totally silently as it has one of these https://www.quietpc.com/nofan-cr-80eh for the CPU cooler (with an i3) and some fanless graphics card. Will work out what I'm selling that for and put up a post later but give me a shout if you're interested.

no sign of any DDR5 or even an idea what it might cost (probably lots)

Crucial have pricing on their Web store, DDR5 is more or less double DDR5 price, i.e. an extra £120 for 32GB. Seems tolerable spread over several years of ownership.

Part 57 of my continued dithering over buying a new video editing PC (for Premiere, After Effects, etc)... Have considered upping my budget a bit. Would something like the attached system make sense? Should I go for a cheaper graphics card on the basis that I could update it in a year or two when things get cheaper? Should I just go for 32mb RAM? I really am out of touch with what is good or bad in modern computers - I just want something that won't be slowing me down & hopefully free me up to concentrate on being creative.

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Should I just go for 32mb RAM?

I would be intrigued to see what if anything would work : )

Took me a while to figure out what you were on about...

Pretty sure I must have had a 32mb ram PC back in the 90s.

The PC I had in 1997 had a massive 8mb of RAM so if you had 32 you were a gold plated diamond encrusted baller!

Maybe it was less than 32. I know I spent my student loan on what seemed like super-fast PC at the time. Possibly a pentium 90. Am tempted to try and find records of exactly what I had when. But I would probably be better devoting my time to trying to get to grips with what I need in a modern PC.
I found an Iomega zip disc in a drawer the other day. A whole 100mb of storage. I remember when that seemed amazing.

After Effects will definitely make use of the RAM for caching, which will use the slower SSD
otherwise. I'd consider 32GB to be bare minimum for a workstation, think 64 will be very worthwhile.

That's a lot of PC for the money, but for video work you're gonna need more storage space unless you're working from a server? Easy enough to add those yourself tho'.

Thanks - I have a bunch of hard drives already so was planning on transferring them across.
It does seem a big expense - have never spent anything like this on a computer before. But for any of the more complex work I've done lately, I'm spending a large proportion of the time finding ways of working round my computer's limitations.
(and while I mostly try and resist computer games, being able to run modern games on high settings is quite exciting).

Maybe it was less than 32

I'm not questioning your spec, just calling you out for having an awesome machine in the 90s 😂 Pentium 90....man, I used to dream of that!

I'm questioning my (non-computer) memory... I don't think I would have been able to afford anything really fancy at the time. I just know I got something that ran Photoshop adequately + allowed me to play Doom 2 and it seemed amazing at the time.

What are the chances of PC specialist/Scan doing some incredible Black Friday deal that's worth hanging on for? Guessing it's more likely to just get me a free mouse mat or something.

I bought a 486DX2-66 with 4MB RAM in 1994 for about £1000. I think that left me with £50 from my student loan that year.

I remember walking around the rather less salubrious bits of Sheffield with £1000 in £20 notes thinking "I'm going to get mugged. I'm going to get mugged."

I would be surprised if they did, because why would they? It's not like they are sitting on lots of stock they are desperate to get rid of...

On the subject of RAM, I remember being blown away when my uncle gave me a IBM PS/1 Pro with a whopping 2mb of RAM.