General Computing Randomness

[Max Peck]

I know that my M2 slot uses up reduces the number of (I think just one, but it's possibly more) SATA connections available. So it might be possible to use enough M2 drives that the number of SATA drive connection shrinks so in the end the total number of drives is not the expected #SATA + #M2. I didn't read why this is or if it's only true for my older motherboard. I just came across it while making sure I bought a compatible NVMe drive and not pay for features/abilities my mainboard was too old to handle.

I've started looking at MB options (which is kind of a waste of time, since I'll just tell my PC guy to recommend a good pick, but pretending to be an informed consumer is part of my process). It sounds like the current crop have some number of M.2 slots, and the SATA controller, if needed, plugs into one of the M.2 slots (i.e. using SATA reduces the number of available M.2 slots, unless you add a SATA controller in a PCIe slot). I might be interpreting that incorrectly, though, since I don't actually know that much about hardware (which is why I have a PC guy to handle part sourcing and the build).

Nice jump. Does it feel faster?

Not really, but the old drive isn't "slow" per se. It's just that 256GB feels a lot more cramped now than it did 10 years ago when I bought the old SSD. I needed more capacity, and going with a relatively inexpensive NVMe SSD seemed like a no-brainer given that I had the open M.2 Slot. I'm sure that stuff will be happening faster, but probably not stuff that I actually pay attention to on a day-to-day basis.

[GreenGoo]

I was thinking about this. I already feel like the system boots more than fast enough for my impatience, at 500ish MB/s. I certainly wouldn't turn down an NVMe boot drive if I had room for one, but I only have 1 slot currently, which I'll be using for I/O dependent games (of which I have very few at the moment). Been playing Mortal Shell lately, and that game seems to have unreasonably long loading times for some reason.

That said, if I were to build a new system, I'd definitely be putting the OS on an NVMe drive.

I am in no way jealous.

Wait. You have a PC guy? I do not enjoy building systems any more. How much does he charge to build it? And can you tell where you go? If it's a personal friend and not a business, ignore this.

[Max Peck]

The company I use is GP Systems. IIRC, the first build they did for me was a little over 20 years ago.

[GreenGoo]

Thanks, I'll take a look. Much appreciated.

[Rumpy]

Yeah, I have a PC guy too. He's local to me. All I had to do when I bought my new PC last January was to go with one of his builds, and I had him add more storage and more memory. Bonus is that the guy is also into data recovery if I need any help with that in the future.

[Max Peck]

All this talk about computer upgrades convinced me to pull the trigger on my hardware refresh sooner rather than later. The original plan was to wait until the RTX 5000 cards were in the retail channel and try to get a RTX 5070 Ti, but I decided that I don't want to wait and see how the oncoming trade war impacts costs and availability. Even if there aren't tariffs directly impacting computer parts, I can see prices rising if the CAD tanks.

The new components will include:

• CPU: i9-14900KF, w/Noctua NH-D15 cooler
• GPU: RTX 4070 Ti Super w/16GB
• MB: Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX w/64GB DDR5-6000
• PSU: Corsair RM1000e
• Misc: New case fans, heat sinks for the M.2 NVMe slots

It should be good enough to play Civ7 when it comes out next month...

[GreenGoo]

Very cool. I'm tempted to throw together a parts list myself, then never act on it. Again.

You're almost certainly right about retailers increasing prices even if they aren't impacted by tariffs. Because why not, right? Sigh.

[Rumpy]

I feel like it's expected to pay higher prices in Canada at this point, but it does make it that much harder to stay current. Even if the Canadian dollar were at parity with the USD, I still feel like we'd be paying more.

[GreenGoo]

I feel like it's expected to pay higher prices in Canada at this point, but it does make it that much harder to stay current. Even if the Canadian dollar were at parity with the USD, I still feel like we'd be paying more.

We've, for my entire life, always paid more, even when the CAD was on par with the USD. So yes I agree, it is expected.

