Theoretical PC question

[Martin Brown]

I'm talking about general consumer grade PC's as bought ready built from sheds. Not custom build things put together by enthusiasts.

I've had one fail on me. An Intel OEM model intended to sit as a fast cache between spinning rust in a pseudo RAID configuration. One day it not only wasn't there (taking a small amount of recent data with it) but it wouldn't respond to any advanced diagnostics tools at all.

It had become the proverbial inert brick with no detectable signs of life to BIOS, Doze or advanced Unix tools.

I prefer them in a carrier. YMMV

The most exciting failure I have ever had was when the magic smoke, sparks and then flames came out of the back of my PSU. The PC was still running at the time but it was shutdown unceremoniously PDQ.

Second most exciting was a Fax machine receiving a transmission that began smoking whilst I was on the other line. It didn't get as far as flames before I pulled the plug on it.

[Martin Brown]

If the motherboard fits in the chassis you are at least half way there. Even so you may not be able to put the right heatsink onto the CPU in some of the more confined spaces so popular now.

There are plenty of OEM SFF PC boxes about where your choices are very seriously limited. Sometimes I think they move things around a bit just to make life difficult for repairers.

But if it doesn't fit in the box at all then you are absolutely stuck. The other gotcha is that older boxes may have prehistoric PSUs that cannot support the right mix of power on each voltage for modern boards if you try to DIY upgrade. It isn't for the faint hearted.

Bad luck. It is unusual to see one that doesn't take a standard PSU. (although some are more equal than others)

[The Natural Philosopher]

+100

We have reached the limit of GPU and CPU performance and now everyone has an SSD there is really nowhere to go

[Steve Walker]

I don't know yet. First I just wanted to know whether the workarounds worked and then I'll get round to looking at it to see if it is worth changing at some point.

[Steve Walker]

The "approved" processors are likely to simply be the ones they have tested on and so are unlikely to get customer complaints about and only modern ones that incorporate a TPM.

[soup]

Half way ?

Cases can be fettled(case only, I wouldn't even attempt, minor, fettling on the MoBo) so the MoBo fits (this could even involve drilling and tapping holes in the case to take the 'stand-offs'). However if the MoBo has the wrong socket type (for the CPU) you are SOL no amount of faffing is going to get it to work.

[Sam Block]

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote

No, I meant that with laptops, they can be dropped etc so you can get a replacement motherboard quite cheaply on ebay from a dropped laptop. But since the motherboard is the main component of a PC, you don?t see too many PCs that have died due to physical effects which have the still fine motherboard sold.

[Max Demian]

The whole basis of "upgrade to the latest version" assumes that software producers act in the interest of end users. ('Nuff said.)

[John Rumm]

Only in the way you are misreading it :-)

I think you should read what I said in the other post about replacing the mobo and also needing to replace the CPU and RAM etc at the same time.

The chances of replacing just the motherboard if the previous one is more than a couple of years old are slim to none IME unless you buy a second hand one.

Yes both old and new may have Intel i5, but the new one will have a different socket, need a different chipset, and s BIOS version not even thought of when the old board was made.

Not many, if you assume that you will replace the mobo, CPU, and RAM at the same time.

The PSU may need looking at - however if going "like for like" - say decent "business spec" PC for its modern equivalent. Its likely the new one will require less rather than more power.

Obviously its much more complex if you are talking about a gaming rig, or you plan on serious overclocking etc.

Yup the likes of Dell used to do lots of kit like that.

[soup]

Where did you say that?

I thought we were 'talking' about replacing a motherboard Scott (i Believe) asked "Can a motherboard be replaced " at the start of this sub-thread .

As for obsolete motherboards that are no longer sold new use e-bay (I have never used Craigslist and if half the stories are true I never will) . But only 'wee companies' with money back guarantees NOT individual sellers (unless very brave )

Despite these safeguards I am still wary of secondhand computer stuff.

[Bob Eager]

That's my approach too. All six desktops are in identical Corsair cases, one of them being used to run the chip programmer and monitor the scope, bench PSU etc. - that one is treated as a hot spare.

One day I may have to replace the cases, making genuine "grandfather's axe" PCs.

[Martin Brown]

Software developers are paragons of virtue when compared to hardware manufacturers. The latter view driver software as a necessary evil to flog their hardware and discontinue support when a new OS comes along.

That is one of the causes for weird pricing of certain PC hardware in the XP vintage and even before that OS/2 era kit. They are connected to big scientific instruments with a 25 year lifetime but stuck with whatever drivers the manufacturer supplied when they were installed.

If you were really really lucky they might sometimes have supplied drivers for Windoze N+1 but that was about it. After all they wanted to sell expensive new hardware - software maintenance is an extra cost.

