looking to upgrade, stuck for ideas

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by Mooshan, Oct 8, 2017.

  1. Mooshan

    Mooshan Master Guru

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    I'm looking to upgrade my machine as its on the brink of death but really not sure what to do.

    I was looking at the new 8700k's but availability being seemingly low and reading that they should be delidded for a decent oc (only really expecting to go up to about 5ghz if im lucky) im a bit worried.

    Im not sure if my money will be better invested into the intel or not, I want it to last a good amount of time without worrying about an upgrade and something that will stand some pressure when I'm streaming recording and playing games.

    Anyone have any recommendations at all? The only things required to replace is the motherboard cpu and ram.

    Cheers!
     
  2. Truder

    Truder Ancient Guru

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    Hmm, you're on an i7 4790k it seems, I'd probably wait for the Zen refresh next year.

    The 8700k will just be more or less the same, just an extra 2 cores.

    Then again, if you're needing the workload, go for it.

    It's such a difficult time to "upgrade" anyone with haswells, even sandybridge CPUs given that the upgrades are pretty much marginal.
     
  3. Mooshan

    Mooshan Master Guru

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    thanks for the reply, unfortunately my pc is virtually on the brink of death, ive got things failing on my motherboard one by one but cant pinpoint the cause, so i figured as Ive had this some time I'll just upgrade. for me I'm not sure I can wait until next year!
     
  4. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    What are your issues?

    It may be easier to buy another board, you can find some Z97 for less than 100 USD
     
    user1 likes this.

  5. Mooshan

    Mooshan Master Guru

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    It seems like some of the ports are randomly dying. Also the machine fails to post at times and will just keep rebooting. My issue is whether or not its the mobo or cpu or the ram as when i do boot it runs ok for a bit then suddenly performance drops off or the machine will blue screen then not boot. I checked my drives and none are failing.
     
  6. sverek

    sverek Guest

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    you need to narrow issue, dont buy hardware until you sure what went wrong.

    Start from basics: revert CMOS to default. boot without video card, use igpu instead. disconnect everything, leave OS drive, keyboard and mouse only. Try running system with minimum setup. Run Prime95 to make sure CPU is stable. Run memtest to check RAM.

    Once all stable add device one by one and test.
     
  7. Mooshan

    Mooshan Master Guru

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    Ive ran tests on everything. Theres nothing specific that comes up. It will always be something random that fails after a while and works its way round to other parts of my computer. Sometimes everything works just fine then after a while the whole system will start to deteriorate until it will either blue screen or run terribly. Pc isnt overheating when this happens. This is why im looking to upgrade specific parts as if the cpu or motherboard or both are failing then im upgraded and set for sometime without worrying.
     
  8. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    more than likely just the motherboard.

    A failed CPU will do one of two things.
    A. Not post at all
    B. have bad cores, meaning they will not show up in the OS.

    Are you using a 3rd party sata controller?
    If so disable it and use native ports.
     
  9. Mooshan

    Mooshan Master Guru

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    The board I have uses 2 controllers, one is the Intel based, the other is Asmedia. I have disabled the Asmedia controller, which hasn't changed anything and also tested the boot drive and other drives plugging in to one or the other..still the same results.
     
  10. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    What exact model is your board?
    I would start with modified bios that has the most up to date efi/orom/cpu microcode etc(i can help with providing that)

    After that updating the Intel MEI firmware.
    If those don't help I'd buy a cheap board replacement.
     

  11. sverek

    sverek Guest

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    This is what I expected Agent-A01 would ask you, but have you tried different PSU?

    Can you list what hardware you 100% sure is NOT faulty? (ex: GPU, RAM, HDD, etc...)
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2017
  12. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    The MEI firmware can cause issues and it's not updated by a system bios update? Not sure on that, but you can update it separately. Coffee Lake is an upgrade if you go 6 cores, but if you could wait a few months with your current system Zen+ would be good.

    A faulty power supply can cause issues if the voltage or current is out, or if there is excessive ripple etc. This needs to be determined before an upgrade if you intend to reuse it.
     
  13. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    Yes most BIOS updates update MEI firmware.
    They update main block first then run separate update for MEI firmware.

    Problem here is with boards that old, the latest BIOS update has an old version of MEI firmware.
    That's why it's a good idea to update from the latest available as it's usually much newer.

    @OP
    Post a screenshot of HWinfo voltages/temps/etc after playing some games or something.
    Maybe auto voltage is too low for some things such as PCH.
     
  14. Mooshan

    Mooshan Master Guru

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    hi guys, turns out it was a faulty psu. I dont think it was drawing enough power during boot and was failing so peripherals would fail to post such as the boot drive. thankfully it means I can hold on to this for now since swapping out the PSU seems to have resolved it. thanks for the advice!
     
  15. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    Was it old or just a bad one?

    Hope you replaced it with a quality unit.
     

  16. sverek

    sverek Guest

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    You had one job, Agent-A01! And I took it from you :p j/k
     
  17. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    Good to hear you resolved it! The symptoms you gave, or more so the randomness, pointed towards a power issue. It could have been on the board as a bad capacitor etc, or the PSU.

    What PSU did you have, and what did you replace it by? A good PSU generally won't cause those symptoms as they have protection circuits, but they're not perfect.
     
  18. Mooshan

    Mooshan Master Guru

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    I had a Corsair CX850M which Ive replaced with the same, its done me well the past few years so as I knew what to expect with it I just replaced it with the same, second day in and no stability issues or failed peripherals/hardware so was definitely the psu at fault.

    Thanks for the help!
     
  19. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    That's a budget PSU, pretty mediocre for the most part
     
  20. TheDeeGee

    TheDeeGee Ancient Guru

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    I would personally wait for Ryzen Gen2 reviews in 2018.

    If it turns out to be competing with Intel Gaming wise i will go back to AMD again after roughly 10 years of Intel.
     

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