pilotpine

So I figured I would start a thread on this issue as I cannot find any other posts on this form which match it exactly. (to my knowledge of course) This is not a mission critical problem but I always like to hear and learn from the people in this community. (Also hopefully will help someone else in the future) Background: Dell xps 15 9550. (i7-6700HQ, 960m, 16gb ram, 225gb ssd) Battery replaced 1 year ago with no problems until recently. This is what went in: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZFL845N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Daily driver for 3 years and has seen light use for the most recent 2 years. I often leave it shut off and plugged in, ready to go when I need it. (1-2 times a week tops) Problems: On occasion after unplugging and turning on with full battery it will flash login screen then completely shuts down. When this happens I am unable to power back on or even check battery capacity via indicator lights on the side. It is completely dead and unresponsive, with the only solution being to plug it in and turn it back on. After this everything is normal, battery shows 100% etc. and I am able to unplug and go about my business issue free. Analysis: My first instinct would be to say the battery is somehow faulty, however it is curious that this is only now an issue. I wouldn't think it is degraded too much with such light use. Leaving devices plugged in is not the most healthy practice in the world however It was plugged in 24/7 with the factory battery and lasted much longer if this is the issue. If the battery is faulty (and so soon) this might be due to the fact I bought the replacement from an obscure amazon page. My question would then be how is one to know (other than reviews) if a non OEM replacement part like a battery is quality. Are there specific brands to look for or is it just generally better practice to eat the higher OEM price? Second instinct is that this is a funky windows issue, maybe from a recent update? That would explain why I am only now experiencing these issues. I typically run power settings on 'better battery' when unplugged and 'max performance' when plugged in. Currently I am not 100% sure how to proceed with troubleshooting this issue, or if there is even any troubleshooting to be done. Any and all thoughts and opinions are welcome!

Technically I never have since I built the machine back in 2018. I did recently clone my C drive to a better SSD but I have had 3 months of flawless operation before this problem started. Probably not a bad plan, just really super don't want to... Since the last post everything has come out clean and I have had no problems. Been running old NZXT cam and have removed some chrome plugins that may have been slightly dicey. (General PSA to those in the trenches for 30 series, probably auto refresh plugins are not safe.)

I am stumped and am in need of some advice. Apologies for the rambling backstory. Looking back the weirdness started probably a few weeks ago. Upon starting up my desktop I noticed my icons were all out of order and somewhat jumbled up. After dragging one to a new location they snapped to normal and I decided to ignore it. (This still happens every start-up). A few days went by and while watching a live stream I encountered my first freeze. No BSOD, cursor still moving, file explorer working. I opened task manager to kill chrome and nothing happened. After closing task manager to retry I was left with the ghost of the 'task manager' dialogue box on my desktop. (I like to right click the task bar and select task manager). Completely unable to reopen task manager and the rest of my computer beginning to lock up I decided to restart. After opening the start menu and clicking on restart, my computer refused to restart. I was able to open and close the start menu and click shutdown, restart and sleep to my hearts content and nothing. After hard restarting, I went several more days issue free. By this time Nvidia released a new driver which I downloaded and installed. I figured it was a fluke and maybe this new driver would confirm that a video driver was not the issue, and low and behold the issue persists. The next freeze was while browsing the internet with Spotify playing in the background. This time all the same things happened except my audio was stuck in a 1 second repeating loop and I was unable to close or kill Spotify in task manager. One hard restart later and I was freeze free for another week. I have had two more "incidents" exactly the same as the previous, all occurring completely at random, one while watching a video and the most recent while working on a PowerPoint and listening to Spotify. Same audio loop, unable to kill it, but was able to save my work right before PowerPoint froze up. Upon restarting and moving one desktop icon to fix the 'jumble' I ran a memtest which came out clean. I plan on running a windows defender deep scan and a chckdsk tonight and will reply to this post with the results. I also run NZXT's new CAM software with an overclock and will be switching over to the old version to see if that has any effect. (Never has frozen while playing games which makes me think the overclock is not the problem, have also had the same overclock for ~2 years no problem). Otherwise I am grasping at straws at this point. I am in need of thoughts and opinions. Thanks

