Computer Upgrade

[Pudgie]

Hi All,

Well the time has come as I was looking on the 'Egg last weekend & found out that they had put on a sale on the Gigabyte X99M-Gaming 5 micro-ATX mobo that I had in my Intel X99 wishlist by a fair amount--enough of a discount that it put this wishlist (this mobo, an Intel I7 5820K CPU & Corsair Vengence LPX 16Gb DDR4 2133 Quad Channel mem kit) about $180.00 less than my Z170 wishlist (Asus Rampage VIII ROG Z170 micro-ATX mobo, Intel I7 6700K CPU and the same mem kit) and since AMD's Zen isn't gonna be around until the end of this year\1st Qtr 2017 and Intel's Broadwell-E is coming just around the corner so I moved on this as I know Newegg ain't gonna let this sale stay for long.

Also, since this amount of savings also covered another item that I could get and still stay below the cost of the Z170 wishlist by approx. $50.00 I also held my nose & bought a retail copy of Win 10 Home for it as well.

My copy of Win 7 Home Premium is an OEM copy and since I'm switching mobos I'm suspecting I may run into an issue w\ MS on the license product key this time around so I just decided that I might as well jump in w\ both feet and deal w\ it and see if I can get this to run well enough for my needs.

This will be an interesting upgrade for me..................

Signing off now as I'm going in to tear her apart & reassemble her again...........

 

[Drane]

I run a couple Win 7 oem licenses and have switched out enough major parts to require re-validation several times over. All microsoft really cares about is how many computers the license is running on. If it doesn't automatically re-validate, you call the number, read them the numbers off the screen, and that's the only question they'll ask you. Say "1" and they will approve and give you the numbers to re-validate your license. 

[Ratsy]

Great post Drane.

Pudgie!  HAVE FUN!!!

 

[Bizman]

I run a couple Win 7 oem licenses and have switched out enough major parts to require re-validation several times over. All microsoft really cares about is how many computers the license is running on. If it doesn't automatically re-validate, you call the number, read them the numbers off the screen, and that's the only question they'll ask you. Say "1" and they will approve and give you the numbers to re-validate your license. 

+1
Never had an issue. If I've had to call, the automatic answering machine has been enough. Only once during the last fifteen years I've spoken to a real MS person to activate the license.

[Pudgie]

Hi Guys!

Finally got her working well enough to come on and post......................... .......
This upgrade has been 1 of the worst upgrades I've had to deal with in quite a few years from both hardware & software.
Found out this Gigabyte X99M Gaming 5 mobo is a good, solid mobo........but it is FINICKY as all get out!
The Gigabyte UEFI is VERY FINICKY about the components being used on it and has issues initializing the OS after POST and the manual ain't ANY help w\ that.
Ended up having to pull my Plextor M6e 512Gb M.2 SSD off the AIC, put it in the M.2 slot and set the storage option to legacy just to get the UEFI to find it more consistently.
Finally got on Gigabyte's web site and found out that my Corsair Vengence LPX DDR4 2133 4Gbx4 mem kit will only work on this mobo in native mode instead of X.M.P. mode so I got this sorted out this evening and all is slowly getting better from a hardware perspective.
I also found out that the Plextor M6e 512 Gb PCI-E SSD ain't on the compatibility list for this mobo (had to disconnect all SATA III drives to force mobo UEFI to identify the Plextor SSD in the M.2 slot in legacy OPT rom so I've ordered a Samsung 950 Pro 512 Gb M.2 NVMe SSD as it was listed as compatible w\ this mobo so I'll be reloading all this 1 more time when it gets here and once this is done hopefully the hardware side will be cleaned up.

Now for the software side..............

Tried installing Win 10 Home 1st as an upgrade (does same as the MS free upgrade) and all I can say is that didn't last long.......
Couldn't use any of the software that was supposed to have been ported over from Win 7 at all and Win 10 started having driver initialization issues very quickly showing the dialog box "This driver can't release its failure" which effectively locked the OS up at that point and wouldn't reset or clear so I finally got back into the install and this time did a clean install of Win 10 and once I got it to the desktop I was able to start loading up all my stuff and all was working just fine.....until I loaded up the Win 10 drivers for my SB X7 DAC and upon reboot to the desktop it started showing me the same driver dialog box as described earlier and locked up again.

      

Had to take a couple of days off from messing w\ this box as it had me stumped (also got a BAD case of hay fever and had to sleep it off).

