PianoPlayer88Key

attempted TL;DR: got 6a, some data copied from 3a, but not all. How to ensure ALL data (including settings, app data, etc) is copied? Need to factory reset 3a and ship (trade-in) by the 18th. Some phone numbers messed up in contacts too. Also have almost decided on case (probably otterbox commuter) but it's a question of finding one in stock quickly enough so I can have it in a day or two, haven't had any luck there. Okay so I got the Pixel 6a, and have all but decided on a case for it (most likely Otterbox Commuter, although Spigen Tough Armor is still in the back of my mind). Anyway I need to factory reset the 3a (which is being traded in) and ship it by the 18th, and while I've transferred SOME of the data from my Pixel 3a to the 6a ... Emphasis on some of the data. Unfortunately, not everything got transferred over properly, especially things that are pretty important to me, and aren't as trivial / easy to transfer as just copying from "internal storage", like music, photos, documents, etc. For example, while it did transfer most (idk if all yet?) of my contacts, at least one of them (my sister actually) had the wrong number assigned as the default number on the new phone. (Both numbers were legitimate at various times / for various purposes, not like it threw in some totally random number, but it just picked the wrong one as default. I haven't looked at most of my other contacts to determine what might have been screwed up there. Also, while some of my apps themselves got installed, pretty much none of the data got transferred. A couple games I had paid for got reverted to their limited trial versions, while I was expecting that one I signed in, that would automatically sync. Also this is a biggie for me - a lot of the Chrome data didn't transfer properly either. None of the 4249 chrome tabs in 144 windows got reopened (yes I know that's a lot, but sometimes bookmarks don't work properly for me especially when sites disappear or other things, it's too complicated to go into here), a lot of my settings didn't carry over, and I'm having to re-sign in to various sites that were already signed in on the previous phone. Also, the behavior when closing tabs or switching back to the app is messed up on the 6a. (While it wasn't perfect on the 3a, it was still better). On the 3a, if I hit the back button, it would close the tab, and go to the next tab back in the list. (Except in 2 cases. 1 - the originating tab (from which I did "open in new tab in window" or whatever) was still open in which case it went straight to that tab, OR, that tab was open from a previous session (either through a crash / restart / whatever), in which case it minimized the entire browser. But, on the 6a, it just minimizes the entire browser. Also, when I reopen Chrome on the 6a, it brings me to the multi window overview screen, instead of whatever tab I happened to be on. (Hitting the back button once I get there brings me to that tab, but that's an extra step.) A couple weeks ago I did an adb backup from my Pixel 3a, and also separately copied the entire Internal Storage (via USB cable) from the 3a. However ... I can tell just from file / folder sizes that it was NOT a complete backup, and I don't know how to do that, or how to restore it to the 6a. On the Pixel 3a itself, it says the phone is using about 53 GB of storage (or a bit less), with about 11.37 GB free. (Total is 64GB). However, the adb backup is only 12.8 GB, while the copied "internal storage" folder is only 15.3 GB. So, somewhere around 35-40 GB is still missing. (Yes, I know part of it is the OS, but I'm sure the actual app data, etc, is on there somewhere.) I just looked in the folder structure, and while there's a com.android.chrome folder in the copied-from-int-storage backup, it's empty.) One thing that might help a little on Chrome is if there's some way I could open the tabs on my desktop computer's Chrome ... but then going on there and looking for tabs from other devices, they don't show up. (A few of the tabs were, I'll admit, open since within a few weeks or so after I originally GOT the Pixel 6a in September 2019. Yes, I do close some tabs ... when I'm done with them.) I don't want to root (then unroot) either phone, as I don't want any risk of messing things up, voiding warranty / trade-in, etc. I would have done a bit more in the last week or two, but I've had other things going on, between being at a piano technicians convention for several days the first weekend of August, helping care for my sister's pets (the one whose number got messed up in my phone) while her family is on vacation, dad being in the hospital with a broken femur (and also testing positive for Covid) and other things going on as well. Anyway I need to get the rest of the stuff transferred from the 3a to the 6a in the next couple days so I can reset the 3a and send it in. Anyway, this not having data properly transfer when getting a new device, or reinstalling a new OS, is a perennial issue for me, not just on phones but also on PCs. I still haven't properly transferred some things from my older PC to my newer one, and a few things I have tried to transfer, like firefox and chrome data by copying the profile folders, it still, among other things, logs me out on one device when I log into the same sites on other devices. Also my parents recently had their Dell (yeah, I know ) laptop in the shop cause after we replaced the battery it wouldn't boot, and the shop reinstalled the OS, but failed to preserve the hundreds or thousands of firefox bookmarks my mom had, or the windows logon info / password, or the network printer drivers, and that's just a few things. Situations like that make me not want to *EVER* reinstall an OS or upgrade to a new platform, until that fatal (to me, at least) flaw (of not transferring everything) is fixed. I think the closest I've seen to having an almost proper "continuation" of OS/settings/apps/etc from one device to another was a time I pulled an M.2 SATA SSD that had Linux installed out of my laptop (with an Intel i7-6700K, Clevo P750DM-G, GTX 970M, 64GB RAM, etc), and plugged it into my current desktop (AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, ASRock B550 Taichi, GTX 1060 3GB, 128GB RAM, etc) and for the most part it was booting and working fine when I tested it several months ago. (I think there was a little thing it was complaining about but I can't remember at the moment and not really in a position to restart and boot that SSD right now.) To me, a backup isn't just of c:\users\username, which is all the person at the shop did when he "backed up". To me, a backup is ... if the drive you're backing up is, say, 1 TB, then the BACKUP should take 1 TB of space, regardless of how much space is actually used on the drive being backed up. A proper backup would copy EVERY bit / sector of the drive, regardless of file system, so that, for example, if you were trying to restore from a situation where a partition got wiped or something, you would have just as much chance of success restoring from a clone as from the original.

Thanks for the suggestions. Dbrand actually was briefly considered a couple times, although it's currently dropped from the list. I'm pretty much split between the Otterbox Commuter and the Spigen Tough Armor, but leaning strongly toward the Otterbox (in part due to some reviews I saw saying it was a bit more protective / tougher than the Spigen). I would have bought a Commuter at a T-Mobile store the other day, but when I got there (was nearby anyway) it turned out they didn't have any in stock, even though the website indicated they might have a few left. I was looking at ordering online the previous day, and it looked like it would take at least a week or two just to ship it and I don't want to wait that long. (And I don't want to get a cheap case to tide me over then replace it with a better case when it's available, that would be just extra $ spent that should just go for the right case in the first place.) Also I want the case to pretty much protect against anything I could ever throw at it, or throw IT at, or run it over with, or whatever.

This'll be a bit terse cause I'm typing on my phone, but... I'm at Micro Center in Tustin, was just looking at the phone cases, and I'm not seeing anything for the Pixel 6a (or for any Pixel for that matter, the only Defender cases I'm seeing so far are for iPhones.) I looked online last night and didn't see any OtterBox Defender for the Pixel 6a anywhere either. There is the Commuter, but I'm afraid it wouldn't be enough protection for my phone. (I've only had it a week and already almost dropped it several times a day, and actually did drop it a few times overall but got lucky for where it landed.) What would be a good protective case for the Pixel 6a? I want something that I can use the phone we while in the case (there are a few universal cases here but you have to take the phone out to use it), and that would survive anything I might accidentally do with it.

