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Lito290

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    United States
  • Interests
    Games, Voice Acting, Streaming/Video/Audio, Volleyball, Cooking, Sleeping
  • Biography
    Nerd on the Internet with not enough time or energy.
  • Occupation
    Software Engineer

System

  • CPU
    AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
  • Motherboard
    Asus ROG Strix x570-I mITX
  • RAM
    2x8GB Corsair LPX Vengeance 3200MHz C16
  • GPU
    Nvidia GeForce GTX 560
  • Case
    CoolerMaster NR200
  • Storage
    1x Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250GB (Boot), 1x WesternDigital SN550 2TB (Storage)
  • PSU
    SilverStone SX750W Fully Modular 80 Plus Platinum
  • Display(s)
    Crappy Stock Dell 1600x900 60Hz Monitor from 2010
    Acer KG271U 2560 x 1440 144Hz
  • Cooling
    ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II Rev. 2 120mm
  • Operating System
    Windows 10
  • Phone
    Samsung Note 9

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  1. Quick Preface: I'm not a hardware engineer and I have an internet-developed sense of how hardware works refined by a couple computer builds, a single college class, and being tech support for my family. Let me know what books/blogs/etc. I can read to get a better understanding of this stuff, I'd love to hear it. I recently watched a few videos that went over PCIe gen 5 and the theoretical maximum bandwidth being 16 GB/s on 4 lanes. Curious as to how fast that was, I made the connection that CPU cache was fastest, RAM was right behind, and the last-ditch effort involved paging using whatever drive had space. While enjoying some wine, I decided to look up the transfer speeds for DDR4 RAM and found a table that told me DDR4-2666 has a max transfer of 21300 MB/s (hence PC4-21300, didn't realize that was the standard). The big B tells me divide by 1024, and that gives us ~21 GB/s. I then decided to look up DDR3 speeds (used to have a rig with 1600 memory - sold it to a family member that still uses it) and saw it was 12800 MB/s or 12.5 GB/s. I was a bit shocked by how close those numbers were. I understand they differ in their function and build, but tag #2 on this post wanted me to ask anyway; would it be possible for manufacturers in the future, should the trend of rising speeds continue, be able to create a single stick combining RAM and your SSD into one module? Or, could it be done in a marketable manner today? I could see an argument for citing things like speed, space savings, material savings, etc. but also arguments against citing the fundamental differences and specializations, anti-consumer cases popping up for the inability to pick your RAM/Drive sizes and speed separately etc. My idea is more for the average consumer - I could see some OEMs trying this to make a slimmer/smaller laptop that's "still upgradable" by buying a new combo module, or boasting better cooling performance from combining the two and freeing up space for a beefier cooler. Linus' "pipe-dream" scenario in this video from before Lumber-Linus for an M.2 SSD connected through a RAM stick-like structure is a similar concept, but does give me an idea that it's probably not the right way to go about creating a new memory format.
  2. While I'm deffinitely not a zoomer, I am on the younger side of millennial. I've stated it in the story, I'll state it again, it's a realm I have little to no experience in, and I haven't had to go to the unwashed parts of the internet in a hot minute. Last time I did, I was a child with a laptop well past it's expiration date, thought I was hot shit for downloading TOR and going on the dark web, and got GPCoded. Glad I could offer some laughs though, was a heck of an over reaction. It's not hard for me to set it up now that I understand it better. Quick edit to a batch file or config file, RTFM for extra parameters, press go. Fear of the unknown is what really got to me, especially since I had no idea what software to get, how it works or how to perform the due diligence to figure it out until after I found bitcointalk. Every mine with every file carried a decent amount of importance to me until I understood them. Something didn't go screwy, 5.5d is not and will never be an official version according to phoenix miner. The official account was AWOL after their mega page got taken down, and ne'er-do-wellers started posting that they were the legit source since the account was "compromised" and posted version 5.5d loaded with malware. NiceHash believed the fake source and possibly included it with their full software, got called on it, and are now covering their tracks. The PhoenixMiner account came back and said "5.5d will never exist, next version is something different. We don't go past c for production." I'm on Phoenix Miner's side in the argument at this point, but if that's the honor among these groups and you have to be that involved with the community to know what's right/wrong and stay updated, it just doesn't sit right with me to run this code on my machine. I'm a Software Engineer by trade, it's not so much "this will happen, it's the end of the world," more like "I know what can happen, so I better be sure about this" and with the vibes I'm getting, nahhhhhh. If I had a dedicated rig I could set up on a guest network or vlan on my router and keep the traffic and risks away from my (and my gf's) other devices, I'd run that thing into the ground. I was the EBCAK in this situation, I can admit it. I'm hoping, through the TV drama script I posted, if someone is coming through with limited experience and is looking for a traumedy and a resource for where to go, this could be it.
