New Win7 64-bit install done and (mostly) tuned

[stgober]

Bigfoot is right, Windows 10 is free to upgrade to in the first year and then it is yours for the life of that computer. After the year is over if you want to upgrade to Windows 10 and have not already, then it will cost you whatever they charge for the upgrade at that time, in the past upgrade has been about $99-$175 depending on if using home or pro versions.

[TopCatGr58]

Interesting CPU upgrade

Hey folks,

Okay, Harry, I went ahead and got a XEON E5450 off of eBay!

Now, the whole story. In my previous posts I commented on my homebuilt system that is about 5 years old now, but I used a decent high end Mobo and CPU that I could afford then. Gigabyte EP45-UD3R which just describes the P45 Express Chipset that handles the 45 nm architecture CPU's and is their UltraDurable model, DDR2 1366Mhz FSB and can handle the Intel Core2 series up to their Quad cores....but I only could afford the 3.0 Ghz duo/2 core at the time.

Well, with Scott's inspiration, I finally got my copy of Win7/Pro-64-bit, and decided to spruce up my system a bit as well, only had 4 Gb ram and the aforementioned CPU. SO I started searching eBay for Intel's Quad Core CPU's, the Q9650 or such.....they were still fairly rare by now, and also a bit $$ at $75.00 or more. Then I saw some other ads talking about being able to use the XEON E5450 CPU that normally sits in a LGA771 socket, and put it into an LGA775 socket...with the help of a little adapter attached to the bottom of the cpu, along with removing the alignment tabs from the socket frame itself. And then you get the Equivalent Q9650 4 core cpu out of the Xeon, for about 1/2 the price, and a little "work", but it's also a SERVER quality CPU....more durable, usually runs cooler. SO....I gave it a shot!

SOME eBay sellers of these Xeons are actually "welding" the 2 pins that are necessary to change on the CPU, along with making extra alignment notches that are 90 degrees out from where they are in the 771 socket so that NO adapter or Mobo socket cutting is required. YMMV! I went with the regular OEM Xeon and the little adapter sticker, cut the notches off myself and then proceeded with the install.

I had already received my Win7-64 disc and my new 1 TB hard drive, so I went ahead and did my OS install first. I then did the CPU and RAM upgrade about a week later when I got those parts.

First photo shows the OEM E8400 3.0 Ghz/Duo Core CPU in the 775 socket, note the alignment arrows on the CPU and the frame!



These next 2 show the XEON CPU...bottom unmolested, and then the little adapter plate....again note the alignment arrow on the adapter....and it goes 1 row away from the inner corner of the pins/dots!





Now the XEON Quad core Cpu....note the OEM notches in the cpu and the alignment arrow...but it's in the wrong corner, it needs to be rotated 90 degrees CW.



And then here it is in the correct position with the arrows matching DESPITE the notches are in the wrong location for a 775 socket vs. a 771, but since they are cut off of the socket the chip can sit DOWN into the socket just fine, and the MOBO can then recognize it properly. **See extra notes below**



And then finally my screen shots of "MY COMPUTER" properties showing Win7 Pro 64bit, the recognized XEON 3.0 Ghz 4 cores CPU, the 8 Gb Ram, and that it was fully Activated!
T.C.






************************************************** ************
AS ALWAYS.....YMMV!
The following info is from one of the ebay sellers that converts the chips for use without the adapter, but he also provided into with regards to which CHIPSETS can recognize these XEON XPU's, both the 54xx and the 3xxx series.

Intel-Quad-Core2-Q9650-socket-LGA 775 SLOT-CPU-Processor-from-
Xeon-E5450 3.0 ghz/12M Cache/ 1333Mhz quad LGA 771 SLOT

Xeons that are compatible with each chipset

Chipsets........................XEONS=54xxSeries.. .. 3xxxSeries .....45nm.....65nm

NF;VIA;SIS chipsets
P45, P43, P35, P31, P965
G45, G43, G41, G35, G33, G31
nForce 790i, 780i, 740i, 630i
GeForce 9400, 9300 ........................Yes..............Yes...... ......Yes...........Yes

Q45, Q43, Q35, Q33
X48, X38 (HP/DELL) ........................No........Yes...........Yes...........Yes

nForce 680i and 650i ........................Yes...............Yes..... ....Maybe.........Yes

[BowlingSS]

Bigfoot is right, Windows 10 is free to upgrade to in the first year and then it is yours for the life of that computer. After the year is over if you want to upgrade to Windows 10 and have not already, then it will cost you whatever they charge for the upgrade at that time, in the past upgrade has been about $99-$175 depending on if using home or pro versions.

10 is free only for the Home and Pro version, not the Enterprise version.

Bill

[3Phase]

Oh, yeah!

That is totally awesome. T.C.!

Me! <-- This is me colored totally j^Himpressed!

Both of our machines scored a Windows Experience Index of 3.5. My trusty Radeon 6450 spnaked your ASUS 3450 so I think you need a new video card to keep up with that sah-mokin' Xeon and RAM!





