ESB77

I finally got around to building myself a desktop PC, and while I was at it I thought I'd also get around to having a dual boot machine again. Last time I did that was around 2004-ish with Windows XP as an OEM install, and I did a partition and installed SUSE 9.x. It was a long time ago and I didn't keep up on Linux system administration, but I vaguely remember headaches involving paths, environment variables, and things with too many % signs in them to be easy to remember without taking notes. It worked, it even had a passable GUI, but is was a bit of a pain in the butt to set up. It did also get me onto the track of using Free software (FSF "free speech free, not free beer free") for almost all of my productivity applications. After that computer I moved to another one that had BIOS issues with partitioning a GUID drive, so I just skipped a dual boot setup and lived with slightly out of date Windows ports of all the Free software I was used to using. So with a brand new computer (yeah, I'm slow to upgrade hardware) even though 15 years is an eternity in tech, I was a bit shocked at how much easier Linux installs have become. Download OS. Download program to mount ISO image on flash drive (I used balenaEtcher) Install on flash drive. Set UEFI/BIOS to boot from flash drive Click the obvious "click here" dialog boxes in the GUI until you arrive at a functioning desktop screen. Identical to a Windows 10 install, except that their download automates the step that I used balenaEtcher for. Wait, if Windows had one less step, how is the Linux install easier? I don't feel like an install is really finished, that is the computer is ready to use, until a minimally acceptable level of user configuration had been done. Wifi password entered, login credentials/user accounts sorted, etc. If you care about user privacy and security at all, this is where Linux beats the stuffing out of Windows. On a Linux distro, privacy is likely to be the default option, so basically once you have your username, password, and wifi setup you're done. On Windows though: privacy requires activating a multitude of not easy to find opt outs assuming they haven't deleted the opt out for a feature in the control panel in which case you might be able to partially opt out if you do a bunch research and open terminal to do some registry editing, provided you aren't scared about dire warnings about what can happen if you mess with the registry and there's almost certainly something you should have opted out of that you forgot about or couldn't find Not to mention the terms and conditions that spend many pages telling you about a privacy policy that I can boil down to one sentence: We (Microsoft) see you (customer) as a sheep to be fleeced as thoroughly as possible. I do tend to at least partially read terms and conditions before clicking "I Agree" and with the Windows 10 terms when it comes to personal information it's hard to tell if Microsoft is offering you a really bad contract or if they're trying to deliver their official declaration of information warfare against you. There used to be fairly significant barriers to a "typical" computer user jumping ship from Windows, but after doing this install, I'm not sure that's the case any more. It feels SO weird to write this but . . . Linux might be the better OS for the average user? Yes, you'd give up new AAA games, Adobe well not software so much as subscriptions these days, and some other sorts of niche software. All told though, for me at least, if I lost access to FOSS productivity software it would be a disaster. If I lost Windows and everything that depends on it then it would be at worst a minor nuisance. Not the case for everyone I know, but if your income doesn't depend on software that's locked into a Windows environment I'm not sure I see what the selling points of Windows are anymore. Fifteen years ago I could list a lot of them pretty easily, now, not so much. Of course, I'm avoiding the choice entirely by going dual boot, but if I had to choose at this point I don't think I'd go with Windows anymore, where even 5 years ago I probably would have. Oh, as Linux distros do vary, I suppose that I should mention that the version that blew me away with how easy it was to install and set up was openSUSE LEAP 15.1 with the configuration all done with YaST (If you're a Windows only person YaST is roughly equivalent to Settings + Control Panel for a lot of setup tasks).

