Upgrades Performed, New System is Functional!

 I posted earlier in the week that I'd bought parts for a new system.  

I'd said that I'd wait for the weekend to strip down my current system and replace the motherboard and supporting parts (GPU, CPU, memory).  Well, I couldn't wait.  The CPU HSF and memory arrived yesterday and waited an hour or two after they arrived to begin the rebuild.

I'd not done this in awhile but it wasn't all that difficult, but was sort of a pain in the ass.  I basically had to strip down the old motherboard while leaving the rest of the system attached to the case, then remove the motherboard, then attach the new CPU to the new motherboard, then attach the CPU HSF to the system, then attach the RAM to the motherboard, attach the back IO panel to the case, then mount the motherboard to the case, then plug in the motherboard power connectors and the rest of the cabling.  I also had to try to ensure wires and cables weren't interfering with the cooling fans.  Some of the wires are very long and some are also very short, so I spent some time trying to route things...I'm probably going to have to revisit this, as I could spend a whole day trying to route and secure cabling using zip ties.

The PowerColor video card was a beast!  I thought my GTX1060 was big.  This one is a bit bigger.  I didn't know it had blue lighting, which enhances the blue lighting I already have in the case.

When I booted up the system with the new parts, I honestly thought it wouldn't boot because of something I'd forgotten.  At least the PSU is sufficiently powerful.  It immediately booted up but was complaining because it couldn't control the CPU fan - I'd plugged it into the wrong outlet, so I had to fix that.  It was a bit of a pain because I'd used a hot glue gun to secure the wires to the frame of the HSF - I had to remove the glue to reroute the cabling and then reglue the cabling so that it wouldn't get caught in the CPU fan.

The system is ultra quick now.

I played a few matches of War Thunder last night and noticed that the system was complaining that Windows wasn't activated.  I'd saved my product key from when I'd upgraded to Windows 10 but the damned key wasn't working.  Apparently, I'd nullified it when I added the new hardware.  It took me maybe 15 minutes to fix that.

I also downloaded and installed the latest RX 6600 drivers.

At some point, I'll probably wipe the drive and reinstall Windows and all of my games and hardware, but for now everything works.

I still need to do some things like find another area to mount my SSD drives, as they're in the way in case I want to add additional USB 3.0 ports in back.  I may end up buying a new case, though...this one is a bit cluttered.

Here's to another seven years!  :D

Gaming Desktop Upgrade

I came into a bit of money and instead of doing what I normally do (spend extra money on firearms or ammo or anything supporting firearms), I decided to upgrade my video card in my desktop system, since I've been having issues playing a particular VR game, a light flight sim called VTOL VR.

What started the desktop system upgrade process was the fact that I couldn't upgrade my video card to the latest-greatest, since my current motherboard only supported PCIe 3.0 x16.

This meant that I wouldn't be able to upgrade the video card to the RTX 2060 or any RTX card above 2060, as most current graphics cards are PCIe 4.0.

The motherboard that I'm currently using is the MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate, which is a motherboard that supports the following:

• Supports 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 / Core™ i5 / Core™ i3 / Pentium® / Celeron® processors for LGA 1150 socket.
• Uses the Z87 Express chipset.
• CPU currently being used: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz

I also just now realized that this particular system is 7 years old!  And when I bought the above MSI motherboard, that motherboard wasn't cutting-edge.  In fact, there will be no Microsoft Windows 11 support for the i5 CPU I'm currently using. I will probably move it to another system and use it with Linux.

So, what started out as a GPU upgrade developed into a motherboard, CPU, and GPU upgrade, since I would need to upgrade the motherboard to use a PCIe 4.0 GPU and since I would need to buy a new CPU to use with the new motherboard.

I spent this weekend looking at motherboard/CPU packages at NewEgg and Microcenter (which is local to me).  I also looked and found an ideal GPU.

The problem with shopping for computer parts during Covid-19 times is that nothing stays in stock for long.  Also, there's a shortage of chips for GPUs, so GPUs are very expensive right now.  I could've waited but Covid is 2+ years long-in-the-tooth right now...could be a very long wait, while prices could keep climbing.  Microcenter isn't allowing online purchases of GPUs so I'd have to physically purchase the product.  NOTE:  While I hate that stores aren't selling GPUs online and that to buy them, you've to visit the brick/mortar store, it does lessen scalping and folks mass buying GPUs for cryto mining.  Also, I found that what was showing as in-stock was showing as out-of-stock after several hours of checking, and this occurred with the motherboard/CPU and GPU items I'd bookmarked (was researching so that I knew what to buy when I visited Microcenter the next day.

So, on Sunday, I did another quick search and found that NO i5 CPUs were in stock, which meant that I had to re-search for another combination that wasn't i5-related.  So, I stepped up to an i7 CPU.  

Also, there were no more Nvidia GPUs within my price range and I was NOT going to spend $800 on a card!  So, I changed up after doing a bit of research and decided to get an ATI video card instead.