I am looking to slowly upgrade my system over the course of 2021, and would appreciate some thoughts and opinions. I am currently running: Ryzen 5 2600x NZXT Kraken x62 2x 8gb corsair vengeance lpx Asus Prime x470 500gb Samsung 860 evo m.2 1TB 7200rpm hdd 802.11ac PCIe wifi card Gigabyte Windforce 980ti (+480 mhz overclock) Phanteks Enthoo Evolv X (3x 120mm case fans) EVGA SuperNOVA 650W G3 80+ Gold While I plan to eventually replace this entire system except for my AIO and case, I need a GPU upgrade now for work/school and to give my current gpu to a friend. I plan to buy a 3080 FE as soon as I can get my hands on one, and only need this config to last until spring/summer. I have some concerns about my current PSU (2-3 years old) being up to the task. My research has led me to these calculators: https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator https://www.newegg.com/tools/power-supply-calculator/ According to these sites, with components inputted at worst case scenarios (max tdp, overclocks etc), I believe I can technically get away with this. I know Nvidia recommends 750w+ power supplies for the 30 series cards but I wonder how much of this is a safety margin for them to cover themselves. My current workload is about 40% gaming 60% 3ds max + V-ray rendering. V-ray typically stresses cpu/ram/storage first, then switches to a mostly gpu intensive load. Gaming on the other hand I am worried could max both (with this cpu/gpu pairing). (I am running 1440p 144hz) I know psu age and quality are factors, but not to what degree. I don't intend this to be a permanent solution, but I also would obviously prefer to not damage components. I am interested in what someone with more experience and knowledge thinks about this.

Update: I first tried disabling select extensions then all but the default windows extensions, and after restarting for both, unfortunately no change. File Explorer opens instantly from the desktop, very slightly slower from the start menu and about 1-2 seconds slower from the taskbar. I know having something open in a second vs instantly is trivial but it is frustrating when my far inferior work computer with a HDD and company antivirus software can open File Explorer instantly while my personal rig cannot. I can't understand how there is any difference launching the same shortcut from different areas can affect load time. I have a start menu shortcut which opens a file nested deep in my documents. It behaves the exact same way. My thought process: 1. If the shortcut was borked, launching from different locations would not affect load time (All would be slow). 2. If Indexing, Quick Access, or Defender were the problem launching from different locations would not affect load time (All would be slow). 3. If Windows by nature launched the same shortcut from different locations at the same speed, then It would be a similar phenomena across different machines, which I have not observed. They are both fundamentally doing the same thing are they not? 4. It has to be something else, like a graphics driver? But there isn't a special animation for opening from the taskbar. With my limited knowledge I am fully stumped. What are your thoughts on this?

This is a fantastic response. I am about to disable some things, restart and see if it helps. Two follow up questions if i may, first is there a good way to determine what each extension specifically does? I imagine that would come down to some digging on the internet to figure that out for each program. (For instance: I have four 7-Zip extensions "ContextMenuHandlers" "DragDropHandlers" some are duplicates with the difference being HKLM\Software\Classes\Folder\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers vs " * " or nothing at all) Second, you may have explained this already but how does this effect differ from launching something like File Explorer from the desktop vs the taskbar? My understanding from your explanation is that one form of Shell Extension is when you right click something and are presented with the option of performing a function via the program without actually launching it first. An example being my Bluebeam Revu PDF viewer. When right clicking I have the option to Open or do something like combine files all from that dialog. Interacting with something takes longer to process because it needs to go to other places to 'fetch' the options for how you can interact with it. Is my understanding on the right track or flawed?

I've been experiencing the rather puzzling problem of file explorer taking several seconds to open from the taskbar. Since I built this PC I've never had this issue and it has only appeared within the past few months, needless to say I am getting more and more frustrated with it recently. My troubleshooting and research done: To start I have a SSD as my C drive, with a HDD for bulk storage. Nothing wrong here to my knowledge. Next I thought It could have something to do with Microsoft lovely 'quick access' business, disabled everything I could and nothing. I then took to the internet to see if anyone else has ran into this problem along with a potential fix. I found some forums talking about the shortcut acting up, this led me to do everything from recreate the shortcut by recreating the target path to creating a 'This PC' shortcut. What I did discover from this exercise is all of these shortcuts execute instantly from the desktop or start menu, but if you want to launch from the task bar you may as well go make some coffee and a snack before returning. My research then led to indexing. After disabling all files for in the 'indexing options' menu I was very disappointed to find this fix in fact fixed nothing. TLDR, File Explorer and I are not currently on good terms and I am hoping someone else has experienced this and/or knows a fix. Cheers

