Quick Tech Update #2 (Patreon)

I have another tech update for you with some interesting information that I hadn't quite seen coming. It's nice to share all this behind the scenes stuff with you, it currently takes up a considerable amount of my time, much more than I had expected. 

I'm still enjoying it, don't get me wrong - it's just that these things can be a tad unpredictable at times, pushing other more pressing matters to the wayside. Being open to such side quests is the key, as is living in the moment and take pleasure from it, no matter what happens. 

Streaming/Recoding PC has been fixed

Thankfully there's some very good news to begin with: as yesterday's video release showed, I could fix my Recording PC with relative ease. Thanks to an automatic Windows Restore Point, I could restore the system to the good condition it was in on the 29th of May, before any spurious Windows updates were applied. 

I've also taken the opportunity to scan the whole system thoroughly for corrupt files and fix them (took about 3 hours), which may explain why the previous update went so wrong. I've applied all updates now (OBS 27, NVIDIA drivers and everything Windows desperately yearned for), and everything is working swimmingly again. Phew!

I've taken the opportunity to increase the amount of allowable storage for Restore points to something like 30%, just in case this happens again. 

GPU issues with my new Z840

Sadly it's not such good news on the new Z840 workstation I've bought recently, the one that was supposed to be the replacement for my current one (bigger, better, faster, etc). I had it open yesterday, eager to move the hardware over and start installing the software I need, when I realised something unexpected:

The board layout of the Z840 is very different from my current Z800. The PCIe slots are closer together, which means that my current two RTX cards don't actually fit in there next to one another! Observe please:

Here are two pictures of my current Z800, fitting both of my ZOTAC cards. They take up two slots each, but notice the overhang on the fan side, which takes up another slot internally. Thankfully there's enough room in here for my current card design. 

Now let's take a look at the new computer:

The Z840 has three main PCIe slots for such cards. They've added the third main slot into the same physical space, which means I can't put more than one of my current RTX cards in there. Well played, HP!

The top and middle slots are too close together, and the bottom slot is too close to the case, therefore I can only run a single card in the middle slot. I never even thought about this! If I had blower cards it wouldn't be a problem: they don't have the overhang on the side and are designed to be seated flush next to other cards, while the fan blows air out of the back. If/when RTX 30xx cards are affordable again, I'll go with blower editions. 

Imagine 3x RTX 3090 Ti cards. 

Something new learnt for the future, but not ideal for my current situation. Unless I want to run on a single card (which I don't), I'll have to find a way to make my current workstation run better under full load than it does right now.

On this note, I've spent some time this morning installing Windows on the m.2 drive in the Z840 so that it can do some jobs for me. Anything from rendering animations with its two GTX 970 GPUs and/or Xeon CPUs, as well as occasional video encoding jobs with Premiere. It can churn away in the background while I do more important things. It's also nice to know that I have a backup computer nearby, just in case one of the other guys packs up or needs serious attention. 

Here's what it now looks like, with two slightly slimmer GTX 970 cards next to one another. I'm sure RTX cards in this design do exist, they're just not currently in my possession 😂

Z800 PSU Upgrade

If I want to stick with the current Z800 configuration as my main desktop, how can I avoid power supply overloads? Easy: get a larger power supply! 

The current one is 850W, but there was an optional upgrade on the Z800 series available that gives me a whopping 1150W, just like the Z840 has (it can actually provide 1250W if I had a 240V mains supply, but alas I do not). 

Inspiration struck for a moment when I thought, "rather than buying one of those, perhaps the PSU from the Z840 will fit...?" They slide out really easily, and they look deceptively similar, but as you can see from these pictures they're not exactly the same. As they say: Close, but no cigar.

No worries I thought, I'll just grab one from eBay.  Several are on offer, and although they cost nearly as much as the whole Z800 did, I think it's a worthwhile investment. I really like my current setup, it's the most powerful computer I've ever owned. 

Although the idea of using an even more powerful and slightly newer model would be a pleasure, I really don't feel limited by the Z800's current abilities. Thanks to the recent m.2 drive addition, my video editing speed is on a whole new level, and if the PSU upgrade will eliminate the occasional power glitch under full rendering load, I'm a really happy camper.

The only thing that I may need to look into is Windows. I get spurious issues creeping up from time to time, and it may just be time for a fresh installation. It's fairly easy to do, yet it's a hassle and messes up  my current organisational setup. On the plus side, do you remember how fast a Genesis figure loads when you only have 5 characters and no Zev0 products installed? Blink and you miss it! 

I'll leave that for another time though, and will keep you posted on the new Power Supply adventure. Until such time, I'll go easy on the render throttle!