There might be a baking process that will revive SSD, for reuse, not data recovery, and for different reasons than solder reflow. The NAND cells what got all tired and achy get reset to new when you maintain a given temp for given time. This is an experimental area though and nobody has it dialled-in for home meddlers yet.

After a month some mosfets came in. Bought on aliexpress.
Nikos brand as original. None could stand the 45W C2D I was using to test it and all +12V of the VRM died immediately or seconds after power on.
I suspect them to be cheap knock-offs or some very old stock. I resoldered the only two working mosfets and it posted but soon got overworked and died (1 rail out of 3! and it worked for a minute or so.................)

Such low quality... I'm appalled.

Some few days ago, I got to fully migrate my younger Sis's gaming build from an Intel 3rd gen CPU-based build to an Intel 12th gen CPU-based build. This was sorely needed because the second gen build is using an HDD for Windows 10 and some newer games she wants to play require newer hardware anyway. Main issue during the migration was not the hardware, but the fact that she wanted to keep the current install for the 3rd Generation build (this was not the case for the 1st Gen -> 2nd Gen migration). The Windows 7 partition was removed and the Windows 10 partition was converted from BIOS/MBR to EFI/GPT for the newer ASRock board. (What I forgot to do was check to see if Secure Boot was enabled properly; I know fTPM is disabled, so no notifications for Windows 11 on that 3rd Gen build, lol.) She was surprised at how fast the system loads now it is on an NVME drive and not my old OG WD Blue 1TB HDD anymore; pretty amusing.

11st Gen Gaming Build (2014-2016) - Specs
2Note: this was also the living room PC before the just as old Intel build replaced it.
3
4Case: Sentey Optimus Black Gaming Case - GS-6000
5Motherboard: ASUS P5QC (Used)
6CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
7Memory: 4GB DDR2 800 RAM - Custom Heatsinked Corsair RAM (do not have model number on hand), 4x 1GB Kit
8Graphics Card
9  Variant 1: MSI Radeon HD 7770 Power Edition 1GD5 - S12-V271-028
10  Variant 2: XFX GeForce 9800 GT (yes, seriously!)
11  Upgrade: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Superclocked 1GB - 01G-P4-2652-KR
12Storage: 80GB - Western Digital Caviar SE - WDC800JD-75MSA2
13Optical Drive
14  Primary: Memorex 18X DVD Multi-Format Drive - 3202-3294
15  Secondary: Lite-On DVD/CD Rewritable Drive - SHW-160PS
16CPU Cooler: Deepcool Ice Matrix 400
17Power Supply
18  Variant 1: 500W - Rocketfish Gaming semi-modular 500W PSU - RF-500WPS2
19  Variant 2: 430W - SeaSonic S12II 430 Bronze PSU - SS-430GB
20Operating System
21  Original: Windows 7 SP1 x64
22  Upgrade: Windows 10 (RTM-1511) x64
23
24
252nd Gen Gaming Build (2016-2023) - Specs
26
27Case: Silverstone SG13 Mini-ITX Case - SG13WB-Q (USB 3.0)
28Motherboard: ASUS P8H61-I R2.0 (New)
29CPU
30  Original: Intel Core 2nd Generation i5-2400
31  Upgrade: Intel Core 3rd Generation i5-3570
32Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600 (PC3-12800) RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 2x 4GB Kit
33Graphics Card
34  Original: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Superclocked 1GB - 01G-P4-2652-KR
35  1st Upgrade: Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Mini - ZT-P10500A-10L
36  2nd Upgrade: Lenovo GeForce GTX 1660 Super
37Storage
38  System: 1TB - Western Digital Blue SATA III - WD10EALS-00Z8A0
39  Game
40    Original: 500GB - HGST Z5K500-500/HTS5405050A7E680
41    "Upgrade": 1TB - Western Digital Blue Slim SATA III - WD10SPCX
42    Proper Upgrade: 1TB - TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z - T253TZ001T0C101
43      Note: This is technically for the migration to the new build.
44CPU Cooler: Intel LGA1150/1151/1155/1156 OEM Cooler - E97378-001
45Power Supply: 500W - EVGA 500W (pre-500 W1 80+ packaging) - 100-W1-0500-KR
46Operating System
47  Dual-Boot: Windows 7 SP1 x64 and Windows 10 (1511/1607-22H2) x64
48
49
503rd Gen Gaming Build (2023-) - Specs
51
52Case: Silverstone SG13 Mini-ITX Case - SG13WB-Q (USB 3.0)
53Motherboard: ASRock B660M-ITX/ac (Refurbished)
54CPU: Intel Core 12th Generation i3-12100
55Memory: 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM - Silicon Power Desktop/Value Gaming 2x 8GB Kit
56Graphics Card: Lenovo GeForce GTX 1660 Super
57Storage
58  System: 512GB - Intel SSD Pro 7600p - SSDPEKKF512G8L
59  Game: 1TB - TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z - T253TZ001T0C101
60  Download - Proposed: 1TB - Western Digital Blue Slim SATA III - WD10SPCX

