A Bad Feeling...

[imported_inspire]

So most of you guys know that I've been having some pretty rotten luck with my new build - well, maybe luck's not the right word; 'shafted' is probably closer to the truth. But, hey, it runs, so . Anyway, I finally found a review on the M2N-E over at xbit (thanks, peroni!) and it was so very disgusting to see more people having problems. I mention all this just so know to grab your can of salt for what I'm about to say...

[rant]
So, we've got chipsets that drop packets, processors that run insanely hot in contrast to specs, patch drivers for our CPUs / GPUs, mainstream memory that won't run on a $100 mobo and mobos that need a couple of BIOS flashes out-of-the-box and still won't run completely stable. Compatiblity & functionality problems abound, and I'm left wondering 'well, hot-damn, why is everybody so revved about the next gen in computing when we can't even get the current gen stable?' I mean, personally, and I just may be an oddball, or a strange duck, but, I'd rather see companies spend more $$$ actually making sure their products works and less on making more new crap that runs like crap.

What do you guys think? Maybe my next compy should be an Apple...
[/rant]

 

[slatr]

I don't know what issues you had, but I enjoy the bleeding edge.

That is part of the fun in my opinion.

Maybe I am lucky, but I got what I wanted with my new DS3 board and 6400 chip.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: inspire
What do you guys think? Maybe my next compy should be an Apple... [/rant]

I think you were doing OK on your rant, until that last statement.

 

[jjmIII]

I think your crazy. All my computers run fine.

Crazy = Apple....so you may be on the right track there .

 

[jose]

No & Yes, get the apple.

 

[Avalon]

Give it a bit more time and most of those kinks with the new boards should be worked out.

 

[imported_inspire]

Originally posted by: Avalon
Give it a bit more time and most of those kinks with the new boards should be worked out.

I hope you're right. The Apple is something I'd rather not do . I think I'd be able to enjoy the bleeding edge more if I wasn't handicapped by the hardware bugs. I know that a lot of this stuff can potentially be fixed later on, but ffs - can't we get stability out of the box? Or is that too much to ask nowadays?

 

[Brunnis]

I kind of agree. My main gripe is with current motherboards. They all seem to have problems, ranging from mildly irritating to disastrous. It's also irritating that power consumption of current graphics cards is sky rocketing. 100-150W is not what I'd call reasonable. Luckily, there are lower power cards, but performance per watt doesn't seem to increase particularly fast in the low to mid range.

Finally, I'm also a little pissed on memory manufacturers. I've gotten more bad memory sticks in the past few years than what is acceptable. Looking around, it seems to be a pretty widespread problem. The less educated blame their instabilities (crashes, BSODs, reboots, etc.) on Windows when it's probably largely due to bad memory.

 

[MrWizzard]

AHHHH global warming RUN FOR THE HILLS!

 

[Brunnis]

Originally posted by: MrWizzard
AHHHH global warming RUN FOR THE HILLS!

Not really, but having had an overclocked computer constantly spewing out a few hundred watts, I realised a few things:

- It is hard and expensive to make such a computer reasonably quiet
- The machine heats the room to a surprisingly large degree, which for me is unwanted most of the time

But, yeah, wasting our precious energy is a valid argument too. For example, just think about the extreme amount of power consumed by all the Prescotts Intel produced... There is a disturbing amount of energy consumed because of lazy designers, bad designs and extreme clock frequencies (just for the sake of edging out the competition).

 

[mcmikemc]

Originally posted by: Brunnis

Originally posted by: MrWizzard
AHHHH global warming RUN FOR THE HILLS!

Not really, but having had an overclocked computer constantly spewing out a few hundred watts, I realised a few things:

- It is hard and expensive to make such a computer reasonably quiet
- The machine heats the room to a surprisingly large degree, which for me is unwanted most of the time

But, yeah, wasting our precious energy is a valid argument too. For example, just think about the extreme amount of power consumed by all the Prescotts Intel produced... There is a disturbing amount of energy consumed because of lazy designers, bad designs and extreme clock frequencies (just for the sake of edging out the competition).

