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I have old Laptop RAM floating around... You might look around for used.
Someone probably has some shelved (welcome to 2022)!
FWIW, Once a machine hits 2yrs, I try to buy an off-lease cold spare.
My previous cold spare is sitting on the shelf. I am close to getting one.
I've been taken down HARD before. I fresh install is about 80hrs of my time.
[Supporting Software from 25+ years ago]. Moved to VMs, so it might be down to 40hrs.
Eventually, I guess my Dev machine(s) will be in the Cloud, and I will just remote into them.
Why do I picture an X-Windows Like World?
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You sound like my lost development brother 
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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LOL. No, just old enough to have watched HDDs fail. Lost a RAID because a drive failed while the previously failed drive was still repairing (learned not to use drives from the same batch!).
Had SSDs fail. And whole laptops/workstations die.
I was called in to help a client who had Mirrored his server drives. Using an obsolete controller, and NEVER backed up because he had MIRRORED drives. Well his controller took a dump, and BOTH drives were IDENTICALLY USELESS because the controller formatting them to be unrecognizable in a regular system.
I still remember the first time my machine FAILED and I had a spare. It took me longer to take the drives out and put in the backup machine, then to boot up and get back to work.
Glad to consider you a development brother!
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RAIDs - false sense of security.
Years ago (like 20) we had a very high end RAID in our production system. Many systems shipped to customers. One day, our engineering test unit went down with a bad controller board. Now, in addition to RAID drives and dual controllers, it had dual power supplies - I mean the thing was sold as no single point of failure.
Then one of the controllers died. And the tech replaced it, and we found out that the controllers weren't redundant. Apparently the RAID 5 they did depended on the specific controller.
Sales guy and the company were very upset when I cancelled their contract.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Reminds me of the old 10 inch backup tapes on the PDP/11s
Control Data Came out, and did their maintenance. When they were done, we could read OTHER tapes fine, but the ones we wrote for backups could not be read, because the tape head was out of alignment when the tapes were created. (They aligned it because it was having trouble reading OTHER tapes).
Being Young, we crossed our fingers. But the Operations Managers, barely 20... Changed procedures so that at least the first tape of each backup had to be mounted/confirmed on a DIFFERENT PDP/11, which meant that there were at least 2 tape drives that could read the tape. [FWIW, that process then discovered we hard Morons on the night shift backing up incorrectly. Thankfully he had the morning shift do this when we were all around, so we could find the issues. But backups were being made to the wrong days tapes. Crazy stuff]
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I'd go for it but maybe get more memory.
I have a 10 years old desktop that ended up with 20GB of RAM, a 500MB SSD for system plus 4TB for data drives. It runs like a champ and for dev work is fast enough.
Mircea
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: 'd go for it but maybe get more memory.
At the time I built it, my current desktop was good with 8 GB RAM. 16 pushed the price up more than I wanted.
Assuming I build now (which is likely) I'm going with 32 GB. While 16 is probably enough right now, 32 gives me room for future changes in Windows and other sw.
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TBH, given it's a desktop not a laptop, and you're clearly happy inside the case, I'd have thought it a no-brainer - check the RAM before even posting here. Open it up, swap the RAM cards and if it works, fine; probably one of the cards worked it's way out. If it's still at 4Gb you know its the RAM. If there's no readable memory it's the RAM and the motherboard! Nothing lost other than under 2 minutes.
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The subject does ask a question, and in my OP I asked, "Any suggestions on where to look for components? I build my own and haven't been pleased with what I've seen at the common vendors."
As mentioned previously, I planned to replace the unit last year. This thread garnered replies that covered a lot of points, which is helpful, and pushes me towards what I need to do anyway -- replace the unit.
I have a habit of keeping things running, sometimes long after I should replace. This PC is obviously one of those. 
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I had (notice past tense) a pc that was quite few years old.
Upgraded to ssd, more memory but it was rather slow and would get these hangs where ssd would go 100% for a minute.
I was reluctant to spend the money for a possible faster pc.
My son has a rather new gaming pc. It is very fast.
So I took my boot drive put it in his and booted.
The difference was more than night and day!
So I spent 800 or so for new parts (used pcpartpicker; he had an older graphics card (radeon r290?) so saved on that).
It has been the best thing I did.
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replace with new pc/laptop. expect to pay higher prices no builds. no repairs. no rebuilds. unless you are a masochist.
the alternative is to go back to stone tablets and caves.
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My $0.02: Like many, I went through the same exercise a few months back. My workstation is 8 years old. Went to eBay and bought a system identical to mine (5 cents on the dollar compared to purchase). Can use it for backup, parts, debugging, whatever. I put TrueNAS on it and am using it for backup storage for the time being.
To get around the video card shortage, I even went to eBay and then to Dell's outlet store but didn't like the prices. I will wait another year and look again.
