That's a pretty impressive setup you have there, George. Shows a great devotion to your interest in music synthesis.
Unsure why the synth bug never bit me as hard. Even with access to a large Moog setup as a freshman at university, where you could do things like control the speed of 1 of two RTR decks they had with a Moog oscillator fed power amplifier driving the tape deck motors, the CV connected to a ribbon controller, then do ribbon controlled phase shifting, (versus the old fashioned way of flanging the tape reel on one of the decks)
The closest I've got to a Roland GR synth was I played bass in a short lived band with a guitarist who had one - same vintage as Pat Metheney's GR300. This guy could really get some catchy polyphonic tones (woven into their own PDG song writing) out of that, which was a real stand out at the time. I might even still have a tape somewhere.
Here's to you getting the "Guitar_In_progress" hooked to your guitar PC, with that array of control buttons able to page through different amplifier emulations and other effects. If not the string / fret matrix working like a Guitorgan, with either triggered or hex pickup envelope followed CV controlling 6 VCAs and VCFs.
The last Intel CPU I paid money for was a Pentium 75. Ran just fine at 110MHz.
My first computer was the SWTPC (Tiger Amps) 6800 machine in 1976. It ran at a blazing 921 KHz. After a few years it grew to fill a whole workbench and could spit out some crude music from an 8 bit D/A port created with a parallel interface board and some resistors. In about 1982 a friend showed up at my house with a car trunk full of "scrap" from the big IBM plant in Boca Raton where the PC was born. There was enough "junk" in that pile to create two working PCs. I got the 5 slot "PC" and he got the 8 slot "XT" (eXpandable Technology). Both ran at 4.77 MHz. The 6 MHz 80286 based "AT" (Advanced Technology) was still in development. Within a few more years you could buy all the stuff needed to build your own PC-XT or PC-AT from a huge magazine called Computer Shopper.
Computer stores came and went just as fast during the 80's and early 90's. Several friends and I hit the "going out of business sales" and liquidation auctions where we purchased parts. We built PC's for sale and of course had lots of stuff of our own to play with. There was a Computer company called Compaq that made a "luggable" that was about the size and weight of a portable sewing machine. It had a 9 inch B&W CRT screen and an 80286 or 80386 motherboard. Of course there were the Taiwan knock offs, and I had one with a genuine Roland MPU-401 MIDI interface in it. Mine had a generic 80386 motherboard with a 16 MHz Intel 80386 chip in it. At that time all the motherboards used those silver metal can quartz oscillator modules for the master clock. We unsoldered them and put a 14 pin DIP socket with all but the corner pins cut off in its place for "overclocking" though that word wasn't used yet. Some machines had a "turbo" switch which selected one of two clocks. That 386 chip ran fine at 40 MHz but got really hot. Hot enough that all the white paint with the Intel logo and type number had turned brown and some had peeled off. I glued a heat sink to the chip and used that PC for a few years. A lot of those old chips would run far beyond their specs.
Pat Metheney, Jaco Pastorious and a few others were at the University of Miami when I ran the service department at an Olson Electronics store next to the campus. I had met a few UM music students by fixing amps and even selling a few to some of them. Their music lab had a Mini Moog that I got to play with a few times. Sometime in 1971 or 72 they got an ARP 2600 synth. It was pre-wired so that it would make sound out of the box, but its real power could be unlocked by using patch cords to over ride its stock configuration. Making a 'patch" required some knowledge of music, sound and how it's made, and basic electronics. Those were rare combinations in the early 70's, so I found myself in front of that 2600 several times even though I was not a student at UM. More than once I got the hard sell to leave the crappy "junior college" that I was attending and come to UM, but UM was FAR beyond reach economically even when a scholarship was dangled in front of me. It seemed that there was a division between "those Jazz guys" and the Rockers at UM and I could only get into the music lab in the early morning when only a few people were there. Late in 72 there was a falling out between myself and my father. I got a job at Motorola 30 miles to the north and left home with what I could stuff into my 1949 Plymouth. I never saw the UM, my modular synth, or my own mini music lab again. Lots of tubes and parts went into the trash too.
I did not know about the Guitarorgan or the VOX unit, but I have the first of the few AxeOrgans ever made. Back in the late 70's I had a dispute with an arrogant boss at Motorola and just walked away. I went to work at ModComp (Modular Computer) a company who built mainframe computers for NASA. I worked there for about 3 months before returning to Motorola. During that time, I met some guys who built musical things. One of these "things" was the AxeOrgan. It was unique in the fact that the fretboard was a PC board with "overplated" ( purposely built up with nickel plating) frets.
