Thursday 25 October 2018

I moved to AMD Platform part 3

Besides other preparations I downloaded the latest driver for my graphic card (ASUS Strix). By Chance it had been released a few days before my download.

Having everything prepared, I connected power and fans to the motherboard. I connect all SATAs before installing graphic card. It is possible to connect them after but it is a bit difficult with the big graphic cards on your way. I disconnected SATAs from all SATA devices.

Also I disconnected Power from PSU to SATA's. I do not like to have power on the devices when they are not connected. I have this habit from the ancient time when we would not turn on HiFi devices when no speakers were connected to the audio outputs. It could be an obsession but sometimes gut feeling cautiousness is what one needs to follow rather than promises of other engineers.

There is a new mistake regarding recent on board graphics output on AMD boards. One can use them when he has installed the right, graphic supporting AMD CPU's are installed. As far as I know none has come to the market yet. Some people on the idea that there is such a facility available do not attach any graphics card and voila: three beeps from the BIOS as the sign of "no graphic cards!"

Even with those processors the video does not enjoy what you might love to have. Perhaps they are good for the organisations computers and workstations. They use a share part of your RAM's for graphic processing - some 2GB. Right now I have not any judgement about those builds and how far they are useful for Video editing or watching HD, 4K etc. For gaming definitely they do not satisfy those gamers who use two cards each with 11 GB DDR5.

Then I connected graphic card, keyboard, and mouse, and broadband. I turned on the computer and entered BIOS by pressing "Delete" key. In BIOS I checked that CPU, memories, and above all the WD M2 SSD and mouse and broadband were fully recognised.

In BIOS upgrade menu you can see the option to upgrade it through the internet but I prefer to use the memory stick for that job.

I turned off the computer and connected the flash memory stick that contained the BIOS upgrade to its latest version. I turned it on again and followed the procedure for upgrade. Happily, BIOS had recognised the existence of the memory stick with upgrade and did it smoothly through it.

I turned off the computer again removed the BIOS update memory stick and attached the Windows 10 memory stick and turned the computer again. I entered the BIOS and asked it to boot through the memory stick.

Windows 10 installation software on the flash memory without any error recognised the WD Green M2 and completely installed Windows 10.

This is the latest version of Windows 10 with all updates and everything. I can be sure that it dos not need any driver or software accompanied on the DVD of your motherboard. This is the new policy of Microsoft. No future version of Windows is promised. Windows 10 is the last version of Windows and Microsoft will only updates it constantly and all previous versions will become obsolete similar to DOS and Windows 3 and so on.

Most people know how to follow from this point on. You can skip the activation key and password setting etc. But a new idea as the PIN has been introduced in expectation of uniformity with portable devices such as Surface, mobile phones, BYODs and such. You have to do that. Do not disturb smooth installation by trying to avoid this. Later after logging to your Windows and checking everything you can remove it if you like.

After I opened my Windows for the first time, I ejected the memory stick and removed it from the USB. Immediately I connected the graphics card USB and installed "just drivers". I do not like that at this stage, to install software that later constantly ask me things or producing hurdles that I should search forums for their answers and solutions.

I went to the activation in control panel and activated my Windows through the key that I had acquired from Microsoft.

I restarted my Windows. I did a thorough clean up. and disk optimisation and again restart (after clean up some temp files will only be deleted through the restart at the reboot stage.

Then I followed the procedure to create an image backup of the entire activated  but yet untouched Windows. This job needs a 32GB memory stick which is now under £8.





Wednesday 24 October 2018

I moved to AMD Platform part 2



In the new build I got rid of the Corsair H115i liquid cooler that I had and also all the decorating LED's etc. I did not need to cool down my Intel 2011 6 cores extreme with 150 watts TDP.

I also removed my Sandisk 512 GB SSD. I noticed that maximum I use 140 GB on the main hard drive of my computer so 512 GB was always almost empty. I save everything on a set of HDD which are in excess of 10 TB and arranged for different tasks.

I cannot put my pictures and documents next to operating system that always is subject to different issues. I also every now and then save my things on Blu rays. That I cannot find things on these things later is another issue that still has not been solved. I like other consumers of new technologies cannot hire a personal private IT person, and we know that even them are lost among the huge flood of data.

The highest usage of my main drive is for LaTex that I use MikTex and I am used to complete install of their packegs. I also have some in-house apache webserver, a Microsoft office and such.

I installed the Rayzen CPU, WD Green M2 SSD and the stock cooler that came with the processor on the bench. I used the antistatic bag of the motherboard as the anti static surface under the mother board during these installations.