61  Download - Final: 1TB - Seagate Mobile HDD - ST1000LM035
62CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Alpine 17 LP - ACALP00042A
63Power Supply: 600W - BitFenix Formula Bronze - BF600B
64Operating System: Windows 10 22H2 x86-64

Today, though, the server and the compile laptop still uses Ubuntu-based builds and they do not run LTS versions, so they are being upgraded. Main web server is upgraded, and the laptop used to compile packages for the web server is being upgraded.

Late Edit: Realized the 3rd Gen gaming build still had the previous HDD listed as System due to a copy+paste oversight. This is fixed.

Why still i3? When done properly, should had gone to i5-12xxxx, memory might give trouble in future as it is third party using cast off that does not meet quality dram chips. I would use Micron or Crucial Ballistrix (gamer's but genuine micron made dram chips).

NVME should be Crucial NVME, or WD black 1TB or Samsung for long term reliability. Teamgroup is chinese made SSD junk and I had seen failure rates on chinese made SSDs.

Sorry, I had to gonna say and came from my experience, one day your daughter would ask about slow CPU and wants a upgrade. One time I specified and built a low budget like you did but quality stuff except motherboard was substituted without my say and low end memory. The generic memory failed 2 years later and had to upgrade from i3 to i5 to keep my father happy and few weeks ago, upgraded again to i7 and had to replace the 1inch high intel heatsink to a decent tower cooler because the cooler couldn't keep up with i7 and was loud. Hard drive was replaced with 1TB SATA SSD 1 year ago.

Cheers,

Sure, everyone can build a $500 machine for $2000.

Nexxen wrote on 2023-04-21, 00:27:

After a month some mosfets came in. Bought on aliexpress. Nikos brand as original. None could stand the 45W C2D I was using to t […]
Show full quote

After a month some mosfets came in. Bought on aliexpress.
Nikos brand as original. None could stand the 45W C2D I was using to test it and all +12V of the VRM died immediately or seconds after power on.
I suspect them to be cheap knock-offs or some very old stock. I resoldered the only two working mosfets and it posted but soon got overworked and died (1 rail out of 3! and it worked for a minute or so.................)

Such low quality... I'm appalled.

Are you checking them on a transistor tester prior to use to confirm that they match the specs of the remaining working original? I replaced some BJT MOSfets from an M919 with some replacements from china and 9/10 worked but only ~6/10 matched original spec. They're probably remarks from generally similar parts or maybe fakes. If they're fakes and can't handle the original specs, that's a real shame.
The load requirements of a C2D are a bit different than a 486 though, maybe there's even more to match than the transistor tester's readings.

BTW, has anyone seen recently that as of May 15th, Imgur are going to be clearing off images from unregistered accounts? That's going to remove many of the imgur pictures I've posted here but I've not seen any discussion of it otherwise.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-04-22, 22:38:

Are you checking them on a transistor tester prior to use to confirm that they match the specs of the remaining working original […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2023-04-21, 00:27:

After a month some mosfets came in. Bought on aliexpress. Nikos brand as original. None could stand the 45W C2D I was using to t […]
Show full quote

After a month some mosfets came in. Bought on aliexpress.
Nikos brand as original. None could stand the 45W C2D I was using to test it and all +12V of the VRM died immediately or seconds after power on.
I suspect them to be cheap knock-offs or some very old stock. I resoldered the only two working mosfets and it posted but soon got overworked and died (1 rail out of 3! and it worked for a minute or so.................)

