Standard Def Steve wrote:

My 9 year old LG phone finally died, so I got myself one of these. It's an iPhone. Eight. […]
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My 9 year old LG phone finally died, so I got myself one of these. It's an iPhone. Eight.

This thing packs more CPU horses than my Ivy Bridge i5 laptop. I can't believe how fast it draws web pages. Despite all the fancy blur effects and transitions, the UI just refuses to fall below 60 fps. Why can't desktop OSs be fully GPU accelerated?

I have an iPhone 7 Plus and it too is unbelievably silky smooth. I know some people love to hate on Apple, but iOS is a masterpiece of efficiency and usability.

I bought a used reference MSI Geforce GTX 960 2GB a few days ago and I got it today. These cards still often sell for about 100 euro around here, even more for the 4GB version... I payed just under 70 euro with shipping and even if I don't find it a great deal it's still at least within reason.

I have many more powerful cards in my modern hardware collection but I wanted something with a bit more grunt than my Geforce 750 ti for my low power summer friendly system.

The card ended up beeing somewhat of a pig, 67.3% "ASIC Quality" and I was not surprised when it turned out to be a hot sucker...or blower... The card hit it's target temperature of 80C within 2 minuts of running Unigine Valley and the initial decent turbo boost (GPU boost 2.0) to ~1250 MHz gradually decreased until the card stabilized at its stock non turbo frequency at around 1130 MHz. I have never seen a card that couldn't even hit the nominal stock boost frequency, in this case 1178 MHz but there is a first for everything...

In any case I though that a repaste was in order and with luck at least would improve the situation somewhat. I had spent a few hours in the sun after work doing... work and rewarded my self with a few beers for the effort. Hardware tinkering and drinking is a combination that is sure to bring great success.

When removing the old paste I scraped away most of it from the gpu using a finger nail to avoid it turning to a nasty goo spreading all over the video card when I wipe the gpu clean with cleaners nafta. I'm always careful when I do this as there are often decoupling caps and other components under the paste at the sides of the GPU. In this case there wasn't enough paste to hide even the smallest components, or so I thougt.

The lightning in my working area isn't the best but the first side of the gpu was totally smooth without components, I was parhaps a little bit less careful when I gently scraped off the paste on the second side, I diddn't feel any componets but I somehow got a feeling of it feeling different. With a magifing glass I noticed lots and lots of super tiny caps and/or resistors and also empty places where there used to be even more...

Where I grew up there was a guy, lets call him Jörgen -"Dumb Jörgen" who liked cars but who wasn't very bright (to say the least). Because of Jörgens car improvement practices someone coined the expression "Jörgen tuning". "Jörgen tuning" is a method of tuning where you remove stuff you don't really understand the purpose of, in Jörgens case that was alot.

In the end I guess I have "Jörgen tuned" my new GTX 960! It has less of those pesky small no good for nothing componets around the GPU but who cares, the important bits are still there...

The card still works but it now pulls ~8 watts more power at 1250 MHz running Unigine Valley compared to before the "tuning" (~90W vs ~82W) , perhaps because of missing decoupling caps? At least it stays at 1250 MHz now after the repaste. Time to start undervolting and BIOS modding!

I think I know Jörgen. He lives around the corner from me now.

NOTE: I actually bought this a couple weeks ago, but I didn't get around to posting about it until now.

I managed to get a newer Windows 7 system at an affordable price range, it's a Dell Optiplex 7010 SFF with an Intel Core i3-3240 3.4 GHz CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM (now 8GB since I had a spare stick), and a 250GB hard drive. I plan on replacing the single 3.5" 250GB hard drive with a 2.5" 120GB solid state drive of some sort in a dual-drive configuration with the 2.5" 500GB Seagate hard drive that I found at a thrift store a while back.

Now I can finally upgrade from a Core 2 Quad to an Ivy Bridge for my Windows 7 usage (I've actually used my Windows 7 computer a lot more than any newer Wintel computer in my household, typical for a Windows 10 loather like me).

