Mr. Fox

Here's the latest from 5FDP.

Nice! I need an unlocked vBIOS for my Quadro P5000 16GB GPU that would make it functionally the same as a 1080 (same chip, but not clock and TGP crippled like the Quadro).

I have a P5000 16GB GPU in my Precision 17. Do you know if there is an unlocked vBIOS available for that?

Thanks for the suggestion. I just checked it out. All of the pins look good using a powerful magnifying glass. Also everything really clean. No fuzz, dust or thermal paste on anything. I put everything back together, not overly tight on the CPU frame or water block and still have the same issue... code 55 and the RAM LED stays lit until I remove the DIMM from slot #2. It was certainly worth investigating. I can tell MSI that I already checked that if they ask. Considering the totally random odd behavior I have experienced with this board, this may have been the root cause of it, including the memory getting the SPD corrupted during the firmware flash. What triggered the misbehavior was removing and replacing RAM modules, so that is probably not a coincidence if something is wrong with that slot. A few weeks ago I had this code 55 problem for a few minutes without making any changes, but the system automatically reset and cleared NVRAM all by itself, then it automatically started working again.

I will try that and see if anything changes. I had not disturbed anything with the CPU, but that might not mean anything necessarily.

Well, I guess I am in for some fun now with MSI. DIMM #2 slot seems to have crapped out on my Unify-X. It can't boot with RAM in that slot, only DIMM #1 slot works. I have a gut feeling that this also somehow relates to the SPD corruption that happened when I flashed BIOS A60 over a month ago. MSI just blew me off and said that can't happen and told me to RMA the memory. I hope they don't give me a bunch of crap like they did Brother @johnkssswhen he had his MSI RMA fiasco. I have carefully examined the slot in bright light with a 10x magnifying glass and can't see anything physically wrong with it. There is no debris, nothing broken and no contact pins out of place. I went ahead and cleaned the slot with a lint-free alcohol prep pad and I tested other memory modules. It definitely seems to be a fault with the DIMM #2 slot as far as I can tell. This just started this evening. Corsair sent me some DDR5 for a product review. I ran some tests on it... quite a few actually. I then tweaked some BIOS settings for the RAM, rebooted and it instantly stopped working with Q-code 55 (memory not installed) with that slot occupied. I swapped out the memory for my original sticks and same thing. Any of the 4 memory modules will boot in DIMM #1 slot, but as soon as I populate DIMM #2 slot the code 55 returns.

Brother @Papusan

Maybe his viewers got fed up with his irrational nonsense and gave him a bunch of crap for being an idiot. I didn't get to see it, but requested as save on the Wayback Machine. It might take a few days before it is available, but here is the URL for when it becomes viewable. https://web.archive.org/web/20220818114407/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFY54yUvh_g

Congrats. You will be the owner of a piece of history. The last true example of effort to demonstrate something that resembles excellence in an industry that now offers exclusively garbage for purchase in a mobile computing option.

Yes, it is pretty sad how limited laptops are. Wraith has 9 SSDs (5 NVMe, 1 M.2 SATA, 3 SATA SSD) and one 4TB HDD. - Windows 7, Windows 10 LTSC 2019, Windows 10 LTSC 2021, Windows 11 each on a dedicated NVMe, Linux on a SATA SSD and a 2TB NVMe for games installs. Banshee has 7 SSDs (4 NVMe, 1 M.2 SATA, 2 SATA SSD) and one 2TB HDD. - Windows 7, Windows 10 LTSC 2019, LTSC 2021, Windows 11 each on a dedicated NVMe, Linux on a SATA SSD Half-Breed has 2 1TB NVMe and a 2TB SATA SSD. - Windows 10 Pro 21H2 and Windows 10 LTSC 2019 on one NVme (512GB each OS), Windows 11 and Linux on the other NVMe (512GB each OS) and 2TB SATA SSD for data and game installs.

The 10th Gen is still available. The 11th Gen die frame sold yesterday on eBay.

There are random good deals to be had on eBay, but a lot of it is overpriced merchandise. Not just tech items, but many things on eBay are overpriced. The things that are listed at extremely good prices (too good to be true prices) are often scams. An indicator is someone with little or no tenure in their eBay membership and little or no feedback. That said, with respect to the PC tech stuff, I suspect some people are just trying to mitigate their financial loss as best they can.

I use 512GB SSDs for my OSes and 1TB or 2TB SSDs for everything else (data, games, etc.). All of my Steam, Origin, GOG, and Epic clients and games are installed on drives that are separate from the OS drive.

