Need help with upgrading 7yo computer.

[Lorddarthvik]

New mobo and ram are required as mine are currently DDR3. I do have a 1000W gold psu, is that not enough? I heard even the 3080 is only like 550? And I have a liquid cooler on my chip already, I could just migrate that.

Sorry, for some reason I thought you had a 500w or similar small. Yes, 1000 gold+ is like god tier lol more than adequate.
Dunno about the coorel, might not have the right brackets for the new mobo mount points. If you go 10th gen intel that's socket LGA1200, you will need a cooler that can be mounted to that. Otherwise you should be golden.

 

[Grimbli]

Dunno about the coorel, might not have the right brackets for the new mobo mount points. If you go 10th gen intel that's socket LGA1200, you will need a cooler that can be mounted to that.

Thanks, I'll check it out. If I upgrade to the 10th gen and new mobo could I take my current SSD with OS on it and simply connect? Or would it require a full new reinstall? I figured I could just download the drivers before I take it apart.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

Thanks, I'll check it out. If I upgrade to the 10th gen and new mobo could I take my current SSD with OS on it and simply connect? Or would it require a full new reinstall? I figured I could just download the drivers before I take it apart.

Worked fine for me. I just unplugged all my storage devices from the old PC and plugged it into the new PC, turned it on, it did like 1-2 restarts as it installed drivers and updates and then it worked. No need to preload drivers and such if you have an up to date legal unmolested copy of win10 it should just work.

Tldr.: yes, just plug it in and off you go

Edit: I had to reconfigure some work software as the keys were bound to the old mobos mac address, other than that everything works fine.

 

[Grimbli]

Quick question, can I use my current DDR3 ram in a new motherboard or would I have to upgrade to the DDR4? Wanting to know if I can save a little money or need to buy now.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

Quick question, can I use my current DDR3 ram in a new motherboard or would I have to upgrade to the DDR4? Wanting to know if I can save a little money or need to buy now.

NO. Anything over 5th gen is basically DDR4. Different slot, different tech. You can sell the old ones though, they could still fetch a good sum.
10th gen definitely can't handle DDR3
While some older gens (6th-7th..) were theoretically capable of handling DDR3 according to their spec page, there wasn't really any support from mainstream mobo manufacturers, cos it was kinda pointless. DDR4 is 2 times better.
If you're interested in what DDR means, there is a good vid on it here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKTc9toqgU0&ab_channel=Techquickie

 

[Grimbli]

Thanks again, mate! Also, is there much difference in ram that has extra padding vs bare bones Crucial chips? Like these two:

 

[Grimbli]

Thanks a bunch guys! I went with an i9 10850k. Mostly because Microcenter wanted me to wait 1.5 hours to get in to shop due to Covid restrictions and Best Buy had that version in store. But I looked online and it's basically a 10900k with slightly less performance (like 100mhz).

Ended up buying a case and new cooler too just in case my old one didn't fit and that way I won't have to rebuild the old when I want to use it later. Got 32gb (2x16), I know it's better to fill all four slots and doubt I ever need 64gb, but I've had bad luck with ram before and going overboard is better than something messing up and it not run right.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

Thanks again, mate! Also, is there much difference in ram that has extra padding vs bare bones Crucial chips? Like these two:

Yes, there is a big difference! It looks waaay cooler!
The fins supposed to help with cooling, not really sure if it makes much of a difference irl to be honest. Maybe if you overclock it, but there is basically nothing to gain by doing so.
Edit: wantedto add that non-fancy looking ram usually don't come at as high mhz as the "gamer" models with coolers. So usually you gotta go with the fancy ones if you want 3200hmz and up for your ram.


Gratz to your new parts!
Never seen a 10850k, stores around here don't carry it. It will be awesome after the 4th gen I'm sure!
32gigs are enough for most things, you'll do fine with that. I got 2*32 so I have space to fit another 2*32 to maximize it but I do work that can use it (fluid sims take up insane amounts of ram).

There is no real difference between filling all slots or using only two in my experience. As long as the mobo is good quality and you are using dual channels, it should be fine. I've seen some arguments that using two is better cos it means only two lanes are used instead of four, thus less work, but I've held the old belief that using all 4 is better cos more distributed is faster. Dunno, haven't seen any real world difference in speed either way and I had both setups...
Less slots filled means cheaper upgrade later, that's my mantra now lol

 

[Szioul]

...
There is no real difference between filling all slots or using only two in my experience. As long as the mobo is good quality and you are using dual channels, it should be fine. I've seen some arguments that using two is better cos it means only two lanes are used instead of four, thus less work, but I've held the old belief that using all 4 is better cos more distributed is faster. Dunno, haven't seen any real world difference in speed either way and I had both setups...
Less slots filled means cheaper upgrade later, that's my mantra now lol

There is very little difference between populating 2 or 4 slots these days. On T-Junction topology there's no difference, but on Daisy-Chain you get slightly better OC results with just 2 sticks.
Edit: Buildzoid did a good video about it a while back:

 

[Grimbli]

Just built new system and it will all power on. All the fans and the ram rgb. But I'm getting no video output on either gfx or motherboard. System is totally compatible, at least the parts said they were.