  3. Let me start off by saying: this post *and hopefully subsequent replies from people that know what they're doing* is meant for the people that decided to try mining (or are about to) and don't know where to start research-wise. If anyone has any suggestions on how I should purge my system after hearing my tale, please leave some feedback below. Thanks! Before you even consider reading the rest of this post if you're halfway serious about beginning your journey into mining, create a system restore point now. This will be an invaluable step to giving you peace of mind later. You'll also avoid my mistake. Story time, it's a long one. I once saw a video from a certain Media Group that promoted being able to mine using a piece of software called NiceHash. I'd always wanted to get into mining crypto, I just built a sweet new personal gaming PC with modern parts, and since I had just opened up a coinbase account, I figured I had a place to put those coins and now was a good time (for the old dogs that just cringed reading that, this journey of a thread will hurt) I wanted to get this thing up as quickly as possible, so the NiceHashQuickMiner was the best way to go. Followed the link in the video description, created an account, watched a setup video, and away I went. AntiVirus? Nah, we'll shut it up and download it anyway, people are saying we're good. Let the auto-overclock do it's thing and ran the miner in the background when I slept, turned it off during my work/stream hours and kept that up for a few days. This went on for about 4 days. I was curious what the payout was like and decided to do a little digging. Turns out, even with my 3070, I was scheduled to only make about $7/week. That sounded WAY lower than what my skyrocketed expectations and youtube hype-men's words had flowered, so I decided to dig deeper. I found a few videos talking about some beef between NiceHash and some other mining software and scoffed at it at the time, thinking "lol, guess it's a crazy world out there. Some people must really just want profits." I know, I hate me too. Turns out, yes, you can get paid more mining on your own (in my case, about 5x). You see, you aren't mining in the traditional sense. Instead of trying to mine for a block the old fashioned way, you're essentially renting your PCs hardware out to NiceHash. They behave as a brokerage service so that people with cryptocurrency will pay them with said currency to use YOUR computer (and everyone else's that is using that application) to mine crypto for the top buyer, and you're getting a service fee from that transaction. If I've learned one thing about brokerages from playing the stock market since the beginning of quarantine, it's that the only people that truly profit off of these transactions are everyone but the workers. So I decided I wanted to leave NiceHash behind for now. I wouldn't get rid of it entirely, especially since I still had unpaid funds left sitting in the account that hadn't yet reached the payout balance. Instead, I'd start looking into how I could quickly and easily get some mining software to start up to mine Ethereum Classic, the little brother to the new darling of the crypto mining world. I did a quick google search and, wouldn't you know it, all of the suggestions started pouring in. Sites in Russian, domains that end in .xxx, maybe a blog post or two from some random news places I had NEVER heard of in my life, you name it. I decided I wanted to go the easy route, something that just had a GUI and a "Mine" button that would magically do all the tinkering for me, and found out that there is a mining application built right into the Microsoft Store on Windows! What luck, Microsoft approved a mining app, this has to be safe and secure, it even has a discord. No virus popup either! You might notice I'm not dropping the name, yea, that's because after I installed it, it didn't work. I put the settings in I needed to, pointed to a pool address (just googled what that was 5 minutes beforehand, but at least I made sure to choose the ssl protocol), gave it my address and hit go. Not a thing. I joined the discord for help and, as I later figured out, this application was made back in 2017, never updated, and the discord was a ghost town with no mods answering any questions and messages still coming in, but DAYS in between them. I decided this may be a bit too sketch for my taste and that I should do a little more research, maybe taking the year into account. Uninstalled, ran a virus scan. After that bust, I decided to try downloading a couple flavours of miners just to test the waters. After looking into some other sketchy blog-like websites that touted "THE BEST ETH AND ETC MINERS OF 2021", I decided to try BFGminer and ETHminer. I learned my lesson (kinda) about making sure the source was the right one. BFGminer's website looked kinda sketch, but after seeing SEVERAL (as in 5) reddit/blog posts saying the site and miner was legit, I gave it a download, extracted it (while AV was disabled, re-enabled after extraction) and started looking at the files. ETHminer, I found the official github page (thank god) and got the version that worked with my hardware, but saved extracting it for it BFG didn't work out. I didn't know what I need to click to make anything run, I