Lars Domen Flight Simulation

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Having finally gotten the colours right on my new monitor, I decided to go for it and buy a second one. So now I have, for the first time ever, 2 monitors of the same size and resolution next to each other. Quite pleased with this setup!

Read it here on Simflight.com

A minor hardware update forced itself when my secondary monitor suddenly decided to die.While inconvenient and unexpected, I already knew how I wanted to replace it.

Some months back I was considering replacing both my monitors. The reasons being: the old Samsung monitor had a very annoying dead pixel centrally in the screen. Hence it being replaced and delegated to second monitor duty. And I was getting annoyed by the size and colour difference between the 2 monitors. The Samsung one was 21″ using TN panel, the Philips one 24″ and using an IPS panel. Back than I decided against replacing. Mainly because I had 2 working displays that, while nowhere near top-class, were not bad. And prices of monitors rise quickly when you want extra features or quality. So, especially for 2 screens, that would’ve been quite expensive.

Fast forward again to the present. So my secondary monitor forced my hand. It was a very cheap monitor that has worked fine (apart from that annoying dead pixel) for 7 years. So I got my money’s worth out of it. To keep the cost of replacement low, I choose to repeat my earlier setup. The new monitor would become the primary one, and the older one would move over and become the secondary monitor.

As for the new one, I decided on the AOC Q2790PQU. A 27″ 1440p IPS monitor that doesn’t break the bank, and gets good reviews for its price.

Read it on Simflight, HERE!

Read it here on simflight.com!

Read it HERE

Read it on Simflight.com

Available for your pleasure here on SimFlight.com

Available HERE on SimFlight.com

Last time I wrote about putting all the hardware together, which was relatively uneventful. After that, of course, comes getting the software side of things up and running as well.

Concerning  the operating system, my first idea was just stick the old one in the new pc (just plug in the SSD) and that should do it... Well, I wasn’t that naive, but I had hoped it would be relatively easy. No such luck though. The system ran, so no problems there, but of course the activation was removed due to the hardware changes. I had just updated my old Windows 7 to Windows 10 through the free offer a couple of days prior to building the new PC. The end result wasn’t very pleasing: problems with drivers, programs, settings etc... So a clean Windows certainly was going to happen. Before reactivating, I tried using the built-in Windows 10 reset tool. Which failed halfway through and completely bricked my system, leaving me without a functional OS.

Luckily, my laptop still worked, so I used that to create a Windows 10 installer on a USB-drive. Back up and running, with a clean Windows 10 install, just a little later than I had hoped.

Installing drivers, essential programs and setting Windows 10 up to my liking was tedious and frustrating, but not challenging. Well, I really don’t like Windows 10, but that’s another subject entirely. I’m stuck with it now...

In the process of trying to work around some of Windows’ more asinine security features, I did something which made Windows 10 decide something like: “No, you get a frustrating user experience, or none at all.” And it promptly stopped booting. Not even in safe mode, not even using startup repair, just nothing. In the end, another clean Windows reinstall. About 2 days work down the drain, a lot of frustration, and even stronger dislike for the newest Windows operating system.

Setting everything up went a bit faster the second time around, apart from the fact that I had ran out of activations for some programs, notably Lockheed-Martin’s Prepar3D version 2 and 3. Luckily, I knew what I did wrong last time, and didn’t repeat my ‘mistake’.

With everything more or less up and running, I decided to run the system through some stress tests... Only to notice uncomfortable high temperatures on the CPU. Not “I’m going to melt through the motherboard” high temperatures, but higher than I would’ve like using the cooler I have, and using just stock CPU speeds.

I tried re-seating the CPU and cooler, applying new thermal compound,... No difference. After some trouble shooting and a call to the retailer, I disassembled the cooler and CPU, and returned them for testing... Unfortunately, this was on a Friday. I used the weekend to get my head clear of PC stuff, and just relax. I got the pieces back on Monday, promptly rebuilt the system... And like magic, more acceptable temperatures. Not sure what changed, but I guess it’s the result that matters.