And on a side note for a recent purchase. I've had to place an order on an HP-brand TSSTcorp SATA DVD-RW drive for my Optiplex 745 (video transfer rig) since the ASUS drive I was using sucked hard (every DVD I burnt with it ended up being nothing more than a coaster).

Bought a TCL 43S405 43" 4K HDR LED UHD Roku Smart TV to upgrade the TV I've had for 8 years (gave to my brother to watch movies and shows on it).

Fermi cards are getting cheap, time for hoarding 🤣
Gainward GTX 470 - non-reference card. It seems Gainward perhaps intended to use this PCB for something more power hungry (but not GTX 480)... The PCB supports only up to 320-bit memory bus, but could have 2 8-pins, and there are empty spots for more VRM phases than GTX 470 currently employs... also heatsink is missing one heatpipe and I seriously doubt the previous owner torn it away to install Arctic fans 😁

Display Port is not very common on Fermi boards, although this is probably some early version which doesn't support higher bandwidth than DL DVI anyway.

Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC. The later 950 MHz variant, not as good as the otiginal 1GHz SOC, but still nice.

Gigabyte GTX 570 SOC. Also one of the faster GTX 570 variants and compared to reference PCB, this one has much stronger VRM.

not retro, but not quite modern:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/263737594118 specs: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboar … 500/X8DAL-i.cfm

I got it because it is a STEAL. The ram is just a waste of space, as you need to find 4 more of the same modules to enable the 3-channel ram. but getting the heatsinks with the board, makes it totally worthwhile.

it's going to replace the dual 771 I run in my garage (old one: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboar … 100/X7DCA-L.cfm ). I didn't NEED to buy it, but on a whim, I searched for dual motherboards and I saw the price and jumped. Getting pci-e 2.0 is the primary goal with the upgrade. I do quite a bit of transfers on usb 3.1 and the 1.0 pci-e bus is a bit slow.

I bought an i7 3770K + Asus Maximus IV Extreme (P67) Combo recently.

It came without any accessories, not even an I/O shield and the price was 200 euro so It wasn't exactly a bargain... I really wanted a Maxumus IV Extreme (P67) though as it was the motherboard many hardware sites (at least Sweclockers) used for the overclocking tests at the Sandy Bridge release 3rd Jan 2011.

I also found out that Ivy Bridge CPUs run even hotter today compared to when they were new back in 2012. It seems the tooth paste Intel used as thermal compound between the silicon and the heat spreader does degrade with time eventhough Intel said it wouldn't.

Here is the 3770K running at only 4500 MHz with low voltage. It hits 100C when running AIDA64 stability test eventhough the Noctua dumpster find cooler (U12P-SE2 from 2009 I think) is at least somewhat decent. Running Prime95 with AVX or Linpack the CPU would probably hit 100C at stock frequency...

After some nutcracking action, some cleaning, some repasting (liquid metal) and some gluing the same CPU now runs a "little bit" cooler at the same speed with the same voltage and cooler.

At 4700 MHz the CPU would not even load Windows at any voltage before the procedure now it runs stable at 1.3V.

I did some more testing a bit later and 4800 MHz at 1.35V is also running great with not much higher temperatures.

Since my Unicomp is currently out of commission until I can fix it (which isn't straightforward)...

Ducky One 2 Skyline:

This has Cherry MX Blue key switches. First time I'm trying them out, and they're fine, although a little on the light side to type on (perhaps I should've gotten Greens?).
Overall I'm liking it quite a bit, except for a single annoyance - those goddamn floodlight-powered blue status LEDs! Every time I happen to look straight down at these things, I can feel my optic nerve dying a little inside. It's seriously unpleasant. On the upside, I suppose if my country ever comes under aerial attack this will be an excellent civil defense weapon to point at the sky and blind enemy pilots.

Matias Quiet Pro:

This one is for office work. It's astonishingly quiet indeed, but at first blush I don't know if it feels really nice to type on. Let's see how it grows on me. I do like the fact that the caps/num/scroll lock keys have the LEDs *in* them - feels like a throwback to those KeyTronic 1980s models, like the first one I ever used regularly (a clone of the IBM PC/XT keyboard).