tried going through the readme, didn't see anything immediately helpful, so I just clicked on the exe. Nothing happened. Didn't even see and command prompt window open. Took a few looks at it and said "okay, no GUI is opening, not liking this. Let's move to the other one." Tried running it in admin mode *note: DON'T DO THIS* Thought I might've accidentally opened an instance running in the background and then realized "oh crap, it might be running but I didn't run it right so I can't see it. Might as well full shutdown to clear it out, then try to configure it." All the while, Kaspersky was freaking out saying "hey, this isn't a virus since you said you wanted it, but criminals use this thing. You know that, right?" I was getting frustrated not knowing what to do with these files I just downloaded and executed on my computer, so I said screw it. I decided I wanted to use nanopool, and it turns out they have a miner that they have ready to mine on the pool, just put your address, rig name and email in and you're good to start! Got it from their official github page, filled in the blanks, click run and... AV blocks the execution of it. No problem, just run it in admin mode. After that, no problems popping up. It's running over SSL so no MITM crap or redirects, I'm not running the card very hard, only hitting about 60C and making sure it stayed within power limit and figured out I could make upwards of $5 a day! Decided to switch over to ETH at this point just to see what the hubbub is about and, hey, if it's gonna grow, I was fine with the mining rate the card was giving me. Then I met the dev fee. I had no idea what this was or why Nanopool was double dipping with a pool AND a dev fee, so I looked it up and found out "yea, Nanominer has a stupid high dev fee and it's fairly limiting. Just use Claymore or Phoenix miner instead, it has better performance and lower dev fees." Sold, this has become a for-profit in my spare time thing anyway, might as well optimize it. I didn't do any other research other than google the name "claymore miner," went to their website, found out their website sketched me out, found their github repo, and clicked download. I didn't want to waste any more time with configuring crap, so after I extracted it, I didn't even run the exe, just looked at the setup files. It seemed much more complicated than it was worth to set up, so I threw it in the recycling bin. Next one. Went to look at Phoenix miner and saw people praising it, saw setup guides on nanopool and other pools for it (oh yea, finally looked at pool options and found out ethmine might be a better choice), and all the posts were much more recent. This definitely felt like the right choice. Copped the miner from the official github page without much thought, plugged the commands into the batch file, and as soon as I tuned down nanominer, I started up Phoenix. I had been running Phoenix for a few days by that point and had gotten rid of all traces of other miners EXCEPT for Nicehash, the windows store one (honestly didn't remember it was there till later), nanominer and phoenix. Only ran phoenix for a couple days after. this all culminates to around 2-3 days ago when I finally did my own due diligence. I asked myself "so, phoenix seems to be popular, but I saw an article saying something about viruses and compromising versions of it? What's going on? Then I found Nicehash's statement. Big bold letters. "STOP using Phoenix miner immediately!" Oh poopy. I click on the article, read through it, and absolutely panic, as one does at a FUD article over a subject they know little about. But, while I'm reading through this article, I find responses to this with youtube videos, which I watch, that link to the bitcoin talk forum that has the official statements, releases, and whole thread from Phoenix Miner themselves. They denounce any wrongdoing whatsoever, I breathe a quick sigh of relief, riiiiiight before reading what their campaign against NiceHash entails. This is where I finally learn about the correspondence, the individuals previously associated with NiceHash , the practices occuring, all of it. As I am sitting there, absorbing both sides of the argument alongside words of wisdom from the OG miners while scrubbing through the thread, a sense of dread and a sudden realization washes over me. What the kibledy-bips did I do to my machine over the past 2 weeks. I downloaded not 1, not 2, but seven mining applications, the majority of which were unsigned, required me to disable my antivirus, and had to be run with heightened privileges to execute properly. I even uploaded the executables to a virus scanning site to cross-reference with all known databases, had half of them come back with "this is bad" and still went "well, that's life." None of that set any alarms off and I kept going until I found out that the best miners that were recommended were at each other's throats about how the other is too shady to be trusted. Not only this, I put all of this crap on my personal machine. Not a dedicated mining rig, not a throwaway laptop, not a secondhand PC with no data on it. My baby. I got sick. I continued doing research on mining applications and realized claymore, one of the apps I download, was caught in an exit scam and stole all their user's