So I had a pretty crap day. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 04:48:20 am
content: Sorry for bringing my winging here, but there are computers involved, so I guess it's tech related.I posted a bit ago about a Pentium Pro machine I was working on. Well today the last part arrived, just for me to find out the board is dead. I spent hours working on it, and there has been at least 250 bucks pumped into this machine overall, and I don't got nothing.To make matters worse, in a, what could possibly go wrong next, situation, my Z97 Intel motherboard died. This is my main form of computing, and I have little else. I exchanged it for a dual core Athlon 64 on an AM2+ board. It's only got 4GB of DDR2, and a 2006 date on it. It's surprising to me that it can even boot Windows Server 2016.This board also is refusing to connect more than one SATA device at a time, and my machine needs two to boot. So I've been playing a bit of a swapping game to get at anything.To make matters worse I perform tomorrow in a play, and the day after I leave for about two weeks. This means my parents are going to have to deal with an Ebay return, and a warranty claim. I am down literally two computers, and I also can't find my USB to SATA converter that I would like to have to bring with me.This is seriously a day that feels like a nightmare. I still am feeling that I will just wake up in one of the most realistic dreams I have ever had, and everything will go great the following day, but I guess I just have to suck it up. There are worse thing that could happen today, and I should be able to enjoy my holiday.To make this post a bit less useless, what are some of your personal shitty days? I don't want to ask for the worst day ever, because I am sure 90% of people are going to quote a major family member's death, which is an event that I am fortunate not to have had happen that much in my lifetime.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:08:00 am
content: Yep, that sucks! But you live and learn. (Although your choice of AMD board/processor is a little worrying, personally, I wouldn't trust that junk as far as I could throw it).All is not lost with your Pentium Pro board. You'll find a lot of those older boards are reasonably easy to troubleshoot and repair. Let's not worry about how bad your situation is, let's focus on fixing it and making it better (I always say, there is no point in worrying or getting stressed out, it achieves nothing).When you say your board is dead, I assume you mean you get no error beeps, no VGA etc...? Have you confirmed the power supply is OK? (i.e.: Measure the voltages coming out of the AT/ATX plug and confirming they are within spec). Just because a PSU works on one board, doesn't mean it's perfect.Next thing I'd be checking are all jumper settings (even the ones that aren't specifically labeled on the board). If there is a jumper link, find out what it does (if it's not obvious). There have been so many times where someone who didn't know what they were doing "had a crack" at a board which resulted in it not working.Total Hardware 1999is an excellent resource. Double check everything, especially CPU and RAM voltages then check them all again a third time.While you're at it, download an offline copy of Total Hardware 1999 for yourself. I use it every time I'm working with an old bit of hardware that I haven't worked on before, even if it's just to confirm what I did and what is printed on the PCB is correct. Don't make assumptions -- When it comes to things like voltages, especially with old technology which was a bit of a mish mash, check everything multiple times. I can't tell you the amount of times I've stared at a board and haven't been able to "find" a jumper setting, only to find it's been staring me in the face the whole time.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:11:15 am
content: Someday you will look back on this as "one of the good 'ol days". Trust me. You will.

author: Muxr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:22:23 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on June 03, 2017, 05:08:00 amAre you serious? Athlon64 was miles ahead of Pentium 4 at the time.Way better IPC, integrated memory controller (industry first) and most importantly, the first consumer 64-bit processor on the market. Intel had to license the AMD/x86_64 to use it.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:30:01 am
content: Quote from: Muxr on June 03, 2017, 05:22:23 amYep! Totally serious.While AMD were "miles ahead" in some ways, they were seriously behind in others.The main problems I experienced were heat issues and general stability problems. Things might be different now, but back then, you generally didn't touch AMD gear for high-reliability machines. If you mentioned AMD to any serious systems admin, you were laughed at.

