aisle9

So I got my hands on a $20 hot-swappable mod board extraordinaire, and to my chagrin, it only takes 3-pin switches. I want to replace the reds that came with it, box clones by Content (?), but know very little about 3-pins. What are some good tactile 3-pin options? I know there are 3-pin Gaterons out there, plus most Akko and GK Gamakay switches. The Gamakay silent tactile looks interesting, but I’m entering a world I know very little about.

Do you live anywhere near a Micro Center? Their pricing to assemble a custom build is very fair, they'll help you pick out exactly the right parts, and they do an outstanding job with their builds.

With that kind of budget, build your own system. Prebuilts at that price are an absolute ripoff, a markup of 35-50% over what the parts would cost. Building your own system is a totally noob-friendly activity that will either save you a ton of money or get you better components.

Does it have a "blow me" dongle? Because if I'm going to buy a $2,200 Chromebook, there are certain things it needs to be able to do.

Eh, I stand behind my thoughts on the capability of a 4790K. If mine hadn't been killed by a POS Enermax liquid cooler, I wouldn't have replaced it until I came into the 8086K. If I hadn't come into the 8086K, I probably would have just held onto it until the R5 5600 came along.

Jesus Christ, an H5 Ultimate. What I wouldn't give to have one of those cooling my rig again.

10 years ago? i7-4790K, GTX 980 Ti, 16GB DDR3, 1TB 7200RPM HDD 6 years ago? Dirty little secret: there wasn't a whole lot out there in 2019 that the 2014 system couldn't have easily handled. A GTX 1080 wasn't really all that much faster than a 980 Ti.

Dirty little secret about Apevia (and other bargain brand arson box manufacturers): whatever they sent out to get that 80+ Gold and whatever they sent out to reviewers to get whatever positive ratings they have is not what's in the unit that appears on your doorstep. Don't buy a PSU that will put your whole damned system at risk in order to save $3.00.

Dammit man, are you trying to kill him?

With the caveat that it's been a few years since I last worked with an E6420, my hunch is still that the power port has become damaged, disconnected or died. I don't really have much else to offer beyond suggesting that you open it up again, check the power port connections and cables. I recall that being kind of a PITA on the 6420, maybe one of the few things that wasn't a straightforward open-and-go, but my hunch is that something's gone wrong there.

Open up the system and check the power port. Kind of sounds like a solder issue.

Ah, so the PCI-E cables were connected to the card, but disconnected from the PSU? A little odd, but shouldn't affect anything afaik. So a couple more thoughts, and then we're past my depth: Have you tried a different PCIe x16 slot with the card? Have you switched to the card's backup BIOS using the little switch on the card? I'm assuming a 3070 would have one. It seems odd that your actions would have damaged the card, and more likely that something was unseated or damaged on the board. I'd do more troubleshooting there before giving up on it, because if you do buy a new card and it still doesn't work, well, that'd be annoying. I don't own a 4070 of any type so can't comment beyond saying to check the reviews. 4070 Super is, from what I've seen, regarded as an excellent value, but the 4070 Ti Super will without a doubt be more powerful. No idea if the power gain outweighs the price increase.

Seems like you gave up pretty quickly. Have you tried resetting CMOS? An exact sequence of events might help. It reads like you took the card out of the mobo but left the PCI-E power cables connected, then cleaned it and put it back, and did all of this without cutting main power to the PC's PSU. I'm thinking that's incorrect, but more detail would help. If this is just you wanting a new card and knowing it, and using this as a flimsy excuse, that's cool. We've all been there. 4070 Super.