My comment was that despite paying more for everything right now, the prices will go up on things not affected by the tariffs, because they believe (rightly, unfortunately) that Canadians will just eat the extra costs and assume it has something to do with the conversion rate and smaller market.

I grew up knowing things are more expensive here. However, I've witnessed too many price increases that just appeared in one product market, because another product market was having real issues and costs were going up.

We are being absolutely fleeced up here, and taxes has nothing to do with it (although it's own topic, for sure).

[Rumpy]

Yeah, it's definitely frustrating, and I'm tired of it. Historically we've been paying more, therefore we'll always pay more, which is kind of a paradox. The general answer seems to be that we have a smaller population with more ground to cover, therefor higher prices.

One clear example of us paying more in general are with books, which are typically 20% more at list price than the USD Price. And then if we get into e-books, it becomes even more ridiculous given products don't even need to be moved.

[Isgrimnur]

Adding all those extra ‘U’s ain’t free, buddy!

[GreenGoo]

Adding all those extra ‘U’s ain’t free, buddy!

We just root through your garbage. It's not like you're using them!

[Max Peck]

The good news is that the hardware upgrade went very smoothly. The bad news is that when I log into my MS account I'm not able to reactivate the retail license I purchased in 2019. The troubleshooting tool doesn't work and the online support dead-ends on a page with dead hyperlinks. It looks like my last resort is to ask for phone support. If that doesn't work, I suppose I'll be forced to pay for yet another license.

Ah, well, it's 2025 so I guess something had to go wrong with this...

Addendum:

I discovered that logging into my MS account via the MS store allows me to see both the old and new PC configurations as devices linked to my account. Does anyone know whether removing the old "device" from the account would free up the license that was activated on it and allow it to be activated on the current PC?

I believe that the problem with the activation troubleshooting tool in Windows itself seems to be that it doesn't see any devices linked to the account and therefore can't transfer the license from the original one to the new one.

[Punisher]

I can't be positive on anything any more but I think that unactivated should release the license

[Max Peck]

The way the activation troubleshooter is supposed to work is that it gives a list of devices that I can transfer the license from. Unfortunately, it comes up blank. From what little I've been able to find out online, removing the old "device" from my account could break that functionality (regardless of the fact that it currently seems broken, but in a different way).

My PC guy wasn't able to offer a fix (aside from buying a new license). I'm down to trying my luck with MS phone support, I guess.

[Max Peck]

I can't be positive on anything any more but I think that unactivated should release the license

Unfortunately there is no option to deactivate the license, just to remove the device from my account. At least some of the chatter I found on reddit, for example, seems to indicate that the license wouldn't be freed up, but would still be associated with a "device" that is no longer even associated with my MS account.

[Punisher]

Fair enough.
That's why I can't trust myself anymore.

[Max Peck]

Anyway, license activation issues not withstanding, this is what justifies the upgrade (Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark with the highest ray tracing preset):

[Max Peck]

I installed the new 990 EVO SSD this morning, migrated the boot drive over to it and updated the BIOS to boot from it, all with no apparent hitches (so far).

Old 256GB 850 Pro SATA SSD benchmark:


New 1TB 990 EVO NVMe SSD benchmark:

There was another performance boost with the new motherboard:

[Max Peck]

I had to spend the better part of an hour on the phone with MS support, but they (eventually) managed to activate the license. I have no idea why the mechanism for transferring the license following the hardware change was failing, and I didn't get the impression that the tech knew either (at one point they were asking for a proof of purchase for the new hardware(?) but let it go when I pushed back on that as being beside the point), but at least they were able to activate it for me and I don't need to worry about it until the next time it breaks.

[GreenGoo]

Bought a Kingston 2TB NVMe Gen 4, which was cheaper at RB Computing (west end) than Amazon or Newegg. Cheaper than Gen 3 online as well, which is all my motherboard can handle. Got home and realized I had no idea where the original M2 standoff and screw(s) were, so went back and they gave me some for free.

