Computer Upgrade

mrloren · May 2020

Hello,

So the last few months my son and I have been busy building and upgrading our PC's.

My son who hasn't turned on his old I5-2500k in years was trying to play a game and after an hour it would slow down. I looked into it and gee wonder why

I built that PC back in 2013 or so.

I looked around and got a deal on an I5-8500 and a good MSI Z390 board aand proceded to build him a new gamer

We took the good old parts that were good found a new Gen3 i5 and built another PC to sell. He sold it to a buddy the next day. I did build my son a new desk to show off the disco lights

mrloren · May 2020

We then took that money and upgraded me

My build was kind of 2015 old and case was from 2009

I had an I5-4690K a trip to Micro Center money from the parts and my May fishing budget I got a new I5-9600k MSI Z390 Pro and an RTS 2060 Super.

Been playing a few older games at max settings and enjoying my self.

My old parts went into my daughters PC. We took those and guess what we built another to sell.

Yes another disco ball but that is what kids like.

mrloren · May 2020

While we were at it I was looking at this old IKEA shelf thing here and it was time to get rid of it.

yeah that has had better days

Some nice A1 Birch a day of fun in the yard

I think this looks a lot better

My son and I added up what we spent and what we sold for our upgrades came to about $600 for the two of us.

He went from a I5-2500k 16GB RAM 250GB SSD to an I5-8500 32GB RAM RTX 2060 1TB SSD

I went from an I5-4690k GTX 970SC 16GB RAM. to a I5-9600k still at 16GB RAM but DDR4-2666 and a RTX 2060 super. I am still using the same 1TB SSD and optical drives.

Oh and PC parts are getting bleek and the line at Micro Center was long

vmaxer · May 2020

Nice work on both the computers and desk/shelves.

Milito · May 2020

Good job! I wish I had better woodworking skills.

I used to do the same when my kids lived at home. When I upgraded my son got my old parts and she got his. He needed a faster computer than she did.

I've been water cooling my computers (the ones I use) for the last 10 years or so and always o/c them.

Here's a pic of the one I use in my Sim rig. 8600K o/c to 5.0.

BlueBirdMusic · May 2020

Wow! A great project.

machone · May 2020

Nice job.
I am looking forward to building my first gaming computer. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

maximillian · May 2020

Nice work. I too have a ~6 year old i5 that needs upgrading. I think I need most new parts this time. The case is about 15+ years old now but since it had a custom lighting set I modified to work with newer parts. Great that you can sell the old stuff to recoup some cost.

Will have to wait a little longer since my PC budget is low having just bought two NUC's and a Synology DS218+ with dual 8TB drives.

mrbiron · May 2020

My 5400 was just stuttering this morning while the kids watched a direct stream from Plex. I immediately told my wife that I needed to upgrade. She called my bluff and stated it worked fine up until today. Now I have to trouble shoot with no upgrade...

jdjohn · May 2020

Really nice work guys! I'm considering a new build myself, but it's kind of hard to justify for my needs. I don't do any gaming, so it's just for internet surfing, some light MS Office work and printing, and archiving media. But this thread has inspired me to update my disk drive backup options. My processing power and RAM are fine for my purposes, but a HDD failure is my main concern. I could probably get a little more zip (and longevity) by just installing a SSD.

I've been an AMD guy from the beginning, so will likely stick with them if I decide to do a new build. We don't have anything like a Micro Center in my area, so my default is New Egg online.

It's encouraging to see other desktop users

Most folks have gone purely laptop, but I think I'll always want to have a desktop at home. I have a Chromebook for surfing while on the sofa and traveling. The battery life is amazing.

honestaquarian · May 2020

I fell down a rabbit 🐇 hole 🕳 when I decided to change out the exhaust cooling fans on my case which were 15 years old and not spinning so fast anymore. Once the new ones were in the computer began shutting down while booting up. Not crashing, just turning off suddenly. After asking around including here and buying a new power supply and new hard drive and new copy of Windows. I discovered quite by accident the CPU heatsink and fan had come loose and wasn’t making good contact with the CPU causing it to overheat and shut off. Unfortunately by the time I realized this I burned out the CPU.
Okay FINE!
This wound up being the third or fourth time I have rebuilt this thing since I first built it in 2005. I kept everything that I bought that I didn’t need and used it all. I also upgraded the processor from the old Core i7 920 to a Xeon that I had wanted years ago, but was way too expensive.

