Loyd's New Year - A Trio of Problem Systems
by Loyd Case on January 13, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
I should have known better. I’d read enough online posts to know that the in-place upgrade from XP to Vista can be problematic, particularly if your XP system registry has grown to huge proportions. My own personal experience with a Vista upgrade had been moderately successful, but even that system was eventually nuked and a clean Vista install performed.
So here was a PC, with lots of fairly useless (from my perspective), but fun (from her perspective) background tasks running under XP. In goes the Vista upgrade.
Did I mention that this system had 2GB of system RAM?
Within two weeks, her system had pretty much become unusable. I scanned it with several malware detectors, and other than complaints about a couple of adware items, there were no Trojans or viruses found. So the problem really came down to an already overloaded Windows XP system that had developed massive registry and hard drive bloat after the Vista in-place upgrade. So I decided to nuke and start over.
One of the cardinal rules of troubleshooting is: change only one variable at a time.
Unfortunately in my hubris, I ignored that rule. I put her system on the bench, swapped out 2GB of Kingston DDR3 RAM for a pair of Corsair 2GB DDR3 modules. I then swapped out the QX6850 for an E8500 3.16GHz dual core CPU.
When I powered the system up, I got no POST, but the fans spun up. Also, the PC beeper didn’t beep. This is, as anyone who has built systems will tell you, one of the most ambiguous and frustrating types of errors.
So I popped her old CPU back in and rebooted.
Same thing.
So I put the old memory back in, and the system POSTed properly. I checked her BIOS on the P5Q3 motherboard, and found out it was still running the 0704 BIOS. That BIOS predated Intel’s 45nm CPUs. On top of that, if you read the summaries of the various BIOS updates, you also see a number of them with text that reads “enchances compatibility with certain memory.”
Lessons (re)learned:
- Before upgrading CPUs or memory, check the BIOS version
- Never change more than one item of hardware at a time without testing it.
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nubie - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
I think he is saying to buy Intel motherboards, at least they seem to have solid reliability.RJohnson - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
IMO he's talking about ASUS and i'd pretty much agree with him, my recent experiences with them have been poor to say the least...michal1980 - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
sounds like an ASUS mobo.They almost always review well/good. But I've had issues with each one, from various generations and families.
eastiest non-overclocking boards I've worked with were Gigabyte, and evga. most stable overclocking a dfi.
asus is off my list
yyrkoon - Thursday, January 14, 2010 - link
Yeap Asus, it is. Corsair is another off my list as well. Add DFI, and Asrock while we're at it. But hey, maybe I am just being finicky ? Because I know what I want . . .Anyways, best Over clocking board I had, and still own is/was the ABIT IP35-E, and it does this reliably. Not that I really need it, but who would not want to at least TRY getting more bang for the buck. At least once. right now, it happily chugs right along with the accompanying E6550 at 2.8Ghz. Stock voltages, stock heat sink. Has never crashed due to hardware issues once. Unless you count the time(s) I tried pushing said system passed 3.5 Ghz . . . Hopefully, Gigabyte, or MSI can give me something equally as pleasing in the future. For over clocking ? Not important, I just want something that will continue to run stable, until I decide to turn it off. Is this really asking too much ? I really do not think so.
eviloz - Thursday, January 14, 2010 - link
asus is the brand with best marketing ever, u find them everywhere, filled with goodies and at a afordable prices.indd all reviews say nothing but good for them, but.. for me too, they are always unreliable on the long-run.
i was a big asus fanboy in the very past (p2b times) and slowly realized these motherboards cant stand a 2-year life cycle, simply they become unstable, bios issues, lockups and such.
The entire AI thing was a epic fail. Qfan never worked with 3pin fans, the probe software is a piece of crap... and so on
i want to install a mobo, configure it, and after 4 years, come back and see it working like a charm. I know most Anand's readers (including me) change system almost every year, but this it not the real world scenario, where the systems have to work way longer than that.
so i moved to intel. some stuff is ugly, some features are missing, the mb tools are not the best (still far better than asus thu)... but these motherboards are rock solid. i never missed a boot.
my videocard blew up one mobo, it was replaced in 2 (thats TWO) working days, shipping was not charged. beat this.
ofc nothing is perfect, was pretty disappointed to see my dp35dp has no w7 support, but still this board brand is a winner.
btw i have few gigabyte mbs around and they are good too.
for my scenario (reliabilty always before performance, never overclock) the best choice is intel, followed by gigabyte.
i will never buy asus no more.
yyrkoon - Thursday, January 14, 2010 - link
I had been using ABIT since the early 90's, and was extremely happy with every one I purchased for my own systems. Even one of the AMD Thunderbird boards I bought when the "rash" of bad capacitors where circulating lasted 5 years. And it *did have 12 of these bad caps on it. They finally popped, and I replaced them, but it was never the same since. I even modded the BIOS so the system would except a 2000XP+ CPU. Ran perfect. *This* is the worst experience I ever had with them as a brand.I too have had some good experiences with Intel boards, but now days for me, they're too unpredictable.
Now, I am unsure who will deserve my money in the future for motherboards, but I think we all know who it wont be ; ) I suppose Gugabyte will be in order. I have always respected them as a motherboard OEM. Perhaps even MSI.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
I hope your Daughter isn't runing as admin :)SlyNine - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
I think Anand should highlight Dell's throttling issues on these laptops,I'm talking Core I7 720QM's that run as slow as 300mhz while playing games. Dell saying it's not a gaming notebook so it doesn't matter. It sounds like Dell is plenty content to screw over people as long as its not made public.Please Anand take a look at the problems outlined here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...
I beg of you to make these problems obvious so unsuspecting people don't buy something this flawed, I'm getting one tomorrow, wish I hadn't but I'd be willing to offer it to Anand to get these problems in the open.
nubie - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
They should do an article, including a nice ATi/AMD descrete video and then forcing the entire system to function on ~90w is just disgusting.They are seeing between 50 and 100% improvement in modern games when the throttling is off while using a 130w power supply (I am assuming this is with a fully-charged battery, you wouldn't want to charge at the same time and risk burning up the power input lines.)
(of course one of my early PC's was a DELL, it literally burned up, 486 with a joke of a heatsink. Dell really lives on the edge of thermals in my opinion, I can't recommend them.)
Read the thread here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...
Pitiful. I can't believe they would release an i7 system with modern discrete graphics and this sort of power limit.
SlyNine - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - link
All we can do is try to get this as much media attention as possible. Hopefully that will prevent Dell from screwing over people to much.