Here's what I ended up getting:

• PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6600 Hellhound Dual-Fan 8GB GDDR6 PCIe 4.0 Graphics Card
• Intel Core i7-10700K Comet Lake 3.8GHz Eight-Core LGA 1200 Boxed Processor - Heatsink Not Included
• ASUS Z590-P Prime Intel LGA 1200 ATX Motherboard

Because of the issue of every single part I selected repeatedly going out of stock over the course of two days, I ended up going over budget by like $250!  I was very close to just calling the whole thing off...it was an extremely frustrating situation.

I also realized before going to purchase the parts that I'd also need to buy new memory, as the new motherboard required DDR4.  I decided that I could buy that online via Amazon.com and would probably be able to find good bargains, so I held off on buying that at Microcenter.

I bought the parts and when I got home, I looked at the CPU.  The damned thing didn't come with a HSF (heatsink/fan).  Looking online for a HSF for an 11th gen i7 was daunting.  I'd selected to buy either the:

• Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo v2
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition.  

I wanted to see how large they were before purchasing and I'm glad I checked because both of those were EXTREMELY large.  These two HSFs are overkill for someone who won't overclock.

I actually settled on the Intel BXTS15A HSF assembly air cooled instead.  It should arrive in 2 days.

For RAM, I bought the following:  NVTEK 16GB DDR4-2933 Desktop PC RAM Memory.  It should arrive in 2 days, also.

About the only thing I haven't had to buy is a new power supply unit (PSU) and a new case.  I already have a good display, a Samsung 34" UltraWQHD 1440p screen (LS34J552WQNXZA).  There's the possibility that I'll have to buy a larger PSU but I'll do that only when I see that I'll need to do it.  Hopefully, I won't have to upgrade the PSU.  The current PSU I'm using is a Corsair CX750M, which may well be sufficient for the CPU and GPU I bought.  If I need to upgrade, I'll probably buy the PSU locally, as I bought the Corsair from Best Buy locally seven years ago.

I'll begin the build this coming weekend, which will give me a bit of time to backup important things to my NAS.

So, what I thought was going to be a simple $400 GPU upgrade will probably end up being a $1000+ upgrade of 5 essential (and expensive) parts. :/

At least I won't have to worry about this for another 7 years.  :)

Steam Hit by Major Security Breach, Many Accounts Hacked! -- Master Herald

http://masterherald.com/steam-hit-by-major-security-breach-many-accounts-hacked/23239/

The gist of it is, Steam was cracked, many Steam accounts were hacked, but Steam didn't notify it's users.  In my opinion, that's negligent...in a major way.  With today's problem with internet breaches, providers should be prompt and proactive in notifying their user base, as breaches tend to not only affect a person's service account, it can also affect finances and credit.  There's a lot of gray or overlapping areas where breaches are concerned.  If a game service provider is hacked and credit card data is tied to the account, purchases can be made internet-wide.  As well, home address information tied the the account can be used to open lines of credit against your name.

I really think that there should be laws that govern how businesses interact with their customers when breaches occur.  There should be no more waiting when there's a time criticality tied to most breaches.

Origin Account Hacked!

My Origin account got hacked today. Was out shopping and missed the "your password has been changed" e-mail from Origin. I saw it maybe an hour later, and immediately submitted a trouble ticket. They called me immediately (within a minute of creating the trouble ticket). Whoever made the change was able to guess the answers to my security questions (WTF).

They also changed the e-mail address associated with the account to "garryjhonson98@gmail.com". They changed the origin ID to "ENFIELD_Hare_Gr".

The EA agent reverted back to my original e-mail address and set up new security questions. He changed the Origin ID to something else. He also set up login verification (that wasn't active on my account) and tied it to my phone number so that any future password changes would be directed to my phone...if they don't have to code sent to my phone, they can't change anything on the account.

He also told me to check my friend list, as they tend to add themselves to the list after hacking accounts (so that they might be able to try again later).

I've no idea how they were able to know my login and guess my password, as well as the answers to my security questions. Luckily, no purchases were made, as I had a credit card linked to the account.

I'm sharing all this in case this person is jumping between people's friend lists.

UPDATE - 8/4/2015:  Noticed another hack attempt...Origin sent me a security code via text, meaning someone tried to access my account but won't be able unless they can retrieve the security code that was sent to me (via phone).

Logitech G700

I forgot to mention that I got a new mouse a few weeks ago.  The TactX was acting wonky (apparently, the mouse cable tends to wear over time).  I was a bit pissed, since I spent a good deal of money on that mouse.  It works very well, but I expected it to last much longer.  That was the first wired mouse I've owned in awhile, but this time I went back to the tried-and-true wireless mouse.

I bought a Logitech G700, a gaming mouse.  And it is badass.   It has a replaceable battery and can be charged while using it (via USB cable).  It has profiles and has adjustable on-the-fly sensitivity settings.  It has this tactile material where your thumb sits that offers nice feedback/grip.  It has a ton of buttons.  It is heavy, as well, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Loving it so far.

I explain more about it here.