Two guys had a US patent on the PCB fretboard with a mid 70's date on it. Somewhere in this basement I have one of those PC fretboards. There are three totes with all of my DIY guitar stuff in them. They have only been opened once in 10 years and that was to find parts to fix my red Stratocaster that spontaneously and violently disassembled itself while I was playing it in Florida maybe 12 years ago......post #3629 here:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/what-did-you-last-repair.313739/page-182#post-7290844
I don't know the real story, and I think something went wrong between the two guys, but for some reason the AxeOrgan never made it to production. I traded one of my MusiComputers for it. The MusiComputer was a descendent of the SWTPC 6800 PC made on a Motorola MEK6800D2 EVB that demonstrated the "new" MC6800 chip. There was a third board that I made that did the 8 bit D/A with a MC 6820 chip and had provisions for connecting a "one switch per key" organ keyboard for real time playing. It beeped out what we now call "Chiptune" music from memory. Songs could be loaded from a portable cassette player.
Computer stores came and went just as fast during the 80's and early 90's. Several friends and I hit the "going out of business sales" and liquidation auctions where we purchased parts. We built PC's for sale and of course had lots of stuff of our own to play with. There was a Computer company called Compaq that made a "luggable" that was about the size and weight of a portable sewing machine. It had a 9 inch B&W CRT screen and an 80286 or 80386 motherboard. Of course there were the Taiwan knock offs, and I had one with a genuine Roland MPU-401 MIDI interface in it. Mine had a generic 80386 motherboard with a 16 MHz Intel 80386 chip in it. At that time all the motherboards used those silver metal can quartz oscillator modules for the master clock. We unsoldered them and put a 14 pin DIP socket with all but the corner pins cut off in its place for "overclocking" though that word wasn't used yet. Some machines had a "turbo" switch which selected one of two clocks. That 386 chip ran fine at 40 MHz but got really hot. Hot enough that all the white paint with the Intel logo and type number had turned brown and some had peeled off. I glued a heat sink to the chip and used that PC for a few years. A lot of those old chips would run far beyond their specs.
In my case the bug hit, and bit me pretty hard when I went to an ELP concert in 1970. Shortly after that PAIA announced their 2700 modular synthesizer kit. I ordered one but it took nearly a year to get all of it. The original kit had no real keyboard. It used shirt buttons on wire frames and was nearly impossible to play. After the rush to fill all the 2700 orders they announced the 2720 which had a real keyboard but required a new wood case to retrofit the 2700. The "upgrade" cost more than the 2700 did, but it did not matter. By then I had acquired an old Hammond transistor organ and used its case and keyboard for my first "modular synth."
Pat Metheney, Jaco Pastorious and a few others were at the University of Miami when I ran the service department at an Olson Electronics store next to the campus. I had met a few UM music students by fixing amps and even selling a few to some of them. Their music lab had a Mini Moog that I got to play with a few times. Sometime in 1971 or 72 they got an ARP 2600 synth. It was pre-wired so that it would make sound out of the box, but its real power could be unlocked by using patch cords to over ride its stock configuration. Making a 'patch" required some knowledge of music, sound and how it's made, and basic electronics. Those were rare combinations in the early 70's, so I found myself in front of that 2600 several times even though I was not a student at UM. More than once I got the hard sell to leave the crappy "junior college" that I was attending and come to UM, but UM was FAR beyond reach economically even when a scholarship was dangled in front of me. It seemed that there was a division between "those Jazz guys" and the Rockers at UM and I could only get into the music lab in the early morning when only a few people were there. Late in 72 there was a falling out between myself and my father. I got a job at Motorola 30 miles to the north and left home with what I could stuff into my 1949 Plymouth. I never saw the UM, my modular synth, or my own mini music lab again. Lots of tubes and parts went into the trash too.
I did not know about the Guitarorgan or the VOX unit, but I have the first of the few AxeOrgans ever made. Back in the late 70's I had a dispute with an arrogant boss at Motorola and just walked away. I went to work at ModComp (Modular Computer) a company who built mainframe computers for NASA. I worked there for about 3 months before returning to Motorola. During that time, I met some guys who built musical things. One of these "things" was the AxeOrgan. It was unique in the fact that the fretboard was a PC board with "overplated" ( purposely built up with nickel plating) frets.
Two guys had a US patent on the PCB fretboard with a mid 70's date on it. Somewhere in this basement I have one of those PC fretboards. There are three totes with all of my DIY guitar stuff in them. They have only been opened once in 10 years and that was to find parts to fix my red Stratocaster that spontaneously and violently disassembled itself while I was playing it in Florida maybe 12 years ago......post #3629 here:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/what-did-you-last-repair.313739/page-182#post-7290844
I don't know the real story, and I think something went wrong between the two guys, but for some reason the AxeOrgan never made it to production. I traded one of my MusiComputers for it. The MusiComputer was a descendent of the SWTPC 6800 PC made on a Motorola MEK6800D2 EVB that demonstrated the "new" MC6800 chip. There was a third board that I made that did the 8 bit D/A with a MC 6820 chip and had provisions for connecting a "one switch per key" organ keyboard for real time playing. It beeped out what we now call "Chiptune" music from memory. Songs could be loaded from a portable cassette player.
