Hah; "there's not much more to do"  Famous last words as I had an absolute **** of a day.  The machine I'm currently on shat itself and I had no end of trouble getting it running again.  I tried system restores, recovery images and repairs via the installation disc, but nothing worked.  Something was preventing any attempt at repairs, so I tried to boot from disc and perform a reformat, still no go.

In the end I had to use my HP 2-in-1 to wipe the OS drive and create another Windows image, but even that wasn't going well.  I used 5 Sony DVDs and the burn failed each time.  They are a good brand, right?  Not so today!  I managed to find some no-name brand discs and the first burn with those worked first time.  So I ran it in the contrary machine and Windows installed without issue.

So why was it so important to get this machine going when I've built another, more powerful one?  Apart from my HP 2-in-1, this is the only working PC in the house just now, the new one still needs a bit of work, and I needed a PC to do some important stuff.  Besides, I don't have a spare copy of Windows even if I did get the new one started up.

Anyway, tomorrow is another [hopefully better] day.  I'll get myself a legit Win 10 license and get the new beastie running...... so 'til then.

You don't need one....anything from 7 on will do a legit 'upgrade'....done 4 of them in the past few weeks...

 All I have is a copy of Win 8 and a copy of Win 8.1.... both have been used to upgrade to 10 before.  I don't think you can use a copy twice to upgrade, can you?  I did have a copy of 7 gifted to me, and it did activate okay, but one day it popped up a message in the lower right hand corner saying that it was not a legitimate copy.  MS reckoned that it expired and that I should purchase a Win 10 license.  What bullshit!  I have 3 copies of XP and none of those expired.  Shame I can't use those to upgrade.

I was going to go to a site that majorgeeks links to and buy a 2 machine license for 48 bucks, but if [?] I can use the old Win 8 copy to upgrade then I'll just use that instead.  Damned computers, especially this one.  I've had nothing but trouble with it since day dot.  I had to RTM the motherboard twice because of BIOS issues  Damned ASUS; damned Intel.  Won't ever be going that way again, I'll stick to AMD, especially since the Ryzen series has up and beaten Intel counterparts on many an occasion.  And no, I'm not an AMD fanboi, it's just that I never had the issues with AMD based products as those I've had with this POS.

Anyway, I doubt very much if I'll ever build another PC, given the pain in my hands these days.  I had a cortisone needle in each hand about a year ago, but they aren't helping much with the pain anymore, and PC building requires healthy hands.... well hands healthier than mine, at least.

For many years I subscribed to Technet and most of my licences came from there...and I suspect the activation process for them is more liberal....pretty sure one has been activated on 3 machines legitimately/successfully.

I think if I ever had to actually PAY directly for 10 that would be the last straw.

Currently there are 8 physical machines in this place...and 5 are on 10, 2 are on 7, and one on XP - it's probably beyond even getting to 7. - it's 'box' is cardboard...somewhat of a free-form computer...

MY 'beast' is on 7...but I'm planning to clone the OS to another SSD [not the M.2], and see what happens if I 'upgrade' to 10...if it goes tits-up I'll just reboot into the original.

Meanwhile, before that I have to get Terry's 10 [an old build] to be upgraded to...10...a current build...cos the fucker won't update itself....because when 10 came out it definitely wasn't cooked through.

It hasn't been active for perhaps a couple of years now so I'll give the Win 8 a try to see if it'll upgrade to 10.  I have nothing to lose.  If it does then good, and if not, I'll do what I was planning anyway and get that 2 machine license I mentioned before.

Heaven forbid!  I'd rather not have to, but my new beastie needs an OS and I mightn't have a choice if the old Win 8 doesn't upgrade.  Thing is, if it comes to that, 48 bucks for 2 licenses isn't too bad.

With 10 already on the machine, you can simply download an up-to-date copy using the media creation tool from MS. You just follow the prompts to burn a disc and install 10 over the top of the current version.  That's one good thing about 10, it assigns itself to the hardware signature of the PC it is first installed on, meaning that you can continually update the machine via disc without having to activate it every time.

That was the pain in the neck with earlier Windows versions... once your allotted activations expired you'd have to ring MS and jump through hoops to reactivate.  Anyhow, all the best with it.

Yes, already got that...did the update already on several machines...but only one as an actual 'update' keeping all proggies/info/settings...from 7 to 10 ...and it only worked once out of 3....this time it will need to be 2 out of 4...

And if I also do my machine it'll need to be 3 out of 5 ....and I don't like them odds...

