Alia acta est

[BitMaster]

My new, replaced, CPU arrived YEAAHH :)

 

Replaced Mobo in mail too.....cant believe it...now that I have to leave for a couple days baaahhhhh

 

Sadly I did not get a refund but got the same model mobo in return, so I stick with Z170/6700k. Would have loved to upgrade to Z270 and have 9 USB on back-I/O instead of 7 with the Z170. Heck, glad I got all fixed and RMA'ed by Mindfactory ( twice ) and Intel.

 

MSI...never again..no THANK YOU

[Konovalov]

Last two boards I have had Asus and no probs. Always loved their BIOS so when move to Z270 or if AMD is tempting again will go with Asus board. Last MSI board I had was with an AMD Athlon.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BitMaster]

I wonder where my board is !!??

 

It's in delivery since 17th but no postman rang the bell yet.

 

Sounds like the board went lost... OMG not this!!

 

 

Gesendet von iPhone mit Tapatalk

[Cibit]

Bitmaster why are there less and less USB ports on the back IO these days? I am looking at the Z270 Prime and there are six USB slots of various types. I need more:doh:

[Konovalov]

Bitmaster why are there less and less USB ports on the back IO these days? I am looking at the Z270 Prime and there are six USB slots of various types. I need more:doh:

 

 

 

Asus Maximum IX Hero has 4xUSB2, 4xUSB3 and 2xUSB3.1 (A and C ports) all on I/O rear panel. There are boards out there with plenty of ports however the choice is not perhaps as numerous as it once was.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BitMaster]

What I have seen with Z270 is that they in general seem to have more USB ports on Back I/O panel than the Z170 had.

 

 

My board is still in delivery, for the whole week now :(

 

Hermes Logistics Customer Care could not verify or make certain that I will get the board today, tomorrow or even next Monday...wahhaaaaa .

 

Called up Mindfactory and requested a REFUND if it is not delivered by tomorrow as they denied sending out another board with DHL Express to make sure I finally get working parts, after ordering all that stuff Nov. 17th 2016 !!!

 

I start to believe there are evil forces involved !!!! The Universe doesn't want me to have this new PC I assume....as all goes wrong that can go wrong :(

[BitMaster]

The board arrived at sunday 4pm..a 4 day delay but that ain't all, I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself I guess.

 

So, after tracking my 2nd replacement board for a couple days it finally came at late afternoon, on a snowy sunday. I had no time to get started right away, nothing I wished more than that, it's been since Nov. 17th when I placed the original order, MSI M9, 6700k, 32GB etc...it's Jan 23rd meanwhile.

So, I could wait those hours till after 8pm when it all settles down and kids are all in bed I said to myself, those few hours....

 

Well, my youngest daughter has a cold, is teething and was not amused at all to go to bed, she kept me busy till just after midnight when she fell asleep.

 

All OK now I thought, as I prepaired the tower with a big flex/dremel steel cutter tool to accomdate the E-ATX oversized board ((This board is E-extra_wide-ATX, one should not that.

I can now access all USB30 headers and all Sata/U2 ports in upper n lower row as well )), installed

all drives, cables etc it didnt take long till I could hit the switch and GO.

 

It booted fine, accepted the XMP right away and ran great for about 2.5h installing newest 10 updates, general updates and a few runs of RealBench stresstest and benchmark, all went fine

with stock settings, XMP enabled. It booted, rebooted, cold booted etc.. tested all that.

 

Now comes the bad part, the one that I didnt want, neither expect ( nor did Asus ) and is just

another bad luck 1:10000 chance I took.

 

After it ran so well and having read many Skylake OC tips I dialed in 1.385Volt as a safe value for any good 6700k to go at least 4.5GHz stable. It did so well, passed all tests and temps and volts stayed fairly low, just what I wanted and hoped/expected from that value and multiplier alone.

 

I then moved on to raise the mp to 4.6, ran a passmark IPC and 1 round RealBench Stresstest 15min while watching a video...RB then said it detected an instability so the PC was fine, I pressed it hard with YT HD vid, multitasking and RB running...so I accepted the flaw but said to myself:

 

In order to see where the journey goes, go Asus Auto-OC and then decide from there what to do.

 

I opened Asus AIsuite DIP5 and let it run, it's recommended by Asus btw....

 

Well, to make the long story short, the board killed itself, must have fried the PCH as all Qcodes with 2 Bios versions lead to PCH initialisation, mostly I get Qcode 26 with newest Bios and 3E with default Bios ( fall back 2nd Bios ) 1909. They vary sometimes when you hit reset often and fast etc. but will alwys fall back to those two codes. Had a technician from Asus on the line and we really tried a lot, he had patience that guy, RAM slot A1 to B2, 2 RAM, with and without GPU, multiple MemOK runs for each slot config and bios...quite a lot we did to revive the board.

