New PC Build: now UPDATED with overclocking performance

[SA3ATF]

Fun to hear you play with different setups and so on, but clearly you can mess with different settings, cables and anything else you did not think about when you started.
I'll just, as it's called ....
We want to see a picture of it, otherwise it never happened

[K9RX]

Brent,

I installed a Gigabyte 1050 graphics card a while back ... my power supply in my "stock" Dell is only rated at 300W and this card is designed to be low power and has 4 outputs! So I now have a 4K Samsung monitor (Costco on sale at $269) and an HD monitor ... at times one or the other will go black for a 1/2 second to as much as maybe 1 1/2 seconds ... most of the time just one - sometimes and it seems to get worse the longer the PC has been running, sometimes both monitors will go out. The monitor will show the connection type when it comes back on so its obvious the monitor "connection" is being turned off for some reason.

I have researched the heck out of it and cannot find a solution. Gigabyte and NVIDIA both say its not their fault. Note there are MANY reports of this happening going back a decade - just no solutions that I could find. One monitor is DP, the other is HDMI.

That had been for a few months - but as of maybe a week ago - it stopped doing it. Note I had checked and had all drivers, everything up to date. But it just stopped doing this (knock on wood it continues that way) ... so I've no clue why it did it or how it got fixed...

Gary
K9RX

[I plan on adding a third monitor - another HD as well.]

[WA0VY]

Gary, glad it stopped for you and hopefully it stays that way. In my case, all I did was move the computer from one rack to another. I extended the DP cables but it also went black when I did not use the extensions. There is nothing in that action which should have caused the black screens but it did. Like you, generic Google searches yielded nothing and I just got lucky that the more specific search pulled up the info from Dell. I do not know if the monitor menus on your monitors also allow you to switch from DP 1.2 to DP 1.1, but that's what fixed it for me.

Here is the link to the Dell support post: https://www.dell.com/support/article/us ... ows_or_Mac

See also this discussion: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topi ... ration-/2/

There is some indication that it may be a cable issue. I have to go back through my Newegg order history and see what I bought, but I think it was DP 1.2 compliant since they were recently ordered.

[WA0VY]

To follow up: I checked and found that my DP cables are StarTech DISPLPORT15L. They are rated for DP 1.2 but the reviews on this cable are pretty bad, many indicating a "flicker" problem, which may be the same as the random, periodic black screen issue I saw at DP 1.2. Looks like I have a cable issue that got resolved by backing the monitors down to DP 1.1.

[Tony EI7BMB]

Just got my Ryzen 7 build up and running with a pass mark score of 4046.6 . Think I have some work to do

[w-u-2-o]

Come on, Tony, don't tease us! Give us the details!

[Tony EI7BMB]

Sorry Scott no tease intended HI HI. Motherboard is MSI X370 Gaming plus with samsung 960 evo m.2 SSD drive . Processor as mentioned is AMD Ryzen 7 with 16GB of Corsair 3200 MHZ ram. I've just updated the BIOS as the board was not recognizing the higher speed of the Ram . I'm really glad I kept all those tutorials bookmarked with network and sound set ups , I had forgotten how many steps there are to getting everything working right. Next step is Samsung magician download to see what that does

[WA0VY]

Tony, unfortunately, Magician doesn't do anything except artificially increase your drive Passmark score. In fact, I'm not sure it even works on the 960 EVO. I know it is not compatible with the 960 PRO, which I use.

[Tony EI7BMB]

Thanks Brent, yeah I just ran passmark again and it actually gave a slightly lower score this time around

[w-u-2-o]

Oh that's a bad-ass machine, Tony! Even if it's the lowest spec. Ryzen 7 (you didn't say exactly which one you had). Once you get that sorted out and maybe overclock it just a bit, it will be doing much, much better.

The Magician stuff won't run with my Samsung SSD. "They" say it helps with benchmarks but doesn't really speed things up for real.

73!

Scott

[Tony EI7BMB]

Thanks Scott its a Ryzen 7 1700 . Has a really nice, neat stock cooler with an LED that looks cool but I'm not bothered to connect the RGB control. I should also have mentioned I'm using an GTX 950 video card, luckily I bought this a while back after Simon recommended it as a good "bang for buck" card. Prices have shot up quite a bit since then.