I've been experiencing the rather puzzling problem of file explorer taking several seconds to open from the taskbar. Since I built this PC I've never had this issue and it has only appeared within the past few months, needless to say I am getting more and more frustrated with it recently. My troubleshooting and research done: To start I have a SSD as my C drive, with a HDD for bulk storage. Nothing wrong here to my knowledge. Next I thought It could have something to do with Microsoft lovely 'quick access' business, disabled everything I could and nothing. I then took to the internet to see if anyone else has ran into this problem along with a potential fix. I found some forums talking about the shortcut acting up, this led me to do everything from recreate the shortcut by recreating the target path to creating a 'This PC' shortcut. What I did discover from this exercise is all of these shortcuts execute instantly from the desktop or start menu, but if you want to launch from the task bar you may as well go make some coffee and a snack before returning. My research then led to indexing. After disabling all files for in the 'indexing options' menu I was very disappointed to find this fix in fact fixed nothing. TLDR, File Explorer and I are not currently on good terms and I am hoping someone else has experienced this and/or knows a fix. Cheers

I am looking to upgrade my monitor setup from a 32" 1080p 60hz tv. I have narrowed down my choice between "LG 27GL850-B 27 Inch Ultragear QHD Nano IPS 1ms" (https://www.amazon.com/LG-27GL83A-B-Ultragear-Compatible-Monitor/dp/B07TD94TQF/ref=sr_1_3?crid=8GZ79QET6V3S&keywords=27%2Binch%2Blg%2Bmonitor&qid=1576438951&s=electronics&sprefix=27%2Binch%2Blg%2B%2Celectronics%2C150&sr=1-3&th=1) and "LG 32UD99-W" (https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-32UD99-W-4k-uhd-led-monitor). Due to work and school I use my computer a lot for productivity and don't have as much time for gaming as I used to. Although I do still play when I have the time. I am torn between having an amazing picture quality or decent picture and high refresh rate. I am running a R5 2600x and a heavily overclocked 980ti, I know I may struggle to run either of these panels, will one be easier to run than the other? Does anyone out there have any experience or advice on either panel? Thanks

I have an odd problem with my Gigabyte Gv-N98TXTREME-6GB 980ti. I bought the card used from a friend and have been using it for the better part of 6 months and have had no issues whatsoever. It was only until I began exploring the possibility of installing a vertical GPU mount that I discovered the fan ring illumination is messed up. Instead of full illumination each fan ring has a tiny portion at the top that is lit with some colors not lighting up the ring at all. If I didn't know better I would say the lights have partially burnt out however LEDs do not burn out. I figured It could be a wiring problem but after contacting the previous owner, he confirmed the cooler has never been removed. It is also worth noting the windforce logo on the side of the card works perfectly fine. Has anyone ever experienced a problem like this, or have any ideas?

Awesome, this will definitely help out a bunch with my testing. Thanks again for all the help with this stuff.

NZXTs cam software allows you to monitor the coolant temp. You mentioned you OC'd you system. What is your preferred testing methodology for ensuring stability? I was planning on using aida 64 and blender however, blender seems to be having crashing problems on this system. Need to expand my options.

The second half of the graphs is tests with only the FPU checked. Is that what you mean? Also I should have clarified, the delta T I am talking about is the difference in coolant temp and CPU temps. My bad.

Apologies in advance for the picture spam, just want to be through. My ram must be the culprit for the crazy fluctuations, need to get those speeds up. I knew ryzen likes fast ram but didn't know what to expect. I ran both benchmarks until liquid temps hit 35 C then maxed out fans. Is a 35-40C delta T normal? I guess thats larger than I thought. It appears my CPU is still sitting at around ~3.9 Ghz. I'm still new to ryzen, does it boost 1 or all cores up to 4.2? Still in the process of learning, i appreciate the reply's.

Thanks for the reply. Let me run another test and get some more pictures. I also need to overclock my ram as it is currently running at 2133mhz, so it makes sense that the ram is holding up the processor.