Gonna put this at the top, instead of the bottom (even though I've already typed pretty much everything else).... I'm leaning pretty heavily toward trading in my Pixel 3a for the Pixel 6a for a phone, then possibly still being in the lookout for a very portable (7-8" screen or so) laptop-style PC device for the other uses. (I may also want to replace my existing laptop (i7-6700K, GTX 970M 6GB, 64GB RAM & have used 370GB pagefile/committed a couple times, 5TB SSD storage, but short battery life, etc) at some point with something that has enough RAM to not need pagefile, much longer battery life, 4-8x the CPU threads, etc, but idk when yet, and that's probably better discussed in the laptop subforum.) More below... I would, if they weren't too big. Pretty much all the ultrabooks I've seen have upwards of 11-13" screens, and I'm looking for something more like around 7-8" or so, with a minimum of 8c/16t CPU, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD. Yeah, that's why I'm looking at the option of another device (like a clamshell pocket laptop as in a GPD device or similar) that can do those things. The Win Max 2 would be almost perfect, if it was like 2" smaller. (I don't think it would fit in my standard pants pocket like the original GPD Pocket probably would, and I don't currently wear cargo or carpenter pants. Also I don't want to have to be carrying around a backpack or other sling-worn case, or wearing a fanny pack or something.) Well, I might be okay with no more OS / software updates, but I'm not okay with no more security / bugfix updates. Feature updates / OS upgrades can stop when the newest low-end phones with a new OS have all-around higher specs (not just faster CPU, but also more RAM and storage) than what my phone has. (For example, my 3a has 4GB RAM and 64GB storage. I see a phone that launched with Android 12 in July 2022 with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage, and the Samsung Galaxy S III T999 launched with Android 4.0 in June 2012 also with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage, and a 16GB version available. Also, a phone launched with Android 11 in August 2021 having 1GB RAM and 8GB storage, and a phone launched with Android 2.3 in August 2011 with the same 1GB RAM and 8GB storage. So with those two examples, it works out to about 10 years of OS upgrades. When the lowest-end new phone that launches with a new OS has > 4GB RAM and >64GB storage, that's when it might be time to stop OS updates on an older device.) As for bug fixes and security patches, oh boy. No manufacturer, not even Google or Apple (iOS), comes remotely close to what I want to see for long-term support on that. I've heard that the Linux kernel still supports the Intel '486 CPU, and at least one current distro (Tiny Core, I think) supports it. If I could get bug fixes & security patches for that long ... of course I don't expect to actually USE a phone for that long, but I want it to not stop getting those fixes / patches until way long after anyone has stopped using it. My mom, for example, is still using a phone as her daily driver that stopped being updated with Android 5 - Samsung Galaxy Core Prime. When she upgrades, I'll want her to get something that lasts a lot longer. (She's 78 now, maybe it might even be the last phone she ever gets, and still be getting security patches long after she passes away....) Yes, the 6a is lacking a few features, but I literally don't find ANYTHING under $200 with the same 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, etc, as the Pixel 6a. (And GSMarena doesn't have a way to specify software support timelines, etc, in their search.) I don't think I'd get anywhere near $295 for my cracked-screen Pixel 3a if I sold it myself, which is what Google store's trade in page says I would get if I traded it in for the 6a. Also, if I attend TwitchCon in San Diego, I won't be able to take selfies until I get a new phone. (I could probably get my current front camera fixed, but I don't think it's worth the cost if I have someone else do it, or time / risk of fucking it up if I do it myself.) Also I do plan on getting a case for the 6a, if I get that phone. I'm most likely looking at an Otterbox Defender, unless there's something that's better (like, can take a lot more abuse) and similar price (or the same quality and not as expensive). As for phones a bit more expensive that DO have things I'm looking for (headphone jack, SD slot, 6+GB RAM, 128+GB storage, and I may have forgotten to mention 5G support as I might keep this phone until 6G or even 7G is out, idk yet).... A few that come up, along with some problems, are: (Wow I need to find a better way to organize my browsing... this one Firefox window I'm looking up phones in has 1070 tabs open, yeah, some are pcpartpicker and some are blank tabs, but there's probably still a couple hundred phone / gsmarena tabs open, some maybe duplicates cause i've tried multiple different searches, etc...) OnePlus Nord 2 Lite - not available yet, unknown release date Asus Zenfone 9 - no SD slot, but otherwise might be a possibility? idk about timely software updates or long-term security support though. Motorola Edge 30 Lite - not available yet, also not much confidence in long-term software support Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2022) - lacking confidence in prompt, long-term software updates Nokia 8.3 5G - a bit older, may not be supported much longer, also not finding them on sale except through 3rd party sellers or used/refurb. OnePlus Nord N20 5G - launched with Android 11 several months after Android 12 released, hasn't been updated Samsung Galaxy A71 5G - a bit older, may not have much left in the way of updates, can't find it new in stock. (There's an A72 5G in GSMarena's rumor mill, but since the A73 5G now exists, with a big difference being lack of headphone jack, I doubt the A72 5G will ever materialize.) NONE of those, afaik, meet my preference of getting new OS updates by mid/late September (for example, Android 13 by mid/late September of this year), or having very long-term security patch support. For transferring things, I think Android has a device-to-device transfer feature, and from what I understand I don't send my phone in until after I receive the new phone, so I could hopefully do the transfer that way, at least for some things. It still remains to be seen whether it would transfer all my Chrome tabs over, but maybe there's a way to save and import them to my desktop PC, since both are signed into the same Google account. As for music, photos, etc. stored on the device itself, if those don't get transferred properly I could probably just plug in the old phone via USB and transfer to my PC. What I'd really like to be able to do is take a full-device backup from the old phone (the equivalent of doing "dd if=/ ...." in Linux, so it gets every bit on every partition of the storage, then restore that backup to the new phone, but I think cloning like that from one phone to another different model (even if from the same maker) would cause a lot of problems. (Too bad it's not as doable as transferring a Linux install ... I've had an SSD in my laptop with an Intel Skylake (i7-6700K, Clevo P750DM-G) CPU that had Linux on it, then later I plugged that same SSD into my desktop with an AMD Zen 3 (Ryzen 9 5950X, ASRock B550 Taichi board) CPU, and it boots up just fine, other than a couple minor things not working properly, maybe sound or something but I forget what.) Yeah, like I said above I'm leaning toward two separate pocket devices (a phone and a portable PC) rather than a single do-it-all device. How I intend to power the devices for the intended duration is probably by using an external battery bank to keep them topped up as necessary. For my phone I have a couple Anker power banks, one with 20000 mAh that I'm currently using, and another with 10000 mAh for which I'm missing the type A to C USB cable that would work with my current phones. As for a mini laptop (similar to GPD Pocket, GPD Win 2 Max, etc), idk what I would use for that, I'm thinking something with a similar concept though, at least if those can charge over USB and don't require a special laptop plug. One scenario in which I'm wanting to use a pocketable PC type device is... I'm tentatively planning on attending TwitchCon in San Diego October 7-9, 2022. (I'm about a 25-minute drive from the convention center, but whether I go depends on some Covid related things. But, assuming I do go...) I follow quite a few Twitch streamers, and am in a few hundred of their discord servers. Each account I have on Discord is limited to 100 servers, and I can only run one instance of Discord per OS. (If I want to run more, I have to run them in VMs.) I want to be able to quickly switch back and forth between them, which can be done in like a fraction of a second if I have them in VMs, at least on my laptop. (I've heard the Discord app now supports logging into like 4 accounts, but idk if it lets me switch back and forth that easily.) Often, people that are at TwitchCon might be posting meetup locations in discord, and... yes, I know that trying to find several hundred people over a 3 day weekend might be a challenge, but... I think it might be possible. At TwitchCon 2019, I was able to meet up with about 225 streamers, and I wasn't using discord or social media much at all, I just randomly got lucky and ran into them around the convention for the most part. (There were a few that were in meet and greet lines, or hosting panels, or in the artist alley, among other things, but most of them I just randomly ran into around the convention.) As for Twitter, I could probably do okay with keeping up with that on my phone, cause some that do attend TwitchCon have posted on there as well. Also, it would be nice to have a device that could serve as a replacement for my existing laptop (Clevo P750DM-G, with i7-6700K, GTX 970M 6GB, 64GB DDR4-2133, 1TB + 2TB SATA SSDs + 2TB NVMe SSD, 1080p 60Hz G-Sync screen), but I'm not "holding my breath" on that one for the time being. I have been off-and-on wanting to replace it with something a lot more portable and with much longer battery life, so it would be easier to take it with me. (I hardly ever take my Clevo laptop out because of its short battery life, and it's a bit big for that anyway.) And, having better specs (more CPU cores, more RAM, more storage, etc) would be nice, but..... challenge would be finding something with enough RAM so I wouldn't have to use pagefile. (see in the spoiler and look at the "Committed" usage.) Anyway, looking for a laptop replacement might be better off in the laptop forum. (I just don't know yet if I'm ready to do it yet, other than getting a pocketable device for the use cases I mentioned earlier.)