Don't know if EEPROM/Flash chips count or not, but I purchased 6 of them (2 Flash chips 2Mb (256K x 8 ) 70ns 32-pin DIP, 4 EEPROM chips (2x 64Kb (8K x 8 ) 150ns 28-pin DIP, and 2x 256Kb (32K x 8 ) 150ns 28-pin DIP) in case I break a pin off when inserting into the sockets on both my Roland SC-55 and 3Com EtherLink III ISA Network Card and I got the chips today (digikey) and the shipping was fast as well (2 days after ordering the chips).

Got myself two bog-standard 32GB SanDisk U1 V30 Extreme microSD cards for use in a chinese PhotoFast μSD->Memory Stick adapter... Now the PSP has ~60 gigs of space... 😊

I just picked up something today on ebay.. well it's special to me. I owned one years ago and I've regretted (years later) that I had at the time sold it originally to upgrade. I've been looking for one to own again for many years now and haven't found one for sale at a decent price. Most folks want like $90 - $150 or more for these. But I found one for sale on ebay, I put in an offer for $25 even though seller was asking $85 for it.. I expected to be denied instantly. Woke up today and got an ebay invoice in the email, $42 shipped. Perfect price. So yay, I get one again. 😲 😀

Seller's picture from ebay:

luckybob wrote:

not retro, but not quite modern: […]
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not retro, but not quite modern:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/263737594118 specs: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboar … 500/X8DAL-i.cfm

I got it because it is a STEAL. The ram is just a waste of space, as you need to find 4 more of the same modules to enable the 3-channel ram. but getting the heatsinks with the board, makes it totally worthwhile.

it's going to replace the dual 771 I run in my garage (old one: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboar … 100/X7DCA-L.cfm ). I didn't NEED to buy it, but on a whim, I searched for dual motherboards and I saw the price and jumped. Getting pci-e 2.0 is the primary goal with the upgrade. I do quite a bit of transfers on usb 3.1 and the 1.0 pci-e bus is a bit slow.

I own one of these boards myself, I'll be selling it some time in the near future because I thought "Dual 1366 for cheap!" (I paid $75 for the board bare with no chips no heatsinks no ram), but after having it and using it for a little while I found out why it was so cheap: It's one of the lower-tier models that routes both cpu's through a single chipset. Instead of some of the better Dual-1366 boards (like the one in my actual server) that runs a "Round-Robin" sort of configuration and routes both cpu's through two chipsets, one per cpu and gives better throughput in general.

They're okayish boards (the one you bought) but only really useful if you're doing multi-threaded work with them, casual stuff and gaming they're not much faster than a normal x58 board.

You can pick up a pair of 3.7 ghz max-boost 12MB quad cores for them for $40/each today, the X5687, my server runs two of them.

Well, the problem I'm having with what I bought, the board only accepts 95W cpus. The x5687 is a 135w so it won't even post. I'll probably keep the chips for my server, and grab a nice 95w cpu next time I can.

luckybob wrote:

Well, the problem I'm having with what I bought, the board only accepts 95W cpus. The x5687 is a 135w so it won't even post. I'll probably keep the chips for my server, and grab a nice 95w cpu next time I can.

I happen to own one and I did have a pair of those chips in it. In fact, here's proof they work in it just fine, the 3dmark score from the time I had it running as a gaming computer for a few months: https://www.3dmark.com/fs/13394804

Motherboard is listed. The supermicro website is outdated, they totally do work in it.

luckybob wrote:

Well, the problem I'm having with what I bought, the board only accepts 95W cpus. The x5687 is a 135w so it won't even post. I'll probably keep the chips for my server, and grab a nice 95w cpu next time I can.