Such low quality... I'm appalled.

Are you checking them on a transistor tester prior to use to confirm that they match the specs of the remaining working original? I replaced some BJT MOSfets from an M919 with some replacements from china and 9/10 worked but only ~6/10 matched original spec. They're probably remarks from generally similar parts or maybe fakes. If they're fakes and can't handle the original specs, that's a real shame.
The load requirements of a C2D are a bit different than a 486 though, maybe there's even more to match than the transistor tester's readings.

BTW, has anyone seen recently that as of May 15th, Imgur are going to be clearing off images from unregistered accounts? That's going to remove many of the imgur pictures I've posted here but I've not seen any discussion of it otherwise.

Well, I didn't check thoroughly. Just no shorts and readings were between 11K to 3K ohms on D-S. I just put aside the 3K of the P0906 lot.
P7502 were more consistent, around 9K. My guess, these were mere diodes.

Died as soon as I tried to power it on with cpu. Shorting, I had to desolder the dead ones. All except one line, and that P0906 showed +12 but nothing on the other pins.
Died alone with no load (cpu removed).

Pads were opaque and solder didn't even stick to it despite tons of flux. Really, a lot of flux. I used some deox to help.
I shouldn't have soldered them.

See pics 😀 Markings are inconsistent across, not even close to original.
I bought the first ones showing up, guess I need to buy from the guy that has 100 feedbacks...

Nexxen wrote on 2023-04-22, 23:42:

Well, I didn't check thoroughly. Just no shorts and readings were between 11K to 3K ohms on D-S. I just put aside the 3K of the […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-04-22, 22:38:

Are you checking them on a transistor tester prior to use to confirm that they match the specs of the remaining working original […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2023-04-21, 00:27:

After a month some mosfets came in. Bought on aliexpress. Nikos brand as original. None could stand the 45W C2D I was using to t […]
Show full quote

After a month some mosfets came in. Bought on aliexpress.
Nikos brand as original. None could stand the 45W C2D I was using to test it and all +12V of the VRM died immediately or seconds after power on.
I suspect them to be cheap knock-offs or some very old stock. I resoldered the only two working mosfets and it posted but soon got overworked and died (1 rail out of 3! and it worked for a minute or so.................)

Such low quality... I'm appalled.

Are you checking them on a transistor tester prior to use to confirm that they match the specs of the remaining working original? I replaced some BJT MOSfets from an M919 with some replacements from china and 9/10 worked but only ~6/10 matched original spec. They're probably remarks from generally similar parts or maybe fakes. If they're fakes and can't handle the original specs, that's a real shame.
The load requirements of a C2D are a bit different than a 486 though, maybe there's even more to match than the transistor tester's readings.

BTW, has anyone seen recently that as of May 15th, Imgur are going to be clearing off images from unregistered accounts? That's going to remove many of the imgur pictures I've posted here but I've not seen any discussion of it otherwise.

Well, I didn't check thoroughly. Just no shorts and readings were between 11K to 3K ohms on D-S. I just put aside the 3K of the P0906 lot.
P7502 were more consistent, around 9K. My guess, these were mere diodes.

Died as soon as I tried to power it on with cpu. Shorting, I had to desolder the dead ones. All except one line, and that P0906 showed +12 but nothing on the other pins.
Died alone with no load (cpu removed).

Pads were opaque and solder didn't even stick to it despite tons of flux. Really, a lot of flux. I used some deox to help.
I shouldn't have soldered them.

See pics 😀 Markings are inconsistent across, not even close to original.
I bought the first ones showing up, guess I need to buy from the guy that has 100 feedbacks...

That what you get. I knew this for long time.
I was warning all the time about aliexpress, and chinese sellers on ebay peddling semiconductor fakes.
Should had been bought from other sellers that are not chinese or kong hong.

Try again this time from USA or UK. Expense is bit more but you get reliable parts.

Cheers,

Heh, realized very late that the 3rd gen gaming build's system drive specs had the wrong drive listed as System, as it's an Intel 7600p PCIe 3.0 x4 NVME SSD and NOT the retired 1TB Western Digital WD10EALS HDD as it was in the 2nd gen build. Fixed in previous post.