Hi ... So I've been thinking about replacing my Pixel 3a, probably by sometime in September. For the most part it's functional, although I do have a few issues. For one, the front camera is way out of focus, due to a crack in the screen and some piece of the corner where the camera is having popped off around the time that crack happened. Also I'm getting tired of it apparently quickly running out of RAM and closing apps after I've only switch back and forth among 2 or 3 or 4 apps (or reloading web pages in Chrome or Firefox when I switch between more than a few tabs). (And, I've recently been having playlists in VLC playing overnight, and now and then I'll wake up to the phone being silent even though I know it hadn't come anywhere near finishing the playlist. Grab the phone, and VLC isn't even running, and restarting the app doesn't resume where I left off. And if I had neglected to save the playlist, the entire playlist is lost.) A couple other major annoyances to me are it doesn't support playing multiple audio sources at once (for example if I'm listening to something in VLC and a website I'm visiting decides to automatically start playing audio, which in itself is an abomination, VLC's playback pauses. Also I'd like to be able to have the same functionality in a pocket device that a full desktop PC has, for example running multiple apps and even maybe a bunch of VMs at once, freely resizeable and moveable windows, among other things. So ... I've been periodically looking at the gsmarena database to see what's out there, or what might be in the pipeline that might be close to what I'm looking for. Among the things I'm looking for are (in no particular order) 3.5mm headphone jack (I want to be able to use my existing headphones, or if eventually get studio quality headphones, be able to use those too, even if I have to use an adapter. If I do have to use an adapter, then I should NOT have to choose between charging OR listening, I have to be able to do both simultaneously.) SD card slot. (My 3a doesn't have one, my previous phones did. My 3a does have free backup to Google Photos, but whatever phone I get next won't have that, and I want to be able to not have to rely on it anyway. Also, USB file transfer or even folder browsing is dog slow.) Plenty of RAM, CPU and storage, for the reasons outlined above about multitasking, etc. Long-term software support, especially security updates Gets those updates right away, without having to wait days, (gasp!) weeks, or (horrors) months for updates. (For example, the phone should at least have the newest Android version, and preferably at least one bug-fix update after the same, a couple weeks before TwitchCon in North America, which this year is October 7-9. I believe my 3a had Android 10 before TwitchCon 2019, which was September 27-29. This year, I'd expect Android 13 to be on it by Oct 7-9, which is the dates for TwitchCon this year in San Diego.) A higher resolution display than 1080p (like 1440p or even 2160p) would be nice, but wouldn't be required, and I'm not willing to pay a lot extra for it. Also I'm hoping to keep the price out of the stratosphere, and to a more reasonable range. I'm not looking at anywhere remotely close to current flagship territory (like $700-1000+), more like $300-400 or so, maybe up to $500 for a really good deal. Anyway ... while browsing some things, I came across a couple articles mentioning that when you buy the Pixel 6a through the Google store, they apparently have what looks to be a pretty nice deal for trading in a Pixel 3a, and they even allow for a cracked screen, as long as the phone still turns on which it does. The Pixel 6a is $449, and even comes with a pair of pixel buds A-series ($99 value), and if I trade in my 3a, Google's store site says I could get $295 for it in its current condition, meaning my net cost would be $154. (Yes, I realize that YMMV.) So ... while the 6a lacks a headphone jack or SD card slot, and is a bit lacking on the RAM, it still does sound like a pretty good deal for $154 (after I trade in the 3a). (And including pixel buds may soften the sting of no 3.5mm jack.) So, should I go for it? I have until July 27 at 11:59pm PST to get that trade-in deal, according to .... well just do a google search for Pixel 6a 3a tradein, I can't decide which article to link, several are mentioning it. Google's site (and others) says that I will need to factory reset my 3a before trading it in, and of course I understand the need for that. (Also I haven't rooted it or loaded any custom ROMs, so I don't have to deal with that.) (From what I can tell, I pay full price for the 6a, they send it to me, then I have 30 days to send the 3a to them, after which they refund the difference according to its trade-in value.) Thing is, though, I will want to be able to back up everything from my 3a, and restore it to the 6a. This includes not only the photos, audio, etc that I've loaded on the local storage (which I could probably back up just by plugging in via USB and copying to my PC), and not only the apps themselves (which can be reinstalled from the Play store), but also... call logs, text messages saved voicemails (I have a bunch of them in the T-Mobile Visual Voicemail app), saved game states, for the games that save to the local device other app status (like Discord, and others) and a big one -- my hundreds, possibly thousand or more Chrome tabs - I want to be able to have those open as well. (One alternative that I'd be okay with, though, is somehow loading them into a session on my desktop PC, and saving them as a session in Session Buddy. I'm signed into Chrome on both my phone and my PC.) ------------------- Also ... earlier, I mentioned wanting to be able to have essentially a full desktop user experience in a pocketable device. I'm not sure if there is ANY smartphone out there that has that functionality, though ... so another idea I've had was getting a cheaper phone (like $100-150, maybe $200), then spending up around $700-1000 or so on some kind of pocket PC (like something from GPD). Problem with those, is I don't know if they have enough CPU cores/threads for what I want to do. I don't need a lot of single-core performance or high clock speeds, but I do need a lot of threads. I won't be gaming much if at all with it, but I plan on running many Linux VMs, each with Discord running and a few Chrome/Firefox tabs, and occasionally watching 1080p video or streams. I was just doing a little googling, and it seems most of the units I'm coming up with only come with a Celeron CPU, or at most a 4c/8t 11th gen Intel or older Ryzen CPU, which I think isn't nearly enough. I'm seeing a couple announcements for units that do include an 8c/16t Ryzen 5800U or 6800U, but idk if they're available yet, and they don't have laptop / clamshell designs and lack qwerty keyboards. Well, there is the AYANeo Flip with a 6800U, but it's apparently not launching until Q4, which starts in October. Looking a bit more, there appears to be the GPD Win Max 2021 with a Ryzen 7 4800U. It only has 16GB RAM though, and while I probably don't need more than 2 or 3 or maybe 4 GB RAM per VM, I do want to run a lot of them. Also, 1280x800 is a bit cramped of a screen resolution for me, I'd really like at least 1920x1080. I'll also want all day battery life and then some, and am okay with using a portable power bank to charge it a couple times in the day if I have to. Oh, also, I will need a good 4G/5G internet connection on-the-go for said device, which isn't afftected by any 5GB or 10GB or 50GB tethering / hotspot data cap. Another device coming up in my search is the GPD Win Max 2, with an Intel 1260P or AMD 6800U. (Looking into that a bit.....) The 6800U / 32GB RAM version looks promising, but a 10.1" screen means the device would be a bit too big, and idk if it'll be available by the time I'd need one around late September. Speaking of running VMs... Hmm ... I'm not really sure if there'll be anything out there that meets my needs for a pocketable/handheld desktop-OS device for running lots of VMs with an on-the-go internet connection, by September. Maybe I'll just have to settle for a phone again, although there's a ton of things I want to be able to do on the go that I just can't do with a phone, and any laptop larger than about 7" or 8" is too big to carry. (I don't want to carry a backpack or case around with me, I'd store it in my pocket.) If it wasn't for being a bit too big, and maybe not being available in time, the GPU Win Max 2 (6800U, 32GB RAM) looks the most promising for a handheld device with a full desktop OS that can run several VMs. Also, I'm not 100% sure yet if I'll be able to go to TwitchCon in San Diego this year (October 7-9), which would be the main reason for wanting a device like that by then. It's only about a 25 minute drive from my house to the convention center, but I think we all know how Covid has affected things, and for me, it depends on how it affects TwitchCon. (If masks, vaccines and/or tests are required, I'm not sure that I would go. I might still consider it if testing would be sufficient, but I don't want to be in a situation where, maybe I buy a ticket ahead of time, then the day of, I test positive and can't go, then can't get a refund or a rain check for the next time or something.) I remember that Comic Con in San Diego, which was just happening earlier this month (not sure if it was this weekend or last) did require masks and either vaccines or negative tests, but TwitchCon in Amsterdam generally didn't require those things (but I think still recommended at least testing, if I remember right.) Edit: Forgot to mention, one thing that does give me a little hope is, I tested positive for Covid back on July 11 (came down with it a day or two before), it basically has been acting like a routine mild cold for me (so didn't hit me very hard), I just tested negative earlier today, I've heard that you're not likely to get it again within about 90 days, and it looks like October 7-9 might be just within that 90-day window, so maybe I'd be fine to go to TC and not worry about Covid. Anyway, if I didn't go to TwitchCon this year, then there wouldn't be nearly the urgency to get a pocketable device with a full desktop OS that can run a lot of VMs, but, I should still get a new phone fairly soon, especially considering mine is no longer receiving any security updates. (I would have liked to keep it a few more years, but that might not be a good idea.) Bleh, I don't like rambling on like this, but I feel if I make short posts, I'll leave a ton of pertinent details out. Anyway, I bolded a couple of the main points, so those can serve as a TL;DR.