NovaBench latched on to and tested one of the old, slow, IDE/ATA drives instead of the newer SATA II drive with almost twice the Write speed but a 50 MB/s sustained Write speed really isn't all that much faster than 27 in normal use unless you like to ping-pong your files back and forth between drives/partitions.

July was going to be System Hardware Technical Upgrade Month to keep up with Windows Two.Oh (a.k.a Keep Shtum ) for the church and home computers but that may get put on the back burner. I've been looking forward to the new 5th Gen Broadwell desktop processor but now that it's an actual shipping product it's going to be a gap-filler with a short production life so I might as well wait until August or September for a Skylake 35W<-->65W.

Of course Skylake and its successor, Cannonlake, are going to use a different socket than the Broadwell and Haswell chips. I've gotten plenty of use out of the thing but I was mildly scorched on my last motherboard because the next processors out wouldn't work with it even though it's a socket 775 i955 Extreme Edition. It and the processor were advanced enough at the time to work with the unreleased Windows Vista and it continued to work all the way up through Windows 7 and 8.0 but no further. This particular board and processor can run Windows 8.1 but I'd have to do goofy stuff to convince Windows that I know what I'm doing so ignore the hardware compatibility list, sit back, shut up and install!

Broadwell Socket 1150 5th Gen 65 Watt 4-core 8-thread

Skylake S Socket 1151 35W <--> 65W switchable power 4-core 8-thread

Cannonlake pipe-dream processor for now but hopefully Socket 1151 too.

.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Scott,

Thanks. With regards to the graphics card..mine IS a RADEON also, just an earlier weaker/slower version. But I don't do any modern real intensive 3D gaming on my PC, that's what I have an Xbox360 and ONE for!

BTW, you didn't say what your make/model of motherboard was, just that it had the LGA 775/i995 socket/chipset? I would like to do a little research on it if you don't mind? From what I saw on a quick search of just the 775/i995 EXTREME says that it was supposed to be able recognize P4's, Extremes, as well as the DUO COREs! If so...then I could send you my 3.0 Ghz Duo core2 CPU to play with!

And I just got word while watching the reviews of the E3 show on Xbox LIVE that M$ is going to be able to provide xbox360 backwards compatibility on the "ONE" system through hosting the game in a totally VIRTUAL 360 environment on the "ONE". It will be rolled out during the Holidays for the masses, those on LIVE/GOLD or Preview will get to try it out a bit earlier. But it will be ALL FREE for those who have the original 360 discs, the "ONE" will read the disc to verify that you have the game, then it will DOWNLOAD the Virtual Ported version from LIVE to your "ONE" for you to be able to play it. If someone doesn't have the disc, but still wants to be able to play a 360 game, they will be able to pay a nomimal fee to download the virtual version.

The lack of backwards compatibility really bugged me about the "ONE" when it first came out, but the machine I have is the deceased B-I-L's unit that I inherited! I still have both the hand-me-down earlier NO LEAD SOLDER 360 that he had and had died and I was then able to resurrect it with the ole heat gun trick over the mobo/circuit board to reflow the old solder and got it to work again! I have put on a nice big turbo fan onto the unit to help keep it cooler while playing it. But I also have his newer 360 that SWMBO had gotten for him when the one I have had died and we weren't sure if I could get it to work.

SO...what Mobo is under your 'puter's hood?

T.C.

[3Phase]

Brother-in-law had a nice 'puter, eh?


PDF for the Intel D955XBK with the 955X Express Chipset

Link:-
D955XBK Supported Processors

Picture:-


Dual Core is not Core2 or Core2 Duo.

The P4 Single Core and P4 Dual Core processors are all slow space heaters with even slower DDR2 memory. The electric meter on the back of the house has to be reinforced with a torque brace for when you turn one of these things on.

.

[TopCatGr58]

No....B-I-L had a nice new Xbox "ONE" and 360!

Well, that's a real bummer with your Mobo and chipset! Oh well, hopefully it does what you want/need it to do in the time you want/need it!?

T.C.

[3Phase]

XBox d'oh! Any good games?

Oh, man, I'm counting the days until I can get a new system, you better believe it. It got bad in the heat last summer and the VRM capacitors on the board and a few of the trim caps on the video card started popping like .38 and .22 shells. I didn't know what in heck it was at first, then the video got a little wavy-gravy pattern in it and the Desktop monitor in the system tray started blinking and turned red when the voltage went wonky.

I replaced the popped caps along with the ones that hadn't popped yet and so far everything's been copacetic but summer's just starting. I am really looking forward to a new system!

.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Scott,

You know they have this thing called an AIR CONDITIONER, helps keep the ambient room temperatures below 100 F ! But that fact that those caps were at least 8 or so years old probably had little bit to do with it also. I was able to rescue an old RCA ProScan Editting VCR a few years ago by replacing all 15 caps in the Power Supply. So....hopefully your machine will keep plugging along for a while longer to allow you more time to save up for your new system.

