aisle9

It's not pre-applied. The V5's paste comes in a syringe.

What brand and model? There are plenty of "600W" PSUs out there that are lucky to pull 300W.

That's all artifacting, and artifacts are a sign of a dead GPU. It's probably not anything you did. It's definitely weird to get a DOA GPU in 2022, but it does still happen. IIRC, your model of PSU is generally regarded as good.

Legions are a step above almost everything else in the consumer laptop space, period, until you start getting up to the ARM-silicon MacBook Pros. Acers aren't bad at all. I had an Acer 2-in-1 that I never should have bought, and it lasted several years before I somewhat begrudgingly sold it. They won't last as long as a prosumer ThinkPad or Precision would, but they're much better than a Latitude or Dell G-series dumpster fire.

Can't speak to price, but I can say that Acer laptops are very hit or miss in terms of quality. Really no better or worse than the others at this point, but I've seen some Acer laptops that looked well put-together, and some that had damn near everything but the battery soldered down.

See that wall off to the right side of your setup? See how the table legs run parallel to it? With a little bit more effort and a power strip (which you should be using anyway--those multi-tap wall connectors will burn your house down), you could easily run all of your cables across the back of the table, down one of those legs and to the PC or the wall. On a scale of one to ten, I give you an "incomplete".

You can get a drive caddy that will fit, possibly directly from Bitfenix. If you have a spare 3.5" bay, there are adapters out there that will let you stack two 2.5" drives into one 3.5" bay. Double-sided tape or velcro is also an A-tier method of mounting a SATA SSD or, for the ultimate godmode mount, just connect them to power and data and shove them literally anywhere they fit, because there are no moving parts and there's nothing to fry with static. Victory!

Did you get the CPU brand new? If so, there should already be thermal paste on the stock cooler. Did you get an aftermarket cooler? If so, there's probably either a small syringe or pouch of paste in with it, or the paste is already applied.

"Linux machine" is a very broad term. That could be anything from a Ryzen 9 5900X spending its life doing crazy shit with Arch right on down to Puppy Linux on a Pentium II.

So this is an Optiplex 3010. That introduces some good points and some bad points. Mostly bad, so I'll start with those. Bad: The -010 series is from the Ivy Bridge generation It's a "3" model, meaning only two DIMM slots. If 16GB is all you need, cool. If you need 32, that might be a problem. If you have a GPU installed, you will not have access to the SATA ports on the board. You'll need to buy right-angle replacements, and some GPUs block those from fitting in either. This is a killer for lots of Optiplex -010 builds. You will need a new PSU Good: It's definitely cheap At least a standard ATX PSU will work with this build. Honestly though, the days of the Gamerplex are quickly becoming numbered. The Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors are approaching EOL in any kind of modern gaming. The Gamerplex was at its best when Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs (even Core 2s) were still capable of reasonable AAA gaming. The idea was that you'd spend $125 on an Optiplex 790 with an i5-2400 and 8GB of RAM, then drop in some $20-40 form of storage and a GTX 750 Ti, GTX 1050, RX 460, something that doesn't require external power. Suddenly, boom, low-power gaming PC that probably cost you under $250 total. The goal of a Gamerplex was never to take a 10-year-old entry-level CPU and strap a midrange GPU from 2019 to it. What you'll end up with is not what you thought you were getting.

College is a situation where a beefcake laptop makes a lot of sense. If you live in a dorm or share a home and don't have much space, a laptop that can fold up and be put away doesn't take up much of the space you have. My general thoughts on laptops are that they're not upgradeable, they're overpriced, and they're dependent upon lithium batteries that die over time. My preference is to sink money into a good desktop that suits my needs and can be improved over time with new components rather than having to replace the system. I do have a laptop that I use when I'm traveling, but it's lightweight and low-powered, capable only of basic gaming at 1080p. That arrangement works well for me, and is generally the route I'd suggest going.

Unless your PSU is absolute garbage to the point that every powering up of the system is a roll of the dice, it's perfectly safe. The "additional wear" comment ties back specifically to PSUs.

Jesus Christ, it's within $20 of the 5600X. Why does the 4600G exist?

eBay has a 30-day money back guarantee on all listings, especially the ones where the seller says that they don't accept returns or that the buyer pays for them. Unless the pictures show an item clearly not in the listed condition, I don't hesitate if something I need is going for a great price on eBay anymore. Worst case scenario, I return it on the seller's dime because something doesn't work as described.

If you're not planning on buying a separate GPU, go for the 4600G. If you are going to get a discrete GPU, go for the 12100. The 3100 shouldn't even be in the conversation.

"What do they call clickbait?" "I dunno, I didn't watch Austin Evans."

Yeah, that definitely sounds like the motherboard has issues. Nice stroke of luck that you caught it early.

Have you tried running the system without the new stick of RAM since the problems started? "Matched sets" are no longer a thing from a stability standpoint.

I know, but it's his money, and he wants a soundbar. Did I mention he's stubborn? Hm. If I can talk him out of a soundbar, the LSX looks promising. He's not going to let me run wires to his TV from across the room, but wireless speakers (even if they still need power) might be doable. I spent a couple hours troubleshooting before coming to the conclusion that it's dead. It wouldn't play audio from any source despite definitely being plugged in and powered on. Last time I troubleshot for him, it was a "broken" Blu-Ray player that it turns out he'd just never actually put a disc into. I was very thorough in making sure this soundbar is actually dead lol

Cinema SB400, I think? There are a lot of posts out there on the internet about the board just dying, but I'm pretty sure he's had it since 2015 or so, so I'd consider that to be a good life.

This is for my father in law, who's currently fuming because his old JBL took a shit and just died. Here's what he's looking for: Budget under $1k His current setup has a soundbar + subwoofer He watches rock concerts, baseball, some movies, and a lot of golf This is a fairly large room with a high ceiling No JBL. He's angry at JBL. Any ideas on good units to check out?

Here's the thing though: reporting the seller as fraudulent will not get you a refund. It'll just get the guy suspended/banned. If the option that lets you return the item because it's not as described isn't there, call eBay and they'll open a return for you over the phone.

That depends on your local electric rates. All I can say for sure is that you're losing money.

Reporting a seller as fraudulent over something like this is kinda BS. I have, on a few occasions, put the wrong item in the wrong box, or put the wrong labels on the wrong boxes and sent two different people the wrong thing. Accidents happen, and it's possible that he threw a used cooler into your envelope completely by mistake. The right answer would be to contact the seller and let him know that it looks like there was a mistake with the order, and you received a used CPU cooler. If you're not a dick about it, lots of sellers will tell you to just keep the cooler then issue a refund anyway. It's not worth the price of shipping to get back. If the seller's a dick or refuses the return, open one up as "item not as described". That will force them to accept the return. Reporting a seller as fraudulent can completely screw them over and get them booted from the platform for life. Before you do it, ask yourself if they might have made a stupid mistake with a $4 cooler, or if they're genuinely trying to steal your money by listing an RTX 3090 at an unrealistic price, then shipping you a brick. You might want to get in touch with eBay and let them know that you meant to open a return, not report the guy as fraudulent. You could potentially get his business taken from him for life over a stupid mistake he made when packing a $4 cooler.

If the card was free and you pay nothing for electricity, you'll make some amount of money. If either of those two conditions is not true, you will lose money mining anything on any graphics card.