Kaaverik

Is this the first time you have had this happen? This is certainly not normal. I would try the following though: 1. End the process/ Restart the process 2. Update graphics drivers 3. Update chipset drivers (amd/intel website?) 4. Windows Updates I have never seen anything like this, keep us posted!

If you are looking at air cooling, I would go for a large Be Quiet! cooler, a Scythe cooler or Noctua cooler since they seem to be the consistent best performers. Scythe is the absolute price/performance champion. I do not know that much about liquid cooling but any 240mm+ radiator should be able to handle the processor overclocked just fine. Be wary of failing pumps!

Right now your system is in a really good spot regarding system specs! Finding a graphics card is probably going to be the biggest challenge to face, and in my opinion is the only part you really need. Are there any features you would prefer? Ray tracing? Freesync? What kind of games are you going to play, older titles, newer titles, upcoming future titles?

Can you tell us a little more of what you are doing at the moment? If you look at the processes tab, we can see what application is using the CPU the most.

Pulled the PSU spec information from a listing. The important section is the 12v rail which will deliver up to 540w. I would say that this PSU should be capable of running the 1080ti just fine. The 1080ti is rated to up to 250w of power draw, factoring that in the 11500 is a 65w processor that might boost higher (likely to 85w) Total power draw while gaming will probably be around 450w on this system which is well within the safe limits on the PSU.

My bad, it was still running in dual channel mode. Edited to reflect the change!

Sorry, but Ryzen can only support dual channel configurations for the dual rank performance boost (with only 2 modules) The DIMMs are the same speed and latency so they should work well in the system, and they will only run in dual channel mode because there is an even set of 4 DIMMS present. Threadripper allows for Quad channel, and it also has more RAM slots. EDIT: single channel mode for 4 DIMMS is not real, it is a fluke. 2 or 4 DIMMS will work in dual channel mode on Ryzen systems

No worries, glad to help!

Thanks for the info! I will look into this also.

The 1660 will give you a huge performance boost in games. Even though it is limited by the CPU, your games will run so much better compared to the gt 630. Its about a 1500% performance increase according to userbenchmark. The 1660 for $225 usd is a good buy UserBenchmark: Nvidia GeForce GT 630 vs GTX 1660

It depends mostly on how you feel about it. Plenty of people will still decry about it. Personally, I think eGPUs are a great idea, but the cost of the dock alone without a GPU is just a cash grab. If they were $50 I would find it much more reasonable to go that route. If you want to keep your laptop in tip-top shape, and you plan on doing thermal paste replacement and maybe a battery replacement down the line, maybe not even for a few years, it is a viable option. The laptop if performing great now, should last a good while into the future. Gaming laptops were and still are mostly bulky with short battery life. There are a few really nice ultrabooks out there! Yes, you will get a lot of performance out of them, but at the cost of portability for the high end ones. It brings me back to the pentium 4 laptops, god those things were insufferable. You were lucky if you could squeeze an hour and a half away from a wall socket.

I have the same problem actually, on my HP Envy x360 with the r5 4500u. I have learned to pretty much live with them, the same garbled metallic sound and brief slowdown of a video. Is your memory usage high? I have noticed that they occur regularly when I am using a high amount of RAM on my laptop, or have many tabs open, but I have never had the situation appear on my desktop which has 32gb of RAM.

UEFI will normally look a lot better than a BIOS. That is the usual way to tell it apart. BIOS and UEFI perform the same tasks on startup and initialization of devices in your computer, but the UEFI is the newer and better version. Almost all modern GPUs and systems come with UEFI standard because without it, the GPUs would not run (see number 3 below) There is plenty of information that can be found here: UEFI vs BIOS: What's the Difference? (freecodecamp.org) UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. It does the same job as a BIOS, but with one basic difference: it stores all data about initialization and startup in an .efi file, instead of storing it on the firmware. This .efi file is stored on a special partition called EFI System Partition (ESP) on the hard disk. This ESP partition also contains the bootloader. UEFI was designed to overcome many limitations of the old BIOS, including: 1. UEFI supports drive sizes upto 9 zettabytes, whereas BIOS only supports 2.2 terabytes. 2. UEFI provides faster boot time. 3. UEFI has discrete driver support, while BIOS has driver support stored in its ROM, so updating BIOS firmware is a bit difficult. 4. UEFI offers security like "Secure Boot", which prevents the computer from booting from unauthorized/unsigned applications. This helps in preventing rootkits, but also hampers dual-booting, as it treats other OS as unsigned applications. Currently, only Windows and Ubuntu are signed OS (let me know if I am wrong). 5. UEFI runs in 32bit or 64bit mode, whereas BIOS runs in 16bit mode. So UEFI is able to provide a GUI (navigation with mouse) as opposed to BIOS which allows navigation only using the keyboard.

My personal recommendation is the current line of HP Envy x360 laptops. I have been running my current one since 2018, and thankfully HP has kept the line going since. If you are in the US they are currently on sale right now, and I have high regards for them for being excellent all-rounders. https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-envy-x360-convertible-laptop-15z-eu000-touch-268j0av-1 The low end configuration is a Ryzen 5 5500u (up from the 4500u in the 2018 model) and 8gb of RAM, a 256gb SSD, and a strong Vega 8 integrated GPU. The 1080p touchscreen IPS display is great for indoor use. The SSD can be replaced if you want more storage in the future, or you may order more storage when the laptop is configured. I would recommend ordering one with 16gb of RAM as well, which is only $80 more when configured. I do not know if they still solder the memory to the board, which cannot be upgraded in the future. The $80 difference from 8 to 16gb will give the laptop a much longer lifespan, and with CAD and engineering work, the more RAM the better. If you have any questions about it feel free to message me!

I believe that Ryzen 5 apus in laptops got hot when the 4500u came out, which I currently rock... I am currently using an HP Envy x360 15.6. They go regularly for around ~500USD on ebay secondhand, but in CA it seems to vary, but they all are less than 900CAD. This one fits all specs at minimum, 8gb of RAM, 256gb SSD, and a 1080p touchscreen. This is the 2018 model from what I remember. They also made an Intel variant (in silver) that is also superb, with identical specs otherwise. I have not looked at laptops since, this thing has been a dream. Battery life is terrific once you set the HP power profile in to Quiet Mode, which clocks down the CPU and fans so they don't spin up. They can be quite loud if running intensive tasks. Laptop gets slightly warm, but I have gone a full day of classes (approx 6 hours) at my university without needing a charge, by the end of the day being close to 12%. I then plug it in to work on campus until the end of the day. During that period I do mostly word processing and web browsing. I do not like to close tabs, so I routinely have about 100 open at a time using Chrome or Firefox while at work. (Bad habit) The laptop stays incredibly responsive at all times. It is even great at running Minecraft and older titles thanks to the Vega 8 igpu. I/O is good, you have 2 usb ports, USB C with DVI and power input capability, HDMI, an SD card reader, headphone/mic barrel jack, and the charging port of course. This is the OLD version. I believe that HP is also doing a sale right now for the Envy x360 laptops, at least here in the US. It is definitely worth looking into, as the build quality and endurance of these laptops are excellent. As far as I know, the 2021 variants of the envy x360 are still excellent choices. The 2021 version has 16gb of RAM and a 512gb SSD albeit it is a little more expensive. https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/hp-envy-x360-15-2021-review-a-lot-of-laptop-at-a-reasonable-price/ However, obviously take this with a grain of salt, it is just my opinion! As far as I know, the 2021 variants of the envy x360 are still excellent choices.