In theory my dream PC would have used an i9 9900K and a 2080Ti, but looking at how overpriced they are I decided maybe I should dream of a PC that wouldn't make me feel like I had been ripped off. Performance goal was to drive a 3440 x 1440 monitor at 75 Hz or faster. Alienware AW3418DW 100-120Hz IPS 3440x1440 monitor AMD Ryzen 3700x Gigabyte x570 Aorus Elite Wifi 32 GB GSkill Ripjaws V 3200 RAM Corsair RM750 80+ gold Gigabyte Windforce OC 3 RTX 2070Super Samsung 970 pro 512 GB NVME m.2 boot drive 2x Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SATA storage SSDs iKBC 108BT w/ cherry red silent and native ? COLEMAK ? and DVORAK modes. Noctua u12a CPU cooler Noctua iPPC pmw 3000 3x Noctua AF-14 pmw 140mm fans Noctua 4 pin fan controller Noctua 4 pin y splitter cables (I didn't realize the AF-14s came with splitters) OSes: Dual boot on NVME drive Window 10 Home SUSE Linux 15.1 LEAP Noob mistakes: Buying splitter cables and a fan controller I didn't actually need. Drilling countersinks in one of my AF-14 fans before I realized that the mounting screws are long enough if you push REALLY HARD when getting them started (the Noctua Fans were about 1mm thicker than the Silverstones). Not realizing that 8 pin CPU power cables and 6 + 2 PCIe power cables are wired differently and that the 8 pin is a bad choice for trying to power the GPU even if it's the right length to make for prettier cable management. Cooling nonsense: Don't the PM-01 and 3700x come with fans/cooler? Yes they do. However, 4 pin can idle quietly, Noctua's "if it doesn't contribute to function it's a waste," is the sort of aesthetic that appeals to me (even if it's brown), and being half Swiss I have genetic issues resisting over-engineered perfectionist overkill and the U12A was more than I could resist when it came to CPU cooling. Isn't the PM-10 a bit old as a case? Yes, but I watch too much tech Jesus and pause to read the charts. The PM-01's "Mesh + Leafblower = Thermal Winner" design appealed to me. Why so much RAM? Theoretically Blender and scientific computing can use gobs of RAM, but mostly it's because I don't feel like putting in more 4 years from now and RAM is cheap at the moment. Planned workloads: Gaming, Blender, general use, occasional dabbles in coding and scientific computing. My CPU choice was mostly driven by Blender and by i9 CPUs being overpriced in my opinion. If I had found a 9900k for $400 or less I probably would have gone for that, but it didn't seem worth a $100 + premium just for single core clock boost speeds. What it's replacing: Dell 17 in i7 3630QM 2.4 Ghz 4 core 8 thread, 8Gb RAM, inspiron laptop from 2012 with HD bearings that occasionally make crunchy noises. Used build guides from LTT (Anthony's vid from this summer), and Noctua (fan and cooler installation). Pictures:

Thanks for the advice. I did all of the above, one at a time, and some of it may have helped, but even after doing all three it didn't work. What did work was finally noticing that the PSU had cables in both 8 pin to 8 pin and 8 pin to 6 + 2 pin, and that the two are wired differently. Changing to 6 + 2 from 8 fixed it. From the labeling in the PSU container which was a bit sparse on in instructions I had thought that the two were interchangeable, but apparently not. Anyhow, thanks for the assist. Onwards now to the headache called Windows!

I've just finished, or rather I thought I had just finished my first build. Gigabyte aorus elite wifi x570 Ryzen 3700x 32 GB ripsaw V 3200 Silverstone PM-01 case Noctua U12A cooler Af-14 x x3 (12 v x .13 A each) + iPPC 3000 (12v x .55 A) Noctua fans (total max draw about 11 w on a SATA power + fan header y cable hooked into a noctua fan controller) Samsung 970 pro 512 GB NVME Samsung 860 evo 1 tb 6GB SATA Alienware aw3418dw monitor. Unfortunately, when trying to POST, one or both of the final two parts I think are causing a problem. Corsair RM750 80+ Gold modular power supply Gigabyte Windforce OC RTX 2070Super. When I first tried to power up, I got a message, "please plug in the graphics card cables." Yes, oops, apparently in cable-managing zeal I knocked the 6 pin connector loose. So I plugged it in and tried again. Turn on the PSU and the motherboard RGB flashes, but press the case power button and there's a click that I believe is the PSU overcurrent protection tripping or something along those lines that cuts all power. Experimental results: No 6 pin and no 8 pin to GPU, PCIe slot only. Result: Rest of computer seems to be quite happy, though I can't say for sure because I don't have a HDMI to connect the monitor to the motherboard. 6 pin and PCIe to GPU. No 8 pin. Result: Rest of computer seems happy. GPU asks Monitor to tell silly human to plug in PCIe power cable (s) 8 pin and PCIe to GP. No 6 pin. Result: PSU makes quiet click. No electricity, No happiness. 8 pin, 6 pin, and PCIe. Proper like. Result: PSU makes quiet click. No electricity, No happiness. I tried shuffling around the PCIe power cables to different 8 pin sockets on the PSU, but no changes resulted from that. I think the RM750 is single rail so that's probably not a surprise but I thought I'd be thorough. Test in another rig isn't really an option for me as I've been running on mid-range laptops for the last 15 years, and this rig was supposed to replace a 2012 era laptop. Any advice on other things to try or which part(s) to return?