Anyway... For curiosity's sake, I decided to take a closer look at the 2nd generation gaming build's hard drives' S.M.A.R.T. attributes. The build pretty much runs 24/7; this is reflected with those drives' stats.

The original dual-boot OS drive, which was my original storage drive... the WDC WD10EALS. Pretty high hour count (still doesn't beat my Seagate 40GB PATA drive in such, though).

And then, the Steam Games drive, which was Mom's previous laptop drive... the WDC WD10SPCX. Mind you, this was originally a proposed Downloads drive for the 3rd Gen gaming build (which, frankly, I'm glad I decided against doing so). The pending sectors event happened AFTER the migration. Strange luck.

AmiSapphire wrote on 2023-04-25, 01:32:

Heh, realized very late that the 3rd gen gaming build's system drive specs had the wrong drive listed as System, as it's an Inte […]
Show full quote

Heh, realized very late that the 3rd gen gaming build's system drive specs had the wrong drive listed as System, as it's an Intel 7600p PCIe 3.0 x4 NVME SSD and NOT the retired 1TB Western Digital WD10EALS HDD as it was in the 2nd gen build. Fixed in previous post.

Anyway... For curiosity's sake, I decided to take a closer look at the 2nd generation gaming build's hard drives' S.M.A.R.T. attributes. The build pretty much runs 24/7; this is reflected with those drives' stats.

The original dual-boot OS drive, which was my original storage drive... the WDC WD10EALS. Pretty high hour count (still doesn't beat my Seagate 40GB PATA drive in such, though).
wdc_wd10eals-00z8a0.png

And then, the Steam Games drive, which was Mom's previous laptop drive... the WDC WD10SPCX. Mind you, this was originally a proposed Downloads drive for the 3rd Gen gaming build (which, frankly, I'm glad I decided against doing so). The pending sectors event happened AFTER the migration. Strange luck.
wdc_wd10spcx-24hwst1.png

Intel 7600p PCIe 3.0 x4 NVME SSD uses Silicon Motion SM2262, which is a decent controller due to off chip dram for buffer but not true datacenter standard if you are thinking this, it is more of pro-consumer device. With intel behind it for development, that's good choice.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13131/the-sili … troller-preview

Should started with i5. Yeah, this is true these days you have to spend more but this is because of price had gone up. $1,000 can be done with i5 easily and a used GTX1070 or 1080. Otherwise save up another 400 and find a used RTX2080.

Cheers,

Upon setting up the XFX X58i in a case again it refuses to post. Get a 88 error code on the Debug led (which isnt listed in the manual, yay!) Going to bust it down to the bare basics and retest it, I have a feeling the force of having all the standoffs installed properly in the case is preventing it from posting due to a pretty drastic board flex. 3 out of the 4 status LEDs are green, the fourth one in the right lower side where the flex is remains green until about 30 seconds after posting and then turns red along with the error code.

A friend of mine wants home NAS to store some files, but wants it for free if possible 😀 I have many old servers at work, so after some mods HP Smart Array P400 is working in H110M-DVS mobo.

I'm looking at write-ups on the upcoming GeForce 4000-series cards releasing soon. There are finally some good options coming out, for what is now considered to be the low-end of PC gaming. These compact, low-power cards could be useful in older systems carried over from the Windows 7/8 days, where the ability to use monster GPUs is impossible.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2023-05-10, 13:01:

where the ability to use monster GPUs is impossible.

....AMD GPUs had Windows 7 support until July 2022, so there's still monster room there.

Sis now wanted a laptop to replace the old ASUS laptop we got her a few years ago. Unit that replaced it: HP 15-ef2723od.

Since the 3rd gen gaming build is pretty much a success (she mostly runs vintage games on emulators and the occasional modern fighting game; those run well... and Parsec actually runs, unlike the 2nd gen gaming build), this was next.

Also, since the original NVMe storage and RAM specs are 256GB storage and 8GB of RAM respectively, those were upgraded to 512GB storage and 16GB of RAM. Also, the original 2x 4GB sticks were single rank... on an AMD Ryzen CPU build. The replacement 2x 8GB set is dual rank.

Right now, I am imaging the original 256GB NVMe SSD for backup purposes due to recent changes in data handling here.