So, at this time the system was ready for some real use, not just installing stuff and doing some quick tests. I tried some games for example. And ran head first into the next big issue. Blue screens. Lots of them. Sometimes repeatable, sometimes not.

So, another round of trouble shooting: I ran monitoring tools, I analyzed and googled event codes and ran numerous supposed fixes, without any difference. Until I ran a memory test... Which gave error after error after error... Problem found. Another trip to the store planned for the next day.

Luckily, I had taken photo’s of the screen showing the memory errors, so I had no trouble getting the memory replaced, apart from the fact that the memory I had originally chosen was out of stock, and not scheduled to return for several days. Ugh...

I didn’t feel like being any longer without a working PC. 5 days of frustration in total was more than enough. So picked a different set of memory. 32GB of Kingston Hyper X Fury Black K2 RAM was replaced by just as much Corsair Vengeance LPX memory. (32GB, DDR4-2400 CL16) Once home, I plugged it in, and ran a memory test just to be sure. No errors this time.

I didn’t know at this time, but as it turned out, that was the last important milestone in building my new PC. I still had a lot of programs to install, but the most important ones were there. I had weeks of tweaking settings and options ahead of me, but I handled those when required. Quite some time still went into installing my FS add-ons, but that too, was relatively routine.

So now, I have a shiny new PC, running very, very capable hardware. And it runs just fine... Well, it still runs Windows 10, which I still don’t like, and which keeps throwing me curveballs quite often (it really likes resetting all my FS hardware settings every so often, for example, which is a total pain to fix every time...)

But anyway, a major change behind me. And quite the learning experience. The issues I had kept the rewarding feeling away at first, I was just relieved it finally worked. But the end result is very pleasing.

Available on Simflight!

Available for your reading pleasure here!

Parts arrived the day after I ordered them in 2 large boxes. One with the case, and one with everything else. Really putting everything together wasn’t particularly challenging. I had done so before with my previous system.

First part though, was opening everything up, checking that everything was there, and reading the manuals. Especially the one for the motherboard I considered important. The one for the cooler I also took a good look at, because I never handled a liquid cooler before.

There’s a lot of information to be found online about buildings PC’s, both written and in video format. So I’m not going to describe every step... There were about three moments which I found challenging.

The first of those was actually building in the cooler, and in particular the radiator and fans. I decided to set it up so the fans pulled in air through the top of the case (which has a dust filter) and pushed it through the radiator. The difficulties here were not too big, but they were irritating. The fit was closer than I thought it would be, but it did fit. A couple of extra hands would’ve been welcome here. I finally managed to do it with the 2 I have, only to notice that the radiator then blocked the fan headers at the top of the motherboard. So taking the radiator back off, connecting the fan headers, and reinstalling the radiator, again with just my 2 hands.

The second challenging part was when all new parts were installed in the new case. At this part, I had to make the jump and disassemble a significant part of my old (working!) system. The optical drive and GPU weren’t so big an issue. The old system would remain functional without those. But I also needed the SSD which held the operating system. So mainly a psychological step, shutting down my old trusty system, and committing to the new one.

The final challenging (or should I say frustrating) part was doing some cable management. This is just to get it aesthetically pleasing (it’s a case with a window, after all). But a combination of lack of experience and at times short, or very long, cables made this final aspect of finishing the hardware side of the system challenging.

All said and done, it was time to connect mouse, keyboard, a monitor and the power cable, and push the button...

First time’s a charm: the system starts just fine!

With my goals set firmly in mind, and those wishlists as guides, it was time to start picking components.

The first decision I made was to go for the unlocked i7 Skylake processor: the Intel i7-6700K. The reason was quite simple: our flight sims just love raw CPU power.

