Intel Socket Madness

[Victor S]

January 2nd, 2010 is when I ordered my Asus P6T and I7 920.
Replaced the GTS 250 with a 680 this year, and put in an SSD as my primary.
Still a sweet gaming rig, and for anything else.
So it's worked out well. Lacking only SATA 6gbs and USB 3.
No regrets.

Only thing is socket 1366 is basically dead.
So I had an odd problem that pointed at a possible bad disk controller on the MB, and I started looking at options.
Get a new or used 1366 MB with SATA 6gbs and USB 3. Fixes it right up, with all my current components.

Pretty much discarded that after seeing the prices, and decided that going with a new 1150 socket and CPU would only cost a couple hundred more, max.
But I'd also lose my mem chips unless I wanted just 6gb, since the new stuff is dual channel.

Kind of a BS position as far as I'm concerned. I won't toss good gear for marginal improvements.
Don't know if this specific situation is unique to the 1366. All my other upgrades, including the 1366, bought a lot of improvement.
Going to an 1150 won't get me much at all.
But the price of 1366 MB's with SATA 6gbs and USB 3 make the 1150 and new CPU look like a better choice.
Not a fan of used MB's either.
I'm probably wrong about the controller going bad, and I'll stick with my P6T for now.
But I've had a couple MB's die on me, and I might get pushed.

Anybody have any thoughts about this? It's an "old" type question, and maybe I'm not thinking clearly, or missing something.

 

[kbrady1979]

What exactly was your problem? Also, what is your current RAM configuration? 3x2GB sticks?

 

[Victor S]

My file manager (PowerDesk Pro) got slow and glitchy opening up, and reading disks.
Figured it was just poor software reaching its limits as I have more files than ever.
But it was time to restore an image. I use Ghost 15, from the bootable CD.
Restore was perfectly normal in Ghost selecting the location of backups.
But when I made a new image using the same Ghost CD, clicking destination to select a drive/directory caused an hourglass hang.
Tried another CD, then unplugging the USB drive, etc, etc. Nothing worked.
Decided to wait out the hourglass as a last resort. After about 2 minutes Ghost showed the drives/directories.
So that's where that stands. Every time. Figured Ghost is using its own IO commands to pick up drives/directories for both restore and backup, but the commands for the backup suddenly don't play nice with the controller.
Pure speculation, but a sudden change. Never hesitated before.

I have 6 matched 2gb sticks of mem. Here's a couple other things that weaken my speculation about it being a controller problem.
I added 3 mem sticks since the last time I used Ghost.
I dumped PowerDesk and started using Total Commander. It loads and reads all disks instantly.

Putting it all together I tend to think it's a memory issue with Ghost, and maybe with Powerdesk. Powerdesk has always been known as something of a dog anyway. I liked the GUI, and stuck with longer than I should have. Inertia.

Anyway, everything I do, including games, works perfectly, so it's only a Ghost problem, and I can deal with that.
But as I've said, MB's fail. So I was looking for mostly 1366 MB replacement options.

 

[kbrady1979]

Well, if you did decide to refresh your system, you could go with Socket 1155 and an Ivy Bridge platform, or Socket 1150 and a Haswell platform. You could always sell that RAM on ebay as I'm positive that RAM kit would sell quick. Or you could use 4 of the sticks and have 8GB of RAM which is more than enough.....and still have 2 spare sticks!

 

[Victor S]

Well, if you did decide to refresh your system, you could go with Socket 1155 and an Ivy Bridge platform, or Socket 1150 and a Haswell platform. You could always sell that RAM on ebay as I'm positive that RAM kit would sell quick. Or you could use 4 of the sticks and have 8GB of RAM which is more than enough.....and still have 2 spare sticks!

Thanks. I'll remember to check out the Ivy Bridge. Haven't looked at them.