gains. I read stories about how people that used miners, even the legitimate copies, were getting hacked and had ransomware, remote desktop access, random user privilege assignments and credit card details stolen (although many of them also either downloaded some other shady program, or didn't get an official version of the mining software). All I knew at that point was that I was in over my head in an area I wanted to leave. I downloaded malwarebytes, started monitoring processes and services, uninstalled any application I hadn't used in the past month, went through the event logs to see if I was already compromised, and continuously scanned, quarantined, and deleted/shredded everything I could possibly think of that was tied to the miner on the machine. I checked the hash of every miner that I questioned whether it was official and whether or not it could be trusted (everything came back as the official SHA256 that I could find). While looking even deeper into the FUD stories of people that got hacked, I decided it was in my best interest to check my other devices such as my router to see if ports had been forwarded, slam my computer AND phone into VPN only mode for all apps, reset all of my access passwords for my machines and enable 2FA on all of the things, until I finally decided to take about 5 seconds and think about all the crap I was reading. The people that got hacked with mining software also had other shady downloads that they executed. A swathe of other people had suggested these miners, and all of them had a respectable amount of download or at least some semblance of safety tied to them that the damage could be undone. Even PhoenixMiner on their thread had stated "Why would we want to destroy a source of income for us. We can't get you to fully trust us, but maybe you'll believe we aren't idiots." Maybe I wasn't completely SoL. I looked more into it and, as expected, the scams that had happened in the past had already happened. I didn't find any logs that didn't already occur previously on the system or processes/services that weren't normal. New weird new apps installed, no strange behaviour. The only issues that could crop up were based on what I already had on there with binaries I had no idea about. Problem was, I already ran this code, and I couldn't just go back in tiiiiiiiiiiii-RESTORE POINT. Okay, not a fool-proof solution if you feel you've been hacked or have a virus, but at least a start. Go back to a restore point before you clicked the executable and ran the binaries and messed with the registry in ways YOU can't fix. I looked and, sadly, the furthest back my restore point was had been made after I had downloaded nanominer, meaning the BFGminer and ETHminer incidents would still have occurred. But, at least claymore and the current pressing issue, phoenixminer, would be wiped. I pulled the trigger on that and, as the computer restarted, flashed the bios for good measure. Sure, it overwrote my OC settings, but I can always set those again. It would be absolute mania trying to get another graphics card. As I write this, dear reader, I am running another few scans of MBAM and Kaspersky, uninstalling all the programs over again to ensure nothing foul remains, and plan on soft-resetting windows to leave my files but put a fresh coat over this install, where I will once again flash the bios after it's completion for good measure. Is it helping me sleep better tonight? NO. And this is the part where I leave the people looking to mine with guidelines and ask questions for the people that might be able to help me: 1. System restore. Do it if you haven't, do it again if you have. 2. bitcoin talk forum is THE place to go for mining any altcoin. They have a credit system that tells you how new someone is so you know who to avoid if they make a post about a miner, and the discussions there will point you in the right direction. 3. DON'T RUN IN ADMIN MODE. 4. Know that it will never be 100% safe. If that bugs you, this isn't for you. 5. Don't mine on your personal computer, if you can help it. It is possible if you trust the miner and have done the research (or know who to ask the right questions to) but unless you have some experience, it isn't worth risking your files to whatever attack might happen. Multiple ingress points here, even if you do things the right way. So, my questions and concerns to the experts: 1. Based on the miners I said I had used at the times I used them (or only downloaded), do you still think there is risk that something has injected itself into my system? I had only ever used SSL connections to the pools, but I did not always have my VPN on while mining, and obviously, admin mode was stupid. 2. Am I going far enough with a windows soft reset, or should I go ahead and pull the trigger on formatting my hard drives and re-installing fresh with a bios flash? I'd prefer not to lose lose some apps, passwords and a decent chunk of files, but they were mainly archival in nature and anything super important I have backups of elsewhere. 3. Do we know of any network-spreading 4. What do you recommend to people wanting to dip their toes into mining? Seems like the entire place is a minefield people are tiptoeing around while snipers attempt to pop them in the head, miss, and blow someone else up.
