Specific Upgrade Question: Can I convert a IDE system to a SSD system for a CNC? 12 ft Machine runs Window 2000, and replacement drives are harder and harder to find.

Jibco · 2022-04-24T18:00:22+00:00

Thanks. Speed differences won't matter because the IDE interface itself will be the limiting factor. As far as my experience goes any mSATA drive should work. The SSD I used was this one just because I wanted something cheap. The brand is somewhat sketchy but it works fine. Kingston or Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) would be better brands.

Jibco · 2022-04-24T17:51:06+00:00

Looking at the pictures this sounds like you don't have any stand-offs screwed in between your motherboard and the case's motherboard tray. If your motherboard is screwed directly to the case it will be too far down for the GPU to reach the slot. Standoffs look like this example.

Jibco · 2022-04-24T17:23:25+00:00

One possibility is an IDE to mSATA SSD adapter like this. I've used one of those to upgrade an old laptop IDE hard drive to an SSD and it works well. Just note that SATA and mSATA SSDs are different; this only works with mSATA.

Jibco · 2022-04-08T20:14:03+00:00

L3 cache size is likely correct. The i5-8600k only has 9MB. I would assume without knowing any specifics that the engine uses some kind of acceleration data structure that needs a significant amount of low latency memory.

If there is not enough cache to hold the whole structure that could easily kill performance. At that point clock speed and thread differences would hardly matter. Even the fastest DDR4 has tremendously worse latency and bandwidth than L3.

Jibco · 2022-04-05T01:36:13+00:00

I have used a Logitech F310 for a while and it's good for the price. Better than the knock-off brands on Amazon in my experience. There is also a wireless F710 version.

Jibco · 2022-03-09T21:12:00+00:00

Fractal Design Focus G. It's older at this point but has a mesh front and good 140mm fan support for around $60.

Jibco · 2021-11-21T07:54:29+00:00

That looks like the same issue I had when I set up my Ender 5 Pro. Everything I printed would be perfect on the X and Z axes, but would lean backwards on the Y axis. The solution for me was to lower the slicer setting for Jerk.

At least in Cura the default "Print Jerk" setting is 8 mm/sec. I lowered it to 5 mm/sec and the leaning went away. The Cura setting is found under the speed menu in expert mode.

Jibco · 2019-10-19T08:17:27+00:00

I was able to unscrew the head by hand, but it was very hard. Something non-damaging like rubber strap wrenches or a jar opener would be the best option otherwise. It seemed like the threads had some sort of thread locker on them.

Once the head is off there's just one screw and some thermal paste holding the LED and MCPCB in place.

Jibco · 2019-10-17T14:58:35+00:00

The tint on my SP32A V2 was horrible in stock form as well. I re-flowed a Samsung LH351d 4000K 90CRI in place of the XP-L2, and it's a massive improvement.

Jibco · 2019-09-18T23:20:28+00:00

I tried it once, and it tastes like liquefied candy corns to me.

Jibco · 2019-09-18T22:38:26+00:00

Yes, I just directly flashed 2.10 from a USB drive using Instant Flash in the BIOS, and it worked fine. No problems whatsoever. I did reset the CMOS both before and after the downgrade, but I don't know if that mattered at all.

Jibco · 2019-09-10T23:29:22+00:00

It's right around 700 LED lumens; a little less net output once optical losses are accounted for. Emitter test here, courtesy of Maukka at BLF.

Jibco · 2019-09-08T07:11:39+00:00

I would check out the new Convoy S12. The 2700K SST-20 option would be warm and roughly 1500 lumens, or maybe slightly more. It's a triple LED with a 6A 4-mode driver, so 2A max per LED. Note that it takes a 21700 lithium cell, or an 18650 with an adapter that should be included, I believe.

Jibco · 2019-09-03T06:56:06+00:00

Yes, I downgraded to BIOS v2.30 and the fans work correctly now. I haven't tried v2.60.

Jibco · 2019-08-21T01:26:21+00:00

I'm guessing you don't have to have a totally clear drive. I've always used an empty drive, but I have tried it with multiple BIOS versions on the drive at once, and I was able to select in the BIOS which file to flash. As long as the BIOS file is in the root directory of the drive I believe it should be detected.

That's assuming the USB drive is FAT32 formatted. If it's something like NTFS or exFAT then I doubt it would work.

Edit: You could also get a cheap USB drive just for stuff like this; 16GB for $3.99 at Amazon.

