Kon-Tiki

Hi Filingo, are you by any chance using a MacBook? Ctrl + Shift + 4 (in default configuration) brings up such a cursor which is used for selective screen shots. If you move around the mouse when the cursor appears the numbers should change, representing the X and Y coordinates of the cursor on your screen in pixels. You can exit the screen shot mode by pressing the escape key. This is also in line with your observations that any keyboard inputs are neglected when the cursor is shown. As for why this happens when pressing the "2" key twice I'm not entirely sure, probably the default key combination was changed. I hope this helps

There is not only a DP alt mode for USB-C but also a HDMI alt mode which means a USB-C to HDMI cable could be relying on this very alt mode to be activated. If your laptop supports HDMI alt mode this shouldn't be a problem. If it doesn't it might be worth researching if the USB-C to HDMI cable has a DP-to-HDMI adapter built in already. If not I'm afraid your out of luck and have to chain a USB-C->DP and a DP->HDMI adapter together.

I was optimistic and choose the number from Heise: Translation: "With the fourteen core i7-12700H, a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, 16 GByte of DDR5-RAM, a 500GB-SSD and a 240Hz panel a price of around 2500€ is planned."

Thank you for the notice Yes, the GPU is a 3070. I made a typo

Summary XMG announced their new Neo 15 (E22) laptop will be compatible with an external water cooler, the Oasis, which will launch at the end of January. XMG claims the Oasis can reduce the temperature of the Neo 15's i7-12700h CPU and RTX 3000 Series GPU (up to a RTX 3080 Ti) by up to 20 degrees Celsius. The Neo 15 will, however, also be able to work without the external cooler. Above images: XMG via tomshardware.com Quotes Quote from https://www.tomshardware.com/news/xmg-neo-15-oasis-liquid-cooler (edited). My thoughts While the idea of adding an external water cooling to a laptop isn't new and Asus already had a similar system in its lineup in 2016 (the ROG GX700) there hasn't been another externally water cooled consumer laptop available since (at least I haven't heard of any). In contrast to the GX700 featuring a 17.3" screen the Neo 15 only has a 15" display which makes considerably easier to use on the go as a mobile workstation. While using the laptop undocked and relying on the internal cooling capabilities of the laptop the performance might not be particularly special. However when docked to the Oasis the increased power limits for the CPU and GPU (115W and 175W respectively [3]) will probably make this laptop a decent desktop replacement for users who are willing to pay the premium for this solution. A higher power limit is not only great for gaming performance but also for productivity tasks such as complex simulations or renderings. And while running both the CPU and GPU at their maximum power is currently not an option due to the 280W power limit imposed by the power supply, according to Heise News [3] a more powerful PSU might be in the making already allowing for combined loads in the future. I personally like to have a consolidated IT in order to not have to sync files between different machines and install and configure the same software on them not to mention the issue with having to potentially buy multiple expensive licenses for professional software running on multiple machines. Having a powerful laptop which can be both portable and even more powerful when docked in a "desktop mode" therefore sounds like an interesting option. Of course the final decision as to whether this makes sense in the end or not will depend on the final pricing of the different configuration options, first numbers suggest around 2500€ for a mid tier 3070 and i7-12700H with 16GB of RAM and a 500 GB SSD. And it is also going to be interesting if XMG's promises regarding the thermals really hold up (maybe a candidate for LTT labs? ;)). Sources [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/xmg-neo-15-oasis-liquid-cooler [2] https://www.xmg.gg/en/xmg-oasis [3] https://www.heise.de/news/XMG-Oasis-Schenker-zeigt-Gaming-Notebook-mit-Wasserkuehlung-6318970.html (in German, can be translated with Deepl or Google translate)

Rattling fans are hard to fix in my experience. If it isn't the cable then my bet would also be the bearings, as @cacoe suggested. As a temporary fix, if the rattle only occurs at certain fan speeds, you could try manually adjusting the fan curve so that the fan spins a bit faster or slower, hopefully eliminating the problem. Have you looked for replacement fans already? Perhaps you can find one that fits or that you can adapt accordingly.

Did you check that wake on LAN/ PCIe/ USB is disabled? I once had a similar issue that turned out to be a network card under the impression of having to wake my PC

I'd guess turning on your fan leads to a voltage burst or drop in your mains circuit which could trigger the end of sleep mode. However, that's really just a guess and I haven't put any thoughts in to how exactly the chain of events could be here.

