Upgrading CPU

[TheFu]

At this point I wish that the motherboard would die. This would give me the motivation to build a new system. Now what do I do with the two 10 + year old Lian LI cases? They are aluminum with a removable MB tray. The problem with them is the 80mm fans. Discarding them would be like abandoning an old sick dog.

all my cases are over 20 yrs old. Reuse. Buy $20 ones to sell older computers.

[guiverc]

I doubt I can provide much more, however I'll provide the following

The closest cpu I have to yours is
- dell [optiplex] 755 (c2d-e8300, 8gb, amd/ati radeon rv610/radeon hd2400 pro/xt)

and it's a system I don't mind using at all. In fact it's pretty much equivalent to another
- dell [optiplex] 780 (c2q-q9400, 8gb, amd/ati cedar radeon hd 5000/6000/7350/8350)

I needed to test a problematic box [vostro 430] so stole 4GB of RAM each out of those two boxes (as I knew those two boxes were reliable and they had the correct DDR3 RAM I needed) for testing; hey it would only be for days-weeks and I didn't expect the drop from 8GB to 4GB to make much difference - but boy was I wrong.

Both machines instead of being a joy to use with 8GB of RAM, became a chore to use, for the same tasks I then performed on them. Tweaking swap on the boxes restored some of the performance drop, but RAM matters. Both machines are great again, as they've got their RAM back (both at 8GB again).


FYI: In using the two systems, I don't actually notice a difference between the c2d-8300 & c2q-9400, in fact usually don't know or care which box I'm using (as they both share the same screens/mouse/keyboard), but what I notice and what you notice will be very dependent on how we use our machines & what we're doing.

Last year I moved my primary Debian Bullseye/sid from the 755 to the 780, not because of speed/cpu, but the 780 has larger disks; and it freed up the 755's disk so it could be use for full disk QA-testing installs which was the huge benefit of the move... Faster cpu may have entered my thinking, but all I remember now in the why I made the move was disk space. If there is a cpu speed difference, it's not significant in my experience. but again it'll depend how you use your box.

My 2c.

[daniell59]

I think I have only one case newer that 10 years old, of course Ive replaced motherboards and PSU fans and drives in all of them.

Do you think that a case that is limited to 80mm fans should be ruled out for modern builds?

[TheFu]

Do you think that a case that is limited to 80mm fans should be ruled out for modern builds?

Why? CPUs today use 50% less power than 10 yrs ago for 2x+ more performance. The only people I know with cooling issues have hot GPUs or 6 HDDs inside the case or a power-hungry CPU pulling 125+W. I have just 1 2010 CPU pulling 125W on the CPU. All the newer CPUs, I've specifically selected to use 65W or less.

My newest Ryzen 5 65W peak CPU has a $70 fanless GPU and an m.2 SSD. Other storage for it is in a NAS (just another Ubuntu Server system) on the network. Besides the PSU fan, it doesn't have any case fans. Cooling isn't an issue. The stock CPU cooler it came with quickly brings the temperature down when the system isn't busy. When it is busy, it gets to the max allowed temperature, 95 C, but most of the time, it is below 50 C.

[rsteinmetz70112]

Do you think that a case that is limited to 80mm fans should be ruled out for modern builds?

Only one of my current cases has had any cooling problem. Most of them are tower style but I have a some full size desktop cases, a few 2U rack cases which typically have at least 4 HDDs and a couple of shorter cases. They generally do not have case fans and use only the PSU to draw air through the case. The 2U rack cases do have multiple fans in them. The case I had problems with is a shorter mid-tower case so I added a case fan which solved the problem. I have an identical case I've never had problems with. Since I recently replaced the motherboard I haven't had any problems even without the case fan. I don't do gaming, lots of video nor do I overclock the CPUs so generally the load on the computers is fairly light.

[mastablasta]

what about USB ports? mine still has 2 USB2.0 ports at the front. case has one 80 mm fan i added and it pulls out any extra the heat nicely.

i was thinking about replacing only the motherboard, CPU (would need a Ryzen 5 or Core i5) and ram (as much as possible & i could afford - maybe 32 GB?!) and milk the GPU while it lasts. it has 3 HDD drives, 2 DVD drives (not that they are used much - i think one can only write&read CD and read DVD but not write them) and a floppy drive. i was thinking of replacing floppy drive maybe with a card reader or to add a SSD drive. but i am not sure card reared would be worth it. i do have USB card reader i got for few eur a while back from Aliexpress and is working just fine when i need it.

i do play games occasionally but mostly i like older ones. so for now the GT730 works well (and supports the VGA output to my 1280x1024 monitor) and when i upgrade it would be within this range or maybe something similar to GTX 1650 (could be an AMD equivalent), so i could try some of the newer games as well. power shouldn't be an issue. system has a descent 2 year old 500 W bronze PSU. i have old single core Athlon and it never overheated the box so far.

another option is to get a new box (maybe miniITX) and use this one as video server. maybe add some wireless controller for some old platform or racing games.

[daniell59]

I am continuing getting lockups when watching live Youtube videos, especially when opening other windows.
I said to myself. Let me try it with Windows 10 which unlike Ubuntu, it on a hard drive. Ubuntu is on an SSD. No matter what I do, I cannot get the computer to lockup. Why?

[daniell59]

How do I troubleshoot Ubuntu?

[TheFu]

How do I troubleshoot Ubuntu?

Start by looking at all the log files in /var/log/ for errors and warnings. If you google "ubuntu log files" some tips to make that easier should come up.

If the log files aren't saved between reboots, there is a setting that will keep them longer. It requires editing the journald.conf file. The file has self-documenting style and points to more detailed information. But I think they changed the defaults to keep logs between boots after a few months of not keeping any logs.

There are new-school and old-school methods to search the logs. I'm old-school, but think the new log system tools that came with systemd actually made searching and accessing specific logs 100x easier.

Always start with the log files. Always. Actually read them. Read the errors. Often, the error will provide a solution. Try that. Failing that, copy/paste the error with timestamps and hostnames removed into google and see what the world has to say about any specific error.

[daniell59]

The lockups are becoming more frequent. My latest log. I have no idea what this means.