featherwolf

This is a bit of an odd one, but hear me out: Queer Eye, but tech edition... Basically the concept is making a positive impact in people's lives, but instead of getting a makeover, they get a tech overhaul, focusing on things that will help them get ahead in life, plus maybe bringing in some outside professionals who'd coach them on things that they are struggling with. Test case: My mom, who raised myself and my sister basically by herself from 17 years old has been struggling. She supports so many people that she doesn't leave time for herself. Despite that, she is trying to build up her gourmet vegan cocoa business for the better part of a decade and it is her dream to be able to do that full time. She's an extremely hard worker, doing everything from order fulfillment, packing, doing public events/markets, and way more. She is an inspiration for me in so many ways, but especially for her tenacity. But, one thing she is not is a tech person. I would love it if LTT would give her a tech overhaul, including having someone help coach her on running an online store and designing her website (runs on Square space, but she's always had a hard time managing it and the design just isn't up to where it could be), she's also been interested in selling on other platforms but just hasn't known or had the time to figure out where to start. She runs her entire business from a budget laptop because it is all she could afford as every last cent is put back into her business, so she could really a better computer/peripherals, desk, etc. She just recently quit her day job so she could put more energy into taking her business to the next level and so I'd really like your help in getting her off on the right foot!

Regarding the Seagate drive, was this connected to the server via SATA or USB or what? Wanna make sure the bottle neck is actually the drive and not the connection. That said, assuming you're okay with the higher cost of flash memory, slap a few terabytes of 2.5" SSDs in RAID in your rig. You will suffer from write endurance on SSDs but if you have a good backup methodology (remember the 3, 2, 1 rule), and you pick higher quality SSDs then I believe that would be a very good option.

How old is the drive? Could be that either the controller is failing, a flash chip has failed or it has reached near it's max write limit. Every ssd has a maximum amount of data that can be written to the chips before it stops allowing writes. Regardless, there's not much you can do to save a problematic drive and unless you can rule drive failure out I would begin backing everything important up if it's not already. Also, worthwhile to look into if your particular laptop has a user upgradeable ssd. You may be able to find a teardown online or if not, you can try opening it yourself and finding out.

That I'm not sure about, but if it were me I'd start with the manufacturer. Send them an email or call and tell them that you'd like to order new cables for your PSU. That way, you can be sure that the cables are a match for your PSU and that they will most likely work or return or exchange them if not. If your PSU is older and maybe discontinued, then I guess eBay would be next on my list. I would also probably accept that I may have to buy a set of cables rather than just the individual cable I'm looking for. If you have a micro center near by, it's totally worth giving them a call too.

Yep, that's where I'd start. Good luck!

Those temps are perfectly normal and well within the operating temp of a modern GPU. That said, if nothing else in your rig has changed, your higher temps are likely just do to old thermal paste. If you feel comfortable doing so, disassemble the cooling shroud and put some good quality, non-conductive thermal paste on the die.

Do you have multiple 8 pin connectors? Sounds like maybe the cable is bad. Either that or try plugging the 8 pin cable into a different spot on the PSU if possible.

So, I ended up returning the motherboard and getting an X370 board which has support for Crossfire at PCIE 3 x8/x8. Since then, I have had no more crashes. I think there may have simply been an issue with the power delivery through the PCIE on the previous motherboard or something like that especially since the GPUs were constantly shooting up to high 80's in temp as soon as I loaded a game, making the fans sound like a jet engine. This does not happen on the new Mobo either as the GPUs now hover around 61 under load on the hottest card (granted I did replace the thermal compound when I switched, but that's still a huge difference). Very strange. Didn't have huge expectations for that b450 Gigabyte board, but this was pretty frustrating and disappointing nonetheless. Thanks for the help along the way! I'm glad the issue has been resolved.

Just gave it a test. Didn't really max anything out for me...

Yes indeed. It's hard to see, but there were actually two pieces of film, one underneath the paste and one around it, clearly saying "Remove before use".

Was having some overheating issues on my Asus ROG Strix OC RX 580 and finally decided to crack it open to put some new thermal compound on it and found this example of fine Asus Quality Control inside. Not sure if this would actually affect the thermals much, but it's rather funny IMO.