  4. Once the system is no longer connected to the wall, the sound stops. I've tried 3 outlets in my apartment, but haven't had the chance to try at a different place yet. Just to confirm: it could be an issue with my electricity delivery?
  5. Thanks for the replies, sorry for the delay! Work likes to take me away from fun things. This sound occurs even when the system is turned off, so I don't think it's coil whine. I hope it isn't getting ready to die, the PSU is only a month and a half from purchase date! It's the only reason I felt comfortable reaching out to SilverStone, I believe it's still under warranty Recording is now attached. A few notes: This noise persists even when the entire system is off, including when the switch for the PSU is set to off. I have tried plugging it directly into a wall instead of a power strip, and the noise still persists. Upload limit had me compress the video to oblivion, sorry for potato quality. Please ignore the anime background and crap cable management, I've been plugging and unplugging this thing so much I've just kinda given up. PSUNoise.mp4
  6. PSU: SilverStone SX750W Fully Modular 80 Plus Platinum Power Supply, SSTSX750-PT Problem: Rhythmic "zap" or "buzz" noise that comes and goes Solutions Attempted: Re-mounting PSU Orienting PSU Vertically/Horizontally Checking for short-circuits Checking for cable failure/overuse Reseating cables on PSU & Components Using a different wall cable. Clearing CMOS Details: I'm running a Ryzen 7 5800X (undervolted) and a GTX 560 (I know, I know, I'm trying to find a 3080) inside of a CoolerMaster NR200 case. 750W should be plenty for both the CPU and GPU alongside all peripherals. The power supply is mounted to the back side panel with the fan out and should be able to draw air as necessary. The only time the PSU fan even spins up is when I'm running stress tests or gaming. After having to tinker with the case some more to cable manage and mount/unmount the hard drive and AIO placement, the PSU started making a short, rhythmic buzzing noise, similar to dragging your finger along a plastic comb. It comes and goes without any warning; some days I don't hear it at all, other days it comes and goes every 5 minutes. The sound persists, even when the computer is fully shutdown and the power supply is switched off. I attempted to take a flashlight to look inside, but I didn't see anything that stuck out as "this shouldn't be here." I then followed all of the solutions you see above. Currently (puns) I've sent an email to Silverstone stating the problem, but really can't deduce what's wrong with the thing, if anything, and I don't want to have to RMA this PSU if they're just going to send it back stating they can't find a problem with it, especially if they don't get the same sound I do on the day they decide to test it. Ambient temperature in my domicile is 20.6C, I'm not detecting any leaks from my AIO, all thermals/voltages/etc. appear normal on the 5 different monitors I've tried, and I haven't had the PSU surge and damage anything yet. At this point, I'm wondering if a friggin Mosquito got into the PSU and won't stop fighting. Anyone have any clue what it could be?
  7. I'm running considerably hot with my 5800X as well. My chip is in an ROG STRIX x570-I, I have an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 120 Rev. 2 and 2 Noctua NF-A 12x25 running as exhaust in a Cooler Master NR200. So, count em 5 fans in a small chassis, whipping the wind like crazy over everything. Idle, I'm sitting around 29C, 32C on the CPU package. When I attempt to execute anything, my CPU spikes up to 50C, opening applications or downloading games spikes it up to 70C, and I get pinned to 90 when running Cinebench R20. Scores come out within spec, but getting to near TJMax to do it. I'm also currently running a GTX 560 (only card I had while I attempt to get a 3070/80) and have been experiencing spikes in temperature even when just opening chrome, so GPU should be a non-issue. The other weird thing is the exhaust fans are pushing cold air even when running cinebench for 30 minutes. I'm checking what @Voluspahad mentioned about voltage, SFX power supply and cables may have gotten jostled or improperly installed. But, I found this little reddit gem: I have a PBO2 Curve Optimized undervolt on specifically to try to avoid full power consumption, but CPU-Z still says I'm drawing ~1.42V when the spikes happen, so a manual undervolt may be the best solution.