author: Muxr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:36:12 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on June 03, 2017, 05:30:01 amNot in Athlon64 days.. Athlon64 had better perf/watt than Pentium 4 too. Prior to that the original Athlon had issue with thermal protection so you could fry it if the cooling wasn't up to task but that was fixed by the time Athlon64 rolled out.Athlon64 was so good that Intel actually had to bribe all the big OEMs to not use AMD (they bribed, HP, Dell, Acer.. bunch pretty much all the big ones). They got tried and convicted of anti competitive practices on multiple continents for this. They paid $1.2B of damages to AMD in 2009 and the case in Europe is still ongoing on like the 10th appeal or something.Intel came back a few years later with Core 2 Duo and stayed on top ever since.. AMD had a dud in 2011 with Bulldozer which was very mediocre, but they seem to be back neck and neck with Intel again with their new Ryzen CPUs. Better multi threaded performance and better IPC/Watt, and slightly behind in single threaded tasks but still competitive.

author: Muxr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:40:20 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on June 03, 2017, 05:39:06 amAye, it's Intel's response to AMD's Threadripper. Which is rumored to be less than $900 for 16 cores / 32 threads.. also way more PCI lanes than Intel offers on their platform.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:43:35 am
content: I'm not here to start another AMD v Intel war, but AMD got so many things wrong they weren't taken seriously when it came to high spec workstations, servers etc... You'll find most large businesses and Government agencies were happy to pay more for hardware that lasted (even to this day). It's probably largely due to their K6 and Athlon days, but they took a real hit in their reputation.Even now with modern gear, their GPUs might be quite good for the average gamer, but when you're talking about high-spec machines really pushing their GPUs, AMD aren't great. At work I think we've had 2 or 3 fail over time just because they were driven hard (not over-clocked, just worked within their spec with adequate cooling too). We are currently testing NVIDIA Tesla's as a replacement.

author: Muxr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:45:59 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on June 03, 2017, 05:43:35 amAMD has made bunch of mistakes in the past, there is no disputing that. They've also had some pretty mediocre products. But Athlon64 wasn't it. That's all I am saying. We used Athlon64 (original Opterons) based servers from Sun Microsystems back in 2004 and they were amazing. They ran circles around anything Intel and Sun's own Sparc servers had at the time, for a fraction of the cost.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:46:50 am
content: Quote from: Muxr on June 03, 2017, 05:45:59 amPoint taken.

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:50:26 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on June 03, 2017, 05:30:01 amI was and am a serious systems admin, I ran one of these as a desktop PC, but I have to agree, at the time they were not worth the risk to use in any mission critical situation. The Athlon64 was a great CPU, but the history of the thunderbirds catching on fire made it too risky to use in any kind of commercial environment, especially when it's not your money, and it's your butt on the line. Today it is very different, I am using a Ryzen and even though I have had some memory compatibility issues, I am for the most part very happy with the CPU. I still however would err on the side of caution with their new Napels server processors, again simply due to their history of failing to properly get support in for things that matter for servers, such as valid and working ACPI tables.Edit: and yes I know that intel boards suffer from ACPI table issues too at times, but in my experience it is easier to get the MB mfg to fix an intel bios over and amd.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:57:33 am
content: I'll take your word on the modern server applications gnif. This is not my primary field of expertise anymore so you probably know better than anyone. I guess it's just hard to look back when you've been bitten a number of times before.

author: Muxr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 05:58:46 am
content: Quote from: gnif on June 03, 2017, 05:50:26 amI worked for a good size telephone provider at a time (won't name it here), 2 million subs. But we ran telco soft switches on Sun Opterons (Athlon64s basically). It doesn't get more mission critical than that. A failed 911 call is a FCC lawsuit pretty much, not to mention can be a life or death situation. We validated the hardware (and software) through rigorous PVT testing which took months and found zero issues, including removing heat sinks while they were on and doing all sorts of other disruptive tests.Thermal protection issues were long fixed by the time Opteron/Athlon64 came out.Roles are actually reversed now. Intel is using cheap TIM for heat transfer between the die and the processor lid, which dries out over time, and causes the heat to be pushed to the motherboard via the pins of the processor. AMD uses indium based solder for thermal transfer between the die and the lid.I actually had to undervolt and underclock my 4770K to maintain reasonable temperatures on my computer.AMD CPU delided:Intel's CPU delided:

