That didn't last long

So I think I've talked a bit about how I wish I could game more.  More often than not I go out and buy a new computer game, play it for a few days (maybe a week or so), and then drop it never to play it again.  I don't even play Team Fortress 2 all that much any more.

But even knowing that, I still go out and look for new games to play.  Sometimes I have a few hours to kill, sometimes I have read about or seen a new games.  Sometimes I just get an itch and get the newest biggest thing to hit the market.

So back in March of this year I bought Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands game.  My brother, my cousin, and I all played through Tom Clancy's the Division for awhile and enjoyed ourselves so this seemed like a no brainer.  I played it on and off for a few months and then maybe around June it started to have a problem.  I would be playing it for awhile (sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few hours) and it would just lock up.  The screen would go black and the computer would completely lock up.  I could still hear the game through the speakers, but it was just the background sounds.  Even if this happened during a fire fight, I couldn't hear myself or the enemies.  So... an unusual type of crash.


The first few times this happened, I just assumed it was the game.  I bought it on day one and maybe it hadn't updated.  I finally uninstalled it and reinstalled it.  No dice, same crashes.  I manually updated it.  Nothing, same crashes.  I pulled the graphics setting down far lower than I needed.  No help, same crashes.  Finally after a couple weeks I stopped playing the game and as it was the only place the crashes occurred, I just let it go.

We come to a couple weeks ago and I notice my brother playing the game online.  As it's much more fun to play it together I went ahead and started it up and joined his game.  We must have played maybe 30 minutes and it crashed.  It was now beyond frustrating as my unexpected 'exit' from the game also screwed up my brother's experience.  I restarted the computer, tried to join again, and I swear it crashed as soon as I was in (again, screwing my brother's experience).  He didn't have to tell me... until this problem was fixed he didn't want me joining any of his games.  I was now getting worried that it may be a deeper problem than just the game.  This game after all was one of the most intensive graphics games I had and it COULD have burned out or damaged the video card in a way that only it could repeat it.  It's doubtful it was any other hardware component as it would only happen during the game.  If it was the processor or RAM it would be a problem coming up in the OS or at the very least Photoshop (my most intensive user of RAM).  Then again, it could also be a problem inside the game's overlaying software (both Steam and Ubisoft's UPlay were required to run while this game was playing).

To figure it all out I went ahead and committed to it.  I uninstalled all of my games plus Steam plus Uplay.  I then reinstalled Steam, UPlay and just Wildlands.  When it was all ready I asked my brother if I could test it with him (it seemed to be crashing regularly with him) and he agreed.  I didn't even get INTO the game this time.  Crash City.

Fuck it.

I kissed the rest of that day goodbye, backed up everything on my boot drive that needed it (mainly my desktop files), and readied myself to reinstall Windows 10.  Then I realized I was in for a little more work than I wanted.  My path to Windows 10 involved installing Windows 8, upgrading it to Windows 8.1, then using the 'free' upgrade to Windows 10.  Not only was this very time consuming, not only was this problematic as Windows 8 was on a DVD and I no longer HAVE a DVD drive, it was neigh impossible as Microsoft no longer offers the free upgrade to Windows 10.  Or at least that's what I've heard.  I just decided to skip all the jumping of hoops and purchased a downloadable version of Windows 10 that I could install via a USB stick.

Once I had that ready (at almost 9 PM), I formatted my SSD and started the install process.  And that's the point where I also realized the problem wasn't with the OS.  It crashed.  It crashed a lot.  It not only crashed, but once Windows 10 was finally installed, the sound stopped working all together.  I got that working but it didn't recoginze my front headset jack.  Then it did.  Then it didn't.  Then it did, but not the microphone.  Then it screwed up the install of Photoshop.

Something hardware had gone bad.  I was leaning toward either the video card or the RAM but it could just as easily been the motherboard or the processor.  I didn't believe it was the hard drive, nor did I think it was the power supply.  But really... that's about the whole damned computer.  I thought about it for that night and the next evening bought new components.  I bought a new motherboard, a new processor, new RAM, a new video card and even a new case (that was just for me as I doubted the case was the problem).

