RAS_3885

It's a little more involved than replacing paste on a CPU, but not terribly difficult. It will vary from card to card depending on cooler design, but there are plenty of guides/walkthroughs online to make it easy to figure out. Most paste will be similar performance as long as it's not bottom-of-the-barrel cheap. Name brand stuff like Artic or Noctua will perform close enough to not worry about it.

Something like HWInfo64 will give you temps for a whole slew of different temp sensors. Nothing you've noted so far is high enough to warrant a shutdown unless your PSU is overheating. If you look at the Windows event logs does it give you an indication of why it rebooted?

Network lag or low FPS? How are your temps?

Normal component temps are going to feel REALLY hot to the touch. Are you monitoring the actual temps via something like HWInfo64? Fundamentally the airflow looks fine, other than you're feeding your GPU with hot air from the AIO.

If you're hitting your FPS target with a graphical quality you're happy with then it doesn't make sense to upgrade. if you're not, then upgrade.

What's the specific PSU model? Sounds like either a temp issue or a PSU on the fritz.

You may be limited by the case, but a quick search showed folks fitting a 240 mm AIO with the radiator mounted up front. Unclear if they had to physically modify the case or not, but I didn't look too far into it. Alternative would be a decent tower air cooler, but I suspect clearance between the side panel and motherboard may be restrictive size-wise. You could also do something like a low-profile non-stock air cooler, such as the Noctua NH-L12S type design (just example). Any of those options will need a backplate installed.

I don't game on my work laptop (obviously) or my phone, but I use the internal speakers all the time for Teams calls (work laptop) or random Youtube videos on my phone. Being forced to connect headphones or earbuds all the time would be an annoyance.

As long as it's a standard form factor drive and both laptops support that form factor the yes, it will be physically compatible.

If you NEED a new card now and are willing/able to pay current prices, then go ahead and upgrade. If you WANT a new card, then only you can decide if your willing to pay current prices or wait and gamble on speculation. If you don't need a new card and are okay with current performance, then wait. No more complicated than that. Until the next gen product is released EVERYTHING is speculation (performance, price of old gen, availability, etc.). There's also always something new on the horizon...

If you want way more detail this site is a great read. https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html

Yes, it will be fine. Just give it an extra minute to evaporate completely.

The second slot will only run at 3.0 speeds, but any drive will work since 4.0 is backward compatible. You’d just be wasting money on the faster drive since you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the faster speed. But it would work just fine.

6+2 PCIe power cables standard fare for GPUs with 8 pin power connectors. No issues there. I would, however, be replacing the PSU regardless. An old PSU that's been through two power surges is not something I'd put any sort of trust in.

If you're happy with the performance you're getting now it makes little sense to upgrade. But, if you really want a new GPU then only you can decide that.