Thanks for the info. I'll give it a shot!

As far as I can tell everything seems stock in GPU-Z. Here's screenshots fom GPU-Z and Techpowerups bios database:

Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro Wifi Rev. 1 Asus ROG Strix Gaming OC RX 580 (x2) G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 MHZ (4x4GB) AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Micro Center Brand 500 GB NVME SSD Seagate Barracuda 4 TB HDD EVGA Supernova G+ 80 Plus Gold 750w PSU

That's a good point. I should look into the BIOS it is running. Do you know how I can check that?

Also, just checked System Event Viewer and all the crashes were logged with the source being "Kernel-Power" Event ID 41 Level: Critical. The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

It happens with graphically intensive games, like Middle Earth: Shadow of War, but not with less demanding ones. I have not tried a different PCIE slot. I will try that next.

I thought that might be the issue, so I tried putting just a single gpu in and reinstalling the drivers, but same issue. I had the GPUs running on a different motherboard just fine though I was using them separately as it was an matx board and couldn't fit both at the same time. It only crashes with more intense games like Shadow of War, Borderlands 3, Far Cry 4. I've played a few casual games and it was fine. Also, if I try to run a gpu stress test on AIDA64, it crashes.

So, I feel this may be a foregone conclusion, but wanted to see if anyone has any other tips. I recently switched GPUs and Mobo in my PC. Bought 2 used RX 580s and have them set up in crossfire on a B450 Gigabyte Aorus Pro Wifi board. Ever since then, I have experienced total system shut downs every time I try to launch an intensive game. No blue screen, just completely shuts down. All other functions and even some other casual games are fine. I'm trying to avoid having to return the Motherboard, but it's starting to seem like it may be the only option. Here's what I've tried: -Removed GPUs and tested them on a different board. They were fine separately, but could not test them together on that board. -Switched to known good PSU. -Tried each GPU separately in Gigabyte board (thought maybe the board just had problems with multi-gpu setups.) -Reinstalled board drivers -Used AMD Cleanup Tool to completely remove display drivers and reinstalled them (multiple times). -Reset windows on my PC. -Changed the power strip my PC was plugged into. -checked for BIOS updates (there weren't any). Let me know if you think there's something I should try before returning the mobo. Thanks!

Nice! Thanks for the recommendation!

So, I've been wondering why there aren't many channels on Youtube that specialize in reviewing and discussing the large and growing market of budget to mid-range tech out there. It seems like most of the time when I look for reviews of something that's not the newest flagship, there are only a few small channels and usually are targeting the Indian or Asian audience. I think it would be interesting to try to start such a channel as a personal project (obviously not expecting it to be profitable, just something I'm personally interested in and want to share). Would you be interested in a more West-focused review of budget tech and if so, are there any you already know of and recommend? I know LowSpecGamer, but that's pretty much it and his channel isn't really a review or recommendation channel per se as far as I'm aware...

That's about the price I see for a 3600X new, so probably okay but if you don't need it now I'd recommend holding off buying components till the market stabilizes again...

I would say check the local used market on Craigslist or whatever, but that's a tricky proposition during a pandemic... That said, you can find better deals than that power supply. Find one from a reputable, non-oem, company like EVGA, ThermalTake, Seasonic. I don't personally think it's risky to buy one used, but you should try to figure out just how old it is. If it's more than 5 years, I would strongly advise against. Power supplies that are designed to be system specific will often use cheaper components, not be as stable (especially if you are overclocking), and use proprietary or limited form factors/ connectors. Check out the Scrapyard Wars series' from LTT for examples of the challenges of building a hodge-podge PC. But in the end, I don't see any issues with buying used.

Aside from the manufacturer's websites, nothing that is exhaustive and allows for direct comparison between models.

I would have to agree with @thewill102 . Just my personal preference, but I've had monitor sizes ranging from 20" - 47" and honestly the 27" monitor I'm using right now feels perfect. I do sit further away from my monitor than you based on what you wrote though. That said, if you regularly do a lot of multi-tasking and use multiple windows open and snapped to the corners then I could see how having some extra screen real estate would be nice to make them appear larger.