PC Master Race

Around six months ago (and luckily before the whole ram shortage) I managed to scrounge up enough money to build this monstrosity of a machine, based on what I thought was a lenovo thinkcentre m700... More on that further down.

The whole mod works wonderfully. But the problem i'm facing is that the poor i5-6500 it came with just cannot keep up with what i'm doing with it and bottlenecks the whole machine.

Without any mods. The Best CPU i can put into it is an i7-6700. Which is still a 6th gen CPU... But it's still about 70€ where I live. While for some reason I can find a lot of i3-9100. For 20-30€. Which from what I understand are B0 stepping chips and don't require pin modding to be used. And should still be a good upgrade.

The last problem was the BIOS. The bios on this machine is not meant to support such a new chip. But I remember reading people having success with a program called "coffeetime" to shoehorn the microcode to use newer cpus.

When I went to sanity check what the machine's bios said. I found out it's a actually an m800. Not an m700. This raises a problem. Since it's chipset is a q150. That has the problem of having a stricter/ more in depth Intel ME. That from what I managed to find requires somekind of bypass.

Do you think this is still feasible to do? And do you know if there is any safe source for coffeetime / some guide to do this mod by hand? Since having a random software that I can't read the source of modify the bios of my machine feels a bit iffy.

I reach for an empty box of RAM to look at.

At Canada Computers in Toronto, circa 2009.

A few years ago I built a glorified home server PC, I'm considering dropping a decent video card into it and trying to use it hooked up to a TV as a Linux running Steam machine-esque system, but I'm not sure if it's worth it based on the other specs. I know the CPU in particular could use an upgrade, but as is should I bother dropping something like an RTX 5070 in it?

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LnrBDw

My cousin had encountered issues where his PC would ask to choose an OS to boot into which was strange as I only installed windows 11 into it. From there it began to not detect any bootable devices.

I go to check it out and enounter the same issues, even after changing the boot priority (the only storage, a HDD, was still showing in the BIOS). I am unable to even boot into an Ubuntu image on a USB (crashes when it does a "file check" or something to that effect).

Suspecting the HDD, less than a year old, may be damaged I connect it to my rig (dumb mistake in hindsight), and I am able to view files in the hdd with no issues, several times. I assume then that the HDD is likely working and my cousin either downloaded something malicious or made a change to his system to damage it.

I setup a windows 11 image, and connect to via usb to his system where I reinstall windows. Even after successfully "installing" windows 11, i kept getting a no bootable device error. I was finally able to boot into an Ubuntu image on a USB, and still view the HDD, so I reinstalled linux with no issues, after which i was finally able to reinstall windows 11 with no issues.

I'm curious if this could have been a virus that cause these issues? (do any viruses cause similar issues?) If its more likely he did something wrong to the PC (he's not tech savvy) or potentially something else?

I've been rocking 3, 40inch 1080p 60hz Best Buy insignia TV's, for about three years now. I bought them because I was heavy into Online racing. And they also worked nicely with with the other game I love Arma 3.

I've been thinking of upgrading lately, and I want to keep my cost to around $1K CAD.

My system specs are an i13900K, 7900XTX and 32 Gig's of ram.

So anyways these are my 3 (to 4ish) choices.

1. Keep the triple monitor setup with 3 1440p ips monitors. These are the cheapest option for me.

2. (and 3ish)Going high end OLED and getting a SAMSUNG 42-Inch 144hz OLED Smart TV. Ken from the Denki Channel uses this as his work monitor and raves about it.

   Or getting a Samsung 49 inch ultrawide OLED monitor . (I'm not sure about this one because it's only 1440p)

3. Get some 50 inch 144hz 4K QLED type TV. (I like big screens and I cannot lie.) To me 27 is too small but that is apparently the golden zone for 1440p. Any size larger and I want to go 4K.

And the dark horse would be to try some XR glasses. like the the new Viture Beast.

I am leaning towards the 42 inch Samsung OLED.

