Monday, 19 November 2012

Still down

Unfortunately my formerly excellent FSX flight simulation PC -also used for software development- suffered irreparable damage and nobody was able to pinpoint the problem.

Yesterday I spent over $540 (US Dollars) in acquiring a new motherboard (ASRock Z77 Extreme 4) and processor (Intel i7-3770) which I hope will resolve the issue and get me back to do what I enjoy the most! This should get me a PC with higher specs:


  • Faster CPU rated at 3.9 GHz (Turbo) compared to the nominal 2.67 GHz of the i7-920 CPU I had
  • Built-in HD 4000 Graphics capabilities with a max of 3 displays. Hopefully I can combine this with my nVidia GTX285 and get better performance or better multi-display performance. With my damaged setup I got a lot of flickering and distortions (terrain spikes) when attaching a 2nd monitor to the nVidia card.
  • USB 3 support though this should make no difference with my flight simulation USB devices
  • Lower power requirements and less heat dissipation requirements. The former i7-920 was rated at 130W whereas the i7-3770 is rated at around 30W if I remember correctly!
  • Premium capacitors in the motherboard
I think heat was a major problem as the nVidia card builds up a lot of heat plus the heat of the old CPU, all of that in that confined space (yes I have many fans in the case). To complicate the problem the PC is in a room that usually reaches 31 Celsius with a fan in the room! now imaging that PC working in such condition for at least 8 hours!!! no wonder it stopped working in the tropics after such strenous life!

Now I have to assemble it, let's hope everything goes well and that the PC works again without any problems for many more years!!! so far it had been struggling for 4 months, most of which it had been pretty much useless.

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