It really sucked though as I did some preliminary research to see what was worth upgrading and how much of a speed boost I'd get.    As you may recall, I bought a new computer back in November of 2014.  At the time I bought fairly high end components so there really wasn't a need to upgrade them yet.  But at the same time you don't exactly save a bunch of money by buying older out of date components.  So I'm not really getting any better speed out of my system even though just about everything is new.

For comparison's sake, here's what my old system looked like in late 2014:

Motherboard:  ASRock Z97 Extreme6 LGA 1150 Intel Z97
CPU:  Intel Core i5 4690K
RAM:  16 GB DDR3 1600
Case:  Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl
Solid State Drive:  Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB
Video Card:  EVGA GeForce GTX 970 Superclocked 4GB
Power Supply:  SeaSonic 650W 80 Plus Gold
Hard Drives:  500GB Western Digital ATA 'Caviar Blue' 7200rpm
                       750GB Western Digital ATA 'Caviar Black'  7200rpm
Monitor:  Samsung 24" SyncMaster 2433BW
Speakers:  Bose Companion 2 Series I
Mouse:  Microsoft Sidwinder X5
Keyboard:  Logitech G710 Plus
Headset:  Razer Tiamat 2.2

Between then and now I had upgraded the Monitor, keyboard and mouse.  Here's how my system looks today followed by how I selected the new components (* = carried over components, ** = Carried over but new since 2014):

Motherboard:  Asus ROG Strix Z270G Micro ATX
CPU:  Intel Core i5 7600K
RAM:  16 GB DDR4 2400 HyperX Predator
Case:  Fractal Design Define C
*Solid State Drive:  Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB
Video Card:  EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 Superclocked 2 8GB GDDR5
*Power Supply:  SeaSonic 650W 80 Plus Gold
*Hard Drives:  500GB Western Digital ATA 'Caviar Blue' 7200rpm
                       750GB Western Digital ATA 'Caviar Black'  7200rpm
**Monitor:  ACER 34" Curved 21:9 3440 x 1440 XR341CK
*Speakers:  Bose Companion 2 Series I
**Mouse:  Razer Mamba Tournament Edition
**Keyboard:  Logitech G810 Orion Spectrum RGB mechanical gaming keyboard
*Headset:  Razer Tiamat 2.2

The New compoents.

I started by picking out my processor.  I knew the new AMD Ryzen chips were out but frankly I didn't know enough about them to give them honest consideration.  I knew they were better than equivalent Intel chips in some ways and worse in some other ways.  That was good enough to me as I just prefer Intel.  I stayed with the Core i5 line and stayed with the overclockable 'K' edition.  Last time I got the overclocked edition in the mindset that it would be more stable when NOT overclocked.  Yeah... it only lasted 3 years, so screw that.  I'm overclocking it this time (more on that later).

With the processor picked, I now had to put it into a motherboard.  Again, with the idea of actually overclocking it I wanted to get something ready for that.  I also wanted to go with a micro ATX as I've never really used the extra space a regular ATX gives me.  In all honesty I wanted to go with a mini ITX, but if I was going to overclock I needed space for water cooling and moving air around.  Micro ATX would give me both the space for air and the next step down in size.  Once you go with the overclocking chipset from Intel (Z270) and go with micro ATX, you really narrow your choices down.  I think at newegg they had 4 choices.  The Asus ROG (ROG stands for Republic of Gamers) Strix Z270G was the best one available hands down.  It not only included the ability to overclock manually in the BIOS (its actually the UEFI now but I'll always think of it as the BIOS) but also includes desktop software to make overclocking VERY easy.

That motherboard gave me all manner of options when it comes to RAM.  The Z270 chipset fully supports DDR4 memory so I went with that, and it also includes overclocked memory speeds up to 4000.  The price jump to go from the more standard 2400 to even 2666 was pretty extreme and I couldn't see anywhere that said it was worth it outside of direct HUGE video production.  I don't produce videos so that seemed like at least one way to save a bit of cash.  A solid DDR4 2400MHz RAM set was the HyperX Predator Line and while it has some 'style' to it, it's not RGB and I really don't want to be one of those RGB fanboys so it was fine by me.