 

Basically he said all those codes indicate that our own tool has broken the PCH chip when ( as I said and told him ) the PC cut out at the tool doing 4.7 GHz all core test with DIP5. After that cutout while testing 47x100 setting in DIP5 it wouldnt reboot and post again with RAM inserted.

 

It will always post without RAM Qcode 53...no RAM detected.

 

Contacted Mindafctory, that poor guy Mr. Ulrich...lol. After the disaster with those other parts and boards and multiple RMA he asked me just send in the whole damn combo, BOARD-CPU-RAM so they can verify themselves and exchange/refund. I agreed as I have exchanged enuff boards meanwhile to say I lean back and let others fix those over-testosteroned parts.

 

To me it seems like, the more features they have, and meanwhile those boards have many many chips, the more complicated and fragile they get to deal with.

 

 

What astonished me most was DCS, I fired it up and expected the StarForce to kick in as I had a new board, same model but another serial...it didnt. I really should have used that timewindow

I had to safe my lics for DCS that I already thoight were lost when the last board bricked with Qcode 00...they didnt...and when I get the same board back I may still have them, if not...1 more set of all module lics lost :(

 

I will take out the board tomorrow and send it back, with CPU ( and its papers stating its a replacement to what they sold me ) and RAM. This will take weeks to get back, Asus told me it will take a few weeks if it gets send to them from mindfactory...then checked...repaired or exchanged and then send to mf and they then send it to me.

 

I really would like a full refund now, honestly !

[Cibit]

Your not having much luck at all. Hope the returns arrive soon:)

[Drona]

I'm a little naive here, but why stress test something right out of the box? If you didn't have to stress test or push the overclock, you would have a working machine, right?

 

Hope your returns come soon and in working condition!

[BitMaster]

I'm a little naive here, but why stress test something right out of the box? If you didn't have to stress test or push the overclock, you would have a working machine, right?

 

Hope your returns come soon and in working condition!

 

 

Well, kinda right and kinda wrong.

 

The PCH must have had a defect right from the manufacturer and it would have been just a question of time when that happens. Just bad luck.

 

This board also has a return rate of 9%+ according to mindfactory's own Quality Control.

That is rather high and seems symptomatic for high end boards, more features and more used space & chips = more random mishaps and malfunctioning boards.

 

 

Thing is, it either RUNS or it doesnt and I wont wait 3 month to OC a board made for OC to the extreme, hence it's name "Maximus VIII Extreme" and the CPU got the "K" and is top of the line.

 

I O/C, I told this to Intel and to Asus & Mindfactory, they all had no problem with that and always exchanged the parts.

 

Asus Tech on phone told me that it points to a Asus problem with the PCH on board, could have well happen without any OC.

 

 

Yeah, no OC is no option. If I dont want to OC I buy a Mac, just what I am typing on.

 

 

Bit

[BitMaster]

Your not having much luck at all. Hope the returns arrive soon:)

 

 

I cgecked with Asus & Mindfactory and I have to send the board to MF, not Asus.

 

They asked me if I would kindly send it along with the RMA'ed CPU from Intel and the DDR4 they sold me as well to find the bad part.

 

Well, you know what, YES ! Heck, I have worked enough on that damn thing, today I am gonna wrap it up and send it to them.

 

I will ask them, if possible as they dont have a replacement in stock right now, if they refund it as much & far as possible, even take that 2.5h old CPU back and give me full refund, this rig is DOOMED in my eyes.

 

I would go for a Z270-Prime A board, save like 300€ on the board alone and get me something else instead for the money, like a nice Water Res and new Tower, like Phanteks' Evolv tempered edition in space silver ;) some remedy for this BS.

 

Please refund me with Z270-7700k-other RAM 3 new parts please...this sux big time

[Drona]

Well, kinda right and kinda wrong.

 

The PCH must have had a defect right from the manufacturer and it would have been just a question of time when that happens. Just bad luck.

 

This board also has a return rate of 9%+ according to mindfactory's own Quality Control.

That is rather high and seems symptomatic for high end boards, more features and more used space & chips = more random mishaps and malfunctioning boards.

 

 

Thing is, it either RUNS or it doesnt and I wont wait 3 month to OC a board made for OC to the extreme, hence it's name "Maximus VIII Extreme" and the CPU got the "K" and is top of the line.

 

I O/C, I told this to Intel and to Asus & Mindfactory, they all had no problem with that and always exchanged the parts.

 

Asus Tech on phone told me that it points to a Asus problem with the PCH on board, could have well happen without any OC.

 

 

Yeah, no OC is no option. If I dont want to OC I buy a Mac, just what I am typing on.

