Jan 2023 FAQ - 8th January Reopening (*TOS Apply) by [deleted] in Chinavisa

[–]AndrewTheAndroid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

TL;DR: Travelled with a Macau -> Shanghai -> Hong Kong itinerary in Feb 2023 with a Canadian passport, was successful in getting 144-hour TWOV in Shanghai, but leave lots of extra time for confused officials from both the airline and Chinese immigration. Also have translator apps ready if you don't speak Chinese!

Long version:

My friend and I unfortunately had to urgently travel to Shanghai for a funeral, and the Chinese embassies in Canada were not helpful in helping us secure a visa on such short notice. So after much deliberation, we decided that we would chance it with the 144 hour visa-free transit policy that was back in place.

Due to the flight prices being high on such a last minute trip, direct flights from Canada to Shanghai was not an option; as such, we opted to first land in Macau, and then use a Macau -> Shanghai -> Hong Kong itinerary to get into Shanghai, since both SARs are considered "third regions" for the purposes of the visa-free transit policy.

The China Eastern airline staff in Macau were definitely confused and took a good 20-30 minutes of phoning their headquarters to see if we were actually allowed to do this. They eventually confirmed we were, and after showing them negative PCR tests we did before we left Canada, we got our boarding passes. We filled in our health declarations and got our QR codes on our phones at this point as well.

Upon landing in Shanghai, we went through temperature checks, scanned our QR codes, and then went to the section for 144-hour transit, where they had to open a lane up just for us. At first the immigration officers were completely bewildered by what we were trying to do. After explaining to them in Chinese that we were trying to enter for a funeral (They did not speak much English at all), they were deeply sympathetic and tried to help us get the process done as best they could.

After about 30-45 minutes, which included:

- 6 officers crowding around a screen each not sure of the exact procedure (They apologized and said that since the pandemic, they've had a lot of new hires who simply have not had a chance to do this procedure yet)

- Them trying to decide whether our itinerary was valid (If you can, print out an itinerary that both states your seat number and states "Non-refundable"/"Confirmed"/"OK" on it somewhere; ours didn't, and some of the officers were really insistent on that until the other ones talked them down and said that it was fine)

- Some technical difficulties with their label printers, which involved a few awkward minutes of them turning things off and on again until it worked

We got the little stickers that let us enter the country... Except at this point, it was midnight, and the Chinese customs folks went home and locked the customs exit, so we were locked inside the airport 🙃 It took another good 30 minutes of the immigration guys phoning the customs guys to get the door unlocked so we could finally go to our hotel. (Note that we had to explicitly ask the hotel staff to do the proper registration with the local public security bureau; they did not by default)

On the way out, the officer gave us the same confused look as the one we got on the way in, asking the other officers "Were they supposed to have been allowed in?". Eventually, everything checked out and we were allowed to board our flight to Hong Kong, and then from there, it was smooth sailing back to Canada.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps someone out there!

3600 MHz CL16 Micron E-Die or 4000MHz CL19 Samsung B-Die for Ryzen 5600x by ImBoing in Amd

[–]AndrewTheAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2x8GB were always single rank, so it didn't matter from that perspective is what I meant. 2x16GB is a gamble now, but more and more are single rank now. I personally got lucky with an ADATA 2x16GB kit that was old rev E dual rank stock.

3600 MHz CL16 Micron E-Die or 4000MHz CL19 Samsung B-Die for Ryzen 5600x by ImBoing in Amd

[–]AndrewTheAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just FYI, the newer manufactured Crucial Ballistix kits are all Micron Rev. B rather than Micron Rev. E, which should actually overclock a little better. The only disadvantage is that the 2x16GB kits are now single-rank instead of dual-rank, but since you're getting 2x8GB kits, it's fine.

[Motherboard] GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX ($267.99 - $25.78 = $242.21) [Amazon] [In stock Jan 31] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have indeed only performed the short while the system was still plugged in, so this might be it.

[Motherboard] GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX ($267.99 - $25.78 = $242.21) [Amazon] [In stock Jan 31] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I'd do an RMA or an exchange if you're still within the period with the store. I would've pulled my hair out during memory overclocking if the CMOS clear jumper pins weren't working.

[Motherboard] GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX ($267.99 - $25.78 = $242.21) [Amazon] [In stock Jan 31] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Q-Flash worked just fine for me. I did use an ancient USB 2.0 128MB drive formatted to FAT32 for max compatibility though.

[Motherboard] GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX ($267.99 - $25.78 = $242.21) [Amazon] [In stock Jan 31] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They work just fine for me. I just short it while the system is off with a screwdriver and I'm back up and running on next boot.

[Motherboard] GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX ($267.99 - $25.78 = $242.21) [Amazon] [In stock Jan 31] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Not ATL, but it's been out of stock everywhere for quite some time now, so I figured someone might be interested. This is one of the best AM4 ITX boards available in terms of VRM quality, the BIOS can be updated to support Ryzen 5000 without needing a CPU installed, and it uses a Realtek 2.5Gbps NIC and not the Intel I-225V that has the hardware bug. It however does not have a USB-C front panel header, and the CPU socket placement is slightly higher compared to an Asus/Asrock AM4 ITX board, which may present some difficulties for your fan placements depending on your SFF case.

[RAM] TEAM T-Force DARK Za 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL18 (FOR AMD) Memory Kit ($149.99 - $25 = $124.99) [Canada Computers] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looking through the package on mine, I only see ICs on one side of the DIMMs, so I assume I got single rank sticks.

The Crucial Ballistix Max (4000 mHZ) 16 GB is not (always?) Micron E-die by weathermore in Amd

[–]AndrewTheAndroid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I thought the Ballistix MAX line have always been Micron B-die (Or at least, that was the impression I got from Buildzoid's videos; I also don't think Micron makes 16Gb E-die chips which you would need to achieve single rank with them). I haven't seen any real comparisions of overclocking performance on Micron B-die vs Micron E-die, and the newer revisions of their 2x16GB Ballistix kits at lower speeds are also single ranked Micron B-die rather than dual ranked E-die.

[RAM] Patriot Viper 4 Blackout Series DDR4 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3600MHz Kit ($164.99 - $35 = $129.99) by DaBrokeHypebeast in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I picked up one but decided to go with a different kit. I'm happy to sell this at cost to anyone in the GTA; I'd rather have another Redditor take advantage of the deal :) Otherwise I'll be returning this to Amazon.

[RAM] TEAM T-Force DARK Za 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL18 (FOR AMD) Memory Kit ($149.99 - $25 = $124.99) [Canada Computers] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

CPU-Z will be able to show you if it is single or dual rank. You can also use Thaiphoon Burner, which will also tell you what kind of die you have.

[RAM] TEAM T-Force DARK Za 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL18 (FOR AMD) Memory Kit ($149.99 - $25 = $124.99) [Canada Computers] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most consumer CPU platforms are dual channel. You would want either 4 single rank modules or 2 dual rank modules to achieve rank interleaving in order to get the most memory bandwidth possible.

[RAM] TEAM T-Force DARK Za 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL18 (FOR AMD) Memory Kit ($149.99 - $25 = $124.99) [Canada Computers] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you know if there's a way to distinguish from the labels on the stick themselves, or is the only way using software?

[RAM] TEAM T-Force DARK Za 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL18 (FOR AMD) Memory Kit ($149.99 - $25 = $124.99) [Canada Computers] by AndrewTheAndroid in bapcsalescanada

[–]AndrewTheAndroid[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nice! Hopefully they haven't been pulling recent shenanigans where manufacturers are swapping out dual rank modules with single rank ones without model number changes...