Anyways if you have other suggestions please let me know. I appreciate your help.

I need some advice: I have a system that refuses to run without memory errors and the resulting file corruption has forced me to start replacing components until I get the advertised/expected performance. In this case, the DDR4-3600 (CL18) RAM I purchased cannot get through Memtest86 (Test7) without a ton of address errors.

Setup1 Ryzen 5 5600X (OEM tray CPU) MSI B550M PRO VC WIFI: BIOS is dated 9/25/25 KLEVV DDR4-3600 (CL18) : QVL certification confirmed Using the XMP profile 1 option (CL 18-20-20-40, 1.35VDC)

After loading Fedora 43 Workstation and seeing some odd pauses I tried to install Steam and this is when I realized I had some data corruption going via the Terminal stream. Immediately researched and tried to dial down the speed to see if my CPU's memory controller just couldn't handle the 3600 speed. Tried 3200 and adjusted the timings down to a standard set that were more appropriate for that speed but then I just got Memtest errors almost immediately (Test 2, 3, 4) so I manually aborted the test. However, if I default back to the auto timings (DDR4-2667 @ 1.20VDC), the whole system passes all of the tests and runs perfectly fine.

As a result I performed the following action: Replaced the Memory sticks with 2 of the same type. No change in test results at either speed.

Online research suggested the CPU/memory controller was most likely the cause so I replaced the CPU with a newer (retail) version and B2 stepping in the hopes it would perform better (see setup 2 below)

Setup2 Replaced the CPU with a Ryzen 5 5600XT (Retail Box CPU) MSI B550M PRO VC WIFI (same Mobo) Used the replacement set of KLEVV DDR4-3600 (CL18) Using the XMP profile 1 option (CL 18-20-20-40, 1.35VDC)

Results were exactly the same with Test 7 being the failure point using the XMP profile and only the default settings (2667 M/T and auto timings) worked with no issues. I also tried other DDR speeds like 3400, 3200, and 3000 with suggested relaxed timings appropriate for each speed and a voltage boost to 1.35 VDC. Tweaking the RAM voltage up didn't seem to make any difference.

Apologies for the long read so far but now I am at a crossroads with this machine. I have tightened up the DRAM timings to (CL14-16-16-32) at 2667M/T and 1.20VDC and it runs error free and passes Memtest and stress-ng tests in the OS. I have also been able to get really decent gaming performance and no more corrupted files or random crashing using Steam.

So it doesn't seem to be the CPU or the RAM and the voltages seem OK from the PSU. Should I tear the whole thing apart and replace the motherboard or just stick with what I have since it works (albeit at a lower speed than advertised)? This is one build that has really stumped me. Thanks for reading.

With AI seeming to consume all resources for hardware, I’m wondering what parts of those current systems we could see trickling down into componentry for desktop PC’s as they get outdated for AI tasks.

I know most of this hardware is pretty specific and integrated, but I do wonder if an eventual workaround to these hardware shortages are through recycling and repurposing of the very systems causing the shortage. We have seen things like dram, flash, and even motherboard chipsets be pulled from server equipment and find its way into suspiciously cheap hardware on eBay and AliExpress, so how much of the current crop of hardware will turn up there in the future?

How much of that hardware could even be useful to us? Will nvidia repo old systems and shoot them into the sun to keep it out of the hands of gamers? Perhaps only time will tell

Anyone know if possible and where to buy CXMT DDR5 RAM? There's a bit of news about it considering the rampocalypse going on at the moment and I'm curious.

I've been searching for a software (for windows 10 for work/home, soon to be Linux mint for home) that can emulate the right click gestures extensions found on browsers.

The browser extensions allow for a RMB click and drag in a specific direction to cause a specific action - such as closing a window with RMB+drag down then right, or minimizing the window with RMB+drag left then up, focusing the first tab with RMB+drag up then down, scrolling to the top of page with RMB+drag up etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a software that would allow for this type of action to be used system wide? Specifically minimizing and closing windows, maybe tiling windows to half the screen. This type of functionality would be really handy to use system wide and not just in a browser but I have not had any luck in my search.