[John Rumm]

In a regular desktop machine built from off the shelf parts, everything can be replaced. This is not always true of some big brand made desktop machines, where they may have used non standard parts (however even that is less common than it was)

There is however a potential knock on problem, that if you replace a motherboard, you are unlikely to be able to get one that supports your CPU (unless its less than a couple of years old), so you will normally need to replace that at the same time. Chances are you will need to replace the RAM as well. Also watch the PSU requirements - some upgrades might force a change of that!

If you old machine had a floppy drive, don't expect the new motherboard to support that.

You may need to reinstall the OS to get the new MoBo working (actually Win 10 is better than previous versions for this). (with win 10, backup the activation status to a Microsoft account so you can restore it later). Older Windows OSs may be harder to reactivate.

Some may be very much harder to install. For example to install Win 7 on a Intel NUC pc is quite hard work, since the USB controllers are too new to be recognised properly by its installer, hence you lose access to the mouse, kb, and boot device early in the installation! (you need to build a custom "slipstreamed" boot drive with the new drivers pre-loaded to be able to install 7)

[John Rumm]

In my reply to Scott yesterday at 15:37 - however I note that while I can see it in my sent folder, I can't see it in the thread.

I have reposted it. Apologies for the confusion.

My reply was:

"In a regular desktop machine built from off the shelf parts, everything can be replaced. This is not always true of some big brand made desktop machines, where they may have used non standard parts (however even that is less common than it was)

There is however a potential knock on problem, that if you replace a motherboard, you are unlikely to be able to get one that supports your CPU (unless its less than a couple of years old), so you will normally need to replace that at the same time. Chances are you will need to replace the RAM as well. Also watch the PSU requirements - some upgrades might force a change of that!

If you old machine had a floppy drive, don't expect the new motherboard to support that.

You may need to reinstall the OS to get the new MoBo working (actually Win 10 is better than previous versions for this). (with win 10, backup the activation status to a Microsoft account so you can restore it later). Older Windows OSs may be harder to reactivate.

Some may be very much harder to install. For example to install Win 7 on a Intel NUC pc is quite hard work, since the USB controllers are too new to be recognised properly by its installer, hence you lose access to the mouse, kb, and boot device early in the installation! (you need to build a custom "slipstreamed" boot drive with the new drivers pre-loaded to be able to install 7) "

[Andy Burns]

It did make it through to NIN, I remember reading it ...

[soup]

No problem, I was doubting myself and getting all confused .

I get were you are coming from.

Personally although it is possible to do I wouldn't change just the MoBo on its own.

PSUs I would have generally overspecced (must keep them in the efficiency band ) so unless I won the pools and was REALLY upgrading I wouldn't worry about the PSU coping.

HATE that look that young gamers seem to lust after, the case having tempered glass sides and all the LEDs and components blinking and flashing different colours (RGB)in full mothership mode.

Water cooling too leaves me flat (although all-in-ones can be useful).

Why overclock the snot out of it just get a faster CPU ,memory WHY (you could use the money you save on not having RGB everything to get a faster CPU , memory WHY ;O) )

[Peter Burke]

Max Demian <max [e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

"What will _eventually_ . . . . "

[John Rumm]

Yup it's odd, can't see the original on giganews, but I can see the repost I did earlier today.

[Martin Brown]

I see your copy from yesterday as well from here on AIOE servers.

I also find some of my Usenet posts that are invisible to me but are clearly visible to others because I see their replies quoting my post. Only certain newsgroups are affected for me and it is very intermittent.

sci.electronic.design seems particularly problematic when replying to certain specific posters. I honestly don't understand why.

[John Rumm]

Indeed - it's rare you get the chance IME - normally one ends up doing CPU and quite likely RAM with it.

Yup, most will be fine. Might be an issue if adding a decent graphics card for the first time (not necessarily for games, but possibly for CAD or some scientific application that can make use of the massively parallel computation capabilities)

Just been playing that game. Had the daughters PC start playing up with blue screens etc, and diagnosed failing RAM. She insisted that I replace like for like so she got to keep the rainbow LED on each DIMM :-)

(it was feeling a bit warn in the box, so offered to get another fan with some lighting on it - but could not find a 80mm fan that had it. So got a short string of RGB tape instead - so she was happy with that!)

That has its uses - it can be very quiet, and can also make the layout in the machine easier, since you only need a small header on the CPU, and then the main rad can be elsewhere (and much larger - with multiple slow fans)

If you are already on a high end CPU, and its an "unlocked" one, then there can be plenty of extra performance on the table if you are prepared to do a bit of testing.

As to RGB, well some folks like pretty!