PCs and Steam: Thread 01

[Brad]

You probably need to disable secure boot to get it to boot that usb

[fishbowlhead]

Checked that and it’s disabled, even tried selecting it as the main boot drive and disabling the ssd and still nothing. I mean the memcheck process does it all itself its not like I’m intervening and messing it up.

[MartyG]

I very much doubt it's an issue with Memtest86 image. I'd try a different USB stick and a different USB port (sometimes you have better success - usually the front ports are on a different controller to the rear ports which can make a difference).

You could try writing the memtest86-usb.img file to USB using Etcher instead of their included image writer.

Just a matter of eliminating what the issue is, mobo and CPU are unlikely to be the cause of instability (tho not impossible), so it's way more likely to be the memory or the NVME drive or a PSU that's giving dodgy noisy output.

[fishbowlhead]

Ill leave it all day downloading and updating see if it disconnects the ssd again then check the event viewer tonight when I finish. Will have another go at the memchecker with another thumb drive sok if that works.

[fishbowlhead]

Tried Memtest86 on 3 different mem sticks in all ports of the new system and it will not boot to it off the thumb drive at all. However no crashes at all today and the system has been on all day updating & downloading programs, so that's something at least.

[fishbowlhead]

Now been in standby since last post updating and whatnot and no crashes whatsoever. Very odd, i did have a boot loop after going into bios though to change some fan speeds, saved & exited then it wouldn’t boot to bios or w10, system reset cured that.

So i have no idea what caused the ssd disconnect, nothing in event log either.

[fuse]

Had heard the name and glossed over it before, but then read a few things that have resulted in Norco suddenly being right at the forefront of my thoughts. Edge's (7/10) review certainly piqued my interested, and then given how much I loved Kentucky Route 0, this PC Gamer article really got the ball rolling...

This stunning Deep South fable isn't the next Kentucky Route Zero—it’s the first Norco

Norco is a many-headed creature—a narrative hydra of place, personhood, nostalgia, and spirituality. But to start with the basics, it's a real Louisiana town named for the New Orleans Refining Company, a monumental piece of psychogeographical storytelling, and in March 2022, I'm ready to call it my game of the year.

... then there was the realisation that it was the same game that a band I loved (Thou) were working on the soundtrack for, which also showed up in today's Bandcamp "essential releases" post...

Given the title’s defining aspects—moody pixellated visuals, a deep-south setting, a dystopian, cryptic plot, strange, morbid moments abound—tapping NOLA’s gnarliest, most prolific, and most forward-thinking metal band for the expanded soundtrack was a no-brainer. We’re talking about an IP set in Thou’s home state, which is built around the same themes of despair and irreverence so prevalent to their music, and confronts players with radioactive wastelands and lurking fiends—if that collaboration doesn’t have the Louisiana crushers’ name scrawled all over it in gator blood, then I’ll gladly drink my weight in swamp goo. Even if you have no intentions of playing the game, it’s still a kickass slab of heavy music that showcases what Thou does best: not so much cranking out grooves and riffs as digging impossibly large sinkholes with guitars, bass, and drums, before leaping into their self-created chasms headfirst. Simply put, it’s the best soundtrack to a point-and-click game I’ve come across in years—or maybe ever.

Might be rubbish, but this has got me written all over it. Downloading now, praying that my dinosaur iMac can handle it.

[fishbowlhead]

Do the Ryzens run hot? Seems to be idling at 45-50c at 1% load the cpu. Case flow is good and cpu cooler is working just fine, also enough thermal past on the cpu to cover it all but not too much it comes out the sides.

[MartyG]

That doesn't sound quite right, mine doesn't run that hot at 80% load with a Handbrake encode all CPU. It's not ridiculously high, 40C isn't unusual, the CPU will throttle if the temps get high, potentially it could shutdown the system if it can't throttle enough.

What temps are you getting under load?

[fishbowlhead]

Well i just ran cinebench and at 100% load it topped out at 73c, so i may just be paranoid now i actually have access to the cpu temp vs my old system where i never bothered looking at it. After cinebench finished it went back down to 41c, so i don't think theres anything untoward going on at all.

[MartyG]

73C at full load sounds fine, it's not close to rated max. What are you using to show temps?

[fishbowlhead]

I'm just using the icue software, may not be totally accurate, anything else i can try just to confirm it?

[MartyG]

Ryzen Master or HWMonitor (this is the one in my screen grab). Idling at 41 and maxing at 73C I wouldn't worry, that sounds fine - if that was ramping up to 90-95C at load, then I'd worry.

For further reference, my Ryzen 9 3900X idles hotter (though they are known to run a bit hotter), so yours definitely isn't outside of normal.

[fishbowlhead]

Ran cinebench with HWMonitor and again 100% load topped out at 73c again then settled to 38-40c, staff have rad & heater on in the office as well so id say i was being paranoid there and its just fine.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/geforce-rtx-3090-ti-out-now/?=&linkId=100000117576182

RTX3090ti lands with a $2000 price tag and a thirst for 500w