# PC Fried



## puremusic (Sep 16, 2018)

Well, it's toast. When the video card went out I thought that was the only problem, I switched to integrated graphics and put getting a new on my list.

I was just taking notes the other day on which of my vst licenses require activation/deactivation as I did an OS reinstall when the video card died. Anyway I do have a backup, and I believe it is OK so there is that.

But now I have to plan out a whole new PC to be my main system for programming and DAW work. It's been I'd guess over 4 years since I built a system by hand, so I'm just using this itty bitty laptop that doesn't want to connect to my big monitor to read up on what the latest parts and possibilities are.

While I search through Newegg figuring out what parts to pick I thought I'd ask for any recommendations for PC builds for DAW work, as my previous PCs were built for programming purposes rather than great DAW performance. I'd just been planning to buy some 2TB SSDs, now I have to consider whether to go M2 or not, I know there's a discussion about that here.

It looks like 64GB is the max for typical consumer PCs these days and the top of the line is the i7-8086k. The PC I built that died had an Asrock motherboard, never was happy with it, the USB on it was always flaky, so I won't go that brand this time. If anyone has a newer I7 and LGA 1151 motherboard combo they're thrilled with for DAW tell me about it.

Can you even run Windows 7 on these new setups or am now finally forced to go Windows 10?

I suppose I should be considering a workstation build instead of a consumer build, so I could use more memory. Never done one of those before.


----------



## Bender-offender (Sep 17, 2018)

Before you spend a lot of money/time to build a new computer, are you 100% certain your current one is completely dead? There’s so many parts of a computer which could make it seem like it’s crapped out: PSU failure, bad memory chip, hard drive failure, even as simple as a bad cable. On one of my PCs, I had a sample drive failing and it was causing Windows to act lame and seemed like the computer was coming to an end. When I pyshically unplugged the bad drive, everything was normal again. 

Anyway, my point is, what symptoms (other than the GFX card) are you having to believe your computer is crapping out? Also, are you 100% certain your GFX card is bad? That’s why I mentioned the PSU: maybe the PSU is failing and not powering everything well enough to perform properly.


----------



## whiskers (Sep 17, 2018)

most PCs now are windows 10. If you could grab your license from a key extractor program (e.g. Belarc Advisor) if it resides on your hard drive, you'd be fine.

That being said, mainstream Windows 7 support ended in 2015 - meaning no security updates, which would make me really hesitant. (Correction, looks like if you have Service Pack 1 installed, you have extended support until 2020). As much crap as it gets, 10 is not half bad. 8 had it's issues, but 10 is what 8 should have been - so i wouldn't be too hesitant to upgrade.


----------



## whiskers (Sep 17, 2018)

also what makes you think your whole PC is toast? Did you already try reseating the GPU? Test each component before you write it all off as a loss. Your hard drives should be fine at least.


----------



## Øivind (Sep 17, 2018)

I will be picking up a i7 8700k (and overclock to 4.7Ghz) soon, unless the new i9 9900k is fairly priced here in Norway. The 8086K is just a rebrand of the 8700K with a tiny overclock and a premium price because of the anniversary. I usually run Asus motherboards, never had any issues and it's a respected brand.

I think the consensus is that you will run out of CPU power before you can fill up and use 128GB of RAM, so what i have read is that it's usually better to run 2 rigs with 64GB. But, it depends. I have no chance to use 64GB, but i only activate the track i use, and if i do activate all, my CPU would not be able to keep up.

You can tie your Win10 copy to your Microsoft account (if you have one). So if you re-install on a new machine, you can just activate it by logging in to Windows with your Microsoft account and just clicking activate. No more serials. If you have multiple copies of Win10 tied to your account, you will be given a list of which Win10 copy you want to use.

This might be a controversial opinion, but Win10 is just better than Win7, it will always be up to date and upgrading to it is still free as far as i know. And one should always follow the "Always update Windows every other version" rule:
Windows 2k (good), Windows ME (bad), Windows XP (good), Windows Vista (bad), Windows 7 (good), Windows 8 (bad), Windows 10 (good). And if you are worried about the privacy issues that were talked about much earlier, they are in Windows 7 now as well, most of them you can disable during setup.


----------



## puremusic (Sep 17, 2018)

Thanks for the suggestions fellows.

Already sold part of it for parts, the rest will go up in a bit, I'll test out the components to some degree and decide which can be considered used and which as/is parts. Might've been the PSU but if so then I worry about possible damage to the rest of it, had a hard drive failure too. I planned on upgrading all the drives in November, now it's just more to do and sooner than the sales.

Ordered an 8086k and MSI Z370 Pc Pro motherboard, over here the 8086k is not much more than the 8700. Found some matching decent speed memory in the compatibility list, I'll stick with 32GB to start with, then after I recover fill the rest in. My choices I found were very limited if I wanted to use my RME PCI card still, not too many PCI boards, so I found what looked the most reliable and went with it. 

There is such a thing as a PCI-E to PCI adapter, but I have no idea how reliably something like that might work for something like this.

Got a battery backup this time in case the power here is bad, and a Titanium PSU. I even splurged on a new case, the newest Fractal in white. I didn't have to do that. The old Fractal is fine and quiet, well, someone will like it.

I will do what I can to privatize Windows 10. It's going to take me some reading up to figure out all the issues with it. Every new edition of Windows takes more control away from the user.. reminds me of Facebook and company really.


----------