Thanks in advance!

I'm looking at this deal for a prebuilt:

Lenovo LOQ 17IRR9 Tower PC — $749.99

• Intel Core i5-14400F (10 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.7GHz)
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (8GB GDDR6)
• RAM 16GB DDR5
• 512GB SSD
• PSU 500W

For some context, my PC has a 1070 in it. I'm a budget conscious gamer, usually playing at 1080p. With ram prices skyrocketing and steam betting on steam machines with low vram going forwards, I feel like it's an okay deal for a guy who upgrades basically never.

It seems like a nice deal to me. Anyone want to talk me out of it?

Hey guys a few weeks back I posted this post: https://lemdro.id/post/32878167. I have an update, with a help of a friend we upgraded my motherboard to a mb550 and upgraded my cpu to. Ryzen 7 5800XT from an intel i5 8600k. All my RAM is operating fine. So we assumed the RAM started to fail or the motherboard was dying. Glad I didn’t have to buy a full kit of ram. I’m going to be rocking my DDR4 2666 mhz until the end of time. Thanks for everyone’s help from the previous post!

I heard the DRAM shortage has started affecting PC sales, and I would think that it would be hurting Intel's bottom line.

I remember hearing Intel was looking for customers for its fabs, so I suppose they have some capacity sitting idle.

Why not use some of that capacity to make DRAM themselves? If they can make CPUs running at multi-gigahertz and contains DRAM controllers, surely DDR5 memory is not out of their reach?

Intel can use up their excess capacities, making currently high-priced DRAM for profit, gain goodwill for rescuing the PC market, which in turn will sell more Intel CPUs as well. Sounds like a win to me. What do you think?

Edit: I know nothing about semiconductor manufacturing so feel free to tell me how Intel's process is not suitable for making DRAM, or any other reason why it would not be smart for them to do that.

1. Family member has 720p webcam
2. Family member buys shiny new 1080p webcam
3. Family member plugs in shiny new webcam and gives me a videocall to test it
4. New camera works flawlessly. I get to keep the old 720p cam. Yippee!!

...BUT THEN

5. Family member goes to the website listed on camera's packaging and clicks the big blue download button
6. download button installs custom usb driver and companion app
7. companion app has twenty quadrillion toggles and dials spread across fifty billion tabs and sub menus. Family member spends all evening twiddling with it.
8. No matter what, the image looks like crap. Too bright, but not enough contrast. Worse than it did originally.
9. next day family member asks for his old 720p webcam back, I get to keep the 1080p webcam

I'm happy with my new webcam so I'm not complaining, but why do people do this?? Why do manufacturers make these shitty custom driver? The whole point of USB is to be plug-and-play without any custom software.

Hi!

After a long time, my Dell SATA II 2 TB HDD has started showing yellow on CrystalDisk.

The recommendation seems to be to get data out of it sooner than later and replace it.

My main usecase for it is as the main space where I install Windows programs and store Plex media. My C drive is SSD but much smaller. This HDD is D drive.

Seagate's selling an 8 TB SSD for CAD$189 and a 2 TB one for CAD $101.

Question for you good folks -

1. Anything I can do before I consider throwing money at this problem? Bad/Unrecoverable sectors seem to be at 100. But is there still a way I can get more life out of this drive? Or is it living it's last breaths?
2. What HDD should I go for? I'm optimizing for price and the use cases I mentioned above.
3. If I do go the replacement route, what's the best way for me to move drives? Should I clone the old to the new or copy files one by one? I do want to maintain the Program Files status of D drive. So I would be making the new drive as my D drive. Any FOSS tools for this transition?

Thanks!

