likeaboz2002

I came back from ~3 days away from my PC (having left it on) and it said that windows failed to start, which hasn't happened on this system in the 3 years I've had it. I go through the windows auto troubleshooter, which fails, attempted to repair the BCD (which found zero installs to fix, also note the command prompt listed my home drive as X:/), then went into safe mode (which launched fine). Googled a bit to try and find what to do, ended up exiting safe mode and trying BCD repair again. Doesn't work, try to boot back into safe mode. Now when booting into safe mode, the windows loading dots come up, then the screen freezes and the PC boot cycles a couple times until it comes back to the repair options screen. Tried several times, but no way to get into safe mode. Reinstalled windows using a media USB (the PC rebooted itself twice while installing I think). Windows finally installs successfully, reboots, and I'm presented with a selection screen for 3 existing windows installs. I choose the first one and eventually make it to a fresh install, with 4 Windows.old folders in the C:/ drive, but all of my old files are in the oldest one. Everything's looking good. Then I shut down my PC to re-plug in my external HDD and make a backup, and instead of shutting down, the PC boot cycles and resumes its old behavior of freezing the screen while attempting to boot. The next boot cycle brings me again to the windows failed to boot screen, and I try booting in safe mode (half expecting that it chose to boot into one of the bad windows installs instead). To my surprise it boots into the safe mode of the good windows install. Now, I'm scared to shut down/restart the PC because I wasn't able to re-enter safe mode on my old install. So, while I have safe mode available, what can I do to diagnose the issues I'm having, with the assumption that I only have one shot at this?

Denver microcenter, and definitely not! What's their return policy like? I believe my PSU is still under warranty so I might get one to test component functionality and return it if I can get a replacement from EVGA

Yeah, I flipped the PSU switch a couple times while testing just in case. I guess an impromptu microcenter trip is in order. Hopefully they have some good deals today. Let's just pray the GPU isn't dead...

ryzen 5 3600x asrock B550M itx 16gb geil RGB ram EVGA 600BQ RX5600XT 4TB WD HDD I unplugged everything from the PSU and jumped the pins using a small breadboard wire and got nothing. PSU's dead then, is there any way to test if it took the other components with it? Is this a thing that happens?

well fuck... My PC occasionally does this thing where it will turn on after a restart/shutdown and just not output anything to the monitors. A hard shutdown (5 second power button press) and then turning off the PSU while it's shutdown for a minute or so and then powering on again usually fixes the problem. If not, clearing the CMOS using jumper pins fixes it too. I get back from my thanksgiving break today, turn on the PC, and the usual nonsense happens. I do the PSU thing, still doesn't work, so I jump the CMOS pins and then press the power button. The lights and fans all come on for about 5 seconds, then I hear an audible click and everything shuts off. Now it won't power on at all. How fucked am I? What can I try and do?

razer mouse was wired, the new corsair mouse is wireless. The closest wireless mouse is on the floor below me through several walls

Just like the title says, my mouse cursor is being weird and sticking/freezing at random times. I've noticed it happen occasionally during the last couple months with my razer deathadder, but I recently switched to a Corsair harpoon mouse and the same thing keeps happening, just slightly more frequently. Sometimes it'll be a momentary stick, and sometimes the cursor will freeze for a solid couple seconds. It happens mostly when doing large mouse movements, doing small precise movements doesn't seem to stick. It doesn't appear to be related to system usage, as it happens even when nothings open, and task manager doesn't show any CPU/GPU usage spikes. The rest of the system doesn't freeze up, only the cursor. I've done malware scans and nothing pops up, and I've tried changing some of the windows settings to no avail. Reinstalling drivers also didn't fix it. Any ideas?

is there any reliable way to compare CPU and GPU performance?

I would like to get either of those CPUs, if I could find them or their motherboards in stock for a reasonable price. The 1600AF is going for $160+ and the 3100 is going for $200+

The only problem is the Ryzen 3 3300x is out of stock everywhere and so are the motherboards. Plus, at only $30 cheaper than the i3 10300 (which according to UserBenchmark has 5% better overall performance) I wouldn't say it's even that much better of a value, especially if I would end up paying that price difference when buying an AM4 motherboard

Just like the title says, should I be considering the Core i3 10300 when creating a ~$700-$800 budget gaming build? The plan is to build a $500 base build with no GPU before I go to school in the fall, and then add a used 1070 or 1080 for $200-300 a month or two later. Normally I wouldn't consider anything but Ryzen for this build, AM4 motherboard availability is absolutely nonexistent. This led me to consider the i5 9400, priced at $160 and with good motherboard stock, but unlike AM4 the LGA1151 is a dead end, my only upgrade option would be a Coffee Lake i7. Meanwhile the i3 10300 is priced the same AND has in stock motherboards AND performs almost identically (if not better) to the i5 9400 in games AND uses the LGA1200 socket which should support 11th Gen Intel CPUs. Sure it has two fewer cores than the i5 9400 (and 2 more threads), but I probably won't be utilizing those cores. Plus, if I need more cores I can just upgrade to a 10th gen i5 or maybe even an 11th gen i5. Is the i3 10300 a good purchase? Also, I read some articles saying that non-K 10th gen CPUs can be overclocked on non-Z chipsets, is this true? https://www.techpowerup.com/266489/asrock-enables-overclocking-on-non-z-motherboards-for-10th-generation-non-k-comet-lake-cpus

Any board recommendations? I've been having a hard time finding a good ITX board in the $120 price range, but if I need to increase my budget that's cool. Also, what about B450 boards?

The plan is to actually keep it around the $700-$800 mark (buying a $200 used 1070 or $280-300 used 1080 so bring the cost down). The original plan was to go for the 3600, but then I saw BitWit's videos from a couple months ago where he recommended the 1600AF for a $1000 build and it got me thinking. Also, this is most likely going to be an ITX PC. Because power delivery and overclocking on an ITX board is limited, should I get the 3600X to have a little more performance? Does the increased stock clock of the 3600X make overclocking on an ITX board easier?

Right now I have an i5 6500, but I'm planning to sell my entire rig on Craigslist and put the money towards building a new rig before I head off to school in the fall. The reason going for the 1600 AF seems like a good option for me right now is that it's only $100, so using it for half a year, using it to update BIOS and then replacing it with the best Ryzen 5 for the AM4 socket isn't too much of a waste. Also, the 3300x seems to be out of stock everywhere

Also doing video editing with Sony Vegas on the side, that's why I chose the Ryzen 5 over the 3. If it wasn't for the video editing then I probably would opt for the ryzen 3