pio

Welcome to another round of "Which part did I kill?"........ On today's episode, we have my good ol' "trusty" AMD FX "retro rig" I built a while back (current sig rig). Let's dive in, and see if we can find an answer for me shall we? (Please lol). So.....this all started during the hwbot Team Cup. We needed a (4P) FX run, which only certain Gigabyte boards were capable of doing (1 module per core active). I went ahead and took one for the team, and ran it in a 4 phase Gigabyte 990FX UD3, with my good clocking FX 8350. Chip used to pull 4.8GHz stable at 1.56v no problems. Well, during that run, the stupid Gigabyte board decided that 1.55v set was going to be 1.75v actual. Damaged the CPU (I'm assuming). Swapped the CPU back into my Sabertooth 990FX, figured it was an FX.....it'll be fine. System SEEMED fine for the week-ish I had it setup like that. I never really stressed it, but it booted right up at its old clock speeds fine and was working. Ripped a few thrift store CD's to my collection with it, again seemed fine. I received an EVGA Capture card in about a week later. I hooked it up, and I also hooked up a VGA adapter to it and an HDMI splitter. This way I could run HDMI into the capture card OR a VGA cable into it, and either way I could capture footage. It SEEMED to be working, but for some odd reason it kept crashing. When trying to determine the crashing, I swapped rigs out completely at that station, trying my Phenom II rig in its place. Something wasn't right. I noticed that with the Phenom II rig connected, my fans were powering up..........WITHOUT the AC power plug even connected to the wall!!!!! So something, either the capture card or the splitter or VGA adapter, was backfeeding +5v back through the HDMI cable. I ran the FX rig like this for a week or so before figuring this out. (See picture for proof of the power problem) (Pictured rig is my 1100T build, I never ONCE powered it on like this, HDMI plug removed, the lights turned off) (Pictured rig is my 1100T build, I never ONCE powered it on like this, HDMI plug removed, the lights turned off) NOW......... I've swapped CPU to @neurotix's old FX 8350, thank you @damric. I've applied PTM to it. I've swapped in my known good bench PSU (and its showing kinda low +12v according to software, haven't tried a multimeter yet). The system will NOT even run at stock / auto / turbo. It just freezes under load. No errors, no BSOD's.....just flat out freezes. How screwed am I? Any idears on what I can check from here? I really hope I didn't kill the board with that stupid attempt at trying to stream my screen. -_-

Interesting. We need review samples! Those actually look pretty nice, very minimalistic and sleek looking.

Windows is SUPPOSED to have that feature built in, however I was never able to get it to work properly on anything past like Win7. I use Connectify these days to make it work (I use LAN out, but you can use any NIC).

I can understand it. I'm looking at those older HAF cases because of all the 5.25 bays. But I did recently do a build in the HAF700. Honestly, for such a giant ass case I loved it. Don't get rid of that old case man, they're SOOOOOO hard to find now. Cooler Master HAF 700 Review and Build - ExtremeHW REVIEWS.EXTREMEHW.NET Fan of Cooler Master? We will be putting together build with the HAF 700 Case, MasterLiquid PL360 Flux & XG850 Plus Platinum PSU, Read...

I want your case. Just saying. Welcome to EHW! Nice to have you.

Either bad mobo, or maybe a bad BIOS revision. Either way, yeah its looking more like mobo here. Hopefully he gets it figured out and maybe its something stupid that we're all missing. It happens sometimes.

I don't know if this helps at all, but if you have any SATA drives, have you tried swapping SATA cables? You've got me stumped, that's really weird that it was fine till IceQ was installed too though.

Unfortunately I'm absolutely strapped, but I do hope they get what they need so they can stay in their new home country. Have a bump. Seems like a fair and honest enough cause.

I know, I was really looking forward to using it for my front channel height speakers on mine. -_- Like I was saying in the little review I wrote, I could've lived without the sub channel, but I NEEDED those L/R channels to work, and be at least decent enough with like 15w or so, it'd have been fine. I'll probably bust out one of my other thrift store receivers for that temporarily or something, or skip the front heights for now. Not sure yet. Either way, I was out of pocket nothing to write this review up, and hey.........it was a good excuse to test it and let everyone know to stay away. Somebody saw my YT channel review that bought one though, they're returning it and getting their money back hopefully. They just bought it a week ago, and said they thought their sub was blown..........NOPE, its just the crappy amp. Send it back!