I bought a Z490 A Pro with i9 10850k and TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB DDR4 32GB (2x16GB) 3600MHz. All other parts were operational pieces from old PC. 980ti, Soundblaster Z, my SSD and HDD.

System won't show any video at all so I'm not sure if it is booting from SSD or not.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

Just built new system and it will all power on. All the fans and the ram rgb. But I'm getting no video output on either gfx or motherboard. System is totally compatible, at least the parts said they were.

I bought a Z490 A Pro with i9 10850k and TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB DDR4 32GB (2x16GB) 3600MHz. All other parts were operational pieces from old PC. 980ti, Soundblaster Z, my SSD and HDD.

System won't show any video at all so I'm not sure if it is booting from SSD or not.

Ouch, that sucks. No boot screen at all? Nothing?
Have you tried plugging into the mobo's video port instead of the GPU? Sometimes it can be silly and keep trying to use that instead of GPU.
I'd start by unplugging everything. Just have mobo+cpu+ram powered up with the monitor plugged into mobo, and a KB+M. No GPU, no hard drives of any kind. See if it posts. You should see a splash screen for the mobo then an error message that there is no boot disk found.
If necessary, only one ram stick even, see if that's the problem. If this works, keep adding stuff to find what's wrong.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

Also, check if ram and all the rest of the stuff is seated properly, all connectors plugged in properly and so on.

I'd guess its either one of the ram sticks bad, or your gpu didn't survive the transplant. That's not uncommon, sadly.

 

[Bambooza]

Just built new system and it will all power on. All the fans and the ram rgb. But I'm getting no video output on either gfx or motherboard. System is totally compatible, at least the parts said they were.

I bought a Z490 A Pro with i9 10850k and TEAMGROUP T-Force Delta RGB DDR4 32GB (2x16GB) 3600MHz. All other parts were operational pieces from old PC. 980ti, Soundblaster Z, my SSD and HDD.

System won't show any video at all so I'm not sure if it is booting from SSD or not.

If the mobo has a onboard graphics chip then I would remove everything but the ram as that would all you would need to get a bios post. From there you can check its settings and then slowly add back in components until it either just works or it stop posting.

 

[Grimbli]

I am at this screen. I looked around and then exited, but it rebooted with no video again. Somehow I got this screen again, I will leave it on until I get a response lol. Ram is in wrong slot, not sure if the right slot is busted or not though.

 

[Grimbli]

This is with the sata ssd unplugged (one with windows) but I had the m.2 ssd plugged in. When I plug in the sata to reset and boot windows it didn't display

 

[Lorddarthvik]

This is with the sata ssd unplugged (one with windows) but I had the m.2 ssd plugged in. When I plug in the sata to reset and boot windows it didn't display

you can get into this BIOS setup screen by hiting .del or delete after switching on the PC. Should come up every time.
Without hitting del you should see the MSI splash screen and then get to a black screen with some error message or at least a dot or something on it. Although I never had MSI mobos so dunno for sure.

Mobo+CPU has video, that's good.
This is good so far. what I can see looks correct (RAM size, CPU speed, name and such...) AHCI is on so that's correct for win10..


If you want to play detective,
Remove ALL storage for now.
(M.2 can be a little bit bitchy anyways in my experience...)
Try moving this RAM stick to every slot, see if there is any slot where you don't get any video.
Repeat with other RAM stick to verify the sticks are good or not.
If you had a slot where it didn't work, then we kinda know that your Mobo is borked and should be replaced under warranty.
If it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't while in the same slot, then we know it's your RAM stick that's faulty. To be honest, I suspect that to be the case, as it is the most budget part in your build. It's a brand I only recently heard of and seems to be the cheapest available "fancy" RAM around where I live, so I'd expect that to be the cause of your problems. MSI is also known to be kinda unreliable in the quality control department, but as this is a higher-end product of theirs, it's only second on my list.

TLDR.: play around with the RAM slots and sticks, see what works and what doesn't. Report back.

 

[Richard Bong]

With the system you described the only things worth keeping is the case and maybe the PSU for an upgrade. I would go so far, at this age, to replace the fans.

Save your money, and use what you have until you can do it right.

 

[Grimbli]

play around with the RAM slots and sticks, see what works and what doesn't. Report back.

It might be the ram. Still won't load up video half the time. Only being in the wrong slot makes it happen.

 

[Grimbli]

Made a windows boot drive from a micro SD plugged into SD adaptor plugged into USB adaptor...fuck me. It's installing windows to the m.2

Ram is in wrong slot again, but I just want it to turn on. I can fix stuff later.

 

[Grimbli]

@Lorddarthvik so after many restarts and messing around I have gotten windows installed and the single ram stick in the right spot. Graphics card weirdly has to go into PCI slot far away from CPU, which also did on my last computer. But it's started up.