It's been an honor being apart of the PC Master Race for the last 9 years. Unfortunately my Ram decided to die when the market is too expensive. Troubleshooted all 4 RAM sticks, they are dead. I've been meaning to update my 2666 DDR4 but never got to it. Paying for my lazy consequences. It's been a fun ride. Don't know what I'll do with my spare time. I'll still be a lurker. Learn from my mistakes, upgrade/update when you can. Milk signing out. ✌️

This only makes sense if you have an iGPU, but hear me out.

My system:

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070
Motherboard: MSI PRO B860-P WiFi
RAM: G.Skill 64GB (32GBx2) DDR5-6000
PSU: Corsair RM850X
OS: Arch Linux KDE

I see people always telling others to connect their monitor directly to the dGPU instead of the motherboard/iGPU. I decided to test this with a wattmeter, and the results were interesting.

Power consumption (whole system):

Connected to dGPU:

Idle at 60/165Hz: 33-35.5W (constantly fluctuating)
YouTube 1080p fullscreen: 73-83W (constantly fluctuating)

Connected to iGPU (motherboard):

Idle at 60Hz: 31.8W
Idle at 165Hz: 32.5W
YouTube 1080p fullscreen: 40-44W (occasionally hitting 50-52W)

Not only while playing youtube , doing any light tasks like opening new tabs, moving windows, browsing, chatgpt, claude etc all these things consume about 25-40W more when connected to dgpu directly. Also the system gets to idle power quickly when connected to igpu. Whereas with dgpu, it takes noticeably longer to drop to lower power levels.

When doing GPU intensive tasks like gaming or running LLMs, the OS (at least on Linux, should be the same on Windows) automatically runs them on the dGPU. I get the same performance, or at worst within margin of error.

So, it makes no sense to connect directly to the dGPU unless you’re only gaming. If you have mixed workloads - work, browsing, movies, youtube AND gaming , then connecting to the iGPU saves significant power without sacrificing performance where it matters.

Two years ago I made a post on Reddit's pcmasterrace (under same username) that somehow made it to /all and trended for a while.

Fast-forward to today, and I’ve found myself slowly distancing from Reddit with all the drama, weird decisions, and the feeling that any post you make can get nuked on a whim by a power-tripping mod (see: r/art).

So I wanted to anchor this moment with big chungus here on the fediverse as I start a new chapter on Lemmy. Looking forward to hanging out with everyone here and having fun again.

By the way big chungus is alive and well, the same can't be said for the 4090 though, i'm getting coil whine from it and had to live with that until 60 series...

So I decided to use the Ryzen 5 3600 and RX580 I upgraded from a year ago in a homelab build.

I bought this motherboard for the build: MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi

When I built my main PC I just got advice on what to buy and didn't do a deep dive into motherboard design, hence why I thought the above motherboard would suit my needs. Since getting the motherboard I've learned about VRMs and how they dictate the amount of power that can be supplied to the processor and decided this motherboard isn't sufficient for the Ryzen 5 3600 and what I want to use this homelab for. I want it to run cool and not have anything fail for years to come and may swap in my Ryzen 7 5800X3D, if and when I upgrade that in my main PC.

My plan now is to use this motherboard in an old case as a media PC and buy a processor with integrated graphics for the job.

In the page linked above it has the following:

The MSI PRO B550M-VC WiFi has a basic VRM configuration, delivering 50 A across 5 phases. Best for low-power CPUs (≤65 W TDP). Using high-wattage chips or overclocking could cause severe thermal issues and instability. Recommended for budget builds, office workstations, and media PCs.

I'm having trouble determining a good AM4 processor for this budget motherboard given it's VRM limitations. I'd like it to be able to output 4k video, run a handful of browser tabs, a VPN client, and maybe a torrent client.

Is there an AM4 processor with integrated graphics that fits the bill?

Should I consider getting a processor without integrated graphics and a cheap GPU instead?

Am I overthinking things?

Any advice welcome, cheers.

I currently use my laptop next to a monitor with 21" but I am thinking about an upgrade. I casually play some light games, nothing competitive. The rest is a lot of reading, office or coding work and some multimedia.