This morning, I've been looking at the soon to be released Nvidia 4000-series cards, specifically the 4060 models. Model information from the usual players was released over the weekend, so there are photos and specs to view. Almost all of the 4060 TI cards are dual or triple fan cards, with only one company offering compact single-fan models at this time, while the lesser 4060 is coming in mostly dual-fan models, with some triple-fan gaming versions and a few single-fan compact cards. My plan is to wait and see if anyone gets enterprising and puts out a compact single-fan 16GB 4060 TI, which should be very easy to do, since it's not a beefy space-heater GPU.

The only modern stuff I've been doing is watching the latest failure. I briefly looked at upgrading my main desktop, but I don't think I'll get anything meaningful in terms of performance or features. All I see is prices and power consumption increasing without a large enough performance increase to be worth it, and sometimes they have fewer features (three PCIe slots, but four M.2 slots - I guess games are getting so large that you'll need multiple multi-terabyte SSDs to store them, and graphics cards have such large coolers that you wouldn't be able to use those PCIe slots anyway). People happily buy and recommend it as long as it has RGB lighting and the "right" brand of chip on it.

I didn't mean for this to coincide with the 4060 Ti launch. I was going to post this yesterday.

Anyway, for an actual modern activity, I'm messing around with Linux again. I keep deciding that I don't like the direction Windows is going, start using Linux more often, and then get a new computer with Windows and switch back. Software support is what keeps me coming back to Windows. I've spent a few years coming back to getting a Linux video capture setup running since eMpia drivers are broken under Windows 10 (and probably worse under 11 - the drivers I have were made for 7, but they do work on exactly one of my Windows 10 machines under exactly one capture program).

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-03-24, 20:07:

For now, it appears to be some sort of file system error. It was a clone of the HDD I was previously using, initially only as an […]
Show full quote

For now, it appears to be some sort of file system error. It was a clone of the HDD I was previously using, initially only as an experiment to see if it would work. And it seemed to did. Until now.

After repartitioning the drive it seems to be fixed. I'll keep a close eye on how it keeps up.
IMG_20230324_163223_result.jpg
IMG_20230324_171111_result.jpg

Looks like the issue starts coming back, though it's in the early phases. Today morning I had an app failing, had to make a boot repair and one corrupted user file, so quickly made backups from the changes since march. Luckily I didn't really move back to the SSD with my user files so there wasn't much to save. The afternoon I'll make a complete disk check then get in contact with the shop about warranty.

Edit:
Yes, it's not as bad yet as back then. Only about 2.3% corrupted blocks instead of almost 8%. Also, I'm starting to lose faith in HD Sentinel. The file system is failing, and it still says everything is fine.

To all on corrupted data issue:
Do not use this utility to scan the hard drive as it takes so long time to do in hours while the hard drive corrupts more data during that, worse, even storage actually die.

When you suspect a data corruption, quickly open the gsmartcontrol utility and query the SMART attributes and see if you have uncorrectable sectors count starting to count up.
At this point, back up the data (too late) actually. You should had backed up data once in while to another reliable storage stuff.

Do not use anything to "save" your hard drive.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-05-24, 22:10:

To all on corrupted data issue: Do not use this utility to scan the hard drive as it takes so long time to do in hours while the […]
Show full quote

To all on corrupted data issue:
Do not use this utility to scan the hard drive as it takes so long time to do in hours while the hard drive corrupts more data during that, worse, even storage actually die.

When you suspect a data corruption, quickly open the gsmartcontrol utility and query the SMART attributes and see if you have uncorrectable sectors count starting to count up.
At this point, back up the data (too late) actually. You should had backed up data once in while to another reliable storage stuff.

Do not use anything to "save" your hard drive.

Cheers,

My data is safe. I always had duplicates from the important stuff. All that's left to update is barely more than browser data (history, bookmarks). Otherwise I do regular backups each month to my NAS, so there is nothing to lose by checking the drive with HD Tune. My assumption currently is that the drive maybe corrupts data on startups or shutdowns. I had HDsentinel running all afternoon and health didn't move from 98%, same as available capacity in SMARTCTL. IF these are good indications. I'll keep an eye on it over the weekend. Based on repartitioning fixing the issue, I also assume it might be either a controller or a firmware issue.