My planned retirement from upgrading...

[RjL190365]

For the past several years, I have been giving advice to some users about what I have recommended for hardware upgrades, and I have been upgrading and/or updating my systems accordingly. But now, with finances in question and my non-entertainment, non-editing (read: everyday) work consuming most of my time these days, I am announcing my virtual retirement from hardware upgrades, and will only update to newer hardware if the old hardware begins suffering from security issues due to discontinued support.

Here is the biggest reason for my decision:

My work has been entirely in 1080p or lower resolution, and I am not planning to move to higher-rez video material (e.g. 4k) for the foreseeable future. Thus, I am beginning to feel that I have wasted money for all this hardware that may be more powerful than I will be needing in the foreseeable future.

Therefore, I am staying put as far as the CPU, RAM and storage is concerned (i7-4790K CPU reverted back to the default Turbo'd speed, 32GB of RAM and two SATA III SSDs). I might either keep my existing GPU (GTX 1060 6GB) or even downgrade the GPU to a lesser one.

If I do downgrade the GPU, then feel free to make suggestions, unless you want to coax me back into the upgrading game.

Randall

[Peru Bob]

If you already have the GPU, why bother to change it?

[RjL190365]

I was thinking of actually downgrading my equipment when I made that post that started this discussion. And I was actually thinking about downgrading to a low-end GPU that I already have in my spare parts bin, or even foregoing a discrete GPU entirely and just going with the IGP.

[Peru Bob]

That will result in a high end parts bin.

[RjL190365]

The "parts bin" mantra was what led me to build a second mini-ITX system a couple of years ago. And that PC, originally built with an i3-6100 CPU, now has an i7-7700 CPU. Unfortunately, it has only half as much RAM as my older-generation main mid-tower PC that I described above (16GB vs 32GB). It currently has no discrete GPU because I removed it to my main PC after I was locked out of that PC due to a lost Windows password.

And I currently do not have two GeForce GTX 10 series GPUs because by the time I saved up enough to attempt to buy a second one, cryptocurrency mining forced prices to skyrocket on those newer GPUs, resulting in only old-generation slow GPUs being affordable at the time.

I might have to spend money for a PC unlocker for the mini PC, and then move my current GPU back to the mini PC and reinstall the older GPU from my parts bin back into the tower PC and possibly retire my current main PC from everyday use and donate it to a friend in need of a "newer" PC. This is now my new plan.

[RjL190365]

I finally unlocked my mini PC. Right now, though, I am using only one disk and only the Intel IGP because I'm updating the software in it.

[RjL190365]

Now that I got both of the systems running now (although not at the same time), I am now confused as to which one of the two to keep in regular use.

My older system (the 4790K) has been having intermittent memory issues - memory dumps, etc. Sometimes, the motherboard would let out one long beep plus three short beeps on POST, which could have been a GPU problem (but it does that with EVERY GPU that I tried), leading to me believing that the system RAM is starting to fail. And since memory prices (both DDR3 and DDR4) are still on the high side compared to a year and a half ago, I cannot currently afford to replace all that memory.

My mini system, on the other hand, has only 16GB of RAM and only two DIMM slots. I would have to completely replace both sticks of RAM if I want to upgrade to 32GB of RAM (which, again, is too expensive for my maximum budget right now).

Do you have any suggestions for this situation?

Thanks,

Randall

[Peru Bob]

RjL190365  wrote

Sometimes, the motherboard would let out one long beep plus three short beeps on POST,

Do you have any suggestions for this situation?

I was reading a thread on another forum where one user solved the problem by updating the BIOS.

It is also possible that it is caused by a bad driver or a bad motherboard.

[RjL190365]

I have already updated the BIOS, and it still occasionally does that. I do not want to replace the motherboard with a used one which could also have suffered from the exact same problem.

[Peru Bob]

The Dell Outlet sometimes has affordable refurbished machines that can be used for editing.  If it helps any, they do offer financing.

[RjL190365]

Thanks, but I already have two systems, and I have no budget or room for another at this time.

I failed to clarify that it is my main tower system that's been having these issues. My mini-ITX breadbox PC doesn't have that issue.

[RjL190365]

I would also like to clarify my minor boot issues:

Despite putting out one long plus three short beeps, the system would continue to boot into Windows, albeit with no status (EFI) screen. It would continue to show a blank screen in this state until the Windows desktop appears.