Installed. Nothing. Not even visible in the bios. Check bios version. Oh. That's...awhile ago. Updated bios. Everything after that went as expected. Still, I'm surprised that the motherboard shipped with a bios that didn't know all the hardware already.

No read/write tests. Maybe later.

Turned on intel virtualization while I was in there.

[Punisher]

I had to spend the better part of an hour on the phone with MS support, but they (eventually) managed to activate the license. I have no idea why the mechanism for transferring the license following the hardware change was failing, and I didn't get the impression that the tech knew either (at one point they were asking for a proof of purchase for the new hardware(?) but let it go when I pushed back on that as being beside the point), but at least they were able to activate it for me and I don't need to worry about it until the next time it breaks.

I wonder if he was asking for proof of purchase because he thought you were trying to activate the license that came with a new PC and not reuse your old one.

IIRC, you aren't allowed to transfer it to a new PC. The license is lifetime for the specific machine yiu first activate it on.
Every time I needed to do tjis I just told them that the motherboard died and I had to replace it in the same machine.

[Max Peck]

I had to spend the better part of an hour on the phone with MS support, but they (eventually) managed to activate the license. I have no idea why the mechanism for transferring the license following the hardware change was failing, and I didn't get the impression that the tech knew either (at one point they were asking for a proof of purchase for the new hardware(?) but let it go when I pushed back on that as being beside the point), but at least they were able to activate it for me and I don't need to worry about it until the next time it breaks.

I wonder if he was asking for proof of purchase because he thought you were trying to activate the license that came with a new PC and not reuse your old one.

IIRC, you aren't allowed to transfer it to a new PC. The license is lifetime for the specific machine yiu first activate it on.
Every time I needed to do tjis I just told them that the motherboard died and I had to replace it in the same machine.

Maybe, that only applies to OEM licenses. He knew that I have a digital retail license, which is explicitly transferrable, and was having trouble transferring it after a hardware upgrade but I suppose he might have skipped to the wrong page in the support script or something.

[Punisher]

It's very possible that I'm misremembering.

[Max Peck]

It's very possible that I'm misremembering.

No, your memory is fine. What you described is exactly how OEM licenses work. The OEM license is generally less expensive, but it is tied to the specific hardware and nontransferrable. The reason I purchased a digital retail license from the MS store back in 2019 was to get out from under the requirement to repurchase Windows every few years when I upgraded my PC. The digital retail license is tied to my MS account rather than any specific piece of hardware, and (in theory, when the process actually works) can be activated on any new/different PC (which would deactivate it on the old machine) by logging into the admin account using my Microsoft login.

[Max Peck]

I clearly should have started a topic for my hardware upgrade, but it's a little late for that now...

I had been noting that a couple of games I play on a daily basis (ESO, F76) were a little crashier following the upgrade, while Civ 7 had a lot of CTDs. I didn't really dig into it until yesterday, when a problem cropped up that prevented me from running the ESO launcher. Troubleshooting the error (the launcher was failing with a cryptic "Unable to load skin" error dialogue) led me to a work-around that involved disabling a BIOS feature, at which point I found myself wondering if the BIOS was up to date. It was not. It was running version F10, whereas the latest version was F12. The worst part was that version F11 incorporated the final round of Intel's Raptor Lake microcode fixes. Oops. Luckily flashing the BIOS with the Q-Flash tool that is built in to the motherboard was super easy, barely an inconvenience. That seems to have fixed the ESO launcher issue and so far I haven't had any additional CTDs in Civ 7.

I also updated the Gigabyte Control Center utility and installed/updated the handful of drivers/utilities (except for Norton Security -- screw that shit) it manages. The moral of the story is that just because you expect the shop doing a build for you will ensure that the BIOS and drivers are all fully updated, don't assume that is actually the case and check for yourself.