For the motherboard to place that CPU on, It came down to a choice between several models from MSI, ASUS and ASRock. Important for me was the connectivity of the board. For both SATA and USB, the more the better. My old Gigabyte Z68 board had a total of 10 (yes, ten!) USB ports on the back panel. And I managed to fill all of those at times. After a lot of thinking,  comparing and deliberating, I picked the Asus Maximus VIII Hero board. It had the features I was looking for, and also looked good. This is a part where I could’ve saved a decent bit money without really giving up performance or functionality, but hey, sometimes you can give yourself a little extra, you know?

For the memory, I went with 32GB of DDR4 memory in the form of 2 16GB Kingston Hyper X Fury Black K2 sticks. Its performance on paper was good, as was the price at my preferred retailer.

The case I selected was the Thermaltake Core V31. It was a case I saw in a prebuilt gaming system in a store and liked the look of. It also had the features I was looking for (tool-less, room for water cooling and cable management, a window...), reviews were positive and the price was not too steep.

For the PSU, I opted to go for the Corsair RM750i. It has favourable reviews and should be of high quality.

For now, I opted not to replace the graphics card. I’ll stick with my GTX960 for a while. I might replace it later (the GTX1070 has me looking with interest), but for now, it’ll do more than fine.

That leaves storage and cooling, the 2 areas where I found it hard to make a decision. I quickly decided to go with a single spinning HDD, opting for the Western Digital Blue 3TB model. The difficult decision was whether to stick with that, or also buy another SSD dedicated to flightsim. With the amount of simulator software I own, I’d need a 1GB model, which would be quite expensive. In the end, I decided to offer up the extra money, and decided to buy a Sandisk 960GB SSD. As I said, this disk will be dedicated solely to flight simulator software.

So that leaves cooling. I had an incredibly hard time on deciding between a ‘normal’ air cooler, or an all-in-one liquid cooler. The latter had my preference due to looks, and general impressions. The former for ease-of-use and reliability. In the end, another leap of faith, and I ordered the Corsair H100i v2.

As for the extras: I will keep the DVD-drive. I don’t use it much (but I can’t go without) and it still works. I also opted for a new built-in card reader in the form of the Enermax Mighty Charger. It fits in the case, and it’s a USB 3 model, so it should be fast. I’m also very partial to the huge amount of USB ports. Using these would mean no longer using extension cables to plug in my joystick or yoke in the back of the PC. Not that I’d have to many USB ports free in the back, compared to the previous motherboard. Being able to use the front USB ports would be a lot more user friendly in the end. With the Asus Republic of Gamers motherboards getting good scores on audio quality (and me not having a high-end audio setup anyway), I opted not to buy a dedicated sound card, but just using what was on the motherboard. Cheap and easy. Similarly, I decided not to buy extra case lighting for now, and I also opted to give the stock fans in both the case and cooler a chance before spending money on extra  fans.

So, finally, this was my shopping basket:

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VIII Hero CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i v2 Memory: 32GB Kingston Hyper X Fury Black K2 Storage: 1x Western Digital Blue 3TB, 1x Sandisk Ultra II 960GB Graphics card: none Power Supply: Corsair RM750i Case: Thermaltake Core V31 Other: Enermax Mighty Charger card reader (and USB ports!!!)

Comparing to my wishlists from the previous posts, you can see it’s in between the maximum en minimum specifications, but closer to the maximum. The price was higher than I’d originally thought I’d spend, but not over the maximum budget I had set for myself.

Around 4 months ago, I first started thinking about a PC update. My system was 5 years old, and had done very well during that time. Overall, it still worked nicely, but after those 5 years, my confidence in its reliability was waning. What didn’t help is that BIOS settings would reset after every couple of restarts. Not very useful. So, thinking update!

Preparation:

The first part of buying a new PC for me, was getting back up-to-date with current hardware offerings. Apart from a new graphics card and a new SSD, the old system had remained mostly unaltered for years, and I hadn’t kept up with hardware developments.