Here, another report as well from when I had it running with more detailed information for you: http://www.outfoxed.net/dual-1366-desktop/dua … ark-Report.html

nope doesn't work. I dropped the chips into my main board ( http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboar … 00/X8DAH_-F.cfm ) The chips work fine. I had X5687's in it already, so I knew the board was good. Took the opportunity to clean the heatsinks, and new paste. But I digress.

Still going to sell these X5687's for X5672's.

*update*

no to be defeated, I asked supermicro. Their response was "The board only officially supports chips up to 95W" I had a look at the power regulators, the X8DAL has 4 phases per cpu, the X8DAH has 5 with beefier parts. In a strange twist, I found myself installing the cpu's I had into the board, and it worked.

So the new 5687's are working fine in my 8XDAH, and now my old 5687's are working in the X8DAL. It's strange.

That said, during stress testing, the voltage regulators (infineon 050n03ls) are getting HOT. Uncomfortably so. I saw about 105C. The data sheet claims a max temp of 150C (302 Freedom), but 105c (221 Freedom) on the outer case is unacceptable from my point of view. Maybe installing the board in a case with proper cooling would be sufficient, but I want to get some heatsinks for these mosfets at the very least. I'm looking at a pack or two of these overprices shits: http://www.enzotechnology.com/mos-c1.htm and a tube of thermal adhesive.

I get so annoyed by retarded scamming scumbag sellers on Ebay.

I wanted to replace my trusty Gigabyte G1.Sniper 2 Z68 socket 1155 motherboard because Gigabyte never made a decent BIOS / UEFI for Ivy Bridge. The board has broken voltage control so you are limited to what I think is the stock VID for multiplier 39 with no LLC, in practise this gives me about 1.15V load.

My best i7 3770K (out of 3) can do 4500Mhz at 1.15V fullty stable and it's possible to hack the CPU registers to add "extra turbo voltage" and higher multipliers from within Windows using utilitys made to control power profiles on Intel Laptops. This really proves that there is nothing wrong with the hardware... just Gigabytes BIOS team. Gigabytes code monkeys actually said that it was impossible for them to add voltage control for Ivy Bridge on the "G1 Sniper 2" because the voltage regulator circuit was made for Sandy Bridge 😁 .

Using third party utilitys to control voltage and multipliers is pretty annoying. Throttlestop is the only program I know of that can do it and it has some other limitations, like overriding any attempt to fully lock the CPU to the max multiplier you have set.

In any case I wanted a new motherboard but as the G1 Sniper 2 (except for the issue mentioned above) is a really kickass motherboard there are not many socket 1155 boards that can be considered upgrades.

The list of boards were pretty much

Asus Maximus V Formula (Z77)
Asus Maximus V Extreme (Z77)

The end.

I found an Asus Maximus Formula listed as new in Germany, the price was 230 euro + 25 euro shipping. The pictures showed stock fotages of the motherboard, the motherboard box with accessories and the whole Asus selling spec sheet with all nice stuff about the board like how awesome the bluetooth + Wifi module is and so on. The only other comment was "Top Zustand neuwertig". Okey perhaps the motherboard wasn't totally new but as good as new...

Anyhow even for a new or "as good as new" Asus Maximus V Formula in full retail package 255 euro shipped is a bit too much as that is what the board cost when it was just released back in 2012. I made an 150 (+25) euro offer and the seller accepted.

Today I got the motherboard and this is the actual board and the packaging it came in.

"As good as new" listed as new with pictures showing the full retail package.

Well "as good as new" except for the missing box, the missing accessories, the missing bluetooth + Wifi module, the missing I/O shield, the missing motherboard heatsinks, the crooked headers, the beat up capacitor and the dirt...

In case anyone is wondering... yea the board works but with only the lower half of some dodgy waterblock as VRM heatsink I guess it will get pretty toasty if I turn the voltage up over 1.35V...

Perhaps I will return the board, perhaps the seller will offer a partial refund or perhaps I will just send him a bag of poo and sign him up for a 1 year subscription of Hot Grannys - the magazine.

id return that. I also never buy from sellers who cant be bothered to take a picture.