As for the games, I'm a first person shooter type of gamer, but I don't like to play ONLINE. I started back in the 90's with DOOM. Then got into HEXEN a bit. Also Halflife. I really like TombRaider. I also enjoyed Duke Nukem 3D for the PC back then...both the game play as well as the entertaining way they designed it for interacting with the environment, his funny/crass quips and such. Also enjoyed the early versions of Call of Duty series, prefer the WWII era vs. modern warfare stuff. And of course I have played several of the Halo series, have the Masterchief collection for the "ONE".

T.C.

[3Phase]

My little brother got me a copy of Half-Life for my birthday but I haven't installed it yet. My brothers love them and will play all day long but I can't deal with first person shooters, they make me crazy. I like the games that run with MS Flight Simulator engine, like Air War over the Pacific and Air War over Europe. I still like the classic Red Storm Rising even though it was written ages ago for DOS. It runs in a FreeDOS DOS box with Windows XP but I don't know if it will run under 64-bit Windows. I've never once played D&D or any of the other RPGs.

Oh! And the capacitors died because they were old. Air conditioning! Right! We don't need no steenkin' airconditioning!

No, seriously, I designed the system to work and remain relatively quiet with a max 110 degree ambient temperature. With all the fans it stays not only within but well below the upper boundary of the thermal guidelines so the CPU fan doesn't get all wound up and hot-shrieky-angry. It can do that because it's got a specially-designed Antec case with seven fans: four Antec tricool 120mm, one Antec tricool 80mm, the OEM CPU fan and the video card fan.

One of the case designers is Mike Chin over at Silent PC Review:-
Silent PC Review: Antec P180 case

Here's web picture for people to sad to click the link and read the article but just want to know what it looks like:-


And to help run all of this air-cooled goodness there's a little something extra for the electric meter on the back wall of the house :-

TorqueStrap

[ViperRon]

Who here has tried the new 10 and is it as big a piece of crap as 8 and 8.1 or did they fix something. I hate when crap head college grads rewrite something that is working just to make it different. Every time I have an issue with 8 I think of Beavis and Butthead as the creators.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Ron,

I haven't tried it, I think only the folks that were wanting to be involved in the field testing would have downloaded it? I've seen the adverts and previews on the MS site, and they have brought the START MENU back, but also have the APP's icons and such. I know IF I had 8/8.1 I wouldn't hesitate to get 10 when it comes out at the end of July. Have you received your icon notification about Signing/registering to get your FREE copy when it's ready for release. You can select to be be notified when it's ready to install....it will be downloaded/pushed to your system during the Windows Update process...but won't necessarily install automatically unless you set it to. I've read that you will be able to burn the install to a DVD.

Don't know if it will have a ROLLBACK feature in case you don't like it?? SO..you might want to use Windows Recovery/backup program to create a set of Image discs to be able to quickly reinstall your OLD OS with all of the current updates and programs up to this time point just in case the rollback doesn't work right!

Scott, that's a really "COOL" machine....pun intended! Yeah, I don't like the RPG types either, also never did D&D. Shame you don't like the FPS's. They aren't just dumb shoot first and ask questions later type. Doom put in some interesting puzzles to solve to get the pass keys to open the different area doors to THEN allow you to clear the compound of the infestation! Same with Half Life, Tomb Raider, etc.!

I didn't like the early Flight Sims....because they were TOO realistic in that you had to know how to control way too many switches/controls just to FLY the damn things!!! A flight game that came out a long time ago called Fighter Pilot, it dumbed down the controls for me and was a bit more enjoyable with regards to being able to fly, dogfight, make divebomber and other types of attacks.

T.C.

[ViperRon]

Thanks TC for the input also I read back further and saw someone else liked it. I have the Icon and yeas unfortunately have 8.1 on this laptop so I'll try 10. You know when you got an OS that rivals Herpes you will try any cure.

[nzemke]

I have windows 7 on my work desktop, windows 8.1 on my work laptop , and windows 10 on my home laptop and desktop...and 10 is a HUGE improvement over 8.1. The biggest is that it still acts like windows 7 as far as the layout, but has all of the functions of 8.1. And for those with touchscreens it has an easy tablet mode you can enable to get to the 8.1 like feel...which is in my opinion what 8 was really built for...

[Jerry]

For those of you who don't want to do the mods mentioned in some of the posts, another approach is to go used. My work PC is an HP Compaq 6200 Pro Microtower which features an i3 processor, i3-2100 CPU @ 3.1GHz. I've upgraded it to 16gb of RAM and 2 SSD hard drives, one for OS and one for data. Using the stock Intel video drivers the system gives me a 5.1 Windows Experience running Win 7 Pro 64-bit OS.

If I upgraded to an after-market video board the index would probably go higher as the limiting factor at 5.1 is the Graphics: Desktop performance for Windows Aero. (The Gaming Graphics rating is 5.8.) For around $240.00 at New Egg + a few upgrades this is one of the better performing PCs I have found.

As far as the free upgrade to Win 10, here is a link from one of my vendors that details the latest Microsoft policies which still may change before the July 29th release date.

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/appli...ed-to-know.htm