  8. A beautiful question the answer to which is not known to me., His drone shoots 4k and he was discussing an opportunity he was given shooting 4k footage for clients (friend of a friend has a company type situation). He wanted to, if nothing else, be able to play the file on his computer without bringing the quality down, review it for potential glitches/issues, then immediately send it off. For all I know, he might spring for a 4k monitor without telling anyone, or he might hook the new computer up to a TV in the house. Dude works in mysterious ways sometimes.
  9. Alright, I just redid my base partpicker here I went with a bit bigger of a mITX case since it does have USB-C in it, it's still under $80, and it's around the size of their current computers (albeit a bit wider) but with better ventilation and airflow which means we'll maintain cooling performance, especially since they put their PCs on carpet (despite my warnings). I think that'll still keep them comfortable. It seems like on mITX, both builds are going to be relatively similar since there are only 4 mobos I can find that check my boxes, and the cheapest one currently does the trick. I tried to take y'alls opinions into account when choosing these parts too. I like the idea of a low-end graphics card just for displaying for now unless I can convince my dad to go ham on a 2070 super, but that'll be a separate discussion. Here's what I'm currently thinking for the Mom's Build Downgrade the CPU to Ryzen 5 3400G to save on a graphics card and processor Upgrade the storage to 2 TB MX500 for all her hoarding needs. Almost want to go for a RVZ03 case since I won't have to worry about a GPU... And now, Dad's Build Downgrade SSD to 1 TB since he still has half the room on the old 1TB HDD left. Tell him "yes, yours is cheaper now, but it's more powerful and you can make it even moreso if you drop a cool hundred on a graphics card later down the line." Thanks for everyone's help so far, been really informative!
  10. He still lives life in 30 hz, sadly. I'll mention it to him that it might be a worthwhile upgrade, but if he's still happy with his monitor, it'll probably go in one ear and out the other.
  11. MX500 is coming in only $5 below what the WD Blue is and the Barracuda 120 only $10, but the BX500 is coming in around 20 which would be more worth it. BX500 2TB is also about $20 cheaper than the WD Blue at 2TB, so I may end up going with that. It's possible they don't need NVME speeds, I just figured if it was only a couple bucks more for radical gains, it might be worth it with their budget. This is probably what would make him okay with it. Nope, not thunderbolt, just the connection. Sure, the speeds are the same as whatever the revision is it's running on, but he likes having the port built into it. Would just trying to find a case with type-C ports instead of the Mobo be a better option, or would that still blow the price up? I needed this, thank you.
  12. I just checked, seems the 3600 does require a discreet card, totally overlooked that! On PC part picker, I was seeing the SATA drives were around the same price, at least for the WD Blue. Was I looking at older M.2 models, or...? And yea, was looking at potentially getting even more storage for mom, as well as teaching her what the "delete" function is. I've also never built an mITX computer, is it similar enough to ATX? I'm mostly concerned about ease of upgrading and how a computer that small might compete with some of the more commercial applications even 5 years down the road. Converters are a possibility, but if we can, I'd like to keep it streamlined and built-in. It was another specific that my dad had asked for, and whenever he gets a new toy (much like his drone), he likes to have it be as plug-n-play as possible. I see USB-C becoming the new standard on whatever toys he could think of, and considering he's getting close to retirement age, he'll be playing with them even more often.
