Hey guys, I've just finished building a desktop for the first time in 15 years, because it's a whole lot cheaper than buying, and because I get to customize certain things for my own needs. Here's the problem I'm having: While almost everything is new, a friend donated the RAM to me (she wasn't sure if it worked or not), and I used a spare hard drive, as well as an old video card I had lying around. After hooking everything up, and powering it on for the first time, the CPU fan spins, the fan case spins, the video card fan spins, and you can hear the hard drive power on (though it doesn't do anything). It isn't going to POST, it's just sitting there. I have a few theories: Firstly, the RAM could be bad, and I'm 75% sure this is the problem. It uses 240 pin DDR3 1333 non-ecc unbuffered RAM. I'm waiting on Amazon to ship me a 4 GB stick of RAM since that was dirt cheap. I'm hoping that fixes the problem, but if it doesn't I've only used $17 to find out. Secondly, I have removed the video card and used the onboard video. That didn't change anything, so I don't think it's the video card. Third, I unplugged everything else except the CPU, RAM, and motherboard, and it still sat there running the fans, but not going to POST. Finally, I removed the motherboard to make certain the little motherboard stands weren't in a place where screws weren't located, so that they didn't accidentally ground the motherboard. No issues there. Now, here's the thing: I haven't built a PC in 15 years, and they've changed a lot since then. So I'm not 100% certain I've set everything up correctly. I'd use the beep codes, but this motherboard didn't come with a PC speaker, nor did the case. So I'm having to figure it out with trial and error. Again, I'm 75% sure it was the RAM, but your help would be appreciated. Oh, and one more thing: The CPU came with a heatsink and I was going to apply thermal compound to the heatsink, but there was a grid of... something on the bottom that looked like paste, but I didn't do it because I'm not sure what that is. I've checked around and I can't find a backside of the same cooler I have, so I don't know if that's pre-added, or if it's just part of the design. When my arctic silver gets here the same day as the RAM, I might apply it anyway, just to be sure. Specs: CPU: AMD FX-6300 Processor (with stock cooler) MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte AM3/AM3+ 78LMT USB3 R2 (dual channel bios) MEMORY: (pending) POWER: EVGA Bronze 450w VIDEO CARD: Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 X2 1 GB STORAGE: Toshiba 7200 RPM 1 TB HDD Pictures: If you could, take a look at the motherboard here, and help me make certain I connected things correctly.
*facepalm* I can’t believe that I missed that. Well, I plugged in the CPU power cables, and it started right up, going into POST. Now, though it’s stopping at “Verifying DMI pool data.” I removed the video card, still got it. Removed the HDD and it asked for a startup disk. When it’s plugged in, it detects the HDD. The drive worked fine last time I tested it. It could be the RAM.
I managed to get the issue resolved. Turns out the MBR on the hard drive had been futzed around with by the Mac when I formatted it. exFAT is great in theory, but doesn't work as a primary format for bootable HDDs, I guess. Thank you @FrijolMalo, for pointing out my *glaring* oversight. I don't see how I missed that, but once I plugged them in, she purred to life.
Quick update: I received the video card this morning, and the black bars are gone. This card is an Nvidia GeForce 710 1 GB. Not at all powerful in any sense, but it handles 1080p video without a hitch, and has the latest drivers, which is why I wanted that instead of just reconfiguring Windows 10 to accept the onboard AMD 3000 as fully compatible. It does annoy me that AMD stops supporting their video card drivers a few years after release, because Nvidia's pretty damned good about keeping their drivers good for years. Hell, I had an 8 year old Nvidia card that followed me from Windows XP to Windows 7 before I replaced it, and it always had properly working drivers. I wanted this to be an all AMD machine, but holy hell have you seen the cost of AMD cards? Comparable Nvidia cards run about 30% cheaper. I've heard it's because AMD cards are better at cryptomining? Regardless, prices are unreasonable for performance. So here's the final tally: CPU: AMD FX-6300 Hexacore Processor (3.5Ghz) MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte LMT-78-USB3 R2 (version 760G) MEMORY: 24 GB DDR3 1333 STORAGE: 2 TB 7200 RPM Hitachi HDD OPTICAL: 24x DVD-RW External Slim Drive VIDEO: Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce 710 (1 GB VRAM) DISPLAY: Sceptre 24" 75hz Ultra-slim LED Monitor POWER SUPPLY: EVGA 450w 80+ Bronze Series OS: Windows 10 Professional (64 bit) INPUT: Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse combo ----
Dunno about AMD cards, but I'm kinda glad to hear Nvidia are cheaper - I'm looking at getting into photogrammetry (using multiple photos to stitch together a 3D image) for my 3D printing stuff and the processing time drops way down if you can use a GPU, but it requires Cuda, which is a coding system limited to Nvidia cards. Unfortunately while my PC's card is OK for most gaming, it's a Radeon.
