Hardware hell continues... Help me spec something new.

Phunky

Phunky

Phunky

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Joined
19 May 2003
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Saltaire, West Yorkshire
So at the end of last year I was given an Asus P8Z77 Deluxe from a friend who does IT recycling, the board hadn't been tested and looks in good condition.

Taking this was the catalyst for the worse hardware hell i've ever, ever had which saw me fry the IMC on my 2500k, find a really rare hardware bug with a 670 and so on which you can read below

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18554567
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18555503
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18562324

Anyway, I eventually got the system up and running in the Asus and all was fine, upgraded to a 7990 and ran that for a while, then swapped it for a 780 and again all was fine until two days ago...

BSOD with MEMORY_MANAGMENT error started showing up, ran memtest and low and behold looks like the RAM is on it's way out. Yesterday the system powered down during a DayZ session and refused to POST showing Q-CODE 20 & 23 on the mobo which is memory.

So looks like the RAM has gone, but I also don't trust this board and shouldn't have ever stuck with it really.

I'm now looking at my options, I can either throw in the towel and get a whole new mobo/cpu/ram setup or just buy ram/mobo for my 2500k.

I was thinking of getting the below:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £239.99
1 x MSI Z87M Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £119.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit (TXD38G2666HC11CDC01) £69.95
Total : £439.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).



I'd rather not spend this much on things, but I also don't want to have to keep faffing about with stuff and would have a bit more trust in new gear as this just seems cursed now.

This would be used with MSI 780 Twin, NH-D14 Cooler, 2x120GB OCZ SSDs, 850W BeQuire Pure Power PSU.
 
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Actually have a feeling that the RAM might be to tall for my cooler and also don't really need to have such fast ram, so swapped for the following.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £239.99
1 x MSI Z87M Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £119.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £55.99
Total : £425.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Want to get this order before 4pm so any input ;)

My other option is to just replace RAM and Mobo and keep CPU which would be much cheaper if I went for something like;

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** MSI Z77 MPower Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 ATX Motherboard with FR (MB-219-MS) £100.00
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £55.99
Total : £165.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
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I would probably go for the cheaper option in the "B" grade MPower board, as long as you know, apart from possibly no box, or accessories, it may not have the I/O shield.
 
If you do decide to go the haswell route, from what I've read haswell likes fast ram so you'll want faster ram than the crucial

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-052-TG&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

Same price as the crucial one and faster.

Also regarding the haswell build, do you plan on going sli in the future or will you be using it for more than gaming for tasks that will make use of the hyper threading? If the answer to both those is no you can save money(~£80) by going for the 4670k.
 
This is only for gaming but I wanted to go for an i7 as i've also started streaming via twitch.tv although i'll admit i've not checked if it would even help as i'm encoding via NVEC anyway so that's all handled on the GPU.

The haswell is more a "just get a working system" option after all the fun i've had the last few months and i've always said my next CPU would be an i7 even though I know most things don't actually utilise it.
 
Problems with memtest don't always mean it's the RAM that's bad. It could be the memory controller, or a power/hardware issue with the motherboard. Since the motherboard appears to have been a duff one from day one, that's the first place I'd look.

Are you running any overclock? If so, go back to default settings and run memtest again.
 
Havana_UK said:
Problems with memtest don't always mean it's the RAM that's bad. It could be the memory controller, or a power/hardware issue with the motherboard
Click to expand...

This is exactly why I wanted rid and jump to a whole new mobo, cpu, ram combo as I don't have much faith in it now.

However the only hardware left from that initial setup is the RAM and my CPU cooler everything else (PSU, CPU, GFX) have all been replaced.
 
Cheers guys, i've gone with the following;

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £239.99
1 x MSI Z87-G45 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £124.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
Total : £420.97 (includes shipping : FREE).



Went for ATX in the end as looks like none of the mATX cases I like would fit my PSU anyway.

Havana_UK hit it on the head tbh, I can't risk something else being dead in that setup. Sure i'll use the new RAM and check if the board posts before building the new stuff and it it does then bonus I can split and sell things on to recover some cost.
 
I'm using a BeQuite Power Zone 850w now, although initial setup had a BeQuite 530w Pure Power.
 
Oh I know, it was bought when I had the 7990. However it would be better if the 530w could handle my 780 as I doubt i'll ever go SLI and I could have then gone down the mATX/mITX route.

But it's not to be - right now I just want a blumming working system.
 
From what I read I'd have been pushing it with the 530w which is a shame as really wanted either if those cases
 
New setup up and running and all is good, not a big fan of the mobo though the UEFI bios seems very limited. For example can enabled Windows 8 as there is no option to have graphics run in legacy mode like i've done on previous boards.

Other than that it's good, the 4770k is well OTT but will see me through a couple of years.
 
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