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 06:03:20 am
content: TBH the choice of replacement board isn't really one I had much say in. It's my only other board that can even boot my OS, and the only other one with PCI-E (I collect a LOT of old hardware, this had HTPC duty until I threw it in my case)It's all temp anyways. Idc if it dies in a week, I'm not going to be here that long.And I tried everything reasonable with the Pentium Pro machine. Not to insult anybody, but I have been doing retro builds for a good year or so and this is my third machine. It shows very minor signs of life, but the only thing me and my dad can come up with is that the flash memory that holds the BIOS has degraded over the years, and needs to be replaced and/or reflashed, a task I have NOWHERE near the equipment for. Older boards are easier to troubleshoot and fix, but this is a case of not easy enough.If I'm lucky the seller will let me keep the board and I can throw it in to the "If I have money in the future" bin, along with about 80% of the rest of my stuff. It's a damned good board, but the fact that it's an OEM board from Gateway means I have about 0 resources on it. Even if I can locate the BIOS, I'd have good luck trying to flash it, if that even is the problem.The best thing I can do for that machine is get my money back and get another board. The listing said it worked, and it doesn't. That's enough for me to get back the cash I spent on it, and that's what I'm going to do.The worst thing really is having to run around for 8+ hours trying to fix broken shit that just keeps on breaking. I could be fine with the Pentium Pro machine not working. Bummer, but it's a hobby, not a thing I need. My PC, however, is a thing I need, but thankfully not for a couple weeks from now. The board is in warranty, and I can get a replacement (I hope) so we will see what will happen with that.P.S. Hot damn this post exploded. I would have never guessed my complaining would lead to this much of a conversation.

author: gnif
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 06:11:33 am
content: It's a shame you are not around here, I have some spare retro stuff you could borrow to get it up and running again. My pride and joy is an old dual P3-450 server with ultra 160... its a nice beast to mess around with from time to time.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 06:13:19 am
content: Quote from: gnif on June 03, 2017, 06:11:33 amI have a single proc PIII-450. Great machine. I think mine still has a Voodoo-II card in it, I'll have to pull it out of the cupboard one day.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2017, 06:28:27 am
content: Quote from: gnif on June 03, 2017, 06:11:33 amLol, I literally have that x2.I have a dual Xeon 3Ghz Hyperthreaded with Ultra 320 drives. PAE up to 12GB.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2017, 05:32:36 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on June 03, 2017, 05:30:01 amYou also didn't touch AMD if you needed sustained speed and IO bandwidth, I've seen plenty of HP xx5 servers chucked out after a few months because they were just too damn slow compared to the Intel equivalents of the same generation.Of course that's application dependant...For desktop use, they fried, dreadful unreliable and fragile things.

author: Ushiwaka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2017, 01:38:46 am
content: My shitty day:A few weeks back, a friend of mine gave me an old lap (DynaBook G5). When I brought it back home and opened the lid, I got a "shocking" discovery: it is infested with termites and the keyboard was missingand it looked so bad that I almost threw up (lol!)I was holding that lap and I freaked out and threw it across my room.And now, my house is infected with "virus".At least that lap still works.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 05, 2017, 08:53:54 am
content: Quote from: Ushiwaka on June 05, 2017, 01:38:46 amProbably because the termites moved out of the laptop and into your house!You may want to get that looked at.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2017, 10:05:34 am
content: I had more problems with Pentium 4 systems than Athlon64 systems but in all cases it came down to problems with the motherboards and especially nVidia chipsets rather than the CPUs.

author: Electro Detective
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2017, 10:40:32 am
content: LOL, and another Pentium vs AMD debate...I have both, and serviced and assembled 1000s of the suckers over the years.Aside from gaming which I avoid like the plague, both processors work great as workstations and home servers with all other practical applicationsassuming they have been set up properly and not cobbled together in a hurry,then BIOS tweaked into near fatal seizure by clueless web-know gamers.and yeah, every once in a while you have to re-apply heat sink paste, usually because it was done badly to begin with.I use the white stuff properly, my own custom blend that lasts 10+ years if done right, because the silver stuff sucks,a pain to clean up the expensive conductive pos that dries and flakes, and creates heat spots and craters etc.. FTS.People in a hurry ALWAYS botch up the paste and heatsink/fan install,and THIS is where a LOT of problems creep in gradually and bite you in the pocket eventually.Crap power supplies is another one, and a hyped one filled with moist dust balls means they get HOT, cheap capacitors and fans die and eventually cause havoc to the entire system, especially a badly overclocked one.Hoping OP gets up and running asap