[WB8LBZ]

I hope you like your Ryzen Core 7 - 1700, I have on too. The only Windows it will let me use is Windows 10. This thing is a DOG. My SDR box is an older 8 Core AMD with 16 Gig and Windows 7. It runs rings around the Ryzen. Worse yet I don't like Windows 10 (too much hide and seek). I have two older AMD 8 core boxes and I am able to function. My super build has 2 strikes against it. Anyone thinking of a Ryzen Core 7, I will sell you mine. I have close to $1100 in it and the performance is worse than the older AMD 8 core I built for $400.

73,

[Tony EI7BMB]

I like it so far Larry but there are some issues though. One seems to be its particular about the type of ram it needs and even if you select one from their approved list it does not see it at the correct speed, hopefully if I can figure out how to update the BIOS correctly it will solve this issue . I agree about windows 10 being hard to use, I can't even get it to start the computer without a log in ( unchecking the box is not helping) This may be because it is not activated like my old PC . I upgraded from win 7 on the old PC and it did actually solve a lot of latency and audio issues.

[w-u-2-o]

I agree about windows 10 being hard to use, I can't even get it to start the computer without a log in ( unchecking the box is not helping)

Call me crazy, but I like Windows 10 and find it a huge improvement over Windows 7. There are some things I don't like, for example all of the privacy related settings you need to carefully adjust, and the forced updates (although there are ways around that), but 90% of it I find to be an improvement. It was painful learning the new tool, but the tool is a better one IMHO.

To fix your login problem, just Google "eliminate Windows 10 login". Here's what came up at the top of my Google search:

https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/skip-windows-10-login-screen/

[Tony EI7BMB]

Yeah saw that link Scott but it did not help with un ticking the box , I know seem to have two user accounts too. Thought it might have something to so with windows 10 not being activated ?

[w-u-2-o]

Hmmm...worked for me

Wouldn't think it has anything to do with activation, but maybe.

[WA0VY]

Tony, try this link: http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-autom ... indows-10/

There are a few alternatives set out there that should work. I have automated my login but forgot how I did it. My "Users must enter...." box is checked, so I did it a different way than Scott did.

[Tony EI7BMB]

Thanks Brent, Scott, looks like I missed a step the first time but its now going straight into windows. All good on that particular issue.

[Tony EI7BMB]

Further update, MSI released a new motherboard BIOS (Ryzen 1700) a few weeks ago and the ram is now running at the correct 3200. Running a primary buffer of 512 and VAC 1 buffer of 1024 and the resampler (great tool) seems pretty happy with low enough numbers over time. Also running a behringer UMC204Hd and no further issues with VMB . Think it might have been one setting at 24 bits and not 16 but I can't say for sure. I still get a few "OOPS" on the resampler which is a little strange as only the Anan is connected to that NIC .I'm using the built in Realtek unit on the motherboard. All in all pretty happy with the new PC and just in time for 6m E's season.

[w-u-2-o]

Good news, Tony. I saw your post over at the VB Audio forum, BTW.

Don't know if you saw the resampler setup guidelines in the release notes, but I'd suggest matching the VAC buffer size to the UMC buffer size and then reassessing the rest of the settings after that. Also, what latency mode do you have the UMC in, i.e. "safe", "minimum", etc?

OOOPS are dropped UDP packets and have nothing to do with the resampler. UDP is the protocol used for IF and audio streams between the radio hardware and the PC. It is an inherently lossy protocol, unlike TCP. Even on the most perfect LAN connection you will lose a few packets an hour, no NIC or protocol stack is perfect where UDP is concerned. Losing a tiny number like that is not a concern.

73,

Scott

[Tony EI7BMB]

Thanks Scott, that's reassuring about the UDP protocol. I've set the VAC to 512 as you kindly suggested , the UMC control re sets to 512 if I try to select 256 . With the latest version 4.38 UMC control panel there is no longer a drop down box , just a check box for "safe mode" which is unchecked right now. Some other info appears under "Asio Status" on UMC control panel . "Input Latency:728 samples (15.17 ms) " "Output latency :408 samples (8.5ms) "

Edit: Just figured out that the lower limit Buffer size in UMC is dictated by the setting in VMB

[w-u-2-o]

Another update:

Back in December I posted about how I was getting a lot of blue screens and that I had to back off my I7-7700K overclocking from 5GHz to 4.8GHz (both at 1.35V CPU voltage). Obviously my cooling had degraded a bit and CPU temp's were running in the 80's (centigrade) with all of my radio stuff running. That's pretty darn hot, actually.

