Recently, I’ve been benchmarking a lot of graphics cards, one of which I can’t really talk about. So this post is going to be a little weird, as I dance around the product which cannot be named. One particular graphics card isn’t the focus here anyway. I want to talk about troubleshooting technical problems.
A few weeks back, I mentioned that I’d built a Windows 7 reference system. That system was built on an Intel DX58SO board using the X58 chipset. So I decided to use it for testing new graphics cards. What happened next was truly weird.
The first thing I was that really long graphics cards are a very tight fit in the CM Scout case I was using. So I transplanted the guts of the system into a Cosmos 1000S that had been sitting in my garage for months. That wasn’t the weird part.
Let’s say, hypothetically, of course, that you have a graphics card that should be really, really fast. So you run your benchmarks and find out it only runs games and other benchmarks no faster than last generation GPUs.
You might just think that it’s just another bit of marketing hype, write it up as crap and be done with it. Or you might think, “that’s really weird.”
So what I did for a day and a half was uninstall and install new drivers, uninstall and install games and benchmarks and even restored backed up partitions that were clean. I still kept getting results that were just plain anomalous.
After all that time, I probably would be forgiven for thinking that I was indeed the victim of marketing hype. After all, I’d done everything I possibly could, right?
But something still didn’t “feel” right.
That Whole “INTP” Thing
Before going further, I should note that, years ago, I took the Myers-Briggs personality assessment test. I don’t put much stock into these sorts of tests, but my company at the time paid for it, so I went ahead with it. Besides, I’ve always liked taking tests.
When the results came back, I wasn’t all that surprised to find I’d fallen into the INTP category. From the Myers-Briggs Foundation web site:
“Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.”
That’s almost the definition of a tech geek, after all.
I too am a INTP. I love working with logically minded people in a team environment. Their logic gets me started. Like you, it take me longer for things to “click,” but when they do I become very proficient at it. The easy way to keep from being overconfident is to tell yourself and others that you have no idea about certain subjects that have not “clicked” for you yet.
when I set out solving technical problems by myself, I usually start with what I have learned in the past. If that does not work, there is always Google.
Any ideas on why the Intel motherboard showed no improvements?
No idea what’s going on with the Intel board — but I’m reinstalling it into another case and will dig into the issue later.
I’m not sure if I’m INTP or not, but I’m guessing I probably am. Or something similar. I’m certainly more the stoic analytic type than the social and “feeling” type.
I too am curious about the Intel board. Expecially since I have a DX58SO myself, and am looking forward to installing one of those graphics cards you can’t talk about.
I’m one of the logical thinkers. I can frustrate myself at times. Just think about having the answer to some problem but not being able to stop working on it until you work out how to properly solve the problem. I’ve had PC build problems and then spent days working out why I had the problem after it went away. The value in this is that I am better able to solve problems in the future due to the “logic” tree in my head. Its just frustrating at the time.
The description of a INTP person seems to fit me fairly well, so I’m guessing I’m in that camp, but I’ve been trained to work as a logical thinker. As Steve pointed, I work well with logical thinkers since their approach gives me data to sustain or discard my ‘gut’ feelings. In the beginning, I used to approach the problems from a logical structure because it made it easier to explain and chart my route to a solution for peers. Now, as time has gone by, I still do, but more to keep me in check and avoid making big leaps that might fail, especially in new areas. I tend to be less structured on old paths that I’ve walked many times and my peers are more receptive to ‘leaps of intuition’ there since they have come to accept that they do work most of the time. What frustrates me most is a problem where I get no gut feeling at all. In those cases, I go to the old ‘break it in smaller parts’ until I get a sense of direction or ‘gut feeling’ to follow to the solution, which can take some time or none at all ocassionally.
I’m have the exact sentiment about the confidence part. Always do a reality check before opening your mouth. The biggest problem I have is to explain how I got the answer from seemingly random data. (It’s not random but just a lot of experience in most cases)
I’m agreed with Alfredo. You pretty much summed up what I was going to say lol.
Was it the ATI 5870?
Yes; my review is at Maximum PC. It will also be in the print mag.