The AMD 5000G workstation I built almost three years ago has performed remarkably well, but It’s lost a step. I’d be quite happy running it another year at least, but it developed an unsolved random hang bug about a year ago. It appears to lock up, but just loses the trackball, accepting keyboard input only, requiring a soft reset to get things going again. I’ve replaced literally every user-serviceable component connected to the mainboard in the past couple of months. Now it’s to the point where sometimes it won’t come back up without a hard reset and getting worse – a daily if not multiple times-a-day occurrence.
Error messages typically point to ethernet, wifi or NVME drive issues, but it seems they are just complaining because the system is hung. No other indication in any logs anywhere I can find. So it’s down to the processor itself, and/or the onboard APU graphics. With a new W6400 graphics adapter on order, I suddenly realized I was wasting my time again. So I ordered the rest of the parts to outfit an empty case sitting on the floor here in the workshop. Waiting for the power supply to fire up this new 7700X.
With chip prices receding from pre-holiday and pandemic levels, this comes in at about half the cost of a similarly spec’d machine off the shelf. The case is a little dirty and scratched, but it will run just the same. I switched sides in the Intel/AMD war on that last cycle as mentioned and haven’t looked back. Intel’s response to the malware issue over the years just left too sour a taste in my mouth. It’s starting to look like Intel will rule the gamer market and AMD will supply the corporate server customers. Okie Dokie.