This is a rebuild of the Core 4770k machine. The machine started spontaneously shutting off, then entering a “power-on for 3 seconds and power-off” loop. After cooling down, it would stay running for ~20 minutes, then shutdown. BIOS says the CPU only hit 34C. 1st troubleshoot: replace the PSU. 2nd troubleshoot: dust blow out. 3rd troubleshoot: replace thermal paste on CPU. 4th troubleshoot: manually set the CPU fan to +250% speed.
Some facts on the CPU: it is currently #437 on PassMark [12,375] cpubenchmark.net. Once again, CPUs in the top-50 are just no longer in reach. (The first sub-$500 CPU is #59 [32,898] AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT. The first sub-$500 Intel is #126 [25,150] Intel Core i7-11700K at $390). Plus, this was a “budget choice” for a “general purpose computer”. It currently serves mostly as an email station.
The CPU, motherboard and RAM were changed out. The other pieces stayed the same as the Core 4770K. Using budget-priced pieces, the rebuild still cost $360.
On the topic of upgrades – somewhere in the last 8 years, the OS was upgraded to Windows 10.
All product links are from the actual vendor.
| Item | Product | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-10400 10th Gen 2.9Ghz (4.3GHz Turbo) Socket LGA1200 65W Six-Core Desktop | $165 |
| RAM | Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200 Desktop Memory CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 | $76 |
| Motherboard | ASUS Prime B560-PLUS LGA 1200 Intel 11th/10th Gen USB 3.2 | $120 |
| Power Supply | Corsair Enthusiast TX650 Bronze certified | $65 |
| Video | Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort Graphics Card, GV-R795WF3-3GD | $225 |
| Case | Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case (Black) CC-9011014-WW | $55 |
| SD Drive | Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SATA 6GB/s MZ-7PD256BW | $224 |
| HD Drive | Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black WD1002FAEX | $85 |
| BD/DVD/CD | Samsung Optical Drive SH-224DB/BEBE | $21 |
| Keyboard | – | – |
| OS | Windows 10 Professional 64bit | $127 |
| Total | – | $1405 |
| WiFi | TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 N900 Wireless Dual Band PCI Express Adapter | $32 |