Okay so quick update (it's been a bit over a week). I haven't yet swapped the new PSU in, BUT, the PC has NOT powered itself off since the day I ordered the PSU (March 3). I still have the Newegg box sitting on a chair next to the tower. (I've cut the tape but haven't actually opened it yet.) I'm now debating whether I need to put it in at all, if it hasn't been giving me much problems. That said, I haven't been actually USING it that much, although it has been on 24/7 with Chrome and HWInfo64 open. Also I've done a few 30-minute CInebench stress tests which all passed, unlike a test I did a couple weeks ago when the PC shut down about 3 minutes into the test. I haven't yet pushed the tower back into the spot in the computer desk, it's sitting on the floor right now. (well, on a plastic piece that my chair is also on, there's carpet under that but the PC isn't directly on it.) First time it shut off it was in that cubby hole in the desk, but it had also shut off a few times when it was sitting out where it is now. I don't know how much of a factor it is but I'll mention it cause JonnyGuru seemed to think it was something overheating ... we were having a bit warmer weather when it was acting up, with temperatures up in the 80s °F, possibly pushing 90°F. The last week or so it's been a fair bit cooler, highs in the 60s or so, lows in the 30s and 40s. Also the house itself has A/C, although we don't usually have it consistently locked at a particular temperature all the time, we let it vary quite a bit. (In summer it's not uncommon to be in the 90s or 100s here at least outside.) Am I the only person this kind of thing happens to? Your computer is having a problem, you narrow it down to the part you think you need to replace, and the moment you go to order it (and for the next week or two after and counting) the PC works fine even without replacing the part? (I just hope that if I send it back, the PC won't start acting up then.) (Hey what's the name of the "Law" that essentially says when the technician is around the device works perfectly? (Maybe this is a variation on that - when it feels threatened that it'll have a part replaced it decides to act normal?)

Well that's interesting. The PC has been behaving itself so far the last day or two, and I haven't installed the new PSU yet. (It arrived this afternoon.) I ran a stress test this morning on the system (Cinebench R23, 30-minute loop) and it passed. (Previously, it had shut down about a couple minutes into the test.) One observation, it was a bit warmer earlier in the week and last week, up in the 80s or so (may have flirted with 90 idk), but today it was a lot cooler, high of about 65 or so. But, we now have A/C in the house, although we don't necessarily keep it at a consistent temperature. (Sometimes it's closer to 70, sometimes closer to 80.) I still don't know what's going on. I still plan to swap the new PSU in. Intermittent issues are always un dolor en el glúteo mayor to troubleshoot as I'm sure some of you well know.

Ahh okay @jonnyGURU looks like that scratches the Phanteks off the list. (Powered up the system yesterday afternoon around 5 or 6pm or so (I forget exactly now), it's still up right now as of 7:48am.) Hopefully this will help things a little... (Yes, I'm aware of the recent issues with Newegg, however, I've pretty much always had good experiences with them, and they estimate I should get it tomorrow (Friday the 4th). Amazon would have been the same price, but estimated arrival would have been Tuesday, 8th.) (And i hope it won't end up being a , I don't expect it to. ) If I got it right, I think I just need to use the 24-pin ATX cable from the new PSU, but can reuse the rest of the cables (CPU, PCIe, SATA)? (Also I guess we'll see how hard it is to tell them apart; don't want to, when I need an extra cable in the future, accidentally grab the wrong one.) Maybe there's a way to mitigate this as well... (look closely at the connectors on the ends of the cables near the camera) (I believe it's courtesy of...) 50°C inside the PC ... so I'm guessing if it's 40°C in the room (my cousin's place a few miles from me has reached that at times in summer, her place has no A/C and is poorly insulated, it's an upstairs apartment in an almost 100 year old house) the PC might be a wee bit warmer than 50C. (If someone needs a high-end system in a hot environment, then I guess they'd either get a higher wattage PSU (so it's not running right at its limit) or figure on replacing it sooner.)

Ah, and since it's out of warranty it's probably more likely. (BTW does the 50°C ambient rating mean the temperature in the overall room, or the temperature inside the case or the air temperature in the PSU before cooling? And just curious, how do people properly choose PSUs for operating in environments that can exceed 50°C, like some places in the southwest USA desert can get to in summer, and even like 37-40°C at night?) Also I came back to it just now (6:41PM) and it was still on. Then, all I did was hit the alt key (to alt-tab to another window, or see which virtual desktop I was on cause upon restart and restoration of my Chrome windows there's a bunch scattered across several desktops), and it clicked off again. Now that's interesting... 7:01PM and it powered itself on again, I didn't hit the power button (and hadn't unplugged it). It's possible I might have reached for (or bumped) the wrong keyboard or mouse (I have 2 keyboards & mice here, one for the laptop, one for the desktop, I'm looking up replacement PSUs on the laptop right now). 7:50PM - tried to log into Windows (after letting it sit a while, was partly through typing my password I think) ... clicked off. Maybe I should go ahead and order something, I just don't like doing that unless I KNOW that's the issue. (I don't like the idea of, say, replacing a CPU when it turns out the RAM is kaput, or replacing a motherboard when it's the PSU that used its hoof to send a bucket flying.) I'm thinking, if I get a PSU that uses partially different cables, I should probably somehow write which PSU the cables are for, at least on the AX760 so I don't mix up the ones that shouldn't be interchanged. (A while ago I put some tape on some SATA cables and wrote in sharpie which port on the motherboard they were plugged into, but the tape eventually loosened and came off, so maybe there's a way to write directly on the cable, although black on black might not show up very well.) Or maybe there's a better way to keep track... I'm looking at the 2021 RM750 (CP-9020234-NA) and HX750 Platinum (CP-9020137-NA). The RM850 is $139 at Newegg with a promo code (yes I know the recent issues but I personally haven't had problems with them), and the RM850 is $98 at Amazon. From what I can tell on the pinout pages on your site, and https://www.corsair.com/us/en/psu-cable-compatibility , the AX platinum uses its own 24-pin connector, but the CPU/PCIe and SATA cables are standard Type 3/4, which are also used by the RM850 and HX750 (I hope I got it right.) So it looks like I'd just need to use whichever new PSU's 24-pin ATX connector, but could reuse the others (SATA, CPU, PCIe). (And as a "bonus" I'd have a few extra SATA cables so if I ever needed to hook up a lot of HDDs...but then if I run out of places to plug them in....) As for non-Corsair PSUs, the Phanteks Revolt Pro 850W (PH-P850GC, $140), BitFenix Whisper M 850W (BP-WG850UMAG-0/6/7/8/9FM, $100) and ADATA/XPG CORE Reactor 850W (COREREACTOR850G-BKCUS, $110) are on my current shortlist. (There were about 53 other models, including 22 from Corsair like CXF, HX850+ Platinum, other RM & RMx, originally on my list.) http://jongerow.com/Corsair_pinouts/Corsair_pinout_AX_Platinum.htm says the Phanteks Revolt uses the same 24-pin pinout as the AX Platinum, and http://jongerow.com/Corsair_pinouts/Corsair_pinout_Type_4.htm says the Bitfenix Whisper M and XPG Core Reactor use Type 4 as well (which AX uses for CPU/PCIe and SATA/PATA), but for the Phanteks, does it ONLY use the same 24-pin (but different PCIe/CPU & PATA/SATA)? Most of the PSUs are 80+ Gold, except the HX750 which is Platinum. I wonder how much difference it would make with our electricity rates -- I think we're on either the TOU-DR1 or TOU-DR-P plan - I know we have peak, off peak and super off peak, but don't know if we have the "reduce your use" event / $1.16/kWh though. We usually blow way past our baseline every month. System (with AX760) is still off right now (4:29AM), PSU's been switched off for a few hours but not unplugged. I'm gonna get some zzz then come back and see if it'll start up again, or if I actually need to unplug the PSU.