Which is why I installed an AC unit in my computer room. Now my PC room is always 72 F.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: inspire

Originally posted by: Avalon
Give it a bit more time and most of those kinks with the new boards should be worked out.

I hope you're right. The Apple is something I'd rather not do . I think I'd be able to enjoy the bleeding edge more if I wasn't handicapped by the hardware bugs. I know that a lot of this stuff can potentially be fixed later on, but ffs - can't we get stability out of the box? Or is that too much to ask nowadays?

Apple's been having its share of hardware bugs recently too...

 

[Megatomic]

inspire, it's hard to take your complaints about instability seriously when I see in your sig that your system is highly overclocked.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
inspire, it's hard to take your complaints about instability seriously when I see in your sig that your system is highly overclocked.

Bingo.

"Oh damn my rig is heating up my room!"

Well duh. Try running stock volts. Even undervolting a tad. Watch heat output drop rapidly...

 

[Mucker]

/tongue in cheek: http://www.compfused.com/directlink/3837/

 

[lopri]

Personally I don't prefer Apple computers, but they're becoming extremely competitive in lightning speed. I went to a CompUSA the other day and they were selling Mac Pro with dual dual-core Woodcrest @2.67GHz, for $2,500. I didn't check the rest of specs (probably bare minimum of everything, but FB-DIMMs are still expensive!) but it was still impressive. E6700 is $600. The thing had 2 x E6700 (1333FSB version, or WoodCrest)! I don't know how much a 2.67GHz Xeon is but it should at least be the same or more expensive than E6700? So that's over $1,200 right there. And I believe an WoodCrest board would cost you minimum of $400? So that makes up $1600. The rest of junk is $900. With their cheesy design but superb build quality, and more than anything the ability to run Windows natively, the Mac has never been this attractive to PC crowd.

 

[imported_inspire]

@Megatomic -It's respectable for a 3800+ X2 on air, but it's nothing to write home about. I never said that all my problems came up once I overclocked. Stock gave me some pretty major problems. In fact, the only problems I have that are really attributable to my overlcock is the lack of soft reboots (which starts once I raise my HTT above 220 MHz - a 10% OC) and the brick wall I run into with my memory voltage (board max is 1.95v). And the last one is a problem for lots of folks at stock if they happen to be unfortunate enough to be suckered into buying my mobo and a 2.1v DDR2 DIMM (which isn't that uncommon). For an unabridged version, go check out the M2N-E sticky in the mobos forum.

@Pabster - My load temps don't break 50c (idles around 27 - 34c), and my Scythe Mine` is dang near silent. I could probably hit this clock speed at less volts, but I needed a break from fiddling with it. I probably should try to dial it back some, though.

No, I know better than to bitch about instability caused by a 35% overclock - but, instability at stock? Or even a 10% OC on a chip that'll hit 35-40% on air? I've spent the last month browsing troubleshooting forums and I've come across a lot of folks having a lot of trouble - again, out-of-the-box, with what are supposed to 'quality' brand components - it just seemed to be widespread, and I wanted to know if I'm just seeing a bad sample, or if the quality and compatibility of components has truly dropped off.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: lopri
Personally I don't prefer Apple computers, but they're becoming extremely competitive in lightning speed. I went to a CompUSA the other day and they were selling Mac Pro with dual dual-core Woodcrest @2.67GHz, for $2,500. I didn't check the rest of specs (probably bare minimum of everything, but FB-DIMMs are still expensive!) but it was still impressive. E6700 is $600. The thing had 2 x E6700 (1333FSB version, or WoodCrest)! I don't know how much a 2.67GHz Xeon is but it should at least be the same or more expensive than E6700? So that's over $1,200 right there. And I believe an WoodCrest board would cost you minimum of $400? So that makes up $1600. The rest of junk is $900. With their cheesy design but superb build quality, and more than anything the ability to run Windows natively, the Mac has never been this attractive to PC crowd.

The ability to seamlessly (one key) switch between Mac OS X and Windows is very nice.

 

[Pugnate]

Are we increasing computing power so fast that we're compromising stability and functionality?

Answer: No.