  13. So, my parents have asked me, the tech guru in the family, to build them new computers that they will fully pay for. I've done PC builds before, but not with the use cases my parents have. I was hoping for someone to judge, based on the constraints, how well my current buildout would work for my folks, and where I could more efficiently choose parts for the budget. 1. Budget & Location This would be in the US. Budget for both computers is $2000 USD, however, my dad has hinted that he would like to actually spend < $800 USD per machine if possible. 2. Aim For both: They're looking for computers to last them for about 10 years so they can keep doing what they're currently doing. They're very simple in terms of navigating the OS. They don't want to have to naviage multiple drives, they want everything possible on their desktop because its easily available and they like their current file structure of folders on folders. For this reason, I'm only putting one 1TB M.2 drive in both of them, and I'll be ripping their old WD Blue Caviar drives out to put in so they'll still have their data, but won't need to access it (after extensive cleaning and virus scanning). They don't want a full sized machine like mine (I'm running a Fractal Design Define R4 and they say it's massive), so I'm looking at a micro-ATX mid towers. For Dad: He's the power user of the two. He still needs to be able to run office and use firefox for work, but he's also experimented with playing 4K footage from his drone on his current desktop, but it won't even play because his CPU is too weak. I've also discussed with him if he planned to eventually edit these videos, and he says he doesn't know yet, but would like to keep that option available in the future. So, no graphics card for now, but potential to insert one (equivalent of a 2070 super) around a year down the line. For Mom: She has gone back to school and is in need of something that can run the Microsoft office suite, but she also loves playing games like candy crush and whatever facebook flavor of the month game pops up. She used to do light photo editing, but had to stop since her computer was getting too slow to even open photoshop. She also enjoys opening up a lot of google chrome tabs to be able to stream music/videos, do homework online, and keep track of things like they were actual tabs in a folder. It's her own way to keep organized. 3. Monitors Dad will be using his current monitor, 1080p30. Mom will be getting a new monitor since she's currently still running a 4:3 monitor over VGA. Looking at HDMI connections for now. If y'all have a suggestion for a solid 1080p monitor for video playback (doesn't have to be anything fancy), suggestions are welcome. 4. Peripherals They will be using their current peripherals, which are all USB based. This includes their current wifi dongles, mouse, keyboard. I kinda wanna free up that one USB slot from their old wifi dongles, since they came with their cisco router they got around 8 years ago (that they no longer use). Fairly certain it only supports up to 802.11g. That's why the motherboard I chose has wireless card included. 5. Why are you upgrading? They upgrade computers once around every 10 years. They're still running on old Dell Inspiron towers with an Intel Pentium Dual core CPUs and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM (or even DDR2, can't remember when they got the things or when Dell switched to DDR3). My moms current 1TB HDD is stuffed to the brim and I'm surprised it hasn't failed, but the speed hit has been massive. Opening a small JPG from the desktop takes over 30 seconds. Fairly certain they've also experimented in certain nautical bandit practices, but refuse to admit to it. Needless to say, they need an upgrade, and they're looking for something that they can drive into the ground and replace again in another 10 years (or even longer) without having to do too much surgery. Here is what I have so far as a build for both of them: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NV7MXv Pressure Points: They were asking about bluetooth compatability as well, I said there's a solid set of Bluetooth USB adapters they can buy, especially considering how I'm not seeing any come with a motherboard. If y'all know of a board or maybe pcie card we can put it, that would be dope. Because we're trying to extend this thing's life for a while, I'm finding it hard to come by features like USB-C on the micro-ATX boards. I've never had to plan a micro-ATX build, so if someone has any micro-ATX mobo/case combos in mind that still allows for some future expand ability, that would be awesome. Heck, even a small ATX case that would fit my use case is welcome. I'll be building the computers, installing windows for them, and doing the initial setup, so I don't mind getting my hands dirty with some slightly difficult cable management. Any and all help is appreciated, especially on the pressure points. Let me know if you have more questions too, a lot of this will have to be felt out as we go
  14. So I keep seeing all of these "It's a gaming laptop, but it's business appropriate!" claims from companies that really... aren't business laptops. They're just sleeker looking gaming laptops that retain the huge logo slapped on them and for a massive price. What I'm looking for is a gaming laptop first with looks that aren't so... branded. Long story short, my girlfriend's old laptop that she got from a flea market (had an SSD put in, potentially OC'd not much else is known. She can run Fallout 4 on medium with some slight but noticeable lag) is getting to be on it's last leg (she's had it for nearly 4 years after the flea market) and she's started looking at getting a new laptop for business specifically while trying to keep the older one to game on. While that's a great idea in theory, the battery no longer holds a charge and the charging port is starting to come undone (we checked with 3 