motherboard • QSF5

23 Sep 2014

Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 Sleep & Wake Up Issues

by No_Style | posted in: Editorials & Features | 2

I was dealing with this issue since I built my PC in 2010. I thought it was CPU and GPU overclocking related so I simply disabled the sleep and standby functions. However, these sleep and wake up issues persisted long after I reverted back to stock speeds. I left it for a couple of years and this past weekend, I decided to perform a quick Google search and found the solution.

Problem:

Computer with Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 motherboard does not wake from sleep or the monitor remains dark after the computer wakes up.

Solution:

Disable the integrated serial port in the BIOS.

Go to Integrated Peripherals -> Onboard Serial Port 1 -> Change value to [Disabled]

Hopefully you don’t need your serial port (most people don’t). I haven’t experienced any wake up issues after disabling the serial port, I will update this post if anything changes.

31 Aug 2014

Checkpoint: New AnandTech Edition

by No_Style | posted in: Editorials & Features | 0

It’s the end of an era.

With Anand Lai Shimpi retiring from tech publishing and leaving the website he built nearly 18 years ago, I thought it would be fitting to reflect and show my appreciation for the tech site.

Years ago when I was learning to build my own PCs, sites like AnandTech were common. Tech sites analyzing and critiquing computer hardware were a dime a dozen. AnandTech, The Tech Report, Tom’s Hardware and HardOCP were amongst the most popular. But even back then, AnandTech and The Tech Report were always vying for top spot in my books.

As time wore on and computers became more and more of a commodity, tech sites began to fade away. The appetite for higher end computer hardware became increasingly niche and you had to stand out in order to survive. AnandTech doubled down on their analysis and deep dives into technology and I appreciated it more and more.

30 Apr 2014

Some Mini-ITX boards have gone nuts

by No_Style | posted in: Technology News | 0

I’m a big fan of Mini-ITX motherboards. I’ve built one mini-itx build last year and I’m in the middle of building another. They have everything I need for a modern computer in a small form factor. But I have never built a mini-itx computer with a motherboard like this ASUS ROG Maximus VI. It’s ridiculous.

With the memory DIMMs installed, it looks like the CPU will be surrounded by printer circuit board walls. It looks like some kind of futuristic play set of some kind.

At $220 it is way out of my price range for a motherboard of any size. I don’t even spend that much on a CPU sans tax. There are a lot of luxury items built in but are they worth it? I appreciate the integrated wireless solution and while the sound card is a nice addition, I don’t know if I have the ears to be able to tell the difference. On the plus side, it’s a very good looking motherboard.