Attachments
I had used silicon grease for the cpu.
Just out of interest I bought some proper cpu paste and that made a 20 degree C difference.
When I was at Intel, I can remember the mechanical team had some interest in that stuff too. Said the chip people keep reducing the surface contact area of the "lid", while expecting the same or more heat take away from their thermal solution.
Something about "phase-change" they called it, where I guess the paste restructures itself materially after initial heating and becomes an even better thermal conductor.
Plain old silicon grease isnt going to do that.
I remember that arrangement. I tried to make a keyboard one time out of an old reed organ keyboard and some push button switches. Didnt really work either, but I tried.
What a time to be around! I was at the University of Buffalo when Spyro-Gyra (or what became them) was around there.
During high school I befriended a fellow who was a Hammond service tech, amongst designing his own stuff he'd build on comission. He told me about the Guitorgan; said it was a stack of PCBs that made up the body. I was trying to help him make a phase shifter out of CD4009s, which he was hoping to bias into a linear region. Trouble was, no second inverting input - but what did I know then?
Many years later, I heard a fellow playing through a Roland system that was producing a very nice B3 sound. Probably it was this guys chops, which to me were to die for and he was of course just a nobody Tacoma local player. I wonder how those older efforts sounded - given of course a great player at the helm?
That's quite a museum piece you have there! Look at that fretboard - just dont bend far enough to touch the neighbor fret - or could someone "clever" make that work musically too?
Those "bastard" Windows 10 updates keep on wrecking my mixer's Firewire interface. Had to redo the driver install to the one that works, after Windows claim "the best driver is already installed on you computer". No, it isnt the best one, it's the one that causes me, extra work to make it working again.
I was lucky to find the web page with instructions and the download link for the working driver immediately. I have a vague recollection of going through the same process like a year ago, to get it working initially.
Hopefully, I'll find the web page that shows how to turn Windows updates completely off, so "I wont have to go through that again"... I really dont use this PC for anything but the DAW - an occasional search for song lyrics / chords, maybe a schematic or wiring diagram - not like I ever use it for banking... After all, it's the Garage computer.
I was lucky to find the web page with instructions and the download link for the working driver immediately. I have a vague recollection of going through the same process like a year ago, to get it working initially.
Hopefully, I'll find the web page that shows how to turn Windows updates completely off, so "I wont have to go through that again"... I really dont use this PC for anything but the DAW - an occasional search for song lyrics / chords, maybe a schematic or wiring diagram - not like I ever use it for banking... After all, it's the Garage computer.
Well, I found a friendly and free utility to turn updates on and back off.
This system keeps me running in circles. Had a hardware failure on one of my power line e-net adapters, so watch me stringing cable from garage to garage in the drizzle. Worked yesterday. Then, no more NRV-10 on the Firewire. Reloaded the drivers, disable, re-enabled, reboot, power cycle, scan for hardware changes - finally comes on line... Worked yesterday.
Aieee I thought - computer went to sleep Firewire connection light is out! Reawakening, reconnects. How about that!
This system keeps me running in circles. Had a hardware failure on one of my power line e-net adapters, so watch me stringing cable from garage to garage in the drizzle. Worked yesterday. Then, no more NRV-10 on the Firewire. Reloaded the drivers, disable, re-enabled, reboot, power cycle, scan for hardware changes - finally comes on line... Worked yesterday.
Aieee I thought - computer went to sleep Firewire connection light is out! Reawakening, reconnects. How about that!
Well after all that hulabaloo, I'm elated to say I got "Jamulus" working with my son last night. Got it setup on his PC last weekend; he's USB to his Behringer mixer, while I'm Firewire to the NRV-10. We both have amplifiers / speakers connected to the main outputs of the mixers; I can hear whatever he's playing in my garage and vice-versa. We live about 1/2 hours drive apart.
You have to connect to a local server that's been setup for Jamulus sessions; fortunately there is one in Tacoma that no one else was using on a Friday night. I noticed there was a 50ms latency nevertheless, which the software green lighted next to the numerical indicator. I'm just stunned that we got it working at all! When I first heard his voice coming through this Windows app, I couldnt believe it.
I suppose one could have virtual real time listening sessions, where someone hosts program material and the participants all listen using their own systems / DACs and ears. At 48kHz anyway. Unsure if it's even stereo - I think so.
Computers - when they work.
You have to connect to a local server that's been setup for Jamulus sessions; fortunately there is one in Tacoma that no one else was using on a Friday night. I noticed there was a 50ms latency nevertheless, which the software green lighted next to the numerical indicator. I'm just stunned that we got it working at all! When I first heard his voice coming through this Windows app, I couldnt believe it.
I suppose one could have virtual real time listening sessions, where someone hosts program material and the participants all listen using their own systems / DACs and ears. At 48kHz anyway. Unsure if it's even stereo - I think so.