 

By this time I had run out of patience and was getting a little hot over this (had been up into the early morning hours for 3 days trying to get this box straightened out, had flashed the mobo UEFI 2 times, cleared the CMOS several times, switched BIOS chips several times, make a TON of resets and had to delete the partition on the M.2 SSD to rebuild it from GPT to NTFS before I finally got my Win 7 Home Premium SP1 disc to properly format and partition the SSD to install clean. Note: I did try to boot off the Plextor's Win 7 load before I wiped it and the OS wouldn't EVEN try to start up (different mobo ID) so I was a little nervous about it but when I got all up at the desktop and got my mobo's drivers loaded up including the Bigfoot Killer NIC drivers then rebooted into Windows then activated the OS and I saw that it activated w\o any issue.......

YEAH!!

  

Now all is starting to come my way now.
Once I get the Samsung 950 Pro SSD installed I believe the UEFI will finally line out and properly recognize and initialize the SSD during POST so the OS will properly initialize on startup after POST.

But when she does get to the desktop this I7 5820K CPU does perform VERY sweet!

Will post back when I get it all squared away.

 

[Pudgie]

Update:

After looking at this NVMe M.2 SSD & thinking about this some more I finally made the decision to forego M.2 SSD's period due to the compatibility issues w\ this mobo & have ordered a couple of Samsung 850 Pro SATA III SSD's, 1 is a 512 Gb SSD and the 2nd is a 128Gb SSD, to use w\ this box as this Gigabyte UEFI has shown to have no trouble recognizing, setting up & initializing SATA III SSD's regardless of whether they're set up in legacy mode or UEFI mode, only M.2 SSD's as in order to use these the UEFI has to disable SATA III ports 4 and 5 along w\ the SATA Express port to use these 4 PCI-E lanes thru the X99 chipset to get the 10Gb\sec bandwidth for the M.2 SSD.

 

[BaldEagl]

Gigabyte makes nice, affordable motherboards but they are picky about what components they play well with.  No matter the brand of board you should always check the manufacturer's website for RAM compatibility.  Gigabyte especially.

It sounds to me like your M2 ports are shared with the Sata3 ports.  I'm using a MSI board and you have to use the Sata3/M2 ports in specific configurations.  I think that's common to all Z100 motherboards and is an Intel spec.  It should be outlined in your boards manual.  If not I'm sure there are hundreds of Internet references to get that straightened out.

[Pudgie]

Update:

I FINALLY found the problem, and it wasn't w\ the drives either................

The problem was w\ my USB ports settings within the UEFI.......and w\ my CH USB HOTAS being bus-powered.

In the Gigabyte AMI UEFI there is a setting that sets the XHCI Controller Mode for how the USB 3.0 ports are to function during UEFI startup before OS startup.
The default setting is Smart Auto (allows USB 3.0 ports to be enabled during POST and will set the XHCI Controller according to the last "successful" OS set up on a restart). This setting is what was causing all the boot up issues as the UEFI was "chasing" itself trying to "figure out" how to set this up and would hang.

When I reset this to Auto the UEFI now will not set up the USB 3.0 ports during POST (only the USB legacy ports thru 2.0) then when the OS boots the OS will set up the USB 3.0 ports. Now the UEFI will behave quite normal!

The other part I found is that by using my CH USB HOTAS thru this Belkin ExpressHub 4-Port USB 1.1 hub in bus-powered mode the power draw from the 3 USB controllers was causing some issues as well during POST.

When I unplugged my CH controller hub my box will now boot up and shut down w\o issue every instance and do it FAST!

Gonna have to start digging thru my closet so that I can find the power adapter to it.......

This Gigabyte mobo will be the 1st mobo I have ever used that my CH USB controllers wouldn't work in bus-powered mode..........

Will be finishing her up when my 2 Samsung 850 Pro SATA III SSD's get here.

At least while I was fighting this I did manage to build me a Win 7 HP x64 SP1 EFI USB installation stick to make it very easy to load the OS on a GPT partition w\ EFI drivers for UEFI.

Stay tuned!

 

[Bizman]

Thanks for the information, Pudgie! Having read several manuals and bios/uefi screens makes me think the manufacturers wouldn't like people to learn how to set up their gear. Explanations like "enable - this will enable the feature; disable - this will disable the feature" don't tell anything about what the feature in question actually does. I'd like to learn, but the information doesn't seem widely available. Different terminology between manufacturers doesn't help, either. Funny thing is that my former teacher lately asked me how to build and set up a good gaming computer...