If your system is doing what you need and you don't really have to have shiny new things, $46 for memory seems pretty small compared to a system purchase.
Be careful with the online suppliers these days, the dummy bought a 1TB SSD and, without looking, put it in the system. Turns out that it was only 500GB. Someone must have pulled a scam return and the supplier (one of the most popular) didn't look at it, just put it on the shelf. Dumb me, but they won't screw me again.
>64
Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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I swapped the sticks. The good news is I have 4 GB RAM so the MB is ok. The bad news is I have 4 GB RAM so the second stick is dead.
Thanks for all the input -- throwing money into this unit is a waste. I've gotten 8 good years from it, so I have no complaints in that regard.
The feedback on video cards is spot-on -- supplies are limited and the quality I want is a bit stiff priced. However, my current video is 3 yo and apparently working fine, so I have no immediate need to replace it.
I don't like the cases I've reviewed -- most have very limited USB connectors on the front. I did learn one new thing -- it appears USB 3.2 and 4 use USB-C connectors only, which explain why some cases have one USB-A and one USB-C on the front, while others have only a single USB-C. If what I read is correct, all other USB connectors that currently exist will be phased out as USB 1, 2, and 3.0/1 die off.
Since I don't have any USB 3.2 devices, my current case (4x USB 2 and 1x USB 3 connectors on the front) is sufficient. I need to purchase a new CPU, MB, RAM, and SSD.
At some point in the future I'll replace the video card, and eventually the case.
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If you are going to replace I can recommend importing an AMD Ryzen 4750G from South Korea. This CPU includes a good built in GPU, as GPUs are hard to come by right now. I found some at this eBay store https://www.ebay.com/str/beyondtheworld
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I'm researching to determine if buying a CPU with a built-in GPU will work. I play Skyrim and it requires a good GPU.
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Personally I buy most of my PC components from Amazon. Their prices are pretty much what you find everywhere else and if you have Prime they are often a little cheaper when you factor in p&p. Their great advantage is that if any component goes wrong you generally have a no-questions-asked guarantee and quick turnaround. Yesterday I mistakenly tried to return a laptop battery under 12 months guarantee a year too late (Damn you COVID, I've lost a year!) - their agent said he would try it anyway and it went through!
The OP hasn't said what his MB, CPU are and if his OS HDD is mechanical or SSD. I recently upgraded the Memsahib's i3 to an i7 2700K with a processor found on ebay for 70€ and the difference is quite notable.
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
modified 19-Jan-22 10:10am.
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My current CPU is an AMD FX-4130 ... yeah, it's that old, but it handles all my needs well. I'm planning to stick with AMD, as I've had great success with them since the late 90's.
I was considering the 5600X, but am also considering a 5700G, as the price difference is $30 and the onboard graphics may solve the GPU problem. The difficulty is that I need graphics sufficient to support Skyrim and The Witcher, and built-in GPU may not do it. My current GPU card works, and I can continue to use it until supplies open up.
I have 3 SSDs in the box: OS, files, and hot-backup. When I want a quick backup of things, I copy to the 3rd SSD and may later move to offline storage. I have a stack of WD Black HD that I use with an external caddy for more permanent backups, along with an WE external HD and a couple of portable HD. I'm also a dinosaur who still burns DVDs ... which are ransomware proof once finalized.
Overall, I'm balancing cost with stability -- I'm looking to spend the least I can while ensuring that I have a system that will work for at least 5 years. A cutting edge CPU is too expensive, while old tech is superseded too quickly.
Research, research, research ...
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BryanFazekas wrote: My current CPU is an AMD FX-4130 ... yeah, it's that old, but it handles all my needs well
Horses for courses! That cpu has a cpumark of 2712 and you are looking at cpus that are 7 to 8 times faster. You could maybe save quite a bit by aiming lower for the cpu with a later upgrade in mind. You would still feel a significant performance boost aided by DDR4 ram etc.
Have a look at this "bang for buck" chart [^]and see if you can find a sweet spot. Then look at MBs and find one that should be future proof for cpu upgrade.
Good luck with your project!
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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I like to use https://pcpartpicker.com/[^]
They will show who has the lowest price. I have ordered from most of the recommended sources like Amazon, Walmart, New Egg, etc.
I really like the compatibility feature. Helped me avoid a few mistakes.
Also, it's a bad few years to build a new PC. I did it though and don't regret it. The better machine was worth a few extra hundred bucks. Don't look back!
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If you have a Microcenter close by, that's my go-to place for components. I like just going in and wandering around. Shelves on shelves of components. Sometimes I get new ideas for things I didn't even know existed.
You said your GPU is only 3 years old. You didn't say what it was but you're probably not going to get anything better for cheap, these days. If you use the on-board GPU on the CPU, you'll be sharing some of your memory with the GPU, so you'll probably need more memory.