Computers - when they work.
I used to be an unpaid forum Customer advisor for Novatech near Portsmouth. In fact I (grudgingly) won an Intel Rucksack one year as MVP Customer Advisor for this company:
https://www.novatech.co.uk/
This was a complete insult to my abilities. I am AMD through and through. And as is well known, Novatech is more Intel and Nvidia. A fundamental disagreement.
Just for old times sake I recently visited the main outlet in Porchester. I was smitten with the lighting arrangements for modern gamers:
I therefore bought one of these colourful fans.
Alas it did absolutely NOTHING to light up in Rainbow colours! No, the fan just spins rather than illuminates.
Apparently, I need a Corsair 4 pin RGB controller.
The young Customer advisor, slackly, did not inform me of this requirement.
Oh well, I expect I can sort it out. Also a lack of power connector on the Novatech power supply for my graphics card.
This is my recently rebuilt Ubuntu Linux/Windows computer. It has six cores of AMD FX-6300 CPU, and 8 Gigs of DDR3 Ram running off my mobile phone's tethered internet. Sufficient to my needs.
Really, I worry about this company.
https://www.novatech.co.uk/
This was a complete insult to my abilities. I am AMD through and through. And as is well known, Novatech is more Intel and Nvidia. A fundamental disagreement.
Just for old times sake I recently visited the main outlet in Porchester. I was smitten with the lighting arrangements for modern gamers:
I therefore bought one of these colourful fans.
Alas it did absolutely NOTHING to light up in Rainbow colours! No, the fan just spins rather than illuminates.
Apparently, I need a Corsair 4 pin RGB controller.
The young Customer advisor, slackly, did not inform me of this requirement.
Oh well, I expect I can sort it out. Also a lack of power connector on the Novatech power supply for my graphics card.
This is my recently rebuilt Ubuntu Linux/Windows computer. It has six cores of AMD FX-6300 CPU, and 8 Gigs of DDR3 Ram running off my mobile phone's tethered internet. Sufficient to my needs.
Really, I worry about this company.
As the previous post makes clear, I suffered a minor computer disaster with a Corsair RGB fan.
Yesterday I revisited Novatech with various agendas, but was unable to get the Corsair £12 RGB controller I wanted, but did get a Liteon DVD drive and a goodish power supply:
https://www.novatech.co.uk/
Main event was my good friend Paul had asked me to sort out his ancient PC, which he described as Micro:
It was worse than I imagined:
About 25 years ago this was considered the fastest PC in the Wold, An AMD single core Athlon K7 processor, 1 GB of DDR RAM and slow IDE (133 Mb/s Hard Drive). What? Ribbon cables?
My cheap upgrade solution involves an old motherboard I retained and an old laptop drive, with an AMD Athlon X4 630 processor overclocked, a new 24 pin power supply (The old ones were 20 pin with no 4 pin processor plug), a Wi-Fi card I no longer use, a switch to X25 faster SATA drives and Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS operating system:
https://releases.ubuntu.com/focal/
This is because 20.04 is installable on a regular single-layer DVD-R Disc, being 1.4 GB.
We must see if it works:
Once a LEET computer hacker, always a LEET computer hacker....
Yesterday I revisited Novatech with various agendas, but was unable to get the Corsair £12 RGB controller I wanted, but did get a Liteon DVD drive and a goodish power supply:
https://www.novatech.co.uk/
Main event was my good friend Paul had asked me to sort out his ancient PC, which he described as Micro:
It was worse than I imagined:
About 25 years ago this was considered the fastest PC in the Wold, An AMD single core Athlon K7 processor, 1 GB of DDR RAM and slow IDE (133 Mb/s Hard Drive). What? Ribbon cables?
My cheap upgrade solution involves an old motherboard I retained and an old laptop drive, with an AMD Athlon X4 630 processor overclocked, a new 24 pin power supply (The old ones were 20 pin with no 4 pin processor plug), a Wi-Fi card I no longer use, a switch to X25 faster SATA drives and Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS operating system:
https://releases.ubuntu.com/focal/
This is because 20.04 is installable on a regular single-layer DVD-R Disc, being 1.4 GB.
We must see if it works:
Once a LEET computer hacker, always a LEET computer hacker....
Last edited:
The simple 1 hour PC upgrade that is now in its second day:
Both Amazon and Newegg have been running sales on computer hardware ever since Black Friday. Most of it is not the latest generation stuff, but I don't buy the latest gen stuff. I watched daily over the two plus week period as the two companies chased each other to the apparent bottom price on some pieces that I could use. Last year I grabbed a "$599 Ryzen 9 5900X CPU for about $350. This year I grabbed another for $288. The PC that I'm typing this on had an old GTX 1050 graphics card that stutters of pauses on some 4K YouTube videos when viewed at full screen on a 4K TV at 30 Hz frame rate. The old 1050 also runs a second screen at 1920 X 1050. This led me to buy a MSI RADEON RX6750 XT video card for $329.