 

 

Bit

 

Hey, its your PC, you do what you want with it. Its something that I'm not used to I guess. I've never overclocked anything in my life and I hate to push computer parts to its limits especially things which are costly because I just can't afford to replace them if I accidentally break it and can't claim warranty. Another thing, overclocking computer parts in India is not a good idea if you are not in an air conditioned room. :music_whistling:

[Konovalov]

There are three types of people. Those that don't tinker and would never consider "taking a risk" in overclocking their system. Then there are those that build or purchase a new system, run it at stock for a year or two before then overclocking. And then there are those like Bit who have full custom water cooling setups and look to push their system to find it's upper limit from the get go. Each to their own which is one of the great things about PC building.

[Drona]

^^^Well said :thumbup:

[BitMaster]

I work and build PC's for many years now and I have taken all three approaches to computing over time.

 

With my 386 + 486 overclocking was mostly unknown and I think I didnt oc those, maybe I have with the 486 FSB, could well be hehe.

 

The P166 was my first PC that I overclocked, followed by a heavily overclocked PII-266 and PIII550.

 

After the PIII I gave up overclocking for a LONG time as CPU speed increased well in that time and

gaming was none of my priorities during that time. I started to venture into Linux and server hardware.

 

With the upcomie of BF1942 a friend dragged me back into gaming and my P4-2.4GHz was not up to date, I got me a 3GHz CPU and stayed with stock clocks whereas my pal went with the 1st watercooling, around back then when 1942 came up. That machine took 3 days to build, 360 rad in a chieftec tower...LoL...that turned me OFF. I said no WC if it is that much work and hassle.

 

That pov stood strong until like 3 years ago I checked again with Fkanker2.x and had a look what became out of it, I was a long time member of the 214th Blacksheep Annihilators back then when Flanker 1.x and 2.x where hip. I then found out about DCS and decided it COULD run on my MBPretina to begin with.

 

It does indeed run via Bootcamp, did that for a whole year and then decided I need a dedicated game rig again, like in ol' glory days.

 

It happened that I consolidated a customers servers and made 1 server out of 3 and was allowed and asked to take the HW of the other two servers with me. I built those two servers myself and liked that idea. I got that golden Sandy this way, 2 big fat Adaptec raid cards ( which I sold them ), lots of drives and RAMetc etc.. Asus Mainboards..etc..

 

I then put my rig together based on the CPU and Mobo I got 4 free, put the rest around, added a GTX980, screen and GO. I was happy with 3.4/3.8 stock but soon found out this CPU is a golden overclocker, from the model down to the specific unit I had. With minimum effort I reached 4.4 GHz on air and thought...wow..lets add water despite the hassle and see how far it goes.

That's when I got back to overclocking, with that Sandy CPU.

 

I have like 5 Computers and only 1 is overclocked, the 1 I game on. All others stay as they are as I know what can happen and will happen if you oc to the edge, been there.

 

Nowadays hardware is advertised for overclocking, the CPU and Mobo are cherished for that, so why should one not do it.

 

Asus tech for example had no problem in RMA when i told him that their board clipped out when it did the full-core stress test in Asus DIP5 at 4700MHz and never came back to live.

Hey...THEY WANT YOU TO HIT THAT KNOB so they can show you what they sold you.

If that knob fries their own circuits...well...bad for me..bad for Asus...but in the end I am not the one blamed for doing it. Neither did Mindfactory arise concerns on why and how that happened.

 

It's overclockers hardware and it better does not destroy itself when you hit the Auto button !!!

 

Tbh, I dont OC with Auto functions, but it is a quick way where the journey goes...well, short journey into a grave hehe.

 

I would not OC at all if the IPC was good enuff. I could save lots of money and time if Intel/AMD had a CPU of 3500 IPC points and if GPU and their hardware parts ( VRAM RAM ) would stay cool enough so they dont die after 3 years usage, what most of my high end cards did in the past 15 years...and I owned a whole bunch of those high end video cards.

 

No...I OC just to get DCS play smooth..nothing else.

 

I like solid Bios, certified hardware and trouble free computing...I could live without OC, really !!

[BitMaster]

So,

 

today I got a full refund for all 3 parts, mobo cpu ram.

 

But even that went wrong...i just cant believe it... they say I sent an i5-4590 in...I sent my 6700k which is 200€ more....baaahhhh.

 

Need to clear that position too, which I dont see a problem with as I still have this i5 here and havent sent it anywhere.