Ahh @jonnyGURU ... yeah I still would be a bit more comfortable if things were properly grounded though. I'm in southern CA (east of San Diego), main issue I've had with power is it being so expensive (like, i'm guessing it would cost less for people in cheaper areas like TX, WA, etc to mine actual bitcoin on, say, a GeForce 6800 XT, than it would cost me to mine etherium or dogecoin or other current ones on an RX 6800 XT ), and parts of the electrical system in our house not being up to code (and probably still has the original wiring from 1962 for the most part, idk how much longer that will last before it becomes a hazard). Our lines are above ground strung between poles out on the street. We don't get a ton of rain or storms that directly hit the lines I don't think, but once in a while a tree might come down and cut power that way. OTP ... I wonder if there's a way I could monitor the temperature while it's running, and see what happens when it shuts down. I believe the AX series is rated at 50°C ambient, although with it being 7+ years old I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually starts derating. (And it's nowhere near 50°C in the room right now, maybe 26-28°C or so.) But maybe something else is getting a bit toasty... (I'm not qualified / trained to open it up, of course, so I won't be attempting that.) Anyway I cleaned out the laptop, then powered it on (had to plug it in as it didn't respond otherwise at first)... and apparently the power connector had gotten dislodged, making it run on battery. What I don't know though was why didn't it give me any low battery warning at all, it just clicked off... When I got it back up and running, I checked the battery status in HWInfo64, and it said the charge level was about 5.4%, and wear level was 10%. Jump ahead to now, and HWInfo64 says the battery is fully charged, but with a wear level of about 30%. (I've had the issue before with a previous battery, that once the wear level started climbing, the system would just shut off without warning. Eventually it got to where the battery might last 2 or 3 minutes unplugged, then the laptop would die if I dislodged the plug a little, that's when I replaced the battery.) Back to the desktop ... it had been back up and running since Sunday afternoon / evening, but just maybe 25 or so minutes ago while I was listening to some audio files in VLC to try to find something (filenames were pretty generic, from some things I had recorded in the past; also had other stuff open in the background, but nothing like stress tests), and it clicked off again. If it's the PSU (which would be probably easiest to replace if I get one that's at least compatible with the EPS12V connectors) that's shutting down the system, then why is the 5VSB still up (lighting the motherboard's RGB)? I guess that's a low enough draw, or different rail or something, that it's "immune" to the other issue, or requires something more severe to kill it? Plugged it back in just now, it lit up and I powered it up, we'll see how long it lasts. (One thing I'm tempted to do is underclock / undervolt the CPU a bit, but I'm not sure how best to tackle that with a 5950X and B550 Taichi, it's definitely different than my previous desktop build's 4790K & Z97 Extreme6, or my laptop's i7-6700K and P750DM-G...

Okay that's interesting...this time it was my LAPTOP that spontaneously shut down (while I was away for a few minutes) and isn't powering back up for the moment. (Desktop is still up from the earlier restart for now...) It's plugged into the same strip with the desktop now, and has been plugged into the same spot for a few years but I think that's the first time in a long time (or ever, I have seen it BSOD then click power off while counting up the percentage but I wasn't there watching it this time) it's done that. I'm wondering about the ungrounded outlet the strip's plugged into, maybe that's also contributing to the issues? (I doubt it's too much load, I'd think everything on that outlet / break would trip off simultaneously if that was the case.) Maybe this is why the laptop shut down... It's still fairly warm to the touch underneath several minutes later. (I JUST cleaned it though maybe a couple months ago or so...)

I wonder, maybe so ... but any idea how I might find out what? Thinking about things, I think it could be more likely the PSU than the mobo or CPU, cause .... (LOL there it went right now (2:52PM PST) as I was typing this on my laptop, just had Chrome open, no stress test.) ... if it was the mobo (or related) I would think it would power right back up, or at least try then shut down after a second or two. But, it won't come back up at all until I unplug the PSU and let it sit for a while ... hey there's another thing I could check too... (Just need to find my dad's outlet tester, idk where he keeps it) ... this house was built in 1962, and while the outlet I had the PC plugged in previously was properly grounded, some outlets in the house have an "open ground". I recently moved the PC across the room, and suspect it may be now plugged into one of those outlets... (While testing, unplugged the PC from the strip to plug the tester into that spot, then decided to move the tester to a different spot where it's easier to see, and when I plugged the PC back in at 3:06PM PST the RGB lights came back on. Haven't hit the power switch yet though...until 3:19PM and it's coming back up.) Yeah ... here's where it was before... And this is where it's plugged in now. I wonder if that could be part of it... idk where else I'd plug it in though, moving the PC back where it was isn't an option now, and to get to any other outlet I'd have to use an extension cord, and it could be a trip or cat chew / litter box spill hazard. I don't have it in my bedroom, cause there's no physical place to put it right now, and the outlets in there are all: I'm curious about something now .... I might just leave it on the Windows login screen (not logged in) for a while and see if it goes down again sometime today.... (or maybe it needs to be doing something to trip up whatever's causing it to shut down...) Well I didn't have to wait long ... 3:22PM ... *click* (sound of fans spinning down) Okay now that's interesting... I went away for a while, came back (at 4:21PM), and the system is on, at the Windows login screen. I don't remember touching any power buttons... Windows is not set to automatically restart after a BSOD, and it's not set to lock the screen after a period of inactivity. (I can't remember if there's a UEFI setting that enables automatic power on (for example when power is restored after an A/C power loss but that's not what happened here), although I also don't think I have wake on LAN / USB enabled either... I'm remembering now, there were a couple other times in the past couple months that I'd been away from the PC for a while, and came back to find it on the Windows login screen instead of the desktop with my apps/etc open. (And there was no BSOD / stop code error logs then either.) I almost wonder if it could be related... hmm... maybe it's not the outlet after all? (Cause it may have shut down & come back up while I was away earlier, while plugged into the properly grounded outlet.) I'm still not sure if it would be the PSU, or maybe the motherboard / CPU or something.... I really hope it's not something like a short between the mobo & case, although I'm pretty sure I installed all the standoffs correctly and all that. (I would have thought that would cause a lot more obvious problems though, not be intermittent like this is.) I had actually bought another PSU (Seasonic Core-GM 500) intending to use it to power up my Z97 / LGA1150 platform, to possibly turn it into a NAS or something, but I was unable to find a compact case that would support a full ATX motherboard, Hyper 212 Evo, ATX PSU and at least 10 3.5" HDDs (with them mounted like the picture in the spoiler),. and the holiday return policy for the PSU was nearing its limit in January, so I sent it back al huevo nuevo, y no tuve problemas con ellos. So while I briefly had a 2nd PSU, I don't anymore. I had another one a while earlier - an OCZ StealthXStream 500W bought in 2008 for my AM2 build then, but that system passed away in 2012 - I thought it was the motherboard then (it would power up, but no video out, I was using onboard graphics and didn't have a dGPU and I think someone told me the southbridge or something may have died so even with a dGPU I still wouldn't have gotten it running) but more recently I've wondered if it could have been that PSU. I donated the OCZ PSU (and some other stuff I no longer had use for, including 3x each fully working 4TB and 5TB HGST Deskstar NAS HDDs, and didn't want to go through the hassle of trying to sell them) to a local non-profit recycler a couple years ago. Fry's is gone, I'm not so sure if Best Buy would be the "best" option, and pretty much all the local computer stores have closed down, so if I was going to take the PC somewhere and try swapping parts, idk where I'd take it. Micro Center in Tustin, CA, is an hour and a half drive each way, not counting traffic. (At least I'm south of L.A., actually east of San Diego, but there's still some traffic usually.) Also if I don't have to spend any $, other than replacing parts that are out of warranty (like the PSU - bought the AX760 in January 2015 and its 7-year warranty expired January 2022 I think), that would be preferred. So are we still maybe suspecting the PSU? Or could it be something else, and maybe we should consider having a moderator move this topic to, maybe, the troubleshooting section?