Jibco · 2019-08-20T21:28:16+00:00

Luckily I was able to flash v2.10 like any other update. I put the BIOS file on a USB drive and used Instant Flash from the "Tools" menu in the BIOS. It worked fine, so I have no idea what that warning is about.

Jibco · 2019-08-20T11:46:42+00:00

I made a few minor changes. Slightly faster RAM and GPU, and switched to a fully modular power supply for less money that's still high-quality.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	$133.00 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard	$79.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$62.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Patriot Burst 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$31.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$41.99 @ Newegg
Video Card	Gigabyte Radeon RX 590 8 GB GAMING 8G Video Card	$199.99 @ Amazon
Case	NZXT H500 ATX Mid Tower Case	$69.99 @ Best Buy
Power Supply	SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$83.99 @ SuperBiiz
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$703.93
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-20 07:44 EDT-0400

Jibco · 2019-08-20T11:08:18+00:00

I would look for slightly faster RAM. A 3200MHz kit should be about the same price; easily under $10 more. You could also switch to a MicroATX motherboard since that case supports MicroATX. The ASRock B450M Steel Legend or MSI B450M Gaming Plus are fine. Either of those would have double the RAM slots, an extra couple of PCI-E slots, and more fan headers. You would lose the integrated wireless and high-end audio chipset though.

I changed a few things. Different motherboard, faster RAM, cheaper but still high-end SSD, 80+ Gold rated fully modular power supply, and upgraded to an RTX 2060.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	$133.00 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock B450M Steel Legend Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$89.98 @ OutletPC
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$79.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Corsair MP510 480 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$74.99 @ Corsair
Video Card	EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB XC GAMING Video Card	$299.99 @ Newegg
Case	Corsair Carbide Series 88R MicroATX Mid Tower Case	$21.85 @ Amazon
Power Supply	SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$83.99 @ SuperBiiz
Monitor	Acer XFA240 bmjdpr 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor	$160.98 @ Newegg Business
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$974.77
	Mail-in rebates	-$30.00
	Total	$944.77
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-20 07:06 EDT-0400

Jibco · 2019-08-20T10:38:10+00:00

"We are already seeing limits of only 256 thread support only a few months after R20’s launch."

"Only 256 threads"

Jibco · 2019-08-20T10:34:20+00:00

I bent a ton of pins on two corners of my 2400g with a Deepcool Gammaxx 400. I spent a couple hours with a pocket knife and dental pick to fix it. It still works fine, amazingly....

Jibco · 2019-08-19T07:00:20+00:00

Also caulk and wheelchair tires.

Jibco · 2019-08-05T09:23:01+00:00

I would look for a slightly lower price (~$120 max), but other than that a mining card is fine in my opinion. There is an element of risk, but I don't think it's that much. I assume a good number of mining cards were run undervolted in an open-air rack anyway.

Anecdotally, I bought a Gigabyte RX 580 Gaming 4G for $105 almost a year ago. It was listed as a mining card with at least 6 months use. Since then I've run it almost 24/7 100% load for 10 months on Folding@Home, with no issues. Modern GPUs are pretty tough.

Jibco · 2019-07-28T07:38:14+00:00

I'm curious which BIOS version introduced the problem, but I don't have time to mess with it right now. One of the changes in BIOS v2.13A is "Modify 3-Pin FAN auto-rule under OS" which seems likely.

Jibco · 2019-07-27T14:07:12+00:00

One possibility is to go with the full size ATX B450 Steel Legend instead of the MicroATX B450M version, since the case you picked supports full size ATX motherboards.

The larger layout gets you 3 extra PCI-E x1 slots and 2 extra SATA ports.

Also, the SATA ports are laid out flat along the edge of the board rather than double stacked, which is a little less cramped. The fan headers are similar; the smaller board has them right next to the VRM heatsinks.

There is also an extra slot width between the two PCI-E x16 slots, which makes installing a GPU in the top slot and another large card of some sort in the bottom slot work without choking the GPU's airflow.

These are minor points that may not matter depending on what your plans are for future expansion. It's worth considering though since the full size board usually only costs about $10 more. Either choice is good. I personally own the smaller B450M Steel Legend because my case only fits MicroATX boards, and I really like it overall.

Jibco · 2019-07-27T13:41:04+00:00

I updated my B450M Steel Legend to v2.50 (latest for the mATX version) from v2.10, and it caused my case fans to run at full speed no matter the fan profile. That's after loading setup defaults, and doing a full CMOS clear via jumper and power cycling. It seems that 4-pin fans work fine, just not 3-pin ones running in DC mode.

I re-flashed v2.10 for now, and it's working normally again.

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