Yeah, you can get 2.5 inch SATA 2TB SSDs from Silicon Power, TeamGroup and Leven for less than $120 USD now, which is more that adequate for data and game drives as long as you have drive bays for it. Heck, unless I run a drive benchmark, I literally cannot tell any difference between SATA SSD and NVMe. I prefer M.2 form factor (SATA or PCIe) just because of how little space it occupies and doesn't require data or power cables in most applications. Convenience aside, I don't really care one way or the other.

I'd love to have a couple (or more) as soon as the price is equal-to or less-than four 1TB SSDs. It's nice to finally see 1TB PCIe and SATA M.2 drives in the $65~$70 USD price range. That's about where the price should be, but it certainly took a while. The price per terabyte should actually decrease as the total drive capacity increases, but right now it seems to be working in reverse on the SSDs larger than 1TB capacity.

New Linux install on my Precision 17 7720.

Definitely improved performance and thermals doing that stupid Plundervolt exploit protection removal. That never should have really been treated like a priority since it requires direct physical access to the hardware. But, I digress, since the tech industry as a whole is run by a self-anointed group of elite retards. Here is a before/after snapshot of the improvement. https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/28218183/fs/28223388# Before After

Really is kind of an abortion. It is a space hog and looks stupid. It definitely reminded me of a colostomy bag and it still does. That, or a fibroid neck tumor. And, it is totally counter-intuitive to tether a notebook to a desktop and use weird contraptions to make it slightly better when you can just put a desktop on a desktop and have everything turn out exactly as you want it. Compromise always sucks at some level, and the more you can avoid it the better off things are.

Thank you. Sorry I never responded before. I somehow totally missed your post. With Cinnamon DE the GUI works basically the same as Linux Mint with Cinnamon. I haven't noticed any differences there. Overally, I really like ZorinOS. It has a very polished feel to it. Some things about it strike me as slightly less tweakable, which is another reason I switched to Cinnamon DE. The default ZorinOS DE has limited configuration options for the panel (taskbar) and "Start" menu.

If it drops to $300-$350 then I might buy one even though it is made by AMD. At that price, it would be compelling enough to gamble.

Well, I did some digging and figured out how to disable the idiotic anti-customer Plundervolt lockdown. So, now the voltage is unlocked and there is a +6 bin all-core clock ratio unlock. That made for an instant performance boost and improved thermals.

No worries. I figured I either didn't explain it well or you misunderstood. A lot of things about this beast remind me of when Alienware used to make good products. I have only had it a few days, but I have had it apart and it's crazy good built quality. Actually even better than when Alienware sold good products. It's a shame it has a BGA CPU. I think the cooling system could support more CPU that it has and still run cooler than most of the idiotic trash notebooks being sold today. I think this one was released in 2017. The other thing that is weird now is the GPU is stronger and faster than a 980M (between 1070 and 1080 performance) but I am so used to my monster desktops, even the Tongfang turdbook with 2060 that I gave to Mrs. Fox, that it seems like an extremely weak GPU because I am so used to having a whole lot more horsepower. I am going to download Steam and see how it runs some game benchmarks. I anticipate most things will be pleasantly playable. But, I bought it for work (business travel only) and it ultimately doesn't need to. I just couldn't handle a tiny 15-inch laptop any more... totally miserable to me using such a small and cramped up machine. Using desktops 98% of the time makes using a 15-inch notebook 2% of the time all the more miserable.

No, it has 4 RAM slots.

Introducing "Half-Breed" as the newest member of the Fox menagerie. I call him that because the CPU is BGA filth and the GPU is standard MXM. The GPU is a Pascal Quadro with 16GB of GDDR5. It came with a single 16GB stick of Samsung DDR4-2400, so I ordered a matching module and slapped an 8GB stick of Samsung DDR4-2133 in one of the 3 open slots for dual channel while waiting for the matching stick to arrive. I also ordered another NVMe SSD so it will have two 1TB NVMe and one 2.5-inch 1TB SATA SSD. Precision 17 7720 in full metal jacket. Very nice work machine except for the soldered CPU filth. Sucker is very heavy, good cooling system, just the way I want it. Not thin and light boiling pile of trash. I downgraded the BIOS from current year "security freak" performance-killling garbage to the oldest firmware version the BIOS would allow for version regression and disabled all of the ludicrous security nonsense in the BIOS (and, believe me when I say there is a crap ton of security cancer in there). I can't imagine living life in fear of the digital boogie man to that degree. It is a miracle a computer would actually make it through POST with the amount of security garbage available to choke it to death. The Quadro P5000 is essentially a locked version of a 1080 with 16GB of VRAM. Everyone gets a trophy for participation. All first place scores, but sole submissions, LOL.