GCC doesn't really provide much in the way of hardware monitoring, aside from setting alarm thresholds for things like temperature sensors and fan speeds, so I also installed the NZXT CAM utility. It's a pretty basic and easy to use hardware monitoring tool, but it has one cool trick that I really like: it has a "mini mode" that provides a transparent overlay in the top corner of the screen, which allows me to monitor things like CPU/GPU temp/load in real time while playing a game. I don't see it as something I need to be running all the time, but it's useful while I'm in burn-in troubleshooting mode.

I wanted to install Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility (I used to use it for hardware monitoring on my previous build), but it won't run because it's incompatible with Windows Virtualization-based security, which is a thing I apparently have now. I believe VBS is enabled as part of secure boot, and I'm not inclined to figure out whether it's safe to disable it just to run a utility that is overkill for what I want.

[Daehawk]

Ive mentioned this before I think but wanted to post it again due to me thinking on it again. My home and the wifi signal.

I have a fat pipe and a great powerful name brand router. Ive had a few routers..all the same effect btw.

I get a great signal in the pc room. its my bedroom. My house is a long single floor ranch style home . I can see through the entire house. If I leave my pc room and go to the next room..the living room...I can still get a perfect signal. Go the the end room on the other side of the house and the signal has dropped low. If I then turn and go into the kitchen which doesn't have line of sight to the PC room the signal alllllllmost dies and becomes erratic. If I go to the back porch its dead completely.
Ok another test is it I go to the next room from the pc room and then turn and go back into the back bedroom there. One room away by a wall between me and the pc now it drops waaay down. one more step or tow and Im in the bathroom and no signal.

its as if my home is painted in lead paint..with its age Id not doubt it at all. Outside i get sporadic signal. Like I cant mow the yard and listen to anything on wireless. If I test the wifi wit ha signal scanner I can pick up my neighbors signal from their houses!! I mean next door on one side, next door and way back in the woods on the other and across the street. Powerful enough for me to use if it didn't require a password. But I cant get my own signal in the bathroom 2 rooms away. I dont get it.

ive tried both 2gig and 5gig and prefer 5gightz..but both wont penetrate this home. Its weird. Not important ..just posting for a mental reminder in the future.

[Punisher]

Keep in mind that the speed is dependent on the equipment on both sides.
So if you have a top of the line router but your wifi card is 20 years old, that could be the bottleneck.

[Daehawk]

I dont have a wifi card...just a router.

[Punisher]

Umm. How are you using a wireless signal without a wireless card?
To clarify I'm referring to a physical separate card or an integrated one.
It's required to use wifi at all. (Unless I lost a LOT more IT knowledge than I suspected)

[disarm]

I'm guessing that his PC is either a wired connection or integrated into the motherboard and that wifi is being used for other devices (phone, tablet, etc).

[gilraen]

I'm not surprised that an old house has something in the walls that's blocking signal. Also keep in mind that 5GHz is considerably shorter range than 2.4GHz.

[Blackhawk]

That's the real question - what is between you and the router when the signal is bad. Not you and the room the router is in - the router itself.

Not all walls are created equal. If one wall is drywall and wood, the signal will pass right through it. If the next wall is full of pipes, it may interfere. If the next wall is concrete, or heavy hardwood, or plaster over a metal mesh, it can seriously affect the signal. If the signal passes through the kitchen (lots of wires and appliances) or the bathroom (pipes), or a portion of the house with a big TV or a circuit breaker, that can weaken it.

If possible, I'd try moving your router into a position where it has direct line-of-site to where you want it. That means that you can stand where you want a signal and physically see the router. I'd also consider, if possible, moving to the center of the house so it's closer to more areas rather than having it at one end of the house (and you really should be running your gaming PC with a network cable, not wifi.) Put it somewhere high, and away from anything metal or electronic.

[Daehawk]

Well the bathroom walls house the breaker box and all its wiring.

