New hardware on the way! Yeah me!

[oshunluvr]

My circa 2007 desktop is starting to have issues. Besides that, how far behind am I using a 10 year old computer, right?

It's not actually dead yet, but once or twice a month it has some sort of voltage issue and shuts itself down. The only way to get it back up again is to UNPLUG it for several hours and cross-fingers when I plug it back in. I thought it better to attempt the upgrade before the thing actually dies for good.

So I'm excited to be able to jump into modern times with my new mobo, cpu, and RAM. All else will be carried forward. Since new, I have gone through several sets of drives, upgraded RAM, and upgraded video card. I'm keeping the EVGA GTX 780 and all my current drives (notably a pair of Samsung 850 Pro's @ 256GB). The case, ps, and water system are remaining intact, although I have to change water blocks for the new CPU socket (LGA 775 vs. 1151).

The new mobo has USB 3.0 and 3.1 plus 2 Gen. 2 M.2 sockets with a claimed transfer rate of 64/GBs !!! Just the immediate switch to sata III from sata II should nearly double the throughput of my current drives, but those M.2s are supposed to be 10x faster than sata III. I can't imagine that speed in actual use, but I'm saving for that upgrade now! Although it will be a awhile because 2 Samsung 950 M.2 Pros @ 512GB would cost more than my entire upgrade, ouch.

To give credit where due, this thing has been rock solid for many years and only started it's current behavior over the last few months. Researching revealed this lock-up issue isn't unheard of so I've been lucky up to now. For those interested, here are the hardware lists:

Current:
Mobo: Asus Maximus Formula Special Edition.
CPU: Intel Q6600 2.4 GHz overclocked to 3.01 GHz and water cooled.
RAM: Corsair XMS2 DHX 4x4GB DDR2 800 MHz.

New:
Mobo: MSI Z170A XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM EDITION
CPU: Intel i7 6700K 4 GHz overclocked to 4.7-4.9 on water cooling.
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2400 MHz

I picked the mobo for features, reviews, and price vs. near competition. The only thing I gave up was dual NICs which I've been using for quite awhile. I've had good luck with other MSI products and their customer service gets high marks. The RAM was free (tossed in with the mobo - thanks NewEgg!) so I'll stick with it for now, but it might need to be upgraded down the road depending on it's performance under the overclocking. I'll start out at stock speeds, but I don't expect any problems getting it to the 4.9 mark. MSI did it on their bench with this mobo and no other tweaking except a voltage increase. Even without O/Cing this thing will be exponentially faster than my current system.

I'm drooling and watching the mailbox...

[GreyGeek]

Ah, sweet!
It smells new too, doesn't it!
You're just changing out the mobo, did I read that right? If so, you'll just be plug-in and go with your current installations. Right?

My wife and I took our daughter and my 15 year old grandson out for dinner yesterday to celebrate his acquiring his learner's permit. During the course of our conversations I asked him how the computer I gave him two years ago is running. His reply, "Dunno, haven't used it in months"

I asked if I could have it back and he said yes. I just got Neon installed on it and I'm using it right now. I had forgotten what was in it. The laptop I've been using is an Acer Aspire 7739 with an i3 and 8GB of RAM. This puppy is an i7 with 16GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GEForce GT 650M. I had forgotten those details. What we won't do for our grandkids!

As I use it now, with Neon, it is smoking HOT! (not temp wise, just speed). The only drawback is that the NVIDIA is the secondary GPU. The primary is an Intel HD 4000, which is what is driving my display now. I haven't used Bumblebee and its optimus driver in over two years. Don't know how it will work.

[vinnywright]

I bet your ,,,,"drooling and watching the mailbox" alright ,,,,,,,,I'd be dancing back and forth on my tip tows and running to the window every time I heard a car outside wile I was waiting ,,, then lock myself in the laboratory for the build .



VINNY

[oshunluvr]

Right? I knew you guys would get it. Good for you GG! My Neon install is already wicked quick on this old box so I'm expecting great things. I wasn't sure if I could plug-n-play or not but I was going to try anyway.

Vinny, I should have the parts before the weekend, so you can guess what I'll be doing Sat. morning over coffee!