So all I have to do is open up the PC, pop off the CPU cooler, swap out the CPU, swap the video cards, then let Windows hunt down the necessary drivers. Easy, right?
I have two nearly identical PC's. Both have the same ASRock X570 Gaming 4 motherboard with 32 GB of identical budget memory. Both have a 1TB boot SSD, but the size and number of hard drives are different. One has a GTX1660 video card, and the other has the 1050. Last year I bought the first Ryzen 9 and just dropped it into the MB in place of a Ryzen 7 3800X with no issues, it just worked. I then pulled out the 1050 and dropped in a GTX1660 that I had removed from my grandson's PC when his father got him a better one. The PC just fired right up with no complaints and has worked great for a year. I now had a GTX1050 and a Ryzen 7 chip with no home, and my daily use Core i7-7700 PC had been acting schizophrenic. I took the path of least resistance, bought a second ASRock X570 MB, some cheap memory and an SSD which I used to make a clone of the first PC.
That PC has also performed flawlessly for a year except for the stuttering on some videos. Given the results I had last year, I opened up the PC swapped out the CPU and fired it up. The only difference that I had forgotten about is Windows. Last year's PC was running W10. Sometime during the year my daily use PC got upgraded to W11.
After swapping the CPU Windows determined that my CPU had been changed, which had "invalidated my PIN" so I needed to choose a new one. This involved providing my Microsoft password, which then resulted in a "prove that you are really you" response. To prove my identity, they texted a code to my phone. We live in a rural area where cell phone coverage is sporadic. Yesterday it was right at 32 degrees F (0C) and some form of rain, snow, ice or slush was coming from the sky most of the day. Cell service was nonexistent. Most texts didn't get through, and those that did took longer than the expiration time of the codes. The only other choice was "email me a code." Again, without a working PC, phone or laptop, I'm not getting email either, and ever since Bellsouth (the old Florida phone company) passed their email service off onto Yahoo the transit time of sending myself an email is several minutes, so I went through several more rounds of expired codes with a laptop plugged directly into the router.
What started in mid-morning as a simple CPU swap finally got finished about 4 PM. Most of that time was spent convincing Microsoft that I was not trying to steal Windows. Somehow, during the multi hour experience of logging into Windows, Microsoft had managed to download Windows 11 version 23H2. Two restarts later I had W11 23H2. I ran some tests on the new CPU and called it a day.
Early this morning I opened the box containing a "new MSI RADEON RX6750 XT video card" only to find that it had been opened and hastily stuffed back into its box. Amazon has "lightly used" cards for $30 less, but I paid for a NEW one. I resisted the temptation to immediately return the card and popped the lid back off the PC. Abot two seconds later I realized a few issues. The new card was much larger than the old one and needed to occupy the same space as two of my hard drives. The card also had 3 X Display Port outputs and ONE HDMI output. My high quality Hisense 4K TV that I bought sight unseen from Sams Club's online Black Friday sale 6 years ago only has HDMI inputs. The Acer 24 inch monitor that is my second display only has a DVI input. DP to DVI adapters are often extremely expensive and have many issues. A quick look around the basement reveals an unused 27 inch LG monitor that is at least 10 years old hiding under a shelf. It has an HDMI input. I have a DP to HDMI converter dongle that's good to 1080P, which suits the LG screen.
Do I really need 4 spinning disks and an SSD? No, but I can probably stuff all this crap back into my 4U rack mounted case, right. It took about an hour playing with hard drives, their cables, especially that ribbon power cable, the video card and the cooling tower on the CPU, but I got it all in there. I tested it all on another bench with a Samsung 4K TV and the 27 inch LG monitor. All worked fine. I put it all together, mounted it all back in the rack, and powered it up. The LG screen worked fine but the TV kept blinking on and off or displayed some neat colored confetti patterns. Every once in a while, it would sync up and work for a few seconds. WTF????? I ripped it out of the rack and went back to the Samsung where it still worked fine. Both TV's claim 4K @ 60 Hz capability, but maybe the older Walmart TV couldn't really eat 4K at 60 Hz. I put the PC back in the rack and tried again with the same results. Reducing the frame rate to 60 Hz made perfect video, so maybe the old, cheap TV just sucks.
I was about resigned to put it all together and use it at 30 Hz until I realized that the HDMI cable was a rather skinny cheap looking thing. I had better, or at least thicker looking cables, so I tried one. Everything worked fine and it still does. It's all mounted in the rack and has been running fine for several hours now.
I have always been a fan of Walmart speaker wire and Radio Shack interconnects. Decent stuff, but not stupidly expensive. I guess the $7 HDMI cables from Amazon are a bit too cheap.