So I started researching, reading, looking up, comparing… The new (well, almost a year old now) Intel Core 6th generation processors vs. Its predecessors, DDR4 vs. DDR3, current SSD sizes and prices, and so on.

Then, I took a good look at my current, up and running system. What’s in there? What do I want to reuse? What do I have to replace? What do I want to replace, but can be reused if necessary? The decision was that motherboard, CPU and RAM were going to be replaced for sure. The PSU was going too, almost certainly. The hard drive had me doubting. It has served me will, and 100% reliable. But it’s a 5 year old, mechanical hard drive, which has been used extensively. So, probably replacing that as well, maybe keeping the old as backup or in case of emergency. The case could be reused, but the choice 5 years ago had been a budget decision, and it showed from day one. A decent enough case, for sure, but no room for cable management, and some issues with built-quality, especially at the front side (audio connectors and buttons). So, on the list for replacement as well.

Some things I for sure was going to keep though. The original DVD drive, because why not. Nothing spectacular, but it works when I need it to. The graphics card was a 1 year old MSi GTX 960. That was going to stay in as well. Finally, the main SSD, which had been newly acquired only a half year ago, was a no-brainer. This was staying. Preferably with the same Windows installation.

With all this in mind, I started building wish lists. 2 versions actually: what I would be the dream setup if money was no objection, and one which would be the minimum I found acceptable to upgrade to. Both had one thing in common though: I wanted something better than I had. No use trading in my trusty Core i5-2500K for a low budget Celeron processor.

Next consideration: budget. How much money do I have available, how much am I willing to throw at a PC…  Are there ways to increase my budget without decreasing my bank account even more. I started looking into sponsorships and stuff like that. I had some interesting contacts, but in the end, nothing came of it. Bummer. I’d have to pay for it myself, like almost everybody else.

So, these are the wishlists I came up with:

Best case system:

Motherboard: High range Z170 based CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K CPU Cooler: All-in-One liquid cooler Memory: 32GB DDR4 Storage: 2x 4TB HDD raid 1; 500GB SSD  for OS; 1TB SSD for FS Graphics card: Nvidia GTX 980Ti (this was  before GTX 1080 release) Power Supply: High quality PSU, 750W Case: High end mid tower with window Other: New card reader, Blu ray drive,  case lighting, all high end fans (Noctua?), high end sound card,…

Minimum Preferred system:

Motherboard: Low range Z170 based CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K CPU Cooler: Reuse current single tower 90mm  air cooler Memory: 16GB DDR4 Storage: 2TB HDD; 500GB SSD Graphics card: Reuse current GTX 960 Power Supply: Mid quality 500W PSU, or reuse  current Case: Reuse current Other: New card reader unless reusing  old case, reuse old DVD drive, use stock fans, use MoBo sound,…

As you can see, a couple of decisions in there already. For one, I was set to go with and Intel based system, fully knowing that AMD systems can be cheaper. The reasons for this is that I’ve just had very good experience with my old Intel system. Similarly, for FSX, single core performance is very important, and AMD lags behind Intel in this metric. Unfortunately, this has enabled Intel to charge premium prices for its performance CPU’s.

A second noticeable decision is the one to go for the new 6th generation (Skylake) Intel architecture, instead of one of the older but still available systems. Reasons for this are simple: the price premium is relatively small on the performance versions, and I wanted a system that will stay relevant (and reliable) for as long as possible. Preferably another 5 years or longer.

This brings me to an important remark. If you read this and are thinking about your own PC replacement, don’t take this as your minimum requirements. Those will be different for you, depending on budget, intended use and other factors. I know for a fact you can build much cheaper systems that run FSX admirably well.

Then why didn’t I go cheaper myself? Because I don’t use only FSX. The system is also used for mainstream gaming (well, not the most recent titles, but still), photo processing, image editing, and multitasking several of those heavy workloads at once sometimes. Add to this the fact that I keep reviewing more and more detailed products. I want my PC to be able to run the latest sim and add-ons that come out in 3 or 4 years time…