[Pudgie]

Thanks for the information, Pudgie! Having read several manuals and bios/uefi screens makes me think the manufacturers wouldn't like people to learn how to set up their gear. Explanations like "enable - this will enable the feature; disable - this will disable the feature" don't tell anything about what the feature in question actually does. I'd like to learn, but the information doesn't seem widely available. Different terminology between manufacturers doesn't help, either. Funny thing is that my former teacher lately asked me how to build and set up a good gaming computer...

Yeah I know what you mean, Bizman.

I finally woke up yesterday afternoon and Bing'd "Windows 7 Startup Issues Gigabyte X99" and got a whole list of hits concerning this issue w\ Gigabyte X99 mobos....that's how I found all this out. Come to find out that this issue spans Gigabyte Intel mobos all the way back to Z77 and X79 w\ the AMI UEFI.
The manual that I got w\ this Gigabyte X99M Gaming 5 mobo don't help either as it's too vague and doesn't explain nothing very well. The AMI UEFI also doesn't have a POST delay setting coded in it as others do so when this thing starts POST you won't get ANY cues as to what it's doing or where it's at in the process, especially if all devices are UEFI-compliant and mobo is set up in UEFI mode for both storage and PCI devices, until you're at the Windows sign in screen.

As for my CH USB HOTAS I happened to have gotten a freebie Gigabyte GC-USB 3.1 PCI-E add in card w\ this mobo so I'm gonna install it along w\ it's drivers and plug my CH USB HOTAS to it as this card should have excess ample power off the PCI-E slots to power my controllers and so should fix that part IMHO as it will be separate from the mobo's USB traces......I'll let all know if it does and if this works then this method will become the standard for ole Pudgie going forward w\ my CH USB HOTAS.

I believe the controllers were causing issues w\ the UEFI trying to "ID" them during POST as a USB 1.1-compliant "keyboard\mouse" (this Belkin ExpressBus 4-port hub is a USB 1.1 device...been had this thing since I bought it back in 2001 as it was specifically designed for USB joysticks which are USB 1.1-compliant) and getting confused causing UEFI to lock up. Didn't matter if I plugged them into a USB 2.0 or 3.0 slot on the mobo I got the same result until I disconnected them.

Eventually I'm gonna slipstream in my Win 7 HP USB stick the hotfixes so Win 7 HP can read and run on NVME SSD's as well.....then I'll get a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD, but this is gonna be down the road for now.

All my stuff should be at my doorstep tomorrow so I'll find out then.

 

[Condor]

I've built one computer and never had a problem. I used an abit IP35 Pro MB and it ran great for 7 years playing AH2h. Booted fine the first try; never had a problem. I did a memory upgrade and some others.  My CH gear would run from the USB bus or a powered hub. I thought "this is easy". After reading this posts I'm scared to try another.

I now have a box my son built 3 years ago so I retired my old XP machine. He used a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 MB. It runs AH2 at default settings with frame rates of 100-200 but labors with AH3. I was thinking of some upgrades but now I'm afraid to touch it (LOL). Was I just lucky the first time around?

[Bizman]

Condor, basically building a computer is like stacking Lego bricks. Sometimes you get a DOA component, sometimes (rarely) a motherboard can be anal about RAM. Usually it's the highest end gears that give most trouble. Plain vanilla usually works flawlessly.

[715]

Every time I've built a computer I've had multiple problems.  Here are some examples: SPD on the RAM not being compatible with the motherboard despite the RAM being on the approved list (had to slow it down).  On my XP build my internet connection is "9" because it took 9 tries and 3 different WiFi cards to get it to work.  Indeed, the only reason I had XP instead of Win98 is because a new motherboard was flaky on Win98.  And since I am going to need to run Win7 for AH3 soon (because HT is likely to require it for Occulus VR support, and because modern GPUs that will be required to run AH3 with the eye candy I want don't have XP drivers) so I installed Win7 on a separate SSD in my current PC for testing.  This lead to serious hardware problems most likely with USB.  I smelled overheating and the boot process would hang for a very long time.  When Win7 finally came up it listed some USB device as not working.  Luckily when I went back to the XP disk and power cycled the USB peripheral it worked again, but the process came very close to letting out the magic smoke.  And this is from stable hardware and just a OS upgrade.  Maybe I am just unlucky, but building and modifying a computer has never been "shake-the-box" and everything works perfectly for me.  It has been closer to "turn the power on and everything bursts into flames".