chargers, it's the port), the thing weighs a considerable amount so it doesn't travel well, and she isn't a fan of having a desktop because she can't bring her games with her that way, the thermals get stupid hot when she has to switch the graphics card on so she has to have one of those laptop cooling trays/desks to prevent overheating and/or singeing her lap, and the shell is coming apart. The plastic protector around the GPU heatsink fins have already busted off and I'm not sure how much more abuse it can take before just falling straight off. Taking all of this into consideration, I figure it's time to scrap the ol' laptop and get her a new one. After saving some money, I figure under $1,000 USD is totally doable. However, she's a business major I'm having some trouble finding a gaming laptop that would be presentable at a legit business meeting. Having RoG branding or red/acid green accents isn't exactly "professional" in her environment. I guess you could say I'm looking for a sleeper laptop. She also has some personal requests for her laptop: 1. She likes having a graphics card switch. In her mind, manual control over her power consumption makes her feel more in control of her battery life, which she likes (I can't find a laptop with this option anywhere anymore, send help). 2. SSD as a storage device. Her old laptop has one, so it's possible we could salvage it and just plug it in, but SSD is a must for her. Doesn't have to be primary storage, just an option and a place to have windows. 3. She wants to be able to play fallout 4 and similar titles on at least medium settings at 1080p while also running discord and maybe a few browser tabs, so I'm thinking 8 GB+ of ram. 4. She can take or leave a numpad, but as a business major, she'll be typing a lot, so skimping on the keyboard won't do. Webcam, mic and touchpad aren't a priority, so long as it has one. I've done some primary research and found 2 laptops that may fit the bill, but come with their own issues: The Acer Nitro 5 PROS: Fits the specs she's looking for, perfectly within budget and then some, solid reviews for the price. CONS: The size. Thing is still a giant block and weighs a substantial amount. The red streaks are also an issue, with the keyboard accents being a hard distraction at meetings. No manual graphics card switch. The Dell G5 15 Gaming PROS: Fits the specs (overly so, to a point), within budget if it can be gotten on sale, reviews are okay, size and weight are respectable, more presentable CONS: Price is borderline, Neither of us have been a big fan of Dell systems, the red circle is still a bit much to me (that's more personal), no graphics card switch. I thought I recalled LTT reviewing a laptop a few months ago that was almost brandless on the back and was described as, well, pretty much what I'm looking for (minus the graphics switch) but I can't find it on the channel. I thought it might have been a lenovo legion, but that costs nearly double my limit and does have a giant, although business appropriate, legion brand on the back. Thing looks like a Mercedes-Benz logo. Honestly, considering the laptop's age, I wouldn't mind going a model year or two back for this upgrade since it would still BE an upgrade, so if y'all have any recommendations for/against certain laptops in this realm, I'm privy to them. Thanks in advance
  15. Hello all, first time poster, long time viewer. I built my first PC back in 2014 and it's been serving me ever since pretty darn well for what I originally paid for it (that, and the GPU/PSU bundle I got from a friend was a freakin' steal). That being said, lately I'm feeling as if my machine has started to lag behind in my use cases. I've done some upgrades over the years in order to compensate, but I feel like I'm just throwing money at the machine rather than actually helping. I'm about a month into my first job, so what better to use my new source of income than an upgrade? That being said, I started going round-robbin on the parts with which to upgrade and I just ended up confusing myself looking at all the different options while attempting to keep the cost down. So, I decided to create an account on here and pose a question: the heck do I do. Current machine: - intel i7 4770k (slight overclock to 4.0) - CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo (stock fans) - Asus Z97-A Mobo - 16 GB DDR3-1333 memory - GTX 980 Founder's Edition - Corsair TX650 PSU - WD Blue HDD @5600 RPM - Fastcude Hybrid Drive @7200 RPM - Fractal Design Define R4 case with built-in 140mm intake and exhaust fans. - Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Uses: - Programming (Some ML and Video Games, mostly Java applications) - Live Streaming to twitch (games both from the computer and via capture card) - Music/Video editing - Good ol' GAMING. Budget: Around the $500 mark or cheaper if possible. The first thing that comes to mind is to get a Mobo/CPU that supports DDR4 memory. But my hard drive makes windows start up extremely slow, so maybe getting an SSD or M.2 drive would help many of the issues. But then I look at my cable management and think that getting a modular PSU with a higher wattage and more efficient consumption would help to future-proof and keep costs down on a new build. But THEN I think of cooling, and how I can barely overclock the CPU I currently have and whether or not to get an AIO liquid cooler... You get the picture. That, and with all the different generations of RAM, CPUs, GPUs etc. coming out at different times, it's hard to tell what would be the best place to start. I also realize that I'll eventually just have to break down and get a new build started, but I don't feel like this thing is past it's usefulness, especially when my use cases aren't extremely stressful. So I'll go ahead an leave it up to y'all. What is holding back my machine the most and what do you recommend to rectify it?
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