No, couldn't immediately turn it back on, And I cycled the PSU switch (although this time it took about 5 seconds before the RGB lights went off), and it doesn't come back up (at least not yet). (It's only been probably less than an hour or so since it went down again...) Gonna switch the PSU off again and leave it off for a while (but still plugged in) and try again a bit later. If that doesn't work, I might try the unplug trick again (and wait a couple hours or so). (I wish I'd thought to take a screenshot or 2 of hwinfo64 before it went down, or maybe even a short video clip with my cell phone camera.) 1:27PM (PST) edit: switched PSU back on, RGB lights came on. Hit power switch, system seems to be coming back up... Still want to figure out what's taking it down though...

Well, I'm not so sure about the "once it 'cools down'" part, but it does power up once it's sat and rested for a while. Came back to it this morning, and it was still running. (The case was pulled out from the desk though.) Joined my church's Zoom meeting, that was going alright so far. Opened HWInfo64 to check temps and other stats. Did a quick Cinebench R23 run, got a score of about 26.3K or so I think. (Not sure if that's typical or low or high for a 5950X though.) Started a custom 3-minute Cinebench loop just to see what happens, while monitoring a few things in HWInfo64. CPU temps didn't exceed 60°C (I think 59 point something was max), but core voltage looked a bit high, I saw 1.48V, is that normal for a 5950X? (It would have been way too high for my 4790K and 6700K.) (The 5950X is on an ASRock B550 Taichi, under an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360, paired with 128GB DDR4-3600 RAM that was running at 2400 cause XMP was off.) That confuses me... high voltage combined with low temps ... is something not being reported correctly, or is the LFII360 that good at keeping temperatures in check? (With the 212 Evo (even when the fan was working) on the 4790K + Z97 Extreme6, it would hit 100°C at like 1.3V under heavy load (like Prime95) at stock, I think, and would still be in the 80s, maybe low 90s in Cinebench R23. Then, about 2 minutes into the Cinebench loop (with about a minute left), the PC just spontaneously clicked off. So this time I actually caught it in the act ... I don't think it's overheating cause it didn't exceed 60°C, but I am a bit concerned about the high CPU voltage. (I haven't reloaded my custom UEFI settings, just running at stock, and even the custom ones didn't have any OC applied except for RAM, I just changed a few other things.) This time I'm going to see if it'll let me power it on after a few hours leaving it plugged in. Yesterday when I got it back up and running walking, I'd had it unplugged, and I also reset the CMOS (this time I'll try not doing that and see what happens.) I wish there was a way to see if a protection on the PSU is tripping, or a rail is going out of spec or something, but I guess there isn't cause I have the AX not the AXi....

Well ... back to square one. Was away for several hours, came back, PC was off, RGB lights still on. No response from the power button. Unplugged / powered off the PSU (which extinguished the lights a second or two later) and held a Clear CMOS button for a few seconds. Plugged back in ... power button (both on the case and mobo) .. nothing. I haven't turned the case on its side this time (yet) to see if the PSU fan spins (for the paper clip test). This time, I'm gonna try something else that's similar to what happened previously ... Leave it powered off and unplugged for maybe a couple hours or so (or longer, idk, last time it was overnight and partly into the next day), Then see what happens, see if it powers back on. I'm still not sure if it's the PSU or the motherboard or something else. It's quite weird that it'll start working, then shut off while I'm away. Would be nice if I had a way to diagnose it (like if I'm able to get it back up and running again), to see what might be causing it to shut down and not power back up. A thought briefly came to mind about possible borked sleep settings in Windows, but I would have thought you could still power on the system after that. Maybe messed up sleep settings in BIOS? (I don't remember changing anything like that though...) I really hope it's not something like a motherboard short (although if it was I would have expected the issue to crop up right away, not a couple months after building the system). I would absolutely hate having to disassemble the entire system (like removing the motherboard) -- I'd rather replace a dead-of-old-age (death during warranty = infant mortality) top tier 10 or 12 year warranty fully-modular / cable-compatible PSU a few times before I went through the steps to unplug and remove a motherboard. (And I don't have all that much plugged in either, just 8 hard drives, 2 M.2 SSDs, an AIO, a GPU, a few fans, front panel connectors, etc.) I really don't want to have to replace the motherboard already, as what I would really like (DDR5, PCIe 5.0 or 6.0, supports a full range of CPUs from entry consumer to flagship server, long enough CPU/RAM/etc upgrade support to last through 3 or 4 PSU replacements, 7+ PCIe x16 slots, 16 DIMM slots supporting RDIMMs & LRDIMMs, dual CPU sockets, >12+ SATA/SAS ports, several NVMe slots, 10G LAN, enough PCIe lanes so every port/slot can be used simultaneously without bandwidth sharing, etc) doesn't even exist yet, and if it did exist now, would cost several times my current entire-system budget JUST for the motherboard. (I don't like to replace a motherboard unless I'm doing a wholesale major upgrade on everything.) Any ideas on what to try next? If I'm able to get it running again, any diagnostics I should run, or maybe have some way of monitoring and periodically recording certain stats onto an external SSD (I have a 500GB Samsung T5 sitting nearby), then if/when it goes down again plug that SSD into my laptop and see what the most recent status was? If I'm not able to get it back up.... test the PSU again? Maybe there's a way to temporarily power on my ASRock Z97 Extreme6 mobo without the CPU connector (enough to see LED indicator lights or spin a fan; also see a previous post for an idea of how hard it would be to unplug the EPS12V connector from the B550 Taichi)? EDIT (at 3:06am, this reply originally posted at 12:45am)... Plugged the PSU back in & turned it on, the RGB LEDs lit up. Hit the power button and the system powered on. I still don't know why it keeps going down. Gonna check the Windows sleep settings... (I thought I had it disabled except for the monitor....)

Yeah it seems to be working now, idk what happened earlier. The fan was spinning with hybrid mode off, just really slowly, like about 10-15 rpm... but then I was thinking, maybe the LED light I was using had a bit of a strobe effect. (I shone the same light on the fans for my AIO and the blades looked like they were spinning slow, but the sticker on the hub was a blur.) One thing I just thought of (but idk if/when I'll try it) was to stick something soft and non-conductive in there and "listen" to the fan blades grazing it. That would probably tell me the actual fan speed if my light + camera isn't exactly truthful.