I traded in the Nvidia GeForce 710 (1 GB) for a GeForce 1030 (2 GB). To get an AMD card of the same performance level, I would have to pay about $120 total, instead of the $75 I paid (if you count the trade in and the extra $20 I paid for the difference). My AMD FX-6300 CPU is a workaholic, and I love it, but yeah, I'm glad I went with Nvidia GPU on this one. Plus, Nvidia keeps their drivers updated, while AMD has been letting anything pre-Windows 10 languish without updates. That's dirty pool, as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, one more thing: if you do buy a GeForce 1030, be on the lookout: Apparently, Nvidia sells versions that use DDR4 RAM, and only a 64 bit memory bus. Their performance is roughly half of a standard GeForce 1030, and yet they sell for the same price as a full power GeForce 1030. So avoid those by making certain the version you're buying says "GDDR5," and "128 bit" on it. I say this because I returned mine today for that very reason. I was getting benchmark speeds *well* below the standard of a GeForce 1030, and I thought it was my setup. Even fully overclocked, the performance was only 65% of what a standard GeForce 1030 could do. I'm waiting on a GDDR5, 128 bit version now.
For about the past 10 years or so, AMD has been really struggling. It's only been about the past year or so that they've started gain ground again. Even so, their stock has been jumping wildly of late, this is despite the fact that they're about to put 7 nm chips into production and Intel has said that they won't be able to go that small for some time. We're also getting close to hitting Moore's Limit on X86 designs and nobody seems to have agreed on exactly the kind of architecture which should replace it. If they want to stay in the game, then they've got to be really focused on the future.
Agreed. I was a huge fan of AMD back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Between 2011 and 2018, though, it was all Intel, and things worked fine. I wanted to go back to AMD, though, because I still considered them to be the best, and I think in terms of price vs. performance they *are* the best option. My FX-6300 is roughly on par with an i5-4000 series, and costs $250 less than that CPU. It's no wonder so many people on budget builds prefer AMD. Still, you're right that they've been seriously dropping the ball lately. I don't know what they think they're doing, but they need to figure it out fast.
Funny how Wall Street works, during the first half of the year AMD was the hottest tech stock going. Intel was failing to meet demand, 7nm was a disaster and AMD was going to eat their lunch. Now AMD is "overpriced", Intel is suddenly able to meet demand and analysts are actually paying attention to Intel's massive R&D efforts in AI, autonomous driving cars and the Internet of Things. Of course I know one analyst who says Intel may be "trying to do too much." Of course, before the story was that Intel was dominating a shrinking PC chip market...
The bitcoin/cryptocurrency thing had a hand in that, too. People were snapping up AMD GPUs because of some kind of perceived superiority when crypto mining. Now an entry level graphics card that should be $75 is $150. So my CPU is an AMD FX series, which isn't as popular as the new Ryzen line, and my GPU is an Nvidia card, which gives me the same punch as a $150 AMD video card for much less.
The AMD FX-6300 seems to run a little warm with the stock cooler, and my HDD is getting hot. That's because it's an old Hitachi 2 TB SATA I (3 Gbps) mechanical drive, as that one of the bits of hardware I didn't buy but had as a spare which saved me a lot of money I didn't have. Now that I think about it, I should spring for an SSD. There's an AData 1 TB SSD for $130 on Newegg, though I'll have to save a long while for it, that will be my next upgrade. In the meantime, I purchased a two pack of 120mm fans for the front of the case in an effort to cool things down. I found a set of Aigo 120mm LED fans for $17 (since I got to choose a color, I chose purple as it's my favorite. It helped that they were the cheapest colors, too). The end result? A system that is now running 8° C cooler on average, well within normal limits, and even under load it all stays relatively cool. The fans aren't loud, either, which is nice since they're only a few inches away from me. Also, pretty purple LEDs.
An SSD will make it scream. Most latency on machines these days is waiting for the HDD. I've installed on 3 or 4 machines older and newer. They all perform magically fast (well except for the 10 year old dell laptop) with the new ssd. Windows 10 has native support for SSDs. The newest machine it's on is a 3 year old acer I3. I'm still charmed by how fast file access is. Cold boots are a few seconds. Another Dell desktop I stuck one in it helped considerably. It was an old core 2 chip (6550?) from around 2007. It ran for years, the machine was put into storage and wouldn't boot when I tried to gift it to someone, but the drive wasn't the issue. It continues to live as an external drive in an enclosure. Samsung drives were the best for cost/reliability/performance 3 years ago but I don't know if this is still true. If you want to save a bit, get a smaller SSD for the OS and other software and use the old HDD for data.
Eh, I'm going to need a big ass SSD, because while I could have a smaller SSD for the OS and then an HDD for storage, that still brings it back to seek time for loading up games and such, as well as file transfers. So it would be better just to buy a large enough SSD that can accommodate everything. Plus, when I do this, I'm going to transfer my hard drive image directly to the SSD so I don't have to reinstall everything again. That's why I'm going to invest in a 1 TB SSD. It will cost a little more, but in the long run I'll be saving time, money, and effort.
Check the Adata reviews on newegg. There are a disproportionate amount that fault it in the medium term (less than 2 years) for failing. I checked a few models with more than 10 reviews, they all seem to have the same failure rate. Consider for $82 a 500GB Samsung Evo 860 (newegg). An SSD doesn't sparkle for large files or long sequential reads. Where they excel is random access of small files (OS, internet cache). Keep the TB HDD for large files. You can transfer a 1TB drive image to a smaller drive so long as it has room for the amount in use, but I'd do a fresh install and access the old drive for what you need when you need it.