No, they pulled the 1 star review when they cancelled my review / order. Goes to show you how accurate and truthful Amazon reviews are..........

Update: My Amazon review was cancelled, and I no longer have to pay the taxes on this garbage amp. Basically, they gave me a refund without needing to send it back, for Amazon reviewers. I don't have to pay the tax on it.

I love my SMSL AD18, my Fosi Audio sub amp too. I've had great luck with Dayton, and even the Lepai TA2020 was okay, considering you knew it was a small desktop power amp not made to fill a whole room. This thing, just wow. This wasn't worth the materials it was made out of.

Welcome everyone, to another one of Pio's thrift adventures! Today, we'll be reviewing a Lepy 2.1 channel "BT" amplifier. I'm not going to put a bunch of time or effort into it, but I wanted to go ahead and get the word out on this amplifier. This review was sponsored, I guess, by Amazon Vine. Not sure if I need to mention that or not...... So some of you guys are probably already familiar with these junk tiny amplifiers, and some of you may not be. I bought this amplifier with the idea that it'd be similar, hopefully, to the old school Lepai TA2020 that was capable of 20w RMS @ 4ohm x2 channels (10% THD). Let's get to it, and see what this Lepy amp is capable of for $33 on Amazon. Specifications: 【 Multiple Input Modes 】This power amplifier has multiple signal input modes such as Bluetooth mode, RCA input mode, USB flash drive mode(format is FAT32). It can also switch songs and adjust the volume through the remote control. 【Treble and Bass Control 】The power amplifier comes with independent adjustment knobs for treble and bass volume, allowing you to adjust the high and low pitches according to your preferences. 【38W+38W+50W 】This amplifier provides a powerful stereo audio experience, with a left and right channel output power of 38W+38W (peak power) and a subwoofer output power of 50W (peak power), making it an ideal choice for music and movie enthusiasts. 【 Wide Application Range 】The working voltage of this power amplifier is 12V, and it can be connected to 4-8 ohm speakers. It can be widely used in most devices, such as mobile phones, computers, tablets, laptops, MP3s, etc Unboxing: Taking a look at the box, well. I think this is self explanatory. I wasn't expecting much of a box. I was expecting a little more than this out of the box though. So far, not looking good already. Okay, when we crack open the box, the packaging seems a LITTLE bit nicer and better. We now can see a brand logo on the actual amplifier's box inside the packaging. Weird that they'd print on one box, but not the actual full product box. Whatever, lets dig in more. So now, digging EVERYTHING out of the box, this seems okay for a cheap amp. Alright, fine.....we'll deal with not having a cool box. Everything is there that you'd need to hook this thing up. Testing: So, I did NOT even bother digging out my multimeter or test tones for this amp. This amp was absolute GARBAGE when listening to it. Seriously, I wouldn't even wish this amplifier on an OCN member . I hooked up several sets of various thrift store find speakers, and I had a 50w Sony passive subwoofer hooked up to the amp. The subwoofer dial, if you nudged it at all you get INSTANT audible distortion. No actual sound EVER came out of the subwoofer channel, it was pure distortion the whole time. There's no crossover controls at all for the subwoofer either, and it appears to have a low pass frequency of around a shocking 250Hz, maybe higher. That is absolutely INSANE for a sub to be crossed over at near midrange levels. Also, the subwoofer's "volume" knob operates COMPLETELY independently of the main volume control. So if you turn up your speakers, your sub won't turn up with them. Not that it matters, since there's basically no subwoofer output at all anyway. Distortion isn't bass, nor is it a sub channel. -_- The speaker channels, I could crank the volume full blast (deal with the audible distortion), and I could still talk comfortably at normal conversation volume over the top of it. Adjusting the bass or treble controls IMMEDIATELY put very audible distortion, they did nothing but add distortion at ANY volume level. This amplifier was putting out LESS than probably 5w per channel at the most, and probably less than that to the subwoofer output. I did record a little video of my experience. Conclusion: I picked up this amplifier because I scored a nice older Denon 7.1 channel home theater setup at the thrift store the other day for basically pennies. Just being honest. My new to me Denon receiver is capable of doing front height speakers (which I wanted to get setup for EVENTUAL Dolby Atmos, no the Denon isn't Atmos but can do front heights). I was thinking one of those older Lepai TA2020's would probably be "enough" to power those front height channels because they're pre-outs on the receiver. Picked this amp up because it was offered in the Amazon Vine reviews section. Now, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it other than pay the $3 in taxes on it (gross, I have to pay MORE?), and probably toss it in the garbage. This amplifier does work. It does output sound. And for that, it'll get a 2 star review from me on Amazon. I did make note of ALL of its problems though as well, and warned everyone not to buy one. Same thing here, do NOT buy a Lepy amp. The specs are flat out lies. This is nowhere near a Lepai amp quality (and even those are low quality). Buyer beware. Note sure if I can put this in an Amatuer Review or not but:

I don't know if this helps you out at ALL with your problems or not, but I had something similar happen. I had a B450 board, Ryzen 2600 (kid's rig). I was needing a CPU to test a new B350 board I got in, so I pulled the 2600 out to test with. When I was done testing the new B350 board, I accidentally dropped my Ryzen 2600 onto the (new) B350 board, and it bent a few pins on the CPU. I did attempt to straighten them out. Then, I tried to put the CPU back into my B450 board. Not knowing there were still bent pins, I was never fully able to get the CPU seated properly again in the board. HOWEVER, I still tried to get it to work anyway, because I could've SWORN I got the pins straight and the CPU was in there right. Kept trying, and trying. Eventually, gave up and bought him a new CPU. Popped the new 2600x into the B450 board, and it worked..........kinda. Random freezing, couldn't figure it out. Bought a new motherboard, put everything into that, and his rig works great ever since. Now.........I bought a Ryzen 1200 recently. I tried to pop it into that same old B450 board since I had it laying around. Yeah.........same problem, random freezing.........AGAIN. It very well could be your motherboard, and you might not have actually done anything that could've damaged it that you are aware of. I've NEVER heard of ANYONE hurting an AMD socket before, never. I did it. I've also never heard of anyone dremeling through a GPU PCB before, or burning a Gigabyte motherboard to the ground in literal flames, bending the PCB on a 6900XT with thermal pads..............but I've done it..........

Okay I didn't take a picture yet, I already put it up for now till I can order some banana plugs for it. BUT........I absolutely SCORED today at the thrift store, seriously. Denon AVR-1620 7.1 channel (+ extra 2 channels of pre-outs), capable of either 7.1 channel surround or maybe a make-shift Atmos type thing (front "height" speakers are allowed). Also has HDMI ARC (and optical), which I needed either of those inputs to use on my big screen. My older Pioneer receiver score is analogue only, so couldn't ever use it on the big screen. Scored it for $19.99 + tax at the thrift store today. They were JUST putting it out on the shelf. I'll snap pictures later if anyone actually cares. But this is awesome, now I can do surround sound on my 70" 4k TV.

That was a great review to read. Wow, what a power supply too! Looks like you're all setup for that 14900k + 4090 SLI / NVLink, right? No excuses.

Full system test is what @UltraMega was getting at I believe; p95, OCCT, Cinebench, or CPUz (CPU stability test) added onto it would be a full system test where you have everything loaded at 100%. So, yes Furmark would be the GPU portion. A full system test would be a test to make sure your PSU is working appropriately. OCCT also has this function as a built in test too if you'd rather do it all in one place.

Remove battery. Reseat the everything. Once its working again, maybe try to update the BIOS if possible? Idk, stuff like that I typically just "throw the book at it" so to speak, and just try everything till it works right. I doubt its dead.

Very well written review! Images were great too. The product looked a little familiar though.

Alright, I know some of the other old farts 'round here are parents too. So, how do you guys keep your children safe online? My kiddo is wanting to get his gaming PC back, he's already got an XBox (which I draconianly locked down temporarily), he's also got an android tablet. Now, the entire network is ran through a Windows PC connected to the WAN port on my router (VPN / ISP combiner box). I guess the question is, what kind of software would exist out there that'd be compatible with all those types of devices? I mentioned the ISP computer part, just in case there was a whole network type solution I could implement. I just need to lock down the stores and him adding people he doesn't know (he's still learning that one). Maybe content by age bracket, browser restrictions? Idk. Help? LOL

Dang, and I have no reddit account. He's still got some good deals up!

You're not wrong on the moving parts bit. If you're building for longevity (or silence honestly), you really don't want moving parts.

Screw it, why not?

QFT. Honestly, this is exactly the kind of mods I love seeing. No off the shelf solution, no problem!