Well now I'm building a new Workstation around a Ryzen 9 5950x

[FlyingPenguin]

Got a 5950x CPU from a friend who had just gotten one at a good price from Amazon and then won another in the Newegg Raffle. So I told him I'd take one. Gave me an excuse to upgrade my workstation. I do a lot of video transcoding and run VMs in VMWare, so I can really use the 16 processors. Upgrading from a Core i7-7700 system.

Using the same Asus TUF Gaming X570 Pro (Wifi) mobo that I used on my gaming PC, and my friend's graphics workstation. I like the mobo, it's a quality board, I like the ability to flash the BIOS even if the mobo won't POST, and I'm comfortable with it. It's also nice to have both computers have the same mobo (my old gaming PC and workstation also had the same Asus Z170A mobo) and it makes it easy to swap parts between them if something happens.

Decided to go with the beasty boy Noctua NH-D15 CPU heatsink. That thing is a MONSTER. It's SUPPOSED to fit in my case, but we'll see. Case and PSU is coming in later this week.

[Losbot]

IT LIVES!!!

[psypher]

Holy crap, that heat sink lol

[FlyingPenguin]

Since it usually takes weeks for me to setup a clean install on my workstation, I've decided to try an experiment. Macrium has a feature that allows you to clone an OS image to a system with different hardware. It strips the drivers and fixes the boot partition to make it work.

Acronis has a similar feature that I've used in the past on a few of my client's PCs that had software installed on them that the owner didn't have the installer for anymore.

So far it seems to be working fine. Time will tell. If it proves not to be stable, I can always do a clean install. However, if this works out, it saves me a LOT of time and trouble. The OS installation checklist I put together for my old 2016 workstation is several pages long. I have a lot of unique software installed, and my desktop is setup in a certain way, such that it takes me weeks to get it all configured the way I want it.

[FlyingPenguin]

It's funny, but the OS install in the original workstation dates from late 2015 (looking through my install notes). That system has been through some major hardware and OS upgrades in the last 6 years, so my cloning it to new hardware continues the tradition.

I originally had a Core i7-6700 installed in there, with Win 8.1. In 2018 I upgraded it to a Core i7-7700 and used the old CPU in another build (the mobo supported 7th gen processors with a BIOS update). THAT wound up biting me in the ass because I hadn't realized that Win8.1 doesn't support Intel after 6th Gen (Windows refused to boot and gave me a processor compatibility error). So, not wanting to do a fresh install back then either, I did an upgrade to Win10 1803, which went smoothly (had to put the old processor back in to do it). Since then it's been upgraded to build 1909, so I'll need to upgrade the new system to 20H2.

The transplant went well last night. After running Macrium Redeploy, it gave me an MBR boot error, so I ran a utility in Macrium that clears and configures the MBR, and it booted just fine after that (this system, and the one I cloned it from is NOT running UEFI, which probably made it easier). Installed mobo drivers, and everything seems to be working fine. Burned it in with Prime95 for several hours to test stability. In the process of cloning additional partitions, and some other housekeeping, while I wait for the case to arrive.

[FlyingPenguin]

Case, PSU & DVD-RW came in today.

Went with the Fractal Design Focus G, for better airflow, and it's the correct size to fit in the area of my desk where it's predecessor was. Not thrilled about the window, and I wish they made a non window version, but you're not going to see it very well anyway, and my cable management skillz are getting better. I may even leave the lights on, on the mobo and video card if they're not too distracting.

https://www.fractal-design.com/products ... s-g/black/



Same everything else except I went with a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro PCI-E 4.0 NVme M.2 SSD instead of the insanely expensive Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus I bought for the gaming PC. It's nearly as fast. I'm getting 6500 MB/s transfers.

[FlyingPenguin]

Running into issues with my cloned OS. Everything works but when I tried to upgrade to Win10 20H2 it failed because it sees a UEFI BIOS (despite that I have it set to legacy in the BIOS settings) and it wants to see the primary drive as GPT.

So I may try converting it and see what happens. Worst case, I do a clean install of Windows. Nothing to lose by experimenting.

[FlyingPenguin]

Well this is full of pitfalls and not having much luck. It involves more than just a GPT conversion. Article and long thread here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wi ... -uefi.aspx

I've converted it and fixed the boot using a tool, but I don't have an EFI partition in the correct place.