Okay now something's interesting... Last night as I said, the RGB lights were still on when I came to the PC, but it wouldn't turn on. Switching the PSU off then back on, the RGB lights wouldn't come up. Several minutes ago, though ... I plugged the CPU and PCIe cables back in, hit the power, nothing. Held the Reset CMOS button for a few seconds, then realized I forgot to plug the 24-pin ATX back into the motherboard. Plugged it in, which lit up the RGB a second later (forgot to switch the PSU off again). Hit the power, and the system booted up to Windows. (I didn't have SATA plugged back in yet, but Windows is on an NVMe SSD on the motherboard. Also I noticed the PSU fan behaved the same way as in the video I posted earlier, so apparently that's normal operation?) Temporarily powered it off so I could put the case back where it normally sits, now going to see if it powers back on and go into BIOS. (I'm gonna guess it didn't actually reset CMOS cause I did that while the ATX connector was unplugged.) Powered up again, but hitting Del to get to BIOS settings turns up a blank screen. Rebooting, and letting it go normally, gets me to Windows. Shift+restart .... -> restart to UEFI .. THAT gets me to UEFI settings. Settings look like they're default ... BUT, now I'm not so sure they weren't reset before. My RAM was running at 2400 before the system went down (it's 3600 but for some reason doesn't like running there so I back off bit, like 3200 to 3500 or something when I have XMP enabled), and I usually enable SATA Hot Plug and turn off the motherboard RGB, but SHP was disabled and the RGB was lit up while the system was running previously. Hmm.... So I may not need to get a new PSU yet.... but what could have caused the system to behave like that, any ideas?

Okay .... Sooo.... I came to my desktop PC yesterday evening...to find it powered off. Hit the power button on the case, nothing happened. Hit the power button on the B550 Taichi motherboard, nothing. RGB lights on the motherboard were still on, doing their default pattern. Powered the PSU off and back on (which turned off the RGB lights). Tried power buttons again. Nothing. (This time the RGB lights didn't light up.) Unplugged everything from the Corsair AX760 PSU except the A/C power and 24-pin, and jumped it (pins 4 & 5) per the instructions on Corsair's site. Flipped the PSU power switch to on, didn't see the fan move, flipped it to off after a couple seconds, and right that moment the fan started to spin a bit, then after several seconds eventually stopped. Tried several times again, nothing. I've had that Corsair AX760 since January 2015, so I'm suspecting it may have died but I'd be a bit surprised since it wasn't run within an inch of its life and the warranty only just expired last month. Also that was the only component I could reasonably test while isolating others, I don't have a spare AM4 motherboard or CPU laying around. (I do still have an LGA 1150 board & CPU and DDR3 RAM, although I wouldn't be able to do much with it cause the Hyper 212 Evo's fan is kinda seizing up. Anything else I should try, or is it likely the PSU kicked the bucket and I need to buy a new one? (I have the $ as long as they're not being scalped, just wasn't planning on getting a new one yet.) I recorded a video a little bit ago of what the fan does when I try the paper clip test: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3wmE3rsdHLThD6xMA The fan control was set to normal, not hybrid. I hope I put the paper clip in the right place, I'm pretty sure that's where https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025085372-How-to-Test-a-power-supply-unit said to do it: PCPartpicker list (to see what parts I have and what PSUs might be compatible): https://pcpartpicker.com/list/9s6gLs I also asked in a couple discords ... Someone in one discord suggested a Corsair VS 600W, but I don't think that's appropriate with my build. (He also suggested an EVGA T6 1000W paired with an RTX 3080 Ti but I'm not planning a GPU upgrade yet, especially not one like that.) I'll also need to figure out what other upgrades I might eventually do. (As for the GPU, i have a psychological cap in that I don't want something with a TDP higher than about 200-250 watts, when I eventually upgrade my 1060 3GB.) I was thinking somewhere around the $100-150 range or so for a PSU, I'm guessing, that may be subject to change pending a bit more research. (At least I have my laptop to use in the meantime.) I'm generally looking at least at 80+ Gold with 12 or more SATA cables, but might consider 80+ Bronze with at least 8 SATA. If I could get something that's cable compatible with my AX760 as much as possible, that would be nice. I especially don't want to have to re-route the 8-pin EPS/CPU cable. A few Corsair PSUs I'm considering include the: HX750 (Platinum) (or maybe 850 but that's pushing the budget) RM (2021, Gold) 750W or 850W, maybe 650W, or RMx (2021, Gold) 850W Looking at the cable compatibility guide at https://www.corsair.com/us/en/psu-cable-compatibility, it looks like I could maybe re-use the EPS/CPU, PCIe and SATA/PATA cables from the AX760, I'd just have to use the 24-pin ATX connector from the new PSU. I'd also consider some other PSU models/brands, preferably Tier A although I might consider Tier B. (With a 5950X though I should probably limit to A or better, you think?) I'd most likely have to replace all the cables though. I believe the AX760 was based on a SeaSonic platform, but I doubt there's a current non-Corsair PSU that's at least compatible with the 8-pin cable. OR .... is it possible something else might have died? I hope it wasn't the motherboard or CPU. The fact that nothing powers on when I hit the power switch makes me suspect the PSU, although it surprises me that it would have died this soon.... (Also the motherboard's RGB lights had still been on when I first came to the PC, and the fan does spin a little bit when doing the paper clip test if I wait a couple hours or so between tests...)

I remember in the mid 1990s to early 2000s or so, in the first several years I was on the internet (starting about mid teens, was born spring 1981), dreaming of the day when everything that would ever be on the internet would be free (no fees), without ads, etc. (Some of the details, I've thought of more recently.) Of course physical goods shipped to you would have their normal cost, as well as paying people who do service work, like hiring a mechanic or contractor over the internet, or commissioning a piece of art for example. The cost of content (any content) would be covered by the flat monthly fee you pay your ISP. (Also you could download and keep anything you wanted, forever.) Data caps would be banned, and also upload speeds couldn't be slower than download speeds. The more you pay, the faster your connection is, with the fastest service being faster than the speed of your local main storage drives (for example hard drives in the early days, SATA SSDs in the early 2000s, NVMe SSDs today). Also if you could pay a certain amount at one time, like maybe 2 or 3 years or so, you would get lifetime service & content for that one-time larger fee. (YOUR lifetime, not the ISP's lifetime. If you're older, like 60+, it would maybe be 33% or 50% off for the lifetime subscription. Also it would be transferable to other ISPs, but you couldn't pass it on to your children when you die, although I wish there was a way to allow that.)

One thing I usually do to avoid situations like that (where Windows puts its bootloader on other drives) is to make sure that the drive I'm installing Windows on is the ONLY drive connected to the system. I've had interesting bootloader on one drive, redirect to other drive issues now and then sometimes ... for example my main Windows install might be on an SSD, but I might have cloned it to a HDD (an exact bit-for-bit, sector-by-sector clone, which includes cloning the UUID) ... then when I have that HDD plugged in, even though I specifically tell it to boot from the SSD, it ends up running the WIndows on the HDD.

i thought in some slim (2U, 1U) servers the GPU would use a riser card and lay on its side? (so you could get a full height, but maybe still only 1 slot thick) card in there? or would the case not be one that allows it?