With a mini ATX motherboard I could also move to a smaller case.  There are smaller ones than the Fractal Design Define C, but I really do love the design language Fractal uses and it's ease of use is rated top notch.  It's like the baby version of what I had before so that seemed like an easy choice.  Oh and while it's available with a window on one side.... fuck that.  Yes, the motharboard has some lights on it and yes the video card has some lights, but I'm making a computer not art.  Plus the window cuts down on noise reduction and I'd like my system whisper quiet.

Speaking of quiet... I knew that I could probably get a good CPU air cooler and be fine but All In One (AIO) CPU water coolers have been out long enough now for me to trust them and they give you a little better cooling for just a little more cash.  So where I had a Cooler Master Hyper 212 cooler before, I went with a Corsair Liquid CPU Cooler H60.

Finally, the Video Card.  I thought that the 970 I had before was the perfect compromise between performance and price.  Sure, I could go with the 1080 or 1080Ti  or even a GTX Titan card, but the price rises precipitately fast once you go above the 1070 line.  I don't twitch game and my monitor will only support up to 75Hz so I didn't see any need to spend hundreds of more dollars over the 1070.  That being said, I do want as much performance out of that chipset as I can get while still keeping it relatively quiet.  I ASSUMED that a water cooled card would be best but honestly, those are a LOT more expensive without a corresponding hike in performance.   EVGA has been good to me so I stayed with them and I went with their Superclocked 2 version.  The '2' just indicates it's their new fan technology that allows each fan to run independently of each other (making it even quieter).

It was fun putting it all together.  My only complaint would be the combination of my power supply and case.  Yes, it fits just fine but it's not a modular power supply which means ALL of the internal power cables are attached.  In a regular mid sized tower that's fine.  But a micro ATX?  Yeah... it's a tight fit for all those extra cables.  Everything installed fine and now two weeks after getting it set up I am satsified that neither the Hard Drives nor the power supply were to blame as my 'new' system is running along perfectly fine.  I have even overclocked it a couple times.  The first go was in the BIOS and I went from the stock 3.8Ghz to 4.0Ghz thorugh a simple clock modifier.  But the more I read about overclocking, the more I realized I was diving into a very deep pool that needed at least a bit more expertise than I had (and more than I was willing to learn about).  So I started up Asus's Dual Intelligent Processors 5 software and found out just how easy overclocking can be.

Basically on this software there's a big 'GO' button.  You let it do it's thing for awhile (it took about 40 minutes on my system) and it will overclock, reboot, then stress test the processor.  It monitors the stability and the temperature and if it's stable it then does it again.  And again.  And again. It keeps going until it can't keep the processor cool or until it's no longer stable.  Using that software and system I am now running my processor at 4.7Ghz fully stable.  I bet if I really wanted to push it, I could manually top that up to 4.8 or even 5.0Ghz... but honesty I probably won't even notice the difference between the 3.8 and the 4.7 I have now. I'm just happy that I'm getting that extra speed in games as it will 'future proof' the system for a bit longer.

I can't say I'm happy with the upgrade only because I didn't feel it was necessary.  If it wasn't crashing before, I wouldn't have been wanting to do this.  But that being said, I think I made a good purchase overall.  It was easy to put together, its fast as all get out, and should easily last me another 3 years.  As with any upgrade there's always the 'I should have waited' argument.  This time it's a little more painful.  AMD's Ryzen chips ARE better than their equivalent Intel chips.  Intel's only saving grace is that most software is written to take advantage of intel specific technologies.  As the programs and games come out and are written to take advantage of Ryzen's technologies it will be even faster.  Plus Intel has already announced their next series of chips and they're taking it to AMD... their equivalent chips will now be significantly faster with more cores and more threads.  Just a few months from now I could spend the same amount of money and get an even better setup.