There's a creative way explained in the comments that sounds like it should be easier than the article's method, and I've done this on other systems to fix unfixable boot problems: Image the Windows partition. Install Win10 clean with UEFI enabled and the drive will be properly configured for GPT with an EFI partition in the proper place. Then you restore your image of the Windows partition, but tell your imaging software not to clone the MBR info.

I might try that just for fun, but if that doesn't work, I'm going to take this as a sign that I should just do a clean install. No biggie, that'll just keep me occupied for a few weeks.

[FlyingPenguin]

Well, it worked, but it wasn't easy, and I wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart.
NOTE: You need the full paid Home version of Macrium Reflect for this as I'm fairly sure the Boot Repair utility doesn't come with the free version. However, Macrium gives you a 30 free trial of the Home edition.

- I used Macrium to image the boot drive, which at that point had a working version of my old WIndows install, but the drive wasn't GPT.
- I then wiped the new drive in the new PC to get my failed install off it.
- I went into BIOS and enabled UEFI and enabled Secure Boot
- Then I installed Windows 10 clean which made the new boot drive GPT and created a working, clean Windows install that was running under UEFI and Secure Boot, and created the required 100MB EFI partition.
- I then ran Macrium from it's rescue USB and restored my old Windows boot partition over the newly created one. There was no need to do a GPT conversion, per se, as Macrium seemed to handle that.
- I ran Macrium Redploy on the boot drive to strip the old OS drives and configure it for the new hardware **** IMPORTANT!! FORGOT TO MENTION THIS STEP PREVIOUSLY.
- I rebooted but the boot failed immediately and Windows tried to do a repair and failed.
- I then ran the Macrium Rescue USB again and used the Boot Repair utility to fix the MBR.
- Windows booted properly after that and running System Information shows that I am now running in UEFI with Secure Boot, so I'm even compliant for a Win11 upgrade in 4 or 5 years when MS puts a gun to my head and gives me no choice.

I will run Prime 95 & the Heaven benchmark all night to make sure the system is stable.

[Err]

Very Nice Build. I was going to go with a Noctua NH-D15 on my current build but went with a Corsair AIO instead.

[FlyingPenguin]

It's installed in the case. Heatsink DOES fit. It's supposed to be 160mm tall and the case specs say it will fit a 165mm, but it still looked close.

Heatsink seems to really be doing it's job. I'm having a hard time pushing this CPU anywhere over 72C in the case, under full load and that's with all the fans set to the "Silent" fan curves in BIOS, and no rear exhaust fan (I was going to install one, but the case really doesn't need it - especially with the 140x280mm vent on the top of the case.

I do like the airflow and the case looks good, but it is somewhat cheaper quality than the Corsair cases I'm used to. Not terrible, but there is a difference. There's also the very strange decision to have a USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0 jack in the front panel, instead of two USB 3.0 jacks. Oh, and the stupid location of the reset switch right next to the headphone jack. It's almost impossible to avoid hitting it when plugging in the headphones. I just disconnected it. I never use the reset button anyway.

[FlyingPenguin]

Damn cooler made it really difficult to connect the CPU power cables and the optical drive cables.

[Executioner]

Jesus...that heat sink is insane. wouldn't water cooling be better and easier than dealing with that beast?

[FlyingPenguin]

I really don't believe in liquid cooling. Modern air coolers are as good or better. And if you think that thing is big, take a look at a 280x140mm CPU radiator some time. You're just moving all the metal somewhere else, and you aren't reducing noise much as the radiator can have two or even three fans, and they're closer to the grill.

That heatsink is probably overkill, and I could have used the Cooler Master Hyper 212 tower heatsink I used in the gaming rig instead, but I wanted to be on the safe side and I want to keep the fan noise as low as possible since this is my main workstation and it sits on my desk right next to me.

The Noctua fans are very quiet and they're barely turning 900 RPM at full system load, and the CPU is staying nice and cool, so I'm happy.

I could probably eliminate the front CPU fan if I need to reduce noise even more. I suspect the temps wouldn't be much higher.

[Executioner]

Thanks for the info on those Noctua fans. I bought one and was really impressed in the quality and operation. In fact, I ordered another one to keep and I plan to buy a few more. Some of my fans are the ones that came with the case and they are now old. I already had to take one open in order to lube the bearing.