So now I have a faster processor and four terabytes of storage. Next step was to upgrade the Ram. I had 12 gigs running at 2000mhz (which is the fastest that my board could handle) Now I have 20 gigs.
I’m no gamer
I’m no pro
Just a geek🤓

I am also very happy I bought a server case instead of a regular one a decade and a half ago. It was on sale for less than a regular one and has a LOT more room to work in!

There’s 9 fans in there. Including the two on the back that I replaced, two on the front, one on the processor, one on the 1000 watt power supply, two on the ram chipsets and one on the graphics card.
I absolutely do not get the whole LED fan thingy.

Must be yous gamers.🤓😉
It’s a good thing I got a new copy of Windows, because now the old one was corrupted from so many times turning the computer on and having it shut off halfway through the boot up. I couldn’t get the computer to boot up properly once I got everything in order and I also couldn’t get it to boot from the USB thumb drive they put Windows 10 on now (no more DVD’s📀. So I changed the the first boot device to one of the DVD 📀 drives and then installed an old Copy of Windows 7. Once that was done I was able to upgrade it to Windows 10.

I’m thinking about changing out the graphics card. Again I don’t game, but I’ve done just about everything else now.

Milito · May 2020

Yes I also have a big tower for my desktop. Like you said it's a lot easier to work in and it also cools better. It is also water cooled. The only bad part is when you have to move them. I blow mine out with an air compressor every 4 to 5 months to get all of the dust out.

mrloren · May 2020

On my son's old one the fans were slow, I left it up to him to blow it out, Guess once he started working he forgot all about it. Then there is me forgetting to reapply the thermal past once every few years. Don't know if the CPU was completely toast, when we rebuilt it only thing we changed was the CPU I5-2500k to and I5 3450 it was fine. His friend is liking a desktop after years of laptop and the small screen.

I blow mine out on time change weekends. I've been thinking of getting an AIO cooler, compressing a video to MP4 from a BD or DVD it does get a little toasty around 65c which is still in spec.

I've been building my own PC's for close to 30 years now, had a part time garage repair thing going on for years. I enjoy it as a hobby I found repairing and building PC's can get old.

If your thinking of upgrading or building a new desktop any time soon, forget about it till fall. Parts are getting scarce, the Micro Center trip was 100 miles each way.. glad there was no traffic. All local San Diego stores have been cleaned out.

honestaquarian · May 2020

I just go online to either eBay or bestbuy's website. I haven't seen a Microcenter in my area (Washington, D.C.)in many years.

VR3 · May 2020

Spam alert

My laptop just turned 10 years old, still does everything I need!

maximillian · May 2020

Yup. I've got an 8-9 year old i5-2200 home-built desktop that my son still uses for some gaming. It could go for another couple of years but I think it's time to upgrade. I just bought an NUC8i7BEH ( i7-8559U ) and the NUC loads games faster. In game, the desktop is faster due to its GPU.

I'm going to let him research and figure out an upgrade path as a fun little project. Since the desktop may need a new case, SSD, and GPU then it's probably better to leave it and let someone use it for a general purpose office machine.

Probably if someone buys a low-end PC to begin with then it may not last more than 4-5 years. But 10 years isn't hard to get out of a machine made with better components.

mrbiron · May 2020

And now I have the desire to dust my PC this weekend...

My 4 or 5 year old 6400 is still chugging along only serving as a Plex Server. I should probably build a NAS and dump the big boxed PC for a smaller form factor.

spongebobsquarepants · May 2020

Those shelves look great! How did you join the shelves to the sides? Finish nails?

mrloren · May 2020

spongebobsquarepants wrote: »

Those shelves look great! How did you join the shelves to the sides? Finish nails?

Dado which is good and bad. Good because it's solid bad because they can't be adjusted

spongebobsquarepants · May 2020

Nice! With a table saw? I suppose you could do dados with a circular saw (or even a CNC machine these days).
I'm new to woodworking, but really enjoy it. It's easier for me to make stuff out of steel most of the time being a construction equipment mechanic.

I made some wooden shelves recently with brass screws thru the sides into the shelves. They get the job done, but after I was done I was thinking there has to be a better way. The strength of wood glue blows my mind!