During this time the Windows 10 PC that I upgraded last year had been left on all day since it uses the Samsung TV for a display. I just plugged the PC I was working on today into a different input on that TV. I use the W10 PC for tinkering with music synthesis and creation. I usually leave the Ethernet cable unplugged to avoid minor latencies in the DAW caused by interrupts from Ethernet traffic that Windows is often doing in the background. I vaguely remember sticking the cable back into the PC yesterday to look up the details on the Video card. I was rewarded with an unwanted and unasked for upgrade to Windows 11 sometime during the day today, I think. it could have occurred yesterday.
Back in 2014 I bought a new ASUS laptop that came with Windows 8 which I upgraded to 8.1 when I got it. It worked fine and I had no intention of trying out Windows 10 for at least a year. Unfortunately, MS saw fit to randomly install W10 for me on that PC. I was not the only user that this happened to. I guess that they are up to it again. Several music makers have stated that W11 can be a bit worse than W10 in the random latency department, so I was planning to wait until late next year to upgrade.
Both Amazon and Newegg have been running sales on computer hardware ever since Black Friday. Most of it is not the latest generation stuff, but I don't buy the latest gen stuff. I watched daily over the two plus week period as the two companies chased each other to the apparent bottom price on some pieces that I could use. Last year I grabbed a "$599 Ryzen 9 5900X CPU for about $350. This year I grabbed another for $288. The PC that I'm typing this on had an old GTX 1050 graphics card that stutters of pauses on some 4K YouTube videos when viewed at full screen on a 4K TV at 30 Hz frame rate. The old 1050 also runs a second screen at 1920 X 1050. This led me to buy a MSI RADEON RX6750 XT video card for $329.
So all I have to do is open up the PC, pop off the CPU cooler, swap out the CPU, swap the video cards, then let Windows hunt down the necessary drivers. Easy, right?
I have two nearly identical PC's. Both have the same ASRock X570 Gaming 4 motherboard with 32 GB of identical budget memory. Both have a 1TB boot SSD, but the size and number of hard drives are different. One has a GTX1660 video card, and the other has the 1050. Last year I bought the first Ryzen 9 and just dropped it into the MB in place of a Ryzen 7 3800X with no issues, it just worked. I then pulled out the 1050 and dropped in a GTX1660 that I had removed from my grandson's PC when his father got him a better one. The PC just fired right up with no complaints and has worked great for a year. I now had a GTX1050 and a Ryzen 7 chip with no home, and my daily use Core i7-7700 PC had been acting schizophrenic. I took the path of least resistance, bought a second ASRock X570 MB, some cheap memory and an SSD which I used to make a clone of the first PC.
That PC has also performed flawlessly for a year except for the stuttering on some videos. Given the results I had last year, I opened up the PC swapped out the CPU and fired it up. The only difference that I had forgotten about is Windows. Last year's PC was running W10. Sometime during the year my daily use PC got upgraded to W11.
After swapping the CPU Windows determined that my CPU had been changed, which had "invalidated my PIN" so I needed to choose a new one. This involved providing my Microsoft password, which then resulted in a "prove that you are really you" response. To prove my identity, they texted a code to my phone. We live in a rural area where cell phone coverage is sporadic. Yesterday it was right at 32 degrees F (0C) and some form of rain, snow, ice or slush was coming from the sky most of the day. Cell service was nonexistent. Most texts didn't get through, and those that did took longer than the expiration time of the codes. The only other choice was "email me a code." Again, without a working PC, phone or laptop, I'm not getting email either, and ever since Bellsouth (the old Florida phone company) passed their email service off onto Yahoo the transit time of sending myself an email is several minutes, so I went through several more rounds of expired codes with a laptop plugged directly into the router.
What started in mid-morning as a simple CPU swap finally got finished about 4 PM. Most of that time was spent convincing Microsoft that I was not trying to steal Windows. Somehow, during the multi hour experience of logging into Windows, Microsoft had managed to download Windows 11 version 23H2. Two restarts later I had W11 23H2. I ran some tests on the new CPU and called it a day.
Early this morning I opened the box containing a "new MSI RADEON RX6750 XT video card" only to find that it had been opened and hastily stuffed back into its box. Amazon has "lightly used" cards for $30 less, but I paid for a NEW one. I resisted the temptation to immediately return the card and popped the lid back off the PC. Abot two seconds later I realized a few issues. The new card was much larger than the old one and needed to occupy the same space as two of my hard drives. The card also had 3 X Display Port outputs and ONE HDMI output. My high quality Hisense 4K TV that I bought sight unseen from Sams Club's online Black Friday sale 6 years ago only has HDMI inputs. The Acer 24 inch monitor that is my second display only has a DVI input. DP to DVI adapters are often extremely expensive and have many issues. A quick look around the basement reveals an unused 27 inch LG monitor that is at least 10 years old hiding under a shelf. It has an HDMI input. I have a DP to HDMI converter dongle that's good to 1080P, which suits the LG screen.