[Brooke]

I don't mind recommending Dell computers for folks who don't prefer to build their own computer or have them built.

Desktop Dells with i5 processors are inexpensive (about $450-$500, including the OS and everything else) and, in my experience with about 200 Dells over more than 2 decades, trouble free.

The most you have to do these days is install a bigger power supply (normal ATX12V) and a graphics card, which takes about 5 minutes.

[Pudgie]

Ole Pudgie is BACK!

My Samsung 850 Pro SATA III 512Gb and 128Gb SSD's using the new Samsung V-Nand Flash came in this afternoon & I got them installed in my X99 chipset's 2.5" dock, moved the 2 OCZ Vertex4 SATA III 256Gb SSD's to my secondary SATA III chipset's 2.5" dock, installed the Gigabyte GC-USB 3.1 PCI-E card in the PCI-E x4 slot, booted her up, set up both Samsung's in GPT partition then loaded up Forstone's DiskClone utility and cloned the OCZ Vertex4 SSD w\ Win 7 HP SP1 on it w\ all the updates to the Samsung 850 Pro 512Gb SSD, rebooted into UEFI & reset the boot order to the new Samsung SSD, rebooted her and all came up just fine then went into Disk Management and wiped the OCZ Vertex4 SSD that had the OS on it and converted it to a storage SSD then moved the page file off the 512Gb SSD, put it on the new Samsung 850 Pro 128Gb SATA III SSD (why I bought it) and set it up as "System Managed", rebooted, loaded Samsung's Magician SSD software and ASMedia USB 3.1 drivers for the card, rebooted again and all is now very cherry!

YEAH!

 

Box is running VERY well now! The USB 3.1 PCI-E card fixed all the issues concerning my CH USB HOTAS on this Gigabyte mobo as now the UEFI can't see them at all as this card only becomes fully functional once Windows loads the drivers and initializes the card then sees the controllers. Got all loaded back up and went into the Beta.....folks, if you have an open USB x4 and up slot this is THE best method to use your CH USB HOTAS on your box w\o a USB self-powered hub (using my Belkin ExpressBus 4-port USB 1.1 hub in bus-power mode....as I've done for the last 15 yrs) as the PCI-E slots provide more than enough power to power all my HOTAS controllers w\ power to spare and they absolutely LOVE all that power thru this PCI-E card....the precision in movement and controller response is well worth the price of 1 of these cards (from $13.00 thru $50.00).

I've built one computer and never had a problem. I used an abit IP35 Pro MB and it ran great for 7 years playing AH2h. Booted fine the first try; never had a problem. I did a memory upgrade and some others.  My CH gear would run from the USB bus or a powered hub. I thought "this is easy". After reading this posts I'm scared to try another.

I now have a box my son built 3 years ago so I retired my old XP machine. He used a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 MB. It runs AH2 at default settings with frame rates of 100-200 but labors with AH3. I was thinking of some upgrades but now I'm afraid to touch it (LOL). Was I just lucky the first time around?

Condor, Bizman is quite right in his assessment....you have to be prepared to deal w\ some quirky stuff when you're building a box using boutique (higher end) components but all in all this kind of stuff is the EXCEPTION when building, not the NORM so don't let my little experience scare you off. Just so you know, this is the 1st issue of this magnitude that I've had to deal with building\upgrading computers in almost 14 yrs (last time was trying to set up my 1st RAID array on my Abit THX Rambus mem Intel mobo back in 2002....I also owned an Abit IP35 Pro mobo as well w\ 4 Gb of DDR2 800 mem running an Intel C2D Q6600 Quad CPU w\S0 stepping and was running this in my wife's box until I upgraded her box 1 1\2 yrs ago w\ the current Asus P8Z77 mobo w\ Intel I5 3470 CPU w\ integrated Intel HD 4000 series graphics and 8Gb DDR3 1600 mem kit (2Gb x 4.....now she has a 16Gb DDR3 1600 mem kit installed...4Gb x 4)....still 1 of the best mobos I have ever owned to date...hated to see Abit go out of business) so in some aspects I was due for a trip up at that level.

It's all in the past now....................