[MoonRise]

Congrats!!

[woodsmoke]

as an old hardware kinda guy, I'm envious!

woodwisheshehadsucharigsmoke

[jlittle]

I reported a similar story earlier this year. I don't game or over-clock so I've got the non-K i7 6700, and a Samsung EVO SSD, and it is quick, so yours will rock.

[oshunluvr]

Photo of the new stuff...

First pics is the parts, second showing it assembled with the new waterblock on top.

[oshunluvr]

I reported a similar story earlier this year. I don't game or over-clock so I've got the non-K i7 6700, and a Samsung EVO SSD, and it is quick, so yours will rock.

I have 2 Samsung 850 Pros @256 and they are quick, but the new "Gen 3" M.2 Samsung drives and Patriot Hellfires are exponentially faster. I'm going to wait 6 months or so and them revisit upgrading to M.2s

[GreyGeek]

CPU heat? What CPU heat?

I was looking to see how your CPU connected up to your water supply but couldn't make it out.

[oshunluvr]

GG, the hoses will be connected to the clear acrylic square on top the CPU. You should be able to see the two threaded holes where the hose nipples screw into. The waterblock has a copper base plate in contact with the CPU itself. I have a radiator with 2x140mm fans on ir running at a low speed for noise reduction and a pump that runs all the time attached to a reservoir.

My current setup has a north and south bridge waterblock and my prior video cards also has waterblocks, but I won't be using those with this setup. Everything runs a lot cooler than it used too.

I'll post a photo with it all connected and running once it's assembled.

[vinnywright]

Vinny, I should have the parts before the weekend, so you can guess what I'll be doing Sat. morning over coffee!

Ha Ha HA ,,,,you couldn't wate for the weekend could ya ,,,,,,,,,, I would have been sizing things up and getting a start as soon as I opened the box as well

VINNY

[MoonRise]

Would like to see the completed job! Can't wait!

[oshunluvr]

OK, finally up and running. First Mobo was bad, so after RMA, Thankgiving, and installing the new mobo - I'm off to the races.

First off, cudos to Newegg. I really screwed up when I returned the bad mobo for replacement and left the backplate for the water cooling system still attached to the old board. I didn't discover this until 10 days later (yesterday) when I started the rebuild. I figured there was no chance getting it back or ordering and receiving a new one in anything like less than several weeks. I held off a panic attack, dug out my parts bin and cobbled together a mounting for the waterblock. I completed the reassembly this morning and was literally minutes from setting the waterblock when Fedex arrived! A small padded envelope contained the backplate, gasket, and mounting pins with plastic washers! I was stunned and very pleased. Five minutes later, parts in place, I fired it up. I can't say enough about their customer service.

Back to the new system: This thing is WICKED fast! I haven't done much bench marking yet, but it screeeeeams compared to my old system. I did a quick gtkperf and it reports 6 times faster. I'll run truebench later.

Now the important part: After booting to BIOS, I only had to correctly set the boot order and KDEneon booted right up and came to life! I had two issues right away - #1 no network (new network device required new settings) and #2 my desktop screens were mis-configured.

#1 was because I use manual network configuration. My previous mobo had two NICs and this board only one. I had been using bonding (port aggregation) so the network just failed. A quick "hwinfo --networking" revealed the new device ID for the network card and a couple edits of my various network config files and the network came up.

#2 was likely because when I shut down the old system I had three monitors attached. During my down-time I also moved my entire office. An unfortunate bump broke the screen on one of my monitors so I only had two when I re-attached and booted up the new system. This resulted in the desktop be non-responsive to mouse input and there was none of my widgets one it and only one screen had a background. Luckily, I use Yakuake and it worked so I was able to easily access the command line. I launched systemsettings5 but even after re-configuring the monitors the desktop was borked. Then, I decided to try to run a full update and magically my desktop reset itself and I am back in business without having to do much at all.

[oshunluvr]

For those who asked about the water cooling, it's much simpler now than it was. I haven't tried overclocking yet - I'm gonna let it burn in for a while first, but the CPU putts along at 23c. Not even hot enough to blow warm air out of the radiator yet!