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2017, 05:51:45 pm
content: At least the Pentium Prodidn't work?... because, imagine trying to resolve an eBay return with that!Idunno... lots of hair-pulling anywaysTim

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2017, 03:30:20 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 05, 2017, 05:51:45 pmNot sure I understand.Anyways he accepted the return. I'm out of state in Connecticut, so I'm having a family member handle that.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2017, 04:29:24 am
content: Just to tease that, if the Pentium had worked, and you then had the challenge of making eBay work on it, it's almost less hair-pulling to leave it broken....Can that even be done? Is there a browser that runs on, say, Win98, that supports HTTPS?Meh, there's probably something new or old that works. Ah, but can you successfully navigate to, and download, it, with stock IE?...That's what I mean.Tim

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2017, 06:29:48 am
content: There are comparability layers for win98 that support some modern browsers.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2017, 08:49:32 am
content: What Intel Z97 board are you using? I am using the Gigabyte GA-Z97M-D3H and it have been rock solid for a few years, overclocked a Xeon on it and maxed out its RAM at 32GB. Too bad my Kingston 240GB SSD have a problem or two with it, forcing me to use one of my good RAID controller on it to get a passable SSD cache setup.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2017, 08:22:23 pm
content: MSI PCMate Z97

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2017, 12:14:44 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on June 06, 2017, 08:22:23 pmIf you can find a replacement you should be able to move all other parts over and get the computer up and running again. You may need to contact Microsoft to move your Windows license over though.If you have an i-4xxx or Xeon E3-12xxv3 you can use a B85 or up. If you have i5-5675C, i7-5775C or Xeon E3-12x5v4 you need a H97 or Z97.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2017, 12:45:27 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 06, 2017, 04:29:24 amIt is getting difficult to even find a browser which will run on XP and without SSE2 which means a Pentium 4 or later.

author: Ushiwaka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2017, 01:13:30 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on June 05, 2017, 08:53:54 amIkrCalled aTerminator(get it?)to get rid of it.Got rid of those termites and "restored" the lap. Happy ending.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2017, 04:05:09 pm
content: Quote from: technix on June 07, 2017, 12:14:44 amCurrently I am looking into warranty return options, but being 120 miles away means I can't do a whole lot ATM.And yeah I can just get another Z97 board for my i7-4790k, but it's 100$ I would rather spend on the Pentium Pro machine.As for windows licenses, I am set for those ATM.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2017, 04:28:12 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on June 07, 2017, 04:05:09 pmAwesome if you can RMA the MB. If not you might as well look for Z87 boards alongside Z97. The only featured added to Z97 from Z87 is support for Broadwell chips, something that is obsolete on the release day.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2017, 12:05:02 am
content: Update:Sorry for the slight necropost, but at least it's with relevant and new information.Things have continued to go wrong, but I am hoping that's gonna slow down at some point.So after those two boards died, I spent a bit over a week in Connecticut on holiday/vacation (This is planned at the same time every year)When I returned I decided not to bother with a warranty RMA. I made the mistake of trying to install the socket cover like a CPU instead of clipping it direct to the bracket, and as the result the pins are mangled beyond a couple of prods with a toothpick.So I bought a new board. 80$ refurb board from Gigabyte. It could be worse and have been a modern board or older board that costs 200-300 USD to replace. I don't have the money to continue with the Pentium Pro machine, but I will give it a second attempt at the end of the year.Everything for the most part has been going fine. Ext2FSD gives a Cache_Manager bluescreen on start, so I couldn't mount my ext4 partitions, and when I tried to copy everything off to reformat to NTFS, the filesystem on one partition (Which was thankfully just a junk partition, and not the one that contained years worth of DVD rips and DVR recordings, so that's good.)Right now, I am happy to have a system that works somewhat. I am still getting unusual software errors, but not the type to suggest something wrong with the board, CPU, or RAM. I hope to have everything resolved and have a week of 0 shit going wrong.