Well the new Beastie starts up okay. That's one good thing.  I'm not on it yet as I had to power it down and unplug to make some internal adjustments.... nothing serious, just swapping some RAM around and rewiring the front panel because the on/off button isn't active.  The diagram in the user manual is a bit confusing, but I know where I went wrong and it's easily fixed.

The other thing is that I cant get it to boot from disc.  There isn't a DVD drive with the new build so I'm using a portable with Win 8 in it, but the system doesn't seem to recognise it yet.  The system is saying it can't find an OS and to unplug drives without an OS to start again.  Hopefully when I've made the adjustments and disconnected any unnecessary drives, tinkered in the BIOS to enable the portable DVD drive, it'll be business at full speed.

Fingers crossed!

Well I'm finally on the ThreadRipper Beastie, but what a flamin' performance to get thus far.  Today was a good and bad day.  The good was the build starting up without a hiccup, but when I weigh up the pros and cons, today was an absolute 'expletive' of a day.  I got Win 8 to install okay, but from there it went downhill from there.

The motherboard disc wouldn't load any of the drivers because MSI skipped Win 8 and went straight to 10 from 7.  That meant I couldn't connect to the internet to activate it because there was no network drivers installed.  I had to search for compatible drivers using my HP 2-in-1.  I finally found some and was able to connect to the internet and activate Win 8.  That was another good thing, being I needed 8 to be activated to activate 10, but that's about where it stopped.  Win 10 started to install but twice stopped at 73%. 

I then remembered something about updating Win 8 to be the most recent before trying to install 10.  Well that's what I'm doing now, all 129 of them, and then I think there's more to update to Win 8.1 once the prerequisite files are installed.  Thing is, it's going as slow as a wet week and I was hoping to get 10 installed tonight.  It's now 10,57pm and I don't know if I'll be able to last it out 'til then. 

Effin' computers, who the fech put me onto them?  Before that I was happy drinking and chasing wild women, now any satisfaction comes with a lot of pain and frustration.  All I can say is that whoever it was, they're lucky that my memory is up the shit.

Wow, the updates are up to 78 of 129.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll get 10 done yet... depending on whether there's another round of updates or not.  Hmmph, there's more updates, so I'm going to let them run their course and call it a night.  I will leave 10 'til tomorrow as I have a damned headache coming on.... effing computers.

So much for going to bed.  I took a couple of painkillers for the headache and went to bed; however, I couldn't sleep because there was unfinished business with this machine and I needed to complete what I'd begun.  Anyhow, Win 10 is now installed and activated.  Oh, and a word to the wise, if you're on standard Win 8 and want to upgrade to Win 10, you'll need to fully update 8 first then go to the MS Store to update to 8.1.  If you don't do this the Win 10 installation will fail at around 73% - 74%.... as I discovered... twice.

Anyhow, like WOW, this is the fastest, most powerful I've ever used, not that I've had much of a chance to test it out properly as yet.  Once Win 10 was fully installed and updated, it boots up in around 15 - 16 seconds... and that's without fast boot enabled.  Put it this way, if I need to get into the BIOS I'm going to have to be quick... real quick.  I was told there's an app from MSI that will allow the user to boot directly into the BIOS after a restart or shutdown.  I've not come across it as yet, but I will certainly track it down, given the my reflexes aren't that quick anymore.

Well I'm really done for the night now... hooroo.

Yeah, for you Mark, glad it's running like a BEAST! LOL    

Now for some much needed rest Mate!   

don5318

reply 26

Yeah, for you Mark, glad it's running like a BEAST! LOL    

Now for some much needed rest Mate!   

Thanks, mate, it has sometimes been an arduous and frustrating journey, but I'm so glad the effort was very much worth it.  I thought my Ryzen 1700X was quick, but this ThreadRipper is so much faster.  Moving and copying files and folders is faster; opening programs is faster, and the general startup is really quick.  There's faster ThreadRippers available but I'm totally happy with this one.  Besides, the higher versions are not within my affordabilty anyway, so I was probably always going with the 2920X to save coughing up big bucks for a slightly faster CPU.  As it is I've spent in the vicinity of 2000 grand on this build as is, and there may be other bits n' pieces I'll add later on, but for now I'm all spent out.

And I thought my 10 grand was a lot...

Mark, you make me want to build an AMD system, been reading up on the ThreadRipper, and I have to say, I like what I've been reading, so my future build will be a ThreadRipper, thanks Mate!     

Wow, that would be $2,000,000 AUS.