After a bit of egging on by W4KCN, he finally got me excited about de-lidding my CPU and re-doing all of my thermal interface material. I have to say, it was one of the best things I've ever done. Temp's fell dramatically by 30 degrees C and now the PC happily runs in the 50's with all the radio stuff running, and, more importantly, now runs at 5GHz reliably again. Max. temperature using the Prime 95 stress test is in the high 80's. I don't think it would be reliable up there at 5GHz, but since the PC never runs that hot I'm not worried about it.

I used the following products:

De-lidding tool from RockitCool (borrowed from W4KCN )

Copper replacement heat spreader from RockitCool:



Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal thermal interface material between the die and heat spreader.

Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal interface material between the heat spreader and the cooler (replacing MX4). Beware: this stuff is hard to spread. If you use it be sure to warm it up by dipping the tube in some hot water for a few minutes--wish I had done that. My cooler has a copper interface. If I ever re-do it I might go liquid metal next time.

[W1AEX]

That was quite a project Scott! You were really thorough and the 30 degree drop is a nice payback for the effort. Nicely done! Although my cooling projects are not in the same league as your efforts, I have found with my gaming and radio computers that I have to remove my CPU coolers about once every two years and clean out the dust that collects in the big Zalman heat exchangers. Doing that and then removing the old application of arctic silver and re-applying with new stuff usually nets me at least a 15 degree drop so that they idle in the mid 30's with the gaming rig never going much beyond the mid 60's during extended frag fests while the station computer used by the ANAN coasts along comfortably at around 50C while running OpenHPSDR mRX PS, my teamspeak server, my Plex media server, Firefox, Thunderbird, and whatever video/audio editing software I have running in the background. With both of my current computers I have also found it necessary to remove the North Bridge heatsinks because ASUS relies on thermal pads and they seem to shrink up over time and have poor thermal conductivity after a few years. It's definitely worth the effort to gain better cooling and very stable performance.

On the other end of the scale, at the last NearFest I picked up a 2015 ASUS laptop (running Windows 8.1) for 100 bucks that was brand new and still in the box. It uses an INTEL Bay Trail M Quad Core 2930 processor (this is a very lame Celeron) running at 2.16 GHz with 4GB of RAM. It also sports a 500G hard drive (not SSD) and it runs fine for the usual email and web browsing tasks while on trips. Just for fun, I set up the ethernet port for the subnet that my ANAN's static IP is assigned to and connected it to the ANAN's ethernet port. Then I installed OpenHPSDR mRX PS version 3.4.9 and let it run the FFT calculation to generate the wisdom file. That task took just about an hour! When it was done, as expected, it connected fine. What was not expected is that OpenHPSDR mRX PS ran very smoothly at 192 kHz, although the CPU utilization was running in the mid 30's and reaching up to the mid 40's at times. There were no dropouts though and the GUI was very responsive. I did find that running VAC drove the CPU utilization up to the mid 50's so I changed the TX profiles to run through the MIC and LINE inputs. It could transmit and receive fine, but I did not try PS to see how well that worked. At any rate, I was very surprised that the little laptop could handle OpenHPSDR mRX PS as well as it did. I wouldn't recommend a lame setup like this for daily use, but it kind of proves that you don't actually need a fire-breathing computer to do the job!

73,

Rob W1AEX

[Tony EI7BMB]

Nice work Scott . I thought i was doing well just getting the memory to be recognised correctly I get the odd blue screen here under stop code "memory management" , I love that these errors are so non specific (not)

Edit: Uninstalling Microsoft One Drive fixed the stop code memory management issue

[w-u-2-o]

Thanks, Tony! I rolled the dice on memory, too, obtaining some memory from a friend that he said did not work right in his PC. It happily runs at 3200MHz in my PC, though, so I dodged that bullet!

[Tony EI7BMB]

Latest build just completed using X570 Motherboard and AMD 5950 16 Core CPU . Thetis load showing 4% and I can run JTDX at full throttle with good lag times .

pc.jpg (4.5 MiB) Viewed 37172 times

[w-u-2-o]

Jealous! Still holding off on my next build. But it'll be core heavy!

[DL8LAQ]

Jealous! Still holding off on my next build. But it'll be core heavy!

Hi Scott,
I have got a ASRock Z77Extreme6 without TPM, a I7 3770 and might have to ged rid of it soon. What is your recommendation for high end SDR performance?
The graphics card is a GTX1050Ti, so I think a new mobo/cpu/RAM should do it.

[w-u-2-o]

The way Thetis (and PowerSDR mRX) is architected it likes a lot of cores. So I'd recommend at least 8 cores, and 12 or 16 would be better. That automatically puts you into mid-to-high end CPUs.