Do I really need 4 spinning disks and an SSD? No, but I can probably stuff all this crap back into my 4U rack mounted case, right. It took about an hour playing with hard drives, their cables, especially that ribbon power cable, the video card and the cooling tower on the CPU, but I got it all in there. I tested it all on another bench with a Samsung 4K TV and the 27 inch LG monitor. All worked fine. I put it all together, mounted it all back in the rack, and powered it up. The LG screen worked fine but the TV kept blinking on and off or displayed some neat colored confetti patterns. Every once in a while, it would sync up and work for a few seconds. WTF????? I ripped it out of the rack and went back to the Samsung where it still worked fine. Both TV's claim 4K @ 60 Hz capability, but maybe the older Walmart TV couldn't really eat 4K at 60 Hz. I put the PC back in the rack and tried again with the same results. Reducing the frame rate to 60 Hz made perfect video, so maybe the old, cheap TV just sucks.
I was about resigned to put it all together and use it at 30 Hz until I realized that the HDMI cable was a rather skinny cheap looking thing. I had better, or at least thicker looking cables, so I tried one. Everything worked fine and it still does. It's all mounted in the rack and has been running fine for several hours now.
I have always been a fan of Walmart speaker wire and Radio Shack interconnects. Decent stuff, but not stupidly expensive. I guess the $7 HDMI cables from Amazon are a bit too cheap.
During this time the Windows 10 PC that I upgraded last year had been left on all day since it uses the Samsung TV for a display. I just plugged the PC I was working on today into a different input on that TV. I use the W10 PC for tinkering with music synthesis and creation. I usually leave the Ethernet cable unplugged to avoid minor latencies in the DAW caused by interrupts from Ethernet traffic that Windows is often doing in the background. I vaguely remember sticking the cable back into the PC yesterday to look up the details on the Video card. I was rewarded with an unwanted and unasked for upgrade to Windows 11 sometime during the day today, I think. it could have occurred yesterday.
Back in 2014 I bought a new ASUS laptop that came with Windows 8 which I upgraded to 8.1 when I got it. It worked fine and I had no intention of trying out Windows 10 for at least a year. Unfortunately, MS saw fit to randomly install W10 for me on that PC. I was not the only user that this happened to. I guess that they are up to it again. Several music makers have stated that W11 can be a bit worse than W10 in the random latency department, so I was planning to wait until late next year to upgrade.
Nasty. Disrespectful. One would think general etiquette would demand "not without my permission" of the hardware owner.
Many users complained about the forced upgrades from W8 and W8.1 to W10 back when it happened. Microsoft denied that it ever happened, that all such upgrades were initiated by the user. The ASUS laptop that upgraded itself had a design problem that caused random keystrokes to occur, and I had left it on unattended for several hours, so I assumed that an unintentional upgrade was launched by the computer itself.
Despite a large label on the box the laptop came in stating "Two Year rapid replacement warranty" Asus refused warranty service after about 14 months. The "random uninitiated keystrokes" issue grew worse and worse until the laptop became unusable and I bought a new MSI laptop. I still have the box, and have avoided ASUS products ever since. I finally decided to rip into the Asus and found that the flex circuit from the keyboard to the motherboard ran along the bracket that held the hard drive. The bracket had a laser cut edge which was rough and sharp. That edge had cut into the flex, grounding random lines when the laptop was flexed causing the random keystrokes. Eventually it had cut one of the lines in two making several keys unfunctional. A Google search for a replacement keyboard brought me to Amazon where a replacement keyboard could be purchased for $15, direct ship from China. I assumed that for $15 including shipping, that I would get a used keyboard recycled from a dead laptop, but after about a month I got a shiny new keyboard which had an extra piece of heavy plastic along the edge that runs next to the drive bracket. That laptop still works fine today.
As to the unintended W11 upgrade, I had placed the wired keyboard and wireless mouse for the computer in question up on a shelf because I put the computer that I was working on in the middle of the bench where the keyboard was. The W10 PC had not been turned on in at least two weeks, so it probably downloaded the usual updates when I plugged the ethernet cable into it. One of those "updates" must have been W11 since it seemed to take more than the usual "installing updates, don't turn your computer off" time, but I was busy messing with this PC, and not paying too much attention to the small screen on the other one.
Despite a large label on the box the laptop came in stating "Two Year rapid replacement warranty" Asus refused warranty service after about 14 months. The "random uninitiated keystrokes" issue grew worse and worse until the laptop became unusable and I bought a new MSI laptop. I still have the box, and have avoided ASUS products ever since. I finally decided to rip into the Asus and found that the flex circuit from the keyboard to the motherboard ran along the bracket that held the hard drive. The bracket had a laser cut edge which was rough and sharp. That edge had cut into the flex, grounding random lines when the laptop was flexed causing the random keystrokes. Eventually it had cut one of the lines in two making several keys unfunctional. A Google search for a replacement keyboard brought me to Amazon where a replacement keyboard could be purchased for $15, direct ship from China. I assumed that for $15 including shipping, that I would get a used keyboard recycled from a dead laptop, but after about a month I got a shiny new keyboard which had an extra piece of heavy plastic along the edge that runs next to the drive bracket. That laptop still works fine today.