What is a nice setup in your opinion? One big screen with 27" or two smaller ones with 22" or 24" each?

I did some research and found for a 24" screen 1080p and for a 27" screen 1440p as a minimum. So I figured a 24" 1440p screen would look awesome. Do I miss something about this finding? Is 2K too much for 24" to even notice it?

The problem I have is my desk is only 65cm wide and I frequently have a book or a piece of paper between me and the keyboard+monitor. The monitor uses 22cm and the keyboard another 14cm so there is just enough space for a piece of paper. Many of the modern monitors have huge standing feets and there are not always good measurements given.

I also thought about a monitor arm but I don't know if that would help with my small desk or just create more hassle after all.

It has been forever since I built/bought a PC/Laptop and now I was asked to suggest a laptop with an iGPU for casual light gaming (if possible refurbished).

Can someone help me get up to date with the current specs? How much VRAM is bare minimum? And which CPU generation should I aim for?

Thanks everyone!

Edit: Gaming is not the priority. Office work is the focus with the possibility of photo and video workflows in the future. Also I am very confused with the naming scheme of Intel for their CPU and iGPU. Not very intuitive.

Hey all,

I used to build my own gaming PCs way back in the 90s/early 2000s but I fell out of the habit when I realised I'd rather kick back on the sofa with something that "just works" than constantly chasing framerates etc, and I switched to exclusively console based gaming. Now that I own a Steam Deck, and with Xbox going down the shitter, and my kids becoming of the age where having a static family PC makes a lot of sense, I've decided to move back into PC gaming.

I started looking at self builds again but everything's moved on so much since I last dipped my toes into that space that I struggle to know where to start. Then I saw an Alienware A51 in the refurb store with a decent early Black Friday discount code and very-nearly top-end specs so I pulled the trigger yesterday:

£2525

• Core Ultra 9 285K
• Geforce RTX 5080
• 64GB RAM
• 2TB Gen5 SSD
• 1500W platinum PSU

Retail, this spec is currently going for £3600 so it's a sizeable saving, but now I'm getting cold feet on the basis of the Intel chip not being the best choice for gaming (and will possibly never see the BIOS fix that Intel rolled out to address this), the odd PSU that'll likely need swapping out at some point in the future, and the sheer size and weight of the thing.

On the plus side, the reviews I've seen say that it's very cool and quiet, which is pretty important to me, and I do like the case design itself - it's very understated compared to most of the off-the-shelf options out there. On the downside what looks like a huge discount on the surface is mostly just wiping out the Dell premium, and similarly specced AMD options are available elsewhere for similar prices - albeit with the aforementioned off-the-shelf cases and a big question mark over noise levels.

All of which is to say: Help this former DIY builder feel a bit better about dropping this much money on a Dell of all things! Odd CPU choice aside, this is still a decent system at a decent price, right?

Hiya, folks! Over this year, I got a huge interest in VR, and I'm planning on purchasing a VR headset and a FBT setup. I'd say I've done a fair bit of research and I've landed on the following two combinations:

Meta Quest 3 128GB

Valve Lighthouse base stations(x2)

HTC Vive 3.0 trackers(x4)

Total: 1.597€;

or alternative

Meta Quest 3 128GB

Slime VR Deluxe Body set (12+4)

Total: 1.270,6€

My planned budget in total is 1.600€.

My planned use for the VR setup is hanging out with my friends in VRChat and possibly making some short form content for social media (IG Reels, YT Shorts). I am also planning on using the headset in PCVR mode only (cable price is included in the totals).

I've seen a few copmarison videos between SlimeVR trackers and Vive 3.0 trackers, and I'm wondering if the price difference is worth it. I am also aware that Slime trackers are drift-prone, but I'm willing to take it as a downside. I am also wondering if there is an alternative setup that might provide me with better performance (better tracking precision), while still being within the budget listed above.

Thanks in advance!