 

Bad thing is, I got my 3000 RAM for 180€ back then, same RAM now is 232€....they went UP in price by fifty... :(

 

 

Looking at a SIMPLE Z270 Asus board, no more than max 180€, 7700k and FAST RAM :)

 

 

Press thumbs ;)

[BitMaster]

OK, just got a call from Mindfactory, they could locate my 6700k and all is OK and refunded ;)))))

 

 

Feels like Xmas 3rd time now :)

 

Bit

[Cibit]

Do you have a spare machine to fly on while your waiting?

[BitMaster]

Do you have a spare machine to fly on while your waiting?

 

Not really Cibit,

 

I have a few PC's and laptops but none is really capable of DCS.

 

My old i7 isnt overclocked and only 6GB RAM atm, the laptop that could runs Ubuntu for my step daughter's sake...

 

 

BUT...

 

I FREAKIN' PLACED THE ORDER JUST NOW :)

 

Asus Z270 Prime-A ( as I said, CHEAP !!!..no more gimmick boards that fail and fail )

Intel i7-7700k

Corsair DDR4 LPX 32GB CL16 red ( those were F. expensive...but I had to put the money somewhere )

 

plus some watercool accessories for draining the fluid on-the-fly and such...minor stuff to make WC easier in maintenance.

 

Should arrive tomorrow or the day after....HOPPING AGAIN IN CIRCLES :)

 

 

Bit

[MadMonty]

Hey Bitmaster,

 

glad that everything is on the way now. When I see a DHL-guy driving around, I will clear the way for him :thumbup:

 

What graphics card are you running? The other parts are nearly the same as mine (ok, I have the "tinier" version) and I am very happy with my new PC.

 

Cheers,

 

Monty

[Cibit]

Not really Cibit,

 

 

plus some watercool accessories for draining the fluid on-the-fly and such...minor stuff to make WC easier in maintenance.

 

 

Bit

 

Good plan, I was meaning to do that when I replaced my last pump but the best laid plans...........That will be on the to do list when I start the upgrade, I can live with the algae for another couple of months:)

[BitMaster]

Cibit,

 

add a blade tip of citric acid powder from the bakery section in your supermarket. It's packed in the same small envelopes as baking powder and Vanillin, like 75 cents a pack of 5 envelopes.

 

Add a knifetip full of that powder to demineralised water and it stays crystal clear. Mine did for 2 years and 2 month.

 

I just cleaned my cooler block from copper oxide at the beginning of the fins. Not much, but enough to hinder flow after 2 years.

 

I added liquid citric acid as I couldnt find the powder form in my market and that or the cleaned cooler block tainted my water blue-greenish, like more Cu-Oxide came loose and now is dissolved in my cooling fluid ( plain demin. Water ).

 

So that's why I git me the Y-connector and a drain Valve. It is an easy way to change water while the system runs. Maybe best done with 2 people. One drains slowly while the other one refills the res as needed. I need to flush it till its clean + some more and then add citric acid again.

 

Algae doesn't need to be, it's cheap and simple to fight them with success. I only applied the acid 1 time when I filled the system, maybe added 50ml the most over 2 years time and it stayed real clear.

 

What changed colour were the tubes ( Kleemaster ), I had clear tubes and after 2 years every tube that saw daylight was brownish ugly...only on the outside. No slime no algae inside, just the tube material itself changed to a brownish colour. I ordered Primo Chill purple LFR 3m tubing and replace it all, also different brand.

Edited January 31, 2017 by BitMaster

[BitMaster]

My stuff's comin' today :) YEAH !!!!

 

Let's hope this one won't brick like the others did.

 

I swear, all I did was overclock and they bricked :D

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

IT ARRIVED :)

 

edit #2.

 

done...booting soon after the flush

 

edit #3.

 

looks good now, had some stress getting the RAM to boot but 2 modules only and a Bios update solved that one.

Had some hiccups on the get going but now it runs stable at 5GHz and 3600MHz XMP

 

Took a glass of rum and going to bed now, the new rig can bench till I wake up to see if it is any good, I still have lowered euphoria after all those bricked boards.

 

 

Initial overclocking was OK till 4.8 but XMP wouldnt follow and I ahd stability issues.

 

I then found the 5G-OC-Asus-Profile, clicked it and OLA 5GHz stable at 2133MHz.

After a full15min benching I rebooted and gave XMP another try...what can I say..it still benches :D

 

In a few hours I know if it is stable.

 

For now, I am happy :)

Edited February 9, 2017 by BitMaster

[Konovalov]

Nice, looks like the end is in sight after what looked like a absolute nightmare of as luck and setbacks for you. Did you go with the cheapie Asus AR Prime board in the end?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BitMaster]

Nice, looks like the end is in sight after what looked like a absolute nightmare of as luck and setbacks for you. Did you go with the cheapie Asus AR Prime board in the end?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

Yes, using the Asus Prime Z270-A motherboard.

 

 

To hell with fancy boards :D