As to the unintended W11 upgrade, I had placed the wired keyboard and wireless mouse for the computer in question up on a shelf because I put the computer that I was working on in the middle of the bench where the keyboard was. The W10 PC had not been turned on in at least two weeks, so it probably downloaded the usual updates when I plugged the ethernet cable into it. One of those "updates" must have been W11 since it seemed to take more than the usual "installing updates, don't turn your computer off" time, but I was busy messing with this PC, and not paying too much attention to the small screen on the other one.
In 2006 I decided to upgrade my windows.
So bought in required CD and installed windows.
Great a nice new windows.
Ok so now copy my backup drive to my main drive.
Everything gone ! Windows in its wisdom had not only formatted c: drive but d: drive too.
Luckily most of the important stuff was on DVD['s but I still lost some important stuff.
I now always disconnect 2nd drive when installing windows and have a 128GB flash drive backing up as well.
So bought in required CD and installed windows.
Great a nice new windows.
Ok so now copy my backup drive to my main drive.
Everything gone ! Windows in its wisdom had not only formatted c: drive but d: drive too.
Luckily most of the important stuff was on DVD['s but I still lost some important stuff.
I now always disconnect 2nd drive when installing windows and have a 128GB flash drive backing up as well.
Tried to create a bootable backup for my Wife's laptop. Unfortunately, I allowed the PC to boot with the bootable backup still plugged in via usb, which corrupted it so it would no longer boot. Not an easy fix either, all methods I tried didnt work.
Then it somehow corrupted the main drive, make it no longer "want" to boot. Fixed that somehow, but barely was able to. I gave up on the project for now...
I made the mistake of leaving the source disk in the machine after the clone finished. NEVER leave the source drive in the machine...the only way to be sure it'll ever boot again is to physically disconnect it. Otherwise, Window's wisdom might make it into a "Windows to go!" drive or something else...
The above quote was from post #474 when I upgraded this PC with a new CPU chip and a "new" video card. A day or so after that upgrade the weird stuff started. First there were random glitches in the video after the PC had been on for over an hour. After a few more days I began to get lockups with the 4K TV usually displaying a solid color, most often green. The LG 1920 X 1080 27 inch monitor would display what was there, but would not update. By the next day the 4K TV would not work at all, just showing "no input" while the LG continued to work. After some OFF time the PC would sometimes work, but the TV picture would be bad or gone within a few minutes, or the whole PC would lock up.
I ripped it open and played "musical parts" with another PC and the problem followed the video card. So now the PC has a new CPU and its old GTX1050 video card back inside. The RX 6750 XT will be headed back to Amazon on Tuesday. The 1050 will NOT work at 4K @ 60 Hz and some stuttering can be seen at 30 Hz, so I will look for something else once I get my refund from Amazon. I'll decide whether to buy PC stuff from Amazon again once I see how the refund goes.
When I was looking around for the video card I found something neat, which resulted in an impulse buy. Newegg was blowing out these tiny ASRock Ryzen 7 powered motherboards for $150 each.Other vendors are asking about $500 for the same board. Even Newegg wants $250 for the Ryzen 5 version of the same board:
https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/4X4-7735U/D5
https://www.newegg.com/asrock-industrial-4x4-7735u-d5/p/N82E16813301015?Item=N82E16813301015
This is a small 4 inch by 4 inch motherboard WITH a Ryzen 7 7735U chip installed for $150, so I had to get one.
The picture shows it next to an older Raspberry Pi. I added memory and an SSD, plugged in a 19 volt laptop brick for power, a USB receiver for a wireless keyboard, an Ethernet cable, and an HDMI cable to a 4K TV. I turned it on, loaded up Windows 11 from a USB stick (it is approved by M$ for W11), and rebooted. It took a bit of fiddling with the video drivers to get it right, but this little PC WILL play 4K @ 60 Hz, which is as fast as the Samsung TV will go. I included a picture of the TV display as it was playing a 4K @ 60Hz video.
How does it measure up? Better than 64% of the PC's in the world according to Passmark, whereas this Ryzen 9 PC with its original GTX 1050 card gets a 76% score. This PC was also built with mid grade parts except for the CPU upgrade. The ASRock 4X4-7735U/D5 got the cheapest memory that I could find, and it shows a bit in the scores.
I plan to use this board in a battery powered electronic musical instrument, so the 3D graphics scores are not an issue. I have not yet measured the power consumption, but it has been running for about 10 hours continuously on an old Toshiba laptop brick which is still barely warm.