You ought to consider whether you want a CPU that's compatible with Windows 11. If you're going to keep this machine for a while, you may be wanting to upgrade.
modified 19-Jan-22 14:06pm.
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I had not heard of Microcenter, but none is any where near me.
My old GPU is a GeForce NTX 1080 ti, which was $350 USD four years ago (it's older than I thought), and now retails for $500. It's working well enough for me now, so I'm sticking with it. At some point I'll replace it, when the price is right, or when this one craps out.
The CPU I ordered (Ryzen 5600X) is supported by Win11. I'll upgrade at some point, but am in no hurry to do so. Officially Win10 support ends in a bit over 3.5 years, but we'll see how that goes. MS pushed hard to get everyone off 7 and 8, and onto 10. Raising the HW bar for 11 has me wondering if MS will keep that schedule, or if they'll knuckle under to corporate IT dept that are not meeting that schedule.
That said, it's not a good idea for anyone in the Windows world to buy a CPU that is not supported by Win11.
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If that GPU works for your games now, it will work with the new rig. Sounds like you’ve got plenty of experience building your own computers. Make sure the new mobo has a slot that will accept your GPU, but I expect you’ve already thought of that.
One more note, if you get a mobo that has an M.2 slot that supports PCIe x4, it would be good to get a compatible M.2 SSD. You can get a 500Gb Samsung 970 EVO drive for a ridiculously low $70 on Amazon. That drive, in a compatible slot, is unbelievably fast. Like 6x faster than a SATA drive. I’ve put nothing but M.2 PCIe drives in all my builds for the past few years.
You’ll need a Windows license too. I’ve been buying Win10 Pro OEM licenses (actually, all I buy is the activation code) from various people on eBay for around $30-$40. So far, I haven’t gotten burned on one.
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I've been building my own PCs for 25 years. That doesn't mean I'm an expert, as I don't do it all that often, and it gets harder over time as their are SOOO many new technologies and choices! So I research things and learn, and have the experience to figure things out. Plus threads like this help a lot.
The new MOBO covers everything I need. I went through the specs of 2+ dozen boards before deciding. I've been looking at this, off-n-on, since last summer.
Yow! The price on that M2 is great! However, I'm considering getting the 1 TB for $115 USD, as in the long term a larger drive is more useful. Gotta talk to the budget director (AKA wife) about this.
Windows licensing is not an issue, as a have a multi-activation key through Windows Dev Essentials. Once a key is claimed, it's yours. I just checked the key for Win10 also works for Win11
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Disk benchmarks on SATA-connected SSDs usually top out in the 550MB/s range. Magnetic spinners top out around 200MB/s (sequential read/write, they are terrible at random operations). M.2 PCIe SSDs top out around 3600MB/s. The difference in response for disk-intensive applications is very noticeable. If you still have spinners, it's likely they are the main bottleneck for overall performance, especially with the new MOBO, CPU and memory.
I've been replacing spinning hard drives with SSDs in laptops for friends and family for several years. The difference in performance is noticeable, even if the replacement is just SATA. My "budget director" is still using a 10-year-old laptop that I swapped disks on and is happy with it (went from a 5400RPM spinner to a SATA SSD). Cost less that $70 to make it almost like a new laptop.
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That happen to my Dell T3600 Workstation after about 7 years. I have 32 gigs of Ram and 16 disappeared.
It turned out to be the board and not the RAM. I was bummed. But RAM is pretty tough, never really had a RAM stick go bad on me. Mostly just incompatible RAM not working right because I bought it from Frys. But that was last century.
Found a replacement board on EBay for $50. Now all 32 Gigs work. But I had to software license everything again, and that finally got me in trouble with the BSA about a month later. I'm still using this rig, been 10 years now I think. Took me a few of months to settle with the BSA.
My new Rig that I ordered from Dell Nov 15, 2021 shows up today. Bought a new Dell 5820 with a 10 core Xeon and RX A400 card. NVMe boot drive. Just bought a 2nd Flex Chassis for M.2 and another SSD SATA drive for long storage, plus new Microsoft/Adobe software license keys. It's the most I ever paid for a computer. Also bought a new EOS R6 Camera and RF 24-70 lens for my product photos and new 4K videos to advertise with.
The case for replace is to beat inflation, hindered by supply chain shortages. Add on boosted productivity and extra power to pursue more complex stuff like AI, or mess with crypto currencies.
The case for repair, well not much of a case, except for perhaps saving money, but maybe open a can of works with software licensing if you have to replace the board. Having old slow ports like old USB.
Up to you really. For me it's the year to up my game with modern hardware to match or exceed my skill level. So far all the new stuff I have purchased over the last 2 years has paid off huge for me with big ROI! If you see the potential go for it and buy new stuff.
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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