I also installed four pieces of Crucial DDR4 2666 MHz (4x8GB the most expensive item in this build) at this stage.

Then I put the whole build in the case (Thermaltake suppressor F51). I already had attached the back plate. on doing the screws I noticed one screw was under the M2 SSD and left undone which was not important. Eight screws are enough. I paid attention on tightening the screws to prevent counter torques that can damage the motherboard.

I liked a fresh install with all the sufferings that I experienced when tried to use images of pf Windows that I had on previous hardware builds. I did not connect any HDD. Windows should be installed on the WD Green alone both for cations and also ease of    installation.

Windows ISO on the DVD's these days won't go easily with the M2 SSD's. So from the official Microsoft Windows 10 I downloaded a flash memory stick version of the Windows 10. I used my laptop for that job. When the download software asked me if it should add some details of the laptop I un-checked the box. I did not need it for the laptop, obviously. I used an 8 GB memory stick for the Windows image.

I also downloaded the latest version of the motherboards BIOS from the ASUS site. I have a separte dedicated marked memory stick just for updating BIOS.



Monday 22 October 2018

I moved to AMD Platform part 1

Few years ago I decided to move to more powerful platforms at home to serve me longer and easily can be upgraded. Reason was that until that time I only used to use Intel motherboards. Well, before that I had IBM motherboards until IBM stopped to build those hardware and so I switched to Intel motherboards.

Actually my story goes back to Z80 and 8080 and these things. From that time there were people who spontaneously had selected Motorola 6800 instead of 8080. IBM took 4004 and then next generations of Intel's and developed DOS instead of CP/M. IBM made these two the winners but itself gradually left the arena.

When I noticed Intel would not build any motherboards of its own for non-server computers, still I could not use AMD. I was not familiar with their CPU's.

Then I wondered which socket of Intel was more promising than the others. Intel vastly was promoting socket 1366, but suddenly announced that there was an error in creating that socket and no further development would be possible

At the same time Intel marketed socket 2011. I found the idea of having 2011 pins on a microprocessor very stable and promising and also very exciting. I could remember there was a time, an ancient time, that we called a TTL with 24 pins a millipede.

As Intel did not build any motherboard for this socket, after some search I decided to move to ASUS. Well, Gigabyte and MSI and others are also good enough, but ASUS has some reputation I liked to test. When I bought my (Intel chipset) X79 motherboard from ASUS, immediately I noticed that its accompanying CD was outdated in terms of Windows.
True, they had all updates on the motherboard site. But, as I also sent an email to them, it was better if instead of that or on the side of that they put an updated ISO image. Then you can burn  it and use it as the motherboard accompanying DVD. That could make me happy; having the latest ISO

It is still advisable if they do that for their new boards with so many fuss that they have about their Republic of Gamers, etc., etc. They can put also an image of the sticker that you need to put on the DVD such that you download and print it make a DVD  similar to what was with the motherboard.

Immediately after I finished my build, Intel announced that they would discontinue socket 2011 and marketed a 2011 v3 instead, not compatible with 2011. So my new build fell in the blind end.

I, like many other IT power users/enthusiasts who had chosen socket 2011, continued using my build. The important point was the front side speed; that was almost similar on all sockets. For example, my G.Skill 2400MHz memory cards worked on 1333MHz, not even nominal 1600 MHz of X79.

From 2016, front side speed witnessed a new upgrade. DDR4 memories with new specs replaced DDR3 and we know that they create a new realm not compatible with DDR3 memories. They can push fsb further. Now they talk of 5000 MHz and above for memory (though most of the people who buy those high end memories cannot tune them and memories roll back to 2400 and so). Chipsets need to run faster fsb and these chipsets are still working around 2400-2666 MHz.

With these in mind, and considering that Intel does not have a clear roadmap to be economically feasible for average users (who pays £1800 for a CPU and after a year found it obsolete), I suddenly decided to move to AMD platform. I focused on new low price low power consuming Rayzen platform completely unlocked for overclocking.

I found two platform X370 and X470 accommodating these CPU's.
First I bought an ASUS X370 with a Rayzen 1600 CPU. Unfortunately, with my 512 GB SSD the system randomly would go to the hibernate state and would not wake up, with freezing shut down and reset button. I had to turn off the PSU externally and turn it on back to reboot the system.

Before it becomes late I returned them to seller and refunded my money (I paid £9 for shipping via Parcel Force).

ASUS X370 was flimsy and cheapie and could not be compared with my ASUS Sabertooth I had

X470 boards have a better promise for future upgrades of Rayzen. So I ordered one of them and a better specs Rayzen 2600. I also got a WD Green M2 240GB SSD.