Okay ... so far I've imported the Chrome and Firefox stuff (from the respective AppData folders) ... Most of the Chrome and Firefox tabs were restored, although in Chrome I had to go to Session Buddy and open tabs from the previous session. But... It didn't remember my passwords, logged-in sites, and I'm guessing there's other things that didn't transfer. (I remember one site saying something about exporting & importing registry keys, I haven't done that yet....) Also some of the Chrome tabs didn't open properly. I loaded the session, went away, came back a while later and Chrome had closed, re-opened Chrome, restored the session, but it only restored about 72% of my tabs, with a disproportionately large section being blank tabs that I use for organizing things in windows. (Yes, I know of tab groups, but I want some physical space between groups of tabs in the same window, and sometimes I want varying spaces between tabs in the same group.) But then... with a bunch of tabs and other things open, maybe I have too much going on. Oh, also, pcpartpicker is no longer accessible from ANY device on the network. Any ideas what I can do to fix that without resetting my IP address at the router? also somehow the mouse is moving tabs to the far left of the window spontaneously when I click on them, idk why. And the keyboard on at least one PC is sometimes semi unresponsive. Interacting with elements on websites, or with Windows in general, it might take several seconds to ctrl+(shift+)tab between tabs, or for win key to open start menu. (Interesting thing though, when I click in Twitch chat it doesn't give me any problems typing, but will be unresponsive when I try to type in the address bar.) This is on the 5950X system mostly. Right now the two PCs are basically set up on the same desk. I switched the locations of the keyboards and since the pic was taken. The laptop is using the Logitech K360 keyboard and G602 mouse which are now in the lower position, while the desktop is using the K270 and G604 which are in the upper position. Quite often I'm finding myself starting to type on the wrong keyboard as well, which was one of the reasons I'd moved them. (The upper larger monitor is connected to the tower PC under the desk, the laptop is using its built-in screen.) Moving the laptop to a different location would likely be preferred (even though I wouldn't be able to use both PCs from sitting in the same spot), but due to clutter and stuff in the house, the only spot I might be able to move it to has outlets like this, and even that room is kinda cluttered. Maybe I have too much going on though.... too much IRL, too many browser tabs/windows, trying to do too many on-PC projects, etc. (I have a thread in off topic asking for suggestions on how to deal with that basically, have gotten several good replies but haven't had a chance to reply yet. I have a draft of a reply with a bunch of examples of things in a spoiler but it's not posted yet.) Also there's the issue of what to do with the old platform (4790K+Z97 Extreme6+32GB+Hyper 212 Evo), as well as---.... ..... Or did I post this in the wrong section? The OP was posted about 5 days ago and never got any replies.

Hi ... So for the last few years, my daily driver has been a Clevo P750DM-G laptop running Windows 10. Specs include an i7-6700K, 64GB DDR4-2133, booting from a 1TB WD Blue (3D) SSD, GTX 970M 6GB, 1080p screen, plugged into an Asus VG289Q. The laptop is running Windows 10 Pro 1909, and although I've tried several times, it absolutely fails / refuses to update. It'll get 37% through in Windows Update, then stop with an 0x80070002 error code, or if using the downloadable Windows 10 Update Assistant, it gets to 71% quickly, then slowly to 76%, then quickly starts counting up again until 61%, then briefly flashes "The updates were installed but Windows 10 Setup needs to restart....", then after restarting, briefly flashes Checking for updates xx%, then Making sure you're ready to install, and fails with "We can't tell if your PC has enough space to continue installing Windows 10." This is in spite of my boot SSD (C:) having over 600GB free. The last successful update was to 1909 on 2020-06-07, and the first failed update was 2004 on 2020-09-18. At some point I had cloned (using Linux "dd") from a 250GB Crucial MX300 (which was running out of space) to the 1TB WD Blue 3D SSD (which was purchased 2020-08-25). (Also a while ago I noticed a phantom "C:" (Missing) in the System Restore settings, but removing that didn't solve the issue.) I recently did a desktop upgrade, to R9-5950X, Liquid Freezer II 360, ASRock B550 Taichi, 128GB DDR4-3600, booting Windows 10 Pro from a 1TB Silicon Power P34A80 SSD that I pilfered from the laptop (reformatted and fresh install). I kept the EVGA SC GTX 1060 3GB, Fractal Design Define R5, Corsair AX760 and hard drives from my previous desktop build (which has i7-4790K, Hyper 212 Evo, ASRock Z97 Extreme6, 32GB DDR3-1600, booting from a 1TB Samsung 970 Evo). The desktop is running 21H2. Both are Windows 10 Pro. So ... I would like to migrate the settings, saved states, etc, of many of my commonly used programs over from the laptop to the desktop, so I can basically continue where I left off. (Starting over completely would be quite a hardship, probably setting me back a few years or more, or at least it feels that way.) Some things I want to migrate include Chrome and Firefox (including data from extensions, open windows & tabs and their positions, sizes, which virtual desktops they're on), VirtualBox (including VMs and their data), DaVinci Resolve, Audacity, any Steam stuff that isn't cloud saved (and if I could import some things from older Steam installs including as far back as the mid/late 2000s I think, that would be nice as well), GIMP, Handbrake, OBS Studio, VLC Media Player, LibreOffice, Discord, and possibly some other things I haven't yet thought of. I did a bit of googling for migrating Chrome and Firefox, and some posts mention copying the User / AppData folders, as well as exporting / importing certain registry keys, but some other posts mention doing that and it didn't entirely work right. (I haven't checked on the other things yet, but I'm thinking the AppData folders might be involved there as well, among other things but idk what.) Am I on the right track (AppData, etc) for possibly migrating the current state of my commonly used programs, or is there something else I'd need to do? Also, I'm planning to do some physical shuffling of computers, and would like to start daily driving the 5950X and 128GB RAM. (I've far exceeded the 6700K + 64GB's capabilities, I often have pagefile upwards of 100+ GB, sometimes 200 or even 300+ GB, and the CPU is often working itself to the bone.) I would like to put the desktop where the laptop is now. (It's a late 1990s / early 2000s style wood/furniture computer desk with hutch and a cubby hole for the tower, the Define R5 will fit there.) I would be using the Asus VG289Q monitor with the 5950X, the Logitech G604 (that I'm currently using with the laptop), and the Logitech K270 that's been used with the desktop in its other location. For the laptop, I would go back to using the built-in screen, while using the Logitech K360 and G602 because the built-in keyboard has some things not working, and I had too many problems with palm/wrist trigger on the touchpad (and I'm used to a mouse anyway) so I turn it off completely. Putting the laptop where the desktop has been isn't practical. I've been using an upright piano as a computer desk for the desktop, with the monitor (Dell U2414H) sitting on the music shelf (it's a sturdy built-in shelf, not a flimsy fold-down flap - Baldwin Hamilton, not like Yamaha U3), peripherals on the piano keyboard cover (while it was closed), and the tower at first beside (or under the front of) the piano, and more recently on a table nearby. (The table recently had a couple legs collapse though, taking some things with it that were on top as it fell over, so I had to shut down the desktop, I happened to be using it at the time.) Technically the laptop would fit where it is now even with the desktop there, but, there isn't enough room to open the lid on the laptop without obstructing my view of the larger monitor. There's a lot of clutter and stuff in other parts of the house, so I'm kind-of limited on where I can put the laptop. The only room I can think of that might be a possibility (and I've had it in there before) is my bedroom, but problem is, that room only has ungrounded 2-prong outlets. (The house was built in 1962.) I'd like to put it in another room across the hall, but there's a lot of stuff stored in there and you can hardly get around. Putting it in the "other living room" isn't really desired either, as it's basically our dining room and there isn't really a place to semi-permanently set it up. (My parents use their laptop in there, and they have to move it around sometimes. Also, what we call the living room (where my laptop and desktop are now) used to be the garage but it was converted by the people that lived there before my parents moved there in November 1978. The dining room, or what we call our family room, would probably be the traditional living room.) I'm not posting pictures right now with this OP (so it doesn't look absolutely gigantic, would like to keep it short enough so it fits on one screen at 4K without scrolling), but if it would help I could probably take and post a few pictures. (Also I'd like to figure out maybe turning the 4790K + Asrock Z97 Extreme6 setup into a NAS / backup server, but I'd need a very compact case that can still fit a full ATX motherboard and at least 10 HDDs (# of SATA ports on motherboard) or more. Or, build another NAS with a smaller form factor but still supporting several HDDs, but I've been having trouble finding something that's compact enough and not too expensive (entire setup costing less than a single HDD) not counting the HDDs, buying an off-the-shelf NAS like Synology, Qnap, etc likely wouldn't really work for me ... but that's a topic for maybe another post sometime.)