Milito · May 2020

Just realized that the picture I posted was of my previous build, a 7700K with a Gigabyte board, not the 8600K and ASUS board I have now.

I wish I had room in my garage for a table saw as I would try to build more things out of wood.

mrloren · May 2020

I live in SoCal and do all my woodwork out side. I have a 7x7 shed I keep my table saw in, stays nice and dry. When it's time for wood work I just pull it out.

I would like to have a big shop but that would mean I could do more. My current setup allows me to take breaks and not over work it. It would suck to still be working after dark when I should be inside enjoying a movie.

I'd say we get about 300+ days a year I can work out side.

For Dado's I mostly use my table saw. It does take a bit of work to dial in the dado stack. Once dialed in smooth and easy. Other method I use is a router, works good too.

seabeerob213 · July 2020

Just upgrade my quarantine boredom bud computer, again. I did build a parts PC and sold it last week, but still have 2 custom PC's and a tiny prebuilt around.

White computer is the build I made over quarantine, EVGA x299 micro, i7 7800x, 850w PSU, EVGA aio 360mm, EVGA ftw3 2070 super(EVGA hybrid liquid cooler enroute), 32gb gskill trident z 3200 c16 ram(4x8)EVGA dg77 case, 1tb WD black nvme, all Corsair fans, Logitech mouse and keyboard 610 Orion and g502, lg ultra gear monitors, 144hz IPS g-sync 1440p and 144hz ips g-sync 1080p, presonus Eris xt5 monitors, schiit magni2uber DAC,

The black one is my first computer, originally built in 2017(motherboard, RAM, psu and 1 Sata SSD still remain but it's always getting built upon too, but the other one just games better so I'll probably part it out. ROG x370 crosshair 6 extreme, R5 3600, 16 gb Corsair dominator platinum 3200 c14, ROG gtx 1080 OC, thermaltake RGB 850w PSU, mostly Corsair fans and a noctua nhd15 cooler, fractal design s2 meshify, 1tb Samsung 970ev nvme and a 4 sata SSDs totaling 3.5 tb.

honestaquarian · July 2020

Dang
All I did was upgrade to 24 gigs of ram.....
Man this stuff is as expensive and addictive as having that dread disease Audiophilia Nervosa!

Clipdat · July 2020

Noctua makes the best CPU coolers, good choice.

honestaquarian · July 2020

One of the nice things about Windows 10 if you know how to turn the SMB back on. You can stream DSD! (INSTEAD of having to load it up on a USB stick)

seabeerob213 · July 2020

Clipdat wrote: »

Noctua makes the best CPU coolers, good choice.

Agreed, but went for an AIO on my Intel build mainly for looks, but a good noctua is on par with good 280mm AIOs and still pretty close to a 360mm, if I were to go any smaller than a 360mm would have grabbed another nhd15.

machone · February 2021

My grandson and i built my first gaming computer last fall. Corsair case. AMD X570 mobo, 750 watt ps, 16gb ram, 500 gb 2m drive. Installed a cheap AMD cpu/gpu processor to bridge the gap until we can get a a Ryzen 5600x and nvidia 3000 series Ha Ha.
Anyway I was not happy with noisy mobo sound so I added a EVGA Nu Audio sound card. Now it's quiet and the SQ is at a different level.

mhardy6647 · February 2021

Apropos of nothing (moi?)

I've been fairly aggressively downgrading computers lately

Most recent project is an IBM (!?!!) Thinkpad R60 (Intel Core 2 Duo). Just retrofitted it with a 256 gb SSD and 32 bit Linux Mint. Works great

I literally don't know where this computer came from, but I figure it'll be good for streaming music from our NAS and/or teh webz, via the USB DAC recently karma'd by @clipdat (thanks again!).

(ahem -- ripping, as the kids would say

, some tunes for Mrs. H, don't you know?)

msg · February 2021

dag, Doc, ripping on Linux? You smaht.

jdjohn · February 2021

Nicely done! I went through a phase of buying used IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads for upgrading. They were real workhorses. I noticed all the big firm consultants using them, so figured they must be built-to-last. The big weakness, in the end, was the lame battery life...and excess weight.

Power to the Penguin!

Computer Upgrade

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