On that topic the Wikipedia page gives a short overview of DLSS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning_super_sampling

You need an antenna with a SMA connector if you want to continue using your onboard WiFi. A "USB antenna" in the sense of it only being an antenna connecting to your onboard wireless card does not exist. Instead those "antennas" are actually USB WiFi cards with the card built into the antenna itself. Go for whichever option you like best but if your onboard card works you could just as well get an Antenna with SMA connector and continue using it (should be more reliable than a USB connected one). Edit: There are also antennas connecting right to the SMA connector on your card without a cable, might be worth a look.

Be aware that the benefits of SLI (assuming you don't need the GPUs for productivity workloads) does not really make too much sense any more (see a recent LTT video regarding that topic on RTX 3000).

Before reinstalling I'd definitely try the recovery boot medium (which is not the safe mode), assuming the article doesn't help. It's a lot less effort than reinstalling ;)

Maybe this post helps: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance-winpc/how-to-fixing-error-0xc00000e9-on-windows-10/d5009c52-49ac-456c-9b78-4d6509fd0c77 If that doesn't work maybe using a recovery boot medium for Windows can resolve the issue. With it's help you should be able to identify boot problems.

Ok, that's interesting. In the screen shot of your command prompt I noticed you used the command "create part pri" instead of "create partition primary". I've never used the former command and don't know whether it does the same than the latter one. Also, did you try to use another file system than FAT32 just to try (e.g. NTFS)? Alternatively you could try to assign a drive letter to your SSD and retry the creation of a file system (I took that from the error message of the first picture you posted https://imgur.com/a/G4fpB0o). Hope that helps

I guess I have to correct my initial statement then Still the only use I see is, as you already stated in your OP, that the grounding protects you from electrostatic charge. I personally never experienced any problems with my not-earthed drives, so probably you'll be fine using an un-grounded adapter anyways. The power surge "issue" stays unchanged, though.

That is indeed the case.

As far as video editing goes LTT made a video about a budget 4K editing rig which might give you some inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_HKRUPN1Mk Both Sims and Rome Total War 2 should be fine with your 650 Ti (a 650 is the official recommendation for Sims 4). With Plex I'm unfortunately not very familiar. However I understand that you need quite a bit of computing power for seven simultaneous 4k streams plus two more virtual machines. I guess you will inevitably end up having to go for a Threadripper 3000 series CPU and at least 32 GB of RAM. For your host OS (e.g. Unraid or some other virtualisation friendly Linux distro) you'll want to reserve at least one or two cores, maybe check out one of the several virtualisation videos LTT made for reference.

So you're looking for a CPU/ Motherboard recommendation if I'm not mistaken?

NVME is the protocol the computer uses to communicate with the drive (the "language" so to say) whereas PCIe is the physical interface the drive is connected to. The "4x" means that you have 4 PCIe lanes available for data transfer. Your motherboard does support NVMe SSDs (found that on the Gigabyte product page):

It seems to be a RAM issue. It says in slot 0 the DIMMs (your memory sticks) 0 and 1 are the problem. Have you tried removing one of the ram sticks and trying another slot (only using one stick for starters)? Usually your MOBO's guide book should give you some advice on which slots to populate first.

I've had a similar problem (only with a thumb drive instead of a SSD) using the graphical formatting tool. For me the following procedure helped: Open a terminal window/ command prompt and type "diskpart" (without the " at the beginning and the end). List your system disks with the command "list disk". You should see a list of your attached storage devices. Choose the SSD you want to format (be careful to select the right drive!) by typing "select disk <disknumber>" Remove any previous partitions with "clean" Create a new partition table using "create partition primary". After the process is finished you can end diskpart by typing "exit" Now you should be able to format the drive using the standard GUI option I hope that resolves your problem

As far as I can tell from the picture the metal clip it self is mounted to the plastic of the drive carrier and has no connection to the chassis whatsoever. It therefore can't act as a grounding making me assume that its sole purpose is to loosely keep the drive in place prior to it being screwed in. A power surge will probably go through your data lines anyway, so earthing won't protect you in that case

Am I right in assuming that you're running Windows 10? Edit: Building on the assumption that you are running Win 10: Take a look at this short guide and see if you can find something useful (or provide a screenshot if you are not sure): https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/why-did-my-pc-crash-windows-10-tools

Nice first video btw I noticed your audio to be a bit uneven between left and right, maybe try recording your voice over in mono and then slap the track on to both left and right audio channel. Just my personal preference, though

No problem, you're welcome