As for my setup. I have a cable modem that connects to my router. The router sits on top the pc and has a pass through for the cable feed. My motherboard has a built in port for the cable modem.What im talking about when I say signal loss is my tablet or phone.

Yes having the router in the middle of the house would probably solve all this but that out of the question as the only cable into the house is in this bedroom not the living room.

[Blackhawk]

Well the bathroom walls house the breaker box and all its wiring.

As for my setup. I have a cable modem that connects to my router. The router sits on top the pc and has a pass through for the cable feed. My motherboard has a built in port for the cable modem.What im talking about when I say signal loss is my tablet or phone.

Yes having the router in the middle of the house would probably solve all this but that out of the question as the only cable into the house is in this bedroom not the living room.

I have similar positioning/hookup issues. There's only one spot I can place my router, and it isn't ideal given my 135-year-old wattle and plaster over brick walls.

Your options are either to move it to a better spot in the bedroom, or set up a repeater/booster elsewhere (others would have more info on that than I would.) I suppose that if it's not too far to the pole, you could hook an extension to the cable inside the house and run that to a better location.

[hepcat]

Warning: The latest Windows 11 Feature Update (24H2) is a pain in the ass. I would highly recommend avoiding it and sticking with 23H2 for now. The amount of trouble I've had with this on a corporate laptop is staggering.

And now it's started breaking Bluetooth and web cams to boot.

I eventually found a 23H2 image from MSDN and loaded that with a fresh install over the 24H2 and it seems to have fixed all my issues so far. But man, this is the most problematic Feature Update/Major Update I've come across in years.

[Blackhawk]

All of this just before the 'mandatory' upgrade.

[Max Peck]

I just had an interesting day, hardware-wise.

Last night I had a very weird crash while playing Avowed. The video signal cut out and the video card fans spun up to max speed and stayed there. The front power button was non-responsive, so I had to cycle the physical power switch on the PSU to reboot the system. After it came back up, I checked perfmon /rel to see if there was a software/driver crash, but the only event that was captured was the unexpected Windows shutdown.

A little googling later, all signs seemed to indicate a power problem, either from a faulty PSU, a faulty GPU, a faulty cable or a bad/loose connection. Because it was past midnight at this point, it naturally seemed like a good idea to download Furmark and run a stress test to see if I could replicate the problem. Sure enough, about 10 minutes into the test the monitor blanked out and the video card fans went crazy. After another reboot, I decided to leave well enough along and went to bed.

This morning, after taking care of my morning errands, I decided it would be a good idea to power down the PC, open the case and see if reseating the video card power cable fixed the problem. It did not. When I tried to power up the system, everything seemed to be getting power (the video card fans spun up, motherboard lights came on, USB peripherals had power, etc) but the monitor was not receiving a video signal from the video card. At all. After reseating the power cable again, I still had no signal and couldn't even tell if the system was posting or not.

At this point, I threw in the towel and fired off an email to my PC guy describing what had happened. As luck would have it, he had enough free time to swing by and pick the system up after lunch, take it to the shop and troubleshoot the problem. Apparently all it took to fix it was reseating everything, after which it booted up for him with no problems. I'd guess that something important had a bad connection and was failing under sufficient load, and when I reseated the one power cable I fat-fingered the real problem and made it worse, resulting in a complete failure instead of an edge case failure.

At any rate, after that he ran a battery of tests and everything seems stable and normal again. Hopefully whatever came loose before will stay properly connected this time and my PC and I will live happily ever after.

The moral of the story is that it is really good to have a PC tech on speed dial who can pick up your busted system, rebuild it, test it and get it back to you with a 3 hour turn-around time from pick up to drop off.

[Daehawk]

My friend who I built his system for is still having issues. It was fine then one day weeks later it was not. So he took it to a shop. 3 weeks later it was fine again. Then a week later not. So its in a better shop right now. No idea whats up with it.

[hepcat]

What's happening with it?